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Beyond Bedlam - Wyman Guin · 2000 Plus

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  Speaker 1: Section one of Beyond Bedlam by Wyman Gwynn. This is
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  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Read by Ben Tucker, Part one. The opening afternoon class
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: for Mary Walden's ego shift was almost over, and Mary
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  Speaker 1: was practically certain the teacher would not call on her
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  Speaker 1: to recite her assignment. When Carl Blair got it into
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  Speaker 1: his mind to try to pass her a dirty note,
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  Speaker 1: Mary knew it would be a screamingly funny ego shifting
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  Speaker 1: room limerick, and was about to reach for the note
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  Speaker 1: when Missus Harris's voice crackled through the room. Carl Blair,
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  Speaker 1: I believe you have an important message. Surely you will
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  Speaker 1: want the whole class to hear it. Come forward please.
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  Speaker 1: As he made his way before the class, the boy's
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  Speaker 1: blush covered freckles reappeared against his growing pallor. Haltingly and
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  Speaker 1: in an agonized monotone, he recited from the note. There
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  Speaker 1: was a young hyper named Phil who kept a third
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  Speaker 1: head for a thrill, said he it's all right, I
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  Speaker 1: enjoy my plight. I shift my third out when it's chill.
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  Speaker 1: The class didn't dare laugh, Their eyes burned down at
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  Speaker 1: their laps. In shame, Mary managed to throw Carl Blair
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  Speaker 1: a compassionate glance as he returned to his seat, but
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  Speaker 1: she instantly regretted ever having been kind to him. Mary, Walden,
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  Speaker 1: you seem uncommonly interested in reading something just now. Perhaps
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  Speaker 1: you wouldn't mind reading your assignment to the class. There
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  Speaker 1: it was, and just when the class was almost over,
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  Speaker 1: Mary could have scratched Carl Blair. She clutched her paper
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  Speaker 1: grimly and strode to the front. Today's assignment in pharmacy
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  Speaker 1: history is schizophrenia since the ancient pre pharmacy days. Mary
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  Speaker 1: took enough breath to get into the first paragraph, schizophrenias
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  Speaker 1: when two more personalities live in the same brain. The
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  Speaker 1: ancients of the twentieth century actually looked upon schizophrenia as disease.
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  Speaker 1: Everyone felt it was very shameful to have a schizophrenic
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  Speaker 1: person in the family, and since children lived right with
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  Speaker 1: the same parents who had borne them, it was very bad.
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  Speaker 1: If you were a schizophrenic child in the twentieth century,
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  Speaker 1: you would be locked up behind bars and people would
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  Speaker 1: call you. Mary blushed and stumbled over the daring word crazy.
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  Speaker 1: The ancients locked up strong ego groups right along with
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  Speaker 1: the weak ones. Today we would lock up those ancient people.
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  Speaker 1: The class agreed silently, but there were more and more
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  Speaker 1: schizophrenics to lock up. By nineteen fifty, the prisons and
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  Speaker 1: hospitals were so full of schizophrenic people that the ancients
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  Speaker 1: did not have room left to lock up anymore. They
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  Speaker 1: were beginning to see that soon everyone would be schizophrenic.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, in the twentieth century, the schizophrenic people were
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  Speaker 1: almost as helpless and crazy as the ancient modern men. Naturally,
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  Speaker 1: they did not fight wars and lead the silly life
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  Speaker 1: of the moderns. But without proper drugs, they couldn't control
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  Speaker 1: their ego shiftability. The personalities in a brain would always
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  Speaker 1: be fighting each other. One personality would cut them body
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  Speaker 1: or herd it to make it filthy, so that when
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  Speaker 1: the other personality took over the body, it would have
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  Speaker 1: to suffer. No, the schizophrenic people of the twentieth century
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  Speaker 1: were almost as crazy as the ancient moderns. But then
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  Speaker 1: the drugs were invented one by one, and the schizophrenic
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  Speaker 1: people of the twentieth century were freed of their troubles
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  Speaker 1: with the drugs, the personalities of each body were able
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  Speaker 1: to live side by side in harmony. At last, it
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  Speaker 1: turns out that many schizophrenic people, called over endowed personalities
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  Speaker 1: simply had so many talents and viewpoints that it took
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  Speaker 1: two or more personalities to handle everything. The drugs worked
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  Speaker 1: so well that the ancients had to let millions of
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  Speaker 1: schizophrenic people out from behind bars of crazy houses. That
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  Speaker 1: was the great emancipation of the nineteen nineties. From then on,
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  Speaker 1: schizophrenic people had trouble only when they criminally didn't take
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  Speaker 1: their drugs. Usually there are two egos and a schizophrenic person,
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  Speaker 1: the hyper altar or prime ego, and the hypo altar,
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  Speaker 1: the alternate ego. There often were more than two, but
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  Speaker 1: the Medicorps makes us take our drugs so that won't
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  Speaker 1: happen to us. At last, some one realized that if
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  Speaker 1: every one took the new drugs, the great wars would stop.
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  Speaker 1: At the World Congress of nineteen ninety seven, laws were
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  Speaker 1: passed to make every one take the drugs. There were
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  Speaker 1: many fights over this because some people wanted to stay
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  Speaker 1: modern and fight wars. The Medicorps was organized and told
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  Speaker 1: to kill any one who wouldn't take their drugs as prescribed.
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  Speaker 1: Now the laws are enforced and everybody takes the drugs,
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  Speaker 1: and the hyper altar and hypo altar are each allowed
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  Speaker 1: to have the body for an ego shift of five days.
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  Speaker 1: Mary Walden faltered. She looked up at the faces of
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  Speaker 1: her class mates, started to turn to Missus Harris, and
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  Speaker 1: felt the sickness growing in her head. Six great waves
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  Speaker 1: of Crescendo's silence washed through her. The silence swept away
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  Speaker 1: everything but the terror, which stood in her frail body
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  Speaker 1: like a shrieking rock. Mary heard Missus Harris hurry to
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  Speaker 1: the shining dispensary along one wall of the class room
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  Speaker 1: and return to stand before for her. With a swab
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  Speaker 1: of antiseptic and a disposable syringe, Missus Harris helped her
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  Speaker 1: to a chair. A few minutes after the expert injection.
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  Speaker 1: Mary's mind struggled back from its core of silence. Mary dear,
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  Speaker 1: I'm sorry I haven't been watching you closely enough, oh
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  Speaker 1: Missus Harris. Mary's chin trembled. I hope it never happens
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  Speaker 1: again now, child, we all have to go through these
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  Speaker 1: things when we're young. You're just a little slower than
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  Speaker 1: the others and acclimatizing to the drugs. You'll be fourteen soon,
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  Speaker 1: and the metacop assures me you'll be over this sort
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  Speaker 1: of thing, just as the others are. Missus Harris dismissed
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  Speaker 1: the class, and when they had all filed from the room,
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  Speaker 1: she turned to Mary. I think, dear, we should visit
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  Speaker 1: the clinic together, don't you, yes, Missus Harris. Mary was
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  Speaker 1: not frightened now. She was just ashamed to be such
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  Speaker 1: a difficult child and so slow to acclimatize to the drugs.
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  Speaker 1: As she and the teacher walked down the long corridor
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  Speaker 1: to the clinic, Mary made up her mind to tell
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  Speaker 1: the metacop what she thought was wrong. It was not herself.
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  Speaker 1: It was her hypoalter, that nasty little Susan Shores. Sometimes
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  Speaker 1: when Susan had the body, the thing Susan was doing
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  Speaker 1: and thinking came to Mary like what the ancients had
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  Speaker 1: called dreams. And Mary had never liked this secondary ego,
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  Speaker 1: whom she could never really know. Whatever was wrong, it
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  Speaker 1: was Susan's doing. The filthy creature never took care of
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  Speaker 1: her hair. It was always so messy when Susan shifted
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  Speaker 1: the body to her. Missus Harris waited while Mary went
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  Speaker 1: into the clinic. Mary was glad to find Captain Theal
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  Speaker 1: the nice met Coop on duty, but she was silent
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  Speaker 1: while the X rays were being taken, and of course,
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  Speaker 1: while he got the blood samples. She concentrated on being brave. Later,
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  Speaker 1: while Captain Theo looked in her eyes with the bright
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  Speaker 1: little light, Mary said, calmly, do you know my hypoalter?
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  Speaker 1: Susan shores the Meticop drew back and made some notes
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  Speaker 1: on a pad before answering, why, Yes, she's in here
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  Speaker 1: quite often too. Does she look like me? Not much?
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  Speaker 1: She's a very nice little girl, he hesitated, visibly Fumbling,
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  Speaker 1: Mary blurted, tell me truly what she like. Captain Theal
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  Speaker 1: gave her his nice smile. Well, I'll tell you a
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  Speaker 1: secret if you keep it to yourself. Oh, I promise.
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  Speaker 1: He leaned over and whispered in her ear, and she
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  Speaker 1: liked the clean odor of him. She's not nearly as
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  Speaker 1: pretty as you are. Mary wanted very badly to put
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  Speaker 1: her arms around him and hug him. Instead, wondering if
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  Speaker 1: Missus Harris waiting outside had heard, she drew back self
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  Speaker 1: consciously and said, Susan is the cause of all this trouble,
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  Speaker 1: the nasty little thing. Oh now, the medicop exclaimed, I
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  Speaker 1: don't think so, Mary. She's in trouble too. You know
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  Speaker 1: she still eat sauer Kraut. Mary was defiant. But what's
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  Speaker 1: wrong with that? You told her not to last year
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  Speaker 1: because it makes me sick on my shift, But it
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  Speaker 1: agrees in buckets with a little pig like her. The
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  Speaker 1: meta cop took this seriously. He made a note on
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  Speaker 1: the pad. Mary, you show of complained sooner. Do you
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  Speaker 1: think my father might not like me because Susan Shores
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  Speaker 1: is my hypo aalter? She asked abruptly. I hardly think so, Mary.
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  Speaker 1: After all, he doesn't even know her. He's never on
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  Speaker 1: her ego shift a little bit, Mary said, and was
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  Speaker 1: immediately frightened. Captain Theo glanced at her sharply. What do
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  Speaker 1: you mean by that, child? Oh? Nothing, Mary said hastily.
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  Speaker 1: I just thought maybe he was Let me see your
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  Speaker 1: farmer case, he said, rather severely. Mary slipped the farmer
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  Speaker 1: case off the belt at her waist and handed it
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  Speaker 1: to him. Captain Theol extracted the prescription card from the
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  Speaker 1: back and threw it away. He slipped a new card
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  Speaker 1: into the taping machine on his desk and punched out
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  Speaker 1: a new prescription, which he reinserted in the farmer case.
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  Speaker 1: In the space on the front, he wrote directions for
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  Speaker 1: Mary to take the drugs, numbered from left to right.
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  Speaker 1: Mary watched his serious face and remembered that he had
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  Speaker 1: complimented her about being prettier than Susan Captain theal is
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  Speaker 1: your hypo alter as handsome as you are? The young
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  Speaker 1: meta Copp emptied the remains of the old proscription from
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  Speaker 1: the farmer case and took it to the dispensary in
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  Speaker 1: the corner, where he slid it into the filling slot.
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  Speaker 1: He seemed unmoved by her question and simply muttered much handsomer.
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  Speaker 1: The machine automatically filled the case from the punched card
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  Speaker 1: on its back, and he returned it to Mary. Are
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  Speaker 1: you taking your drugs exactly as prescribed? You know there
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  Speaker 1: are very strict laws about that, and as soon as
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  Speaker 1: you are fourteen you will be held to them. Mary
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  Speaker 1: nodded solemnly. Great strait jackets who didn't know there were
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  Speaker 1: laws about taking your drugs. There was a long pause,
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  Speaker 1: and Mary knew she was supposed to leave. She wanted, though,
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  Speaker 1: to stay with Captain Thal and talk with him. She
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  Speaker 1: wondered how it would be if he were appointed her father.
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  Speaker 1: Mary was not hurt that her shy compliment to him
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  Speaker 1: had gone unnoticed. She had only wanted something to talk about. Finally,
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  Speaker 1: she said, desperately, Captain Thal, how is it possible for
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  Speaker 1: a body to change as much from one ego shift
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  Speaker 1: to another as it does between Susan and me. There
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  Speaker 1: isn't all the change you imagine, he said, Have you
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  Speaker 1: had your first physiology? Yes, I was very good. Mary
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  Speaker 1: saw from his smile that her inadvertent little conceit had
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  Speaker 1: trapped her. Then, Miss Mary Walden, how do you think
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  Speaker 1: it is possible? Why did teachers and metacops have to
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  Speaker 1: be this way when all you wanted was to have
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  Speaker 1: them talk to you? They turned everything around and made
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  Speaker 1: you think. She quoted, unhappily from her school book. The
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  Speaker 1: main things in an ego shift are the two vegetative
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  Speaker 1: nervous systems that translate the conditions of either personality to
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  Speaker 1: the blood and other organs right from the brain. The
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  Speaker 1: vegetative nervous systems change the rate at which the liver
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  Speaker 1: burns or store sugar, and the rate at which the
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  Speaker 1: kidneys excrete through the closing door to the other room.
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  Speaker 1: Missus Harris's voice raised at the visiophone and said distinctly,
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  Speaker 1: but mister Walden reabsorb, corrected Captain Thal what she didn't
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  Speaker 1: know what to listen to the metacop or the distant
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  Speaker 1: voice of Missus Harris. It's better to think of the
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  Speaker 1: kidneys as reabsorbing salts and nutrients from the filtrated blood. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: but mister Walton, we can overdo a good thing. The
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  Speaker 1: proper amount of neglect is definitely required for full development
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  Speaker 1: of some personality types, and Mary certainly is one of those.
