Chapters 20
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1 01 - We didn't do anything wrong, hardly. 9:11
We didn't do anything wrong, hardly, by Roger Kuykendall. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Craig Franklin. I mean, it isn't like we swiped anything. We maybe borrowed a couple of things, but, gee, we put everything back like we found it pretty near. Even like the compressor we got from Stinky Brinker that his old man wasn't using, and I traded my outboard motor for, my old... my father made me trade back. But it was like Skinny said. You know, Skinny, Skinny Thompson. He's the one you guys keep calling the boy genius, but shucks, he's no... Well, yeah, it's like Skinny said.
We didn't need an outboard motor, and we did need a compressor. You've got to have a compressor on a spaceship. Everybody knows that. And that old compression chamber that old man, I mean Mr. Fields, let us use, didn't have a compressor. Sure, he said we could use it. Anyway, he said we could play with it, and Skinny said we were going to make a spaceship out of it, and he said go ahead. Well, no, he didn't say it exactly like that. I mean, well, like he didn't take it serious, sort of. Anyway, it made a swell spaceship. It had four portholes on it, and an airlock, and real bunks in it, and lots of room for all that stuff that Skinny put in there, but it didn't have a compressor, and that's why...
What stuff? Oh, you know, the stuff that Skinny put in there, like the radars he made out of a TV set, and the anti-gravity and the atomic power plant he invented to run it all with. He's awfully smart, Skinny is, but he's not like what you'd think of a genius. You know... He's not all the time using big words, and he doesn't look like a genius. I mean, we call him Skinny, because he used to be skinny. But he isn't now. I mean, he's maybe small for his age. Anyway, he's smaller than me, and I'm the same age as he is. Of course, I'm big for my age, so that doesn't mean much, does it? Well, I guess Stinker Brinker started it. He's always riding Skinny about one thing or another, but Skinny never gets mad.
And it's a good thing for Stinker, too. I saw Skinny clean up a bunch of ninth graders. Well, a couple of them anyway. They were saying... Well, I guess I won't tell you what they were saying. Anyway, Skinny used Judo. I guess, because that wasn't much of a fight. Anyway, Stinker said something about how he was going to be a rocket pilot when he drew up, and I told him that Skinny had told me that there wouldn't be any rockets. And that antigravity would be the thing as soon as it was invented. So Stinker said it never would be invented, and I said it would so, and he said it would not, and I said... Well, if you're going to keep interrupting me, how can I... Alright, anyway. Skinny broke into the argument and said that he could prove mathematically that antigravity was possible.
And Stinker said, sure, he could. And Skinny said, sure, he could. And Stinky said, sure, he could. Like that. Honestly. Is that any way to argue? I mean, it sounds like two people agreeing. Only Stinky keeps going like that, you know, and Stinky, what does he know about mathematics? He's had to take remedial arithmetic ever since...
No, I don't understand how the antigravity works, Skinny told me. But it was something about meson flow and stuff like that, and I didn't understand. The atomic power plant made more sense. Where did we get the uranium? Gee, no, we couldn't afford uranium, so Skinny invented a hydrogen fusion plant. Anyone can make hydrogen. You just take zinc and sulfuric acid and deuterium. You mean like heavy hydrogen? No, Skinny said it would probably work better, but like I said, we couldn't afford anything fancy. As it was, Skinny had to pay five or six dollars for that special square tubing in the antigravity, and the plastic space helmets we had cost us 98 cents each. And it cost a dollar and a half for the special tube that Skinny needed to make a TV set into a radar.
You see, we didn't steal anything, really. It was mostly stuff that was just lying around, like the TV set was up in my attic, and the old refrigerator that Skinny used the parts to make the atomic power plant out of from. And then a lot of the stuff we already had, like the skin-diving suits we made in space suits, and the vacuum pump that Skinny had already, and the generator. Sure, we did a lot of skin-diving, but that was last summer. That's how we knew about old man Brinker's compressor that Stinky said was his, and I traded my out-ball motor for, and had to trade back. And that's how we knew about Mr. Field's old compression chamber and all that. The rocket. Well, it worked on the same principle as the atomic power plant, only it doesn't work except in a vacuum, hardly.
Of course, you don't need much of a rocket when you have anti-gravity. Everyone knows that. Well, anyway. That's how we built the spaceship. And believe me, it wasn't easy. I'm in with Stinky all the time, bothering us and laughing at us, and I had to do a lot of lawn mowing to get money for the square tubing for the antigravity, the special tube for the radar, and my space helmet. Stinky called the space helmets kid stuff. He was always saying things like, say hello to the folks on Mars for me, and bring back a bottle of Canal No. 5, and all like that, you know. Of course, They did look like kid stuff, I guess. We bought them at the Five and Dime, and they were meant for kids. Of course, when Skinny got through with them, they worked fine.
We tested them in the airlock of the compression chamber when we got the compressor in. They tested out pretty good for half an hour. Then we tried them on in there. Well, it wasn't a complete vacuum, just 27 inches of mercury, but that was okay for a test. So anyway, we got ready to take off. Stinky was there to watch, of course. He was saying things like, farewell, oh brave pioneers, and stuff like that. I mean, it was enough to make you sick. He was standing there, laughing, and singing something like, up in the air, Junior Birdman. But when we closed the airlock door, we couldn't hear him. Skinny started up the atomic power plant, and we could see Stinky laughing fit to kill. It takes a couple of minutes to warm up, you know, so Stinky started throwing rocks to attract our attention, and Skinny was scared that he'd crack a porthole or something, so we threw the switch, and we took off.
Boy, you should have seen Stinky's face. I mean, you really should have seen it. One minute he was laughing, you know, and next minute he looked like a goldfish. I guess he always did look like a goldfish, but I mean, even more like then. And he was getting smaller and smaller because we had taken off. We were gone pretty near six hours, and it's a good thing my mum made me take a lunch. Sure, I told her where we were going. Well, anyway, I told her we were maybe going to fly around the world in Skinny and My Space Ship, or maybe go down to Carson's Pond. And she made me take a lunch, and made me promise I wouldn't go swimming alone. And I sure didn't. But we did go around the world three or four times.
I lost count. Anyway, that's when we saw the satellite on radar. So Skinny pulled the spaceship over to it, and we got out and looked at it. The spacesuits worked fine too. Gosh, no! We didn't steal it or anything. Like Skinny said, it was just a menace to navigation and the batteries were dead, and it wasn't working right anyway. So we tied it onto the spaceship and took it home. No, we had to tie it on top. It was too big to take inside with the antenna sticking out. Of course, we found out how to fold them later. Well, anyway, the next day, the Russians started squawking about a catalyst plot, and someone had to swipe their satellite. Gee, I mean, with all the satellites up there, who'd missed just one?
So I got worried that they'd found out that we took it. Of course, I didn't need to worry, because Dinky told them, all right, just like a tattletale. So anyway, after Skinny got the batteries recharged, we put it back. When we landed, there were hundreds of people standing there. And Mr. Anderson from the State Department, I guess you know the rest, except Mr. Anderson started laughing when we told him, and he said it was the best joke on the Russians he had ever heard. I guess it's tis when you think about it. I mean, the Russians complaining about somebody swiping their satellite, and then the State Department answering a couple of kids borrowed it, but they put it back. One thing that bothers me, though, we didn't put it back exactly the way we found it.
But I guess it doesn't matter. You see, when we put it back, we goofed a little. I mean, we put it back in the same orbit, more or less. But we got it going in the wrong direction.
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2 02 - Assassin 1:00:16
Assassin by J.
F. Bohn. The aliens wooed Earth with gifts, love, patience, and peace. Who could resist them? After all, no one shoots Santa Claus. The rifle lay comfortably in his hands, a gleaming precision instrument that exuded a faint odor of gun oil and powder solvent. It was a perfect specimen of the gunsmith's art, a semi-automatic rifle with a telescopic sight, a precisely engineered tool that could hurl death with pinpoint accuracy for better than half a mile. Daniel Mattson eyed the weapon with bleak, gray eyes. The eyes of a hunter, framed in the passionless face of an executioner. His blunt hands were steady as they lifted the gun and tried a dry shot at an imaginary target. He nodded to himself.
He was ready. Carefully, he laid the rifle down on the mattress, which covered the floor of his firing point, and looked out through the hole in the brickwork to the narrow canyon of the street below. The crowd had thickened. It had been gathering since early morning, and the growing press of spectators had now become solid walls of people lining the street, packed tightly together on the sidewalks. Yet, despite the fact that there were virtually no police, the crowd did not overflow into the streets, nor was there any of the pushing, crowding impatience that once attended a grand assemblage of this sort. Instead, there was a placid tolerance. A spirit of friendly goodwill and ingenious completions that grated on Matson's nerves, like the screeching rasp of a file drawn across the edge of thin metal.
He shivered uncontrollably. It was hard to be a free man in a world of slaves. It was a measure of the Aztlan's triumph that only a bare half-dozen police copters patrolled the empty skies above the parade route. The aliens had done this. Had conquered the world without firing a shot or speaking a word in anger. They had wooed Earth with understanding patience and superlative guile, and Earth had fallen into their hands like a lovesick virgin. There never had been any real opposition, and what there was had been completely ineffective. Most of those who had opposed the aliens were out of circulation, imprisoned in correctional institutions, undergoing rehabilitation. RE-HABILITATION. A six-bit word for dehumanizing.
When those poor devils finished their treatment with Aztlan brainwashing techniques, they would be just like these sheep below, with a difference that they would never be able to be anything else. But these other stupid fools crowding the sidewalks waiting to hail their destruction, these were the ones who must be saved. They, not the martyrs of the underground. were the important part of humanity. A police copter windmilled slowly down the avenue toward his hiding place, the rotating veins and insect body of the craft starkly outlined against the jagged backdrop of the city's skyline. He laughed soundlessly as a sursating flutter of the rotor blades beat overhead and died, whispering into the distance down the long canyon of the street.
His position had been chosen with care, and was invisible from air and ground alike. He had selected it months ago, and had taken considerable pains to conceal its true purpose. But after today, concealment wouldn't matter. If things went as he hoped, the place might someday become a shrine. The idea amused him. Strange, he mused. How events conspire to change a man's career. Seven years ago, he had been a respected and important member of that far different sort of crowd which had welcomed the visitors from space. That was a human crowd. Half afraid, wholly curious, jostling, noisy, pushing, a teeming swarm that clustered in thick disorderly ring around a silver disk that lay in the center of the International Airport overlooking Puget Sound.
Then, he could have predicted his career. And none of the predictions would have been true, for none of them included a man with a rifle waiting in a blind for the game to approach within range.
The Aztlan ship had landed early that July morning, dropping silently through the overcast covering International Airport. It settled gently to rest precisely in the center of the junction of the three main runways of the field, effectively tying up the transcontinental and transoceanic traffic. Fully 500 meters in diameter, the giant ship squatted massively on the runway junction, cracking and buckling the thick concrete runways under its enormous weight. By noon, after the first skepticism had died, and the unbelievable TV pictures had been flashed to their waiting audience, the crowd began to gather. All through that hot July morning they came, increasing by the minute as farther outlaying districts poured their curious into the airport.
By early afternoon, literally hundreds of millions of eyes were watching the great ship. Over a worldwide network of television stations which canceled their regular programs to give their viewers an uninterrupted view of the enigmatic craft. By mid-morning, the sun had burned off the overcast and was shining with brassy brilliance upon the squads of sweating soldiers from Fort Lewis and more sweating squads of blue-clad police from the metropolitan area of Seattle, Tacoma. The police and the soldiery quickly formed a ring around the ship and cleared a narrow lane around the periphery, and this they maintained despite the increasing pressure of the crowd. The hours passed, and nothing happened.
The faint creaking and snapping sounds, as the seamless hull of the vessel warmed up its space-chilled metal in the warmth of the summer sun, were lost in the growing impatience of the crowd. They wanted something to happen. Shouts and catcalls filled the air as more nervous individuals clamored to relieve the tension. Off to one side, a small group began to clap their hands rhythmically. The little click gained recruits, and within moments the air was riven by the thunder of a thousand palms meeting in unison, frightening the crowd might be, but greater than the fear was the desire to know what sort of creatures were inside. Mattson stood in the cleared area surrounding the ship, a position of privilege he shared with a few city and state officials, and the high brass from McCorre Field, Fort Lewis, and Bremerton Navy Yard.
He was one of the bright young men who had chosen government service as a career, and who, in these days of science consciousness, had risen rapidly through ability and merit promotions. To become the director of the Office of Scientific Research while still in his early thirties. A dedicated man, trained in the bitter school of ideological survival, he understood what the alien science could mean to this world. Their knowledge would secure peace in whatever terms the possessors cared to name, and Mattson intended to make sure that his nation was the one which possessed that knowledge. He stood beside a tall, scholarly-looking man named Roger Thornton. Who was his friend and, incidentally, the Commissioner of Police for the Twin City Metropoline area.
To a casual eye, their positions should be reversed, for the lean aesthetic Thornton looked far more like the accepted idea of a scientist than the burly, thick-shouldered, square-faced Mattson, whose every movement shouted cop. Mattson looked quizzically at the taller man. Well, Roger. I wonder how long those birds inside are going to keep us waiting before we get a look at them. You'd be surprised if they really were birds, wouldn't you? Thornton asked with a faint smile. But seriously, I hope it isn't too much longer. This mob is giving the boys a bad time. He looked anxiously at the strained line of police and soldiery. I guess I should have ordered out the night shift and reserves instead of just the riot squad.
From the looks of things, they'll be needed if this crowd gets any more unruly. Matson chuckled. "'You're an alarmist,' he said mildly. "'As far as I can see, they're doing all right. I'm not worried about them, or the crowd for that matter. The thing that's bothering me is my feet. I've been standing on them for six hours, and they're killing me.' "'Mine, too,' Thornton sighed. "'Tell you what I'll do. When this is over, I'll split a bucket of hot water and a pint of arnica with you.' "'It's a deal,' Matson said." As he spoke, a deep musical hum came from inside the ship, and a section of the rim beside him separated along invisible lines of juncture, swinging down to form a broad ramp leading upward to a square orifice on the rim of the ship.
A bright shadowless light that seemed to come from the metal walls of the opening framed the shape of the Star Traveler who stood there, rigidly erect, looking over the heads of this section of the crowd before him. A concerted grasp of awe and admiration rose from the crowd, a gasp that was echoed through the entire ring that surrounded the ship. There must be other openings like this one, Matson thought dully, as he stared at the being from space. Behind him, an army tank rumbled noisily on its treads as it drove through the crowd towards the ship, the long gun of its turret lifting like an alert finger to point at the figure of the alien. The stranger didn't move from his unnaturally stiff position.
His oddly luminous eyes never wavered from their fixed stare at a point far beyond the outermost fringes of the crowd. Seven feet tall, obviously masculine, he differed from mankind only in minor details. His long, slender hands lacked the little finger, and his waist was abnormally small. Other than that, he was human in external appearance. A wide-sleeved tunic of metallic fiber covered his upper body, gathered in at his narrow waist by a broad metal belt steadied with tiny bosses. The tunic ended halfway between hip and knee, revealing powerfully muscled legs encased in silvery hose. Bright yellow hair hung to his shoulders, clipped short in a square bang across his forehead. His face was long, clean-featured, and extraordinarily calm, almost godlike in its repose.
