Дэймон Найт - Orbit 13

Idio is in the desert. We are working on a scientific project. This place is a weather station. Near one edge of the project is a radar unit. Idio goes into the unit four times a day-and pushes five buttons.

Don’t knock it. Nobody can push those five buttons but us, on account of a disease called boredom.

We had two caretakers. One of them we called Brown. He had brown hair, brown eyes, brown skin. Green wore a green hat all the time. They said they were geniuses compared to us. Their regular job had been kicking Boots in the Navy, and they were always saying how they wanted to get back to it and leave the desert and the dumdums to hell where they belonged. We couldn’t have cared less, even when they called us names. They were supposed to look after us and cook for us and make sure we stayed in good shape, and if they didn’t, they would catch hell from their bosses “out there.” They didn’t bother us about how we kept house. If we didn’t want to clean the shack, it was our business. Our stink was their business. Brown and Green told us we had to take baths every night or they would switch off the Cycler.

“All right, idiots, drag your slimy butts out of bed or I’ll switch you back into a cabbage, turnip and radish.”

I opened my eyes and looked up and saw God-only-knew-what. The integrators in our brains lost power when we went to sleep. Idio became three dumdums. These woke up in darkness, inside and out. After a few minutes the integrators perked up and and the darkness faded.

Idio sat up.

“Hi there, Brown, you look good enough to lap,” I said.

He didn’t know what I was saying. We could understand him and Green when they talked, but they said we were mushmouths who would never learn to speak. I was always trying to figure that out. Creel and Genadee and I had no trouble understanding one another.

“One of these days I aim to strip the pants off him,” said Genadee. She giggled and her widow’s peak touched her eyebrows. “Got a feeling he’s interesting.”

“Hey, you know what? Somebody wet my bed.” Creel leaned forward and reached for Brown, who hotfooted it away. One of his hands hovered near a machine on a table. That was the Cycler.

“Goddammit, Creel, leave him alone,” I said. “He might turn it off.”

We sat on our beds and started discussing what it would be like if the Cycler were turned off permanently.

Brown listened to us for a minute, then he said, “Jesus,” and went out

“Why do you call Brown a him?” said Genadee.

“Get your mind off stupid subjects,” I said.

She stood up and scratched herself all over, then she got dressed with everything going on wrong side out. She forgot underwear.

I sat on the edge of my bed and looked at the hair on my legs. Sometimes I thought about shaving it off, only I did that once and it grew back in stiff and since it’s all the way up my belly I was damn uncomfortable.

“I recollect I had six cans of beer,” I said.

“Don’t look at me.” Genadee made a big to-do about putting on lipstick. Her shoes were on the wrong feet. She had on a pair of jeans and a red sweater. Since the pants were on backwards she couldn’t get the zipper all the way up without grinding some meat. Sometimes she did that.

“You’re a dirty liar, and don’t remind me that you took a bath last night.”

“Kiss off,” she said, and hauled her rosary from a drawer and began praying. I think that was the first thing they taught her after she graduated from being a vegetable.

I felt crabby as hell. Stomped into the bathroom and tore open the first door and there sat Creel with a can of beer in one hand and one of Brown’s pictures in the other. Should have known better, but I reached out and grabbed the beer. She let out a howl and came up off the pot and rammed me in the belly with her head. Then she took back the beer and sat down again.

I went out and spent a few minutes kicking a hole in the wall. Pretty soon she came in, and when I told her the beer was mine, she handed it over. She was an amiable critter except when she was on the can.

My clock wasn’t on my bureau. It was in Creel’s locker, along with just about everything else I owned. I took it all back to my own locker and gave that thief a kick in the rear.

Idio walked out onto the desert. We wore sunglasses because our pupils didn’t respond to light fast enough. We didn’t mind the heat, in fact we liked it. I walked in front. Genadee kicked sand on my legs. It itched and reminded me that I forgot my jeans.

“First time I ever knew King Kong had that much hair on her behind,” said Creel.

“He’s a him,” I said over my shoulder.

“What’s the difference?” said Genadee. She ran ahead of us, slowed down and began to strut. Something was wrong with the way God put her hips together. When her feet hit the ground they were about a yard apart. Kind of funny-looking.

The radar unit was a big sonofabitch made of white rock. There was only one door in it, and when you went in you felt like you were walking into a grave. Smelled dry. It was quiet.

Idio was afraid of the machines in the radar building. Luckily, we were attracted to the color red. The five buttons on the five machines were a bright red.

“Tit,” I said and punched the first one.

“Tit,” said Creel and punched the second.

“Tit,” said Genadee and punched the third.

Quick as could be I punched the last two buttons. Usually we punched those last ones together. I got clobbered for taking their turns, but it was worth it. They slugged me and busted me in the mouth and then I finally got sore, picked them both up by their sweater fronts and tossed them out the door and let them eat dirt.

“You look sick,” I said to Green at lunchtime.

“He looks sick?” said Creel.

“Why is he a he?” said Genadee.

“I’ll ask Sister,” I told her. Again I said to Green, “You look sick.”

It didn’t do any good. Green never talked to us. He never looked at us, either, unless he had to.

We ate canned spaghetti and salad.

“Did you wash that lettuce?” said Brown, and Green nodded.

Genadee dropped her spoon and looked as if she might scream.

“He isn’t calling you a cabbage,” I said to her. “Lettuce and cabbage ain’t the same.”

We liked the cafeteria. It had wooden walls and tables and chairs and red curtains and a potbelly stove. Brown called the stove a rotten bastard and why can’t we have decent equipment in this place God forgot.

Creel put some spaghetti in her pocket.

“All right, get up and stand in the corner,” said Brown. “All three of you. Stay there until you fall over. You’re nothing but slobs.”

I stood with my nose in the crack and wondered at the ignorance of pretty Brown boy. It wasn’t much of a punishment to stand us in the corner. Creel couldn’t stay straight and still for more than five minutes before her head started spinning. She had something wrong with a tube of water in her ear. Everytime she stood still for a while she always fell unconscious, and when one part of Idio conked out that was the end of the trinity and the rebirth of the dumdums.

I heard Green go outside. From the corner of my eye I hunted for Brown. Couldn’t see him. Turned and looked. He wasn’t there.

“They’re gone,” I said.

“So what?” said Genadee. “They say we stand here, we stand.”

“Why?”

“Well, why not?”

“Sister says independence is not listening to orders.”

“Does that include an Idio?”

“You know what an Idio is?” I said. “It’s people born with something wrong with them. Three people.”

“A trinity?” said Creel.

“Right. A trinity is an Idio. That doesn’t mean we’re idiots. Sometimes we are and sometimes we aren’t. Depends on the chemistry of the moment.”