“What about the Vietnamese?” I asked.
“They survive. The centuries have made them a very practical people. They understand that the first problem is staying alive and they devote all their energies to that. It’s a full-time job not being sucked into the war by the pressures from either side. It makes for a single-mindedness that precludes falling victim to neurosis. The situation has made them the most mentally healthy people in the world.”
“Then you can’t help me,” I summed up.
“I'm afraid not. Unless, of course, you’d like to have the growth removed.”
“I wouldn’t!” I said firmly. “Thanks anyway. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye. Good luck. If you should run across a case of rabies, I hope you’ll recommend me.” Dr. Pasteur took a long swig of milk as the door closed behind us.
“What now?” I wondered aloud when we were outside.
“I think I know a man who just might be able to help you,” Denise told me.
“What kind of man? If there are no psychiatrists in Saigon -”
“He’s not a psychiatrist. He’s a Wise Man.”
“What do you mean? A guru, or something like that?”
“Something like that. Will you see him?” she asked.
“What have I got to lose?”
We found the Wise Man about where you’d expect—sitting beside a stream in the hills beyond the city limits of Saigon. I explained my problem to him. He pondered it for what seemed a long time, and finally he spoke.
“It’s immaterial.” This was his pronouncement.
I allowed as how that wasn’t too helpful.
“The thread which is your problem is extraneous to the weave.” It was intended as an explanation.
This might be true, I told him, but it was a matter of perspective. It was my “thread,” after all. And it was a matter of some concern to me that it should behave like a rainbow.
“Nevertheless, the problem of the thread is as nothing compared to the problem of the buttons,” he insisted.
“The buttons?”
The Wise Man explained. There were two buttons in the world —- theirs and ours. They were pushbuttons, natch. And they were more than symbols; they were the actual instruments by which the fabric would be disintegrated. What it boiled down to was that the fabric was the world from its beginning to its end. That end, the tail-piece of the fabric, was now in sight. The science of overkill had developed to its fullest. Each button, if pushed, would destroy not just humanity, but the planet itself. And the whole fabric of human history, according to the Wise Man, made it inevitable that the button would soon be pushed. Ergo! The problem of my you-know-what changing hue was unimportant because in the very near future it—and me and the world as well—would be reduced to nothingness.
Put that way, he certainly had a point. I had to admit that the coloration of my manhood seemed unimportant considering the total picture. But one solution to the problem of world destruction seemed so obvious to me that I couldn’t understand why the Wise Man hadn’t hit on it.
“Why not just not push the button?” I asked him.
“Because the development of humankind has made it impossible for Man to resist pushing it at this point,” he said quite simply.
“At this point?” I caught him up on it.
“Yes. It is inevitable now, but it has not always been inevitable.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just this: In the beginning stages of the weaving of the fabric, a different sort of stitch here or there might have changed the developing pattern and prevented the picture which has now emerged. Indeed, throughout the piecing together of the tapestry, there have always been specific threads which could have been left out, or changed, so that the pattern could be altered. To drop the simile and be more specific, let me put it this way: There are pivotal points in history. In retrospect they are easily seen. Had certain actions been taken—or not been taken, as the case may be – what is now inevitable would not be so.”
“Can you give me some examples of what you mean?” I asked the Wise Man.
“Yes. Let’s take a point near the beginning for instance. The development of the extension of weaponry. When early man took the step from a weapon held in the hand to a weapon which left the hand and covered distance, this first instance was such a pivotal point in history. The hydrogen bomb is the logical extension of the bow-and-arrow. Had man not developed his power to hurl against man, the ultimate disaster might have been averted.
“But you can’t change history,” I pointed out.
“Can’t you?” The Wise Man looked at me with a gaze which seemed to pierce my very soul. “Can’t you?” he repeated.
And with those words he left us. He retreated into his cave by the side of the river. I accompanied Denise back to Saigon, my problem still unsolved, the world’s problem seeming now, somehow, to be locked in the parting words of the Wise Man.
Still, I didn’t dwell on those words. Not then, anyway. I was only human, and it wasn’t long before I was back brooding on my own particular troubles again.
Denise adopted a diplomatic attitude regarding it. She didn’t press me to pick up business where we’d left off. Instead, she granted that I probably needed a rest and that I’d earned it. She invested some of the lucre I’d earned for her in a lavish penthouse apartment in the American sector of Saigon, and we moved in with the understanding that I’d take it easy for a few weeks.
It was after we’d been there about a week, one afternoon when Denise was out shopping and I was alone in the apartment, that I succeeded in raising Charles Putnam on my wrist radio. “Is that you, Steve?” His voice greeted me over the tiny receiver.
“What’s left of me,” I told him.
He ignored my whining. “What have you been doing with yourself?” he asked in a jovial tone that was far from typical of him. .
“Oh, just sitting around watching my genitals change color,” I reported.
“Really? Well, everybody gets their kicks different ways.” He dismissed my plight.
“Are you going to get me out of here and back home?” I demanded.
“You’ll be happy to hear that I’ve got Papa Baapuh working on it right now, Steve, my boy. Don’t be surprised if you get jolted any time now.”
“You mean he’s going to be able to reverse the mechanism?”
“He’s very encouraging.”
“How come?” I wondered. “I thought he was miffed at you because of Ti Nih. What made him decide to cooperate?”
“We made an agreement. I agreed to stay away from Ti Nih if he’d work on the time machine and try to bring you back.”
“Well, be sure you stick to your end of the bargain,” I told him earnestly.
There was a faint giggle in the background-—a feminine giggle.
“Don’t worry, my boy. I’ve got everything under control.”
“Yes. No worry, Steve.” I recognized Ti Nih’s voice. “Him Putnam one smart man. Him got everything go good.”
“What’s she doing there?” I yelled. “I thought you promised to keep away from her?”
“That’s right, Steve, boy.” Putnam’s tone was soothing. “I promised and Papa Baapuh promised. But Ti Nih didn’t promise anything. You can hardly expect her to stick to an agreement she had no part in making. Speaking from the point of view of a seasoned diplomat, that would be very unrealistic. And—umm—-international relations being what they are, I could hardly reject the young lady’s overtures of continuing accord, now could I?”
“Yes, you could!” I said sincerely. “This is my neck you’re playing around with, Putnam. Now get that girl out of there!”