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  Speaker 1: What about the pituitary gland that's attached to the brain
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  Speaker 1: and controls all the other glands during the shift of egos,
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  Speaker 1: pressed Captain thel distractingly. But mister Walden, too much neglect
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  Speaker 1: that this critical point may cause another personality to split off,
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  Speaker 1: and we can't have that. Adequate personalities are congenital. A
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  Speaker 1: new one now would only rob the present personalities. You
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  Speaker 1: are the appointed parent of this child, and the Board
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  Speaker 1: of Education will enforce your compliance with our diagnosis. Mary's
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  Speaker 1: mind leaped to a page in one of her childhood's
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  Speaker 1: story books. It was an illustration of a little girl
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  Speaker 1: resting beneath a great tree that overhung a brook. There
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  Speaker 1: were friendly, little wild animals about. Mary could see the
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  Speaker 1: page clearly, and she thought about it very hard. Instead
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  Speaker 1: of crying, aren't you interested any more? Mary, Captain Theo
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  Speaker 1: was looking at her strangely. The agitation in her voice
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  Speaker 1: was a surprise. I have to get home. I have
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  Speaker 1: a lot of things to do outside. When missus Harris
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  Speaker 1: seemed suddenly to realize that something was wrong and delicately
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  Speaker 1: probed to find out whether her angry voice had been overheard,
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  Speaker 1: Mary said calmly and as if it didn't matter. Was
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  Speaker 1: my father home when you called him before? Why? Yes, Mary,
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  Speaker 1: But you mustn't pay any attention to conversations like that, darling.
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  Speaker 1: You can't force him to like me, she thought to herself,
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  Speaker 1: and she was angry with Missus Harris because now her
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  Speaker 1: father would only dislike her more. Neither her father nor
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  Speaker 1: her mother was home when Mary walked into the evening
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  Speaker 1: darkened apartment. It was the first day of the family shift,
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  Speaker 1: and on that day, for many periods now, they had
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  Speaker 1: not been home until late Mary walked through the empty rooms,
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  Speaker 1: turning on lights. She passed up the electrically heated dinner
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  Speaker 1: her father had set out for her. Presently, she found
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  Speaker 1: herself at the storage room door. She opened it slowly.
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  Speaker 1: After hesitating a while, she went in and began exhausting
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  Speaker 1: search for the old story book with a picture in it.
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  Speaker 1: Finally she knew she could not find it. She stood
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  Speaker 1: in the middle of the junk filled room and began
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  Speaker 1: to cry. End of Part one, Section two of Beyond
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  Speaker 1: Bedlam by Wyman Gwynn. This LibriVox recording is in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. Read by Ben Tucker. Part two. The day
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  Speaker 1: which ended for Mary Walden and lonely weeping should have
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  Speaker 1: been for Conrad Mann's a pleasant rest day with an
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  Speaker 1: hour of rocket racing in the middle of it. Instead,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: he awakened with a shock to hear his wife actually
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  Speaker 1: talking while she was asleep. He stood over her bed
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  Speaker 1: and made certain that she was asleep. It was as
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  Speaker 1: though her mind thought it was somewhere else doing something else. Vaguely,
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  Speaker 1: he remembered that the ancients did something called dreaming while
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  Speaker 1: they slept, and the thought made him shiver. Clara Manns
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  Speaker 1: was saying, oh, Bill, they'll catch us. We can't pretend
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  Speaker 1: any more unless we have drugs. Haven't we any drugs? Bill?
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  Speaker 1: Then she was silent and lea still. Her breathing was shallow,
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  Speaker 1: and even in the dawn light, her cheeks were deeply
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  Speaker 1: flushed against the blonde hair. Having just awakened, Conrad was
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  Speaker 1: on a very low drug level, and the incident was
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  Speaker 1: unpleasantly disturbing. He picked up the farmer case from beside
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  Speaker 1: his bed and made his way to the bathroom. He
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  Speaker 1: took his hypothalamic block and the integration enzymes and returned
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  Speaker 1: to the bedroom. Clara was still sleeping. She had been
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  Speaker 1: behaving oddly for some time, but there had never been
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  Speaker 1: anything as disturbing as this. He felt that he should
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  Speaker 1: call a metacop, but of course he didn't want to
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  Speaker 1: do anything that extreme. It was probably something with a
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  Speaker 1: simple explanation. Clara was a little scatterbrained at times. Maybe
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  Speaker 1: she had forgotten to take her sleeping compound and that
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  Speaker 1: was what caused dreaming. The very word made his powerful
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  Speaker 1: body chill. But if she was neglecting to take any
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  Speaker 1: of her drugs and he called in a meta coop,
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  Speaker 1: it would be serious. Conrad went into the library and
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: found the family pharmacy. He switched on a light in
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  Speaker 1: the dawn shrunken room and led his heavy frame into
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  Speaker 1: a chair. A Guide to Better Understanding of Your Family Prescriptions,
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  Speaker 1: Official edition, twenty eight thirty one. The book was mostly
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  Speaker 1: medicor propaganda, and almost never gave a practical suggestion. If
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  Speaker 1: something went wrong, you called a metacop. Conrad hunted through
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  Speaker 1: the book for the section on sleeping compound. It was
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  Speaker 1: funny too, about that name. Bill. Conrad went over all
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  Speaker 1: the men of their acquaintance, with whom Clara had occasional
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  Speaker 1: affairs or with whom she was friendly, and he couldn't
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  Speaker 1: remember a single Bill. In fact, the only man with
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  Speaker 1: that name whom he could think of was his own
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  Speaker 1: hyper altar, Bill Walden. But that was naturally impossible. Maybe
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  Speaker 1: dreaming was always about imaginary people. Sleeping compound an official
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: mixture of soporific and hypnotic alkaloids and synthetics. A critical drug,
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  Speaker 1: an essential feature in every prescription. Slight deviations and following
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  Speaker 1: prescription are unallowed because of the subtle manner in which
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  Speaker 1: behavior may be altered over months or years. The first
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: sleeping compound was announced by Thomas Marshall in nineteen eighty six.
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  Speaker 1: The formula has been modified only twice since then. There
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  Speaker 1: followed a tightly packed description of the chemistry and pharmacology
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  Speaker 1: of the various ingredients. Conrad skipped through this. The importance
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  Speaker 1: of Sleeping Compound and the life of every individual into
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: society is best appreciated when we recall Marshall's words announcing
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  Speaker 1: its initial development. It is during so called normal sleep
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  Speaker 1: that the vicious unconscious mind, responsible for wars and other
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  Speaker 1: symptoms of unhappiness, develops its resources and its hold on
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  Speaker 1: our conscious lives. In this normal sleep, the critical faculties
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  Speaker 1: of the cortex are paralyzed. Meanwhile, the infantile unconscious mind
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  Speaker 1: expands misinterpreted experience into the toxic patterns of neurosis and psychosis.
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  Speaker 1: The conscious mind takes over at morning, unaware that these
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  Speaker 1: infantile motivations have I've been cleverly woven into its very structure.
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  Speaker 1: Sleeping Compound will stop this. There was no unconscious activity
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  Speaker 1: after taking this harmless drug. We believe the medicor should
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  Speaker 1: at once initiate measures to acclimatize every child to its use,
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  Speaker 1: and these children as the years go by infantile patterns
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  Speaker 1: unable to work during sleep, will fight a losing battle
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  Speaker 1: during waking hours with conscious patterns accumulating in the direction
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  Speaker 1: of adulthood. That was all there was, mostly the medicor
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  Speaker 1: patting its own back for saving humanity. But if you
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  Speaker 1: were in trouble and called a metacop, you'd risk getting
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  Speaker 1: into real trouble. Conrad became aware of Clara standing in
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  Speaker 1: the doorway. The flush of her disturbed emotions in the
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  Speaker 1: pallor of her fatigue mixed and ragged banners on her cheeks.
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  Speaker 1: Conrad waved the family pharmacy with a foolish gesture of embarrassment.
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  Speaker 1: Young lady, have you been neglecting to take your sleeping compound?
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  Speaker 1: Clara turned utterly pale. I I don't understand you were
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  Speaker 1: talking in her sleep? I was. She came forward so
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  Speaker 1: unsteadily that he helped her to a seat. She stared
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  Speaker 1: at him. He asked, jovially, who is this bill you
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  Speaker 1: are so desperately involved with? Have you been having an
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: affair I don't know about? Aren't my friends good enough
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: for you? The result of this banter was that she
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: alarmingly began to cry clutching her robe about her and
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: dropping her blonde head on her knees and sobbing. Children
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: cried before they were acclimatized to the drugs, but Conrad
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Mans had never in his life seen an adult cry,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: though he had taken his morning drugs and certain disrupting
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: emotions were already impossible. Nevertheless, this sight was completely unnerving,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: and gasps between her sobs, Clara was saying, Oh, I
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: can't go back to taking them, but I can't keep
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: this up. I just can't, Clara Darling, I don't know
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: what to say or do. I think we ought to
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: call the medicorps. Intensely frightened, she rose and clung to him, begging,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Oh no, oh, Congrad, that isn't necessary. It isn't necessary
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: at all. I've only neglected to take my sleeping compound
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: and it won't happen again. All I need is a
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: sleeping compound. Please get my farmer case for me, and
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: it will be all right. She was so desperate to
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: convince him that Conrad got the farmer case in a
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: glass of water for her, only to appease the white
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: face of fright. Within a few minutes of taking the
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: sleeping compound. She was calm. As he put her back
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: to bed. She laughed with a lazy indolence. Oh, Conrad,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: you take it so seriously. I only needed a sleeping
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: compound very badly, and now I feel fine. I'll sleep
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: all day. It's a rest day, isn't it. Now, go
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: race a rocket and stop worrying and thinking about calling
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: the metacops. But Comrade did not go to rocket racing
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: as he had planned. Clara had been asleep only a
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: few minutes when there was a call on the visiophone.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: They wanted him at the office. The city of Santa
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Fe would be completely out of balance within twelve shifts
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: if revised plans were not put into operation immediately. They
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: were to start during the next five days while he
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: would be out of shift. In order to carry on
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: the first day of their next shift, he and the
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: other three traffic managers he worked with would have to
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: come down today and familiarize themselves with the new operations.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: There was no getting out of it. His rest day
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: was spoiled. Conrad resented it all the more because Santa
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Fe was clear out on the edge of their traffic
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: district and could have been revised out of the Mexican
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: offices just as well. But those boys down there rested
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: all five days of their shift. Conrad looked in on
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Clara before he left and found her asleep in the
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: total suspension of proper drug level. The unpleasant memory of
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: her behavior made him squirm, but now that the episode
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: was over, it no longer worried him. It was typical
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: of him that things, having been set straight in the
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: proper manner, he did not think of her again until
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: late in the afternoon. As early as nineteen fifty, the
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: pioneer communications engineer Norbert Weener had pointed out that there
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: might be a close parallel between disassociation of personalities and
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: the disruption of a communication system. Weiener referred back specifically
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: to the first clear description by Morton Prince of multiple
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: personalities existing together in the same human body. Prince had
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: described only individual cases, and his observations were not altogether
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: acceptable in Weiener's time. Nevertheless, in the schizophrenic society of
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: the twenty ninth century, a major managerial problem was that
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: of balancing the communicating and non communicating populations in a city.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: As far as Conrad and the other traffic men present
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: at the conference were concerned. Santa Fe was a resort
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: and retirement area of one hundred thousand human bodies alive in,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: consuming more than they produced every day of the year.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Whatever the representatives of the Medicors and Communications Board worked out,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: it would mean only slight changes in the types of
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: food stuffs, entertainment, and so forth. Moving into Santa Fe
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: and Conrad could have grasped the entire traffic change in
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: ten minutes after the real problem had been settled, But
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: as usual he and the other trafficmen had to sit
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: through two hours while small wheels from the Medicors and
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Communications acted big about rebalancing a city for them. Conrad
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: had to admit Santa Fe was a great deal more
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: complex than one hundred thousand consuming moderately producing human bodies.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: It was two hundred thousand human personalities, two to each body.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Conrad wondered sometimes what they would have done if three
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: and four personality cases so common back in the twentieth
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: and twenty first centuries, had been allowed To reproduce the
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: two hundred thousand personalities in Santa Fe were difficult enough.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Like all cities, Santa Fe operated in five shifts, A, B, C, D,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: and e just as it was supposed to be for
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Conrad and his city. To day was rest day for
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the twenty thousand hypo altars on D Shift in Santa Fe. Tonight,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: at around six p m. They would all go to
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: shifting rooms and be replaced by their hyper altars, who
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: had different tastes in food and pleasure and took different drugs.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Tomorrow would be rest day for the hyper altars on
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: E Shift, and in the evening they would turn things
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: over to their hyper altars. The next day it would
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: be rest for the A shift hyper altars. In three
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: days after that, the D shift hyper altars, including Bill Walden,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: would rest till evening, when Conrad and the D shift
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: high po altars everywhere would again have their five day
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: use of their bodies. Right now, the trouble with Santa
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Fe's retired population, which worked only for its own maintenance,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: was that too many elderly people on the D shift
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: and E Shift had been dying off. This point was
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: brought out by a dapper young department head from Communications.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Conrad groaned when as he knew what happened. A Medicorp
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: officer promptly set out on an exhaustive demonstration that Medicorp
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: predictions of deaths for Santa Fe had indicated clearly that
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Communications should have been moving people from D shift and
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: E Shift into the area. Actually, it appeared that someone
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: from Communications had blundered and had overloaded the quota of
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: people on A shift and B shift moving to Santa Fe. Thus,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: on one rest today, there weren't enough people working to
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: keep things going, and later in the week there were
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: so many available workers that they were clogging the city.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: None of this was heated exchange or in any way emotional.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: It was just interminably exhaustively low and boring. Conrad fidgeted
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: through two hours of it, seeing his chance for a
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: rocket race dissolving. When at last the problem balanced shift
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: populations for Santa Fe was worked out, it took him
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: and the other trafficmen only a few minutes to apply
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: their tables and rescheduled traffic to coordinate with the population changes. Disgusted,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Conrad walked over to the tennis club and had lunch.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: There were still two hours of his rest day left.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: When Conrad mans realized that Bill Walden was again forcing
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: an early shift. Conrad was in the middle of a
