11

This is the story of Rae’s first encounter with teeping.

Rae and Sara were sitting in Dave’s hole, arguing with Albert One-Eye and Corker about whose turn it was to go out and get more alcohol. Their argument usually went as follows:

‘We are almost out of beer,’ said Albert.

‘Send the kid out,’ said Corker.

‘I went last time,’ said Rae.

‘Yeah, but you’re young, you got lots of energy.’

‘How come you never get the beer?’ Rae said to Albert.

‘This is my place. As long as you two are staying in my place, one of you is getting the beer.’

‘Who said it was yours?’ asked Rae.

‘Is your name Dave?’ said Albert.

‘No.’

‘Obviously, it isn’t your place, then. So go get the damn beer.’

‘Fine, I’ll go!’ said Rae. He looked at Sara.

‘I’m staying,’ said Sara.

Rae crawled out of the hole, and pushed around the bushes. It was a rare cold and rainy night. He walked along the sidewalk, stumbling a little, cursing. Rae’s primary source of income was begging. Panhandling or begging was a tradition whereby rich Martians paid the poor to leave them alone. Usually, it was acted out in a public space such as a sidewalk or a park. It seems that the poor were not allowed to approach the homes of the rich to ask for money.

Though young and apparently healthy, Rae was an adept beggar. He knew how to badger the passerby with just enough persistence to extract a dollar or two. Sometimes more. But this was a horrible night to beg. The cold rain would keep even the most sympathetic passerby from stopping. Nobody liked getting wet.

Rae was very surprised then, when he saw a person coming towards him, plodding like a brute, like an automaton.¹ He didn’t even seem to notice that he was getting soaked. Rae’s first thought was that the man must be drunk. This was clearly a great opportunity; he had found that drunken people were often generous—the camaraderie of alcohol.

‘Hey, brother,’ said Rae. ‘I’m a dollar short for a beer. Can you spare any change?’

The man only made an inarticulate groan. Rae looked at him more closely and saw that the man’s eyes weren’t focused at all, and that he didn’t even seem to recognize that Rae was standing right in front of him. Rae waved his hand before the man’s face. The man’s own hand lifted slightly from where it hung at his waist, but the movement appeared merely instinctual.

As Rae listened to the broken noises in the mans throat,² he was struck with an idea. He waited for a moment to see if the man was going to do anything else. The man continued to stand on the sidewalk in the middle of the downpour. Rae slowly reached into the man’s pockets to see if he had any money. At first he didn’t find anything, but on his second try he found a wad of soggy bills. He was just retrieving them when the man looked at him and yelled, ‘Hey! What the fuck are you doing?’ He grabbed Rae’s arm and stared at him fiercely.

Rae managed to break away from the man and ran off down the sidewalk. He ran for two blocks, ducking down an alley and across a park, before he stopped. When he finally did stop, he was breathing hard—but he was still clutching the man’s money. Happy, Rae went to a corner store he liked and bought a lot of beer and even some of that wine that Corker liked.

On his way back to Dave’s Hole, he stepped into a restaurant for something warm to eat. When he came in he was a little startled to notice that the girl behind the counter had the same dazed expression as the man in the rain. He had to snap his fingers right in front of her to get her attention. Rae placed an order and she said it would be a few minutes.

Rae hummed a little as he waited, feeling rather pleased with himself at how the evening had turned out. He stopped humming though as he watched the girl. Her movements had suddenly become slow and vague, as if she was beset with a fog. He saw her stare at the food in front of her without any sign of recognition.³ Her mouth was hung open.

Rae was about to say something to her when the door to the shop burst open and three police officers rushed in, pointing weapons at him.

‘John Rae,’ said one of them. ‘You are under arrest for assault and robbery.’

He had not accounted for telepathy.