What Thin Partitions

Renaissance
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Copyright ©2003 by Estate of Mark Clifton

"Mark Clifton is one of the twelve most influential writers of science fiction,” says writer, critic and Nebula award winner Barry Maltzberg. Unfortunately Mark Clifton (1906-63) wrote only a handful of short stories, beginning with “What Have I Done?” in 1952, and four novels during the all too brief writing career that ended with his death in 1963. Many of his stories have been selected for various “best of” anthologies both before and after his passing. Among them are “What Have I Done?,” “Star Bright,” “We're Civilized,” “A Woman's Place,” “What Now, Little Man?,” and “Hang Head, Vandal.” Of his four novels,
They'd Rather Be Right
, with collaborator Frank Riley, won the 1955 Hugo Award, and one, the four novelettes that comprise
What Thin Partitions
was never issued in book form, due to his untimely and unanticipated passing (although, strangely, its sequel,
When they Come from Space
, was published in hardcover).

Clifton spent most of his adult life in various forms of personnel work, compiling over 200,000 profiles, and what these revealed to him about human nature formed one of the major themes of his fiction. Another major theme was the emergence of people with extraordinary powers—from telepathy to levitation—which he believed human beings might be capable of developing. Clifton believed he had had his own brushes with ESP (or as SF writers have it, “psi"), but kept these views to himself after being castigated for them by hard-headed realist H. L. Gold, editor of the leading science fiction magazine of the time,
Galaxy
.

In
What Thin Partitions
, which will remind eclectic readers more than somewhat of the Alexander Bott sub-genre of literature, Ralph Kennedy, who is, oddly enough, a personnel director and psychologist has a series of comic encounters with levitators, mind readers, and other equally gifted individuals, that are light-hearted throughout, but rise to an affecting, and inspiring, conclusion. These stories, as
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
points out, “apply the tone of hard science fiction to subjects derived from the soft sciences,” while “conveying a comfortable lucidity and optimism about the relation between technology and progress.”
What Thin Partitions
is a must-read for any science fiction fan!

Jean Marie Stine

Even after four years, the changing of the shifts at Computer Research, Inc., fascinated me. Perhaps it was because the plant had grown so fast, fed by the steadily increasing government orders. Perhaps it was seeing the long line of windowless buildings across the grassy square suddenly boil at their base as two thousand employees surged in and out at the sound of the shift bell.

Could be, as personnel director, I liked to speculate on which of those intent or laughing faces would suddenly cease to be an abstract problem and become a real one. Or the other way around; could be I liked to get away from the pile of reports on my desk, and just remind myself by looking at all these people that there could be even more problems than there were.

There could be problems I had never faced before. Could be there were things behind those faces streaming past my window of which I'd never dreamed. I found myself staring even more intently at the faces, trying to catch a glimpse of such possibilities. But, then, how could we recognize something of which we've never even dreamed?

"Is your intercom signal out of order, Mr. Kennedy?” my secretary's voice broke in on my reflections. I turned from the window and looked at her with a start. She was standing in the doorway with that half accusing and half understanding look on her face, so characteristic of her.

"I suppose I just didn't hear it, Sara,” I answered. “Or didn't want to hear it,” I amended, being honest with her. “What is it this time?"

"A termination,” she answered. “P-1, Assembler. Annie Malasek.” I sighed and walked over to my desk. I wasn't in much of a mood to go into my act; it was late in the afternoon and I felt I'd done my day's work already. But it was my job to keep any employee who rated P-1, Production Very Top Class, from leaving us if it were possible. There weren't many who ever got that good, and the few who did were too valuable to entrust to the assistants, interviewers and counselors, in the outer Offices.

"O.K., Sara,” I agreed. “Send her in."

Sara turned away from my door, and I picked up some papers from my desk and began looking at them. I was above making employees stand and wait while I pretended to be busy; that was a little man's trick. But I wasn't above pretending I was glad to interrupt important work just for them. It was a part of my act which worked-sometimes.

It didn't seem to have much effect on Annie, however. She just stood there in my doorway looking hostile.

"All I want is my check,” she said with emphasis.

I smiled a little more and indicated the crying chair with my eyes. She didn't obey my unspoken request. So I spoke it. She still hesitated in the doorway, her training to obedience battling with her independence. Independence won, temporarily.

"All I want is my check,” she repeated, and then made the expected mistake. “I ain't here to make trouble for nobody."

"Is that the reputation I've got over in the plant, Mrs. Malasek?” I asked softly, putting the right amount of ruefulness in my voice, shrugging my shoulders a little bitterly. “That nobody wants to talk to me because I'll make trouble?"

It caught her off base, of course, as I'd intended. “No sir,” she said hastily, “I didn't mean that."

"Then suppose you sit down,” I said firmly, “and tell me what the trouble is.” This time obedience won, naturally. She sat down on the edge of the chair and leaned forward. She wasn't committing herself completely, not until she'd got her anger off her chest. They never do. They steam themselves up for days or weeks, and you've got to turn the right pet cocks and let the steam escape gradually, or else they'll blow their top.