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: volley tennis game and he didn't like having the shift
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: forced so soon. People generally shifted at their appointed regular
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: hour every five days, and a hyper altar was not
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: supposed to use his power to force shift. It was
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: such an unthinkable thing nowadays that there was occasional talk
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: of abolishing the terms hyper altar and hype o altar
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: because they were somewhat disparaging to the hype o altar
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: and really designated only the antisocial power of the hyper
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: altar to force the shift. Bill Walden had been cheating
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: to to four hours on Conrad every shift for several periods. Back.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Conrad could have reported it to the medicorps, but he
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: himself was guilty of a constant misdemeanor about which Bill
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: had not yet complained. Unlike the sedentary Walden, Conrad mans
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: enjoyed exercise. He overindulged in violent sports and put off sleep,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: letting Bill Walton make up the fatigue on his shift.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: That was undoubtedly why the poor old sucker had started
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: cheating a few hours on Conrad's rest day. Conrad laughed
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: to himself, remembering the time Bill Walden had registered a
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: long list of sports which he wished Conrad to be
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: restrained from rocket racing, deep sea exploration, jet skiing. It
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: had only given Conrad some ideas he hadn't had before.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: The Medicorps had refused to enforce the list on the
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: basis that danger and violent exercise were a necessary outlet
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: for Conrad's constitution. Then poor old Bill had written Conrad
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: a note threatening to sue him for any injury resulting
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: from such sports as if he had a chance against
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: the medicorp ruling. Conrad knew it was no use trying
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: to finish the bably tennis game. He lost interest and
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: couldn't concentrate on what he was doing. When Bill started
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: forcing the shift, Conrad shot the ball back at his
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: opponent in a blistering curve, impossible to intercept so long.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: He yelled at the man, I've got some things to
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: do before my shift ends. He lounged into the locker
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: rooms and showered, put his clothes and belongings, including his
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: farmer case and a shipping carton, addressing them to his
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: own home and dropping them in a mail chute. He
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: stepped with languid nakedness across the hall, pressed his identifying
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: wristband to a lock face, and dialed his clothing sizes.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: In this way he procured a neatly wrapped, clean shifting
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: costume from the slot. He put it on without bothering
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: to return to his shower room. He shouted aloud good
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: bye to no one in particular among the several men
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: and women in the baths, and stepped out onto the street.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Conrad felt too good even to be sorry that a
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: shift was over. After all, nothing happened except you came
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: to five days later on your next shift. The important
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: thing was the rest day, he had always said. The
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: last day of the shift should be a work day.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Then you would be glad it was over. He guessed.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: The idea was to rest the body before another personality
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: took over. Well, poor old Bill Walden never got arrested body.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: He probably slept off the first twelve hours. Walking unhurriedly
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: through the street crowds, Conrad entered a public shifting station
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: and found an empty room. As he started to open
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: the door, a girl came out of the adjoining booth,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: and Conrad hastily averted his glance. She was still rearranging
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: her hair. There were so many rude people nowadays who
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: didn't seem to care at all. About the etiquette of
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: shifting women, particularly they were always redoing their hair make
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: up where a person couldn't help seeing them. Conrad pressed
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: his identifying wristband to the lock and entered the booth
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: he had picked. The act automatically sent the time and
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: his shift number to Medicor headquarters. Once inside the shifting room,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Conrad went to the lavatory and turned on the faucet
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: of make up solvent. In spite of losing two hours
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: of his rest day, he decided to be decent to
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: old Bill. Though he was half tempted to leave his
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: make up on. It was a pretty f joke, of course,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: especially on a humorless fellow like poor Walden. Conrad creamed
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: his face thoroughly and then washed it in water and
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: used the automatic dryer. He looked at his strong lined
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: features in the mirror. They displayed a less distinct expression
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: of his own personality. With the make up gone, he
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: turned away from the mirror, and it was only then
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: that he remembered he hadn't spoken to his wife before shifting. Well,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: he couldn't decently call up and let her see him
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: without make up. He stepped across to the visiophone and
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: set the machine to deliver his spoken message in type Hello, Clara,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Sorry I forgot to call you before. Bill Walden is
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: forcing me to shift early again. I hope you're not
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: still upset about that business this morning. Be a good
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: girl and smile at me on the next shift. I
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: love you, Conrad. End of Part two, Section three of
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Beyond Bedlam by Wyman Gwyn. This LibriVox recording is in
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker, Part three. For
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: a moment when the shift came, the body of Conrad
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Man's stood moronically uninhabited, Then rapidly out of the jyry
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: of its brain, the personality of Bill Walden emerged, replacing
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: the slightly powerful attitude of Conrad by the slightly prim
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: preciseness of Bill's bearing. The face, just now relaxed with
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: readiness for action, was abruptly pulled into an intellectualized mask
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: of tension by habitual patterns of conflict in the muscles.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: There were also acute momentary signs of clash between the
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: vegetative nervous activity characteristic of Bill Walden and the internal
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: homeostasis Conrad mans had left behind him. The face paled
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: as hypersensitive vascular beds closed down under new vegetative volleys.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Bill Walden grasped sight and sound, and the sharp odor
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: of make up solvent stung his nostrils. He was conscious
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: of only one clamoring terrifying thought. They will catch us.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: It cannot go much longer without Helen guessing about Clara.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: She is already angry about Clara delaying the shift, and
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: if she learned from Mary that I am cheating on
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Conrad's shift. Any time now, perhaps this time, when the
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: shift is over, I will be looking into the face
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: of a meta cop who is pulling a needle from
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: my arm, and then it'll all be over. So far,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: at least there was no meta coop. Still feeling unreal,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: but anxious not to lose precious moments, Bill took an
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: individualized kit from the wall dispenser and made himself up.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: He was sparing and subtle in his use of the
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: make up, unlike the horrible make up jobs Conrad Man's
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: occasionally left on. Bill rearranged his hair. Conrad always wore
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: it too short for his taste, but you couldn't complain
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: about everything. Bill sat in a chair to await some
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: of the slower aspects of the shift. He knew that
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: an hour after he left the booth his basal metabolic
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: rate would be ten points higher, his blood sugar would
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: go down steadily. In the next five days, he would
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: lose six to eight pounds, which Conrad later would promptly regain.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Just as Bill was about to leave the booth, he
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: remembered to pick up a news summary. He put his
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: wristband to the switch on the telephoto, and a freshly
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: printed summary of the last five days in the world
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: fell in to the rack. His wristband, of course, called
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: forth one edited for hyper altars on the D Shift.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: It did not mention by name any hypo altar on
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: the D shift. Should one of them have done something
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: that it was necessary for Bill or other D shift
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: hyper altars to know about, it would appear in new
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: summaries called forth by their wristbands, but told in such
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: fashion that the personality involved seemed namelessly incidental. While names
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: and pictures of hyper altars and hypoaltars on any of
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the other four shifts naturally were freely use. The purpose
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: was to keep conrad Man's and all other hypo altars
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: on the D shift one tenth of the total population
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: nonexistent as far as their hyper altars were concerned. This
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: convention made it necessary for photoprint summaries to be on
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: the light sensitive paper that blackened illegibly before six hours
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: were up, so that a man might never stumble on
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: news about his hypoaltar. Bill did not even glance at
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: the new summary. He had picked it up only for appearances.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: The summaries were essential if you were going to start
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: where you left off on your last shift and have
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: any knowledge of the five intervening days. A man just
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: didn't walk out of a shifting room without one. It
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: was a failure to do little things like that that
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: would start them wondering about him. Bill opened the door
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: of the booth by applying his wristband to the lock,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: and stepped out into the street. Late afternoon, crowds pressed
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: about him. Across the boulevard a helicopter landing, swarmed with
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: clouds of rising commuters. Bill had some trouble figuring out
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: the part of the city Conrad had left him in,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: and walked two blocks before he understood where he was.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Then he got into an idle two place cab, started
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: the motor with his wristband and hurried the little three
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: wheeler recklessly through the traffic. Clara was probably already waiting,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: and he first had to go home and get dressed.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: The thought of Clara waiting for him in the park
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: near her home was a sharp reminder of his strange situation.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: He was in a left to you with shame and
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: a fear that the other fellow would tell people, you
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: seem to have a pathological interest in your altar and
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: must need a change in your prescription. But the most
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: flagrant user of such morbid little exchanges would have been
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: horrified to learn that right here in the middle of
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: the daylight traffic was a man who was using his
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: antisocial shifting power to meet in secret the wife of
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: his own hypoaltar. Bill did not have to wonder what
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: the medicorp would think. Relation between hyper altar's world was
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: literally not supposed to exist for him, for it was
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: the world of his own hypoaltar Conrad Man's. Undoubtedly there
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: were people in the traffic up ahead who knew both
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: him and Conrad, people from the other shifts who never
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: mentioned the one to the other, except in those guarded,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: snickering little confidences They couldn't resist telling, and you couldn't
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: resist listening to. After all, the most important person in
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: the world was your altar. If he got sick, injured,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: or killed, so would you. Thus, in moments of intimacy
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: or joviality, an undercover exchange went on, I'll tell you
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: about your hyper altar if you will tell me about
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: my hypoaltar. It was orthodox bad manners that and hypoaltars
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: of opposite sex were punishable, drastically punishable. When he arrived
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: at the apartment, Bill remembered to order a dinner for
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: his daughter Mary. His order, dialed from the day's menu,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: was delivered to the apartment pneumatically, and he set it
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: out over electric warmers. He wanted to write a note
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: to the child, but he started too and threw both
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: in the basket. He couldn't think of anything to say
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: to her. Staring at the lonely table he was leaving
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: for Mary, Bill felt his guilt overwhelming him. He could
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: stop the behavior which led to the guilt by taking
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: his drugs as prescribed. They would return him immediately to
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: the sane and ordered conformity of the world. He would
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: no longer have to carry the fear that the medicorps
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: would discover he was not taking his drugs. He would
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: no longer neglect his appointed child, He would no longer
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: endanger the very life of Conrad's wife Clara, and of
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: course his own. When you took your drugs as prescribed,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: it was impossible to experience such ancient and primitive emotions
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: as guilt, even should you miscalculate and do something wrong.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: The drugs would not allow any such emotional reaction. To
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: be free to experience his guilt over the lonely child
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: who needed him. While for these reasons a precious thing
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: to Bill in all the world this night, he was
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: undoubtedly the only man who could and did fill one
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: of the ancient emotions people felt. Shame, not guilt, conceit
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: not pride, pleasure not desire. Now that he had stopped
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: taking his drugs as prescribed, Bill realized that the drugs
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: allowed only an impoverished segment of a vivid emotional spectrum.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: But however exciting it was to live them, the ancient
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: emotions did not seem to act as deterrence to bad behavior.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: Bill's sense of guilt did not keep him from continuing
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: to neglect Mary his fear of being caught did not
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: restrain him from breaking every rule of inter alter law
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: and loving Clara, his own hypoaltar's wife. Bill got dressed
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: as rapidly as possible. He tossed the discarded shifting costume
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: into the return chute. He retouched his make up, trying
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: to eliminate some of the heavy and expressive planes of
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: muscularity which were more typical of Comrad than of himself.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: The act reminded him of the shame which his wife, Helen,
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: had felt when she learned a few years ago that
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: her own hypoaltar Clara, and his hypoalter Conrad had obtained
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: from the Medicor a special release to Mary. Such rare
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: marriages in which the same bodies lived together on both
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: halves of a shift were something to snicker about. They
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: verged on the antisocial, but could be arranged if the
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: batteries of Medicor tests could be satisfied. Perhaps it had
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: been the very intensity of Helen's shame on learning of
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: this marriage, the nauseous display of conformity so typical of
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: his wife, that had first given Bill the idea of
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: seeking out Clara, who had dared convention to make such
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: a peculiar marriage. Over the years, Helen had continued blaming
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: all of their troubles on the fact that both egos
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: of himself were living with and intimate with both egos
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: of herself. So Bill had started cutting down on his drugs,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: the curiosity having become an obsession. What was this other
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: part of Helen, like this Clara, who was unconventional enough
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: to want to marry only Bill's own hypo altar in
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: spite of almost certain public shame. He had first seen
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Clara's face when it formed on a visiophone, the first
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: time he had forced Conrad to shift prematurely. It was
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: softer than Helen's, The delicate contours were less purposely set
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: gayer Clara Mans Bill had sat there, staring at the
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: visiophone for several seconds, unable to continue, his great fear
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: that she would immediately report him must have been naked
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: on his face. He had watched an impish suspicion grow
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: in the tender curve of her lips. In her oblique
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: glance from the visiophone. She did not speak, missus mans
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: He finally said, I would like to meet you in
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: the park across from your home. To this awkward opening,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: he owed the first time he had heard Clara laugh.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Her warm, clear laughter teasing him, tumbled forth like a
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: cloud of gay butterflies. Are you afraid to see me
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: here at home? Because my husband might walk in on us?