Matson stared, fascinated. He had the curious impression that the visitor had stepped bodily out of the Middle Ages. His dress and haircut were almost identical with that of a medieval courtier. The star man raised his hand. His strangely luminous steel-gray eyes scanned the crowd, and into Matson's mind came a wave of peaceful calm, a warm feeling of goodwill and brotherhood, an indescribable feeling of soothing relaxation. With an odd sense of shock, Mattson realized that he was not the only one to experience this. As far back as the farthest hangers-on near the airport gates, the tenseness of the waiting crowd relaxed. The effect was amazing! Troops lowered their weapons with shamefaced smiles on their faces.
Police relaxed their sweating vigilance. The crowd stirred, moving backwards to give its members room. The emotion-charged atmosphere vanished as though it had never been. And a cold chill played icy fingers up the spine of Daniel Madsen. He had felt the full impact of the alien's projection, and he was more frightened than he had ever been in his life.
They had been clever. Damnedly clever. That initial greeting, with its disarming undertones of empathy and innocence, had accomplished its purpose. It had emasculated mankind's natural suspicion of strangers. And their subsequent actions So beautifully timed, so careful to avoid the slightest hint of evil, had completed what their magnificently staged appearance had begun. The feeling of trust had persisted. It had lasted through quarantine, clearance, and public receptions, and the private meetings with scientists and the heads of government. It had persisted unabated through the entire two months they remained in the Twin City area. The aliens remained as they had been in the beginning, completely unspoiled by the interest shown in them.
They remained simple, unaffected, and friendly, displaying an ingenious innocence that demanded a corresponding faith in return. Most of their time was spent at the University of Washington, where at their own request they were studied by curious scholars, and in return were given courses in human history and behavior. They were quite frank about their reasons for following such a course of action. According to their spokesman, Ixtl, they wanted to learn human ways in order to make a better impression when they visited the rest of mankind. Madsen read that blurb in an official press release and laughed cynically. Better impression? Ha! They couldn't have done any better if they had an entire corps of public relations specialists assisting them.
They struck exactly the right note, and how could they improve on perfection? From the beginning, they left their great ship open and unguarded while they commuted back and forth from the airport to the campus. And naturally, the government quickly rectified the second error and took instant advantage of the first. A guard was posted around the ship to keep it clear of the unofficially curious, while the officially curious combed the vessel's interior with a fine-tooth comb. Teams of scientists and technicians under Mattson's direction swarmed through the ship, searching with the most advanced methods of human science for the secrets of the aliens. They quickly discovered that while the star travelers might be trusting, they were not exactly fools.
There was nothing about the impenetrably shielded mechanisms that gave the slightest clue as to their purpose or to the principles upon which they operated, nor were there any visible controls. The ship was as blankly uncommunitive as a brick wall. Mattson was annoyed. He had expected more than this, and his frustration drove him to watch the aliens closely. He followed them, sat in on their sessions with the scholars at the university, watched them at their frequent public appearances, and came to know them well enough to recognize the microscopic differences that made them individuals. To the casual eye, they were alike as peas in a pod. But Madsen could separate Farn from Kisha, and Laz from Kana.
And Ixl, well, he would have stood out from the others in any circumstances. But Madsen never intruded. He was content to sit in the background and observe. And what he saw bothered him. They gave him no reason for their appearance on earth, and whenever the question came up, Ixl parried it adroitly. They were obviously not explorers, for they displayed a startling familiarity with Earth's geography and ecology. They were possibly ambassadors, although they behaved like no ambassadors he had ever seen. They might be traders, although what they would trade only God and the aliens knew, and neither party was in a talking mood. Mysteries bothered Matson. He didn't like them. But they could keep their mystery if he could only have the technical knowledge that was concealed beneath their beautifully shaped skulls.
At that, he had to admit that their appearance had come precisely at the right time. No one better than he knew how close mankind had been to the final war, when the last two major antagonists on Earth were girding their human and industrial power for a final showdown. But the aliens had become a diversion. The impending war was forgotten while men waited to see what was coming next. It was obvious that the Starmen had a reason for being here, and until they chose to reveal it, humanity would forget its deadly problems in anticipation of the answer to this delightful puzzle that had come to them from outer space. Mattson was thankful for the breathing space, all too well aware that it might be the last that mankind might have.
But the enigma of the aliens still bothered him. He was walking down the main corridor of the physics building on the university campus, wondering, as he constantly did, about how he could extract some useful information from the aliens when a quiet voice speaking accentless English sounded behind him. "'What precisely do you wish to know, Dr. Mattson?' the voice said. Mattson whirled to face the questioner and looked into the face of Ixl. The alien was smiling, apparently pleased at having startled him. What gave you the idea I wanted to know anything? he asked. You did, Ixl said. We all have been conscious of your thoughts for many days. Forgive me for intruding, but I must. Your speculations radiate on such a broad band that we cannot help being aware of them.
It has been quite difficult for us to study your customs and history with this high level of background noise. We are aware of your interest— But your thoughts are so confused that we have never found questions we could answer. If you would be more specific, we would be happy to give you the information which you seek." Oh, yeah, Madsen thought. Of course. It would be to our advantage to have your disturbing speculation satisfied and your fears set at rest. We could accomplish more in a calmer environment. It is too bad that you do not receive as strongly as you transmit. If you did, direct mental contact would convince you that our reasons for satisfying you are good. But you need not fear us, Earthman.
We intend you no harm. Indeed, we plan to help you once we learn enough to formulate a proper program." I do not fear you," Matson said, knowing that he lied. Perhaps not consciously," Ixl said graciously. But, nevertheless, fear is in you. "'It is too bad, and besides,' he continued with a faint smile, "'it is very uncomfortable. Your glandular emotions are quite primitive and very disturbing.' "'I'll try to keep them under control,' Matson said dryly. "'Physical control is not enough. With you there would have to be mental control as well. Unfortunately you radiate much more strongly than your fellow men.' And we are unable to shut you out without exerting considerable effort that could be better employed elsewhere.
The alien eyed Matson speculatively. There you go again, he said. Now you're angry. Matson tried to force his mind to utter blankness, and the alien smiled at him. It does some good, but not much, he said. Conscious control is never perfect. Well then, what can I do? Go away. Your range, fortunately, is short. Matson looked at the alien. Not yet, he said coldly. I'm still looking for something. Our technology, Ixl nodded. I know. However, I can assure you that it will be of no help to you. You simply do not have the necessary background. Our science is based on a completely different philosophy from yours. To Matson, the terms were contradictory. Not as much as you think, Ixl continued imperturbably.
As you will find out, I was speaking quite precisely. He paused, and eyed Matson thoughtfully. It seems as though the only way to remove your disturbing presence is to show you that our technology is of no help to you. I will make a bargain with you. We shall show you our machines, and in return, you will stop harassing us. We will do all in our power to make you understand. But whether you do or not, you will promise to leave and allow us to continue our studies in peace. Is that agreeable?" Matson swallowed the lump in his throat. Here it was, handed to him on a silver platter, and suddenly he wasn't sure that he wanted it. It is, he said. After all, it was all he could expect. They met that night at the starship.
The aliens—tall, calm, and cool. Matson— Stocky, heavyset, and sweating. The contrast was infernally sharp, Mattson thought. It was as if a primitive savage were meeting a group of nuclear physicists at Los Alamos. For some unknown reason, he felt ashamed that he had forced these people to his wishes, but the aliens were pleasant about it. They took the imposition in their usual friendly way. Now, Ixl said, exactly what do you want to see? To know. First of all, what is the principle of your space drive? There are two, the alien said. The drive that moves this ship in normal space is derived from Lurgel's fourth-order equations concerning the release of subatomic energy in a restricted space-time continuum.
Now, don't protest. I know you know nothing of Lurgel, nor of fourth-order equations, and while I can show you the mathematics, I'm afraid they will be of little help. You see, our fourth order is based upon a process which you would call psychomathematics, and that is something I am sure you have not yet achieved." Matson shook his head. I've never heard of it, he admitted. The second drive operates in warped spacetime, Ixl continued, hyperspace in your language, and its theory is much more difficult than that of our normal drive. Although its application is quite simple, merely involving apposition of congruent surfaces of hyper and normal space at stress points in the ether where high gravitational fields balance, navigation in hyperspace is done by electric computer, somewhat more advanced models than yours.
However, I can't give you the basis behind the hyperspace drive." Ixl smiled depreciatingly. You see, I don't know them myself. Only a few of the most advanced minds of Aztlan can understand. We merely operate the machines. Matson shrugged. He had expected something like this. Now they would stall him off about the machines after handing him a fast line of double-talk. As I said, Ixl went on, there is no basis for understanding. Still, if it will satisfy you, we will show you our machines, and the mathematics that created them, although I doubt that you will learn anything more from them than you have from our explanation. I could try. Matson said grimly. Very well, Ixl replied. He led the way into the center of the ship, where the seamless housing stood—the housings that had baffled some of the better minds of Earth.
Matson watched while the starmen proceeded to be helpful. The housings fell apart at invisible lines of juncture, revealing mechanisms of baffling simplicity, and some things that didn't look like machines at all. The aliens stripped the strange devices, and Ixl attempted to explain. They had antigravity, force fields, faster-than-light drive, and advanced-designed computers that could be packed in a suitcase. There were weird devices whose components seemed to run out of sight at crazily impossible angles, other things that rotated frictionlessly, suspended in fields of pure force, and still others which his mind could not envisage even after his eyes had seen them. All about him lay the evidence of a science so advanced and alien that his brain shrank from the sight, refusing to believe such things existed.
And their math was worse. It began where Einstein left off, and went off at an incomprehensible tangent that involved psychology and ESP. Mattson was lost after the first five seconds. Stunned, uncomprehending, and deflated, he left the ship. An impression that he was standing with his toe barely inside the door of knowledge became a conscious certainty as he walked slowly to his car. The wry thought crossed his mind that if the aliens were trying to convince him of his abysmal ignorance, they had succeeded far beyond their fondest dreams. They certainly had, Matson thought grimly as he selected five cartridges from the box lying beside him. In fact, they had succeeded too well. They had turned his deflation into antagonism, his ignorance into distrust.
Like a savage, he suspected what he could not understand, but unlike the true primitive, the emotional distrust didn't interfere with his ability to reason, or to draw logical inferences from the data which he had accumulated. In attempting to convince, Ixl had oversold his case. It was shortly after he had returned to Washington that the aliens gave the waiting world the reasons for their appearance on Earth. They were, they said, members of a very ancient, highly evolved culture called Aztlan. And the Aztlans, long past the need for conquest and expansion, had turned their mighty science to the help of other, less fortunate races in the galaxy. The aliens were, in a sense, missionaries. One of hundreds of teams traveling the Star Lanes to bring the benefits of Azdlan culture to less favored worlds.
They were, unblushingly admitted, altruists, interested only in helping others. It was pure corn, Matson reflected cynically, but the world lapped it up and howled for more. After decades of cold war, lukewarm war, and sporadic outbreaks of violence that were inevitably building to atomic destruction, men were willing to try anything that would ease the continual burden of strain and worry. To mankind, the Aztland's words were as refreshing as a cool breeze of hope in a desert of despair. And the world got what it wanted. Quite suddenly, the aliens left the Northwest and accompanied by protective squads of FBI and Secret Service began to cross the nation. Taking widely separated paths, they visited cities, towns, and farms, exhibiting the greatest curiosity about the workings of human civilization.
And, in turn, they were examined by hordes of hopeful humans. Everywhere they went, they spread their message of goodwill and hope, backed by the incredibly convincing power of their telepathic minds. Behind them, they left peace and hopeful calm. Before them, anticipation mounted. It rose to a crescendo in New York, where the paths of the Starmen met. The Astlands invaded the United Nations. They spoke to the General Assembly and the Security Council, were interviewed by the Secretariat and reporters from a hundred foreign lands. They told their story with such conviction that even the Communist bloc failed to raise an objection, which was as amazing to the majority of the delegates as the fact of the Starmen themselves.
Altruism, it seemed, had no conflict with dielectric materialism. The aliens offered a watered-down variety of their technology to the peoples of Earth with no strings attached, and the governments of Earth accepted with open hands, much as a small boy accepts a cookie from his mother. It was impossible for men to resist the lure of something for nothing, particularly when it was offered by people such as the Aztlands. After all, Matson reflected bitterly, nobody shoots Santa Claus. From every nation in the world came invitations to the aliens to visit their lands. The Starmen cheerfully accepted. They moved across Europe, Asia, and Africa, visited South America, Central America, the Middle East, and Oceania.
No country escaped them. They absorbed languages, learned customs, and spread goodwill. Everywhere they went, relaxation followed in their footsteps, and throughout the world arose a realization of the essential brotherhood of man. It took nearly three years of continual traveling before the aliens again assembled at UN headquarters to begin the second part of their promised plan, to give their science to Earth. And men waited with calm expectation. For the dawn of golden age, Matson's lips twisted. Fools! Blind, stupid fools! Selling their birthright for a mess of pottage. He shifted the rifle across his knees and began filling the magazine with cartridges. He felt an empty loneliness as he closed the action over the filled magazine and turned the safety to on.
There was no comforting knowledge of support and sympathy to sustain him in what he was about to do. There was no real hope that there ever would be. His was a voice crying in the wilderness, a voice that was ignored, as it had been when he visited the President of the United States. Matson entered the White House, presented his appointment card, and was ushered past ice-eyed secret servicemen into the presidential office. It was as close as he had ever been to the chief executive, and he stared with polite curiosity across the width of the desk which separated them. "'I wanted to see you about Aslan business,' the President began without preamble. "'You were there when the ship landed, and you are also one of the few men in this country who has seen them alone.
In addition, your office will probably be handling the bulk of our requests in regard to the offer they made yesterday to the UN. You're in a favorable spot.' The President smiled and shrugged. "'I wanted to talk with you sooner, but business and routine play the devil with one's desires in this office.' Now tell me, he continued, your impression of these people. They're an enigma, Matson said flatly. To tell the truth, I can't figure them out. He ran his fingers through his hair with a worried gesture. I'm supposed to be a pretty fair physicist, and I've had quite a bit of training in the social sciences, but both the mechanisms and the psychology of these Aztlans are beyond my comprehension.
All I can say for sure is that they're as far beyond us as we are beyond the cavemen. In fact, we have so little in common that I can't think of a single reason why they would want to stay here. And the fact that they do only adds to my confusion. But you must have learned something, the President said. Oh, we've managed to collect data, Matson replied. But there's a lot of difference between data and knowledge. I can appreciate that. But I'd still like to know what you think. Your opinion could have some weight. Mattson doubted it. His opinions were contrary to those of the majority. Still, the Chief asked for it, and he might possibly have an open mind. It was a chance worth taking. Well, sir, I suppose you've heard of the so-called wild talents some of our own people occasionally possess?
