Clifford Simak: Time is the Simplest Thing

He shook his head. “I’m more sorry than I can tell you. It was nice of you to ask.”

“Some other time,” she said.

She moved away, but Blaine reached out and stopped her.

“Charline,” he said, “did anyone ever tell you you’re an awfully good egg?”

“No one,” she told him. “Absolutely no one.”

She stood on tiptoe to kiss him lightly on the cheek.

“Now run along and play,” she said.

He stood and watched her move away into the crowd. Inside him the Pinkness stirred, a question mark implicit in its stirring.

Just a while, Blaine told it, watching the crowd. Let me handle it a little longer. Then we’ll talk it over.

And he felt the gratitude, the sudden tail-wag of appreciation for being recognized.

We’ll get along, he said. We’ve got to get along. We’re stuck with one another.

It curled up again — he could feel it curling up, leaving things to him.

It had been frightened to start with, it might become frightened again, but at the moment it was accepting the situation — and to it the situation, he knew, must seem particularly horrific, for this place was a far and frightening cry from the detachment and serenity of that blue room on the far-off planet.

He drifted aimlessly across the room, skirting the bar, pausing a moment to peer into the room which contained the newly installed dimensino, then heading for the foyer. For he must be getting on. Before morning light he either must be miles away or be well hidden out.

He skirted little jabbering groups and nodded at a few acquaintances who spoke to him or waved across the room.

It might take some time to find a car in which a forgetful driver had left the key. It might be — and the thought came with brutal force — he would fail to find one. And if that were the case, what was there to do? Take to the hills, perhaps, and hide out there for a day or two while he got things figured out. Charline would be willing to help him, but she was a chatterbox, and he would be a whole lot better off if she knew nothing of the matter. There was no one else he could think of immediately who could give him any help. Some of the boys in Fishhook would, but any help they gave him would compromise themselves, and he was not as desperate as all that. And a lot of others, of course, but each of them with an ax to grind in this mad pattern of intrigue and petition which surrounded Fishhook — and you could never know which of them to trust. There were some of them, he was quite aware, who would sell you out in the hope of gaining some concession or some imagined position of advantage.

He gained the entrance of the foyer and it was like coming out of some deep forest onto a wind-swept plain — for here the surflike chatter was no more than a murmuring, and the air seemed clearer and somehow a great deal cleaner. Gone was the feeling of oppression, of the crowding in of bodies and of minds, of the strange pulse beat and crosscurrent of idle opinion and malicious gossip.

The outer door came open, and a woman stepped into the foyer.

“Harriet,” said Blaine, “I might have known you’d come. You never miss Charline’s parties, I remember now. You pick up a running history of all that’s happened of importance and—”

Her telepathic whisper scorched his brain: Shep, you utter, perfect fool! What are you doing here? (Picture of an ape with a dunce cap on its head, picture of the south end of a horse, picture of a derisive phallic symbol.)

“But, you—”

Of course. Why not (a row of startled question marks)? Do you think only in Fishhook? Only in yourself? Secret, sure — but I have a right to secrets. How else would a good newspaperman pick up (heaps of blowing dirt, endless flutter of statistics, huge ear with a pair of lips flapping loosely at it)?

Harriet Quimby said, sweetly, vocally: “I wouldn’t miss Charline’s parties for anything at all. One meets such stunning people.”

Bad manners, said Blaine, reprovingly. For it was bad manners. There were only certain times when it was permissible to use telepathy — and never at a social function.

To hell with that, she said. Lay bare my soul for you and that is what I get. (A face remarkably like his with a thin, trim hand laid very smartly on it.) It is all over town. They even know you’re here. They’ll be coming soon — if they’re not already here. I came as fast as I could immediately I heard. Vocalize, you fool. Someone will catch on. Us just standing here.

“You’re wasting your time,” said Blaine. “No stunning people here tonight. It’s the poorest lot Charline has ever got together.” Peepers!!!!

Maybe. We have to take our chance. You are on the lam. Just like Stone. Just like all the others. I am here to help you.

He said: “I was talking to some business lobbyist. He was an awful bore. I just stepped out to get a breath of air.” Stone! What do you know of Stone?

Never mind right now. “ In that case I’ll be going. No use to waste my time.” My car is down the road, but you can’t go out with me. I’ll go ahead and have the car out in front and running. You wander around awhile, then duck down into the kitchen (map of house with red guideline leading to the kitchen).

I know where the kitchen is.

Don’t muff it. No sudden moves, remember. No grim and awful purpose. Just wander like the average partygoer, almost bored to death. (Cartoon of gent with droopy eyelids and shoulders all bowed down by the weight of a cocktail glass he held limply in his hand, ears puffed out from listening and a frozen smile pasted on his puss.) But wander to the kitchen, then out the side door down the road.

“You don’t mean you’re leaving — just like that?” said Blaine. “My judgment, I can assure you, is very often bad.” But you? Why are you doing this? What do you get out of it? (Perplexed, angry person holding empty sack.)

Love you. (Board fence with interlocked hearts carved all over it.)

Lie. (Bar of soap energetically washing out a mouth.)

“Don’t tell them, Shep,” said Harriet. “It would break Charline’s heart.” I’m a newspaperman (woman) and I’m working on a story and you are part of it.

One thing you forgot. Fishhook may be waiting at the mouth of the canyon road.

Shep, don’t worry. I’ve got it all doped out. We’ll fool them yet.

“All right, then,” said Blaine. “I won’t say a word. Be seeing you around.” And thanks.

She opened the door and was gone, and he could hear the sound of her walking across the patio and clicking down the stairs.

He slowly turned around toward the crowded rooms and as he stepped through the door, the blast of conversation hit him in the face — the jumbled sound of many people talking simultaneously, not caring particularly what they said, not trying to make sense, but simply jabbering for the sake of jabber, seeking for the equivalent of conformity in this sea of noise.

So Harriet was a telly and it was something he would never have suspected. Although, if you were a news hen and you had the talent, it would make only common sense to keep it under cover.

Closemouthed women, he thought, and wondered how any woman could have managed to keep so quiet about it. Although Harriet, he reminded himself, was more newsman than she was woman. You could put her up there with the best of the scribblers.

He stopped at the bar and got a Scotch and ice and stood idly for a moment, sipping at it. He must not appear to hurry, he must never seem to be heading anywhere, and yet he couldn’t afford to let himself be sucked into one of the conversational eddies — there wasn’t time for that.