Martian Time Slip

Steiner said quickly, "To camps back on Earth."

"Let's go and find Manfred," Miss Milch said. "All right? I think he knows this is the day you come; he was standing by the window, but of course he does that a lot."

Suddenly, to his own surprise, he burst out in a choked voice, "I wonder if maybe they might be right. What use is it to have a child that can't talk or live among people?"

Miss Milch glanced at him but said nothing.

"He'll never be able to hold a job," Steiner said. "He'll always be a burden on society, like he is now. Isn't that the truth?"

"Autistic children still baffle us," Miss Milch said. "By what they are, and how they got that way, and by their tendency to begin to evolve mentally, all at once, for no apparent reason, after years of complete failure to respond."

"I think I can't in good conscience oppose this bill," Steiner said. "Not after thinking it over. Now that the first shock is over. It would be fair. I feel it's fair." His voice shook.

"Well," Miss Milch said, "I'm glad you didn't say that to Anne Esterhazy, because she'd never let you go; she'd be after you making speeches at you until you came around to her side." She held open the door to the big playroom. "Manfred is over in the corner."

Seeing his son from a distance, Steiner thought, You would never know to look at him. The large, well-formed head, the curly hair, the handsome features... The boy was bent over, absorbed in some object which he held. A genuinely goodlooking boy, with eyes that shone sometimes mockingly, sometimes with glee and excitement... and such terrific coordination. The way he sprinted about, on the tips of his toes, as if dancing to some unheard music, some tune from inside his own mind whose rhythms kept him enthralled.

We are so pedestrian, compared to him, Steiner thought. Leaden. We creep along like snails, while he dances and leaps, as if gravity does not have the same influence on him as it does on us. Could he be made from some new and different kind of atom?

"Hi, Manny," Mr. Steiner said to his son.

The boy did not raise his head or show any sign of awareness; he continued fooling with the object.

I will write to the framers of the bill, Steiner thought, and tell them I have a child in the camp. And that I agree with them.

His thoughts frightened him.

Murder, of Manfred--he recognized it. My hatred of him coming out, released by this news. I see why they're debating it in secret; many people have this hate, I bet. Unrecognized inside.

"No flute for you, Manny," Steiner said. "Why should I give it to you, I wonder? Do you give a damn? No." The boy did not look up or give any indication of hearing. "Nothing," Steiner said. "Emptiness."

While Steiner stood there, tall, slender Dr. Glaub in his white coat, carrying his clipboard, approached. Steiner became suddenly aware of him and started.

"There is a new theory about autism," Dr. Glaub said. "From Bergholzlei, in Switzerland. I wished to discuss it with you, because it seems to offer us a new avenue with your son, here."

"I doubt it," Steiner said.

Dr. Glaub did not seem to hear him, he continued, "It assumes a derangement in the sense of time in the autistic individual, so that the environment around him is so accelerated that he cannot cope with it, in fact, he is unable to perceive it properly, precisely as we would be if we faced a speeded-up television program, so that objects whizzed by so fast as to be invisible, and sound was a gobbledegook-- you know? Just extremely high-pitched mishmash. Now, this new theory would place the autistic child in a closed chamber, where he faced a screen on which filmed sequences were projected slowed down--do you see? Both sound and video slowed, at last so slow that you and I would not be able to perceive motion or comprehend the sounds as human speech."

Wearily, Steiner said, "Fascinating. There's always something new, isn't there, in psychotherapy?"

"Yes," Dr. Glaub said, nodding. "Especially from the Swiss; they're ingenious in comprehending the world-views of disturbed persons, of encapsulated individuals cut off from ordinary means of communication, isolated--you know?"

"I know," Steiner said.

Dr. Glaub, still nodding, had moved on, to stop by another parent, a woman, who was seated with her small girl, both of them examining a cloth picture book.

Hope before the deluge, Steiner thought. Does Dr. Glaub know that any day the authorities back on Earth may close Camp B-G? The good doctor labors on in idiotic innocence... happy in his schemes.

Walking after Dr. Glaub, Steiner waited until there was a pause in the conversation and then he said, "Doctor, I'd like to discuss this new theory a little further."

"Yes, yes," Dr. Glaub said, excusing himself from the woman and her child; he led Steiner over to one side, where they could talk privately. "This concept of time-rates may open a doorway to minds so fatigued by the impossible task of communicating in a world where everything happens with such rapidity that--"