The President nodded. It is my belief, Mattson continued. That the Aslans possess these to a far greater degree than we do, and that their science is based upon them. They have something which they call psychomathematics, which by definition is the mathematics of the mind, and this seems to be the basis of their physical science. I saw their machines, and I must confess that their purpose baffled me until I realized that they must be mechanisms for amplifying their own natural equipment. We know little or nothing about psi phenomena. So it's no wonder I couldn't figure them out. As a matter of fact, we've always treated Psy as something that shouldn't be mentioned in polite scientific conversation.
The President grinned. I always thought you boys had your blind spots. We do. But when we're confronted with a fact, we try to find out something about it. That is, if the facts hit us hard enough. Often enough. Well, you've been hit hard and often, the President chuckled. What did you find out? Facts. Matson said grimly. Just facts. The things that could be determined by observation and measurement. We know that the aliens are telepathic. We also know that they have a form of ESP, or perhaps a recognition of danger would be a better term. And we know its range is somewhere over a third of a mile. We know that they're telekinetic. The lack of visible controls in their ship would tell us that, even if we hadn't seen them move small objects at a distance.
We know that they have edict memories, and that they can reason at an extremely high level. Other than that, we know nothing. We don't even know their physical structure. We've tried X-ray, but they're radio-opaque. We've tried using some human sensitives out of the Rhine Institute, but they're unable to get anywhere. They just turn empathic in the aliens' presence. And when we get them back, they do nothing but babble about the beauty of the Aztlan soul. Considering the difficulties, you haven't done too badly," the President said. I take it, then, that you're convinced that they are an advanced life-form. But do you think they're sincere in their attitude towards us? Oh, they're sincere enough," Matson said.
The only trouble is that we don't know just what they're sincere about. You see, sir, we are in the position of a savage to whom a traitor brings the luxuries of civilization. To a savage, the traitor may represent purest altruism. Giving away such valuable things as glass beads and machine-made cloth for useless pieces of yellow rock and the skins of some native pest. The savage hasn't the slightest inkling that he's being exploited. By the time he realizes he's been had, and the yellow rock is gold and the skins are mink, he has become so dependent on the goods for which the trader has whetted his appetite that he inevitably becomes an economic slave. Of course, you can argue that the cloth and beads are far more of value to the savage than the gold or mink, but in the last analysis, value is determined by the higher culture, and by that standard, the savage gets taken.
And ultimately, civilization moves in, and the superior culture of the trader's race determines how the savage will act. Still, the savage has basis for his acts. He is giving something for something. Making a trade. But we're not even in that position. The aliens apparently want nothing from us. They have asked for nothing except our goodwill, and that isn't a tradable item." But they're altruists," the President protested. "'Sir, do you think they're insane?' Matson asked curiously. "'Do they appear like fanatics to you?' "'But we can't apply our standards to them. You yourself have said their civilization is more advanced than ours.'" "'Whose standards can we apply?' Matson asked. "'If not ours, then whose?' "'The only standards that we can possibly apply are our own, and in the entire history of human experience there has never been a single culture that had a basis of pure altruism.
Such a culture could not possibly exist. It would be overrun and gobbled up by its practical neighbors before it drew its first breath.'" We must assume that the culture from which these aliens come has a practical basis in its evolutionary history. It could not have risen full-blown and altruistic like Minerva from the Brain of Jove. And if the culture had a practical basis in the past, it logically follows that it has a practical basis in the present. Such a survival trait as practicality would probably never be lost no matter how far the Aztland race has evolved. Therefore, we must conclude that they are a practical people. People who do not give away something for nothing. But the question still remains, what do they want?
Whatever it is, I don't think it is anything from which we will profit. No matter how good it looks, I am convinced that cooperation with these aliens will not ultimately be to our advantage. Despite the reports of every investigative agency in this government, I cannot believe that any such thing as pure altruism exists in a sane mind. And whatever I may believe about the Aztlans, I do not think they're insane. The President sighed. You are a suspicious man, Matson, and perhaps you are right. But it doesn't matter what you believe, or what I believe for that matter. This government has decided to accept the help the Aztlans are so graciously offering, and until the reverse is proven, we must accept the fact that the Starmen are altruists, and work with them on that basis.
You will organize your office along those lines and extract every gram of information that you can. Even you must admit that they have knowledge that will improve our American way of life. Matson shook his head doggedly. I'm afraid, sir, if you expect Aztlan science to improve the American way of life, you are going to be disappointed. It might promote an Aztlan way of life, but the reverse is hardly possible. "'It's not my decision,' the President said. "'My hands are tied. Congress voted for the deal by acclamation early this morning. I couldn't veto it even if I'd wanted to.' "'I cannot cooperate in what I believe is our destruction,' Matson said in a flat voice. "'Then you have only one course,' the President said.
"'I will be forced to accept your resignation.' He sighed wearily. Personally, I think you're making a mistake. Think it over before you decide. You're a good man, and Lord knows the government can use good men. There are far too many fools in politics. He shrugged and stood up. The interview was over. Matson returned to his offices, filled with cold frustration. Even the president believed he could do nothing, and these short-sighted politicians who could see nothing more than the immediate gains... There was a special hell reserved for them. There were too many fools in politics. However, he would do what he could. His sense of duty was stronger than his resentment, and he would stay on and try to cushion some of the damage which the Aztlans would inevitably cause, no matter how innocent their motives.
And perhaps the president was right. Perhaps the alien science would bring more good than harm.
For the next two years, Matson watched the spread of Aztlan ideas throughout the world. He saw Aztlan devices bring health, food, and shelter to millions in underprivileged countries, and improve the lot of those in more favored nations. He watched tyrannies in authoritarian governments fall under the passive resistance of their peoples. He saw militarism crumble to impotence as the Aztlan influence spread through every facet of society. First as a trickle, then as a steady stream, and finally as a rushing torrent. He saw mankind on the brink of a golden age, and he was unsatisfied. Reason said the Starmen were exactly what they claimed to be. Their every action proved it. Their consistency was perfect, their motives unimpeachable, and the results of their efforts were astounding.
Life on Earth was becoming pleasant for millions who never knew the meaning of the word. Living standards improved, and everywhere men were conscious of a feeling of warmth and brotherhood. There was no question that the aliens were doing exactly what they promised. But Reason also told him that the aliens were subtly and methodically destroying everything that man had created, turning him from an individual into a satisfied puppet operated by Aztlan's strings. For man is essentially lazy, always searching for the easier way. Why should he struggle to find an answer when the Aztlans have discovered it millennia ago and were perfectly willing to share their knowledge? Why should he use inept human devices when those of the aliens performed similar operations with infinitely more ease and efficiency?
Why should he work when all he had to do was ask? There was plan behind their acts. But at that point, reason dissolved into pure speculation. Why were they doing this? Was it merely mistaken kindliness, or was there a deeper, more subtle motive? Matson didn't know, and in that lack of knowledge lay the hell in which he struggled. For two years he stayed on with the OSR, watching humanity rush down an unmarked road to an uncertain future. Then he ran away. He could take no more of this blind dependence upon alien wisdom, and with the change in administration that had occurred in the fall elections, he no longer had a sense of personal loyalty to the president which had kept him working at a job he despised.
He wanted no part of this brave new world the aliens were creating. He wanted to be alone. Like a hermit of ancient times who abandoned society to seek his soul, Matson fled to the desert country of the Southwest. as far as possible from the Aztlans and their works. The grimly beautiful land toughened his muscles, blackened his skin, and brought him a measure of peace. Humanity retreated to the remoteness, except for Seth Winters, a leathery old-timer he had met on his first trip into the desert. The acquaintance had ripened to friendship. Seth furnished a knowledge of the desert which Matson lacked, And Matson's money provided the occasional grub-stake they needed. For weeks at a time, they never saw another human, and Matson was satisfied.
The world could go its own way. He would go his. Running away was the smartest thing he could have done. Others, more brave perhaps, or perhaps less rational, had tried to fight, to form an underground movement to oppose these altruists from space, But they were a tiny minority, so divided in motives and purpose that they could not act as a unit. They were never more than a nuisance, and without popular support, they never had a chance. After the failure of a complicated plot to assassinate the aliens, they were quickly rounded up and confined, and the aliens continued their work. Matson shrugged. It was funny how little things could mark mile-posts in a man's life. If he had known of the underground, he probably would have joined it and suffered the same penalty for failure.
If he hadn't fled, if he hadn't met Seth Winters, if he hadn't taken that last trip into the desert, if any one of a hundred little things had happened differently, he would not be here. That last trip into the desert, he remembered it as though it were yesterday. The yellow flare of greasewood fire cast flickering spears of light into the encircling darkness. Above, in the purplish-black vault of the moonless sky, the stars shone down with icy splendor. The air was quiet, the evening breeze had died, and the stillness of the desert night pressed softly upon the earth. Far away, muted by distance, came the ululating wail of a coyote. Seth Winters laid another stick of quick-burning greasewood on the fire and squinted across the smoke at Matson, who was lying on his back, arms crossed behind his head, eyeing the night sky with the fascination of a dreamer.
"'It's certainly peaceful out here,' Matson murmured as he rose to his feet, stretched, and sat down again, looking into the tiny fire. "'Tain't nothin' unusual, Daniel. Not out here, tain't.' It's been plumb peaceful on this here desert nigh unto a million years. And why it's peaceful? Mainly cause there ain't too many humans messing around in it. Possibly you're right, Seth. Sure, I'm right. It just ain't natural for a bunch of homo safes to get together without an argument starting somewhere. Taint the nature of the critter to be peaceable. And you know, that's the part of this here sweetness and light between nations that bothers me. "'Last time I was in Prescott, I sat down and read six months of newspapers, and everything's just too damn good to be true.
Seems like everybody's getting to love everybody else.' He shook his head. "'The whole world's as sticky sweet as molasses candy. It just ain't natural.' "'The Star Men are keeping their word. They said that they would bring us peace. Isn't that what they're doing?' "'Shucks, Daniel.' That don't give them no call to make the world a blasted honeypot with everybody bubbling over with brotherly love. There ain't no real excitement left. Even the commies ain't raising hell like they used to. People are getting more like a bunch of damn woolies every day." I'll admit mankind had herd instincts, Mattson replied lazily, but I never thought of them as particularly sheep-like. More like a wolf pack, I'd say.
Well, there's nothing wolf-like about him right now. Look, Dan'l, you know what a wolf pack's like. They're smart, tough, and mean. And the old boss wolf is the smartest, toughest, and meanest critter in the whole pack. The others respect him because he's proved his ability to lead. But take a sheep flock, now. The bellwether is just a nice old castrate that'll do just what the sheepherder wants. He's got no originality. He's just a noise that they arrest Fowler. Could be. Sure is. Just for instance. And speaking of bellwethers, have you heard of a character called Throckmorton Bixby? Can't say I have. He sounds like a Nance. Whatever a Nance is, he's it. But you're talking about our next president, unless all the prophets are wrong.
He's just as bad as his name. Of all the gutless wonders I've ever heard, that pilgrim takes the prize. He even looks like a rabbit. I can see where I had better catch up on some contemporary history, Matson said. I've been out in the sticks too long. If you know what's good for you, you'll stay here. The rest of the country's going to hell. Brother Bixby's just a sample. About the only thing that recommend him is that he's hot for peace. "'And he's got those furriers' blessing. Seems like those freaks swing a lot of weight nowadays, and they ain't shy about tellin' folks who and what they favor. They've got as bold as brass this past year.'" Matson nodded idly, then stiffened, turning a wide-eyed stare on Seth.
A blinding light exploded in his brain as the words sank in. With crystal clarity, he knew the answer. He laughed harshly. Winters stared at him with mild surprise. What's bit ya, Dano? But Matson was completely oblivious, buttressing the flash of inspiration. Sure, that was the only thing it could be. Those aliens were working on a program, one that was grimly recognizable once his attention was focused on it. There must have been considerable pressure to make them move so fast that a short-lived human could see what they were planning. But Matson had a good idea of what was driving them. An atomic war that could decimate the world would be all the spur they'd need. They weren't playing for penny-ante stakes.
They didn't want to exploit mankind. They didn't give a damn about mankind. To them, humanity was merely an unavoidable nuisance. Something to be pushed aside, something to be made harmless, independent, and ultimately, to be quietly and bloodlessly eliminated. Man's civilization held nothing that the Star Men wanted. But man's planet. That was a different story. Truly, the aliens were right when they considered man a savage. Like a savage, man didn't realize his most-value possession was his land. The peaceful penetration was what had fooled him. Mankind, faced with a similar situation and working from a position of overwhelming strength, would have reacted differently. Humanity would have invaded and conquered.
But the aliens had not even considered this obvious step. Why? The answer was simple and logical. They couldn't. Even though their technology was advanced enough to exterminate man with little or no loss to themselves, the combat and slaughter must be repulsive to them. It had to be. With their telepathic minds, they would necessarily have a pathologic horror of suffering. They were so highly evolved that they simply couldn't fight, at least not with the weapons of humanity, but they could use the subtler weapon of altruism. And even more important, uncontrolled emotions were poison to them. In fact, Ixl had admitted it back in Seattle. The primitive psi-waves of humanity's hates, lusts, fears, and exaltations must be unbearable torture to a race long past such animal outbursts.
That was... Must be. Why they were moving so fast. For their own safety, emotion had to be damped out of the human race. Mattson had a faint conception of what the aliens must have suffered when they first surveyed that crowd at International Airport. No wonder they had looked so strangely immobile at that first contact. The raw emotion must have nearly killed them. He felt a reluctant stir of admiration for their courage. For the dedicated bravery needed to face that crowd and establish a beachhead of tranquility, those first few minutes must have compressed them in the agonies of a lifetime. Matson grinned coldly. The aliens were not invulnerable. If mankind could be taught to fear and hate them, and if that emotion could be focused, they never again would try to take this world.
It would be sheer suicide. As long as mankind kept its emotions, it would be safe from this sort of invasion. But the problem was to teach mankind to fear and hate. Shock would do it. But how could that shock be applied? The thought led, inevitably, to the only possible conclusion. The aliens would have to be killed, and in such a manner as to make humanity fear retaliation from the stars. Fear would unite men against a possible invasion, and fear would force men to reach for the stars to forestall retribution. Mattson grinned thinly. Human nature couldn't have changed much these past years. Even with a master psychologist like the Aztlans operating on it, changes in emotional pattern would require generations.
He sighed, looking to the anxious face of Seth Winters, and returned to the reality of the desert night. His course was set. He knew what he had to do. He laid the rifle across his knees and opened the little leather box sewn to the side of the gun case. With precise, careful movements, he removed the silencer and fitted it to the threaded muzzle of the gun. The bulky blue X-Ressence changed the rifle from a thing of beauty to one of murder. He looked at it distastefully, then shrugged, and stretched out on the mattress, easing the ugly muzzle through the hole in the brickwork. It wouldn't be long now. He glanced upward through the window above him at the Weather Bureau instruments atop a nearby building.
