One comes now to the brink of the abyss.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie, battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep, until the latter fire shall heat the deep; then once by man and angels to be seen, in roaring he shall rise and on the surface die. Yes. One is moved, yes. One inclines one’s lamp, hoping its beam will strike a cold glittering eye below. Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea. There is no sign of the thick ropy tentacles, the mighty beak.
“Going down in, now,” one says to those above.
One has humor as well as imagination. One pauses at the brink, picks up a chalky stone, inscribes on a boulder crusted with the tracks of worms the single word:
NEMO
One laughs and flips aside the stone, and launches one’s self into the abyss, kicking off hard against the continental shelf. Down. And down. Seeking wondrous grot and secret cell.
The changer sighs, thinking of debentures floated on the Zurich exchange, of contracts for future delivery of helium and plutonium, of puts and calls and margins. He will not enter the abyss; he will not see the kraken; feebly he signals with his left hand.
—shunt
A middle-aged male, at least. There’s hope in that. A distinct paunch at the middle. Some shortness of breath. Faint stubble on face. The legs feel heavy, with swollen feet; a man gets tired easily at a certain age, when his responsibilities are heavy. The sound of unanswered telephones rings in his ears. Everything is familiar: the tensions, the frustrations, the fatigue, the sense of things unfinished and things uncommenced, the staleness in the mouth, the emptiness in the gut. This must be the one. Home again, all too soon?
Q: Sir, in the event of an escalation of the crisis, would you request an immediate meeting of the Security Council, or would you attempt to settle matters through quasidiplomatic means as was done in the case of the dispute between Syria and the Maldive Islands?
A: Let’s not put the horse in the cart, shall we?
Q: According to last Monday’s statement by the Bureau of the Budget, this year’s deficit is already running twelve billion ahead of last, and we’re only halfway through the second quarter. Have you given any concern to the accusation of the Fiscal Responsibility Party that this is the result of a deliberate Communist-dictated plan to demoralize the economy?
A: What do you think?
Q: Is there any thought of raising the tax on personality-shunting?
A: Well, now, there’s already a pretty steep tax on that, and we don’t want to do anything that’ll interfere with the rights of American citizens to move around from body to body, as is their God-given and constitutional right. So I don’t think we’ll change that tax any.
Q: Sir, we understand that you yourself have done some shunting. We—
A: Where’d you hear that?
Q: I think it was Representative Spear, of Iowa, who said the other day that it’s well known that the President visits a shunt room every time he’s in New York, and—
A: You know these Republicans. They’ll say anything at all about a Democrat.
Q: Mr. President, does the Administration have any plans for ending sexual discrimination in public washrooms?
A: I’ve asked the Secretary of the Interior to look into that, inasmuch as it might involve interstate commerce and also being on Federal property, and we expect a report at a later date.
Q: Thank you, Mr. President.
The left hand stirs and rises. Not this one, obviously. The hand requests a new phase-shift. The body is properly soggy and decayed, yes. But one must not be deceived by superficialities. This is the wrong one. Out, please. Out.
—shunt
The crowd stirred in anticipation as Bernie Kingston left the on-deck circle and moved toward the plate, and by the time he was in the batter’s box they were standing.
Kingston glanced out at the imposing figure of Ham Fillmore, the lanky Hawks southpaw on the mound. Go ahead, Bernie thought, I’m ready for you.
He wiggled the bat back and forth two or three times and dug in hard, waiting for the pitch. It was a low, hard fastball, delivered by way of first base, and it shot past him before he had a chance to offer. “Strike one,” he heard. He looked down toward third to see if the manager had any sign for him.
But Danner was staring at him blankly. You’re on your own, he seemed to be saying.
The next pitch was right in the groove, and Bernie lined it effortlessly past the big hurler’s nose and on into right field for a single. The crowd roared its approval as he trotted down to first.
“Good going, kid,” said Jake Edwards, the first-base coach, when Bernie got there. Bernie grinned. Base hits always felt good, and he loved to hear the crowd yell.
The Hawks’ catcher came out to the mound and called a conference. Bernie wandered around first, doing some gardening with his spikes. With one out and the score tied in the eighth, he couldn’t blame the Hawks for wanting to play it close to the belt.
As soon as the mound conference broke up it was the Stags’ turn to call time. “Come here, kid,” Jake Edwards called.
“What’s the big strategy this time?” Bernie asked boredly.
“No lip, kid. Just go down on the second pitch.”
Bernie shrugged and edged a few feet off the base. Ham Fillmore was still staring down at his catcher, shaking off signs, and Karl Folsom, the Stag cleanup man, was waiting impatiently at the plate.
“Take a lead,” the coach whispered harshly. “Go on, Kingston—get down that line.”
The hurler finally was satisfied with his sign, and he swung into the windup. The pitch was a curve, breaking far outside. Folsom didn’t venture at it, and the ball hit the dirt and squirted through the catcher’s big mitt. It trickled about fifteen feet back of the plate.
Immediately the Hawks’ shortstop moved in to cover second in case Bernie might be going. But Bernie had no such ideas. He stayed put at first.
“What’s the matter, lead in ya pants?” called a derisive voice from the Hawk dugout.
Bernie snarled something and returned to the base. He glanced over at third, and saw Danner flash the steal sign.
He leaned away from first cautiously, five, six steps, keeping an eye cocked at the mound.
The pitcher swung into a half-windup—Bernie broke for second—his spikes dug furiously into the dusty basepath—
Out! Out! Out! The left hand upraised! Not this one, either! Out! Get me out!
—shunt
Through this mind go dreams of dollars, and the changer believes they have finally made the right match-up. He takes the soundings and finds much here that is familiar. Dow-Jones Industrials 1453.28, down 8.29. Confirmation of the bear signal by the rails. Penetration of the August 13 lows. Watch the arbitrage spread you get by going short on the common while picking up 10,000 of the $1.50 convertible preferred at—
The substance is right; so is the context. But the tone is wrong, the changer realizes. This man loves his work.
The changer tours this man’s mind from the visitors’ gallery.
—we can unload 800 shares in Milan at 48, which gives us two and a half points right there, and then after they announce the change in redemption ratio I think we ought to drop another thousand on the Zurich board—
—give me those Tokyo quotes! Damn you, you sleepy bastard, don’t slow me up! Here, here, Kansai Electric Power, I want the price in yen, not the American Depositary crap—