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Bill had been put completely at ease by this bantering
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: indication that Clara knew who he was and welcomed him
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: as an intriguing diversion. Quite literally, the one person who
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: could not walk in on them, as the ancients thought
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: of it, was his own hypoalterar conrad Mann's. Bill finished
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: retouching his make up and hurried to leave the apartment,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: But this time, as he passed the table where Mary's
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: dinner was set out, he decided to write a few
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: words to the child, no matter how empty they sounded
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: to himself. The note he left explained that he had
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: some early work to do at the microfilm library where
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: he worked. Just as Bill was leaving the apartment, the
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: visiophone buzzed. In his hurry, Bill flipped the switch before
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: he thought too late, his hand froze, and the implications
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: of this call, an hour before any one would normally
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: be home, shot a shaft of terror through him. But
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: it was not the image of a metacop that formed
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: on the screen. The woman introduced herself as Missus Harris,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: one of Mary's teachers. It was strange that she should
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: have thought he might be home. Theft for her children
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: was half a day earlier than that for adults, so
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: the parents could have half their rest day free. This
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: afternoon would be for Mary the first classes of her shift.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: But the teacher must have guessed something was wrong with
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: the shifting schedules in Mary's family, or had the child
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: told her. Missus Harris explained rather dramatically that Mary was
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: being neglected. What could he say to her? That he
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: was a criminal breaking drug regulations in the most flagrant manner,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: that nothing, not even the child appointed to him, meant
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: more to him than his wife's own hypo altar. Bill
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: finally ended the hopeless and possibly dangerous conversation by turning
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: off the receiver and leaving the apartment. Bill realized that
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: now for both him and Clara, the greatest joy had
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: been those first few times together. The enormous threat of
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: a Medicorp retaliation took the pleasure from their contact, and
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: they came together desperately because having tasted this fantastic nonconformity
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: and the new undrugged intimacy. There was no other way
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: for them. Even now, as he drove through the train
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: affect toward where she would be waiting, he was not
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: so much concerned with meeting Clara in their fear poisoned
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: present as with the vivid, aching remembrance of what those
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: meetings once had really been like. He recalled an evening
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: they had spent lying on the summer lawn of the park,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: looking out at the haze dimmed stars. It had been
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: shortly after Clara joined him in cutting down on the drugs,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: and the clear memory of their quiet laughter so captured
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: his mind now that Bill almost tangled his car in
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: the traffic in memory, he kissed her again, and, as
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: it had then, the newly cut grass mixed with the
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: exciting fragrance of her skin. After the kiss, they continued
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: a mock discussion of the ancient word sin. Bill pretended
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: to be trying to explain the meaning of the word
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: to her, sometimes with definitions that kept them laughing, and
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: sometimes with demonstrational kisses that stopped their laughter. He could
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: remember Clara's face turned to him in the evening light
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: with an outrageous parody of interest. He could hear himself saying,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: you see, the ancients would say we are not sinning
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: because they would disagree with the metacops that you and
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Helen are two completely different people, or that Conrad and
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: I are not the same person. Clara kissed him with
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: an air of tentative experimentation. No, I can't say I
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: care for that interpretation. You'd rather be sinning definitely. Well,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: if the ancients did agree with the metacops that we
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: are distinct from our altars Helen and Conrad, then they
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: would say we are sinning, but not for the same
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: reasons the medicorp would give. That, asserted Clara. Is where
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: I get lost. If this sinning business is going to
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: be worth anything at all, it has to be something
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: you can identify. Bill cut his car out of the
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: mainstream of traffic and toward the park without interrupting his memory. Well, Darling,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: I don't want to confuse you, but the metacops would
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: say we are sinning only because you are my wife's
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: hypoaltar and I am your husband's hyper altar. In other words,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: for the very reason the ancients would say we are
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: not sinning. Furthermore, if either of us were with anyone else,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: the metacops would think it was perfectly all right, and
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: so would Conrad and Helen. Provided, of course, I took
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: a hyper altar and you took a hypo altar. Only,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: of course, Clara said, and Bill hurried over the gloomy fact.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: The ancients, on the other hand, would say, we are
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: sinning because we are making love to someone we are
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: not married to. But what's the matter with that? Everybody
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: does it? The ancient moderns didn't, or that is, they
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: often did. But Clara brought her full lips hungrily to him, Darling,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: I think the ancient moderns had the right idea, though
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: I don't see how they ever arrived at it. Bill
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: grinned it was just an invention of theirs, along with
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: the wheel and atomic energy. That evening was long gone by.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: As Bill stopped the little taxi beside the park and
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: left it there for the next user, He walked across
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: the lawns toward the statue where he and Clara always met.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: The very thought of entering one's own hypo aaltar's house
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: was so unnerving that Bill brought himself to do it,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: only by first meeting Clara near the statue. As he
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: walked between the trees, Bill could not again capture the
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: spirit of that evening he had been remembering. The meticor
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: was too close. It was impossible to laugh that way. Now.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: Bill arrived at the statue, but Clara was not there.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: He waited impatiently while a livid sunset coagulated between the
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: branches of the great trees. Clara should have been there first.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: It was easier for her because she was leaving her shift,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: and without doing it prematurely, the park was like a
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: quiet backwater in the eddying rush of the evening city.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: Bill felt conspicuous and vulnerable in the gloaming light. Above all,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: he felt a new loneliness, and he knew that now
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: Clara felt it too. They needed each other as each
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: had been before. Fear had bleached their feeling to white
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: bones of desperation. They were not taking their drugs as prescribed,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: and for that they would be horribly punished. That was
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: the only unforgivable sin in their world. By committing it,
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: he and Clara had found out what life could be
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: in the same act that would surely take life from them.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Their powerful emotions they had found in abundance simply by
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: refusing to take the drugs, and by being together briefly
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: each fifth day, in a dangerous breach of all convention.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: The closer their discovery in, the greater their terror, the
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: more desperately they needed even their terror, and the more
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: impossible became the delight of their first meetings. Telegraphing bright
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: beads of sound, a night bird skimmed the sunset lawns
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: to the looming statue and skewed around its monolithic base.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: The birds piping doubled and then choked off as it
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: veered frantically from Bill. After a while, far off through
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: the park, it released a fading protest of song. Above Bill,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: the towering statue of the Great Alfred Morris, blackened against
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: the sunset. The hollowed granite eyes bore down on him
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: out of an undecipherable dark, the ancient, implacable face of
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: the meticor, as if to pronounce a sentence on his
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: present crimes. By a magical disclosure of the weight of centuries,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: A pool of sulfurous light and leaf shadows danced on
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: the painted plaque at the base of the statue. On
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: this spot in the Gregorian Year. Nineteen ninety six, Alfred
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: Morris announced to an assembly of war survivors the hypothalamic block.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: His stirring words were, this new drug selectively halts at
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: the thallamic brain the upward flow of unconscious stimuli and
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: the downward flow of unconscious motivations. It acts as a
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: screen between the cerebrum and the psychosomatic discharge system. Using
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: hypothalamic block, we will not act emotively. We will initiate
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: acts only from the logical demands of situations. This announcement,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: in the subsequent wholehearted action of the war wary people,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: made the taking of hypothalamic block obligatory. This put an
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: end to the powerful play of unconscious mind in the
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: public and private affairs of the ancient world. It ended
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: the great paranoid wars and saved mankind. In the strange
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: evening light, letters seemed alive a century's old condemnation of
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: any who might try to go back to the u
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: s ancient pre pharmacy days. Of course, it was not
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: really possible to go back without drugs. Everybody and all
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: society would fall apart. The ancients had first learned to
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: keep endocrine deviates such as the diabetic alive with drugs. Later,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: they learned with other drugs to cure the far more
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: prevalent disease schizophrenia that was gemming their hospitals. The big
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: change came when the ancients used these same drugs on
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: everyone to control the private and public irrationality of their
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: time and stop the wars. In this new drugged world,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: the schizophrene thrived better than any and the world became
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: patterned on him. But just as the diabetic was still diabetic,
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: the schizophrene was still himself plus the drugs. Meanwhile, everyone
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: had forgotten what it was the drugs did to you.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: That the emotions experienced were blurred emotions, that insight was
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: at an isolated level of rationality because the drugs kept
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: true feelings from ever emerging. How inconceivable it would be
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: to Helen and the other people of his world to
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: live on as little drug as possible, to experience the
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: conflicting emotions, the interplay of passion and logic that almost
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: tore you apart. Sober, the ancients called it, and they
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: lived that way most of the time, with only the
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: occasional crude and clublike effects of alcohol or narcotics to
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: relieve their chronic anxiety by taking as little hypothalamic block
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: as possible. He and Clara were able to desire their
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: fantastic attachment to delight in an absolutely illogical situation unheard
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: of in their society. But the society would judge their
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: refusal to take hypothalamic block in only one sense. The
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: weight of this judgment stood before him in the smoldering words.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: It ended the great paranoid wars and saved mankind. When
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Clara did appear, she was searching myopically in the wrong
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: vicinity of the statue. He did not call to her
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: at once, letting the sight of her smooth out the
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: tensions in him convert all the conflicts into this one
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: intense longing to be with her. Her halting search for
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: him was deeply touching, like that of a tragic little
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: puppet and a darkening dumb show. He saw suddenly how
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: like puppets the two of them were. They were moved
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: by the strengthening wires of a new life of feeling
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: to batter clumsily at an implacable stage setting that would
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: finally leave them as bits of wood and paper. Then
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: suddenly in his arms Clara was at the same time
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: hungrily moving and tense with fear of discovery. Little sounds
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: of love and fear choked each word in her throat.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: Her blond head pressed tightly into his shoulder, and she
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: clung to him with desperation. She said, Conrade was disturbed
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: by my tension this morning and made me take a
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: sleeping compound. I've just awakened. They walked to her home
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: in silence, and even in the darkened apartment, they used
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: only the primitive monosyllables of apprehensive need. Beyond these mere
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: sounds of compassion, they had long ago said all that
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: could be said. Because Bill was the hyper altar, he
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: had no fear that Conrad could force a shift on him.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: When later they lay in darkness, he allowed himself to
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: drift into a brief slumber without the sleeping compound. Distorted
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: events came and went without reason, dreaming. The ancients had
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: called it. It was one of the most frightening things
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: that had begun to happen when he first cut down
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: on the drugs now. In the few seconds that he dozed,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: a thousand fragments of incidental knowledge, historical reading, and emotional
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: need melded and in a strange contrast to their present tranquility,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: he was dreaming a frightful moment in the twentieth century.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: These are the great paranoid wars, he thought, And it
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: was so because he had thought it. He searched frantically
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: through the glove compartment of an ancient automobile. Wait, he pleaded,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: I tell you we have sephalmonide fourteen. We've been taking
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: it regularly as directed. We took a double dose back
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: in Paterson because there were soft bombs all through that
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: part of Jersey and we didn't know what would declared
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: plague area next. Now. Bill threw things out of his
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: satchel on to the floor and seat of the car,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: fumbling deeper by the flashlight. Clara held his heart beat
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: thickly with terror. Then he remembered his farmer case. Oh
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: why hadn't they remembered sooner about their farmer cases. Bill
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: tore at the belt about his waist. The Medicorp captain
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: stepped back from the door of their car. He jerked
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: his head at the dark form of the corporal standing
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: in the roadway. Shoot them, run the car off the
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: embankment before you burn it, Bill screamed, metallically through the
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: speaker of his radiation mask. Wait, I found it. He
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: thrust the farmer case out the door of the car.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: This is a farmer case, he explained. We keep our
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: drugs in one of these, and it's belted to our waist,
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: so we are never without them. The captain of the
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: medicorps came back. He inspected the farmer case and the
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: drugs and returned it. From now on, keep your drugs handy,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: take them without fail according to radio instructions. Do you
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: understand Clara's head pressed heavily against Bill's shoulder, and he
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: could hear the tiny sound of her sobbing through the
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: speaker of her mask. The captain stepped into the road again.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: We'll have to burn your car. You passed through a
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: plague area and it can't be sterilized on this route.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: About a mile up this road, you'll come to a
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: sterilization unit. Stop and have your person and belongings raid.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: After that, keep walking, but stick to the road. You'll
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: be shot if you're caught off it. The road was
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: crowded with fleeing people. Their way was lighted by piles
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: of cadavers writhing in gasoline. Flames. The medicor was everywhere.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: Those who stumbled, those who coughed, the delirious, and their
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: helping partners. These were taken to the side of the road,
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: shot and burned, and there was bombing again to the south.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: Bill stopped in the middle of the road and looked back.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: Clara clung to him. There is a plague here, and
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: we haven't any drug for he said, and realized he
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: was crying. We are all mad. Clara was crying too, darling,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: What have you done? Where are the drugs? The water
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: of the Hudson hung as it had in the late afternoon.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: Ice crystals in the stratosphere the high high sheet flashed
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: and glowed in the new bombing to the south, where
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: multicolored pillars of flame boiled into the sky. But the
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: muffled crash of the distant bombing was suddenly the steady
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: click of the urgent signal on a bedside visiophone, and
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: Bill was abruptly awake. Clara was throwing on her robe
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: and moving toward the machine on terror rigid limbs with
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: a scrambling motion. Bill got out of the possible view
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: of the machine and crouched at the end of the room. Distinctly,
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: he could hear the machine say, Clara Mans yes. Clara's
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: voice was a thin treble that could have been a
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: shriek had it continued. This is Matacor Headquarters. A routine
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: check discloses you have delayed your shift two hours to
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: maintain the statistical record of deviations. Please give us a
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: full explanation, I Clara had to swallow before she could talk.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: I must have taken too much sleeping compound, missus manns.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: Our records indicate that you have been delaying your shift
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: consistently for several periods. Now, we made a check of
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: this as a routine follow up on any such deviation,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: but the discovery is quite serious. There was a harsh silence,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: a silence that demanded a logical answer. But how could
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: there be a logical answer. My hyperaltar hasn't complained, and
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: I well, I have just let a bad habit develop.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: I'll see that it doesn't happen again. The machine voiced
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: several platitudes about the responsibilities of one personality to another
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: and the duty of all to society before Clara was
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: able to shut it off. Both of them sad as
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: they were for a long, long time, while the tide
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: of terror subsided. When at last they looked at each
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: other across the dim and silent room, both of them
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: knew there could be at least one more time together
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: before they were caught. End of Part three, Section four
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: Beyond Bedlam by Wyman Gwynn. This LibriVox recording is in
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: the poet domain. Read by Ben Tucker. Part four. Five
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: days later, on the last day of her shift, Mary
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: Walden wrote the address of her appointed father's hypoalter, Conrad Man's,
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: with an indelible pencil on the skin just below her armpit.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: During the morning, her father and mother had spoiled the
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: family rest day by quarreling. It was about Helen's hypo
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: altar delaying so many shifts. Bill did not think it
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: very important, but her mother was angry and threatened to
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: complain to the medicorps. The lunch was eaten in silence,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: except that at one point Bill said, it seems to
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: me Conrad and Clara Mann's are guilty of a peculiar marriage,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: not us. Yet they seem perfectly happy with it, and
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: you're the one who is made unhappy. The woman has
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: probably just developed a habit of taking too much sleeping
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: compound for a rest day naps. Why don't you drop
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: her a note? Helen made only one remark. It was
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: said through her teeth and very softly. Bill, I would
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: just as soon the child did not realize her relationship
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: to the sordid situation. Mary cringed over the way Helen
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: disregarded her hearing, the possibility that she might be capable
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: of understanding or her feelings about being shut out of
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: their mutual world. After the lunch, Mary cleared the table,
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: throwing the remains of the meal and the plastic plates
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: into the flash trash disposer. Her father had retreated to
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: the library room and Helen was getting ready to attend
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: a citizen's meeting. Mary heard her mother enter the room
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: to say goodbye. While she was wiping the dining table.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: She knew that Helen was standing well dressed in a
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: little impatient just behind her, but she pretended she did
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: not know. Darling, I'm leaving now for the citizens meeting.
