Robert Silverberg - The Second Trip

“So you just hung up?”

“No, I talked, more or less. I said I didn’t know much about why you missed your appointment. Or where you were at the moment.” A distant shrug. “I guess I was pretty foggy.”

“Jesus, Lissa, you had a chance to help me, and you blew it! You could have told her the whole story!”

She said, “Didn’t you tell me that Hamlin threatened to kill you if you brought the Rehab Center into the picture?”

“That’s right. But he wouldn’t have known it if you had given them the story while I was at work. It was a perfect chance. And you blew it. You blew it.”

“Sorry.” But not very.

“If they phone again, will you do things right?”

“What do you want me to tell them?”

“The straight story. Hamlin coming back. And especially the part about his saying he’ll stop my heart if I go near a Rehab Center. Make sure they know he means it. How I set out to go there, how he knocked me down at the Greenwich terminal. You won’t forget that part of it?”

“Maybe you better call them yourself.”

“I told you, I can’t. Hamlin monitors everything I think or say. The moment I pick up the phone, he’ll have his clutches on my—” Jesus! Another twinge in the chest Clammy invisible fingers tweaking the aorta. A cough. A gasp. A slow shivering recovery. Lissa watching, unconcerned. “There,” Macy said finally. “He just did it. To let me know he’s tuned in.”

“What good is having them know, though, if he’ll kin you if they try to help you?”

“At least they’ll know. Maybe they have a remote-control way of dealing with situations like this. Maybe they can sneak up on him somehow. They’ve got their tricks. It can’t hurt to have them realize what’s happened. Provided they’re aware of the risks involved for me. You won’t forget that part?”

“If they call,” Lissa said vaguely, “I’ll try to tell them everything. I’ll try.” She didn’t sound too sure of it.

In the night, fragmentary episodes of not-quite-night-mare, slippery bulletins issued by the psychic underground. Oddly unfrightening moments out of an unremembered past arriving on top deck for the sleeper’s inspection and enlightenment. Bucolic scenes: the arrest, the arraignment, the detention center, the courthouse, the trial, the verdict, the sentence. Keep your fucking hands off me, I told you I’d go peacefully!

Lights flashing in his eyes. A hovereye camera practically touching his nose. Viewers around the world enjoying the spectacle. See the famed doer of abominations! Watch justice triumph! Death to the enemies of chastity! A jury of twelve honest computers and true.

Sweartotellthetruththewholetruthnothingbutthetruth. IdoIdoIdoIdo. See the sobbing witnesses! Observe their haunted, vindictive faces! What memories of obscene violations blaze in their souls? Yes, that’s the man, he’s the one! I’d know him anywhere. The courtroom silent. Your honor, I ask permission to enter as evidence the taped record of the defendant’s intrusion into the home of Maria Alicia Rodriguez on the night of —Red light flickering on the lawyerboard. Objection! Objection! Commotion. Denied. Prosecution may proceed.

On the wallscreen the defendant appears, bent on rape. Had he but known he was performing for a camera, he would have been ever so much more stylish about it. Up onto the windowledge, hup! Pry the window open. Hands cold; this miserable winter weather. Yes. Inside. The trembling victim. And the camera descends to get a good view of the action. If they were so concerned about chastity, why did they let him consummate the rape? A good question for the victim to ask. But of course it was all taped automatically; not till later did anyone realize that the hovereye had caught the mad rapist at his trade. White thighs gleaming in the moonlight. Wiry black bush, almost blue. Push. Push. Wham!

Will the defendant please rise. Nathaniel James Hamlin you have heard the verdict of your peers. This court now declares you guilty on eleven counts of aggravated assault fourteen counts of unsolicited carnal entry five counts of third-degree sodomy seven counts of irremediable psychic injury seventeen counts of violation of marital propriety seven counts of first-degree illicit proximity nine counts of eleven counts of sixteen counts of.

The sleeper becomes restless. Let us perhaps turn our attention to happier times. The artist at work in his splendid studio, cascades of spring sunlight pouring through the grand window. Cleverly constructing the armature for the latest masterpiece. First comes the all-encompassing vision, you understand, the sense of the work as a wholeness, without which it is impossible to begin. This hits you like a bolt of lightning; if it comes any other way, don’t trust it. Afterward it’s just plonking drudgery, a lot of soldering. I wouldn’t bother except that I have to. It’s the first moment, the white light falling out of heaven, that makes it all worthwhile.

But of course any shithead phony can say he has inspirations. Can he realize them? I can. You build the armature, see, which means you have to crap around with relays and solenoids and connectors and power-shunts and gate-nexuses and such. You calculate the atmospherics you want; a computer gives you the ionization tables, but then you have to make the corrections yourself, intuitively. You do the lighting. Then you put the skin on. Throughout the whole business you never lose sight of the initial impulse, which is, item one, a matter of form, of the actual goddam shape of the piece, and, item two, a matter of psychological insight, of the particular movement of the spirit you mean to express. Now you know as much about my working methods as I do. You want to know more, buy one of my pieces and take it apart.

The scene changes. At the gallery now, we are watching the elite of the art world scrambling to buy his 2002 output; that was the year of the phallic miniatures, they walk, they talk, they jerk off, eight grand apiece, every distinguished creator is entitled to have his little black jest. Sold like hotcakes. Better than hotcakes: did you ever buy a hotcake in your life? The hotcake market is extremely depressed these days.

Macy, slumbering, maybe even snoring, makes desperate mental notes. I must remember all this when I wake up. This is my genuine past, accept no substitutes. Is Hamlin sending all this stuff up by way of making friendly overtures to me, or is he trying to torment me? In any event, more. More, he cried, give me more! So more. Look at the world through a madman’s eyes. Take the hallucinogenic trip for free. Breathe in, breathe out, turn on, tilt! What are those streaks spanning the sky? That cockeyed rainbow, black, green, turquoise, gray, purple, white. And what colors do you see when your eyes are closed? The same. The very same.

Why is there so much pressure in the groin? You can feel the pulsations, the throbbings. It’s like being sixteen all over again. You want to plant it fast, you want to pump yourself dry. Insatiable. But only in strange and reluctant cunts. Why is that? Can you offer a rational explanation? Ha. Time to prowl the winter streets. A tightness in the ass, a dryness in the throat. Your own sweet wifey willing to come across for you, any time, any place, and the same is true of a myriad of others, hot available Lissa, so why endanger yourself in this fashion? But danger defines the man. I climb these peaks because they’re here.

Do you realize, though, that you’re out of your mind? Naturally I do. Will the defendant please rise. Nathaniel James Hamlin you have heard the verdict of your peers. There, you see the risks? You know what those bastards can do to you? Sure I know. I accept the risks. Let them do their worst. It is the decision of this court that the identity known as Nathaniel James Hamlin having been found guilty of repeated and numerous instances of intolerably antisocial activity and having been declared an incurable and incorrigible sociopathic menace by a properly constituted panel of authorities shall be withdrawn permanently from access to society and shall be at once expunged under the provisions of the Federal Social Rehabilitation Act of 2001 and that in accordance with the terms of that act the physical container as legally defined of the proscribed identity be reconstructed and returned to society at the earliest possible time.