Freudian Slip Part 3

"Did you dream?" Herman asked him.

Primus blinked slowly. "Yes. Yes, I did," he said in his profoundly heavy voice.

"Tell me all you can remember about it."

"Well," said Primus, sinking back onto the couch, "I dreamed I was in a room with a large bed. It had heavy wooden posts and a big bolster.

I wanted to lie down and rest in the bed, but the bolster made me uncomfortable. It was too dark to see, to rearrange the bed, so I tried to light a candle, but the matches kept going out...."

Herman took it all down, word for word, with growing excitement and growing dismay. The dream was too good. It might have come out of Dr.

Freud's original case histories. When Primus had finished, Herman searched back through his notes. Did Primus _know_ what a bed was, or what a bolster was, or a candle? How much had Herman told him?

"Bed" was there, of course. Primus: "What are 'dreams?'" Herman: "Well, when a human being goes to bed, and sleeps...." "Bolster" was there, too, but not in the same sense. Herman: "To bolster its argument, the unconscious--what we call the id--frequently alters the person's likes and dislikes on what seem to be petty and commonplace subjects...." And "candle?" Herman: "I want you to understand that I don't know all about this subject myself, Mr. Primus. n.o.body does; our knowledge is just a candle in the darkness...."

Herman gave up. He glanced at Secundus, who was watching him expectantly. "May I talk to you privately?"

"Of course." Secundus nodded to Primus, who stood up awkwardly and then vanished with a _pop_. Secundus tut-tutted regretfully.

Herman took a firm grip on himself. "Look," he said, "the data I have now suggest that Primus had some traumatic experience in his infancy which arrested his development in various ways and also strengthened his Oedipus complex--that is, intensified his feelings of fear, hatred and rivalry toward his father. Now, that may sound to you as if we're making some progress. I would feel that way myself--if I had the slightest reason for believing that Primus ever had a father."

Secundus started to speak; but Herman cut him off. "Wait, let me finish. I can go ahead on that basis, but as far as I'm concerned I might just as well be counting the angels on the head of a pin. You've got to give me more information, Secundus. I want to know who you are, and who Primus is, and whether there's any other being with whom Primus could possibly have a filial relations.h.i.+p. And if you can't tell me all that without giving me the Secret of the Universe, then you'd better give it to me whether it's good for me or not. I can't work in the dark."

Secundus pursed his lips. "There is justice in what you say, Doctor.

Very well, I shall be entirely frank with you--in so far as it is possible for me to do so of course. Let's see, where can I begin?"

"First question," retorted Herman. "Who are you?"

"We are--" Secundus thought a moment, then spread his hands with a helpless smile. "There are no words, Doctor. To put the case in negatives, we are not evolved organisms, we are not mortal, we are not, speaking in the usual sense, alive, although, of course--I hope you will not be offended--neither are you."

Herman's brow wrinkled. "Are you _real_?" he demanded finally.

Secundus looked embarra.s.sed. "You have found me out, Dr. Raye. I endeavored to give you that impression--through vanity, I am ashamed to say--but, unhappily, it is not true. I, too, belong to the realm of noumena."

"Then, blast it all, what _is_ real? This planet isn't. You're not.

What's it all for?" He paused a moment reflectively. "We're getting on to my second question, about Primus's att.i.tude toward his 'father.'

Perhaps I should have asked just now, '_Who_ is real?' Who remembers you, Secundus?"

"This question, unfortunately, is the one I cannot answer with complete frankness, Doctor. I a.s.sure you that it is not because I do not wish to; I have no option in the matter. I can tell you only that there is a Person of whom it might be said that He stands in the parental relations.h.i.+p to Primus, to me, and all the rest of our order."

"G.o.d?" Herman inquired. "Jahweh? Allah?"

"Please, no names, Doctor." Secundus looked apprehensive.

"Then, d.a.m.n it, tell me the rest!" Herman realized vaguely that he was soothing his own hurt vanity at Secundus's expense, but he was enjoying himself too much to stop. "You're afraid of something; that's been obvious right along. And there must be a time limit on it, or you wouldn't be rus.h.i.+ng me. Why? Are you afraid that if this unnamable Person finds out you've botched your job, He'll wipe you out of existence and start over with a new bunch?"

A cold wind blew down Herman's back. "Not us alone, Dr. Raye," said Secundus gravely. "If the Inspector discovers this blunder--and the time is coming soon when He must--no corrections will be attempted.

When a mistake occurs, it is--painted out."

"Oh," said Herman after a moment. He sat down again, weakly. "How long have we got?"

"Approximately one and a quarter days have gone by at the Earth's normal rate since Primus lost his memory," Secundus said. "I have not been able to 'speed you up,' as you termed it, by more than a twenty-to-one ratio. The deadline will have arrived, by my calculation, in fifteen minutes of normal time, or five hours at your present accelerated rate."

Primus stepped into the room, crossed to the couch and lay down placidly. Secundus turned to go, then paused.

"As for your final question, Doctor--you might think of the Universe as a Pointillist painting, in which this planet is one infinitesimally small dot of color. The work is wholly imaginary, of course, since neither the canvas nor the pigment has what you would term an independent existence. Nevertheless, the artist takes it seriously. He would not care to find, so to speak, mustaches daubed on it."

Herman sat limply, staring after him as he moved to the door. Secundus turned once more.

"I hope you will not think that I am displeased with you, Doctor," he said. "On the contrary, I feel that you are accomplis.h.i.+ng more than anyone else has. However, should you succeed, as I devoutly hope, there may not be sufficient time to congratulate you as you deserve. I shall have to replace you immediately in your normal world-line, for your absence would const.i.tute as noticeable a flaw as that of the planet. In that event, my present thanks and congratulations will have to serve."

With a friendly smile, he disappeared.

Herman wound his watch.

Two hours later, Primus's answers to his questions began to show a touch of resentment and surly defiance. _Transference_, Herman thought, with a constriction of his throat, and kept working desperately.

Three hours. "What does the bolster remind you of?"

"I seem to see a big cylinder rolling through s.p.a.ce, sweeping the stars out of its way...."

Four hours. Only three minutes left now, in the normal world. _I can't wait to get any deeper_, Herman thought. _It's got to be now or never._

"You must understand that these feelings of resentment and hatred are normal," he said, trying to keep the strain out of his voice, "but, at the same time, you have outgrown them--you can rise above them now.

You are an individual in your own right, Primus. You have a job to do that only you can fill, and it's an important job. That's what matters, not all this infantile emotional clutter...."

He talked on, not daring to look at his watch.

Primus looked up, and a huge smile broke over his face. He began, "Why, of--"

Herman found himself walking along Forty-second Street, heading toward the Hudson. The pavement was solid under his feet; the canyon between the buildings was filled with the soft violet-orange glow of a summer evening in New York. In the eyes of the people he pa.s.sed, he saw the same incredulous relief he felt. It was over. He'd done it.

He'd broken all the rules, but, incredibly, he'd got results.

Then he looked up and a chill spread over him. No one who knew the city would accept that ithyphallic parody as the Empire State Building, or those huge fleshy curves, as wanton as the mountains in which Mr. Maugham's "Sadie Thompson" had her l.u.s.ty existence, as the prosaic hills of New Jersey.

Psychoa.n.a.lysis had certainly removed Mr. Primus's inhibitions. The world was like a fence scrawled on by a naughty little boy. Mr. Primus would outgrow it in time, but life until then might be somewhat disconcerting.

Those two clouds, for instance....

--FRANKLIN ABEL