Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

Creeps on this petty pace from day to day …

Wace Renoldon Farley, 673-492479-341-895 to his friends, was teaching a ballet step to Horace Wangley Whipple. Farley counted aloud: One, two, one, two, one, two; and sometimes he hummed: Hmmm ho, hmmm ho, hmmm ho.

And while he worked, his mind wove gossamer funeral shrouds for fragments of dead beauty.

A stage where every man must play a part

And mine a sad one.

Whipple was learning to dance because one night in a fit of rage he beat to death his cohabitant, their infant daughter, and his mother. (He already had learned four card tricks, one magic act, a comic song, and an inept imitation of an unpopular Director of Public Safety.) He wore a brief ballet skirt and nothing else; sweat glistened on his bulging, hairy stomach as he balanced precariously on his toes and moved, with unsteady, mincing steps, from one side of his cage to the other.

He reached the bars, resisted the impulse to grab them, and managed an awkward, stumbling pivot without losing his balance. Farley’s hand relaxed on the punishment button. (Whenever Whipple touched anything to steady himself, Farley gave him an electric shock.) The hirsute ballerina looked hauntingly like a clumsily waltzing gorilla in a ballet skirt, but the analogy would have been lost on Farley, who had no personal knowledge of that extinct primate.

They were two atavists adrift in the wrong time and place. Whipple—whose physique should have been magnificent—in a world where strength and physical skill were meaningless; Farley—whose keen mind was shaped to the exquisite, dramatic interplay, the iridescent beauties of man and fate contending—in a world that had abolished both fate and beauty. The one’s body met the other’s mind only on the simulated musical beat: One, two, one, two.

Now, by two-headed Janus,

Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.

Farley regarded Whipple with mingled pity and contempt. The slobbering brute’s stuttering gyrations were pathetic, but Farley knew that everyone else would find them hilarious, and the successful addition of this ballet number to Whipple’s necessarily limited repertoire would add a minimum fifty thousand to his price when he came up for auction.

Farley also knew (this was the fate of one who saw beauty in man’s contention with fate) that the enforcement of inhuman indignities on a human being merely because he’d committed a few murders was an outrage. Behind that fear-twisted face and those blankly staring eyes was an indefinable quality of the human condition that the cage and its accompanying gross humiliations were slowly strangling.

These atavistic quirks of Farley’s mentality would have deeply disturbed his superiors and his friendly local internal security agents had they so much as suspected them. Farley believed in the human soul, though he did not know what to call it.

*

Adjacent to the building that housed the Penal Authority were the crematory ovens and the gas chambers of the International Poverty Control Agency (US Branch). On this day ovens and chambers were not in operation, a fact that disappointed those tourists who rode out on the branch conveyor to gape at the infamous extermination and confinement centers.

One of them remarked, “Now that’s what I call a job! Work only one day a month!”

*

Hart Ranno Lyndyl occupied a cage near Whipple’s. He sat on the floor, vacantly grinning into the infinite. He did not know where he was, or why, or what Farley was saying to Whipple; but when Farley counted or hummed a dance beat, the regularity of the sound awakened in Lyndyl a flicker of response. Farley counted; almost imperceptibly Lyndyl nodded.

*

The-Penal Authority was located on the edge of a diminishing swamp that had once been a river, and its district, formerly an island, was affectionately referred to as Old Blight, to distinguish it from the various new blights of the districts that surrounded it. It was the leading tourist attraction on the continent, possessing innumerable historic ruins, museums, legendary sites, a vast network of underground conveyors, quaintly ramshackle shops, and two of Earth’s three remaining skyscrapers.

Tourists thronged the walkways, and the boldest of them timidly made their way into the Anachron, the world’s last surviving public restaurant, the only place on Earth where real food could be bought and consumed. It even had a food store that sold raw and preserved foods for home cooking by those whose apartments were sufficiently anachronistic to still have the means.

In three of its four dining rooms (the small fourth room was reserved for regular local patrons) tourists held their scoops awkwardly and gummed a few mouthfuls of one of the creamy vegetable stews, or the vegetable curries, or the vegetable chowders, or (at an incredible price) the vegetable soufflé before they stole the menus to take home to their disbelieving friends and relatives.

There were tourist rumors that the Anachron would even serve meat, from unmentionable sources, raw or cooked, and at wholly unbelievable prices, but these were based upon the understandable assumption that a place selling any kind of real food would sell anything. The regular customers knew nothing about it, as repeated governmental investigation had proved. (Any kind of a rumor of meat consumption automatically was subjected to investigation by thirty-seven different governmental departments.) The regular customers tended to be morose, solitary individuals, decent enough citizens, eminently law abiding, who were afflicted with digestive problems or otherwise allergic to wholesome synthetics, and the government was inclined to regard them more with sympathy than suspicion.

