Outward Bound, page 3
"I'm . . . not sure I understand," he answered guardedly. "Where are you from? What kind of thing are we talking about?"
"Of course you don't," Grober agreed. "But it would be somewhat premature to go into that just now. The specifics can come later. For now I'm just interested in your reactions to a few points of principle."
He fell silent again, regarding Linc distantly, as if weighing up something in his mind. If this was supposed to be a sales pitch for some new rehabilitation program or to recruit subjects for testing another crazy psychological theory somebody had come up with, it was unlike any pitch Linc had met before. A few seconds more passed, and he got the feeling he was expected to say something. He jerked his head, his brow creasing in a frown, and gestured briefly. "You said something about 'qualities' . . . that maybe you might be interested in. I don't know what you mean. Just what are we talking about?"
"I'm not sure you'd understand if I tried to tell you," Grober replied. "Not right now, anyway. I said I wanted to put to you a few matters concerning principle. And you do have principles, you know, Mr. Marani. Strong principles—even if, at the present time, you are probably unaware of them as such. They are important things, you know. It's upon them that everything else is built."
None of this was making sense. Linc emitted a sigh of exasperation and shook his head, showing his empty palms. "Look, Mr . . . ."
"Grober. Dr. Grober, if you please."
"Maybe I'm being slow or something, but this isn't getting through. I can't tell you anything if I don't know what you're talking about. What, exactly, do you want?"
"Whatever you have and are willing to offer. I can't tell you exactly what. I doubt if at present you even know what it is yourself."
Linc put a hand to his brow and closed his eyes. "This is a game? Okay, let's try it another way. You don't know what you want, and I don't know what you're talking about. Then what are you offering? What am I supposed to think I stand to get out of it?"
"And there you have the game that marks our times," Grober observed. "Zero sum. What's in it for me? My gain can only be at someone else's loss. We build mistrust and antagonism into all our transactions and relationships." He made a face and waved a hand. "And the end product is the world you see around you. Everyone becomes a threat or a rival, an adversary to be squashed first before he does it to you, or the nice guy who talks you into letting down your guard because he's after your job. Violence and greed. Is history an inevitable product of human nature, do you think? Or do we unthinkingly and needlessly make ourselves prisoners of the past?"
Linc didn't follow everything Grober said, but the gist was becoming clearer. He shrugged. "It's how things are: Eat or get eaten. You go for whatever you can get, and hang on to what you've got. The corporations take you for what they can, and the government takes from everybody."
"Inevitably so, would you say?" Grober asked again. His tone was thoughtfully curious, as if the question had just occurred to him for the first time.
Linc snorted. "I don't know . . . . What is this? Do you think you're gonna change any of it?" Maybe this walking stiff did, Linc thought. Okay, he told himself, he'd hitch along for the ride Just to see where it went. It couldn't be any worse than the camps.
"I think this civilization of ours will be incapable of making further meaningful progress until it changes somehow," Grober said.
Linc eyed him dubiously, as if finally wondering about his sanity. "Is that something I'm supposed to care about?" he asked.
"Not in those terms," Grober conceded. "But the subject does have some relevance to the matter of what it is you stand to gain from the proposition I have to make. And that was your question, after all." He looked at Linc questioningly. Linc waited. "You ask what I have to offer. The answer is, nothing. Nothing, that is, for you to take. In fact, quite the converse." Linc's frown deepened. Grober went on, "What I'm offering is a rare opportunity—to learn how to give instead of take. A chance to discover service and obligation, and break free from the tyranny of expecting rights."
The words were so strangely different from the litany Linc was used to hearing every day that for a moment he had to stare hard to be sure he'd heard correctly. "The big deal is that I give up rights? That's what I'm supposed to go for in this?"
"Yes. Instead, to fulfill duty, know honor, and meet obligations. All of it priceless."
"Priceless? To be given obligations when I don't have any now? Is that what you're telling me?"
"Not to be given them. To accept them," Grober said.
Linc leaned back, shaking his head disbelievingly. "You really are crazy."
"At the time when such considerations become pertinent," Grober went on. "We would not demand unconditional agreement in advance."
And it was getting crazier. "Let's get this straight." Linc sat forward again. "You're saying I get to make choices in all this? It's not like some laid-down program I have to buy into up front?"
"Quite so," Grober replied. "I'll make no bones about it, Mr. Marani. What we're looking for is total commitment and obligation. The only truly binding loyalties are those entered into freely. This might possibly sound like a contradiction in terms to you at present, but that is likely to change with time. The only condition we would ask is that your parents or other legal guardians sign over their responsibilities for you fully to us for as long as we might deem it fit to continue."
This was unreal. Linc was finding it difficult to keep a serious face. "And right now I don't have to promise anything? I can go with it for as long as it suits me? You're happy to live with that?"
"It has been our experience that the best results are achieved that way," Grober affirmed.
