（外文电子版资料）Aldiss, Brian - Man In His Time .pdfVIP

VERSION 0.5 DTD 032600 One of the editors of this volume does not know that this story is going into it. There has been collusion in high places. The President of SFWA, Damon Knight, and the other editor have overruled in advance any complaints that Brian W. Aldiss might make. This story was one of three that tiedfor the Best Short Story award and is, in its own right, afine piece offiction. Here is art, in the interweaving of idea and dialog, and here is something vital being said about the human condition. It has earned its place in this book. H.H. MAN IN HIS TIME Brian W. Aldiss His absence Janet Westermark sat watching the three men in the office: the administrator who was about to go out of her life, the behaviourist who was about to come into it, and the husband whose life ran parallel to but insulated from her own. She was not the only one playing a watching game. The behaviourist, whose name was Clement Stackpole, sat hunched in his chair with his ugly strong hands clasped round his knee, thrusting his intelligent and simian face forward, the better to regard his new subject. Jack Westermark. The administrator of the Mental Research Hospital spoke in a lively and engaged way. Typically, it was only Jack Westermark who seemed absent from the scene. Yourparticular problem, restless His hands upon his lap lay still, but he himself was restless, though the restlessness seemed directed. It was as if he were in another room with other people, Janet thought. She saw that he caught her eye when in fact she was not entirely looking at him, and by the time she returned the glance, he was gone, withdrawn. Although Mr. Stackpole has not dealt before with your particular problem, the administrator was saying, he has had plenty of field experience. I know Im sure we wont, Westermark said, folding his hands and no