In the Anachron’s main dining room, Oswald Ossafont Oyner, a tourist, and his family were gazing in stunned disbelief at the steaming bowls that had been placed before them. Oyner gripped his scoop defensively and pointed. “What’s that?”

“A piece of carrot,” the server answered politely.

“And—that?”

“Tomato.”

“And—those?”

“Peas.”

Oyner wielded his scoop, slurped the contents distastefully, and swallowed. A moment later his stomach churned, and he clapped his hand to his mouth for a brief but losing struggle with his own physiology.

The server resignedly pointed an autocleaner at the mess. It happened a minimum of a hundred times a day.

*

Wace Farley’s initial success had emboldened him. He decided to teach Whipple two ballet steps, the second to be used to bring the act to a climax. He was counting: One two three, one two three, one two three.

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of trouble …

At that moment Georg Donnoho Mallod entered. He took one look at the pirouetting Whipple and dissolved in laughter. “Great act!” he gasped. “Great act!”

The Penal Authority’s Resident Administrator daily congratulated himself on his astuteness in rescuing Farley from the inevitable fate of the unemployed, the ovens. The shy young man had seemed intent on suicide, devoting all of his legally allowed training to such an outlandishly unemployable specialty as ancient dramatic arts; but Mallod had a friend in the Poverty Control Agency who made it his hobby to sift out individuals with unusual qualifications and find employment for them. He mentioned Farley’s specialty to Mallod, and Mallod had reflected that the ancient dramatic arts were, after all, the primitive ancestors of contemporary public attractions. In sifting the moldy mounds of obsolete information Farley must have turned over a few notions that could be adapted to contemporary use. Mallod hired him.

Farley’s immediate, spectacular success already had gained Mallod a promotion that had been five years overdue, and Mallod was generous enough to publicly give Farley some of the credit for it. Mallod was not aware that Farley hated his work, or that he believed in the human soul.

“Dr. Savron is coming,” Mallod said.

Farley continued his count. Since he had never heard of Dr. Savron, he doubted that the visit concerned him. One two three, one two three.

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of the world.

“He’s the director of Rolling Acres. That’s the new Public Recreational Center over in District Eleven.”

“I’ve heard of it,” Farley said. “I didn’t know it had entertainment accommodations.” One two three, one two three.

“It does,” Mallod said grimly, “and Savron will have a priority order. He’ll want the usual dozen attractions. Why public establishments think they have to compete with private places of entertainment is more than I can understand. I’ve complained to several legislators about it. Not only is the competition unfair, but it reduces our surpluses. Well—Savron is on the way, and we’ll have to make the best of it. I told Karlson to move a dozen attractions with bids under a thousand to the central concourse.”

Farley left off his counting. “I have a couple of short-termers I’d be glad to unload. A pickpocket—he’s quite good. We got him back when the Happy Hours exhibit failed, and since he only had six months left to serve—”

“Good idea. There won’t be any bids, so we might as well let the Rolling Acres budget feed him.”

‘Also, there’s a con woman who has wonderful dexterity. Unfortunately, she’s such an ugly old thing that there were no bids, and now she has less than a year to serve.”

“Send them down,” Mallod said. “I’ll unload them if I can.”

“I wish we could unload Lyndy!”

“We’ll certainly try. I want you to come along and view Karlson’s attractions. I think it’s mostly his fault we don’t get better bids on them.”

Farley shrugged and got to his feet. It would be a challenge. Sometimes, if there was a challenge, he forgot that he hated his work.

The two of them left, and the multimurderer Whipple, still painfully balanced on his toes, stared after them.

*

Even the Anachron’s building was anachronistic, a shabby eight-sided affair with eight doors, and the restaurant’s regular customers loved it. Many of them had been eating their daily meal there for years, and the private dining room enabled them to enjoy their food undisturbed by gabbing tourists who all seemed to have unpredictable stomachs.

The regular customers also had their own convenience lounge, on the sublevel where stocks of food were stored, and from the convenience lounge, those regular customers who over the years had established themselves as trustworthy followed a labyrinthine path among the pungent-smelling bins to a remote wall. After a meticulous inspection through a secret panel, a secret door opened and they were admitted and for a wholly unconscionable price served a huge, foaming mug of berr, a transaction that would have been investigated by seventy-one outraged governmental departments had it even been suspected.