Linc thought through what had been said but was unable to see where there might be a catch. Finally, he sighed, spreading his arms and turning up his hands in an attitude that said he had nothing to lose. "What else is there to say? If that's the way you want it, I'll buy. Okay, Mr . . . . Dr. Grober. I guess you've got yourself a deal."
Chapter Seven
CAMP Coulie stood at the end of a lake in a valley boulder-strewn slopes rising to dry, rocky walls, somewhere in the mountain wilderness on the California side of the High Sierra! It had the feel of having been built originally as some kind of military base. Two rows of flat-roofed dormitory huts faced a block containing a messroom, a kitchen, and offices across an open square. Stores and a transportation depot flanked the square on one side, and a large hall that doubled as a gym, with various extensions and classrooms, was on the other. A fence surrounded the buildings but with an appearance of being intended more to keep intruders and undesirable wildlife out rather than the occupants in. Although superficially similar in some ways, it was an improvement on the state-run "transit facility," Linc decided.
He arrived there sixteen days after his interview with Dr. Grober, in a dusty, dun-colored bus that collected him from the municipal airport at Fresno, along with a dozen or so others who had arrived at intervals through the day, presumably from different places. They seemed to be around his age, the average tending to maybe a year or two older. It was a mixed group, perhaps half to three quarters of them boys. Two escorts rode with them in the rear of the bus, in addition to the driver and an armed guard up front. They wore light-tan pants and shirts—military-style but without rank indicators or insignia. Linc had been told to give only his first name or a nickname to anyone who asked and to say nothing about his background or where he was from. So, apparently, had the others. There was little talking during the two-hour drive, but a lot of surreptitious eyeing and weighing up of strangers thrown together, searching for hints of one another's measure. A black kid with curly hair had been at the transit facility in the same group Linc was in, that Grober had come to talk to. He recognized Linc, said his name was Rick, and made a couple of attempts at conversation from the seat opposite; then he fell quiet when it became clear Linc wasn't feeling talkative. In the seat in front of Linc, a huge, broad-shouldered youth with blond waves that reminded Linc of Kyle spread his elbows along the backrest, taking up the center and forcing the skinny Oriental next to him almost off the end. The skinny guy perched with increasing discomfort for a while, then moved to another seat. The climb into the mountains grew steeper, and the scenery more barren. Nothing had been said about the organization that ran the place they were going to or what its purpose was.
Others were already there ahead of them when they arrived at Camp Coulie. The dress for the inmates—or whatever term applied here—was evidently olive fatigue pants, worn either with a matching blouse or T-shirt. More tan uniforms were in evidence also, some of them with overvests in various bright colors. Linc couldn't really see them as guards, he concluded as took in the scene while the rest from the bus were emerging onto the dusty forecourt inside the gate. The people in the tan uniforms seemed more involved with what their charges were doing than guarding adequately described. Supervising was the word that suggested itself. It was quickly made clear to the newcomers that the term used was wardens.
After some paperwork formalities in the office, the arrivals were taken to one of the stores and issued three changes of basic clothing apiece, plus boots, two sweaters, a mountain parka and rainwear, along with blankets, towels, toilet items, and other sundries. Then they were assigned to sex-segregated dormitory huts.
Each hut had its own warden. Hut 3, where Linc found himself, was under the charge of a "Mr. Green." Mr. Green wore a bright green overvest. The bunks were two-tier, standing five along each side of the room. Some, including all the end ones, which occupied the corners, were already taken. Mr. Green told the newcomers to find a new home from the ones remaining—they would be here for six weeks, he informed them. Linc picked out a lower-level one with plenty of light near a window and moved toward it; but as he was about to deposit his armload of kit on the mattress, a folded blanket was thumped down sharply from the other side. He looked up and found himself staring at a pair of clear blue eyes set in a fleshy but hardened face, fixing him with a challenging expression. It was Blondie, who had sat in front of him in the bus. "Mine." The voice was little above a murmur, but menacing. The eyes asked the rest: Any objection? Linc held his gaze for several seconds, then glanced away. Although others were bustling about or seemed still undecided, Mr. Green had noticed and was watching from across the room. Linc locked with the blue eyes for a moment longer, then shrugged and turned to take the lower bunk adjacent instead. Rick, he saw, was already installing himself on the far side.
"The name's Arvin," Blondie's voice said behind him. "Better not forget that now, y'hear?" Linc ignored him.
Mr. Green assembled them around one of the bunks and demonstrated the required way to make beds and set out lockers. He then undid everything and made the owner of the bunk repeat it; next he went around with each of them until they could all do it right. A mini-lecture followed on basic rules and the schedule for the immediate future. There would be no fighting, "fraternizing" (for which everyone read "screwing around with the girls"), use of drugs or alcohol, or disclosure of personal history; theft of personal belongings, attempts at intimidation, or refusal of assigned duties would not be tolerated; there would be maintenance of self, dress, and quarters to the required standards, and observance of punctuality. The penalty for infringement would be "RPO," or Return to Place of Origin. In Linc's case, that would mean back on the labor-camp rap. It didn't take him long to decide this was good enough for him—he'd be sure to stay very clean.
