The Best of Science Fiction 12

"That my valley be always wide and flourish and such stuff, and green with money and grass!" Clarence Little-Saddle orated in Pawnee chant style, "but that it be narrow if intruders come, smash them like bugs!"

People, that valley wasn't over a hundred feet wide now, and the screaming of the people in the bottom of the valley had been joined by the hysterical coughing of the camper car starting up.

Willy and Clarence threw everything that was left on the fire. But the word? The word? Who remembers the word?

"Corsicanatexas!" Clarence Little-Saddle howled out with confidence he hoped would fool the fates.

He was answered, not only by a dazzling sheet of summer lightning, but also by thunder and rain drops.

"Chahiksi!" Clarence Little-Saddle swore. "It worked. I didn't think it would. It will be all right now. I can use the rain."

The valley was again a ditch only five feet wide.

The camper car struggled out of Narrow Valley through the little gate. It was smashed flat as a sheet of paper, and the screaming kids and people in it had only one dimension.

"It's closing in! It's closing in!" Robert Rampart roared, and he was no thicker than if he had been made out of cardboard.

"We're smashed like bugs," the Rampart boys intoned. "We're thin like paper."

"Mort, ruine, écrasement! " spoke-acted Cecilia Rampart like the great tragedienne she was.

"Help! Help!" Nina Rampart croaked, but she winked at Willy and Clarence as they rolled by. "This homesteading jag always did leave me a little flat."

"Don't throw those paper dolls away. They might be the Ramparts," Mary Mabel called.

The camper car coughed again and bumped along on level ground. This couldn't last forever. The car was widening out as it bumped along.

"Did we overdo it, Clarence?" Willy McGilly asked. "What did one flat-lander say to the other?"

"Dimension of us never got around," Clarence said. "No, I don't think we overdid it, Willy. That car must be eighteen inches wide already, and they all ought to be normal by the time they reach the main road. The next time I do it, I think I'll throw wood-grain plastic on the fire to see who's kidding who."

And then there is gap (closely related to that other big 'in' word, alienation); this one comes with a wide assortment of hyphenates, like missile-, generation-, and credibility-.

Credibility-gap describes a state of disquietude associated with the unwilling suspension of belief: not just the doublethink involved in assessing the Warren Report, Vietnam news, and campaign speeches, but also such phenomena as FDA Chief Goddard's public statement that marijuana is not the addictive menace described by the Narcotics Bureau — or the proclamation, by devout Christian ministers, of the Death of God — or the grudging incredulity with which we attempt to replace the inexact 'evidence' of our senses with the mathematical 'truths' of modern physics, biochemistry, and psychology.

Or you might prefer to think of gap as a space-break.

Space: the dimensional framework in which we carry out the motions of existence. The distance between, and beyond. The unknown Out There, and the unknown Inside. An emptiness to be filled, a blankness to be filled in, an absolute intangible: we make it our metaphor, analogy, for even less concrete imperatives, think of it as an 'objective' reality, speak of it like something to be cut up, sliced, boxed in, stretched out. (Close the lid on an empty shoebox. Measure precisely the 'volume of space' contained. Pick up the box; put it on a shelf. Tell me if it still contains the same space.) The planet spins, whirls, whizzes through space, and we retain the odd illusion that we exist inside measurable coordinates — parceling out plots of land, arguing proprietary rights in the very atmosphere clinging to the square of deeded ground, as though it were a 'known' volume of real space.

"Playing the game of reality with no real cards in one's hands," says Dr. Laing.

It was in Monterrey Mexico ... a square a fountain a café. I had stopped by the fountain to make an entry in my notebook: 'dry fountain empty square silver paper in the wind frayed sounds of a distant city'.

"What have you written there?" I looked up. A man was standing in front of me barring the way. He was corpulent but hard-looking with a scared red face and pale grey eyes. He held out his hand as if presenting a badge but the hand was empty. In the same movement he took the notebook out of my hands.

"You have no right to do that. What I write in a notebook is my business. Besides I don't believe you are a police officer."

Several yards away I saw a uniformed policeman thumbs hooked in his belt. "Let's see what he has to say about this."

We walked over to the policeman. The man who had stopped me spoke rapidly in Spanish and handed him the notebook. The policeman leafed through it. I was about to renew my protests but the policeman's manner was calm and reassuring. He handed the notebook back to me said something to the other man who went back and stood by the fountain.

"You have time for a coffee señor ?" the policeman asked. "I will tell you a story. Years ago in this city there were two policemen who were friends and shared the same lodgings. One was Rodriguez. He was content to be a simple agente as you see me now. The other was Alfaro. He was brilliant, ambitious and rose rapidly in the force until he was second in command. He introduced new methods ... tape recorders ... speech prints. He even studied telepathy and took a drug once which he thought would enable him to detect the criminal mind. He did not hesitate to take action where more discreet officials preferred to look the other way ... the opium fields ... the management of public funds ... bribery in the police force ... the behavior of policemen off-duty. Señor he put through a rule that any police officer drunk and carrying a pistol would have his pistol permit canceled for one flat year and what is more he enforced the rule. Needless to say he made enemies. One night he received a phone call and left the apartment he still shared with Rodriguez ... he had never married and preferred to live simply you understand ... just there by the fountain he was struck by a car ... an accident? perhaps ... for months he lay in a coma between life and death ... he recovered finally ... perhaps it would have been better if he had not." The policeman tapped his forehead "You see the brain was damaged ... a small pension ... he is a major of police and sometimes the old Alfaro is there. I recall an American tourist, cameras slung all over him like great tits protesting waving his passport. There he made a mistake. I looked at the passport and did not like what I saw. So I took him along to the comisaria where it came to light the passport was forged the American tourist was a Dane wanted for passing worthless checks in twenty-three countries including Mexico. A female impersonator from East St. Louis turned out to be an atomic scientist wanted by the F.B.I, for selling secrets to the Chinese. Yes thanks to Alfaro I have made important arrests. More often I must tell to some tourist once again the story of Rodriguez and Alfaro." He took a toothpick out of his mouth and looked meditatively at the end of it.

"I think Rodriguez has his Alfaro and for every Alfaro there is always a Rodriguez. They do not always remember." He tapped his forehead. "You will pay the coffee yes?"

I put a note down on the table. Rodriguez snatched it up. "This note is counterfeit señor . You are under arrest."

"But I got it from American Express two hours ago!"