But the Anachron had performed its own careful, long-term investigation of these regulars who were admitted to the secret sublevel taproom. They were reliable. Some quaffed the forbidden beverage as the only means of rebellion open to them. Others had developed a taste for the berr. If some managed to make a few mugs of berr last through a day or an evening or a night of companionable talk, who was to notice? It was not without forethought that the Anachron had endowed itself with eight entrances—and exits.

On this afternoon Eman Xavion Helpflin was the taproom’s only customer. He had been there since morning; much of the time he was alone, because Melisander, the drawer, worked in the storerooms when business was slack.

Helpflin sat in the darkest corner of the room and at lengthening intervals tilted his mug, sipped, and watched the flecks of foam slowly slide back into the berr. He was an employee of the International Poverty Control Agency, and at the most recent E (for extermination) Day, an employed man and his family went to the ovens because the Agency had stupidly snarled its records.

It was not Helpflin’s fault. The contrary—he received a commendation for his own attempts to straighten out the mess. He did straighten it out, but an accumulation of minor errors of omission elsewhere negated his efforts. He received a commendation; the man and his family nevertheless were dead.

Commendation and merit citations carried automatic grants of leave, and Helpflin was spending his in the dark corner of the Anachron’s secret taproom, tilting his berr mug and staring at the foam.

If Wace Farley had been able to articulate his ideas concerning the human soul, Helpflin would not have believed him, but he would have liked to.

*

Dr. Marnis Murgatroyd Savron carried his lank form at a slight forward tilt, which enabled him to view the world with close suspicion through his bulging pol lenses. Mallod read him easily: He knew nothing, he had no previous experience with criminal attractions, and he would have preferred to send a subordinate but hadn’t dared. He would be far more difficult to deal with than a professional; knowing nothing, he’d be terrified of making a mistake.

Mallod asked, “How many accommodations does Rolling Acres have?”

“Twenty displays,” Savron said, sounding apologetic.

“Twenty!” Farley exclaimed. “Why, no other public exhibit has more than—”

Mallod silenced him with a glance and spoke firmly. “Absolutely impossible.” He opened a folder and inventoried Karlson’s list of low-bid attractions. “Six is the very best I can do for you. That’s just to get you started, of course—we’ll add to them whenever we can until we’ve filled your displays, but it can’t be done quickly.

To help tide you over, I can let you have a couple of short-term attractions—a pickpocket and a con woman—in addition to the six.”

“I’d hoped for at least two murderers,” Savron said, still sounding apologetic.

Mallod’shook his head. “There’s only one available. Brenda Barris, the cohabitant poisoner.”

“Poisoner?” Savron grimaced. “I don’t think our public would like that.”

“She has a very good act,” Mallod assured him. “You’ll see her. You’ll see all of them.”

“I heard that Whipple hadn’t been assigned yet.”

“He hasn’t.” Mallod smiled at him. “And the bids have reached half a million.”

Dr. Savron’s startled, “Oh,” was a mixture of incredulity and disappointment.

“We’re the only branch of the government that shows a profit,” Mallod said, still smiling. “We turn millions back to the treasury annually, and those millions support many worthwhile projects—such as the Rolling Acres Recreational Center. We’re sympathetic to free public exhibits in parks and recreational centers and community malls, but the directors must understand that merely because the attractions are transferred from one branch of government to another doesn’t mean that they’re without cost. They cost whatever we would have been able to get for leasing them to private exhibitors. If we turned our really valuable attractions over to public exhibits, the budget wouldn’t balance and there’d be an investigation. Did you by chance get the written approval of the. Penal Commission before you built the twenty displays? No? The code limits you to twelve, you know.”

Savron said uncertainly, “Well, the funds were available, and people seem to enjoy the displays, so we thought—”

Mallod was nodding grimly. “I’ll do the best I can for you. If you’ll promise not to complain, I’ll promise not to call anyone’s attention to the twenty displays. Fair enough?”

“Well—I suppose.”

Mallod patted his shoulder familiarly. “Come along. You can pick out your six.”

*

Melisander, the Anachron’s taproom drawer, was becoming deeply concerned about Eman Helpflin. The man had stretched three mugs of berr over most of a day, which did not seem excessive, but he had been staring into his mug for so long that Melisander knew he either was intoxicated or hypnotized.

“Don’t you think you ought to eat something?” he asked.

