Martian Time Slip

"You and the gentleman who runs the Red Fox."

"I'm just being hard-headedly realistic. We're in a struggle for our life; we've got to keep people emigrating here or we're dead on the vine, A

"Not B-G. The births themselves."

"No one would be able to check up and show our abnormal births," Arnie said, "without B-G."

"You'd say it, knowing it's not true, if you could get away with it, telling them back Home that they're safer here--"

"Sure." He nodded.

"That's--immoral."

"No. Listen. You're the immoral one, you and those other ladies. By keeping Camp B-G open you're--"

"Let's not argue, we'll never agree. Let's eat, and then you go on back to Lewistown. I can't take any more."

They ate their meal in silence.

Dr. Milton Glaub, member of the psychiatric pool at Camp B-G, on loan from the Interplan Truckers' Union settlement, sat by himself in his own office once more, back from B-G, his stint there over for today. In his hands he held a bill for roof repairs done on his home the month before. He had put off the work--it involved the use of the scraper which kept the sand from piling up--but finally the settlement building inspector had mailed him a thirty-day condemnation notice. So he had contacted the Roofing Maintenance workers, knowing that he could not pay, but seeing no alternative. He was broke. This had been the worst month so far.

If only Jean, his wife, could spend less. But the solution did not lie there, anyhow; the solution was to acquire more patients. The ITU paid him a monthly salary, but for every patient he received an additional fifty-dollar bonus: incentive, it was called. In actuality it meant the difference between debt and solvency. Nobody with a wife and children could possibly live on the salary offered to psychiatrists, and the ITU, as everyone knew, was especially parsimonious.

And yet, Dr. Glaub continued to live in the ITU settlement; it was an orderly community, in some respects much like Earth. New Israel, like the other national settlements, had a charged, explosive quality.

As a matter of fact, Dr. Glaub had once lived in another national colony, the United Arab Republic one, a particularly opulent region in which much vegetation, imported from Home, had been induced to grow. But, to him, the settlers' constant animosity toward neighboring colonies had been first irritating and then appalling. Men, at their daily jobs, brooded over wrongs committed. The most charming individuals blew up when certain topics were mentioned. And at night the hostility took practical shape; the national colonies lived for the night. Then, the research labs, which were scenes of scientific experimentation and development during the day, were thrown open to the public, and infernal machines were turned out--it was all done with much excitement and glee, and of course national pride.

The hell with them, Dr. Glaub thought. Their lives were wasted; they had simply carried over the old quarrels from Earth--and the purpose of colonization had been forgotten. For instance, in the UN newspaper that morning he had read about a fracas in the streets of the electrical workers' settlement; the newspaper account implied that the nearby Italian colony was responsible, since several of the aggressors had been wearing the long waxed mustaches popular in the Italian colony... .

A knock at his office door broke his line of thought. "Yes," he said, putting the roofing bill away in a desk drawer.

"Are you ready for Goodmember Purdy?" his wife asked, opening the door in the professional ma

"Send Goodmember Purdy in," Dr. Glaub said. "Wait a couple of minutes, though, so I can read over his case history."

"Did you eat lunch?" Jean asked.

"Of course. Everybody eats lunch."

"You look wan," she said.

That's bad, Dr. Glaub thought. He went from his office into the bathroom, where he carefully darkened his face with the caramel-colored powder currently in fashion. It did improve his looks, although not his state of mind. The theory behind the powder was that the ruling circles in the ITU were of Spanish and Puerto Rican ancestry, and they were apt to feel intimidated if a hired person had skin lighter than their own. Of course the ads did not put it like that; the ads merely pointed out to hired men in the settlement that "the Martian climate tends to allow natural skin tone to fade to unsightly white."

It was now time to see his patient.

"Good afternoon, Goodmember Purdy."

"Afternoon, Doc."

"I see from your file that you're a baker."

"Yeah, that's right."

A pause. "What did you wish to consult with me about?"

Goodmember Purdy, staring at the floor and fooling with his cap, said, "I never been to a psychiatrist before."

"No, I can see here that you haven't."

"There's this party my brother-in-law's giving... I'm not much on going to parties."

"Are you compelled to attend?" Dr. Glaub had quietly set the clock on his desk; it ticked away the goodmember's half-hour.

