Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick Read Free Book Online Page B

Can you understand that? I can, and yet I—well, I can't agree. Probably because of my own child. No, I just can't agree. They're not worried about the anomalous children at Home, because they don't have the aspirations for themselves that they do for us. You have to understand the idealism and anxiety which they have about us…. Do you remember how you felt before you emigrated here with your family? Back Home they see the existence of anomalous children on Mars as a sign that one of Earth's major problems has been transplanted into the future, because we
are
the future, to them, and—”
    Steiner interrupted her. “You're certain about this bill?”
    “I feel certain.” She faced him, her chin up, her intelligent eyes calm. “We can't be too careful; it would be dreadful if they closed Camp B-G and—” She did not finish. In her eyes he read something unspeakable. The anomalous children, his boy and hers, would be killed in some scientific, painless, instantaneous way, Did she mean that?
    “Say it,” he said.
    Mrs. Esterhazy said, “The children would be put to sleep.”
    Revolted, he said, “Killed, you mean.”
    “Oh,” she said, “how can you speak it like that, as if you didn't care?” She gazed at him in horror.
    “Christ,” he said with violent bitterness. “If there's any truth in this—” But he did not believe her. Because, perhaps, he didn't want to? Because it was too ghastly? No, he thought. Because he did not trust her instincts, her sense of reality; she had picked up some garbled hysterical rumor. Perhaps there was a bill directed toward some tangential aspect of this that might affect Camp B-G and its children in some fashion. But they—the parents of anomalous children—had always lived under that cloud. They had read of the mandatory sterilization of both parents and offspring in cases where it was proved that the gonads and had been permanently altered, generally in cases of exposure to gamma radiation in unusual mass quantity.
    “Who in the UN are authors of this bill?” he asked.
    “There are six members of the In-planet Health and Welfare Committee who are supposed to have written the bill.” She began writing. “Here are their names. Now, Mr. Steiner, what we'd like you to do is to write to these men, and have anybody you know who—”
    He barely listened. He paid for his flute, thanked her, accepted the folded piece of paper, and made his way out of the gift shop.
    Goddamn, how he wished he hadn't gone in there! Did she enjoy telling such stories? Wasn't there trouble enough in the world as it was, without old wives' tales being peddled by middle-aged females who should not have had anything to do with public affairs in the first place?
    But in him a quiet voice said, She may be right. You have to face it. Gripping his heavy suitcases, he walked on, confused and frightened, hardly aware of the small new shops which he passed as he hurried toward Camp B-G and his waiting son.

    When he entered the great glass-domed solarium of Camp Ben-Gurion, there stood young, sandy-haired Miss Milch in her work smock and sandals, with clay and paint splattered on her, a hectic expression knitting her eyebrows. She tossed her head and pushed her tousled hair back from her face as she came toward him. “Hello, Mr. Steiner. What a day we've had. Two new children, and one of them a holy terror.”
    “Miss Milch,” he said, “I was talking to Mrs. Esterhazy at her shop just now—”
    “She told you about the supposed bill at the UN?” Miss Milch looked tired. “Yes, there is such a bill. Anne gets every sort of inside piece of news, although how she does it I have no idea. Try to keep from showing any agitation around Manfred, if you possibly can; he's been upset by the new arrivals today.” She started off, to lead Mr. Steiner from the solarium down the corridor to the playroom in which his son would be found, but he hurried after her, halting her.
    “What can we do about this