Melisander’s suggestions were the taproom’s only code of law. Helpflin knew he wouldn’t get a refill until he had eaten, so he pushed his empty mug aside and went up to the Anachron’s private dining room. An hour later he was back in the taproom, slowly sipping berr and staring at the foam.

*

Karlson was waiting in the central concourse when Savron, Mallod and Farley arrived. A garrulous, middle-aged man of limited intelligence, he had been maneuvered into his job by a prominent politician relative to save him from extermination, and he ploddingly tried to use the same tired entertainment ideas over and over. Farley, who felt sorry for him, helped him out whenever he could, but persuading him to drop a bad idea in favor of a good one wasn’t easy; he couldn’t tell the difference.

With a smug little smile Karlson led them to the Brenda Barris display; probably he expected her to charm Savron into accepting the rest of his badly trained riffraff. He sounded the warning buzzer; the stage lights came on; the curving panels became transparent.

Brenda Barris was a faded, bulgy, graying woman whose cohabitant had wanted to leave her for obvious reasons. Karlson attempted to make sirens out of all of his female criminals, and he had attired Barris in trousers cut so short they were almost nonexistent and a transparent shirt. She wearily went through the motions of setting a table, making cafron, adding simulated poison to one cup, and then seating herself to wait for her doomed cohabitant.

Savron was shaking his head disgustedly. He knew he was inexperienced, but he resented being considered stupid. Mallod said to Farley, “Tell Karlson what’s wrong.”

“The casting,” Farley said. “An ugly old woman doesn’t become an attractive young woman merely because she’s committed murder. Make Barris a surrogate mother. Dress her conservatively and teach her to smile. And when she’s made the drink, she ought to pretend she’s inviting someone in the audience to share it with her.”

“Get working on it now,” Mallod ordered. “We’ll make the rounds without you. By the time we’re back here, I want to see a good act.”

“Yes, sir,” Karlson muttered and turned away.

“Give her a bigger bottle for the poison, with a label large enough to be identified,” Farley called after him.

They took Savron, still savoring his disappointment, to see Farley’s short-term pickpocket; but the pickpocket was in fact very good. He did dexterity tricks and juggling, and during the act he picked his own pockets. Savron accepted him eagerly.

“I think I’m beginning to understand this,” he said. “You need a few sensational attractions to pull the people in, and once they’re in it’s good solid acts like this one that keep them entertained.”

“That’s true enough—for the private exhibitor,” Mallod said. “He charges admission, and he has to have sensational attractions to make people buy tickets. Free exhibitions pull crowds regardless.”

Savron did not seem convinced. He grudgingly accepted the short-term con woman while complaining about her ugliness, and Mallod said tartly, “All kinds of people commit crimes, and we have to do the best we can with what’s available. If Barris were young and pretty she’d fetch a high price without any act.”

Karlson’s next offering was a half-witted burglar he’d tried to make funny by having him tiptoe about in a dim setting knocking things over. While Savron was gloomily contemplating this, Mallod drew Farley aside.

“We’ve got to give him one really good attraction,” he said.

“How about letting him market-test an arsonist for us?” Farley suggested. “I’ve worked out a new act for our twelve-year-old.”

“Good idea.”

Mallod drew Savron away from the burglar’s dreary performance. “That’s no act at all,” he said apologetically, “but we have to give every one of them a chance. I know you’ll like the next one. An arsonist.”

Savron was doubtful, but his attitude quickly changed to one of rapture. The pink-cheeked youngster artfully spread combustibles through the display and ignited them. And as the display went up in flames, the youngster broke into a frenzied, elated dance, his body trembling, his mouth drooling, his face twitching spasmodically, his eyes wildly flashing excitement.

Savron’s enthusiasm so mellowed him that they took him back to Barris and got his grudging approval on her act as a kindly, poisoning surrogate mother.

“But I wish I had another murderer,” he said.

“How about an ax murderer?” Mallod suggested.

“Really? You’ll let me have one? That’s wonderful! Who is it?”

He had never heard of Hari Ranno Lyndyl, and when he saw the cherubic little man seated on the floor of his cage and smiling vacantly, he refused to believe it. Lyndyl did in fact look like the most congenial of toenail curlers, which he had been before he took an ax to a patron.

Unfortunately—from the Penal Authority’s point-of-view—he bungled the job. The employer was on his tenth heart transplant and hadn’t long to live anyway, and the heirs managed to dampen the publicity. When the patron finally died there was doubt as to whether Lyndyl really killed him. Not only did that make Lyndyl an unknown, unsuccessful murderer, but he had no talent of any kind for entertaining. Farley worked out several acts for him, but all Lyndyl would do was sit in his cage and smile.