The metal cups of the anemometer hung motionless against the sky. No wind stirred in the deep canyons of the city streets as the sun climbed in blazing splendor above the towering buildings. He moved a trifle, shifting the muzzle of the gun until it bore upon the sidewalks. The telescopic sight picked out faces from the waiting crowd with a crystal clarity. Everywhere there was the same sheep-like placidity. He shuddered, the sights jumping crazily from one face to another, wondering if he had misjudged his race, if he had really come too late, if he had underestimated the power of the Aztlans. Far down the avenue, an excited hum came to his ears, and the watching crowd stirred. Faces lighted, and Matson sighted.
He was not wrong. Emotion was only suppressed, not vanished. There was still time. The aliens were coming. Coming to cap the climax of their pioneer work, to drive the first nail in humanity's coffin, for the first time in history man's dream of Brotherhood of Man was close to reality, and he was about to destroy it. The irony bit into Mattson's soul, and for a moment he hesitated, feeling the wave of tolerance and good rising from the street below. Did he have the right to destroy man's dream? Did he dare tamper with the will of the world? Had he the right to play God? The parade came slowly down the happy street, a kaleidoscope of color and movement that approached and went past in successive waves and masses.
This was a gala day, this eve of world union. The insignia of the UN was everywhere. The aliens had used the organization to further their plans, and it was now all-powerful. A solid bank of UN flags led the van of delegates, smiling and swathed in formal dress. Sitting erect in their black official cars draped with the flags of native lands that would soon be furled forever if the aliens had their way. And behind them came the Aztlans. They rode together, standing on a pure white float, a bar of dazzling white in a sea of color. All equal, their inhumanly beautiful faces calm and remote. The Aztlans rode through the joyful crowd. There was something inspiring about the sight, and for a moment, Mattson felt a wave of revulsion sweep through him.
He sighed and thumbed the safety to off, pulled the cocking lever, and slid the first cartridge into the breech. He settled himself, drawing a breath of air into his lungs, letting a little dribble out through slack lips, catching the remainder of the exhalation with closed glottis. The sights wavered and steadied upon the head of the center alien, framing the pale noble face with its aureola of golden hair. The luminous eyes were dull and introspective as the alien tried to withdraw from the emotions of the crowd. There was no awareness of danger in the alien's face. At six hundred yards, he was beyond their esper range, and he was further covered by the feelings of the crowd. The sights lowered to the broad chest and centered there, as Matson's spatulate fingers took up the slack in the trigger and squeezed softly and steadily.
A coruscating glow bathed at the bodies of the three aliens as their tall forms jerked to the smashing impact of the bullets. Their metallic tunics melted and sloughed as inner fires ate away the fragile garments that covered them. Flexible synthetic skin cracked and curled in the infernal heat, revealing padding, wire-like tendons, rope-like cords of flexible tubing, and a metallic skeleton that melted and dripped in white-hot drops in the heat of the atomic flame. Robots. Matson gasped with sudden, blinding realization. I should have known. No wonder they seemed inhuman. Their builders would never dare expose themselves to the furies and conflicts of our emotionally uncontrolled world. One of the aliens crouched on the float, his four-fingered hands pressed against a smoking hole in his metal tunic.
The smoke thickened, and a yellow ichor poured out into bursting flame on contact with the air. The fifth alien, Ixl, was untouched, standing with his hands wide-stretched in a gesture that at once held command and appeal. Matson reloaded, but held his fire. The swarming crowd surrounding the alien was too thick for a clear shot, and Matson, with sudden revulsion, Was unwilling to risk further murder in a cause already won. The tall, silver figure of the alien winced and shuddered, his huge body shaking like a leaf in a storm. His builders had never designed him to withstand the barrage of focused emotion that was sweeping from the crowd. Terror. Shock. Sympathy. Hate. Loathing. Grief. And disillusionment.
The incredible gamut of human feelings wrenched and tore at the Aztlan, shorting delicate circuits. Ripping the poised balance of his being as the violent, discordant blasts lanced through him with destroying energy. Ixl's classic features twisted in a spasm of inconceivable agony. A thick curl of smoke drifted from his distorted, tragic mask of a mouth as he crumpled, a pitiful, deflated figure against the whiteness of the float. Their cries of fear and horror changed their note as the aliens' true nature dawned upon the crowd. Pride of flesh recoiled as the swarming humans realized the facts. Revulsion at being led by machines swelled into raw, red rage. The mob madness spread as an ominous growl began rising from the streets.
A panicky policeman triggered it. Firing his Aslan-built shock tube into the forefront of the mob, a dozen men fell to be trampled by their neighbors as a swarm of men and women poured over the struggling officer and buried him from sight. Like wildfire, pent-up emotions blazed out in a flame of fury. The parade vanished, sucked into the maelstrom, and torn apart. Fists flew, flesh tore. Men and women screamed in high, bitter agony as the mob clawed and trampled in a surging press of writhing forms that filled the street from one line of buildings to the other, half mad with triumph. Drunk with victory, shocked at the terrible form that death had taken in coming to Ixtil, Matson raised his clenched hands to the sky and screamed in a raw, inhuman voice, a cry in which all of mankind's violence and pride were blended.
The spasm passed as quickly as it came, and with its passing came exhaustion. The job was done. The aliens were destroyed. Tomorrow would bring reaction. And with it would come fear. Tomorrow or the next day, man would hammer out a true world union, spurred by the thought of retribution that would never come. Yet all that didn't matter. The important thing, the only important thing, was preserved. Mankind would have to unite for survival, or so men would think, and he would never disillusion them. For this was man's world, and men were again free to work out their own destiny. For better or for worse, without interference and without help, the golden dream was over. Man might fall, but if he did, he would fail on his own terms, and if he succeeded...
Matson looked up grimly at the shining sky. Slowly, he rose to his feet and descended to the raging street below. The End of Assassin by J.F. Bone Recorded by Benjamin Olson.
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3 03 - Benefactor 6:14
Benefactor by George H. Smith. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Benefactor by George H. Smith. We can anticipate that robots will be fiercely resented at first in a society that will see them as the latest And an indestructible widespread threat to the workers whom they will replace. The men who will seek to alter the status quo will be called robot lovers and stoned. But what happens next? He clutched at the lever with more force than he'd intended. It was set for further in the future. They crazy, they insane. That mob outside is made up of madmen. Jacob Clarke told his young assistant, Bill Towney.
They'll be battering at the door any minute now, sir, Towney said nervously. But why? Why are they doing it? My inventions have advanced the world a hundred years. I've always been a benefactor of man, not a destroyer. It's the robots. People are in a rage because they say the robots cause unemployment by replacing workers. It's utter nonsense, you know. Clark said impatiently. Why can't they see that my intelligent, self-controlled robots are the greatest boon the human race has ever received from one man? I don't know, sir. But they don't. Townie paused as the shouting and pounding outside became more intense. They demanded that you take the robots out of the labor market and order your factories to stop making them.
This is the result of your refusal. Down with Clark, down with the Tin Men, death to the robot lovers. The furious mob was battering at the door now. Really, sir, Townie said, you should leave here. They'll kill you if you don't. Leave here? I should say not. I'll defy the fools. I'll tell them what I've done for them and make them understand. He glanced nervously at the door. Besides, There's only one door. I couldn't get away now. There's the time machine, sir. But isn't there some other way? Perhaps if you went out and talked to them. You know there's no other way. Those people believe you've brought disaster to the human race, and they mean to kill you. And if you don't hurry, they will," Townie said urgently.
The time machine is set for twenty years in the future. Please hurry, sir. The door was beginning to give. Clark looked around unhappily and then walked to the time machine. All right, I'll go. In the future I know the results of my work will be appreciated. I'll be a hero and benefactor of mankind. Townie heard the door crash and roughly pushed his employer into the time machine as the mob burst through. Push the starting button! Push the starting button! Quick! He screamed as the first of the mob reached him. Clark's hand leaped to the control lever just as a brick crashed into his head. His hand completed its motion with more force than he had intended, as he sank unconscious to the floor, and the machine was set for a thousand years in the future instead of twenty.
The year 3000 had been a brilliant one for the robots. In fact, the most brilliant since the last human being had died some 500 years before. They had reached Venus and Mars and were now planning a trip to Jupiter. And this very day, a huge statue of Jacob Clarke, the creator and benefactor, was to be dedicated on the site of what once had been his laboratory. It seemed a shame that most of the records concerning him and his time had been lost in one of the great wars that had helped to extinguish the humans. The statue, though, was good, for surely he looked like a robot. One of the few human books still in existence said that the Creator had created in his own image. It was right at the foot of his own statue that the guardians of the shrine found Jacob Clarke.
They picked up his unconscious bleeding body and laid it tenderly on a nearby bench. They bent over him with all the gentleness and solicitude that had been installed in his very first models and had been handed down from generation to generation of robots. They wanted to help him, but they were very puzzled. Perhaps it came from a far part of the earth, one of them said. Or maybe a mistake was made at one of the birth factories, said another. See, it is losing oil at a great rate. Perhaps, mused the elder, it is a new model. At any rate, it is a robot, and has been damaged. As our great creator taught us, he must be aided. We will take it to the central repair factory in the city. But, the first robot protested, It's awfully bulky to be carried so far.
Being creatures of logic, they thought about it for a moment, and then the elder came to a decision that was both effective and reasonable. Since he is so bulky, we will disassemble him for transportation purposes, he said as he leaned over and gently twisted off Clark's right arm. Rather primitive and messy construction, I'd say, said the second robot. As he tenderly unscrewed Jacob Clark's head from his body. End of Benefactor by George H. Smith
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4 04 - Beyond lies the Wub 16:59
Beyond Lies the Wub by Philip K. Dick.
They had almost finished with the loading. Outside stood the Optus. His arms folded, his face sunk in gloom. Captain Franco walked leisurely down the gangplank, grinning. What's the matter? he said. You're getting paid for all this. The optus said nothing. He turned away, collecting his robes. The captain put a boot on the hem of the robe. Just a minute. Don't go off. I'm not finished. Oh? the optimus turned with dignity. I'm going back to the village. He looked towards the animals and birds being driven up the gangplank into the spaceship. I must organise new hunts. Franco lit a cigarette. Why not? You people can go out into the veldt and track it all down again. But when we run out, halfway between Mars and Earth...
The Optus went off, wordless. Franco joined the first mate at the bottom of the gangplank. How's it coming? He said. He looked at his watch. We've got a good bargain here. The mate glanced at him sourly. How do you explain that? What's the matter with you? We need it more than they do. I'll see you later, Captain. The mate threaded his way up the plank, between the long-legged Martian go-birds, into the ship. Franco watched him disappear. He was just starting up after him, up the plank towards the port when he saw it. My God! He stood staring, his hands on his hips. Peterson was walking along the path, His face red, leading it by a string. Sorry, Captain, he said, tugging at the string. Franco walked towards him.
What is it? The wub stood sagging, its great body settling slowly. It was sitting down, its eyes half shut. A few flies buzzed about its flank, and it switched its tail. It sat. There was silence. It's a wub, Peterson said. I got it from a native for fifty cents. He said it was a very unusual animal, very respected. This, Franco poked the great sloping side of the wub, it's a pig, a huge, dirty pig. Yes sir, it's a pig. The natives call it a wub. A huge pig. It must weigh four hundred pounds. Franco grabbed a tuft of the rough hair. The wub gasped, its eyes opened small and moist. Then its great mouth twitched. A tear rolled down the wub's cheek. And splashed on the floor. Maybe it's good to eat, Peterson said nervously.
We'll soon find out, Franco said.
The Wob survived the take-off, sound asleep in the hold of the ship. When they were out in space and everything was running smoothly, Captain Franco bade his men fetch the Wob upstairs so that he might perceive what manner of beast it was. The Wob grunted and wheezed, squeezing up the passageway. Come on," Jones grated, pulling at the rope. The wub twisted, rubbing its skin off on the smooth chrome walls. It burst into the ante-room, tumbling down in a heap. The men leapt up. Good Lord," French said. What is it? Peterson says it's a wub," Jones said. It belongs to him. He kicked at the wub. The wub stood up, unsteadily, panting. What's the matter with it? French came over. Is it going to be sick?
They watched. The wub rolled its eyes mournfully. It gazed around at the men. I think it's thirsty, Peterson said. He went to get some water. French shook his head. No wonder we had so much trouble taking off. I had to reset all my ballast calculations. Peterson came back with water. The wub began to lap gratefully, splashing the men. Captain Franco appeared at the door. Let's have a look at it. He advanced, squinting critically. You got this for fifty cents? Yes, sir, Peterson said. It eats almost anything. I fed it on grain and it like that, and then potatoes and mash, and scraps from the table, and milk. It seemed to enjoy eating. After it eats, it lies down and goes to sleep. I see, Captain Franco said.
Now as to its taste, that's the real question. I doubt that there's much point in fatting it up any more. It seems fat enough to me already. Where's the cook? I want him here. I want to find out... The wob stopped lapping and looked up at the captain. Really, captain, the wob said. I suggest we talk of other matters. The room was silent. What was that? Franco said. Just now. The wob, sir, Peterson said. It spoke. They all looked at the wob. What did it say? What did it say? It suggested we talk about other things. Franco walked towards the wub. He went all around it, examining it from every side. Then he came back over and stood with the men. "'I wonder if there's a native inside it,' he said thoughtfully.
"'Maybe we should open it up and have a look.' "'Oh, goodness,' the wub cried. "'Is that all you people can think of, killing and cutting?' Franco clenched his fists. "'Come out of there, whoever you are. Come out!' Nothing stirred. The men stood together, their faces blank, staring at the wub. The wub swished its tail. It belched slowly. I beg your pardon, the wub said. I don't think there's anyone in there, Jones said in a low voice. They all looked at each other. The cook came in. You wanted me, Captain, he said. What's this thing? This is a wub, Franker said. It's to be eaten. Will you measure it and figure out... I think we should have a talk, the wub said. I'd like to discuss this with you, Captain, if I might.
I can see that you and I do not agree on some basic issues. The captain took a long time to answer. The wub waited good-naturedly, licking the water from its jowls. Come into my office, the captain said at last. He turned and walked out of the room. The wub rose and padded after him. The men watched it go. They heard it climbing the stairs. "'I wonder what the outcome will be,' the cook said. "'Well, I'll be in the kitchen. Let me know as soon as you hear.' "'Sure,' Jones said. "'Sure.' The wob eased itself down in the corner with a sigh. "'You must forgive me,' it said. "'I'm afraid I'm addicted to various forms of relaxation. When one is as large as I,' the captain nodded impatiently. He sat down at his desk and folded his arms.
All right, he said. Let's get started. You're a wub. Is that correct? The wub shrugged. I suppose so. That's what they call us, the natives, I mean. We have our own term. And you speak English? You've been in contact with Earthman before? No. Then how do you do it? Speak English? Am I speaking English? I'm not conscious of speaking anything in particular. I examined your mind. My mind? I studied the contents. Especially the semantic warehouse, as I refer to it. I see," the captain said. Telepathy. Of course. We're a very old race," the wub said. Very old and very ponderous. It's difficult for us to move around. You can appreciate that anything so slow and heavy would be at the mercy of more agile forms of life.
