My occupation was "short-order cook", as it is called. I practiced it in
a locus entitled "The White Heaven," established at Fifth Avenue,
Newyork, between 1949 and 1962 C.E. I had created rapport with several
of the aboriginals, who addressed me as Bessie, and presumed to approve
the manner in which I heated specimens of minced ruminant quadruped
flesh (deceased to be sure). It was a satisfactory guise, although
tiring.
[Illustration]
Using approved techniques, I was compiling anthropometric data while "I"
was, as they say, "brewing coffee." I deem the probability nearly
conclusive that it was the double duty, plus the datum that, as stated,
"I" was physically tired, which caused me to overlook the first signal
from my portatron. Indeed, I might have overlooked the second as well
except that the aboriginal named Lester stated: "Hey, Bessie. Ya got an
alarm clock in ya pocketbook?" He had related the annunciator signal of
the portatron to the only significant datum in his own experience which
it resembled, the ringing of a bell.
I annotated his dossier to provide for his removal in case it eventuated
that he had made an undesirable intuit (this proved unnecessary) and
retired to the back of the "store" with my carry-all. On identifying
myself to the portatron, I received information that it was attuned to a
Bailey's Beam, identified as Foraminifera 9-Hart, who had refused
treatment for systemic weltschmerz and instead sought to relieve his
boredom by adventuring into this era.
I thereupon compiled two recommendations which are attached: 2, a
proposal for reprimand to the Keeper of the Learning Lodge for failure
to properly annotate a volume entitled _U.S.A. Confidential_ and, 1, a
proposal for reprimand to the Transport Executive, for permitting
Bailey's Beam-class personnel access to temporal transport. Meanwhile, I
left the "store" by a rear exit and directed myself toward the locus of
the transmitting portatron.
* * * * *
I had proximately left when I received an additional information,
namely that developed weapons were being employed in the area toward
which I was directing. This provoked that I abandon guise entirely. I
went transparent and quickly examined all aboriginals within view, to
determine if any required removal; but none had observed this. I rose to
perhaps seventy-five meters and sped at full atmospheric driving speed
toward the source of the alarm. As I crossed a "park" I detected the
drive of another Adjuster, whom I determined to be Alephplex Priam's
Maw--that is, my father. He bespoke me as follows: "Hurry, Besplex
Priam's Maw. That crazy Foraminifera has been captured by aboriginals
and they have taken his weapons away from him." "Weapons?" I inquired.
"Yes, weapons," he stated, "for Foraminifera 9-Hart brought with him
more than forty-three kilograms of weapons, ranging up to and including
electronic."
I recorded this datum and we landed, went opaque in the shelter of a
doorway and examined our percepts. "Quarantine?" asked my father, and I
had to agree. "Quarantine," I voted, and he opened his carry-all and
set-up a quarantine shield on the console. At once appeared the silvery
quarantine dome, and the first step of our adjustment was completed. Now
to isolate, remove, replace.
Queried Alephplex: "An Adjuster?" I observed the phenomenon to which he
was referring. A young, dark aboriginal was coming toward us on the
"street," driving a group of police aboriginals before him. He was
armed, it appeared, with a fission-throwing weapon in one hand and some
sort of tranquilizer--I deem it to have been a Stollgratz 16--in the
other; moreover, he wore an invulnerability belt. The police aboriginals
were attempting to strike him with missile weapons, which the belt
deflected. I neutralized his shield, collapsed him and stored him in my
carry-all. "Not an Adjuster," I asserted my father, but he had already
perceived that this was so. I left him to neutralize and collapse the
police aboriginals while I zeroed in on the portatron. I did not envy
him his job with the police aboriginals, for many of them were "dead,"
as they say. It required the most delicate adjustments.
* * * * *
The portatron developed to be in a "cellar" and with it were some nine
or eleven aboriginals which it had immobilized pending my arrival. One
spoke to me thus: "Young lady, please call the cops! We're stuck here,
and--" I did not wait to hear what he wished to say further, but
neutralized and collapsed him with the other aboriginals. The portatron
apologized for having caused me inconvenience; but of course it was not
its fault, so I did not neutralize it. Using it for d-f, I quickly
located the culprit, Foraminifera 9-Hart Bailey's Beam, nearby. He spoke
despairingly in the dialect of the locus, "Besplex Priam's Maw, for
God's sake get me out of this!" "Out!" I spoke to him, "you'll wish you
never were 'born,' as they say!" I neutralized but did not collapse him,
pending instructions from the Central Authority. The aboriginals who
were with him, however, I did collapse.
Presently arrived Alephplex, along with four other Adjusters who had
arrived before the quarantine shield made it not possible for anyone
else to enter the disturbed area. Each one of us had had to abandon
guise, so that this locus of Newyork 1939-1986 must require new
Adjusters to replace us--a matter to be charged against the guilt of
Foraminifera 9-Hart Bailey's Beam, I deem.
* * * * *
This concluded Steps 3 and 2 of our Adjustment, the removal and the
isolation of the disturbed specimens. We are transmitting same disturbed
specimens to you under separate cover herewith, in neutralized and
collapsed state, for the manufacture of simulacra thereof. One regrets
to say that they number three thousand eight hundred forty-six,
comprising all aboriginals within the quarantined area who had
first-hand knowledge of the anachronisms caused by Foraminifera's
importation of contemporary weapons into this locus.
Alephplex and the four other Adjusters are at present reconstructing
such physical damage as was caused by the use of said weapons.
Simultaneously, while I am preparing this report, "I" am maintaining the
quarantine shield which cuts off this locus, both physically and
temporally, from the remainder of its environment. I deem that if
replacements for the attached aboriginals can be fabricated quickly
enough, there will be no significant outside percept of the shield
itself, or of the happenings within it--that is, by maintaining a
quasi-stasis of time while the repairs are being made, an outside
aboriginal observer will see, at most, a mere flicker of silver in the
sky. All Adjusters here present are working as rapidly as we can to make
sure the shield can be withdrawn, before so many aboriginals have
observed it as to make it necessary to replace the entire city with
simulacra. We do not wish a repetition of the California incident, after
all.