They abandoned Lyndyl. Savron indifferently accepted an attraction where two criminals convicted of thuggery pounded each other with gloves too padded to do harm, and he was delighted with a con man who had worked up a monolog in which he tried to sell the audience the continent of Brazil. In the end Savron had put together six nicely varied attractions plus the two short-term acts—a good beginning even though he had no sensational attractions. He arranged to take immediate delivery, and Mallod escorted him out.

When he returned, he said sternly to Farley, “We’ve got to do something about Lyndyl, or we’ll have him on our hands for life. Anyway, we have so few murderers that we can’t afford to waste one.”

“It’s hard to train a man who won’t do anything but sit and smile,” Farley pointed out.

“Put him in punishment,” Mallod said. “Make him understand he comes back up only when he has an act worth viewing. If that doesn’t work, I’ll see if we can get him released temporarily on some pretext.”

“But he’s certified a dangerous homicidal maniac!” Farley protested.

“Right. By the time we got him back, he ought to have a reputation that’d make him worth a quarter of a million, at least.”

*

“The maximum?” the punishment attendant asked hopefully. He was one Penal Authority employee who enjoyed his work. Farley told him to start Lyndyl with five percent and give him a daily increase.

They chose the electrical regimen. There was one neutral spot in the punishment cage, which changed with each punishment cycle, and until the criminal found it everything he touched shocked him painfully. Lyndyl hopped wildly about the cage, a pathetic, whimpering, slobbering animal. When finally he located the neutral spot, he had to stand on one foot while the charge built up around him. Once he lost his balance and landed screaming on the floor. At the end of the cycle, at the moment prescribed in Lyndyl’s medical chart, the neutral spot delivered one massive shock that knocked him unconscious. On a five percent electrical regimen, this happened once every twenty hours.

Farley visited the punishment cages only when he had to, but the sight of a criminal being privately and scientifically punished affected him far less than the sight of one being publicly humiliated in an entertainment exhibit. Those who committed crimes merited punishment. No one merited humiliation; which was, Farley thought, why he hated his work.

*

The Anachron’s taproom was crowded that evening when Wace Farley arrived. He had been a regular customer since his student days, and Melisander, the drawer, gave him a friendly grin as he passed him a brimming mug. Farley saw an empty table in a dark corner and started toward it, but before he reached it he saw that it was occupied. He was looking about him again when Eman Helpflin glanced up at him, finally comprehended that he was searching for a chair, and motioned Farley to join him. For a time the two of them sipped berr together and contemplated the foam.

Helpflin, without knowing it, was intoxicated. He didn’t know it because he’d never been intoxicated before. Very few living men ever had been intoxicated. One hundred and seventy-two governmental departments would indulge in a frenzy of investigation if Helpflin’s condition became public knowledge.

Helpflin said, speaking slowly and distinctly, “I killed a man.” Farley eyed him skeptically. He associated with all sorts of criminals during his working hours, and it took more than a confession of murder to ruffle his equanimity. “So why aren’t you in a cage?” Farley demanded.

“Cage?” Helpflin echoed.

“Murderers get put in cages. All criminals get put in cages.”

“Never thought about that. Anyway, it wasn’t my fault.”

“That’s irrelevant,” said Farley, wise to the ways of the law. “Most criminals didn’t mean to do it. You should be in a cage.” He chuckled. “Heard a funny one today. Promoter found he couldn’t afford new criminal attractions. He’d read somewhere that people used to pay money to see animals in cages, so he decided to add some animal attractions. Turned out it’s against the law!”

“Do you mean to say,” Helpflin asked slowly, “that it’s illegal to exhibit animals, but it isn’t illegal to exhibit people?”

“Right. Animals can’t be subjected to inhumane treatment. Humans can.”

“But only under the proper circumstances,” Helpflin pointed out. “That is, only if they’re criminals.”

“Wrong.” Farley leaned forward and lowered his voice. “They can if there’s money in it. Government makes money leasing criminals for exhibitions. Government wouldn’t make any money if animals were exhibited.”

“Is it illegal to kill animals?” Helpflin asked.

“I suppose.”

“But it’s perfectly legal to kill people. They do it every E Day.”

“But only under the proper circumstances,” Farley pointed out. “That is, only if the, people are unemployed.”

“Meaning that there’s money in it,” Helpflin said quietly. “In this case, money to be saved.”

