Ellison Wonderland Part 2

I wanted to cry because it was so simply terrifying.

The train slowed, braked, and came to a hissing halt, without lurching. The doors opened and the many commuterly-dressed people who had been crowded into the car began to stream out. The entire trip couldn't have taken more than twenty minutes.

Then I thought of that "translation" and I wasn't so sure of my time estimate.

"Come on," said Da Campo, "I'll get you to an Auditor." He glanced down at his wrist, frowning at the dial of a weirdly-numeraled watch. He whistled through his teeth for a moment, as the crowd pushed out. Then he shoved me after them resignedly. "Let's hurry," he said, "I haven't much time."

He herded me before him, and told me to wait a moment while he took care of something. He stepped to the end of a line of men and women about to enter a small booth, one of about twenty such booths. A dilating opening in the booth admitted one person at a time.

In a few moments the line had diminished, as men went in one side wearing suits like my own grey flannel, and emerged from the other clad in odd, short jackets and skin-tight pants. The women came out in the equivalent, only tailored for the female form. They didn't look bad at all.

Da Campo went in and quickly came out. He stepped to my side, dressed like the others, and began pushing me again.

"Had to change for work," he commented shortly. "Come on."

I followed him, confused. My stomach was getting more and more uneasy. I had a feeling that the twinge I'd occasionally felt in my stomach was going to develop into an ulcer.

We stepped onto an escalator-like stairway that carried us up through a series of floors where I saw more people--dressed like Da Campo--scurrying back and forth. "Who are they?" I asked.

Da Campo looked at me with pity and annoyance and said, "Commuters."

"Earth is a suburb, isn't it?" I asked.

He nodded, not looking at me.

I knew what it was all about, then. A fool would be the only one unable to see the picture after all the pieces had been laid out so clearly. It was really quite simple:Earth was being infiltrated. But there wasn't any sinister invasion or displacement afoot. That was ridiculous. The only reason these aliens were on Earth was to live.

When I thought the word "alien" I looked at Da Campo. He appeared to be the same as anyone of Earth.

These "aliens" were obviously exactly like us, physically. Physically.

Why were the aliens on Earth to live? Again, simple. Why does a man who works in New York City go out to Westchester after 5:00 every day? Answer: the city is too crowded. He goes to the suburbs to live quietly.

"Is--uh--Drexwill crowded, Da Campo? I mean, are there a lot of people here?"

He nodded again and muttered something about serious over-population and why didn't the stupid Faenalists use their heads and bring things under control and wasn't that what he was paying his Allotments for.

The escalator was coming to another floor, and Da Campo made movements toward the exit side. He stepped off, and I followed. He gave me a quick glance to make sure I was following, and strode briskly away.

All around us people were coming and going with quiet purpose.

"Da Campo--" I began, trying to get his attention. His nonchalance and att.i.tude of trying to brush me off were beginning.to terrify me more than all the really strange things going on around me.

"Stop calling me that, you fool! My name is Helgorth Labbula, and if you refer to me again with that idiotic name I'll leave you here and let you fend for yourself. I'm only taking my time to get you to an Auditor because they might construe it as my fault that you wandered into the Suburb Depot." He glared at me, and I bit my lip.

We kept walling and I wondered what an Auditor was, and where we were going to find one.

I found out quickly enough. Da Cam--er, Helgorth Labbula spotted a tall, hard-looking man in a deep blue version of the universal short jacket and tight pants, and hailed him.

The Auditor walked over and Da Campo talked to him in soft tones for a moment. I watched as the man's eyes got wider and wider, as Da Campo's talk progressed.

"Hey!" I yelled. They both looked up, annoyed.

"I hate to say anything," I said, "but if I'm right, you're talking about me, and I don't like this cold-shoulder routine, not one little bit." I was sick of all this rigamarole, and me stuck somewhere a million miles or more away from my office, and everyone acting as though I'd done it on purpose and I was a nuisance.

"Now talk in English so I can understand, will you?"

The Auditor turned cool grey eyes on me. Stiffly, as though he were unaccustomed to speaking the language, he said, "You have stumbled into something by chance, and though it is not your fault, dispensation must be arranged. Will you please come with. me."

He stated it, didn't ask it, and I had no choice.

We took a few steps, and the Auditor turned to stare back at Da Campo who was watching us balefully.

"You, too," the man in the blue tunic said.

"But I have to be at--"

"You will be needed for a statement. I'm sorry, but it's official."

"What am I paying my Allotments for, if you Auditors can't handle a little thing like this?" He was getting angry, but the Auditor shrugged his shoulders, and Da Campo trudged along behind us.

We came up off one of the escalators, into the light of triple suns. Three of them. Burning all at once. Triple shadows. That was when I realized how far away, more than a mere million miles, and how strange, and how lost I was.

"How--how far from Earth are we?" I asked.

The Auditor answered absently, "About 60,000 light-years."

I gawked, stopped dead in my tracks. "But you toss it off so lightly, as though it were around the block! And you don't live that differently from us! I don't understand!"

"Understand? What's to understand?" snapped Da Campo with annoyance. "It was a fluke that discovered Translation, and allowed us to live off Drexwill. But it didn't change our culture much. Why shouldn't we take it for granted? We've lived with it all our lives, and there's nothing odd or marvelous about it."

"In fact, " he added, glaring at the Auditor, "it's a blasted bother sometimes!"

His tossing it off in that manner only made it worse for me.

I thought of the distance between me and my office, realizing I hadn't the faintest idea how far away it was, but knowing it was further than anything I could ever imagine. I tried putting it into mundane terms by remembering that the nearest star to Earth was only four light-years away and then trying something like: If all the chewing-gum wrappers in the world were laid end to end, they'd stretch from Earth to-- But it only made things worse.