"They're sort of throwing it for me. They, uh, want me to take on my nephew as an apprentice so he'll be in the union eventually." Purdy droned on. "... And I been lying awake at night trying to figure out how to get out of it--I mean, these are my relatives, and I can't hardly come out and tell them no. But I just can't go, I don't feel good enough to. So that's why I'm here."

"I see," Dr. Glaub said. "Well, you'd better give me the particulars on this party, when and where it is, the names of the persons involved, so I can do a right bang-up job while I'm there."

With relief, Purdy dug into his coat pocket and brought out a neatly typed document. "I sure appreciate your going in my place, Doc. You psychiatrists really take a load off a man's back; I'm not joking when I say I been losing sleep over this." He gazed with grateful awe at the man before him, skilled in the social graces, capable of treading the narrow, hazardous path of complex interpersonal relations which had defeated so many union members over the years.

"Don't worry any further about it," Dr. Glaub said. For after all, he thought, what's a little schizophrenia? That is, you know, what you're suffering from. I'll take the social pressure from you, and you can continue in your chronic maladaptive state, at least for another few months. Until the next overpowering social demand is made on your limited capabilities... .

As Goodmember Purdy left the office, Dr. Glaub reflected that this certainly was a practical form of psychotherapy which had evolved here on Mars. Instead of curing the patient of his phobias, one became in the ma

Jean called into the office, "Milt, there's a call for you from New Israel. It's Bosley Touvim."

Oh, God, Dr. Glaub thought. Touvim was the President of New Israel; something was wrong. Hurriedly he picked up the phone on his desk. "Dr. Glaub here."

"Doctor," sounded the dark, stern, powerful voice, "this is Touvim. We have a death here, a patient of yours, I understand. Will you kindly fly back here and attend to this? Allow me to give you a few token details... Norbert Steiner, a West German--"

"He's not my patient, sir," Dr. Glaub interrupted. "However, his son is--a little autistic child at Camp B-G. What do you mean, Steiner is dead? For heaven's sake, I was just talking to him this morning--are you sure it's the same Steiner? If it is, I do have a file on him, on the entire family, because of the nature of the boy's illness. In child autism we feel that the family situation must be understood before therapy can begin. Yes, I'll be right over."

Touvim said, "This is evidently a suicide."

"I can't believe it," Dr. Glaub said.

"For the past half-hour I have been discussing this with the staff at Camp B-G; they tell me you had a long conversation with Steiner shortly before he left the camp. At the inquest our police will want to know what indications if any Steiner gave of a depressed or morbidly introspective mood, what he said that might have given you the opportunity to dissuade him or, barring that, compel him to undergo therapy. I take it the man said nothing that would alert you to his intentions."

"Absolutely nothing," Dr. Glaub said.

"Then if I were you I wouldn't worry," Touvim said. "Merely be prepared to give the clinical background of the man... discuss possible motives which might have led him to take his life. You understand."

"Thank you, Mr. Touvim," Dr. Glaub said weakly. "I suppose it is possible he was depressed about his son, but I outlined a new therapy to him; we have very high hopes for it. However, he did seem cynical and shut in, he did not respond as I would have expected. But suicide!"

What if I lose the B-G assignment? Doctor Glaub was asking himself. I just can't. Working there once a week added enough to his income so that he could imagine--although not attain--financial security. The B-G check at least made the goal plausible.

Didn't it occur to that idiot Steiner what effect his death might have on others? Yes, it must have; he did it to get vengeance on us. Paying us back--but for what? For trying to heal his child?

This is a very serious matter, he realized. A suicide, so close on the heels of a doctor-patient interview. Thank God Mr. Touvim warned me. Even so, the newspapers will pick it up, and all those who want to see Camp B-G closed will benefit from this.

Having repaired the refrigeration equipment at McAuliff's dairy ranch, Jack Bohlen returned to his 'copter, put his tool box behind the seat, and contacted his employer, Mr. Yee.

"The school," Mr. Yee said. "You must go there, Jack; I still have no one else to take that assignment."

"O.K., Mr. Yee." He started up the motor of the 'copter, feeling resigned to it.

"A message from your wife, Jack."

"Oh?" He was surprised; his employer frowned on wives of his employees phoning in, and Silvia knew that. Maybe something had happened to David. "Can you tell me what she said?" he asked.