“True. Fellow can’t find work, he draws unemployment for two years, still no job, zip.” Farley drained his mug, excused himself, went for a refill, and returned licking the foam from the top of the mug.

They spoke of other things, the mugs were refilled again, and the evening wore on pleasantly. “Getting put in cages,” Farley said suddenly, “is worse than dying.”

“Why do you say that?” Helpflin asked.

“Two years, no job, zip. But go beat an old woman to death or something worse, and they put you in a cage. Doesn’t that prove being caged is worse than dying? Otherwise, they’d put the guy that can’t find a job in a cage, and they’d exterminate the murderer.”

“That way there wouldn’t be any money in it.”

The taproom temporarily had changed drawers. Melisander had become suspicious about the two quietly-talking figures in the corner, both of whom had been drinking far too long. His substitute was unaware of this; he cheerfully refilled their mugs. There were now two intoxicated men in the room, and if the hundred and seventy-two departments found it out there would be a hundred seventy-two cases of departmental apoplexy.

“I still think it’s inhumane putting people in cages,” Farley said half a mug later.

“Let ‘em out,” Helpflin suggested.

Farley stared at him.

“Then they’d be unemployed, and the government would exterminate them!” Helpflin guffawed.

“Never thought of that,” Farley admitted. “Can’t let ‘em all out. Too many checkpoints. Might let Lyndyl out, though. They’re torturing him with electric shocks.”

“They shouldn’t ought to do that,” Helpflin observed. “It sounds inhumane.”

“Naw—it’s just punishment. He’s a murderer, he should be punished, but they’re not punishing him for that. They’re punishing him because he won’t learn an act and perform in public in a cage, and that’s inhumane.”

“Why don’t you let him out, then?”

“I will. It’ll take planning, though. Will you help?”

“Of course. I’m good at helping people. They die anyway, but I’m good at helping. I have a commendation.”

The two of them moved their heads closer together and continued to talk.

*

They loomed up out of a chill night and rang the Penal Authority’s gong. Farley was wearing an outlandish, enveloping cloak; Helpflin was similarly attired and also wore a disguise Farley had selected from his collection of props for criminal attractions: false nose and teeth. In addition, Helpflin had stopped off at the Poverty Control Agency and manufactured a complete identity kit.

The door guard gazed at them curiously. “This is Dr. Berr,” Farley said. “I have to get medical approval for Lyndyl’s new act.”

The guard sourly signed him in and waved them along. All the security checks were casual. No one ever had escaped from the Penal Authority, or even tried to. How could the prisoners escape, when all of them were in cages?

Farley hurried Helpflin past the three interior checkpoints, each superintended by a watchman who nodded sleepily from his enclosure. The punishment night attendant was asleep. Farley did not hesitate—he released Lyndyl, attired him in his own concealing cloak, giving it a fold that hid the face, and watched Helpflin lead him away. Surreptitiously he saw them past the first checkpoint, and then he went to an upstairs window and watched until they safely emerged from the building:

With a feeling of immense satisfaction he staggered drunkenly back down to punishment, entered Lyndyl’s cage, and closed the door.

*

“I appreciate the loyalty,” Mallod said, “but you shouldn’t have done it.”

Farley never had seen him so flustered, but because of his gigantic headache he was having difficulty in concentrating. He could only stare at him.

“I didn’t mean that seriously about getting Lyndyl released,”

Mallod explained. “But it worked. He’ll be worth half a million to us, now.”

Comprehension came slowly to Farley. “You mean—Lyndyl has committed another crime?”

“Another murder,” Mallod said, with deep satisfaction. “Now he’s a double-murderer, and also the only criminal escapee in two generations, and he won’t have to have an act. He can sit there smiling and make the audience shudder.”

“Who did he murder?” Farley asked, aghast.

“Who’d you expect? That Dr. Berr you brought to see him. We found his cloak and identification, but Lyndyl won’t tell us what he did with the body. If he shoved it into a commercial disposer, and he had the opportunity, we’ll never find a trace of it. Which is neither here nor there. You shouldn’t have done it. The Authority doctor is of the opinion that you were of unsound mind due to a food poisoning he can’t identify, and that’s your best line of defense. Stick to it, and don’t mention what I said about getting Lyndyl out, and I’ll do everything I can for you.”

*

“Life imprisonment,” the arbiter said, “with mandatory punishment at a minimum fifty percent level. I’m prohibiting your lease to any public or private exhibition—though why one would want the author of such a sordid crime I couldn’t comprehend.”

Farley said bewilderedly, “But I didn’t do any murder!”

