Ted?"
He shrugged his shoulders. He had no morals. Maybe he was passing up a
good opportunity that tomorrow would see lost forever.
James Bush thrust his head inside the shed.
"So this is where you've both got to?"
"I was just saying how much I admired Ted's artistic talents, Jim.
I used to be a bit artistic myself once, as a girl. I'm sure all the wide
perspectives of the past that you've traveled must have helped a lot."
Perhaps a whisper of suspicion passed over James Bush's brain. In irritation,
he said, "Nonsense, the boy's seen next to nothing! You're like most folk --
you don't seem to realize how ancient the Earth is and how little of its past
is accessible even to mind-travelers."
"Oh, not that clock analogy, Father!" Bush had heard this set-piece before.
But his father was covering the exit. Painstakingly, he explained a standard
textbook diagram to Judy, a diagram in which it was supposed that the Earth
was created at midnight. Then followed long hours of darkness with no life,
the time of fire and an alien atmosphere and long rains, the Pre-Cambrian
times or Cryptozoic Era, of which little was known or could be known.
The Cambrian Period marked the beginning of the fossil record and did not
arrive till ten o'clock on the clock face. The reptiles and amphibians put
in an appearance with the Carboniferous Period at about eleven o'clock,
and were gone by quarter to twelve. Mankind's appearance was made at
twelve seconds to noon, and the time since the Stone Age was a fraction
of a second.
"That's what I mean about perspectives!" Judy said gamely.
"You perhaps miss the point, my dear. All those grand millions of years
the mind-travelers make so free with in their conversation are but the
last ten minutes on the dial. Man is a small thing, his little life is
not only ended but begun with a sleep."
"The clock analogy is misleading," Bush said. "It doesn't leave room for
the immense future, many times all that's past. You think your clock puts
everything in perspective but really it ruins it."
"Well, we can't see the future, can we?"
The question was unassailable, at least for a little while.
Chapter 7
THE SQUAD
The truck delivered Bush at the training center at ten-thirty in the morning.
By midday, his civilian clothes had been taken from him, to be replaced by
a coarse khaki uniform; his head had been shaved; he had plunged through
a cold disinfectant bath; been inoculated against typhoid, cholera, and
tetanus and vaccinated against smallpox; been examined to see that he was
not suffering from a venereal disease; had his voice- and retina-patterns
taken and his finger-prints recorded; and paraded at the cookhouse for
an ill-cooked meal.
The course proper began at 1300 hours sharp, and from then until the end
of the month was almost unremitting.
Bush was put in Ten Squad, under a Sergeant Pond. Pond drove his men
through a succession of difficult or impossible tasks. They had to learn
to march and even run in step. They had to learn to respond to orders
given a quarter of a mile away by the human voice, if such a designation
was seemly for Sergeant Pond's noises, shouting at its most ragged and
repulsive pitch. They had to learn to climb brick walls and to fall
from upper-story windows; they had to learn to climb ropes and to wade
through stagnant pools; they had to learn how to dig meaninglessly deep
holes and strangle their fellow men; to shoot and stab and swear and
sweat and eat garbage and sleep like dead men. To begin with, a sardonic
part of Bush's brain amused itself by standing apart and watching his
actions. Now and again, it would come forward and say, "The object of
this exercise is to make you less an individual, more a machine for
taking orders. If you cross this rope bridge without failing on the
rocks below, you will be less human than you were before you attempted
it. Gobble down this bit of sea-lion pie and you will be even less of
an artist
He shrugged his shoulders. He had no morals. Maybe he was passing up a
good opportunity that tomorrow would see lost forever.
James Bush thrust his head inside the shed.
"So this is where you've both got to?"
"I was just saying how much I admired Ted's artistic talents, Jim.
I used to be a bit artistic myself once, as a girl. I'm sure all the wide
perspectives of the past that you've traveled must have helped a lot."
Perhaps a whisper of suspicion passed over James Bush's brain. In irritation,
he said, "Nonsense, the boy's seen next to nothing! You're like most folk --
you don't seem to realize how ancient the Earth is and how little of its past
is accessible even to mind-travelers."
"Oh, not that clock analogy, Father!" Bush had heard this set-piece before.
But his father was covering the exit. Painstakingly, he explained a standard
textbook diagram to Judy, a diagram in which it was supposed that the Earth
was created at midnight. Then followed long hours of darkness with no life,
the time of fire and an alien atmosphere and long rains, the Pre-Cambrian
times or Cryptozoic Era, of which little was known or could be known.
The Cambrian Period marked the beginning of the fossil record and did not
arrive till ten o'clock on the clock face. The reptiles and amphibians put
in an appearance with the Carboniferous Period at about eleven o'clock,
and were gone by quarter to twelve. Mankind's appearance was made at
twelve seconds to noon, and the time since the Stone Age was a fraction
of a second.
"That's what I mean about perspectives!" Judy said gamely.
"You perhaps miss the point, my dear. All those grand millions of years
the mind-travelers make so free with in their conversation are but the
last ten minutes on the dial. Man is a small thing, his little life is
not only ended but begun with a sleep."
"The clock analogy is misleading," Bush said. "It doesn't leave room for
the immense future, many times all that's past. You think your clock puts
everything in perspective but really it ruins it."
"Well, we can't see the future, can we?"
The question was unassailable, at least for a little while.
Chapter 7
THE SQUAD
The truck delivered Bush at the training center at ten-thirty in the morning.
By midday, his civilian clothes had been taken from him, to be replaced by
a coarse khaki uniform; his head had been shaved; he had plunged through
a cold disinfectant bath; been inoculated against typhoid, cholera, and
tetanus and vaccinated against smallpox; been examined to see that he was
not suffering from a venereal disease; had his voice- and retina-patterns
taken and his finger-prints recorded; and paraded at the cookhouse for
an ill-cooked meal.
The course proper began at 1300 hours sharp, and from then until the end
of the month was almost unremitting.
Bush was put in Ten Squad, under a Sergeant Pond. Pond drove his men
through a succession of difficult or impossible tasks. They had to learn
to march and even run in step. They had to learn to respond to orders
given a quarter of a mile away by the human voice, if such a designation
was seemly for Sergeant Pond's noises, shouting at its most ragged and
repulsive pitch. They had to learn to climb brick walls and to fall
from upper-story windows; they had to learn to climb ropes and to wade
through stagnant pools; they had to learn how to dig meaninglessly deep
holes and strangle their fellow men; to shoot and stab and swear and
sweat and eat garbage and sleep like dead men. To begin with, a sardonic
part of Bush's brain amused itself by standing apart and watching his
actions. Now and again, it would come forward and say, "The object of
this exercise is to make you less an individual, more a machine for
taking orders. If you cross this rope bridge without failing on the
rocks below, you will be less human than you were before you attempted
it. Gobble down this bit of sea-lion pie and you will be even less of
an artist
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