The Anything Box

back from here or not?"
The substitute stood up abruptly, his face expressionless. "Are you coming
with me, Keeley?"
"If I did, why couldn't I come back sometime?" Keeley's voice was pleading.
"I bet you know a lot of stuff that'd help Earth."
"And we should give it to Earth, just like that?" asked the substitute
coldly.
"As much as I should leave Earth, just like that," Keeley's voice was just
as icy.
"We could argue all night, Keeley," said the substitute. "Maybe it'd help
if I told you that Earth is in for a pretty sticky time of it and this is your
chance to get out of it."
"Can you guys time-travel too?" asked Keeley.
"Well, no. But we can take into consideration the past and the present and
postulate the future."
"Sounds kind of guessy to me. The future ain't an already built road. We're
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making some of it right now that I betcha wasn't in your figgering. Nope. Ifwe're in for a sticky time, I'll get stuck too, and maybe do some of theunsticking."
"That's your decision?"
"Yep." Keeley stood up and began to stack his books.
The substitute watched him silently, then he said, "Suppose I shouldinsist?"
Keeley grinned at him. "I can be awful dumb. Ask anybody."
"Very well. It has to be voluntary or not at all. You might as well give methose earphones." He held out his hand. "They'll be of no use to you with ourtraining ship gone."
Keeley snapped the wires and hefted the disks in his hand. Then he put themin his pocket.
"I'll keep them. Someday I’ll figure out how come this setup works withoutwords. If I can't, we've got men who can take stuff like this and figger outthe other end of it."
"You're not so dumb, Keeley," the substitute smiled suddenly.
"No, I'm not," said Keeley. "And I'm gonna prove it. Starting Monday, I'mgonna set my mind to school. By then I oughta be up with the class. I onlyhave to look a coupla times at a page to get it."
The substitute paused at the door. "Your last chance, Keeley. Coming orstaying?"
"Staying. Thanks for the help you gave me."
"It was just an investment that didn't pay off," said the substitute. "ButKeeley…"
"Yeah?"
"I'm glad you're staying. I was born on Earth."
The Grunder
Almost before Crae brought the car to a gravel-spraying stop in front of theMurmuring Pines Store and Station, Ellena had the door open and was out andaround the corner marked His and Hers. Crae stared angrily after her, his jawset and his lips moving half-audibly. Anger burned brightly in his brain andthe tight, swollen sickness inside him throbbed like a boil. It was all herfault— all because she had to smile at every man—she had to entice everymale—she always—! And then the fire was gone and Crae slumped down into theashes of despair. It was no use. No matter how hard he tried—no matter what hedid, it always ended this way.
This was to have been it. This trip into the White Mountains—a long happyfishing trip for the two of them to celebrate because he was learning to curbhis jealousy, his blind, unreasoning, unfounded jealousy that was wreckingeverything he and Ellena had planned for a life together. It had gone so well.The shadowy early morning beginning, the sweep up the hills from the baking,blistering valley, the sudden return to spring as they reached pine country,the incredible greenness of everything after the dust and dryness of thedesert.
And then they had stopped at Lakeside.
She said she had only asked how the fishing was. She said they had knownthe same old-timers. She said—! Crae slid lower in the car seat, writhinginside as he remembered his icy return to the car, his abrupt backing awayfrom the laughing group that clustered around Ellena's window, his measured,insane accusations and the light slowly dying out of Ellena's eyes, the quiet,miserable turning away of her white face and her silence as the car roaredon—through hell as far as the two of them were concerned—through the rollingtimberland to Murmuring Pines.
Crae wrenched himself up out of his futile rememberings and slid out of thecar, slamming the door resoundingly. He climbed the three steps up to thesagging store porch and stopped, fumbling for a cigarette.
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"Wife trouble?"
Crae started as the wheezy old voice from the creaking rocking chair brokethrough his misery. He stared over his half-raised cigarette into the fadedblue eyes that peered through dirty bifocals at him. Then he put the cigarettein his mouth and cupped his palms around his light.
"What's it to you?" he half snapped, but even his hair-triggered temperseemed to have deserted him.
"Nothing, son, nothing." The chair rocked violently, then slowed down."Only thing is, I kinda wondered, seeing her kite outa the car like that andyou standing there, sulling up. Sit down a spell. I'm Eli. Old Eli."
Inexplicably, Crae sat down on the top step and said, "You're right, Eli.Plenty of trouble, but it's me—not my wife."
"Oh, that-a-way." The frowsy old head nodded.
"Yeah," muttered Crae, wondering dismally why he should be spilling hisguts to a busted-down old coot like this one. "Jealous, crazy jealous."
"Can't trust her, huh?" The chair rocked madly a moment, then slowed again.
"I can too!" flared Crae.
"Then what's the kick?" The old man spat toward the porch railing. "Way Isee it, it takes a certain amount of co-operation from a woman before she cango far wrong. If you can trust your wife, whatcha got to worry about?"
"Nothing," muttered Crae. "I know I've got nothing to worry about. But,"his hand clenched on his knee, "if only I could be sure! I know there's nological reason for the way I feel. I know she wouldn't look at anyone else.But I can't feel it! All the knowing in the world doesn't do any good if youcan't feel it."
"That's a hunk of truth if I ever heard one," wheezed the old man, leaningacross his fat belly and poking a stubby finger at Crae. "Like getting turnedaround in directions. You can say 'That's East' all you want to, but if itdon't feel like East then the sun goes on coming up in the North."
There was a brief pause and Crae lifted his face to the cool pine-heavybreeze that hummed through the trees, wondering again why he was spreadinghis own private lacerations out for this gross, wheezing, not-too-clean oldstranger.
"Them there psy-chiatrists—some say they can help fellers like you."
Crae shook his head, "I've been going to a counselor for three months. Ithought I had it licked. I was sure—" Crae's voice trailed off as heremembered why he had finally consented to go to a counselor.
"Bring a child into an atmosphere like this?" Ellena's voice was anagonized whisper, "How can we Crae, how can we? Anger and fear and mistrust.Never—not until—"
And his bitter rejoinder. "It's you and your slutting eyes that make 'thisatmosphere.' If I don't watch out you'll be bringing me someone else's child—"
And then his head was ringing from the lightning quick blow to his face,before she turned, blazing-eyed and bitter, away from him.
"No go, huh?" The old shoulders shrugged and the old man wiped one handacross his stubby chin.
"No go, damn me, and our vacation is ruined before it begins.""
"Too bad. Where you going? Big Lake?"
"No. South Fork of East Branch. Heard they've opened the closed part of thestream. Should be good fishing."
"South Fork?" The chair agitated wildly, then slowed. "Funny coincidence,that."