“You helped to free a homicidal maniac, so you were responsible for what he did—which is beside the point. I wouldn’t give you mandatory punishment for that. Murder is a crime against one person. In conspiring to release a legally-confined criminal, you committed a horrendous offense against your government—in other words, against half a billion people. Get him out of here before I make it punishment at the hundred percent level!”

*

A wretched soul, bruised with adversity …

Twelve times each day—once every two hours—Farley felt the preliminary tingle that signaled the beginning of the next punishment cycle. Wearily he began to search for the neutral spot. His few attempts to defy punishment failed; he was physically incapable of standing the shocks, and eventually he would be forced to search desperately for the neutral spot with the same pathetic, groveling whimpers that had so revolted him when he witnessed the punishment of others. He looked forward to the final shock that brought unconsciousness; it was the only rest he had.

There’s some ill planet reigns:

I must be patient till the heavens look

With an aspect more favorable:

He nevertheless had cause for thanks. He had committed a crime; he deserved punishment. At least he had escaped the humiliation of public exhibition.

*

He suffered eight days of continuous fifty percent punishment; then, regaining consciousness after a punishment cycle, he found himself caged in the Penal Authority copter used to transfer criminals. It landed, and he was brusquely removed and thrust into another cage.

A beaming Dr. Savron looked in on him. “Welcome to Rolling Acres!”

Farley regarded him incredulously.

“Mallod and I arranged this,” Savron said. “Officially, someone made a mistake and brought you instead of the criminal we contracted for. It’ll take time to straighten out the mixup, and you’ll have a few days of rest from punishment.”

“Thank you,” Farley said. “That’s very kind of you.”

“Not at all. I’d like to have you here permanently, to help with the attractions. But since you’re an enemy of the government, under a sentence of mandatory punishment with exhibition prohibited, naturally it is out of the question.”

“Naturally,” Farley agreed, with a faint smile.

“Unless,” Savron went on, “you’re able to perform an act yourself.”

“I’m a student of history, not a performer.”

“Exactly. But if you were to come up with something extremely popular, and it would have to be sensational, then we could put pressure on the arbiter to let us keep you. Mallod thinks you can do it. That’s the real reason we arranged this. He says to tell you he’s doing the best he can for you, but it may be a long time before you get another chance like this.”

“Thanks,” Farley said, “but I prefer punishment to public humiliation.”

“Exactly. But we have some distinguished visitors in addition to the usual afternoon crowd. The entire Board of Commissioners is here, and if they see something they like they’ll certainly persuade the arbiter to let us keep it. You may never have another opportunity like this, but the act will have to be exceptional. Good luck—you’re on in half an hour!”

His face vanished. Farley stared after him contemptuously. “I haven’t got an act!” he shouted. “I don’t want an act! I won’t do an act!”

There was no response; Savron had left, and the panel was closed. Farley dropped into a chair and looked about him. The exhibit’s stage was set to resemble an ordinary room: chairs, a table, a rack of book tapes (but no player), cheap ornaments and knickknacks. Idly he wondered what preposterous stupidity of an act had been planned for such a setting, but it was no concern of his. The one dignity left to him was the right to refuse the indignity of performing publicly in a cage. When Savron returned he would tell him so, emphatically.

But he was not ungrateful for the respite from punishment. He was exhausted, and it certainly would be long before he again enjoyed the luxury of uninterrupted sleep. He stretched out in the chair and dozed off immediately.

What hath this day deserved?

What hath it done

That it in golden letters should be set

Among the high tides in the calendar?

The warning buzzer awakened him. For a moment he could not think what it was, or where he was. Then he shouted, “I haven’t got an act! I won’t do an act!”

The stage lights came on, the panels went transparent, and he found himself glaring furiously at his audience.

He had never seen an audience before. In the past, he always had been in the audience, listening to its reaction but concentrating furiously on what the performer did. Now, for the first time, he saw the faces.

The leering, the coarse, the mocking faces. In the front, a group of small boys were shouting taunts at him. Girls were tittering, women giggling, men grinning. Only the commissioners, unmistakable in their flamboyant uniforms, looked on solemnly.

He leaped to his feet. At one side, staring at him, was his alleged friend from the Anachron, the supposedly murdered, phony Dr. Berr, whose real name Farley had not learned. “You told me to do it!” Farley screamed. He pointed a quivering finger. “You! It’s your fault!”

The crowd dissolved in hilarity. Its wave of laughter smote him; a hideously cackling mouth gaped at him from every face. Only Dr. Berr was not laughing. He was staring in consternation.