I was lost."I want to go home," I said, and realized I sounded like a little boy. But I couldn't help it.

The Auditor and Da Campo turned to look at me at the same time. I wished I had been unable to read what was in their eyes.

But I could. I wished I hadn't been able to, really.

They hurried me down a street, if street it was, and I supposed that was what it was, and into a bubble-like car with a blue insignia, that sat by the curb. It ran on a monorail, and in a few seconds we had left the Depot behind.

We sped through the city, and oddly, I didn't marvel at the fantastic architecture and evidences of great science, though there were enough of both. From the screaming ships that split the morning sky to the cone-within- helix buildings rising on all sides.

I didn't look, because it was so restful for the first time in my life not to have to worry about offices, and commuting, and bills, and Charlotte's ashtray fetish, or any of the other G.o.ddam bothers I had been heir to since I was able to go out and earn a living. No treadmill. No responsibility.

It was good to lie back in the padded seat and just close my eyes. Even though I knew I was in deep trouble.

We drove for a while, and then something occurred to me.

"Why don't we just translate where we're going?"

The Auditor was looking out the window abstractedly, but he said, "Too short a jump. It only works in light- year minimums."

"Oh," I said, and sank back again.

It was all so logical.

Something else popped into my mind. The sheet of liabilities under my desk blotter.

"Uh--Da Campo," I began, and shrank back at the scathing look he turned on me.

"The name is Helgorth Labbula, I told your" The Auditor smiled out the window.

"Want to tell me a few things?" I asked, timidly.

Da Campo sighed once, deeply, "Go ahead. You can't be any more trouble to me than you have already. I'm twenty kil-boros late already."

"What was that in your garden?"

" A plant, what do you think?"

"But--"

He seemed about to explode with irritation. "Look, Weiler, you grow those runty little chrysanthemums and roses, don't you? Well, why shouldn't I be ent.i.tled to grow a native plant in my garden? Just because I'm living out there in the sticks doesn't mean I have to act and live like a barbarian."

The Auditor looked over, "Yes, but you were warned several times about growing native plants in Suburb Territory when you signed the real estate release, weren't you, Helgorth?"

Da Campo turned red.

"Well, that's--what I mean is--a man bas to have some--" He stuttered into silence and looked at me with wrath.

"How come we never saw any smoke from your house?"

"We don't use imbecilic fuels like coal or gas or oil."

I didn't understand, but he cleared it up with the answer to my next question. I said, "Why don't you ever go out, or show lights at night, and why do you pull those drapes?"

"Because the inside of our house isn't like yours. We have a Drexwillian bungalow in there. A bit cramped for s.p.a.ce we are," he said, casting a nasty look at the Auditor, "but with regulations what they are, we can't expect much better. We have our own independent heating system' food supply, lighting system and everything else. We pull the drapes so you won't see when we turn on all the units at once. We have to inconvenience ourselves, I'll tell you.

"But at least it's better than living in this madhouse," he finished, waving a hand at the bustling city.

"I rather like it, " I said.

The Auditor glanced over at me again, and for the second time I read his eyes. The message hadn't changed.

I was still in trouble.

"We're almost there," he said.

The car slowed and came to an easy stop before a huge white building, and we got out.

Da Campo held back and spoke to the Auditor again in tones that indicated he wanted to leave.

"It will only take a short time. We need your statement, " the Auditor told him, motioning him out of the car.

We walked up the Wide, resilient steps.After a wearying progression through the stages of red tape, statements, personnel, and official procedure which reminded me strongly of Earth, we came to an office that seemed to be the end of the road.

Da Campo was uneasy and kept d.a.m.ning me With his eyes when he wasn't looking at his watch.

We were ushered in, and the Auditor saluted the pale-faced man behind the desk. "The Head Auditor," said the blue-uniformed man, and left us. I noticed that the official had grey eyes, like Da Campo and the Auditor. Was that a dominant on Drexwill?

"Sit down, won't you?" he said, amiably enough.

Da Campo blurted, "I really must be going. I'm quite late for my work and if you don't mind I'd like to--"

"Sit, Helgorth, I have something to say to you, too."

I was grateful they were speaking English.

The Head Auditor crossed long arms and glared at Da Campo across the desk.

"You know you're partially to fault here."

Da Campo was indignant. "Why--why--what do you mean? I gave him a perfectly logical story, but he had to go and stumble into the Suburb Depot. That wasn't my--"

"Quiet! We leave you commuters pretty much alone. It's your lives and we try not to meddle. But there are certain regulations we have to keep enforced or the entire system will break down.

"You knew you weren't to grow any native plants out there. We warned you enough times so that it should have made an impression. Then to boot, you became a recluse out there. We ask you to make certain advances to your neighbors, strictly for purposes of keeping things on a level But you wouldn't even go shopping!"

Da Campo started to protest, but the Head Auditor snapped his fingers sharply, causing the man to fall silent. "We checked your supply requisitions through Food Central, and we were going to drop you a memo on it, but we didn't get to it in time."

The pale-faced man tapped his fingers on the desk. "Now if we have any more trouble out of you, Helgorth, we're going to yank your Suburb Ticket and get you and your wife back into one of the Community Towers. Is that clear?"

Da Campo, suitably cowed, merely nodded.

I thought of the fantastic system they had devised. All Earth turned into a suburban development. Lord! It was fantastic, yet so simple and so obvious when I thought about it, my opinion of these people went up more and more. This explained all sorts of things I'd wondered about: hermits, bus lines that went nowhere, people disappearing.

"All right, you can go," I heard the Head Auditor say.

Da Campo got up to leave, and I turned to watch him. "So long, Da Campo, see you at home tonight, " I said.

He looked at me strangely. The message hadn't altered. "So long, Weiler. I hope so." he said, and was gone.

I half-knew what he meant.