Doorways in the Sand Read online

  Silence.

  Then: “Nothing. I am sorry. But you must realize that it is important.”

  “I already know that. What I want to know is ‘Why?’ ”

  “I cannot tell you.”

  “Then go to hell,” I said.

  “I knew you were not worth it,” Sibla replied. “From what I have seen of your race, you are nothing but a band of barbarians and degenerates.”

  I swung up onto the sill, crouched a moment while I estimated the distance.

  “Nobody likes a smartass either,” I said, and then I jumped.

  DENNIS WEXROTH DIDN’T say a damn thing. If he had, I might have killed him just then. He stood there with his palms pressed against the wall behind him; a deepening redness about his right eyesocket where it would eventually puff up and go purple. The receiver of his uprooted telephone hung over the edge of the wastebasket where I had hurled it.

  In my hand was a fancy piece of parchment which told me that Frederick Cunningham Cassidy had received a Philosophy of Doctorate in Anthropology.

  Fighting for some measure of control, I slipped it back into its envelope and dammed my river of profanity.

  “How?” I said. “How could you possibly do such a thing? It . . . It’s illegal!”

  “It is perfectly legal,” he said softly. “Believe me, it was done under advice.”

  “We’ll just see how that advice holds up in court,” I said. “I was never admitted to grad school, I haven’t submitted a dissertation, I never took any orals or language exams and no notice was filed. Now you tell me how you justify giving me a Ph.D. I’d really like to know.”

  “First, you are enrolled here,” he said. “That makes you eligible for a degree.”

  “Eligible, yes. Entitled, no. There is a distinction.”

  “True, but the elements of entitlement are determined by the administration.”

  “What did you do? Have a special meeting?”

  “As a matter of fact, there was one. And it was determined that enrollment as a full-time student was to be deemed indicative of the intention to take a degree. Consequently, if the other factors were met—”

  “I’ve never completed a major,” I said.

  “The formal course requirements are less rigid when it comes to the matter of an advanced degree.”

  “But I never took a B.A.!”

  He smiled, thought better of it, erased it.

  “If you will read the regulations very carefully,” he said, “you will see that nowhere do they state that a baccalaureate is a prerequisite for an advanced degree. A ‘suitable equivalent’ is sufficient to produce a ‘qualified candidate.’ They are phrases of art, Fred, and the administration does the construing.”

  “Even granting that, the dissertation requirement is written into the regs. I’ve read that part.”

  “Yes. But then there is Sacred Ground: A Study of Ritual Areas, the book you submitted to the university press. It is sufficiently appropriate to warrant treatment as an anthropology dissertation.”

  “I’ve never submitted it to the department for anything.”

  “No, but the editor asked Dr. Lawrence’s opinion of it. His opinion, among other things, was that it would do for a dissertation.”

  “I’ll nail you on that point when I get you in court,” I said. “But go on. I’m fascinated. Tell me how I did on my orals.”

  “Well,” he said, looking away, “the professors who would have sat on your board agreed unanimously to waive the orals in your case. You have been around so long and they know you so well that they considered it an unnecessary formality. Besides, two of them were classmates of yours as undergraduates and they felt kind of funny about it.”

  “I’ll bet they did. Let me finish the story myself. The heads of the language departments involved decided I had taken sufficient courses in their respective bailiwicks to warrant their certifying as to my reading abilities. Right?”

  “That, basically, is it.”

  “It was easier to give me a doctorate than a B.A.?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  I wanted to hit him again, but that wasn’t the answer. I drove my fist into my palm, several times.

  “Why?” I said. “Now I know how you did it, but the really important thing is why.” I began to pace. “I’ve paid this university its tuitions, its fees, for some thirteen years now—a decent little sum when you stop to add things up—and I’ve never bounced a check here, or anything like that. I have always gotten along well with the faculty, the administration, the other students. Except for my climbing, I’ve never been in any really serious trouble, done anything to give the place a black eye . . . Pardon me. What I am trying to say is that I’ve been a pretty decent customer for what you are selling. Then what happens? I turn my back, I go out of town for a little while and you slip me a Ph.D. Do I deserve that kind of treatment after giving you my patronage all this time? I think it was a rotten thing to do and I want an explanation. Now, I want one. Now! Do you really hate me that much?”

  “Feelings had nothing to do with it,” he said, raising his hand slowly to prod the upper reaches of his cheek. “I told you I wanted to get you out of here because I did not approve of your attitude, your style. That still holds. But this was none of my doing. In fact, I opposed it. There were—well—pressures brought to bear on us.”

  “What kind of pressures?” I asked.

  He turned away. “I do not believe I am the one to be talking about it, really.”

  “You are,” I said. “Really. Tell me about it.”

  “Well, the university gets a lot of money from the government, you know. Grants, research contracts . . .”

  “I know. What of it?”

  “Ordinarily, they keep their nose out of our business.”

  “Which is as it should be.”

  “Occasionally, though, they have something to say. When they do, we generally listen.”

  “Are you trying to tell me I’ve been awarded my degree by government request?”