“You!” Farley shouted.

Dr. Berr turned and fled.

Fury overwhelmed Farley. He picked up his chair and sent it crashing against the panels. “You!” he screamed again.

Another chair. Crash.

A table. Crash.

“You!” Farley screamed. “You told me to do it!”

Cushions. The book tapes. The ornaments and knickknacks. Anything he could lift, and his strength was prodigious. He dashed into the adjacent sleeping quarters, returned with a chest, and flung that. From the convenience lounge he brought a tumbler of water and splashed it at the audience.

Then he hurled himself against the panels and futilely beat on them with his fists.

His anger began to fade, and he stared dully at the packed faces before him.

They were convulsed with laughter. The children were rolling on the ground, the adults were helplessly clutching their sides, even the dignified commissioners were howling.

Again his wrath overwhelmed him. He screamed insults, he hurled every loose object in his cage, and when the stage lights faded and the translucency returned to the panels, he lay on the floor at the front of the cage, kicking with impotent rage and futilely hammering the panels with bloody hands.

Slowly he got to his feet. For a long, stunned moment he contemplated the debris that lay scattered in the wake of his anger, and then, defeated, humiliated beyond any hope of atonement, he sank to the floor and .wept for the cool dimness of his punishment cage, for the honest torment of the electrical regimen’s unsullied pulsations. “Farley!”

He looked up uncomprehendingly. Dr. Savron was beaming at him. “Great act! Absolutely great! Sensational! You did it! You’re the best attraction we have! I’ll get statements from all of the commissioners and see to your permanent transfer in the morning. I’ll also tell the stage man to get you some cheap props so you can put on a show without breaking up good furniture. We won’t exhibit you again until it’s ready.”

His face disappeared. The stage man entered a moment later, wiping his eyes. “Never laughed so hard in my life,” he said. “Great act. I’ll get you some cheap props.”

He removed the debris from the cage and returned with an inflated chair. “Here’s something to sit on till we find props,” he said. “You can throw it all you like.”

He left, and Farley dropped into the chair and closed his eyes.

He was caged. It was illegal to cage animals for display, but it was not illegal to cage Wace Renoldon Farley, 673-492-479-341-895, and train him under the threat of dire punishment if he learned slowly, and make him perform ten times daily for a leering audience of inhumane humans.

He had never before thought of an audience in terms of faces, but now he had seen them: the hideously flushed, twisted, coarse, cackling, screaming, howling puffs of animate flesh. He had not imagined anything could be so repulsive. It was his lot to see them ten times daily, and he was caged and helpless.

But he had not lost, not yet. They could not force him to perform. Punishment was his rightful fate, and it held no terror for him.

He opened his eyes and looked about him. The Rolling Acres accommodations were the most lavish he had seen. He got to his feet and made a hasty inspection. Behind the stage was a comfortably-sized bedroom and the private convenience lounge with bath. The stage was oversized and could serve as living quarters and study when he wasn’t performing. The apartment he’d been able to afford on his Penal Authority salary seemed cramped by comparison. Probably they would let him have his library—he could claim to be studying Shakespeare in search of ideas for a new act.

They could not force him. There was no possible way they could compel him to perform.

He sat down again. If his demented violence had brought howls of laughter, what would a real act do—an act with pacing, and continuity, and motivation, and climaxes, and a finish with a genuine punch to it?

They could not force him.

If they’d let him have a water tap in full view of the audience, he could fill a container with water and throw that. He’d need two containers. He’d fill one, and drench the panels with it, and they’d be convulsed. Then he would fill it again.

If he could somehow arrange for the panels to slide aside or open at precisely the right moment, then he could pick up a container and dash toward the audience, the panel would open, and the audience would think this notorious criminal was escaping and about to drown them. But it would be the second container that he carried, and as the spectators tried to scatter in panic, he’d dump a cloud of paper confetti over them.

It would slay them.

He leaned back in profound satisfaction. Wace Renoldon Farley, notorious enemy of the government and the people, Wace Farley would kill his audiences dead.

With a gentle smile on his face he fell asleep.

His glassy essence, like an angry ape …

Condemned into everlasting redemption …

In Times to Come

Tak Hallus culminates his series of stories about the Jenson matter-transmitter with a novel, “Stargate,” that begins in our June issue. There will also be stories by Alfred Bester, George R. R. Martin, and others—plus an article, “Let There Be Light,” by Thomas Easton, which shows how a blind person’s skin can be turned into “eyes.”