Harlan Ellison: Ellison Wonderland

“Good Lord above, what was that?” I gasped, holding onto the back of Da Campo’s seat.

“Translation, “ he said simply, and went back to his paper.

I suddenly became furious. Here I was lost in a subway, going—if I was to believe what I had been told— somewhere called Drexwill. I was late for the office, and this thing had overtones that were only now beginning to shade in with any sort of logic. A mad sort of logic, but logic nonetheless.

And the only person I knew here was reading his newspaper as though my presence was a commonplace thing.

“Da Campo!” I screamed, knocking the weird newspaper out of his hands. Heads turned in annoyance. “Do something! Get me off this goddamed thing!”

I grabbed his coat lapel, but he slapped my hand away.

“Look, Weiler, you got yourself into this, you’ll just have to wait till we hit the Depot and we can fish out an Auditor to help you.

“I’m just a lousy businessman; I can’t handle anything as snarled as this. This is government business, and it’s your headache, not mine. I have to be at work…”

I wasn’t listening. It all shaded in properly. I saw the picture. I didn’t know where I was going, or what it was like there, but I knew why Da Campo was on this train, and what he’d been doing in my town.

I wanted to cry out because it was so simple.

I wanted to cry because it was so simply terrifying.

The train slowed, braked, and came to a hissing halt, without lurching. The doors opened and the many commuterly-dressed people who had been crowded into the car began to stream out. The entire trip couldn’t have taken more than twenty minutes.

Then I thought of that “translation” and I wasn’t so sure of my time estimate.

“Come on,” said Da Campo, “I’ll get you to an Auditor.” He glanced down at his wrist, frowning at the dial of a weirdly-numeraled watch. He whistled through his teeth for a moment, as the crowd pushed out. Then he shoved me after them resignedly. “Let’s hurry,” he said, “I haven’t much time.”

He herded me before him, and told me to wait a moment while he took care of something. He stepped to the end of a line of men and women about to enter a small booth, one of about twenty such booths. A dilating opening in the booth admitted one person at a time.

In a few moments the line had diminished, as men went in one side wearing suits like my own grey flannel, and emerged from the other clad in odd, short jackets and skin-tight pants. The women came out in the equivalent, only tailored for the female form. They didn’t look bad at all.

Da Campo went in and quickly came out. He stepped to my side, dressed like the others, and began pushing me again.

“Had to change for work,” he commented shortly. “Come on.”

I followed him, confused. My stomach was getting more and more uneasy. I had a feeling that the twinge I’d occasionally felt in my stomach was going to develop into an ulcer.

We stepped onto an escalator-like stairway that carried us up through a series of floors where I saw more people—dressed like Da Campo—scurrying back and forth. “Who are they?” I asked.

Da Campo looked at me with pity and annoyance and said, “Commuters.”

“Earth is a suburb, isn’t it?” I asked.

He nodded, not looking at me.

I knew what it was all about, then. A fool would be the only one unable to see the picture after all the pieces had been laid out so clearly. It was really quite simple:

Earth was being infiltrated. But there wasn’t any sinister invasion or displacement afoot. That was ridiculous. The only reason these aliens were on Earth was to live.

When I thought the word “alien” I looked at Da Campo. He appeared to be the same as anyone of Earth. These “aliens” were obviously exactly like us, physically. Physically.

Why were the aliens on Earth to live? Again, simple. Why does a man who works in New York City go out to Westchester after 5:00 every day? Answer: the city is too crowded. He goes to the suburbs to live quietly. “Is—uh—Drexwill crowded, Da Campo? I mean, are there a lot of people here?”

He nodded again and muttered something about serious over-population and why didn’t the stupid Faenalists use their heads and bring things under control and wasn’t that what he was paying his Allotments for. The escalator was coming to another floor, and Da Campo made movements toward the exit side. He stepped off, and I followed. He gave me a quick glance to make sure I was following, and strode briskly away. All around us people were coming and going with quiet purpose.

“Da Campo—” I began, trying to get his attention. His nonchalance and attitude of trying to brush me off were beginning.to terrify me more than all the really strange things going on around me.

“Stop calling me that, you fool! My name is Helgorth Labbula, and if you refer to me again with that idiotic name I’ll leave you here and let you fend for yourself. I’m only taking my time to get you to an Auditor because they might construe it as my fault that you wandered into the Suburb Depot.” He glared at me, and I bit my lip. We kept walling and I wondered what an Auditor was, and where we were going to find one.

I found out quickly enough. Da Cam—er, Helgorth Labbula spotted a tall, hard-looking man in a deep blue version of the universal short jacket and tight pants, and hailed him.

The Auditor walked over and Da Campo talked to him in soft tones for a moment. I watched as the man’s eyes got wider and wider, as Da Campo’s talk progressed.

“Hey!” I yelled. They both looked up, annoyed.

“I hate to say anything,” I said, “but if I’m right, you’re talking about me, and I don’t like this cold-shoulder routine, not one little bit.” I was sick of all this rigamarole, and me stuck somewhere a million miles or more away from my office, and everyone acting as though I’d done it on purpose and I was a nuisance.

“Now talk in English so I can understand, will you?”

The Auditor turned cool grey eyes on me. Stiffly, as though he were unaccustomed to speaking the language, he said, “You have stumbled into something by chance, and though it is not your fault, dispensation must be arranged. Will you please come with. me.”

He stated it, didn’t ask it, and I had no choice.

We took a few steps, and the Auditor turned to stare back at Da Campo who was watching us balefully.

“You, too,” the man in the blue tunic said.

“But I have to be at—”

“You will be needed for a statement. I’m sorry, but it’s official.”

“What am I paying my Allotments for, if you Auditors can’t handle a little thing like this?” He was getting angry, but the Auditor shrugged his shoulders, and Da Campo trudged along behind us.

We came up off one of the escalators, into the light of triple suns. Three of them. Burning all at once. Triple shadows. That was when I realized how far away, more than a mere million miles, and how strange, and how lost I was.

“How—how far from Earth are we?” I asked.

The Auditor answered absently, “About 60,000 light-years.”

I gawked, stopped dead in my tracks. “But you toss it off so lightly, as though it were around the block! And you don’t live that differently from us! I don’t understand!”

“Understand? What’s to understand?” snapped Da Campo with annoyance. “It was a fluke that discovered Translation, and allowed us to live off Drexwill. But it didn’t change our culture much. Why shouldn’t we take it for granted? We’ve lived with it all our lives, and there’s nothing odd or marvelous about it.”

“In fact, “ he added, glaring at the Auditor, “it’s a blasted bother sometimes!”