Breaking Point Page 4

  IV

  _The primary function of personality is self-preservation, but personality itself is not a static but a dynamic thing. The basic factor in its development, is integration: each new situation calls forth a new adjustment which modifies or alters the personality in the process. The proper aim of personality, therefore, is not permanence and stability, but unification. The inability of a personality to adjust to or integrate a new situation, the resistance of the personality to unification, and its efforts to preserve its integrity are known popularly as insanity._ --Morgan Littlefield, Notes on Psychology.

  _"Hoskins!"_

  Paresi grabbed the Captain's arm and spun him around roughly. "CaptainAnderson! Cut it!" Very softly, he said, "Leave him alone. He's doingwhat he has to do."

  Anderson stared over his shoulder at the little engineer. "Is he, now?Damn it, he's still under orders!"

  "Got something for him to do?" asked the doctor cooly.

  Anderson looked around, at the controls, out at the sleeping mountains."I guess not. But I'd like to know he'd take an order when I have one."

  "Leave him alone until you have an order. Hoskins is a very steady head,skipper. But just now he's on the outside edge. Don't push."

  The Captain put his hand over his eyes and fumbled his way to thecontrols. He turned his back to the pilot's chair and leaned heavilyagainst it. "Okay," he said. "This thing is developing into a duelbetween you and those ... those colleagues of yours out there. I guessthe least we ... I ... can do is not to fight you while you're fightingthem."

  Paresi said, "You're choosing up sides the wrong way. They're fightingus, all right. We're only fighting ourselves. I don't mean each other; Imean each of us is fighting himself. We've got to stop doing that,skipper."

  The Captain gave him a wan smile. "Who has, at the best of times?"

  Paresi returned the smile. "Drug addicts ... Catatonics ...illusionaries ... and saints. I guess it's up to us to add to thecategory."

  "How about dead people?"

  "Ives! How long have you been awake?"

  The big man shoved himself up and leaned on one arm. He shook his headand grunted as if he had been punched in the solar plexus. "Who hit mewith what?" he said painfully, from between clenched teeth.

  "You apparently decided the bulkhead was a paper hoop and tried to divethrough it," said Paresi. He spoke lightly but his face was watchful.

  "Oooh...." Ives held his head for a moment and then peered between hisfingers at the darkness. "I remember," he said in a strained whisper. Helooked around him, saw the engineer huddled against his chessboard."What's he doing?"

  They all looked at the engineer as he moved a piece and then satquietly.

  "Hey, Hoskins!"

  Hoskins ignored Ives' bull voice. Paresi said, "He's not talking justnow. He's ... all right, Ives. Leave him alone. At the moment, I'm moreinterested in you. How do you feel?"

  "Me, I feel great. Hungry, though. What's for chow?"

  Anderson said quickly, "Nick doesn't want us to eat just now."

  "Thanks," muttered Paresi in vicious irony.

  "He's the doctor," said Ives good-naturedly. "But don't put it off toolong, huh? This furnace needs stoking." He fisted his huge chest.

  "Well, this is encouraging," said Paresi.

  "It certainly is," said the Captain. "Maybe the breaking point is justthe point of impact. After that the rebound, hm?"

  Paresi shook his head. "Breaking means breaking. Sometimes things justdon't break."

  "Got to pass," said a voice. Johnny, the pilot, was stirring.

  "Ha!" Anderson's voice was exultant. "Here comes another one!"

  "How sure are you of that?" asked the doctor. To Johnny, he called,"Hiya, John?"

  "I got to pass," said Johnny worriedly. He swung his feet to the deck."You see," he said earnestly, "being the head of your class doesn't makeit any easier. You've got to keep that and pass the examinations too.You've got two jobs. Now, the guy who stands fourth, say--he has onlyone job to do."

  Anderson turned a blank face to Paresi, who made a silencing gesture.Johnny put his head in his hands and said, "When one variable variesdirectly as another, two pairs of their corresponding values are inproportion." He looked up. "That's supposed to be the keystone of allvector analysis, the man says, and you don't get to be a pilot withoutvector analysis. And it makes no sense to me. What am I going to do?"

  "Get some shuteye," said Paresi immediately. "You've been studying toohard. It'll make more sense to you in the morning."

  Johnny grinned and yawned at the same time, the worried wrinklessmoothing out. "Now that was a real educational remark, Martin, oldchap," he said. He lay down and stretched luxuriously. "_That_ I canunderstand. You may wear my famous maroon zipsuit." He turned his faceaway and was instantly asleep.

  "Who the hell is Martin?" Ives demanded. "Martin who?"

  "Shh. Probably his roommate in pre-pilot school."

  Anderson gaped. "You mean he's back in school?"

  "Doesn't it figure?" said Paresi sadly. "I told you that this situationis intolerable to him. If he can't escape in space, he'll escape intime. He hasn't the imagination to go forward, so he goes backward."