There was no use in our relying on physical defenses. How could we win? Too heavy to run? Too soft to fight? Too good-natured to hunt for game? How do you live? Plants, vegetables. We can eat almost anything. We're very Catholic. Tolerant, eclectic, Catholic. We live and let live. That's how we've gotten along. The wub eyed the captain.
That's why I so violently objected to this business about having me boiled. I could see the image in your mind. Most of me in the frozen food locker. Some of me in the kettle. A bit for your pet cat. So you read minds, the captain said. How interesting. Anything else? I mean, what else can you do along those lines? A few odds and ends, the wub said absently, staring around the room. A nice apartment you have here, captain. You keep it quite neat. I respect life forms that are tidy. Some marching birds are quite tidy. They throw things out of their nest and sweep them. Indeed, the captain nodded. But to get back to the problem, oh quite so. You spoke of dining on me. The taste I'm told is quite good, a little fatty but tender.
But how could any lasting contact be established between your people and mine if you resort to such barbaric attitudes? Eat me? Rather, you should discuss questions with me. Philosophy. The arts. The captain stood up. Philosophy. It might interest you to know that we will be hard put to find something to eat for the next month, an unfortunate spoilage. I know," the web nodded, but wouldn't it be more in accord with your principles of democracy if we all drew straws or something along that line? After all, democracy is to protect the minority from such infringements. Now, if each of us casts one vote, the captain walked to the door. Nuts to you, he said. He opened the door. He opened his mouth.
He stood frozen, his mouth wide, his eyes staring, his fingers still on the knob. The wub watched him. Presently, it padded out of the room, edging past the captain. It went down the hall, deep in meditation.
The room was quiet. "'Do you see,' the wub said, "'we have a common myth. Your mind contains much familiar myth-symbols, Ishtar, Odysseus.' Peterson sat silently, staring at the floor. He shifted in his chair. Go on, he said. Please go on. I find in your Odysseus a figure common to the mythology of most self-conscious races. As I interpret it, Odysseus wonders as an individual aware of himself as such. This is the idea of separation, of separation from family and country, the process of individuation. But Odysseus returns to his home. Peterson looked out of the port window at the stars, endless stars, burning intently in the empty universe, finally goes home. As most tall creators, the moment of separation is a temporary period, a brief journey of the soul.
It begins, it ends, the wanderer returns to land and race. The door opened. The wub stopped, turning its great head. Captain Franco came into the room. The men behind him. They hesitated at the door. Are you all right? French said. Do you mean me? Patterson said, surprised. Why me? Franco lowered his gun. Come over here, he said to Peterson. Get up and come here. There was silence. Go ahead, Webbs said. It doesn't matter. Peterson stood up. What for? It's an order. Peterson walked to the door. French caught his arm. What's going on? Peterson wrenched loose. What's the matter with you? Captain Franco moved towards the wub. The wub looked up from where it lay in the corner, pressed against the wall.
It's interesting, the wub said, that you're obsessed with the idea of eating me. I wonder why. Get up, Franco said. If you wish, the wub rose, grunting. Be patient. It is difficult for me. It stood, gasping, its tongue lolling foolishly. "'Shoot it now,' French said. "'For God's sake!' Peterson exclaimed. Jones turned to him quickly, his eyes grey with fear. "'You didn't see him. Like a statue, standing there, his mouth open. If we hadn't come down he'd still be there.' "'Who? The captain?' Peterson stared around. "'He's all right now.' They looked at the wub, standing in the middle of the room, its great chest rising and falling. "'Come on,' Frankis said. "'Out the way!' The men pulled aside towards the door.
You're quite afraid, aren't you? The wub said. I've done anything to you. I'm against the idea of hurting. All I've done is try to protect myself. Can you expect me to rush eagerly to my death? I'm a sensible being like yourself. I was curious to see your ship learn about you. I suggested to the native. The gun jerked. See, Franco said, I thought so. The wub settled down, panting. It put its paw out, pulling its tail around it. It's very warm, the wub said. I understand that we're close to the jets. Atomic power. You have done many wonderful things with it. Technically, apparently, your scientific hierarchy is not equipped to solve moral, ethical... Franco turned to the men, crowding behind him, wide-eyed and silent.
I'll do it. You can watch. French nodded. Try to hit the brain. It's no good for eating. Don't hit the chest if the rib-case shatters. We'll have to pick bones out. Listen, Peterson said, licking his lips. Has it done anything? What harm has it done? I'm asking you, and anyhow, it's still mine. You've no right to shoot it. It doesn't belong to you. Franco raised his gun. I'm going out, Jones said, his face white and sick. I don't want to see it. Me too, French said. The men straggled out, murmuring. Peterson. The wub lingered at the door. It was talking to me about myths, he said. It wouldn't hurt anyone. He went outside. Franco walked towards the wub. The wub looked up slowly. It swallowed. A very foolish thing, it said.
I'm sorry that you didn't want to do it. There was a parable that your Saviour related. It stopped, staring at the gun. Can you look me in the eye and do it? The wub said. Can you do that? The captain gazed down. I can look you in the eye, he said. Back on the farm we had hogs. Dirty, razor-back hogs. I can do it. Staring down at the wub, into the gleaming, moist eyes, he pressed the trigger.
The taste was excellent. They sat glumly around the table, some of them hardly eating at all. The only one who seemed to be enjoying himself was Captain Franco. More, he said, looking round. More? And some wine, perhaps? Not me, French said. I think I'll go back to the chart room. Me too," Jones stood up, pushing his chair back. I'll see you later. The captain watched them go. Some of the others excused themselves. What do you suppose the matter is, the captain said. He turned to Peterson. Peterson sat staring down at his plate, at the potatoes, the green peas, and at the thick slab of tender, warm meat. He opened his mouth. No sound came. The captain put his hand on Peterson's shoulder. It's only organic matter now, he said.
The life essence is gone. He ate, spooning up the gravy with some bread. I myself love to eat. It's one of the greatest things a living creature can enjoy. Eating, resting, meditation, discussing things. Peterson nodded. The two men got up and went out. The captain drank some water and sighed. Well," he said, I must say that this was a very enjoyable meal. All the reports I've heard were quite two. The taste of wub. Very fine. But I was prevented from enjoying this pleasure in times past. He dabbed at his lips with his napkin, and leant back in his chair. Peterson stared dejectedly at the table. The captain watched him intently. He leant over. Come, come, he said. Cheer up. Let's discuss things.
He smiled. As I was saying before, I was interrupted. The role of Odysseus in the myths. Peterson jerked up, staring. To go on, the captain said. Odysseus, as I understand him.
End of Beyond Lies the Wub by Philip K. Dick.
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5 05 - Decision 29:42
Decision by Frank M.
Robinson. The captain had learned to hate. It was his profession, and his personal reason for going on. But even hatred has to be channeled for its maximum use. And no truths exist forever. The battle alarm caught him in the middle of a dream, a dream that took place in a white house in a small town in Ohio, when both he and Alice had been very young, and the grown adults he now called his children had been really little more than babies. He rolled out of his bed immediately on hearing the gong, as any good sailor would, and slipped into his pants and shoes and felt around the bulkhead for his life jacket. He slipped into it and tightened the buckles, then put on his cap with the captain's insignia.
He opened the hatch and stepped out into the passageway, blinking for a moment in the unaccustomed light and trying to shake away the remnants of his dream. Officers were boiling up the passageway and up the ladder, some eager ensigns dressed only in their shorts and their life-jackets. It was more wise than funny, he thought slowly. Ships had gone down in a matter of seconds, and anybody who spent precious moments looking for his pants or his wallet never got out. Harry Davis, the exec, a portly man in his fifties, burst out of his stateroom, still trying to shake the sleep from gummy lids. The captain shook his head, trying to alert his mind to the point where it could make sensible evaluations, and started up the corridor.
Any idea what it is, Harry? Davis shook his head. Not unless it's what we've been expecting. What we've been expecting? The captain grasped the iron piping that served for railings and jogged up the ladder. Fifty miles north, lolling in the North Sea and holding maneuvers, was the Iosif Juvashvili. A hundred thousand tons of the finest aircraft carrier the Asiatic Combine had produced, Carrying close to a hundred MiG-72s and perhaps half a dozen light bombers. The Eosif had been operating there for nearly a week. The O'ahu had been detached from the Atlantic fleet only a few days ago to combat the possible threat. Maybe the ships were only acting as stakeouts for the politicians, the captain thought slowly.
The tender waiting for the spark. And it wouldn't take much. A curious pilot who might venture too close, a gunner with a nervous temperament. And now, maybe, this was it. It had to come some day. You couldn't turn the other cheek forever. And he, for one, was glad. He had spent almost all his life waiting for this, a chance to get even. Davis opened the hatch to the wheelhouse, and the captain slipped in, closing it tight behind him. It was pitch black, and it took his eyes a few moments to adjust to it. When they had, he could make out the shadowed forms of the OD, the first-class quartermaster at the wheel, and the radar man hunched over the repeater, the scope a phosphorescent blur in the darkness.
The ports were open in violation of GQ. It was a hot summer night, and the slight breeze that blew off the swelling sea smelled clean and cool. It was the only kind of air for a man to breathe, the captain mused abstractedly. He glanced sharply through the ports. There was nothing that bulked on the dark horizon, so far as he could tell. All the stars were fixed. There were none of the telltale flashes of jet exhausts. He walked over to where the O.D. stood by the radarscope, seemingly fascinated by the picture on it. McCandless had the watch. A young lieutenant of not more than twenty-five, but one with good sense and sound judgment nonetheless. A man who wasn't prone to panic, the captain thought.
What's the situation, Lieutenant? McCandless's voice was nervous. I'm not exactly sure, sir. Not yet. A brief regret at an interrupted dream of Ohio flickered in the back of the captain's mind. What do you mean you're not sure? His voice was a little sharper than he intended, a little more querulous than he had meant it to be. It was, he thought, the voice of an old man, annoyed at having his sleep disturbed.
The younger man wasn't disturbed by the sharpness, and the captain's estimation of McCandless went up another notch. Ten minutes ago, CIC reported an object approaching us from the south at an altitude of fifty miles. Approaching from the south, the captain thought. So it couldn't have been from the Eosif. And fifty miles up? That was two hundred and fifty thousand feet. A guided missile, perhaps? But whose? There were only friendly countries to the south. It's passed directly overhead, McCandless continued, consciously trying to make his voice sound factual, and continued in the direction of Eosif. It settled towards sea level, then stopped a mile up. Stopped, Lieutenant? Yes, sir. It's hovering over the EOSIF now.
McCandless paused. When he started again, his voice was shaking. It was funny he hadn't noticed it before, the captain thought. You could almost smell the fear in the wheelhouse. CIC estimated its speed overhead as being in excess of a thousand miles an hour and its size about... that of the Iosif itself. The captain felt the sweat gather on his temples, and ran his hand half angrily over his forehead and through his thinning silver hair. He was too old a man to let fear affect him any more, and he was too tired a man to waste his energy mopping his forehead every few minutes in a gesture that would show his feelings to the crew. Maybe it was only vanity, he thought, but when your muscles went soft and started pushing back against your belt, and your hair turned gray and started a strategic retreat.
You tended to take more care of your reputation. It wasn't as fragile as the rest of you. It didn't tarnish with the gold of your braid or sag with your muscles, and he had enjoyed a reputation as a fearless man of sound judgment. Did you order up a drone plane? McCandless nodded in the dark. It went up a few minutes ago, sir. The television picture should be coming in any moment. It would be an infrared picture, the captain thought. It wouldn't show too much, provided the plane could get close enough to get anything at all, but it would show something. Have you made any evaluations, Lieutenant? He could feel the tenseness build up again in the compartment. Everybody was listening intently, waiting for the first semi-official hint of what had gotten them up in the middle of the night.
Then McCandless voiced what the captain had already taken to be a foregone conclusion. I think it's a spaceship, sir. McCandless waved at the stars beyond the port. From someplace out there.
The picture started coming in at 0300. The captain and Davis and McCandless clustered about the infrared screen, watching the shadowy picture build up. It wasn't much of a picture, the captain thought. It was vague and indistinct, and the drone plane was shooting the scene from too far away. But he could make out the Juvashvili, a gloomy shape that bulked huge in the water, the planes clustered on its deck like small black flies. But that wasn't what interested him. He had seen restricted photographs and complete descriptions and evaluations of Iyosef's fighting capabilities before. What was of vastly more importance was the huge structure that hovered above the Eosif, a mile overhead, a structure that blocked out the stars over a roughly rectangular area the same size as the Eosif itself.
McCandless and Davis were still straining their eyes for details of the alien ship by the time the captain had glanced away and was formulating policy. The picture was too vague, he thought. There was nothing that could be seen that would tell you much about the ship. And if they were correct in thinking it was a spaceship, then it would be impossible to tell whether certain features were armament or not, and it would be futile to speculate on the capabilities of that armament. McCandless and Davis finished with their inspection of the screen and turned to the captain, waiting for orders. Recall the plane, the captain said. Send it out again at dawn, and send a message to Radio Washington giving them complete details.
You may relax G. Q., but keep the gunners at their posts and the pilots standing by. The fantastic became far more real when you dealt with it matter-of-factly, he thought. He started for the hatch. I'll expect you down for breakfast, he said to Davis. You too, Lieutenant. You've been in on this from the start. You know more than the rest of us. Which was quite enough flattery for a young lieutenant in one day, he thought. It was far more than he had ever received when he had been a lieutenant.
Back in his stateroom, the captain went directly to the small lavatory, filled the wash bowl, and plunged his face into the cold water. He was getting old, he thought, for the hundredth time that morning. Creeping old age where you still awoke readily enough, but found it more and more difficult to keep awake. You couldn't rid yourself of the temptation of going back to bed and dreaming again, dreaming, perhaps, of an Ohio town that his own imagination had gilded and varnished and adorned, until sometimes he thought it existed only in his imagination and not in reality at all.
He scrubbed at his face until a tingle of alertness came to it, then went back to the main compartment. The steward had laid out the silver, Davis and McCandless were already there. Davis completely relaxed in the atmosphere that could only exist between an executive officer and a captain. The exec, as both he and the captain well knew, was the only man on board with whom the captain could maintain a relationship that was something other than professional. Not necessarily friendly, but more relaxed. McCandless sat in the leather-upholstered chair by the table. Stiff and self-conscious. The hope of the nation, the captain thought, provided that they learned how to hate and keep that hate alive as long as he had kept his.
His own boy had been about McCandless's age, he thought suddenly. Well, what are you going to do, Davis asked.
The captain sat down at the table. The coffee was hot, and he could smell the eggs that the steward was frying in the small galley. He tucked in a napkin at his neck. It was old-fashioned, but practical, he thought. You dribbled down the front. You didn't spill things in your lap. It isn't exactly up to me, Harry. It's up to Washington. He poured out three cups of coffee and handed one to Davis and one to McCandless. The lieutenant clutched the cup in a death-like grip, as if the ship were doing forty-degree rolls and he might lose it any minute. I asked you up to breakfast to get your ideas on it. I have my own, but on something like this, anybody's ideas are as good as mine. Maybe better.