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: Oh yes, be a good girl, and don't be late
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: for your shift. You only have an hour now. Helen's
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: patrician face smiled. I won't be late. Don't pay any
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: attention to the things Bill and I discussed this morning,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: will you no? And she was gone. She did not
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: say good bye to Bill. Mary was very conscious of
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: her father in the house. He continued to sit in
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: the library. She walked by the door and she could
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: see him sitting in a chair, staring at the floor.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: Mary stood in the sun room for a long while.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: If he had risen from his chair, if he had
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: rustled a page, if he had sighed, she would have
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: heard him. It grew closer and closer to the time
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: she would have to leave if Susan Shores was to
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: catch the first school hours of her shift. Why did
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: children have to shift half a day before adults. Finally
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: Mary thought of something to say. She could let him
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: know she was old enough to understand what the quarrel
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: had been about, if only it were explained to her.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: Mary went into the library and hesitantly sat on the
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: edge of a couch near him. He did not look
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: at her, and his face seemed gray in the midday light.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: Then she knew that he was lonely too, but a
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: great feeling of tenderness for him went through her. Sometimes
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: I think you and clare Man's must be the only
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: people in the world, she said, abruptly, Who aren't so
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: silly about shifting right on the dot? Why I don't
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: care if Susan Shores is an hour late for classes.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: Those first moments when he seized her in his arms,
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: it seemed her heart would shake loose. It was as
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: though she had uttered some magic formula, one that had
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: abruptly opened the doors to his love. It was only
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: after he had explained to her why he was always
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: late on the first day of the family shift that
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: she knew something was wrong. He did tell her over
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: and over that he knew she was unhappy and that
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: it was his fault, But he was at the same
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: time soothing her, petting her as if he was afraid
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: of her. He talked on and on. Gradually Mary understood,
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: in his trembling body and his perspiring palms and his
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: pleading eyes, that he was afraid of dying, that he
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: was afraid she would kill him with the merest thing,
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: she said with her very presence. This was not painful
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: to Mary, because suddenly something came with ponderous enormity to
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: stand before her. I would just as soon. The child
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: did not realize her relationship to this sordid situation her relationship.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: It was some kind of relationship to Conrad and Clara Mann's,
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: because those were the people they had been talking about.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: The moment her father left the apartment, she went to
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: his desk and took out the file of family records.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: After she found the address of Conrad Man's, the idea
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: occurred to her to write it on her body. Mary
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: was certain that Susan Shores never bathed, and she thought
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: this a clever idea. Sometime on Susan's rest day, five
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: days from now, she would try to force the shift
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: and go to see Conrad and Clara Mann's. Her plan
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: was simple in execution, but totally vague as to goal.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: Mary was already late when she hurried to the children's
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: section of a public shifting station. A children's transfer bus
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: was waiting, and Mary registered on it for Susan Shores
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: to be taken to school. After that, she found a
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: shifting room and opened it with her wristband. She changed
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: into a shifting costume and sent her own clothes and
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: belongings home. Children her age did not wear make up,
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: but Mary always stood at the mirror during the shift.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: She always tried as hard as she could to see
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: what Susan Shores looked like. She giggled overse that was
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: scrawled beside the mirror. Rouge your hair and comb your face.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: Many a third head is lost in this place. And
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: then the shift came doubly frightening because of what she
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: knew she was going to do. Especially if you were
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: a hyper altar like Mary, you were supposed to have
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: some sense of the passage of time while you were
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: out of shift. Of course you did not know what
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: was going on, but it was as though a more
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: or less accurate chronometer kept running when you were out
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: of shift. Apparently Mary's was highly inaccurate, because, to her horror,
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: she found herself sitting bolt upright in one of missus
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: Harris's classes, not out on the playgrounds where she had
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: expected Susan Shores to be. Mary was terrified, and the
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: ugly school dress Susan had been wearing accented by its
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: strangeness the seriousness of her premature shift. Children weren't supposed
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: to show much difference from hyper altar to hypoalter, but
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: when she raised her eyes, her fright grew. Children did change.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: She hardly recognized anyone in the room, though most of
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: them must be altars of her own classmates. Missus Harris
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: was a bee shift and overlapped both Mary and Susan,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: but otherwise Mary recognized only Carl Blair's hypo alter because
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: of his freckles. Mary knew she had to get out
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: of there or missus Harris would eventually recognize her. If
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: she left the room quietly, Missus Harris would not question
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: her unless she recognized her. It was no use trying
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: to guess how Susan would walk. Mary stood and went
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: toward the door, glad that it turned her back to
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: missus Harris. It seemed to her that she could feel
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: the teacher's eyes stabbing through her back, but she walked
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: safely from the room. She dashed down the school corridor
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: and out into the street. So great was her fear
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: of what she was doing that her hypoalter's world actually
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: seemed like a different one. It was a long way
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: for Mary to walk across town, and when she rang
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: the bell, Conrad Man's was already home from work. He
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: smiled at her, and she loved him at once. Well
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: what do you want, young lady, he asked. Mary couldn't
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: answer him. She just smiled back what's your name? Eh?
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: Mary went right on smiling, but suddenly he blurred in
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: front of her. Here here, there's nothing to cry about.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: Come on in and let's see if we can help you. Clara,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: we have a visitor, a very sentimental visitor. Mary let
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: him push his big arm around her shoulder and draw her,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: crying into the apartment. Then she saw Clara swimming before her,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: looking like her mother, but no, not at all like
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: her mother. Now see here, chicken, what is it you've
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: come for? Conrad asked, when her crying stopped. Mary had
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: to stare hard at the floor to be able to
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: say it. I want to live with you, Clara was
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: twisting and untwisting a handkerchief. But child, we have already
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: had our first baby appointed to us. He'll be with
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: us next shift, and after that, I have to bear
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: a baby for someone else to keep. We wouldn't be
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: allowed to take care of you. I thought maybe I
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: was your real child. Mary said it, helplessly, knowing in
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: advance what the answer would be. Darling, Clara soothed. Children
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: don't live with their new natural parents. It's neither practical
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: nor civilized. I've had a child conceived and born on
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: my shift, and this baby is my exchange. So you
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: see that you are much too old to be my conception.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: Whoever your natural parents may be, it is just something
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: on record with the medicor genetic division and isn't important.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: But you're a special case, Mary pressed, I thought, because
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: it was a special arrangement, that you are my real parents.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: She looked up and she saw that Clara had turned white,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: and now Conrad Mans was agitated too. What do you
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: mean where a special case? He was staring hard at
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: her because and now for the first time, Mary realized
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: how special this case was, how sensitive they would be
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: about it. He grasped her by the shoulders and turned to her,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: so she faced his unblinking eyes. I said, what do
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: you mean where a special case? Clara? What in thirty
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: heads does this kid mean? His grip hurt her, and
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: she began to cry again. She broke away, you're the
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: hypo aalters of my appointed father and mother. I thought
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: maybe when it was like that, I might be your
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: real child and you might want me. I don't want
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: to be where I am. I want somebody. Clara was
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: calm now, but sudden fear gone. But Darling, if you're
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: unhappy where you are. Only the medicor can reappoint you. Besides,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: maybe your appointed parents are just having some personal problems
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: right now. Maybe if you try to understand them, you
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: would see they really love you. Conrad's face showed that
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: he did not understand. He spoke with a stiff, quiet voice,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: and without taking his eyes from Mary, what are you
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: doing here? My own hyper altar's kid in my house,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: throwing it up to me that I'm married to his
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: wife's hypo alter. They did not feel the earth move
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: as she fearfully did. They sat there staring at her
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: as though they might sit forever, while she backed away
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: out of the apartment and ran into her collapsing world.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: End of Part four, Section five of Beyond Bedlam by
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: Wyman Gwynn. This LibriVox recordings in the public domain read
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: by Ben Tucker. Part five. Conrad Mans's rest day fell
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: the day after Bill Walden's kid showed up at his apartment.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: It was ten days since that straight jacket of a
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: conference on Santa Fe had lost him a chance to
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: blast off a rocket racer, this time on the practical
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: knowledge that emergency business conferences were seldom called after lunch,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: Conrad had placed his reservation for a racer in the afternoon.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: The visit for Mary Walden had upset him every time
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: he thought of it. Since it was his rest day,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: he had no intention of thinking about it, and Conrad's
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: scrupulously drugged mind was capable of just that. So now,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: in the lavish coolness of the lounge at the Rocket Club,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: Conrad sipped his drink contentedly and made no contribution to
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: the gloomy conversation going on around him. Look at it
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: this way, the melancho of Alberts, a pilot from England,
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: morosely emphasized his tone. It takes about ten thousand economic
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: units to jack a forty ton ship up to satellite
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: level and snap it around the course six times. That's
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: just practice force. On the other hand, an intellectual fellow
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: who spends his spare time at a microfilm library doesn't
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: use up one thousand units in a year. In fact,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: his spare time activity may turn up as units gained.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: The Economic Board doesn't argue that our pastime should be gainful.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: They just say rocket racing wastes more economic units than
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: most pilots make on their workdays. I tell you the
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: day is almost here. When they banned the rockets, that's
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: just it. Another pilot put in, there was a time
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: when you could show that rocket races were necessary for
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: better spaceship design. Design has gone way beyond that. From
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: their point of view, we just burn up units as
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: fast as other people create them, and it's no use
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: trying to argue. For the television shows, the board can
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: prove people would rather see a jet skiing meeted a
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: cost of about one hundred that of a rocket race.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: Conrad Mans grinned into his drink. He had been aware
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: for several minutes that pert little Angela, Albert's soft eyed,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: husky voiced wife was trying to catch his eye, but
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: stranded as she was in the buzzing traffic of rockets,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: she was trying to hail the wrong rescuer. He had
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: about fifteen minutes till the ramp boys would have a
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: ship ready for him. Much as he liked Angela, he
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: wasn't going to miss that race. Still, he let his
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: grin broaden, and looking up at her, he lied maliciously
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: by nodding. She interpreted this signal as he knew she
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: would well. At least he would afford her a graceful
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: exit from the boring conversation. He got up and went
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: over and took her hand. Her full lips parted a little,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: and she kissed him on the mouth. Conrad turned to
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: Alberts and interrupted him, Angela and I would like to
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: spend a little time together, do you mind? Alberts was
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: annoyed at having his train of thought broken and rather
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: snapped out the usual courtesy, of course not. I'm glad
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: for you both. Conrad looked the group over with a
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: bland stare. Have you lads ever tried jet skiing? There's
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: more genuine excitement and ten minutes of it than an
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: hour of rocket racing. Personally, I don't care if the
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: board does ban the rockets soon. I'll just hop out
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: to the rocky mountains on rest days. Conrad knew perfectly
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: well that if he had made this assertion before asking
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: Alberts for his wife, the man would have found some
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: excuse to have her remain. All the faces present displayed
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: the aficionado's disdain for one who has just demonstrated he
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: doesn't belong. What the strait jacket? Did? They think they
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: were some ancient order of noblemen? Conrad took Angela's yielding
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: arm and led her serenely away before Alberts could think
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: of anything to detain her. On the way out of
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: the lounge, she stroked his arm with frank admiration. I'm
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: so glad you are agreeable. Honestly, Harold could talk rockets
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: till I died. Conrad bent and kissed her. Angela, I'm sorry,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: but this isn't going to be what you think. I
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: have a ship to take off in just a few minutes,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: she flared and dug into his arm. Now, oh, Conrad, mans,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: you made me believe. He laughed and grabbed her wrists.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: Now now I'm neglecting you to fly a rocket, not
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: just talk about them. I won't let you die. At that,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: she could not suppress her husky, musical laugh. I found
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: that out the last time you and I were together.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: Clara and I had a drink the other day at
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: the Citizens Club. I don't often use dirty language, but
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: I told Clara she must be keeping you in a
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: straight jacket at home. Conrad frowned, wishing she hadn't brought
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: up the subject. It worried him off and on that
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: something was wrong with Clara, something even worse than that
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: awful dreaming business ten days ago. For several shifts now
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: she had been cold. Nor was it just a temporary
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: lack of interest in himself, for she was also cold
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: to the men of their acquaintance, of whom she was
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: usually quite fond. As for himself, he had had to
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: depend on casual contacts such as Angela. Not that they
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: weren't pleasant, but a man and his wife were supposed
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: to maintain a healthy love life between themselves, and it
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: usually meant trouble with the medicor when this broke down,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: Angela glanced at him. I didn't think Clara laughed well
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: at my remark. Is something wrong between you? Oh? No,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: he declared hastily. Clara is sometimes that way. Doesn't catch
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: a joke right off. A page boy approached them when
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: they stood in the rotunda and advised Conrad that a
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: ship was ready. Honestly, Angela, I'll make it up. I promise.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: I know you will, darling, And at least I'm grateful
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: you saved me from all those rocket jets in there.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: Angela raised her lips for a kiss, and afterwards, as
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: she pushed him toward the door, her slightly vacant face
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: smiled at him. Out on the ramp, Conrad found another
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: pilot ready to take off. They made two wagers, first
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: to reach the racing course and winter in a six
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: lap heat around the six hundred mile hexagonal cours. They
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: fired together, and Conrad blasted his ship up on a
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: thunderous column of flame that squeezed him into his seat.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: He was good at this, and he knew he would
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: win the lift to the course. On the course, though
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: if his opponent was any good at all, Conrad would
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: probably lose, because he enjoyed slamming the ship around the
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: course in his wasteful swashbuckling style much more than merely
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: winning the heat. Conrad kept his driving on till the
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: last possible second, and then shot out his nose jets.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: The ship shuddered up through another hundred miles and came
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: to a lolling halt near the starting buize. The other
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: pilot gasped when Conrad shouted at him over the internship,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: the winner by all thirty heads. It was generally assumed
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: that a race up to the course consisted of cutting
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: all jets when you had enough lift, and using the
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: nose brakes only to correct any overshot, What did you do?
