Damon Knight - Orbit 14

The book at the top of the pile was a booklet really, about seven inches by four with the pages stapled in the middle. The title, printed in black on a blue cover of slightly heavier paper, was How to Drive.

Remember that your car is a gift. Although it belongs to you and you are absolutely responsible for its acts (whether driven by yourself or others, or not driven) and maintenance (pg 15), do not:

1. Deface its surface.

2. Interfere with the operation of its engine, or with the operation of any other part.'

3. Alter it in such a way as to increase or diminish the noise of operation.

4. Drive it at speeds in excess of 40 miles/our.

5. Pick up hitchhikers.

6. Deposit a hitchhiker at any point other than a Highway Patrol Station.

7. Operate it while you are in an unfit condition. (To be determined by a duly constituted medical board.)

8. Fail to halt and render medical assistance to persons injured by you, your car, or others (provided third parties are not already providing such assistance).

9. Stop at any time or for any reason at any point not designated as a stopping position.

10. Wave or shout at other drivers.

11. Invade the privacy of other drivers—as by noticing or pretending to notice them or the occupants of their vehicles.

12. Fail to return it on demand.

13. Drive it to improper destinations.

He turned the page. On the new page was a diagram of the control panel of an automobile, and he noted the positions of Windshield, Steering Wheel, Accelerator, Brake, Reversing Switch, Communicator, Beverage Dispenser, Urinal, Defecator, and Map Compartment. He asked Edna if they had a car, and she said she thought they did, and that it would be outside.

“You know,” he said, “I’ve just noticed that this place has windows.”

Edna said, “You’re always jumping up from the table. Finish your breakast.”

Ignoring her, he parted the curtains. She said, “Two walls have windows and two don’t. I haven’t looked out of them.” Outside he saw sunshine on concrete; a small, yellow, somehow hunched-looking automobile; and a house.

“Yeah, we’ve got a car,” he said. “It’s parked right under the window.”

“Well, I wish you’d finish breakfast and get to work.”

“I want to look out of the other window.”

If the first window had been, as it appeared to be, at the side of the house, then the other should be at either the back or the front. He opened the curtains and saw a narrow, asthmatic brick courtyard. On the bricks stood three dead plants in terra-cotta jars; the opposite side of the court, no more than fifteen feet off, was the wall of another house. There were two widely spaced windows in this wall, both closed with curtains; and as he watched (though his face was only at the window for an instant) a man pushed aside the curtains at the nearer window and looked at him. Forlesen stepped back and said to Edna, “I saw a man; he looked afraid. A bald man with a wide, fat face, and a gold tooth in front, and a mole over one eyebrow.” He went to the mirror again and studied himself.

“You don’t look like that,” his wife said.

“No, I don’t—that’s what bothers me. That was the first thing I thought of—that it would be myself, perhaps the way I’m going to look when I’m older. I’ve lost a lot of my hair now and I could lose the rest of it, in fact, I suppose I will. And I could break a tooth in front and get a gold one—”

“Maybe it wasn’t really a mole,” Edna said. “It could have been just a spot of dirt or something.”

“It could have been.” He had seated himself again, and as he spoke he speared a bite of egg with his fork. “I suppose it’s even possible that I could grow a mole I don’t have now, and I could put on weight. But that wasn’t me; those weren’t my features, not a.t any age.”

“Well, why should it be you?”

“I just felt it should, somehow.”

“You’ve been reading that red book.” Edna’s voice was accusing.

“No, I haven’t even looked at it.” Curious, he pushed aside brown and purple pamphlets, fished the red book out of the pile, and looked at it. The cover was of leather and had been blind-tooled in a pattern of thin lines. Holding it at a slant to the light from the window, he decided he could discern in the intricacies of the pattern a group of men surrounding a winged being. “What is it?” he said.

“It’s supposed to tell you how to be good, and how to live— everything like that.”

He riffled the pages, and noted that the left side of the book— the back of each leaf—was printed in scarlet in a language he did not understand. The right side, printed in black, seemed by its arrangement on the page to be a translation.

Of the nature of Death and the Dead we may enumerate twelve kinds. First there are those who become new gods, for whom new universes are born. Second those who praise. Third those who fight as soldiers in the unending war with evil. Fourth those who amuse themselves among flowers and sweet streams with sports. Fifth those who dwell in gardens of bliss, or are tortured. Sixth those who continue as in life. Seventh those who turn the wheel of the Universe. Eighth those who find in their graves their mothers’ wombs and in one life circle forever. Ninth ghosts. Tenth those born again as men in their grandsons’ time. Eleventh those who return as beasts or trees. And last those who sleep.

“Look at this,” he said, “this can’t be right.”

“I wish you’d hurry. You’re going to be late.”

He looked at the watch she had given him. It read 060.26.13, and he said, “I still have time. But look here—the black is supposed to say the same thing as the red, but look at how different they are: where it says ‘And last those who sleep,’ there’s a whole paragraph opposite it; and across from ‘Fourth those who amuse themselves,’ there are only two words.”

“You don’t want any more coffee, do you?”

He shook his head, laid down the red book, and picked up another; its title was Food Preparation in the Home. “That’s for me,” his wife said. “You wouldn’t be interested in that.”

Contents

Introduction—Three Meals a Day

Preparing Breakfast

Preparing Luncheon

Preparing Supper

Helpful Hints for Homemakers

He set the book down again, and as he did so its cheap plastic cover popped open to the last page. At the bottom of the Hints for Homemakers he read: Remember that if he does not go you and your children will starve. He closed it and put the sugar bowl on top of it.

“I wish you’d get going,” his wife said.

He stood up. “I was just leaving. How do I get out?”

She pointed to one of the doors. “That’s the parlor. You go straight through that, and there’s another door that goes outside.”

“And the car,” Forlesen said (more than half to himself), “will be around there under the window.” He slipped the blue How to Drive booklet into one of his pockets.

The parlor was smaller than the bedroom, but because it had no furniture as large as the bed or the table it seemed nearly empty. There was an uncomfortable-looking sofa against one wall, two bowlegged chairs in corners, an umbrella stand, and a dusty potted palm. The floor was covered by a dark patterned rug, and the walls by flowered paper. Four strides took him across the room; he opened another, larger and heavier door and stepped outside. A moment after he had closed the door he heard the bolt snick behind him; he tried to open it again and found, as he had expected, that he was locked out.