XIV
Buckminster Siegel, Jr., massaged his sore hand, left his son sobbing in the bedroom, and approached his wife, who was sobbing in the kitchen.
“Well,” he said angrily, “I gave him something to think about, but if I have that to go through every night when I get home, I’m getting something to do it with besides my hand. What did he do besides scorch the couch?”
“Oh,” she said, “he was awful today! He put that New Martian lizard into the fish tank, and the lizard ate up the fish, and then drank so much water it burst, and he was screaming and howling, and kicked the dog in the ribs, ran into the rec room and dumped the alsens over the parapet into the swimming pool, with the cord still plugged in, and this greenish gas bubbled up out of the pool, and when I pulled the plug out, I got a terrible shock. And then he—”
“One of these short-handled fly-swatters might do the trick, or an initiation paddle—”
“If only,” she said, “I could just sit him in front of the alsens. That’s what they used to do, back before the Convulsion. Buck, why can’t I?”
“Phew,” he said, and looking around for something to eat.
“Why?” she said.
“Huh? Oh, I read about it somewhere. When they uncorked the outside cap to the Central Power Station, there was an escape of particles that did something to the ionization belt—changed the charge in it, or something. That affects the transmission. Now when a kid lives the alsens, he gets a terrific headache. ‘Incompatible signal,’ they call it. As a matter of fact, the thing gives me a headache every now and then. He dumped it in the pool, you said?”
She took a deep shuddering breath, and nodded.
“There’s a rumor,” he said, “that the higher ups figure the sets caused the Convulsion, and so they made them incompatible on purpose, by changing the signal.”
“How could the sets have caused the trouble?”
“As I heard it, the idea was that the kid had to learn what the limits are—how far he can go—and he keeps pushing, taking more space till finally the old man just can’t stand it anymore, and clobbers him, and then he knows where the limits are, the clobbering gives him an idea what happens when you go beyond the limits, and the whole thing gets stored away so when his own kid goes beyond the limits it doesn’t leave him feeling helpless—he knows what to do, because he’s already seen it done. But if the kid never has the collision, because the old man isn’t around, or because the kid gets stuck in the alsens every time he gets mean, he doesn’t get clobbered, doesn’t get any idea what it’s like, doesn’t have it stored away when his own kid acts up, and maybe thinks there aren’t any limits, anyway. He’s got no idea what it feels like to go too far and have the roof fall in. Instead, he gets the idea that if he gets mean, entertainment will be produced for him. That’s the way it’s always been before.”
“But is it true?”
“Don’t ask me. Is there anything to eat in this place?”