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: Just keep your power on and flip the ship around.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: The other racer coasted up to Conrad's level and steadied
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: with a brief forward burst. They got the automatic signal
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: from the starting buoy and went for the first turn,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: nose and nose, about half a mile apart. Conrad lost
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: five thousand yards on the first turn by shoving his
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: power too hard against the starboard steering jets. It made
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: a pretty picture when a racer hammered its way around
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: a turn that way, with a fan of outside jets
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: holding it in place. The other fellow made his turns cleanly,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: using mostly the driving jets for steering, but that didn't
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: look like much to those who happened to flip on
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: their television while this little heat was in progress. On
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: every turn, Conrad lost a little in space, but not
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: in the eye of the automatic televiser on the buoy
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: marking the turn. As usual, he cut closer to the
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: buoys than regulations allowed to give the folks a show
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: without the slightest regret. Conrad lost the heat by a
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: full two sides of the hexagon. He congratulated his opponent
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: and watched the fellow let his ship down carefully toward
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: Earth on its tail jets. For a while, Conrad louled
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: his ship around near the starting buoy and its probably
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: watching eye, flipping through a series of complicated maneuvers with
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: the steering jets. Conrad did not like the grim countenance
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: of outer space, the lifeless, gem like blaze of cloud
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: upon cloud of stars, and the perspectiveless black repelled him.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: He liked rocket racing only because of the neat timing necessary,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: and possibly because the knowledge that he indulged in it
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: scared poor old Bill Walden half to death. To day,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: the bleak aspect of the galaxy harried his mind back
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: upon its own problems. A particularly nasty association of Clara
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: with Bill Walden and his sniveling kid kept dogging Conrad's mind,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: and as soon as stunting had exhausted his excess of fuel,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: he turned the ship to Earth and sent it in
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: with a short, spectacular burst. Now that he stopped to
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: consider it, Clara's strange behavior had begun at about the
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: same time that Bill Walden started cheating on the shifts.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: That kid Mary must have known something was going on,
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: or she would not have done such a disgusting things
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: to come to their apartment. Conrad had let the rocket
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: fall nose down until now it was screaming into the
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: upper ionosphere. With no time to spare, he swiveled the
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: ship on its guiding jets and opened the dry blast
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: at the uprushing earth. He had just completed this wrenching
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: maneuver when two appalling things happened together. Conrad suddenly knew,
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: whether as a momentary leak from Bill's mind to his,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: or as a rapid calculation of his own, that Bill
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: Walden and Clara shared a secret. At that same moment,
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: something tore through his mind like fingers of chill wind,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: with seven gravities, mashing him into the bucket seat. He
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: grunted curses past thin stretched lips, Great blue psychiatrists, What
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: in thirty streat jackets is that three headed fool trying
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: to do kill us both? Conrad just managed to raise
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: his leaden hand and set the plummeting racer for automatic
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: pilot before Bill Walden forced him out of the shift.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: In his last moment of consciousness and in the shock
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: of his overwhelming shame, Conrad felt the bitter irony that
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: he could not cut the power and kill Bill Walden.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: End of Part five, Section six a Beyond Bedlam by
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: Wyman Gwynn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: Read by Ben Tucker. Part six. When Bill Walden became
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: conscious of the thunderous clamor of the breaking ship and
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: the awful weight of deceleration into which he had shifted,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: the core of him froze. He was so terrified that
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: he could not have thought of reshifting, even had there
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: been time. His head rolled on the pad in spite
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: of its weight, and he saw the earth coming at
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: him like a monstrous swater aimed at a fly. Between
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: his fright and the inhuman gravity, he lost consciousness without
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: ever seeing on the control panel the red warning that
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: saved him automatic pilot. The ship settled itself on the
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: ramp in a mushroom of fire. Bill regained awareness several
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: seconds later. He was too shaken to do anything but
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: sit there for a long time. When at last he
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: felt capable of moving, he struggled with the door till
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: he found how to open it and climb down to
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: the still hot ramp he had landed on. It was
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: at least a mile to the Rocket Club, across the
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: barren flat of the field, and he set out on foot. Shortly, however,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: a truck came speeding across to him. The driver leaned out, Hey, Conrad,
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: what's the matter? Why didn't you pull the ship over
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: to the hangars. With Conrad's make up on, Bill felt
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: he could probably get by. Controls aren't working, He offered noncommittally.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: At the club, a place he knew never to have
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: been before in his life. Bill found an unused helicopter
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: and started it with his wristband. He flew the machine
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: into town to the landing station nearest his home. He
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: was doomed. He knew Conrad certainly would report him for this.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: He had not intended to force the shift so early
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: or so violently. Perhaps he had not intended to force
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: it at all this time, but there was something in
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: him more powerful than himself, a need to break the
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: shift and be with Clara that now acted almost independently
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: of him, and certainly without regard for his safety. Bill
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: flew his craft carefully through the city traffic, working his
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: way between the widely spaced towers with the uncertain hand
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: of one to whom machines are not an extension of
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: the body. He put the helicopter down at the landing
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: station with some difficulty. Clara would not be expecting him
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: so early from his apartment. As soon as he had
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: changed make up, he visiophoned her. It was strange how
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: long and how carefully they needed to look at each other,
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: and how few words they could say. Afterward, he seemed
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: calmer and went about getting ready with more efficiency. But
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: when he found himself addressing the package of Conrad's clothes
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: to his home, he chuckled bitterly. It was when he
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: went back to drop the package in the mail chute
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: that he noticed the storage room door ajar. He disposed
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: of the package and went over to the door. Then
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: he stood still, listening. He had to stop his own
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: breath to hear clearly. Bill tightened himself and opened at
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: the door. He flipped on the light and saw Mary
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: the child sat on the floor in the corner, with
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: her knees drawn up against her chest. Between the knees
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: and chest, the frail wrists were crossed, the hands closed limply,
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: like like those of a fetus. The forehead rested on
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: the knees, so that should the closed eyes stray open,
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: they would be looking at the placid hands. The sickening
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: side of the child squeezed down on his heart till
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: the color drained from his face. He went forward and
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: knelt before her. His dry throat hammered with the words
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: what have I done to you? But he could not
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: speak the question of how long she might have been here?
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: He could not bear to think. He put out his hand,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: but he did not touch her. A shudder of revulsion
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: shook him, and he scrambled to his feet. He hurried
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: back into the apartment with only one thought. He must
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: get some one to help her. Only the medicorp could
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: take care of a situation like this. As he stood
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: at the visiophone, he knew that this involuntary act of
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: panic had betrayed all that he had ever thought and done.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: He had to call the Medicorps. He could not face
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: the result of his own behavior without them. Like a
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: ghostly after image, he saw Clara's face on the screen.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: She was lost, cut off, with only himself to depend on.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: A part of him, a place where there were no voices,
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: and a great tragedy had been abruptly shut off. He
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: stood stupidly, confused and disturbed about something it couldn't recall.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: The emotion in his body suddenly had no reference. He
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: stood like a badly frightened animal, while his heart slowed
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: and blood seeped again into whitened paranchemas, while tides of
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: epinephrine burned lower. Remembering he must hurry, Bill left the apartment.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: It was an apartment with its storage room door closed,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: an apartment without a storage room. From the moment that
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: he walked in and took Clara in his arms, he
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: was not worried about being caught. He felt only the
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: great need for her. There seemed only one difference from
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: the first time, and it was a good difference, Because
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: now Clara was so tense and apprehensive. He felt a
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: new tenderness for her, as one might feel for a child.
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: It seemed to him that there was no end to
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: the well of gentleness and compassion that was suddenly in him.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: He was mystified by the depth of this feeling. He
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: kissed her again and again, and petted her as one
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: might a disturbed child. Clara said, oh, Bill, we're doing wrong.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: Mary was here yesterday. Whoever she meant it had no
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: meaning for him. He said, it's all right. You mustn't worry.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: She needs you Bill, and I take you away from her.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: Whatever it was she was talking about was utterly unimportant,
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: beside the fact that she was not happy herself. He
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: soothed her, Darling, you mustn't worry about it. Let's be
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: happy the way we used to be. He led her
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: to a couch and they sat together, her hand resting
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: on his shoulder. Conrad is worried about me. He knows
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: something is wrong. Oh Bill. If he knew, he'd demand
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: the worst penalty for you. Bill felt the stone of
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: fear come back in his chest. He thought too, of Helen,
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: of how intense her shame would be. Medicor action would
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: be machine like logical as a set of equation. They
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: were very likely to take more drastic steps, where the
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: complaints would be so strong and no request for leniency forthcoming.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: Conrad knew now, of course, Bill had felt his hate.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: It was nearing the end. Death would come to Bill
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: with electronic fingers, a ghostly probing in his mind, And suddenly,
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: Claire's great unhappiness in the way she turned her head
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: into his shoulder to cry, forced him to calm the
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: rising panic in himself, and again to caress the fear
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: from her. Even later, when they lay where the moonlight
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: thrust into the room and impalpable shaft of alabaster, he
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: loved her only as a succor, carefully slowly smoothing out
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: her mind, drawing it away from all the other things,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: drawing it down into this one thing, gathering all her
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: mind into her senses, and holding it there, then quickly
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: taking it away from her in a moaning spasm, so
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: that now she was murmuring, murmuring, palely, drifting, sleeping like
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: a loved child. For a long long time, he watched
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: the white moon cut its arc across their window. He
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: listened with a deep pleasure to her evenly breathing sleep.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: But slowly he realized that her breath had changed, that
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: the body so close to his was tensing. His heart
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: gave a great bound, and tiny moths of horror fluttered
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: along his back. He raised himself and saw that the
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: eyes were open in the silver light, even through the
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: make up. He saw that they were Helen's eyes. He
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: did the only thing left for him. He shifted. But
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: in that terrible instant he understood something he had not anticipated.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: In Helen's eyes There was not only intense shame over
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: shifting into her Hypoalter's home. There was not only the
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: disgust with himself for breaking communication coats. He saw that
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: as a woman of the twentieth century might have felt.
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: Helen hated Clara as a sexual arrival. She hated Clara
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: doubly because he had turned not to some other woman,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: but to the other part of herself, whom she could
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: never know. As he shifted, Bill knew that the next
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: light he saw would be on the adamant face of
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: the Medicorps. Major Paul Gray, with two other Medicorps officers,
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: entered the Walden apartment about two hours after Bill left
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: it to meet Clara. Major Gray was angry with himself.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: Important information on a case of communication breaks and drug
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: refusal could be learned by letting it run its course
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: under observation, But he had not intended Conrad Mans's life
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: to be endangered, and certainly he would not have taken
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: the slightest chance on what they found in the Walden
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: apartment if he had expected it this early. Major Gray
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: blamed himself for what had happened to Mary Walden. He
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: should have had the machines watching Susan and Mary at
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: the same time that they were relaying all wristband data
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: for Bill and Conrad and for Helen and Clara to
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: his office. He had not done this because it was
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: Susan's shift and he had not expected Mary to break it.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: Now he knew that Helen and Bill Walden had been
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: quarreling over the fact that Clara was cheating on Helen's shifts,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: and their conversations had directed the unhappy child's attention to
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: the man's couple. She had broken shift to meet them,
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: looking for a loving father. Of course, still, things would
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: not have turned out so badly if Captain Thel Mary's
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: school officer had not attributed Susan Shore's disappearance only to
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: poor drug acclimatization. Captain thel had naturally known that Major
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: Gray was in town to prosecute Bill Walden, because the
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: Major had called on him to discuss the case. Yet
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: it had not occurred to him until eighteen hours after
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: Susan's disappearance that Mary might have forced the shift for
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: some reason associated with her aberrant father. By the time
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: the Captain advised him, Major Gray already knew that Bill
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: had forced the shift on Conrad under desperate circumstances, and
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: he had decided to close in. He fully expected to
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: find a father and daughter at the apartment, and now
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: it sickened him to see the child's demented condition and
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: realized that Bill had left her there. Major Gray could
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: see at a glance that Mary Walden would not be
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: accessible for days, even with the best treatment. He left
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: it to the two other officers to hospitalize the child
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: and set out for the man's apartment. He used his
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: master wristband to open the door there and found a
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: woman standing in the middle of the room, wrapped in
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: a sheet. He knew that this must be Helen Walden.
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: It was odd how ill fitting Clara Man's soft, sensual
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: make up seemed even to a stranger. On the more
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: rigidly composed face before him. He guessed that Helen would
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: wear color higher on her cheeks, and the mouth would
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: be done in severe lines. Certainly, the present haughty face
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: struggled with its incongruous make up as well as the
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: indignity of her dress. She pulled the sheet tighter about
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: her and said, icily, I will not wear that woman's clothes.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: Major Gray introduced himself and asked where is Bill Walden.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: He shifted. He left me with Oh, I'm so ashamed.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: Major Gray shared her loathing. There was no way to
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: escape the conditioning of childhood. Sex. Relations between hyper altar
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: and hype oaltar were more than outlawed. They were in
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: themselves disgusting. If they were allowed, they could destroy this civilization.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: Those idealists, they were almost all hypoalters, of course, who
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: wanted the old terminology changed. Didn't take that into account.
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: Next thing, they'd want children to live with their actual parents.
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: Major Gray stepped into the bedroom through the bathroom door.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: Beyond he could see Conrad Man's changing his make up.
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: Conrad turned and eyed him bluntly. Would you mind staying
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: out of here till I'm finished. I've had about all
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: I can take. Major Gray shut the door and returned
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: to Helen Walden. He took a hypothalamic block from his
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: own farmer case and handed it to her. Here, you're
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: probably on very low drug levels, you'd better take this.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: He poured her a glass of pop from a decanter,
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: and while they waited for Conrad, he dialed the nearest
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: shifting station on the visiophone and ordered up an emergency
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: shifting costume for her. When at last they were both dressed,
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: made up to their satisfaction, and drugged to his satisfaction,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: he had them set on a couch together across from him.
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: They sat at opposite ends of it, stiff with resentment
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: at each other's presence. Major Gray said, calmly, you realize
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: that this matter is coming to medicor trial. It will
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: be serious. Major Gray watched their faces on hers. He
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: saw grim determination on Conrad's face. He saw the heavy
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: movement of alarm. The man loved his wife that was
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: going to help. It is necessary in a case such
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: as this for the medicor to weigh your decisions along
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: with the scientific evidence we will accumulate. Unfortunately, the number
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: of laymen directly involved in this case and not on
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: trial is only two, due to your peculiar marriage. If
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: the hypoaltars Clara and Conrad were married to other partners,
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: we might call on as many as six involved persons
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: and obtain a more equitable laid judgment. As it stands,
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: the entire responsibility rests on the two of you. Helen
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: Walden was primely confident. I don't see how we can
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: fail to treat the matter with perfect logic. After all,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: it is not we who neglected our drug levels. They
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: were refusing to take their drugs, weren't they, she asked,
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: hoping for the worst, and certain she was right. Yes,
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: this is drug refusal. Major Gray paused while she relished
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: the answer. But I must correct you in one impression.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: Your proper drug levels do not assure that you will
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: act logically in this matter. The drugged mind is logical. However,
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: its fundamental datum is that the drugs and drugged minds
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: must be protected before everything else. He watched Conrad's face
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: while he added, Because of this, it is possible for
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: you to arrive logically at a conclusion that death is
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: the required solution. He paused, looking at their white lips.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: Then he added, actually, other more suitable solutions may be possible.
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: But they were refusing their drugs. She said, you talk
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: as if you are defending them. Aren't you a medicor prosecutor.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: I do not prosecute people in the ancient twentieth century.