For now, Mr. Green informed them, they could clean up and change after their journey. The showers were at the rear. If there were further immediate questions, he would be in his private quarters at the entrance end of the building. Dinner would be in the communal mess at 1830 hours. Tonight would be free time until lights-out at 2100. Tomorrow would start with PE on the square at 0600 sharp, after which the newcomers would continue through the day with cleaning and fixing chores around the camp while the rest of the intake were showing up. A general address would follow dinner tomorrow, by which time everyone should have arrived. Then they would all be able to get down to business.
Chapter Eight
AFTER breakfast, which spanned the spectrum from burned sausage to semiraw eggs, having been prepared by several of the inmates, Linc spent the rest of the morning filling potholes with gravel brought in wheelbarrow loads from pens in a yard behind the motor depot. Although he pushed weights and sparred to keep in shape, he wasn't used to this kind of work and by lunchtime his arms and back ached, and his T-shirt was sodden from his exertions in the sun, which by then was high. Lunch was as big a disaster as breakfast, and there were angry exchanges between those returning hungry and thirsty from the heat outside and the catering shift who had been in the shade.
The afternoon was worse. Linc and a pudgy, pink-faced kid who said his name was Royal—he was also in Hut 3, bunking somewhere on the far side—were detailed to take over the task of digging up a drainage pipe that had become silted, and cleaning out the trench for new pipe to be laid. The ground was hard and compacted, and had to be broken with a pick before any impression could be made with a shovel. A yellow marker indicated the target distance to be dug today.
There were less than a half hour into it when Royal complained, "I shouldn't be doing this. It's my back. I've always had a bad back." Linc paused from working the pick and looked up at him. The pink face was a plea for sympathy. He wanted Linc to go and say something for him. Linc grunted and went back to swinging the pick.
The clouds that had brought some respite in the morning had dispersed. His hands, sore enough then, were beginning to blister despite the gloves he was wearing. Royal straightened up, clutching a hand to his back. "I can't do this. I know I'm gonna hurt myself. You wouldn't feel bad at me if I tried to see if I could get switched to something different, would you?"
"Do whatever you think you have to do," Linc said tonelessly.
"I mean . . . I really have this problem. Ya gotta understand."
"Like I said, do what you have to."
Royal put down the shovel and walked back along the trench to where Mr. Blue—in a blue overvest—was showing a small group the technique of joining a new length of pipe. Linc watched Royal remonstrating and gesticulating, pointing back to where Linc had picked up the shovel and was beginning to clear the next stretch. Mr. Blue pointed toward the main block and said something Linc was unable to catch. Royal nodded and disappeared in that direction. Mr. Blue stared at Linc for a moment or two, and Linc thought he was about to assign someone else to replace Royal; but then Mr. Blue looked away and carried on with his lesson.
Linc worked on, getting hotter and itchier and feeling more put upon. Real smart, he told himself—he'd evaded labor camp for this? Some difference! For all he knew, this whole thing could be a scam. Maybe it was labor camp in the form of some stupid experiment dreamed up by another idiot psychologist. It was all he could do to prevent his anger from erupting into an uncontrollable display of rage when Mr. Blue looked at his watch, murmured something to his group, and sauntered away, leaving them to pick up their tools and disperse in a way that said plainly that their stint for today was over.
All except one.
He looked Mexican—dark and wiry, with a mat of cropped black hair and a grin that seemed to cut his face in half with a swath of white, even at that distance. He turned his head to gaze after the departing group, then back at Linc, gauging the distance to be dug to the marker. Then he strolled over. "Man, you got left with a bum deal here. You taking help applications?"
Linc leaned on the pick, pushed back the floppy brimmed hat he was wearing, and used the back of a hand to wipe his brow. The Mex had large, laughing brown eyes and a hairline of a mustache. "Sure, why not, if you're applying," Linc said.
He watched as the Mex took up the shovel and began clearing broken dirt from the trench. His movements were slow and even, and appeared effortless. The muscles flexed and rippled under his T-shirt. Linc went back to cutting the line toward the marker. Despite his forced effort, he was having to rest frequently for breath. The Mexican grinned at him without breaking his rhythm. "Not gringo's work, eh? You don't look to me like someone who is used to the sun. I give you a tip—soak the hat in water. The evaporation keeps you cool. A leather hat works even better. That's what they used to do, you know."
"Smart," Linc complimented. He tried to return a grin, but his lips felt cracked. "Wetbacks, I've heard of. But wet-heads is a new one."
The Mexican's voice dropped to a more candid tone. "A guy is gonna need friends in a place like this," he said, revealing his motive. It was astute, realistic. He'd been around. Linc regarded him, sizing him up. The smile was direct and open, nothing crooked or sly, the eyes steady. Linc's gut feel was good.
He shifted the pick to his other hand and extended a gloved palm.
"Name's Linc."
"Angelo." The Mexican gripped and shook firmly. Linc winced.
"So, where did you do this kind of thing?" Linc asked.
