Martian Time Slip

Seated on the bench but not playing, Arnie ruminated once more on the golden opportunities involved in the F.D.R. Mountains land. I could buy in any time, he thought, with Union funds. But _where?_ It's a big range; I can't buy it _all_.

Who knows that range? he asked himself. That Steiner probably did, because as I understand it his base of operations is--or rather was--someplace near there. And there are prospectors coming and going. And Bleekmen live there, too.

"Helio," he said, "do you know the F.D.R. range?"

"Mister, I do know them," the Bleekman said. "I shun them. They are cold and empty and have no life."

"Is it true," Arnie said, "that you Bleekmen have an oracular rock that you go to when you want to know the future?"

"Yes, Mister. The uncivilized Bleekmen have that. But it is vain superstition. Dirty Knobby, the rock is called."

"You never consult it, yourself."

"No, Mister."

"Could you find that rock, if necessary?"

"Yes, Mister."

"I'll give you a dollar," Arnie said, "if you take a question to your goddamn Dirty Knobby rock for me."

"Thank you, Mister, but I cannot do it."

"Why not, Helio?"

"It would proclaim my ignorance, to consult with such fraudulency."

"Christ," Arnie said, disgusted. "Just as a game--can't you do that? For a joke."

The Bleekman said nothing, but his dark face was tight with resentment. He pretended to resume his reading of the manual.

"You fellows were stupid to give up your native religion," Arnie said. "You showed how weak you are. I wouldn't have. Tell me how to find Dirty Knobby and I'll ask it myself. I know goddamn well that your religion teaches that you can foretell the future, and what's so peculiar about that? We've got extra-Sensory individuals back Home, and some of them have precognition, can read the future. Of course we have to lock them up with the other nuts, because that's a symptom of schizophrenia, if you happen to know what that means."

"Yes, Mister," Heliogabalus said. "I know schizophrenia; it is the savage within the man."

"Sure, it's the reversion to primitive ways of thought, but so what, if you can read the future? In those mental health camps back Home there must be hundreds of precogs--" And then a thought struck Arnie Kott. Maybe there're a couple here on Mars, at Camp B-G.

The hell with Dirty Knobby rock, then, Arnie thought. I'll drop by B-G one day before they close it and get me a precog nut; I'll bail him out of the camp and put him on the payroll, right here in Lewistown.

Going to his telephone, he called the Union steward, Edward L. Goggins. "Eddy," he said, when he had hold of the steward, "you trot over to our psychiatric clinic and collar those doctors, and you bring back a description of what a precog nut is like, I mean, what symptoms, and if they know one at Camp B-G we could nab."

"O.K., Arnie. Will do."

"Who's the best psychiatrist on Mars, Eddy?"

"Gosh, Arnie, I'd have to check into it. The Truckers have a good one, Milton Glaub. Reason I know that is, my wife's brother is a Trucker and got analysis from Glaub last year, plus naturally effective representation."

"I suppose this Glaub knows B-G pretty good."

"Oh, yeah, Arnie; he's over there once a week, they all take turns. The Jews pay pretty good, they've got so much dough to spend. They get the dough from Israel back on Earth, you know."

"Well, get hold of this Glaub and tell him to rustle up a precog schizophrenic for me as soon as possible. Put Glaub on the payroll, but only if you have to; most of those psychiatrists are aching for regular money, they see so little of it. Understand, Eddy?"

"Right, Arnie." The steward rang off.

"You ever been psychoanalyzed, Helio?" Arnie said to him, feeling cheerful, now.

"No, Mister. Entire psychoanalysis is a vainglorious foolishness."

"How zat, Helio?"

"Question they never deal with is, what to remold sick person like. There is no what, Mister."

"I don't get you, Helio."

"Purpose of life is unknown, and hence way to be is hidden from the eyes of living critters. Who can say if perhaps the schizophrenics are not correct? Mister, they take a brave journey. They turn away from mere things, which one may handle and turn to practical use; they turn inward to meaning. There, the black-night-without-bottom lies, the pit. Who can say if they will return? And if so, what will they be like, having glimpsed meaning? I admire them."

"Kee-rist," Arnie said, with derision, "you half-educated freak-- I'll bet if human civilization disappeared from Mars you'd be right back there among those savages in ten seconds flat, worshipping idols and all the rest of it. Why do you pretend you want to be like us? Why are you reading that manual?"

Heliogabalus said, "Human civilization will never leave Mars, Mister; that is why I study this book."

"Out of that book," Arnie said, "you better be able to tune up my goddamn harpsichord, or you will be back in the desert, whether human civilization stays on Mars or not."

"Yes sir," his tame Bleekman said.