  “In a word, yes.”

  “I don’t believe you. They just don’t do things like that.”

  He shrugged. Then he turned and looked at me again.

  “There was a time when I would have said the same thing,” he told me, “but I know better now.”

  “Why did they want it done?”

  “I still have no idea.”

  “I find that difficult to believe.”

  “I was told that the reason for the request was of a confidential nature. I was also told that it was a matter of some urgency, and he waved the word ‘security’ at us. That was all that I was told.”

  I stopped pacing. I jammed my hands into my pockets. I took them out again. I found a cigarette and lit it. It tasted funny. But then, they all did these days. Everything did.

  “A man named Nadler,” he said, “Theodore Nadler. He is with the State Department. He is the one who contacted us and suggested . . . the arrangements.”

  “I see,” I said. “Is that who you were trying to call when I removed the means of doing it?”

  “Yes.”

  He glanced at his desk, crossed to it, picked up his pipe and his pouch.

  “Yes,” he repeated, loading the bowl. “He asked me to get in touch with him if I caught sight of you. Since you have seen to it that I can’t do it right now, I would suggest that you call him yourself if you want further particulars.”

  He put the pipe between his teeth, leaned forward and scrawled a number on a pad. He tore the sheet off and handed it to me.

  I took it, glanced at the screwed-up digits, stuck it into my pocket. Wexroth lit his pipe.

  “And you really don’t know what he wants of me?” I said.

  He pushed his chair back into its proper position, then seated himself.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Well,” I said, “I feel better for having hit you, anyway. I’ll see you in court.”

  I turned to go.

  “I
do not believe anyone has ever sought an order directing a university to rescind his degree,” he said. “It should be interesting. In the meantime, I cannot say that I am unhappy to see an end to your drone- hood.”

  “Save the celebration,” I said. “I haven’t finished yet.”

  “You and the Flying Dutchman,” he muttered just before I slammed the door.

  I had descended into an alleyway, up the block and around the corner from Merimee’s place. Minutes later I was in a taxi and headed uptown. I got out at a clothing store, went in and bought a coat. It was chilly and I had left my jacket behind. From there, I walked to the hall. I had plenty of time and I wanted to determine, if possible, whether I was being followed.

  I spent almost an hour in that big room where they kept the Rhennius machine. I wondered whether my other visit there had made the morning news. No matter. I paid attention to the movements of the viewers, to the positions of the four guards—there had only been two before—to the distances to the several entrances, to everything. I could not tell whether a new grille was yet in place on the other side of one of the overhead windows. Not that it really mattered. I had no intention of trying the same trick a second time. I was after something fast and different.

  Musing, I went out to locate a sandwich and a beer, the latter for the benefit of any telepaths in the neighborhood. While I was about it, I kept checking and decided that I was not, at the moment, the subject of conspicuous scrutiny. I found a place, entered, ordered, settled down to eating and thought.

  The idea hit me at the same time as a blast of cold air let in by a prospective diner. I rejected it immediately and continued with my beef and brew. But I could not come up with anything better.

  So I resurrected it, cleaned it up and looked at it from every angle I could think of. Not much of an inspiration, but I was afraid it would have to do.

  I figured the whole thing out, then realized that it might not work because of a side effect of the process itself. I beat back a moment’s frustration, then started in again, at the beginning. It wobbled on the brink of the ridiculous, the little things I had to cover because of something so minor.

  I journeyed to the bus station and purchased a ticket home. I put it in my coat pocket. I bought a magazine and some chewing gum, had them put in a bag, disposed of the magazine, chewed the gum, kept the bag. Then I went looking for a bank, found one, went in and changed all my money into one-dollar bills, which I stuffed into the bag—one hundred fifteen in all.

  Making my way back to the neighborhood of the hall, I searched out a restaurant with a coat-checking operation, left my coat and slipped back outside again. I used the wad of chewing gum to affix the coat receipt to the underside of a bench on which I sat for a while. Then I smoked a final cigarette and headed back for the hall, the bag of money in one hand, a single dollar bill palmed in the other.

  Inside, I moved slowly, waiting for the crowd to achieve the proper density and distribution, rechecking my remembrance of air drafts on the opening and closing of the outer doors. I decided on the best position for the enterprise and worked my way toward it. By that time I had torn the bag down one side and was holding it together.

  Around five minutes later the situation struck me as being about as close to ideal as it was likely to get. The crowd was effectively dense and the guards sufficiently distant. I listened to the by then standard “But what does it do?” and “They’re not really certain,” with an occasional “It’s some kind of reversing thing. They’re studying it” thrown in, until there was both a sharp draft and an appropriately large individual nearby.

  I gave the guy an elbow in the ribs and a bit of a push. He, in turn, gave me a sample of Middle English—most people seem to think it is an Anglo-Saxonism, but I once looked it up in connection with a linguistics course—and he returned my shove.

  I exaggerated my reaction, staggering back and bumping into another man while seeing to it that the bag came apart with a grand flourish high above my head.