  Something scuttled across the floor. Ives whipped his feet off the floorand sat like some cartoon of a Buddha, clutching his ankles. "What inGod's name was that?"

  "I didn't see anything," said Paresi.

  The Captain demanded, "What was it?"

  From the shadows, Hoskins said, "A mouse."

  "Nonsense."

  "I can't stand things that scuttle and slither and crawl," said Ives.His voice was suddenly womanish. "Don't let anything like that in here!"

  From the quarters aft came a faint scratching, a squeak. Ives turnedpale. His wattles quivered.

  "Snap out of it, Ives," said Paresi coldly. "There isn't so much as amicrobe on this ship that I haven't inventoried. Don't sit there likelittle Miss Muffet."

  "I know what I saw," said Ives. He rose suddenly, turned to the blackwall, and bellowed, "Damn you, send something I can fight!"

  Two mice emerged from under the couch. One of them ran over Ives' foot.They disappeared aft, squeaking. Ives leapt straight up and came downstanding on the couch. Anderson stepped back against the inboardbulkhead and stood rigid. Paresi walked with great purpose to themedical chest, took out a small black case and opened it.

  Ives cowered down to his knees and began to blubber openly, withoutattempting to hide it, without any articulate speech. Paresi approachedhim, half-concealing a small metal tube in his hand.

  A slight movement on the deck caught Anderson's eye. He was unable tocontrol a shrill intake of breath as an enormous spider, hairy andswift, darted across to the couch and sprang. It landed next to Ives'knee, sprang again. Paresi swung at it and missed, his hand catchingIves heavily just under the armpit. The spider hit the deck, skidded,righted itself and, abruptly, was gone. Ives caved in around the impactpoint of Paresi's hand and curled up silently on the couch. Anderson ranto him.

  "He'll be all right now," said Paresi. "Forget it."

  "Don't tell me he fainted! Not Ives!"

  "Of course not." Paresi held up the little cylinder.

  "Anesthox! Why did you use that on him?"

  Paresi said irritably, "For the reason one usually uses anesthox. Toknock a patient out for a couple of hours without hurting him."

  "Suppose you hadn't?"

  "How much more of that scuttle-and-slither treatment do you think hecould have taken?"

  Anderson looked at the unconscious communications man. "Surely more thanthat." He looked up suddenly. "Where the hell _did_ that vermin comefrom?"

  "Ah. Now you have it. He dislikes mice and spiders. But there wassomething special about these. They couldn't be here, and they were. Hefelt that it was a deliberate and personal attack. He couldn't havehandled much more of it."

  "Where did they come from?" demanded
the Captain again.

  "_I_ don't know!" snapped Paresi. "Sorry, skipper ... I'm a littleunnerved. I'm not used to seeing a patient's hallucinations. Not thatclearly, at any rate."

  "They were Ives' hallucinations?"

  "Can you recall what was said just before they appeared?"

  "Uh ... something scuttled. A mouse."

  "It wasn't a mouse until someone said it was." The doctor turned andlooked searchingly at Hoskins, who still sat quietly over his chess.

  "By God, it was Hoskins. Hoskins--what made you say that?"

  The engineer did not move nor answer. Paresi shook his head hopelessly."Another retreat. It's no use, Captain."

  Anderson took a single step toward Hoskins, then obviously changed hismind. He shrugged and said, "All right. Something scuttled and Hoskinsdefined it. Let's accept that without reasoning it out. So who called upthe spider?"

  "You did."

  "_I_ did?"

  In a startling imitation of the Captain's voice, Paresi quoted, "Don'tsit there like Miss Muffet!"

  "I'll be damned," said Anderson. "Maybe we'd all be better off sayingnothing."

  Paresi said bitterly, "You think it makes any difference if we _say_what we think?"

  "Perhaps...."

  "Nup," said Paresi positively. "Look at the way this thing works. Firstit traps us, and then it shows us a growing darkness. Very basic. Thenit starts picking on us, one by one. Johnny gets machines that don'twork, when with his whole soul he worships machines that do. Ives gets alarge charge of claustrophobia from the black stuff over there and goesinto a flat spin."

  "He came out of it."

  "Johnny woke up too. In another subjective time-track. Quite harmlessto--to Them. So they left him alone. But they lowered the boom on Iveswhen he showed any resilience. It's breaking point they're after,Captain. Nothing less."

  "Hoskins?"

  "I guess so," said Paresi tiredly. "Like Johnny he escaped from aproblem he couldn't handle to one he could. Only instead of regressinghe's turned to chess. I hope Johnny doesn't bounce back for awhile, yet.He's too--Captain! He's gone!"

  They turned and stared at Johnny's bunk. Or--where the bunk had beenbefore the black wall had swelled inwards and covered it.