Brian Aldiss - Report on Probability A

To accompany the sound, a trickle of steam came from the spout of the kettle, which was deeply cleft, so that in the dim glow from the stove it looked like the open beak of a bird. The sound and the steam grew together in volume, the former now loud and insistent, the latter now a column that continued the line of the kettle spout outwards for some centimetres before billowing upwards in a cloud.

At first G gave no outward indication that he heeded these manifestations from his kettle. Only when the kettle lid became agitated by the pressure of steam inside, so that it jarred in its socket, did he stir. Removing the kettle from the stove, he poured some of its contents into his tin mug. He set the kettle down by his right foot, where it would be handy for a refill.

The time taken to bring the kettle to a boil over a weak heat had been considerable. G was not in any hurry. It took him as long to drink the unsweetened contents of his mug. When he had drained the mug, he refilled it. By now the tea was cooling; he drank this second cup no faster than the first.

He rinsed out the mug in the bucket, which was now half full of water, and set it back in the cupboard beside the packet of tea and the condensed milk. Then he freshened his hands and face in the bucket. Several drops of water fell from the roof into the hair on the crown of his head as he did so.

Picking up the bucket by the handle, he carried it over to the door and opened the door. Some wind and rain blew in upon him. He grasped the bucket with two hands and threw its contents clear of the steps. Then he came in and slammed the door as tightly as possible into its socket. Sometimes on windy nights, an extra strong gust would blow the door wide on its hinges.

After replacing the bucket in its corner, G walked to the other end of the room and sat down on the edge of the couch. He undid the laces of his boots and was easing them off his feet when a slight difference in the opacity of the gloom made him look up and out of the nearest window.

From where he sat on this side of the room, he could see through the streaming panes to the blank black west corner of the house and the blur of the garden beyond it. When he stood up and padded to the window, he could see the small bow window of that room he had never entered, the room that was Mr Mary’s bedroom. A light had just come on in the room. As G looked, a figure came to the window.

The figure was darkened by the light behind it. The street lamp faintly lit it, but the blur on the two panes of glass interposed in the space between G and the figure made all detail impossible to distinguish. The figure reached up its arms in a wide gesture and drew the curtains together across the bow window. A slight chink of light remained at the top of the curtains, then this was adjusted. There was no further sign from the window of the house. G waited where he was for some while.

‘Another satisfied customer.’

He went back to his couch. He pulled off his trousers, set them carefully on the floor, and climbed on to the couch. Three blankets were lying on top of it. He worked his way under them, adjusted them round his stockinged feet, pillowed his head with one arm, and closed his eyes.

The bottom of the bucket was already covered by water leaking in from the roof, so that the metallic sound of dripping was replaced by the liquid sound of dripping. He lay listening to it for a certain passage of time.

When the bucket became full, the water started to pour down the sides of the bucket. It collected in a puddle about the bucket and commenced to trickle across the floor in a north-easterly direction. The wooden bungalow was built above the ground on ten low brick pillars which left a gap between the ground and the floor; some of these pillars had sunk slightly, so that the bungalow had a slight list towards the corner that stood nearest to the brick wall containing the brown side gate. This list was sufficient to give the water a flow. It pushed outward until it touched the front wall of the bungalow, and then ran along beside that wall until it reached the gap under the door. The water then flowed away under the door and escaped into the soil beside the bungalow step.

‘Several factors worth investigating there, when we get the instruments,’ Midlakemela said briskly.

‘The report is all very meticulous, but there’s much it leaves out,’ Domoladossa said. ‘Temperatures, inside and outside, for instance.’

‘And the boiling of G’s kettle. Probability A is an entirely new continuum – we can take nothing for granted. The laws of our universe may not obtain there.’

‘Quite. But what interests me is that the psychological make-ups of these people, G, Mary, and the rest may be alien to us. They may LOOK human, but they may not BE human.’

Midlakemela was less interested in that state of affairs. Instead, he glanced at his watches and said, ‘Time for me to go to see the Governor. Anything you want?’

‘No. I’ll get on with the report.’

Midlakemela walked down the great curving room, treading the marked path among the bamboo screens. His superior officer sank back at his desk, absorbed in the report. He leaned forward, skipping the movements of G’s life, until he reached a point on the morrow where G was emptying his bucket in the garden.

Because the concrete slabs were already partially dry after the night’s rain, the thrown water left a clear ragged outline across them.

After G had observed this ragged outline, he stood gripping the empty bucket and looked to his right, across the garden. He saw the corner of the house round which the concrete path led; he saw the concrete path leading round the corner; he saw the various parts of the garden available to his vision, the privet hedges that in one place divided lawn from vegetable garden, that in another divided vegetable garden from fruit garden, that in another divided fruit garden from flower garden (though because the flower garden was in the main round the other side, the south-south-east side, of the house, it was rendered invisible to him by the bulk of the house), that in another divided the entire garden from the garden of another property owned by a man whose maternal grandfather had built a lighthouse in the southern hemisphere; he saw the asparagus bed that grew between the back of the house and the ancient brick coach house; he saw, perching on the roof of the ancient brick coach house, a homing pigeon whose name he had reason to suppose was X; he saw the tips of some of the fruit bushes, at present without leaf; he saw trees that would bear in their due season Victoria plums, Conference pears, and three sorts of apple: Cottenham Seedlings, Reinette du Canadas, and Court Pendu Plats; he saw the sundial, which was supported by an almost naked iron boy; he saw a linnet sitting on this sundial; he saw, by a slight further turn of his head towards the right, a line of beech trees that grew from the bottom and west corner of the garden parallel to the brick wall (that ran to join the street wall in which was the brown side gate) almost until they reached the point where the elder tree grew behind the wooden bungalow; he saw five varieties of birds sitting in the beech trees. Some of the birds sang. He saw no human beings in the garden.