  “My money!” I screamed, springing forward then and leaping the guardrail. “My money!”

  I ignored the murmurs, the shouts and the sudden scrambling that occurred behind me. I had triggered the alarm also, but the fact was not especially material at the moment. I was onto the platform and racing about it toward the place where the belt entered the central unit. I hoped that it was able to bear my weight.

  I countered a bellowed “Get down from there!” with a couple of repetitions of “My money!” as I threw myself flat on the belt with what I hoped appeared a good dollar-chasing gesture, and I was borne surely and smoothly into the tunnel of the mobilator.

  A tiny tingling sensation swept me from head to foot as I passed through the thing, and I experienced a momentary blurring of vision. This did not prevent my unfolding the dollar I had palmed, however, so that I emerged clenching it on high. I immediately rolled from the belt and, despite a wave of dizziness, jumped down from the platform and rushed back toward the crowd, trying to seem as if I still pursued my errant money, though none was then in sight.

  “My money . . .” I said as I climbed back over the rail and dropped to all fours.

  “Here’s some,” an honest soul remarked, thrusting a fistful of bills down before my face.

  by , a number of others were handed to me. Fortunately, the anticipation of this effect had been part of my earlier meditations, so that my reversed face showed no signs of surprise as I rose and thanked them. The only bill that looked normal to me was the one I had carried in my hand.

  “Did you go through that thing?” a man asked.

  “No. I went around behind it.”

  “Sure looked like you went through.”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  As I accepted money and pretended to look for more, I did a rapid scan of the entire hall. The less honest folks with a few of my dollars in their pockets were heading out the doors, which were now in positions opposite those they had occupied when I had entered. But for this, too, had I prepared myself—at least intellectually. Now, though, I wondered. It was emotionally disconcerting, seeing the whole hall in reverse like that. And those departing were getting out without difficulty, for the guards were otherwise occupied: two were stuck in the crowd and two were collecting bills. I debated making a run for it.

  At first, I had been all set to brazen it out with the guards or anyone else involved, matching nastiness or officiousness with a greater obnoxiousness over my missing money and an insistence that I had gone around rather than through the device. I had decided that I could stick to that format and sit out any consequences. After all, I did not believe that I had done anything grossly illegal—and no matter what happened, they could not take back the reversal.

  Instead, they were nice about it. One of them got the alarm shut off and another shouted at everyone to turn in any money they had recovered as they departed the hall. Then two of them moved to cover the doors again, and the one who had done the hollering sought me with his eyes, found me and raised his voice once more: “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m all right. But my money—”

  “We’re getting it! We’re getting it!”

  He plowed his way through to my side, laid his hand on my shoulder. I hastily pocketed the one bill that looked normal to me.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Of course. But I’m missing—”

  “We are trying to recover it,” he said. “Did you go through the center part of that machine?”

  “No,” I said. “A bill blew past it, though, and I chased it.”

  “It looked like you went through the center unit.”

  “He went around behind it,” said one of the men I had told that to, as neatly timed as if he had been sitting on my knee with a monocle in one eye, bless him.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Oh. You didn’t get any shocks or anything like that, did you?”

  “No, but I got my dollar.”

>   “That’s good.” He sighed. “Glad we don’t have to fill out an accident report. What happened, anyway?”

  “A guy bumped me and my bag tore. I had the morning’s receipts in it. My boss will take it out of my pay if—”

  “Let’s go see how much has been collected.”

  We did, and I got back ninety-seven dollars, almost enough to let me think a good thought about my fellow man and throw in a brass button for providence for having run a very tight ship so far that day. I left a phony name and address for them to contact, should any other bills turn up, thanked them several times, apologized for the disturbance and got out.

  Traffic, I noticed immediately, was proceeding up and down the wrong sides of the street. Okay, I could live with that. The signs in store windows were all backward. Okay. That, too.

  I started out for the bench where I had stashed my coat receipt. I drew up short after a dozen paces.

  It had to be the wrong direction, because it felt right.

  I stood there then and tried to visualize the whole city as reversed. It was more difficult than I had thought it would be. My roast beef and beer—now reversed—churned in my innards, and I wanted to grab hold of something and hang on. I fought everything back into place, or what seemed like place, and turned. Yes. Better. The trick was to navigate by landmarks and pretend I was shaving. Think of it all as in a mirror. I wondered whether a dentist would have an advantage at something like this, or if his ability only extended to the insides of mouths. No matter. I had figured out where the bench was.

  I got to it, panicked when I could not locate the receipt, then remembered to go over to the opposite end. Yes. Right there . . .

  I had, of course, planted the receipt so that it would not be reversed and cause me difficulty in getting my coat back. And I had checked the coat so the ticket would not be reversed, causing me difficulty in boarding my bus.

  I mapped out the route image in my mind and found my way back to the restaurant. I was prepared for its situation on the opposite side of the street but still fumbled the door by reaching to the wrong side for its handle.

  The girl fetched me my coat promptly, but “It ain’t April Fool’s Day,” she said as I turned to leave.