Chapter VI

_For man’s sense is falsely asserted to be the standard of
things: on the contrary, all the perceptions, both of the senses
and the mind, bear reference to man and not to the universe; and
the human mind resembles those uneven mirrors which impart their
own properties to different objects ... and distorts and
disfigures them ... For every one ... has a cave or den of his
own which refracts and discolors the light of nature._
--Sir Francis Bacon
(1561--1626)

It was the Captain who moved first. He went to the remaining bulkhead, spun a dog, and opened a cabinet. From it he took a rack of spare radar parts and three thick coils of wire. Paresi, startled, turned and saw Hoskins peering owlishly at the Captain.

Anderson withdrew some tools, reached far back in the cabinet, and took out a large bottle.

“Oh,” said Paresi. “That ... I thought you were doing something constructive.”

In the far shadows, Hoskins turned silently back to his game. The Captain gazed down at the bottle, tossed it, caught it. “I am,” he said. “I am.”

He came and sat beside the doctor. He thumbed off the stopper and drank ferociously. Paresi watched, his eyes as featureless as the imprisoning dark.

“Well?” said the Captain pugnaciously.

Paresi’s hands rose and fell, once. “Just wondering why.”

“Why I’m going to get loopin’, stoopin’ drunk? I’ll tell you why, head-shrinker. Because I want to, that’s why. Because I like it. I’m doing something I like because I like it. I’m not doing it because of the inversion of this concealed repression as expressed in the involuted feelings my childhood developed in my attitude toward the sex-life of beavers, see, couch-catechizer old boy? I like it and that’s why.”

“I knew a man who went to bed with old shoes because he liked it,” said Paresi coldly.

The Captain drank again and laughed harshly. “Nothing can change you, can it, Nick?”

Paresi looked around him almost fearfully. “I can change,” he whispered. “Ives is gone. Give me the bottle.”

Something clattered to the deck at the hem of the black curtain.

“‘S another hallucination,” said the Captain. “Go pick up the hallucination, Nicky-boy.”

“Not my hallucination,” said Paresi. “Pick it up yourself.”

“Sure,” said the Captain good-naturedly. He waited while Paresi drank, took back the bottle, tilted it sharply over his mouth. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, exhaled heavily, and went to the blackness across the cabin.

“Well, what do you know,” he breathed.

“What is it this time?”

[Illustration: Spaceman in melting room.]

Anderson held the thing up. “A trophy, that’s what.” He peered at it. “All-American, 2675. Little statue of a guy holding up a victory wreath. Nice going, little guy.” He strode to Paresi and snatched away the bottle. He poured liquor on the head of the figurine. “Have a drink, little guy.”

“Let me see that.”

Paresi took it, held it, turned it over. Suddenly he dropped it as if it were a red-hot coal. “Oh, dear God...”

“‘Smatter, Nick?” The Captain picked up the statuette and peered at it.

“Put it down, put it down,” said the doctor in a choked voice. “It’s--Johnny...”

“Oh it is, it is,” breathed the Captain. He put down the statuette gingerly on the table, hesitated, then turned its face away from them. With abrupt animation he swung to Paresi. “Hey! You didn’t say it looked like Johnny. You said it was Johnny!”

“Did I?”

“Yup.” He grinned wolfishly. “Not bad for a psychologist. What a peephole you opened up! Graven images, huh?”

“Shut up, Anderson,” said Paresi tiredly. “I told you I’m not going to let you needle me.”

“Aw now, it’s all in fun,” said the Captain. He plumped down and threw a heavy arm across Anderson’s shoulders. “Le’s be friends. Le’s sing a song.”

Paresi shoved him away. “Leave me alone. Leave me alone.”

Anderson turned away from him and regarded the statuette gravely. He extended the bottle toward it, muttered a greeting, and drank. “I wonder...”

The words hung there until Paresi twisted up out of his forlorn reverie to bat them down. “Damn it--what do you wonder?”

“Oh,” said the Captain jovially, “I was just wondering what you’ll be.”

“What are you talking about?”

Anderson waved the bottle at the figurine, which called it to his attention again, and so again he drank. “Johnny turned into what he thinks he is. A little guy with a big victory. Hoskins, there, he’s going to be a slide-rule, jus’ you wait and see. Ol’ Ives, that’s easy. He’s goin’ to be a beer barrel, with beer in it. Always did have a head on him, Ives did.” He stopped to laugh immoderately at Paresi’s darkening face. “Me, I have no secrets no more. I’m going to be a coat of arms--a useless philosophy rampant on a field of stars.” He put the open mouth of the bottle against his forehead and pressed it violently, lowered it and touched the angry red ring it left between his eyes. “Mark of the beast,” he confided. “Caste mark. Zero, that’s me and my whole damn family. The die is cast, the caste has died.” He grunted appreciatively and turned again to Paresi. “But what’s old Nicky going to be?”

“Don’t call me Nicky,” said the doctor testily.

“I know,” said the Captain, narrowing his eyes and laying one finger alongside his nose. “A reference book, tha’s what you’ll be. A treatise on the ... the post-nasal hysterectomy, or how to unbutton a man’s prejudices and take down his pride ... I swiped all that from somewhere...

“No!” he shouted suddenly; then, with conspiratorial quiet, he said, “You won’t be no book, Nicky boy. Covers aren’t hard enough. Not the right type face. Get it?” he roared, and dug Paresi viciously in the ribs. “Type face, it’s a witticism.”

Paresi bent away from the blow like a caterpillar being bitten by a fire-ant. He said nothing.

“And finally,” said the Captain, “you won’t be a book because you got ... no ... spine.” He leapt abruptly to his feet. “Well, what do you know!”

He bent and scooped up an unaccountable object that rested by the nearest shadows. It was a quarter-keg of beer.

He hefted it and thumped it heavily down on the table. “Come on, Nick,” he chortled. “Gather ye round. Here’s old Ives, like I said.”

Paresi stared at the keg, his eyes stretched so wide open that the lids moved visibly with his pulse. “Stop it, Anderson, you swine...”

The Captain tossed him a disgusted glance and a matching snort. From the clutter of radar gear he pulled a screwdriver and a massive little step-down transformer down on its handle. The bung disappeared explosively inside the keg, and was replaced by a gout of white foam. Paresi shrieked.

“Ah, shaddup,” growled Anderson. He rummaged until he found a tube-shield. He stripped off a small length of self-welding metal tape and clapped it over the terminal-hole at the closed end of the shield, making it into an adequate mug. He waited a moment while the weld cooled, then tipped the keg until solid beer began to run with the foam. He filled the improvised mug and extended it toward Paresi.