Davis frowned and rubbed the tip of his nose thoughtfully. Well, it looks to me, Bill, as if we have a situation here where an unknown ship from somewhere—I'm not saying where—has investigated two ships on maneuvers and finally chosen to hover over one. For what reasons, we don't know. To me, it looks like the only things we can do is notify Washington and to stand by for orders. Great God, the captain thought, disgusted. There was nothing worse than a commander bucking for four stripes. A more cautious man didn't exist on the face of the earth, nor possibly a more fearful one. Fear that whatever decision you made would be the wrong one, and the promotion board would pass you by. So you carefully avoided making any decisions at all.
He had been the same way himself. You salved your lack of guts, with the knowledge that once you made captain, things would be different and you could assert yourself, be the man that you had always considered yourself to be. Only once you became a captain, things didn't change a bit, because then you were trying to get the promotion board to recommend you for Admiral. The only men in the Navy who had any guts were the young men who didn't know any better, and the old bastards who had made admiral and no longer had any ambition as far as rank went.
He turned to McCandless. You, Lieutenant? McCandless licked dry lips. I think it's from out in space, sir. Maybe it's an exploration party, but more than likely it's an armed scouting party. What makes you say that? McCandless leaned forward, his concern over his cup of coffee momentarily forgotten. "'I think if it was an exploration party they would have stopped at some point of civilization first—in all likelihood, a city—a big city. But we've received no reports of any ship landing near a city—at least, not yet.' He paused a little self-consciously. It wouldn't be difficult to tell that we're part of the fighting forces of the planet, and I think it's just luck that it chose the Iosef instead of us.
I think the alien ship is investigating the Iosef, or will shortly." Davis lit a cigarette, a half-amused smile on his face. For what purpose? To test the armament, see how good we are on the defensive. What do you think they want? the captain asked curiously. McCandless hesitated. Then blurted it out. The whole world, sir.
At 0500, the sun was just breaking over the horizon, coating the heavy green seas with a soft covering of pink gold. It was going to be another hot day, the captain thought, one where the heat stood off the water in little waves, and the sweat ran down your back and soaked your khakis. And with GQ, the rubber life jackets would make it about ten times as bad. He stood on the bridge for a moment, admiring the sunrise and smelling the brisk salt air, then walked into the wheelhouse. The drone plane had been up for half an hour. By this time it should have a clearer picture of the object that hovered over the Eosif. It did. The object was dun-colored, the color of storm clouds on a cold winter's day.
Big, easily as big as the Eosif, and tubular-shaped, Slightly flattened on the bottom. There was nothing that could be identified as gun ports, but they probably didn't use guns. He wondered just what their armament was. He turned to the radar man on watch. Has the Eosif moved any? The man nodded. Yes, sir. About 0400, they steamed 10 miles north at top speed. The object kept up with them? Yes, sir. It never left them, sir. Same position directly overhead at all times.
The captain of the Eosief must have realized that he couldn't get away from his overhead observer and probably froze in position, afraid of what would happen if he continued to run for it. He'd probably stay there until the alien ship made some hostile move or he got instructions from home. The captain walked back to the bridge. The ship was strangely silent. There were no jets warming up on the flight deck. There were no sounds of chipping hammers. Except for the planes overhead, it was a quiet summer day, one of those days when a perfectly smooth sea looks like a sheet of plate glass. He glanced down at the sides of the Oahu. Tiny figures were huddled by the anti-aircraft guns, their helmets glinting in the sun.
A tight ship, he thought, a ship that was ready for anything.
McCandless came out on the bridge, his eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep. He stood a respectful distance from the captain, a little to the right and just behind. Beautiful day, isn't it, Lieutenant? Yes, sir, it is, sir. Very fine day. Sir, that was one reason why he tolerated Davis, the captain thought, just to hear somebody call him by his first name and treat him as something other than a symbol of rank. If your theory is correct, Lieutenant, he mused loud, then the alien ship should be opening fire, if that's what you would call it, any minute now. Yes, sir, McCandless brushed his mouth with his hand, probably surreptitiously removing a wad of gum, the captain thought. I was wondering what you would do, sir, if the alien ship opened fire on the Eosif.
If it wasn't against regulations, I'd issue a couple of cans of beer per man. McCandless gaped. I—I don't understand you, sir. If they finish off the Eosif, lieutenant, it'll save us the trouble. For my money, I'd be tickled pink if the Combine sent reinforcements and it really developed into a fracas. McCandless turned slightly so the captain could no longer read his face. The captain wondered if it was intentional. I—I guess I just took it for granted that we would join forces against the aliens, sir. It seemed like the natural thing to do. So McCandless had thought they'd go to the rescue of the Yossif, the captain thought slowly. To the rescue. The phrase had a funny sound to it when you coupled it with the combine, an almost obscene sound.
Lieutenant, the captain said slowly, history has been full of possible turning points that the United States has almost always failed to take advantage of. I think this time, just for once, we ought to play it smart. The Combine has been a threat for as long as I can remember. We've had opportunities before when we could have let two systems cancel each other out. We didn't take advantage of it then, and we've regretted it ever since. McCandless didn't reply immediately, and the captain thought to himself, why not be more honest? Why don't you tell him that all your life you've fought the Combine, and the conflict has been the only thing that has lent meaning to living? You hate for thirty years, and you become a slave to that hatred.
You don't forget it with a snap of the fingers and go charging to the rescue like a knight in shining armor. The aliens are—alien, sir, McCandless suddenly said. The men on the Eosif are—human beings. Are they, mister? The captain hated the lecturing attitude, but he couldn't help it. They're the representatives of the Combine, aren't they? And I suppose the Combine acted like human beings during the Berlin War? I suppose the slave labor camps and the purges and the forced confessions were the products of ordinary human beings? No, Lieutenant. If the aliens have six arms and two heads, they couldn't be less inhuman than the Combine has been.
My father was in the Pacific in the Second World War, the lieutenant said tightly. There were times when we didn't take prisoners, and I remember my dad saying that some of the men went home with ear necklaces. Here, say, the captain said gruffly, and that was in a declared war. And then he wondered just how valid the distinction was. There were, he suppose, sadists on both sides. And then it came down to who committed the first cruelty, and just how should you rank them? Was intentional torture for the few any the worse than the dispassionate act of dropping a bomb that produced quite the same, if not worse, results for many? Just what would you do, Mr. McCandless? The lieutenant's face was flushed.
I'm not sure, sir, but I think I would look at it from a strategic viewpoint. There are two ships here. Both instruments of war. If the aliens attack the one and the other doesn't go to the rescue, then it would be obvious that we are a divided world. We would be attempting prize. And if we went to the aid of the Yusuf, then you think we might beat the alien ship off? McCandla shrugged. I don't know, sir. We might. The captain turned back to look at the now swelling sea. The air off the water was cool and brisk. and the deck of his ship moved comfortably under his feet, a solid thing in a liquid world. It doesn't make a great deal of difference what we think, Lieutenant, the captain said, a little of his good humor restored.
In the long run, we'll do whatever Washington says. There was a sudden flashing glow just over the horizon. McCandless blanched, and the captain clutched the rail, his knuckles turning white with the force of his grip. There was another flash. And the O.D. popped out of the hatch of the wheelhouse like a cork out of a bottle. Captain! The—the captain was already brushing past him, heading into the pilot house for the television screen and the picture that the drone plane was transmitting. The picture on the screen wavered and blurred with the shock of the action. From what he could see, the captain knew that whatever action he took, if any, he would have to take it within a relative few minutes.
The forward half of the superstructure of the Iosif was a smoking ruin, the metal a cherry red. Half the planes on the flight deck were charred and being frantically pushed overboard by small tractors so the remainder of the planes could be airborne. A mile overhead, in the glazing blue sky, the few planes the Iosif had managed to launch buzzed futilely around the alien ship, discharging rockets that scintillated and flamed off the dull gray sides, So far as the captain could tell, were causing no damage at all. Message for you, sir. He felt the clipboard being pushed into his hand, then glanced down. It was difficult to read without his glasses, but he could make it out. Unusual. Do nothing rash.
Your discretion. Some cautious pen pusher behind a desk, he thought chaotically. Somebody for whom Miles had lent safety and detachment. His discretion. It was his responsibility.
Commander Davis was at his elbow. The Eosif is starting to list, Captain. I can see that, he half snarled. He wouldn't feel pity if the Eosif went down, he thought fiercely. It would be good riddance, one less carrier that they'd have to worry about at some future date. If there was some future date, a nagging thought intruded. He throttled it. The Iosif stood for everything that he despised, a way of life that had made a mockery of everything he had been taught to believe in. The menace that had eaten at the world's vitals like a cancer. The menace whose existence had been enough to drive some men to hysteria and others to the brink of suicide. His own wife. Now a ship from outside was attacking that power, and what emotions should he feel?
Elation? Well, why not? What other emotions should he feel? Certainly not sadness, not regret, not pity. The Iosif would be sunk, and maybe the aliens would be tempted to do more than just attack the Iosif. They might attack the entire Combine as well. And if the Combine was beat, did it matter who did it? Except, the thought crept back. There was no reason for him to believe that the aliens would differentiate between the Iosif and the Oahu, between the Combine and the United States. The planes, McCandless said, incredulous. Look at the planes. The captain glanced down at the screen again. An orangish glow was suffusing the alien ship. A jet slipped in for a rocket shot. The glow pulsed, expanded.
Touched the jet, and the plane vanished into a rain of wreckage that sped towards the ocean below. God, Davis breathed. Did you see that? The captain only half heard him. So they were aliens. What did that mean? Beings of different background, different beliefs, different physical structure? He had been one of the first into Berlin after the massacre was over and the Combine had laid the blame on their Berlin Commandant, though it was painfully obvious that he had only followed out instructions. And the shambles he had seen there couldn't have been done by human beings. Four thousand soldiers and close to a hundred thousand civilians killed. Would you call the people who had been responsible for that human beings or aliens?
Which name fit best? The Berlin War. A dozen different outbreaks, starting with Korea so long ago. And then you were supposed to admit that they were blood brothers after all, and that in the face of a mutual threat you should forget your differences and pool your resources against a common enemy. There goes another one.
So in fifteen minutes the Iyosif would go down, and from him it would bring only cheers, not tears. But you didn't make decisions on a personal basis, he thought slowly. You had to look at it from the viewpoint of a thousand years. You had to develop a certain detachment, even though one man's lifetime was far too short a period to develop it in. Message for you, Captain. It was a voice message that had been picked up in CIC. It was brief and to the point.
Attention, Captain United States Vessel Oahu. Help urgently requested. If aid not granted immediately, all is lost. Konstantin Simonovitch, Captain, People's Warship, Iosif Chivashvili. He had a brief mental picture of a young man lying in the shambles of Berlin calling out the same words. And what had he received? He buried the thought. The Detached View-Point. Political systems evolved, he thought. They never remained the same. The French Revolution had spawned a thousand human monsters, and the blood had run in the streets. But out of it all had come a democratic nation. And a thousand years from now, what would the Combine be? A turn of the wheel, and perhaps it would be a peace-loving democracy, while the United States would be the abattoir of human hopes.
Who could tell? A thousand years from now, the present bloodbaths and tortures and mass deaths would be history. But if the aliens won, you ran the chance of there being no history at all. The wheelhouse was silent. The captain could feel a dozen pairs of eyes watching him. Waiting for his decision. Outside the ports, on the far horizon, there came a steady, golden pulsing. He looked up at McCandless and Davis. McCandless was young, too inexperienced to realize that situations where today's enemies are tomorrow's friends are the order of the day and not the exception. You adjusted to it, or you became bitter. Davis, the gutless bastard, had adjusted to it. He was probably all ready to make the switch, to go back to drinking toasts and vodka.
The Detached Viewpoint.
Send up the jets, the captain said slowly, and send a message to the captain of the Eosif, telling him we will render all the assistance that we can. The wheelhouse broke into a flurry of activity, and a moment later he could hear the sounds of the jets taking off the flight deck. He walked out onto the bridge deck and leaned on the railing, staring at the horizon where the alien ship and the Eosif were fighting it out, and where planes from the Oahu would shortly be helping the Eosif.
But I still hate them, he thought. I hate their God-damned souls.
Decision by Frank M. Robinson
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6 06 - The Diamond Maker 25:22
The Diamond Maker by H.J. Wells. This is a LibriVox recording. The whole LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information on the volunteer, go to LibriVox.org. Breeder. Baba. The Diamond Maker.
Some business had detained me in Chancery Lane, nine in the evening, and thereafter, having some inkling of a headache, I was disinclined either for entertainment or further work.
So much of the sky as the high cliffs of that narrow cannon of traffic left visible spoke of a serene night, and I determined to make my way down to the embankment. And rest my eyes and cool my head by watching the variegated lights upon the river. Beyond comparison, the night is the best time for this place. A merciful darkness hides the dirt of the waters on the lights of this transitional age. Red, glaring orange, gas, yellow, and electric white. are set in shadowy outlines of every possible shade between grey and deep purple. Through the arches of Waterloo Bridge, a hundred points of light mark the sweep of the embankment, and above its parapet rise the towers of Westminster, warm grey against the starlight.
The Black River goes by with only a rare ripple breaking its silence. and disturbing the reflections of the lights that swim upon its surface.
A warm night, said a voice at my side. I turned my head, and saw the profile of a man who was leaning over the parapet beside me.
It was a refined face, not unhandsome, though pinched and pale enough. And the coat collar turned up and pinned round the throat, marked his status in life as sharply as a uniform. I felt I was committed to the price of a bed and breakfast if I answered him.
I looked at him curiously. Would he have anything to tell me with the money, or was he the common incapable, incapable even of telling his own story?
There was a quality of intelligence in his forehead and eyes, and a certain tremulousness in his nether lip that decided me. "'Very warm,' said I, "'but not too warm for us here.' "'No,' he said, still looking across the water. "'It is pleasant enough here.' Just now.
It is good," he continued after a pause, to find anything so restful as this in London.
After one has been fretting about business all day, about getting on, meeting obligations, and parrying dangers, I do not know what one would do if it were not for such pacific corners. He spoke with long pauses between the sentences. You must know a little of the irksome labor of the world, or you would not be here.
But I doubt if you can be so brain-weary and foot-sore as I am.
Sometimes I doubt if the game is worth the candle. I feel inclined to throw the whole thing over, name, wealth, and position, and take to some modest trade. But I know if I abandoned my ambition, hardly as she uses me, I should have nothing but remorse left for the rest of my days.
He became silent. I looked at him in astonishment. If ever I saw a man hopelessly hard up, it was the man in front of me. He was ragged, and he was dirty, unshaven and unkent. He looked as though he had been left in a dustbin for a week, and he was talking to me of the irksome worries of a large business. I almost laughed outright. Either he was mad or playing a sorry jest on his own poverty.