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: Since missus Walden, I prosecute the acts of drug refusal
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: and communication breaks. There was quite a difference. Well, she said,
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: almost explosively. I always knew Bill would get into trouble
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: sooner or later with his wild antisocial ideas. I never
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: dreamed the medicor would take his side. Major Gray held
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: his breath, almost certain now that she would walk into
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: the trap. If she did, he could save clare Man's
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: before the trial. After all, they have broken every communication code.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: They have refused to drugs, a defiance aimed at our
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: very lives. They shut up. It was the first time
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: Conrad Mans had spoken since he sat down. The Medicorps
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: spent weeks gathering evidence in preparing their recommendations. You haven't
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: seen any of that, and you've already made up your mind.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: How logical is that? It sounds as if you want
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: your husband dead. Maybe the poor devil had some reason,
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: after all for what he did On the man's face.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: There was the nearest approach to hate that the drugs would.
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: Major Gray let out his breath softly. They were split permanently.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: She would have to trade him a mild decision on
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: Clara in order to save Bill, and even there, if
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: the subsequent evidence gave any slight hope, Major Gray believed
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: now that he could work on Conrad to hang the
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: lay judgment and let the medicor scientific recommendation go through unmodified.
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: He let them stew in their cross purposed silence for
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: a while, and then nailed home a disconcerting fact. I
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: think I should remind you that there are a few
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: advantages to having your altar extinguished. In the mnemonic eraser.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: A man whose hyper altar has been extinguished must report
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: on his regular shift days to a hospital and be
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: placed for five days in suspended animation. This is not
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: very healthy for the body, but necessary otherwise. Everyone's natural
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: distaste for his own altar and the understandable wish to
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: spend twice as much time living would generate schemes to
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: have one's altar sucked out by the eraser. That happened
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: extensively back in the twenty first century, before the five
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: days suspension was required. It was also used as a
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: cure for schizophrenia, but it was, of course only the
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: brutal murder of innocent personalities. Major Gray smiled grimly to himself.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: Now I will have to ask you both to accompany
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: me to the hospital. I will want you missus Walton,
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: to shift at once to missus Mann's. Mister Mans, you
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: will have to remain under the close observation of an officer.
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: Until Bill Walden tries to shift back, we have to
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: catch him with an injection to keep him in shift.
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: The young medicop put the syringe aside and laid his
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: hand on Bill Walden's forehead. He pushed the hair back
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: out of Bill's eyes. There, mister Walden, you don't have
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: to struggle now. Bill let out his breath in a
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: long sigh. You've caught me. I can't shift any more,
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: can I? That's right, mister Walton, not unless we want
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: you to. The young man picked up his medical equipment
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: and stepped aside. Bill noticed then the medicor officer standing
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: in the background. The man was watching as though he
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: contemplated some melancholy distance. I am Major Gray, Bill, I
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: am handling your case. Bill did not answer. He lay
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: staring at the hospital ceiling. Then he felt his mouth
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: open in a slow grin. What's funny? Major Gray asked mildly, humm,
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: leaving my hypo altar with my wife. Bill answered candidly
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: it had already ceased to be funny to him, But
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: he saw Major Gray smile in spite of himself. They
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: were quite upset when I found them. It must have
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: been some scramble before that. Major Gray came over and
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: sat in the chair vacated by the young man who
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: had just injected. Bill. You know, Bill, we will need
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: a complete analysis of you. We want to do everything
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: we can to save you, but it will require your
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: co operation. Bill nodded, feeling his chest tightened. Here it
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: came right to the end. They would be tearing him
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: apart to find out what made him work. Major Gray
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: must have sensed Bill's bitter will to resist. His resonant
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: voice was soft, his face kindly. We must have your
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: sincere desire to help. We can't force you to do
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: anything except die. Bill said, Maybe helping us get the
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: information that might save your life at the trial isn't
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: worth the trouble to you. But your aberration has seriously
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: disturbed the lives of several people. Don't you think you
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: owe it to them to help us prevent this sort
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: of thing in the future. Major Gray ran his hand
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: through his whitening hair. I thought you would like to know.
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: Mary will come through all right. We will begin shortly
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: to acclimatize her to her new appointed parents, who will
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: be visiting her each day. That will accelerate her recovery
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: a great deal, of course, right now she is still inaccessible.
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: The brutally clear picture of Mary alone in the storage
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: room crashed back into Bill's mind after a while, in
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: such slow stages that the beginning was hardly noticeable. He
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: began to cry. The young attacop injected him with a
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: sleeping compound, but not before Bill knew he would do
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: whatever the medicorp wanted. Into Part six, Section seven of
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: Beyond Bedlam by Wyman Gwynn The s LibriVox recordings in
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: the public domain read by Ben Tucker. Part seven. The
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: next day was crowded with battery after battery of tests.
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: The interviews were endless. He was subjected to one hundred
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: artificial situations, and every reaction from his blood sugar to
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: the frequency ranges of his voice was measured. They gave
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: him only small amounts of drugs in order to test
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: his reaction to them. Late in the evening, Major Gray
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: came by and interrupted an officer who was taking an
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: electro encephalogram for the sixth time after injection of a drug.
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: All right, Bill, you've really given us cooperation. But after
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: you've had your dinner, I hope you won't mind if
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: I can your room and talk with you for a
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: little while. When Bill finished eating, he waited impatiently in
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: his room for the Medicorp officer, Major Gray, came soon after.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: He shook his head at the mute question. Bill shot
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: at him. No, Bill, we will not have the results
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: of your tests evaluated until late tomorrow morning. Can't tell
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: you a thing until the trial. In any case, when
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: will that be? As soon as the evaluations of your
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: tests is in. Major Gray ran his hand over his
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: smooth chin and seemed to sigh. Tell me, Bill, how
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: do you feel about your case? How did you get
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: into this situation? And what do you think about it now?
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: The officer sat in the room's only chair and motioned
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: Bill to the con Bill was astonished at his sudden
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: desire to talk about his problem. He had to laugh
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: to cover it up. I guess I feel as if
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: I'm being condemned for trying to stay sober. Bill used
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: the ancient word with a mock cone of righteousness that
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: he knew the major would understand. Major Gray smiled, how
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: do you feel when you're sober? Bill searched his face
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: the way the ancient moderns did. I guess I feel
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: what happens to me the way it happens to me,
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: not the artificial way the drugs let it happen. I
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: think there is a way for us to live without
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: the drugs and really enjoy life. Have you ever cut
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: down on your drugs? Major the officer shook his head.
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: Bill smiled at him dreamily. You ought to try it.
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: It's as though a new life is suddenly opened up.
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: Everything looks different to you. Look. With an average life
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: span of a hundred years, each of us only lives
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: fifty years, and our altar lives the other fifty. Yet
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: even on half time, we experience only about half the
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: living we do. If we didn't take the drugs, we
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: would be able to feel the loves and hatreds and
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: desires of life, no matter how many mistakes we made.
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: We would be able occasionally to live those in tense
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: moments that made the ancients great. Major Gray said tonelessly.
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: The agents were great at killing, cheating, and debasing one another.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: Now they were worse sober than drunk. This time he
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: did not smile at the word. Bill understood the implacable
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: logic before him, the logic that had saved man from
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: himself by smothering his spirit. The carefully achieved logic of
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: the drugs that had seized upon the disassociated personality and
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: engineered it into a smoothly running machine where there was
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: no unhappiness, because there was no great happiness, where there
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: was no crime except failure to take the drugs or
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: cross the altar sex line. Without drugs, he was capable
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: of fury, and he felt it. Now. You should see
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: how foolish these communication codes look when you're undrugged. This
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: stupid hide and seek of shifting. These two headed monsters
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: simpering about their artificial morals and their endless prescriptions. They
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: belong in crazy houses. What use is there in such
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: a world. If we are all this sick, we should die.
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: Bill stopped, and there was suddenly a ringing silence in
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: the barren little room. Finally, Major Gray said, I think
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: you can see Bill, that your desire to live without
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: drugs is incompatible with this society. It would be impossible
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: for us to maintain in you an artificial need for
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: the drugs. That would be healthy only if we can
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: clearly demonstrate that this aberration is not an inherent part
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: of your personality. Can we do something medically or psychosurgically
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: about it. Bill did not at first see the implication
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: in this. When he did, he thought of Clara rather
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: than of himself, and his voice was shaken. Is it
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: a localized aberration in Clara? Major Gray looked at him levily,
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: I have arranged for you to be with Clara Manns.
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: A little while in the morning, he stood up and
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: said good night, and was gone slowly, as if it
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: hurt him to move. Bill turned off the light and
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: lay on the cot in the semi dark. After a while,
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: he could feel his heart begin to take hold, and
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: he started feeling better. It was as though a man
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: who had thought himself permanently expatriated had been told, tomorrow,
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: you walk just over that hill and you will be home.
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: All through the night, he lay awake, alternating between panic
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: and desperate longing, in a cycle with which finally he
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: became familiar. At last, as a rusty light of dawn
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: reddened his silent room, he fell into a troubled sleep.
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: He started awake in broad daylight, and Orderly was at
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: the door with his breakfast tray. He could not eat,
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: of course. After the Orderly left, he hastily changed to
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: a new hospital uniform and washed himself. He redid his
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: make up with a trembling hand, straightened the bedclothes, and
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: then he sat on the edge of the cot. No
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: one came for him. The young metacop who had given
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: him the injection that caught him and Shift, finally entered
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: and was standing near him before Bill was aware of
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: his presence. Good morning, mister Walden, how are you feeling.
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: Bill's wildly oscillating tensions froze at the point where he
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: could only move helplessly with events and suffer a constant,
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: unchangeable longing. It was as if in a dream that
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: they moved in silence together down the long corridors of
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: the hospital and took the elevator to an upper floor.
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: The metacop opened the door to a room and let
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: Bill enter. Bill heard the door close behind him. Clara
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: did not turn from where she stood looking out the window.
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: Bill did not care that the walls of the chill
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: little room were almost certainly recording every sight and sound.
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: All his hunger was focused on the back of the
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: girl at the window. The room seemed to ring with
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: his racing blood, but he was slowly aware that something
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: was wrong, and when at last he called her name,
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: his voice broke still. Without turning, she said, in a
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: strained monotone, I want you to understand that I have
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: consented to this meeting only because Major Gray has assured
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: me it is necessary. It was a long time before
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: he could speak. Clara, Ah, I need you, she spun
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: on him. Have you no shame? You are married to
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: my hyper altar. Don't you understand that? Her face was
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: suddenly wet with tears, and the intensity of her shame
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: flamed at him from her cheeks. How can Conrad ever
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: forgive me for being with his hyper altar and talking
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: about him? Oh? How can I be so mad? They
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: have done something to you, he said, shaking with atention.
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: Her chin raised at this. She was defiant, he saw,
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: though not toward himself he no longer existed for her,
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: but toward that part of herself which once had needed
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: him and now no longer existed. They have cured me,
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: she declared. They have cured me of everything but my shame,
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: and they will help me get rid of that as
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: soon as you leave this room. Bill stared at her
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: before leaving out. In the corridor, the young Metacopp did
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: not look him in the face. They went back to
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: Bill's room and the officer without a word, Bill lay
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: down on his cot. Presently Major Gray entered the room.
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: He came over to the cot. I'm sorry it had
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: to be this way, Bill, Bill's words came tonelessly from
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: his dry throat. Was it necessary to be cruel? It
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: was necessary to test the result of her psychosurgery. Also,
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: it will help her over her shame. She might otherwise
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: have retained a seat of fear that she still loved you.
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: Bill did not feel anything any more. Staring at the ceiling,
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: he knew there was no place left for him in
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: this world, and no one in it who needed him.
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: The only person who had really needed him had been Merry,
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: and he could not bear to think of how he
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: had treated her. Now the medicor was efficiently curing the
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: child of the hurt he had done her. They had
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: already erased from Clara any need for him she had
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: ever felt. This seemed funny, and he began to laugh.
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: Everything is being cured of me, yes, Bill, that is necessary.
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: When Bill went on laughing, Major Gray's voice turned quite sharp.
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: Come with me, it's time for your trial. The enormous
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: room in which they held the trial was utterly barren.
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: At the great oaken table around which they all sat,
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: there were three Medicorp officers in addition to Major Gray.
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: Helen did not speak to Bill when they brought him in.
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: He was placed on the same side of the table,
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: with an officer between them. Two orderlies stood behind Bill's chair.
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: Other than these people, there was no one in the room.
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: The great windows were high above the floor and displayed
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: only the blissful sky. Now and then Bill saw a
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: flock of pigeons wafted along on silver turning wings. Everyone
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: at the table except himself, had a copy of his
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: case report, and they discussed it with clipped sentences between
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: the stone floor and the vaulted ceiling. A subtle echo
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: Lalia babbled about Bill's problem behind their human talk. The
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: discussion of the report lulled when Major Gray rapped on
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: the table. He glanced on, smiling from face to face,
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: and his voice hurried the ritual life words. This is
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: a court of medicine co joining the results of medical
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: science and considered laid judgment to arrive at a decision
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: in the case of patient Bill Walden. The patient is
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: hospitalized for a history of drug refusal and communication breaks.
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: We have before us the medical case record of patient Walden.
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: Has everyone present studied this record, All at the table nodded?
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: Do all present feel competent to pass judgment in this case?
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: Again there came the agreement. Major Gray continued, it is
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: my duty to advise you, in the presence of the patient,
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: of the profound difference between a trial for simple drug
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: refusal and one in which that aberration is compounded with
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: communication breaks. It is true that no other aberration is
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: possible when the drugs are taken as prescribed. After all,
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: the drugs are the basis for our schizophrenic society. Nevertheless,
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: simple drug refusal often is a mere matter of physiology,
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: which is easy enough to remedy. A far more profound
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: threat to our society is the break in communication. This
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: generally is more deeply motivated in the patient and is
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: often inaccessible to therapy. Such a patient is driven to
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: emotive explorations which place the various ancient passions and the
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: infamous art of historical gesture such as give me liberty
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: or give me death above the welfare of society. Bill
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: watched the birds flash down the sky a handful of
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: heavenly coin. Never had it seemed to him so good
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: to look at the sky. If they hospitalize me, he thought,
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: I will be content forever to sit and look from windows.
