Algis Budrys: Michaelmas

There was a pause. Then the machine was back. “It… it seems we here are considered an effect.” Domino paused again.

“We are an effect,” Michaelmas said. “They have a means of scanning infinity. When they want a model of an elephant, they tune out everything that doesn’t look like an elephant. When they deduce there’s a human race, they get a human race. Warts and all. The difference between the model of the elephant and the human race is that the representatives of that race can speak; they can request, and they can propose. They can even believe they think they represent the human race. But in all of infinity, the chances are infinite that they are only drifting particles.”

He said nothing more for a long time, blinking like an owl in the bright mid-afternoon sunshine of Long Island, looking a little surprised when his bag was put aboard his cab for him.

In the apartment, he sat at the desk, he brooded out the window, he tuned his guitar, and then a lute, and a dulcimer. Finally he began to be able to speak, and spoke to Domino in a slow, careful voice, pausing to marshal his facts and to weight them in accord with their importance to the narrative.

He barely listened to himself explaining. He sat and thought:

“So that was it?” Domino asked. “Mere scientific curiosity? This Fermierla contacted Limberg at some point in the past —Well, why not? They must have been very much alike, at one time; yes, I can see the sense in that—and then Limberg began to see ways in which this could be useful, but it was after he brought in Cikoumas that the enterprise began to accelerate. Fermierla still thinking it was in touch with fantasy creatures —”

“Not in touch. Not… in touch.”

“In contact with. And Medlimb prospered. But Cikoumas became worried; suppose UNAC found Fermierla? Suppose Doktor Limberg was exposed to the world for what he was, and Cikoumas with him. But that’s all unrealistic. Fermierla’s no more on Jupiter than I am. These biological people are all scientific illiterates, rife with superstition. You tell them radio signals, and they think WBZ. They have no idea of the scale of what’s involved here. They—”

“Yes, yes,” Michaelmas said. “Take over Limberg, will you? Manage the rest of his life for him. Meanwhile, there’s one more thing I have to do before I can end this day.”

“Yes, I suppose,” Domino said, and put in a call to Clementine Gervaise, who was in Paris. Michaelmas squeezed his hands and punched up full holo; she sat at a desk within a few feet of him, a pair of eyeglasses pushed up into her hair, her lipstick half worn off her lower lip, and a hand-editing machine beside the desk.

“Laurent,” she said, “it is good to have you call, but you catch me at a devil of a time.” She smiled suddenly. “Nevertheless, it is good to have you call.” The smile was fleetingly very young. “From New York.” Now she appeared a little downcast. “You departed from Europe very quickly.”

“I didn’t expect you in Paris. I thought you’d still be in Africa.”

She shook her head. “We have a problem,” she said. She turned to the editor, flicked fingers over the keyboard with offhand dexterity, and gestured : “See there.”

A sequence aboard the UNAC executive plane came up. Norwood was smiling and talking. The point of view changed to a reverse angle close-up of Douglas Campion asking a question. As he spoke, his forehead suddenly swelled, then returned to normal, but his eyes lengthened and became slits while the bridge of his nose seemed to valley into his skull. Next his mouth enlarged, and his chin shrank. Finally the ripple passed down out of sight, but another began at the top of his head, while he spoke on obliviously.

“We can’t get it out,” Clementine said. “It happens in every shot of Campion. We’ve checked the computer, we’ve checked our mixers.” She shrugged. “I suppose someone will say we should check this editor, too, now. But we are either going to have to scrap the entire programme or substitute another interviewer.”

“Can’t you get hold of Campion and re-shoot him?”

She made an embarrassed little face. “I think he is overdrawn at his bank, or something of that sort. He cannot get validation for an airplane seat. Not even his telephone works,” she said. She blushed slightly. “I am in a little trouble for recommending that sort of person.”

“Oh, come, Clementine, you’re not seriously worried about that. Not with your talent. However, that is amazing about Campion. He seems to be having a run of bad luck.”

“Well, this isn’t why you called me,” she said. She waved a hand in dismissal behind her. “Either that works or it doesn’t; tomorrow conies anyway. You’re right.” She rested her elbows on her desk-top and cupped her face in her hands, looking directly at him: “Tell me—what is it you wish with me?”

“Well, I just wanted to see how you were,” he said slowly. “I rushed off suddenly, and—”

“Ah, it’s the business. Whatever you went for, I suppose you got it. And I suppose the rest of us will hear about it on the news.”

“Not — not this time, I’m afraid.”

“Then it was personal.”

“I suppose.” He was having trouble. “I just wanted to say Hello .”

She smiled. “And I would like to say it to you. When are you next in Europe?”

He took a breath. It was hard to do. He shrugged. “Who knows?” He found himself beginning to tremble.

“I shall be making periodic trips to North America very soon, I think. I could even request doing coverage of Norwood’s US tour. It starts in a few days. It’s only an overnight wonder, but if we move it quickly, there will still be interest.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Eh? What do you think? We could be together in a matter of days.”

He thrust back convulsively in his chair. “I—ah—call me,” he managed. “Call me when it’s definite. If I can…” He squirmed. She began to frown and to tilt her head the slightest bit to one side, as if gazing through a shop window at a hat that had seemed more cunning from a little farther away. “… if I’m here,” he was saying, he realized.

“Yes, Laurent,” she said sadly. “We must keep in touch.”

In the night for many years, he would from time to time say the word touch distinctly, without preamble, and thrust up his arms towards his head, but this was not reported to him.

“Au 'voir.”

“Au revoir, Clementine.” He ended the call, and sat for a while.

“Well,” Domino said, “now you know how you feel.”

Michaelmas nodded. “She may readily have been given only conventional treatment at the sanatorium. But, yes, now we know how I feel.”

“I could check the records.”

“Like you checked their inventories.”

“Now that I’m situated in their covert hardware, I’m quite confident I can assimilate any tricks in their soft mechanisms. I can run a real check.”

“Yes,” Michaelmas said sadly. “Run a real check on infinity.”

“Well…”

“Life’s too short,” Michaelmas said.

“Yours?”

“No.” Michaelmas stretched painfully, feeling the knotted muscles and grimacing at the swollen taste of his tongue. He worked the bed and began undressing. Somewhere out beyond his windows, a helicopter buffeted by on some emergency errand. He shook his head and closed his eyes momentarily. He opened them long enough to pull back the coverlet. “No calls,” he said, darkening the windows. “Not for eight hours; longer if possible.” He lay down, pulling the cover up over the hunch of his shoulder, putting his left hand on his right wrist and his right hand under his cheek. He settled himself. “It’s one good feature of this occupation,” he remarked in a voice that trailed away. “I never have any trouble getting to sleep.”