If high aims and high positions, said I, have their drawbacks of hard work and anxiety, they have their compensations, influence, the power of doing good, of assisting those weaker and poorer than ourselves, and there is even a certain gratification in display.
My banter under the circumstances was in very vile taste. I spoke on the spur of the contrast of his appearance and speech. I was sorry even while I was speaking. He turned a haggard but very composed face upon me. Said he, I forgot myself. Of course you would not understand. He measured me for a moment.
No doubt it is very absurd. You will not believe me even when I tell you, so that it is fairly safe to tell you.
And it will be a comfort to tell someone, I really have a big business in hand, a very big business. But there are troubles just now. The fact is, I make diamonds.
I suppose, said I, you are out of work just at present.
"'I am sick of being disbelieved,' he said impatiently. And suddenly, unbuttoning his wretched coat, he pulled out a little canvas bag that was hanging by a cord round his neck. From this he produced a brown pebble. "'I wonder if you know enough to know what that is.' He handed it to me. Now, a year or so ago I had occupied my leisure in taking a London Science degree, so that I have a smattering of physics and mineralogy. The thing was not unlike an uncut diamond of the darker sort, though far too large, being almost as big as the top of my thumb. I took it, and saw it had the form of a regular octahedron. The curved faces, peculiar to the most precious of minerals. I took out my penknife and tried to scratch it, vainly.
Leaning forward towards the gas lamp, I tried the thing on my watch glass, and scored a white line across that with the greatest ease.
I looked at my interlocutor with rising curiosity. It certainly is rather like a diamond, but if so, it is a behemoth of diamonds. Where did you get it?
I tell you I made it, he said. Give it back to me.
He replaced it hastily and buttoned his jacket. I will sell it you for one hundred.
He suddenly whispered eagerly.
With that my suspicions returned. The thing might, after all, be merely a lump of that almost equally hard substance, corundum, with an accidental resemblance in shape to the diamond. Or, if it was a diamond, how came he by it? And why should he offer it at a hundred pounds? We looked into one another's eyes. He seemed eager, but honestly eager. At that moment I believed it was a diamond he was trying to sell. Yet I am a poor man. A hundred pounds would leave a visible gap in my fortunes. And no sane man would buy a diamond by gaslight. From a ragged tramp on his personal warranty only. Still, a diamond that size conjured up a vision of many thousands of pounds. Then, thought I, such a stone could scarcely exist without being mentioned in every book on gems.
And again I call to mind the stories of contraband and light-fingered kaffirs of the Cape. I put the question of purchase on one side. How did you get it? said I. I made it. I had heard something of Moisson, but I knew his artificial diamonds were very small. I shook my head. You seem to know something of this kind of thing.
I will tell you a little about myself. Perhaps then you will think better of the purchase. He turned round with his back to the river and put his hands in his pockets. He sighed. I know you will not believe me. Diamonds, he began. And as he spoke, his voice lost its faint flavor of the tramp and assumed something of the easy tone of an educated man. Are to be made by throwing carbon out of combination in a suitable flux and under a suitable pressure. The carbon crystallizes out, not as black lead or charcoal powder, but as small diamonds. So much has been known to chemists for years. But no one yet had hit upon exactly the right flux in which to melt up the carbon, or exactly the right pressure for the best results.
Consequently, the diamonds made by chemists are small and dark and worthless as jewels. Now I, you know, have given up my life to this problem. Given my life to it. I began to work at the conditions of diamond making when I was seventeen, and now I am thirty-two. It seemed to me that it might take all the thought and energies of a man for ten years or twenty years, but even if it did, the game was still worth the candle.
Suppose one to have at last just hit the right trick before the secret got out and diamonds became as common as coal. One might realize millions, millions.
He paused and looked for my sympathy. His eyes shone hungrily. To think, said he, that I am on the verge of it all, and here— I had, he proceeded. About a thousand pounds when I was twenty-one, and this, I thought, eked out by a little teaching, would keep my researches going. A year or two was spent in study at Berlin, chiefly, and then I continued on my own account. The trouble was the secrecy. You see, if once I had let out what I was doing, Other men might have been spurred on by my belief in the practicability of the idea, and I do not pretend to be such a genius as to have been sure of coming in first, in the case of a race for the discovery. And you see, it was important that if I really meant to make a pile, people should not know it was an artificial process incapable of turning out diamonds by the ton.
So I had to work all alone.
At first I had a little laboratory, but as my resources began to run out I had to conduct my experiments in a wretched, unfurnished room in Kentish Town, where I slept at last on a straw mattress on the floor among all my apparatus. The money simply flowed away. I grudged myself everything. Except scientific appliances. I tried to keep things going by a little teaching. But I am not a very good teacher, and I have no university degree, nor very much education except in chemistry. And I found I had to give a lot of time and labor for precious little money. But I got nearer and nearer the thing. Three years ago I settled the problem of the composition of the flux, and got near the pressure by putting this flux of mine and a certain carbon composition into a closed-up gun barrel, filling up with water, sealing tightly, and heating.
He paused.
Rather risky, said I. Yes, it burst. And smashed all of my windows and a lot of my apparatus. But I got a kind of diamond powder nonetheless. Following out the problem of getting a big pressure upon the molten mixture from which the things were to crystallize, I hit upon some researches of Dobré at the Paris Laboratoire de Poudre et Salpêtres. He exploded dynamite in a tightly screwed steel cylinder, too strong to burst, and I found he could crush rocks into a muck, not unlike the South African bed in which diamonds are found. It was a tremendous strain on my resources that I got a steel cylinder made for my purpose after his pattern. I put in all my stuff and my explosives, built up a fire in my furnace, put the whole concern in, and went out for a walk.
I could not help laughing at his matter-of-fact manner. Did you not think it would blow up the house? Where were the other people in the place? It was in the interest of science. He said. Ultimately, there was a Costa Munger family on the floor below, a beggar-letter-writer in the room behind mine, and two flower-women were upstairs. Perhaps it was a bit thoughtless, but possibly some of them were out. When I came back, the thing was just where I left it, among the white-hot coals. The explosive hadn't burst the case.
And then I had a problem to face. You know how time is an important element in crystallization. If you hurry the process, the crystals are small. It is only by prolonged standing that they grow to any size.
I resolved to let this apparatus cool for two years. Letting the temperature go down slowly during the time.
And I was now quite out of money and with a big fire and the rent of my room, as well as my hunger to satisfy.
I had scarcely a penny in the world. I can hardly tell you all the shifts I was put to while I was making diamonds. I have sold newspapers, held horses, opened cab doors. For many weeks I addressed envelopes. I had a place as assistant to a man who owned a barrow, and used to call down one side of the road while he called down the other.
Once for a week I had absolutely nothing to do, and I begged. What a week that was.
One day the fire was going out, and I had eaten nothing all day, and a little chap taking his girl out gave me sixpence to show off. Thank heaven for vanity. How the fish shops smelt.
But I went and spent it all on coals and had the furnace bright red again. And then, well, hunger makes a fool of a man.
At last, three weeks ago, I let the fire out. I took my cylinder and unscrewed it while it was still so hot that it punished my hands, and I scraped out the crumbling lava-like mass with a chisel and hammered it into a powder upon an iron plate. And I found three big diamonds, and five small ones. As I sat on the floor hammering, my door opened, and my neighbor, the begging letter writer, came in. He was drunk, as he usually is. "'Nergist,' said he. "'You're drunk,' said I. "'Structive scoundrel,' said he. "'Go to your father.' Said I, meaning the father of lies. Never you mind, said he, and gave me a cunning wink and hiccoughed, and leaning up against the door, with his other eye against the doorpost, began to babble of how he had been crying in my room, and how he had gone to the police that morning, and how they had taken down everything he had to say.
"'Sif I was a gentleman,' said he. Then I suddenly realized I was in a hole. Either I should have to tell these police my little secret and get the whole thing blown upon, or be liked as an anarchist. So I went up to my neighbor and took him by the collar and rolled him about a bit, and then I gathered up my diamonds and cleared out. The evening newspapers called my den the Kentish Town Bomb Factory, and now I cannot part with the things for love or money.
If I go into a respectable jewellers, they ask me to wait, and go and whisper to a clerk to fetch a policeman, and then I say I cannot wait.
And I found a receiver of stolen goods, and he simply stuck to the one I gave him and told me to prosecute if I wanted it back.
I am going about now with several hundred thousand pounds worth of diamonds round my neck, and without either food or shelter. You are the first person I have taken into my confidence. But I like your face. And I am hard driven.
He looked into my eyes.
It would be madness, said I, for me to buy a diamond under the circumstances. Besides, I do not carry hundreds of pounds about in my pocket.
Yet I more than half believe your story. I will, if you like, do this. Come to my office tomorrow. You think I am a thief, said he keenly. You will tell the police. I am not coming into a trap. Somehow I am assured you are no thief. Here is my card. Take that anyhow. You need not come to any appointment. Come when you will. He took the card and an earnest of my goodwill. Think better of it and come, said I.
He shook his head doubtfully.
I will pay back your half-crown with interest some day. Such interest as will amaze you, said he.
Anyhow, you will keep... The secret? Don't follow me.
He crossed the road and went into the darkness towards the little steps under the archway leading into Essex Street, and I let him go, and that was the last I ever saw of him.
Afterwards, I had two letters from him asking me to send banknotes, not cheques.
I weighed the matter over and took what I conceived to be the wisest choice. Once he called upon me when I was out, my urchin described him as a very thin, dirty and ragged man, with a dreadful cough.
He left no message. That was the finish of him, so far as my story goes.
I wonder sometimes what has become of him.
Was he an ingenious monomaniac, or a fraudulent dealer in pebbles? Or has he really made diamonds, as he asserted? The latter is just sufficiently credible to make me think at times that I may have missed the most brilliant opportunity of my life.
He may, of course, be dead and his diamonds carelessly thrown aside. One, I repeat, was almost as big as my thumb. Or he may still be wandering about, trying to sell the things. It is just possible he may yet emerge upon society and, passing athwart my heavens in the serene altitude sacred to the wealthy and the well-advertised, reproach me silently for my want of enterprise. I sometimes think I might at least have risked five pounds.
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7 07 - The Eyes Have It 7:39
The Eyes Have It by Philip K. Dick. The Eyes Have It. Philip K. Dick It was quite by accident I discovered this incredible invasion of Earth by lifeforms from another planet. As yet, I haven't done anything about it. I can't think of anything to do. I wrote to the government and they sent back a pamphlet on the repair and maintenance of frame houses. Anyhow, the whole thing is known. I'm not the first to discover it. Maybe it's even under control. I was sitting in my easy chair, idly turning the pages of a paperback book someone had left on the bus, when I came across the reference that first put me on the trail. For a moment I didn't respond. It took some time for the full import to sink in.
After I'd comprehended, it seemed odd I hadn't noticed it right away. The reference was clearly to a non-human species of incredible properties, not indignant to Earth. The species I hastened to point out, customarily masquerading as ordinary human beings. Their disguise, however, Became transparent in the face of the following observations by the author. It was at once obvious the author knew everything. Knew everything, and was taking it in his stride. The line, and I tremble remembering it even now, read, His eyes slowly robed about the room. Vake chills assailed me. I tried the picture of the eyes. Did they roll like dimes? The passage indicated not. They seemed to move through the air, not over the surface.
Rather rapidly, apparently. No one in the story was surprised. That's what tipped me off. No sign of amazement at such an outrageous thing. Later the matter was amplified. His eyes moved from person to person. There it was in a nutshell. The eyes had clearly come apart from the rest of him, and were on their own. My heart pounded, and my breath choked in my windpipe. I had stumbled on an accidental mention of a totally unfamiliar race, obviously non-terrestrial. Yet to the characters in the book, it was perfectly natural, which suggested that they belonged to the same species. And the author? A slow suspicion burned in my mind. The author was taking it rather too easily in a stride. Evidently, he felt this was quite a usual thing.
He made absolutely no attempt to conceal his knowledge. The story continued. Presently, his eyes fastened on Yulia. Yulia, being a lady, had at least the breeding to feel indignant. She is described as blushing and knitting her brows angrily. At this, I sighed with relief. They weren't all non-terrestrials. The narrative continues. Slowly, calmly, his eyes examined every inch of her. Great Scott! But here the girl turned and stomped off, and the matter ended. I lay back in my chair, gasping with horror. My wife and family regarded me in wonder. What's wrong, dear? My wife asked. I couldn't tell her. Knowledge like this was too much for the ordinary, run-of-the-mill person. I had to keep it to myself.
Nothing, I gasped. I leaped up, snatched the book, and hurried out of the room. In the garage, I continued reading. There was more. Trembling, I read the next revealing passage. He put his arm around Julia. Presently, she asked him if he would remove his arm. He immediately did so, with a smile. It's not said what was done with the arm after the fellow had removed it. Maybe it was left standing upright in the corner. Maybe it was thrown away. I don't care. In any case, the full meaning was there, staring me right in the face. Here was a race of creatures, capable of removing portions of their anatomy at will. Eyes, arms, and maybe more, without betting an eyelash. My knowledge of biology came in handy at this point.
Obviously, they were simple beings. Unicellier. Some sort of primitive single-celled things being no more developed than Starfish. Starfish can do the same thing, you know. I read on, and came to this incredible revelation, tossed off coolly by the author, without the faintest tremor. Outside the movie theater, we split up. Part of us went inside. Part over to the cafe for dinner. Binary fission, obviously. Splitting in half and forming two entities. Probably each lower half went to the cafe, it being farther, and the upper halves through the movies. I read on, hands shaking. I hadn't really stumbled onto something here. My mind reeled as I made out this passage. I'm afraid there's no doubt about it.
Poor Bipni has lost his head again. Which was followed by, and Bob says he has utterly no guts. Yet, Bipney got around as well as the next person. The next person, however, was just as strange. He was soon described as totally lacking in brains. There was no doubt of the thing in the next passage. Julia, whom I had thought to be the one normal person, reveals herself as also being an alien life form similar to the rest. Quite deliberately, Julia had given her heart to the young man. It didn't relate what the final disposition of the organ was, but I didn't really care. It was evident Yulia had gone right on living in her usual manner, like all the others in the book, without heart, arms, eyes, brains, viscera, dividing up in two when the occasion demanded, without a qual.
Thereupon she gave him her hand. I sickened. The rascal now had her hand, as well as her heart. I shudder to think what he's done with them. By this time, he took her arm. Not content to wait, he had to start dismantling her on his own. Flush and crimson, I slant the book shut and leaped to my feet. But not in time to escape one last reference to those carefree bits of anatomy whose travels had originally thrown me on the track. Her eyes followed him all the way down the road and across the meadow. I rushed from the garage and back inside the warm house. As if the accursed things were following me. My wife and children were playing Monopoly in the kitchen. I joined them and played with frantic fervor, brow feverish, teeth chattering.
I had enough of the thing. I want to hear no more about it. Let them come on. Let them invade Earth. I don't want to get mixed up in it. I have absolutely no stomach for it. End of the Ice Heaven by Philip K. Dick
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8 08 - George Loves Gistla 30:32
George Loves Kiesla by James McKimmy, Jr.