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: Our schizophrenic society, Major Gray was saying, holds together and
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: runs smoothly because in each individual the personality conflicts have
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: been compartmentalized between hyper altar and hypo altar. On the
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: social level, conflicting personalities are kept on opposite shifts, never
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: contact each other, or they are kept on shifts where
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: contact is possible no more than one or two days
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: out of ten. Bill Walden's break of shift is the
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: type of behavior designed to reactivate these conflicts and to
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: generate the destructive passions on which an undrugged mind feeds. Already,
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: illness and disrupted lives have resulted. Major Gray paused and
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: looked directly at Bill. Exhaustive tests have demonstrated that your
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: entire personality is involved. I might also say that the
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: aberration to live without the drugs and to break communication
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: codes is your personality. All these medicor officers are agreed
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: on that diagnosis. It remains now for us of the
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: medicor to sit with the layman intimately involved and decide
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: on the action to be taken. The only possible alternatives
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: after that diagnosis are permanent hospitalization or total removal of
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: the personality by mnemonic erasure. Bill could not speak. He
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: saw Major Gray nod to one of the orderlies and
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: felt the man pushing up his sleeve and injecting his
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: nerveless arm. They were forcing him to shift, he knew,
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: so that Conrad Mans could sit on the trial and participate. Helplessly,
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: he watched the great sky blacken in the room dim
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: and disappear. Major Gray did not avert his face as
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: did the others while the shift was in progress. Helen Walden,
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: he saw, was dramatizing her shame at being present during
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: a shift, but the Medicorp officers simply stared at the table.
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: Major Gray watched the face of Conrad Man's tape form
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: while the man who was going to be tried faded.
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: Bill Walden had been without make up, and as soon
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: as he was sure Mans could hear him, Major Gray apologized,
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: I hope you won't object to this brief interlude in
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: public without make up. You are present at the trial
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: of Bill Walden. Conrad Mans nodded, and Major Gray waited
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: another full minute for the shift to complete itself before
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: he continued, mister Mans, during the two days you waited
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: in the hospital for us to catch Walden and shift,
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: I discussed this case quite thoroughly with you, especially as
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: it applied to the case of Clara Man's on which
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: we were already working. You will recall that in the
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: case of your wife, the medicor diagnosis was one of
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: a clearly localized aberration. It was quite simple to apply
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: the mnemonic eraser to that small section without disturbing in
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: any way her basic personality. Medicor agreement was for this procedure,
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: and the case did not come to trial, but simply
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: went to operation because lay agreement was obtained first yourself.
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: And eventually Major Gray paused and let the memory of
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: Helen's stubborn insistence that Clara die stir in Conrad's mind.
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: Missus Walden agreed with the medicor. Major Gray let the
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: room wait in silence for a while. The case of
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: Bill Walden is quite different. The aberration involves the whole
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: personality in the alternative actions to be taken or permanent
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: hospitalization or total erasure. In this case, I believe that
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: medicor's opinion will be divine as to proper action. And
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: Major Gray paused again and looked levely at Conrad Mann's
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: This may be true also of the lay opinion. How's
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: that Major demanded the highest ranking medical officer present, a
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: Colonel named Hart, a tall, handsome man on whom the
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: military air was a becoming skin. What do you mean
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: about medical opinion being divided? Major Gray answered quietly, I'm
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: holding out for hospitalization. Colonel Heart's face reddened. He thrust
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: it forward and straightened his back. That's preposterous. This is
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: a clear cut case of a dangerous threat to our society,
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: and we, let me remind you are sworn to protect
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: that society. Major Gray felt very tired. It was, after
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: all difficult to understand why he always fought so hard
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: against a rature of these abarrent cases. But he began
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: with quiet determination. The threat to society is effectively removed
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: by either of the alternatives, hospitalization or total erasure. I
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: think you can all see from Bill Walden's medical record
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: that his is a well rounded personality with a remarkable mind.
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: In the environment of the twentieth century. He would have
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: been an outstanding citizen, and possibly if there had been
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: more like him, our present society would have been better
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: for it. Our history has been one of weeding out
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: all personalities that did not fit easily into our drug society.
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: Today there are so few left that I have handled
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: only one hundred and thirty six in my entire career.
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: Major Gray saw that helen Walden was tensing in her chair.
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: He suddenly realized that she sensed better than he the
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: effect he was having on the other men. We should
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: not forget that each time we erase one of these
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: personalities he pressed on relentlessly, society loses irrevocably a certain
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: capacity for change. If we eliminate all personalities who do
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: not fit, we may find ourselves without any minds capable
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: of meeting future change. Our direct ancestors were largely the
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: inmates of mental hospitals. We are fortunate they were not
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: erased conrad Man's He asked, abruptly, what is your opinion
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: on the case of Bill Walden. Helen Walden started, but
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: Conrad Man shrugged his muscular shoulders oh hospitalize the three
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: headed monster. Major Gray snapped his eyes directly past Colonel
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: Hart and fastened them on the medicor captain your opinion, Captain.
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: But Helen Walden was too quick. Before he could wrap
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: the table for order, she had her thin words hanging
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: in the echoing room. Having been mister Walden's wife for
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: fifteen years, my sentiments naturally inclined me to ask for hospitalization.
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: That is why I may safely say, if Major Gray
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: will pardon me, that the logic of the drugs does
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: not entirely fail us in a situation like this. Helen
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: waited while all present got the idea that Major Gray
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: had accused them of being illogical. Bill's aberration has led
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: to our daughter's illness, and think how quickly it contaminated Claire.
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: I cannot ask that society any longer expose itself, even
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: to the extent of keeping Bill in the isolation of
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: the hospital, for my purely sentimental reasons. As for Major
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: Gray's closing remarks, I cannot see how it is fair
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: to bring my husband a trial as a threat to society.
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: If some future chance is expected in which a man
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: of his behavior would benefit society, surely such a change
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: could only be one that would ruin our present world,
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: or Bill would hardly fit it. I would not want
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: to save Bill or any one else for such a future.
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: She did not have to say anything further. Both of
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: the other medicor officers were now fully roused to their duty.
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: Colonel Hart, of course humped at the opinions of a
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: woman and cast his with Major Gray. But the fate
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: of Bill Walden was sealed. Major Gray sat weary and
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: uneasy as the creeping little doubts began. In the end,
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: he would be left with the one big stone heavy doubt.
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: Could he have gone through with this if he had
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: not been drugged? And how would the logic of the
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: trial look with drugs? He became aware of the restiveness
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: in the room they were waiting for him, now that
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: the decision was irrevocable without the drugs. He reflected, they
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: might be feeling what was the ancient word guilt? No,
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: that was what the criminal felt, remorse, That would be
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: what they should be feeling. Major Gray wished Helen Walden
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: could be forced to witness the erasure. People did not
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: realize what it was like. What was it? Bill had said?
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: You should see how foolish these communication codes took When
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: you are undrugged. This stupid hide and seek of shifting. Well,
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: wasn't that a change to be inspected seriously? If you
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: were taking it seriously enough to kill the man for it.
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: As soon as this case was completed, he would have
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: to return to his city and blot himself out so
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: that his own hyper altar Ralph Singer, a painter of
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: bad pictures and a useless fool, could waste five more days.
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: To that man, he lost half his possible living days.
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: What earthly good was Singer? Major Gray roused himself and
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: motioned the orderly to inject Conrad mans so that Bill
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: Walden would be forced back in to shift. As soon
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: as I have advised the patient of our decision, you
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: will all be dismissed. Naturally, I anticipated this decision and
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: have arranged for immediate erasure. After the erasure, mister Manns,
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: you will be instructed to appear regularly for suspended animation.
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: For some reason, the first thing Bill Walden did when
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: he became conscious of his surroundings was to look out
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: the great window for the flock of birds. But they
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: were gone. Bill looked at Major Gray and said, what
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: are you going to do? The officer ran his hand
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: back through his whitening hair, but he looked at Bill
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: without wavering. You will be erased. Bill began to shake
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: his head. There's something wrong, he said Bill. The major began.
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: There is something wrong, Bill repeated hopelessly. Why must we
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: be split so there is always something missing each of us?
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: Why must we be stupefied with drugs that keep us
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: from knowing what we should feel? I was trying to
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: live a better life. I did not want to hurt anyone,
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: but you did hurt others. Major Gray said bluntly, you
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: would do so again if allowed to function in your
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: own way in this society. Yet it would be insufferable
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: to you to be hospitalized. You would be shut off
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: forever from searching for another clearman's And there is no
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: one else for you, is there? Bill looked up, his
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: eyes cringing as though they stared at death. No one else,
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: he asked, vacantly, No one. The two orderlies lifted him
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: up by his arms, almost carrying him into the operating room.
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: His feet dragged helplessly. He made no resistance as they
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: lifted him onto the operating table and strapped him down.
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: Beside him was the great panel of the mnemonic eraser
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: with its thousand unblinking eyes. The helmet like prober cabled
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: to this calculator was fastened about his skull, and he
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: could no longer see the professor who was lecturing in
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: the amphitheater above. But along his body he could see
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: the group of medical students. They were looking at him
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: with great interest, too young not to let the human
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: drama interfere with their technical education. The professor, however, droned
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: in a purely objective voice. The mnemonic eraser can selectively
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: shunt from the brain any identifiable category of memory and
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: erase the synaptic patterns associated with its translation into action.
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: Circulating memory is disregarded. The machine only locates and shunts
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: out those energies present as permanent memory. These are there
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: in part as permanently echoing frequencies enclosed cytoplasmic systems. These
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: systems are in contact with the rest of the nervous
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: system only during the phenomenon of remembrance. Remembrance occurs when
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: at all the synapses in a given network. Why the
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: permanently echoing frequencies are duplicated as tree circulating frequencies. The
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: objective in a total operation of the sort before us
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: is to distinguish all the stored permanent frequencies typical of
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: the personality you wish to extinguish from the frequencies typical
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: of the other personality present in the brain. Major Gray's face,
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: very tired but still wearing a mask of adamant reassurance,
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: came into Bill's vision. There will be a few moments
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 1: of drug induced terror, Bill, that is necessary for the operation.
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: I hope knowing it beforehand will help you ride with it.
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: It will not be for long. He squeezed Bill's shoulder
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: and was gone. The trick we learned early in our history,
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: when this type of total operation was more often necessary.
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: The professor continued, it is really quite simple to extinguish
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: one personality while leaving the other undisturbed. The other personality
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: in the case before us has been drug and mobilized
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: to keep this one from shifting. At the last moment,
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: this personality before us will be drugs stimulated to bring
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: it to the highest possible pitch of total activity. This
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: produces utterly disorganized activity, every involved neuron and synapse being
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: activated simultaneously by the drug. It is then a simple
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: matter for the mnemonic eraser to locate all permanently echoing
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: frequencies involved in this personality and suck them into its receiver.
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: Bill was suddenly aware that a needle had been thrust
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: into his arm. Then it was as though all the terror, panic,
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: and traumatic incidents of his whole life leaped into his mind.
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: All the pleasant experiences and feelings he had ever known
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: were there too, but were transformed into terror. A bell
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: was ringing with regular strokes across the panel of the
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: mnemonic eraser. The tiny counting lights were alive with movement.
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: There was in Bill a fright, a demand for survival
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 1: so great that it could not be felt. It was
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: actually from an island of complete calm that part of
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: him saw the medical students rising, dismayed and whitefaced from
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: their seats. Was apart from himself that his body strained
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: to lift some mountain and filled the operating amphitheater with
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: shrieking echoes. And all the time, the thousand eyes of
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: the mnemonic eraser flickered in swift patterns, a silent measure
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: of the cells and circuits of his mind. Abruptly, the
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 1: tiny red counting lights went off. A red beam glowed
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 1: with a burr of warning. Someone said, Now the mind
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: of Bill Walden flashed along a wire as electrical energy
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: and converted on the control panel into mechanical energy. It
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: spun a small ratchet counter. Please sit down, the professor
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: said to the shaken students. The drug that has kept
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: the other personality immobilized is being counteracted by this next injection.
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: Now that the sickly personality has been dissipated, the healthy
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: one can be brought back rapidly. As you are aware,
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 1: the synapse operates on the binary yes no choice system
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 1: of an electronic calculator. All synapses which were involved in
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: the diseased personality have now been reduce used to an
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: atypical uniform threshold. Thus they can be re educated in
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: new patterns by the healthy personality remaining. There. You see
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: the countenance of the healthy personality appearing. It was Conrad
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: Man's who looked up at them with a wry grin.
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: He rotated his shoulders to loosen them. How many of
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: you pushed old Bill Wilden around? He left me with
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 1: some sore muscles. Well, I did that often enough to him.
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: Major Gray stood over him, face sick and white, with
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: the horror of what he had seen. According to law,
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: mister Mans, you and your wife are entitled to five
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: rest days on your next shift. When they are over,
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 1: you will of course report for suspended animation for what
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: would have been your hyper altars shift. Conrad Mans's grin
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: shrank and vanished. Would have been Bill is gone. Yes,
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: I never thought i'd miss him. Conrad looked as sick
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: as Major Gray felt. It makes me feel I don't
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: know if I can explain it, sort of amputated, as
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: though something's wrong with me, because everybody else has an
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 1: altar and I don't. Did the poor son of a
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 1: strait jacket suffer much? I'm afraid he did. Conrad Mans
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: lay still for a moment, with his eyes closed and
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: his mouth thin with pity and remorse. What will happen
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: to Helen? She'll be all right, Major Gray said, there
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 1: will be Bill's insurance, naturally, and she won't have much
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: trouble finding another husband. That kind never seems to five
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: rest days, Conrad repeated, is that what you said? He
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 1: sat up and swung his legs off the table, and
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: he was grinning again. I'll get in a whole shift
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: of jet skiing. Now. Wait, I've got a date with
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: the wife of a friend of mine out at the
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: rocket grounds. I'll take Clara out there. She'll like some
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: of the men. Major Gray nodded, abstractly good idea. He
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: shook hands with Conrad Man's, wished him fun on his
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: rest shift, and left, taking a helicopter back to his city.
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: Major Gray thought of his own hyperaltar Ralph Singer. He
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 1: had often wished that the silly fool could be erased.
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 1: Now he wondered how it would be to have only
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: one personality, and, wondering, realized that Conrad Man's had been right.
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: It would be like amputation, the shameful distinction of living
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 1: in a schizophrenic society with no altar. No Bill Walden
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: had been wrong, completely wrong, both about drugs and being
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: split into two personalities. What one made up in pleasure
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 1: through not taking drugs was more than lost in the
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: suffering of conflict, frustration, and hostility, And having an altar
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: any kind, even one as useless as Singer, meant actually
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: not being alone. Major Gray parked the helicopter and found
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 1: a shifting station. He took off his make up, addressed
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: and mailed his clothes, and waited for the shift to come.
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: It was a pretty wonderful society he lived in. He
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: realized he wouldn't trade it for the kind Bill Walden
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: had wanted. Nobody in his right mind would End of
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: Part seven, End of Beyond Bedlam by Wyman Gwynn