She started in with a lot of trivialities and I let her run on for a while. They seldom tell you what's really bothering them-it's too close to them, they're afraid you'll think it is silly. That's where most counselors fall down. They take these surface complaints as being the real issues, and waste all their effort striking at shadows.

"What's really bothering you, Annie?” I asked after a time. I gave her that look which says, “These things you've been talking about are all right to tell other people, but you and I, we know-"

It caught her off base again. As usual, she hadn't intended to tell me the real trouble. And now she had to. She sat back a little into the crying chair, an unconscious admission that I'd won. Two large crystal tears began forming to her black eyes and began to run down her leathery cheeks.

Without making a production out of it, I opened my top drawer and took a clean handkerchief from the stack. I shoved it across the desk at her, without appearing to notice what I was doing. Without appearing to notice what she was doing, she picked it up and dabbed at her cheeks.

"It's about Jennie,” she said after a moment's hesitation. She wasn't sobbing. It was just that the tears kept welling up and starting to run down her cheeks before she remembered to wipe them away.

"Jennie?” I prompted.

"My kid,” she answered. “She don't get along with the other kids in your nursery."

I winced inwardly as she identified the plant nursey as my personal project. It was. And it was a sore spot, maybe a mistake. I hadn't thought it out very far. It seemed like such a good idea to make provision for care of the small children right there at the plant. But it's one thing to handle employees. It's something else entirely to start handling their children-and do it successfully.

"The teachers neither,” she said, and this time her hostility flared up, hotter than ever. Unreason took over again. “I want my check, and then I'm going to march straight down to the Industrial Welfare Commission. They'd be very interested in certain things about cer-"

"What did the teachers do?” I interrupted in a casual tone, just as if her threat to call in the IWC weren't a real one. Once those lovely theorists who learned sociology from a book written by a sociologist who learned things from a book written by-"

"They lie about my little Jennie,” Annie answered hotly. But her eyes showed she wasn't too sure they were lying. Too plainly they showed dread, uncertainty, guilt, fear.

I picked up my pencil and began twirling it in my fingers. I wasn't ready for her to realize I had looked into her eyes. She had to go through her defensive pattern first, get it out of her system. I kept my eyes on the pencil.

"What kind of lies?” I asked.

"They say I got to take Jennie outta the nursery,” she said, her eyes glaring anger. “They say my Jennie ain't good enough to be with other kids."

I knew the teachers in the nursery well. I'd picked them. Considering the jobs they had, they were pretty nice gals. Reasonably practical, too, considering they had degrees in education that were exceptional.

"What do they really say, Annie?” I asked quietly.

"They say they can't manage Jennie,” she answered truculently. “They say she throws things.” We were getting down to bedrock now. A fond mother defending a spoiled brat, a little monster sweet only to mother's eyes.

"And does she?” I asked, and was so far off the beam I wasn't even braced for the answer.

"She can't help it if things just fly through the air when she gets mad,” Annie said defensively. “They always gripe over there because fires start around her. I just get burned up, Mr. Kennedy, when I think about it. She can't help it if she starts fires. Anyway, they're only little ones that really don't hurt anyone."

I kept quiet.

"She don't start the fires because she don't have no matches,” Annie said with determined logic. “How could she start fires without no matches?"

"Did it ever happen at home?” I asked.

Annie dropped her eyes and began to twist her fingers around one another in her lap.

"Lately,” she said almost soundlessly. “That's why I brought her down to the nursery here. She was all alone in the room we rent. I got nobody but her, nobody to look out for her. I got to work hard all the time."

I had a sudden vision of the stark barrenness of this woman's life. Husband gone, or maybe never had one. Neighbors with their nasty little suspicions kept in a roiling turmoil these days by world conditions, delighting in relieving the monotony of their lives by dark looks, remarks they'd know she'd overhear. A small child, locked in a bare room all day, not playing with the other children, a mother coming home at night too tired to more than feed her.

The picture was all too clear, and nagging somewhere at the back of my mind was a series of case histories of children with similar environments.

"Annie,” I said suddenly, “let me took into it. Let me talk to the teachers, get their side of the story. And I'd like to talk to Jennie too, if you don't mind."

The tears welled up faster now, flowed in a steady stream. She dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose with a loud honk. A part of my mind registered that Sara would hear the honk and interpret it as the signal to get the next interview ready. This one was over. The problem had been transferred from the employee to me, as usual. Only this time I wasn't sure yet what the problem was, or whether I could handle it.

"Now suppose you go on over to work, Annie,” I said, “and forget about this quitting business. There'll be time to do that later, if I can't help you."

She stood up now and walked toward the door, “I'll get a demerit for being absent from my bench too long,” she said, as she put her hand on the door. “I've got a P-1 rating. I don't want no demerits.” There didn't seem to be much distinction in her mind between her big problems and her little ones.