George Loves Kiesla by James McKimmy, Jr.
George Kennington was sixteen, and, as he told himself, Someone who was sixteen knew more about love than someone who was, say, forty-two. Like his father, for instance. A whole lot more, probably. When you were forty-two, you got narrow-minded and nervous and angry. You said this is this, and that is that, and there is nothing else. When someone thought and felt and talked that way, George thought bitterly, there was not enough room inside that person to know what it was like, loving a Venusian. But George knew. He knew very well.
Her name was Gisela. She was not pretty in standards of American colonists. She had the pale, greenish, Venusian skin, and she was too short and rather thick. Her face, of course, was not an American face. It was the face of native Venus, round and smooth with the large lidless eyes. There were no visible ears, and a lack of hair strengthened the globular look of her head. But she was a person. The beauty was inside of her. Did you have to point to a girl's face and say, here is where the nose should be, here is where the ears should be? Did you have to measure the width between eyes and test the color of the skin? Did you have to check the size of the teeth and the existence of hair? Was all of this necessary to understand what was inside someone?
George snapped a leaf from an overhanging vine and threw it angrily to the ground. He was walking along a thin path that led from the colony to the tangled hills beyond, where hues of red and yellow and purple reflected like bold sweeps of water-color. In a moment, he would see Gisela, and with the color before his eyes, and the sweet perfume of the flowers in his lungs, he felt again the familiar rise of excitement.
George had not always lived on Venus. The colony was very new. By twenty twenty-two, Most of the Earth countries had sent colonizers to Mars. But as yet, in June of that year, Venus had been touched by only the sparsest invasion of American civilization. George had arrived just three years ago, when his father had been appointed secretary of the colonizing unit. And that was the whole trouble, really. Father was the secretary. Mother was the secretary's wife. Sister was the daughter of the secretary. Everybody was wrapped up in it, except George. George loved Gisela.
Why don't you find yourself some nice little American girl, his father had said. Say, like Henry Farrell's little daughter. Henry Farrell's little daughter was a sweet, sickening girl with a nasty temper and a nasty tongue. Her father was the governor of the colony. She told you about it all the time. Or, his father had told him, why not little What's-Her-Name, Doug Brentwood's daughter? Little What's-Her-Name's father was the president of the council. My father is president of the council, she said. Over and over, as though in a settlement the size of the colony, there would be anyone who didn't know her father was the president of the council.
It was all a very tight and careful circle, chosen on earth with a great deal of common sense. There were the ordinary settlers, of course. They had daughters. Some of them were very pretty and long-limbed. And George had thought about that. Certainly there wasn't a decent-looking girl in the whole governing circle, and the sight of a girl with flashing eyes and a nice red mouth, who was shaped a little like something besides a tree stump, was indeed an exciting sight. But there were limitations to the settler girls.
They had no background to speak of, and though that didn't make any difference, George assured himself, they knew nothing about art, music, poetry, or anything really worthwhile. And, too, while George's father had said, Now, George, we're all one here, each of us is as good as another. Joe Finch, who cares for the flowers outside, is every bit as good a man as I am. Still George knew, if he told his parents he was going to marry Joe Finch's daughter some day, there would be hell to pay.
So as long as the restrictions had been bound around him, there was no reason to go just halfway. George was not an ordinary boy. He did things in extreme. He was now in love with a Venusian girl, and his family was already starting to make him pay.
George turned off the path, just beyond an arch of thick purple-green vines that always reminded him of a gate to a garden. There was a quiet simplicity to this small clearing where he and Gisela met. There was an aloneness to it, and only the sound of the flat, shiny leaves sliding together. And the high, trilling sound of the small Venusian birds broke the peaceful silence. They had always met here, nowhere else. Now, as George found himself in the clearing, he began to wonder what Gisela would say or do when he told her he was taking her home to meet his family. It had been a sudden decision, brought out of anger and indignation. George sat down upon the flat hollow of a large vine. The sky was murky as usual.
But the soft warm feel and the smell of the growth around him, with its color and brightness, made up for a sunless sky. As he waited, he remembered what his mother had said. Oh, George, you're really not serious about bringing a Venusian into our home. And his sister, Mari, had said, My God. Mari, who was eighteen, said this to most anything. But his father, eyes bright and alert, had said, No, now if George wants to bring one of these, uh, Venusians home with him, that's his privilege. I think it would be very interesting. George knew what his father meant by interesting. Exposing Geisela to his family would result in deliberate sarcasm and eye-squeezing and barely-hidden smiles. There would be pointed remarks and direct insults.
And when it was over, George knew, he would be expected to see the error of his ways. He would then be expected to forget about this odd creature and find himself a nice, ignorant little colony girl, whose father was a member of the Governing Circle. And to hell with that, too, George said. What? George heard Geistler say. He turned quickly. She was standing at the edge of the clearing, her round green eyes looking soft and serious. She wore the usual gray cape that reached her ankles. Her voice was a deep, round sound, and there was hardly any accent in the words she had learned so quickly since the Galmi had begun. "'Talking to myself,' George grinned. The old excitement was inside of him. There was a kind of exotic quality in meeting Gisela that never disappeared.
She crossed the clearing, not too gracefully, and touched her fingers against his hand. This had been the extent of their physical expression of love. It's nice to see you, George. He noticed his feeling of pleasure when he heard her speak his name. There was something about his own name being spoken by Gisela that had always seemed even more strange than anything else.
She sat down beside him, and they looked at each other while the leaves whispered around them and the birds fluttered and chirped. He discovered again the feeling of rightness, sitting beside Gisela. There was a solidity about her. A quiet maturity that he seemed able to feel in himself only when he was with her. And that, too, was strange, because in American terms of age, she was much younger than he.
Sitting, as they were doing, silent, watching each other, had been most of their activity. He did not need to entertain Gisela with foolish small talk or exaggerated praising. But right now he wanted to tell her quickly, to make sure that she would feel the enthusiasm he had felt. Listen, Gisela. He said, while she watched him with her soft-looking round eyes. I want you to come with me today to meet my family. His words seemed to have an odd ring to them, and George waited tensely until he was sure that she was not shocked or angry about what he had just said.
She sat silently for a moment, and then she said, Do you think that is right for me to do, George? Sure it is. Why not? They know about you and me. They know we're in love. Love. She spoke the word as though it were an indefinite, elusive thing that you could not offer as reason for doing anything.
Kiesel was very wise, George realized, but this was a time for enthusiasm, a time to strengthen their own relationship in this world. Say you will, George said. Do you want me to? Well, sure I do. What did you think?
She held her hands in her lap quietly. They were not unlike his own, George observed, except for the extreme smallness and the color.
"'I do not think it will be nice for you or them,' she said. "'Ah, listen, Gisela, don't talk that way. It'll be fine.' But he knew that he was not deceiving her with the lightness he tried to put in his voice. Then, although she had never done it before, she reached out and touched his cheek. George had grown used to the emotions that reflected on her face. And he knew she was suddenly very sad. Yes, George, she said. I will go with you to meet your family. And she said it as though she were telling him goodbye.
It was no better than he had expected. It was worse. Much worse. And he was growing angrier by the moment. They were all seated in the rock-wild patio behind the large white house. Gisela sat beside him. Looking very small and frightened and very different. And it was that obvious difference that George had hoped everyone might ignore. But instead, each of them, his father, his mother, his sister, appeared to be trying to make it even more obvious. The first strain, when everyone had sat there staring at Gisela as though she were something behind a cage, had passed. But now his parents and sister were moving in a new direction. They had relaxed, having found control of the situation, and they were cutting her to pieces.
Tell me, his sister was saying, her eyes dancing slyly, don't you people have some very strange tricks you can do?
George tightened his fingers against his palms. He heard Gisela answer, tricks? Yes, his sister's white smile shined. You know, like making things disappear, things like that.
My father, Gisela said seriously, can do very wonderful things. He is a musician.
George's father leaned forward, blinking amusedly. Really? What does he play? Play? asked Gisela. Yes. He's a musician. He must play something, some kind of instrument. Gisela looked at George, but George did not know what to say. He wished he had never tried to do this. He wished he had just ignored his family and gone on loving Gisela in the privacy of his own emotions.
Well now, Mr. Kennington was saying rather impatiently, does he play something like our violin or clarinet or oboe or what? His father, George had noticed, was becoming impatient more frequently since he had become secretary. The secretarial post was very important. "'He does not play anything,' Gisela said carefully. "'He just makes the music and I hear it.'" "'But how?' Mr. Kennington insisted. "'What does he play the music on? He certainly can't make the music without using something to make it on.'" Gisela glanced again at George, and he said quickly, "'It's pretty hard to understand, Father. I don't think—' "'No. Now don't interrupt just now, son.'" This is very interesting. We'd like to know what she's talking about.
Mrs. Kennington spoke for the first time. Are you just making this up?
It was like a whip coming through the air. His mother sat there, blinking, the suspicion and distrust she felt for this creature showing in her eyes and upon her mouth, and even in the way she was sitting. Now, Lois, Mr. Kennington said, as though he really sympathized with what she had said, Believing that not only Gisela was making it up, but that all of her race made everything up. But he was stubborn. Come now, tell us. Tell us what you mean. Gisela's smooth head turned this way and that. Sometimes, she said slowly, my father journeys to other places, and if he cannot return soon, he sends me music. When the light has gone from the day and I am alone, I hear it. You mean he sends it by wires or by radio?
Mr. Kennington asked with surprise. No.
Now wait a minute, George's sister leaned forward, smiling. You just hear this music, is that right, up here? She tapped her forehead. Yes, said Gisela. My God, George's sister said. She looked at her parents, arching her eyebrows. You shouldn't make things up. George's mother said. Mother, George said, his face coloring. She's not making things up. Just a moment, son, Mr. Kennington said crisply. You don't want to talk to your mother in that tone. No, but my God, George's sister went on. Imagine, no wires, no loudspeakers, just...up here. She tapped her forehead again.
I'm not talking to my mother in any tone at all, George said. Disregarding his sister. While she shouldn't lie, said Mrs. Kennington with conviction, George stood up. She is not lying, mother. I forbid you to argue with your mother that way, George, said Mr. Kennington. I mean, my God, said George's sister happily. This is an innovation. Can you imagine? Gistla, or whatever your name is, could your father make his music sometime when we have a dance? Gisela's eyes were hurt, and she was, George knew, confused. She shook her head. Mrs. Kennington was blinking accusingly. Do they teach you to make these things up? Is that what they teach you at home? Mother, will you please? George said. Why must you talk to her that way?
Mr. Kennington stood up quickly. I did not raise my son to show an attitude like that to his mother. But she isn't making this up, George said. You asked her to tell you, and she— George's sister had jumped out of her chair, and she was waltzing over the patio. She began humming as she danced. Can't you just see it? Everyone dancing around, listening to music in their heads? No orchestra or records or anything?
Mr. Kennington stood very tall. Are you taking the word of your mother or this—this— He motioned curtly at Gisela. George licked his lips, looking defensively at each one of his family. It isn't a matter of taking anyone's word at all. It's just something we don't understand. George's sister whirled, and then suddenly she stopped, putting her hand against her mouth. My God, what if everyone got the music different? I mean, does everyone hear the same music, dear? Because if they didn't, what a mess. She began dancing again. Her skirt swirling over the bricks of the patio. Mr. Kennington's voice was louder. I think we understand all right, George. There isn't anything about this we don't understand.
George's lips were paling. His sister dipped and turned. We could call it a music-in-the-head dance. Everyone brings his own head. She laughed merrily. My God.
George noticed then that Gisela was disappearing out of the rear gate. He stood, clenching his fists and staring at his family. His sister had stopped dancing, but she was still laughing. "'I didn't think, George,' his mother said resolutely, "'that he were going to invite someone who lied.'" George turned and ran after Gisela.
They sat again in the clearing. George could still feel the anger churning inside him, and he held his hands together so tightly that his fingers began to ache. "'I hate them for that,' he said. Kiesla touched his arm. "'No, George, it is all right. It is the way things are.' "'But they don't need to be. My family did that on purpose.' "'They just don't understand. My race is very different from yours, and it seems strange.' "'So does mine,' George said, standing and beginning to pace back and forth. It had been what he really had expected. But still he had hoped, somehow, that his family might have understood. He looked at Gisela, sitting quietly, her large eyes watching him. He knew he loved her very much just then, more, in fact, than he ever had before, because she had been refused by his family.
Listen, Gisela, he said, kneeling on the grass in front of her. It won't make any difference what anyone thinks or does or says. I love you, and I'll go on loving you. We'll build our own life the way we want it. She shook her head slowly. No, George. It does make a difference. You cannot forget your family or your people. That is important to you. I would only hurt you. Do you love me? Yes.
Then that's all that's important to me, not what anyone thinks, not what my sister thinks, or my father, or my mother. We are different, you and I. She sat unmoving, her smooth face unchanging. My people seem strange to yours because we can do things your people do not understand. We seem strange because we look differently. We act differently. We value things differently. My values are the same as yours, George pleaded. I love you because of what you are, not because of some kind of stupid chart for physical beauty, not because... George, she said, look at me. George met her eyes suddenly, caught by the urgency in her voice. And slowly, in front of his eyes, she changed. Her features shifted, until George saw a beautiful young girl with pink-white skin and red lips.
He saw shining blue eyes and shimmering golden hair that fell over her shoulders. Gisela's body had changed to a lithe, smooth figure that revealed its contours beneath the gray cape. He caught his breath and wiped a hand at his eyes.
What you see, said Gisela softly, is an illusion. You see what would be, in your values, a beautiful girl.
George opened his mouth, but was unable to find his voice. Do not be afraid, George. Beneath the illusion of your senses, I am still Gisela. I am still a Venusian. George reached out, and touched his fingers against a white arm and a white shoulder bared by the cape. He touched the golden hair. Gisela! He said, amazed. You're beautiful. Yes, she said sadly. But you really are. Your hair and your eyes and your mouth. How did you do it? She shook her head to show its unimportance. It is something like your hypnotism.
George raised himself from his knees and sat beside her. But I can't believe it. You can see. You can feel. Yes, George said. Yes. You are happy with me this way, aren't you, George? But you're so beautiful. The golden-haired girl nodded her head, and the shining blue eyes watched him carefully. You see then, Gisela said, it does make a difference. You love me more this way. No, George said, touching her hair again. I don't love you more, but if you can do this, why then we'll have no more worries, don't you see? I think so, Gisela said, looking away.
George's voice was excited, and his eyes darted over her face and body. Would other people see you as I do? If I wished, yes. Then you see? It's all changed. You are what I see. Golden-haired and pale-skinned. I am still Gisela. You would always know that. Would you love something that is not real, just because you see it with your eyes? But I can feel that you're real, George said, putting his hands on her shoulders. He pulled her closer and kissed her hair. You're Gisela, he said. And you're beautiful. He tipped her face up to his and bent to kiss her mouth. His lips touched smooth green skin, and he looked into Gisela's large, round, lidless eyes. He recoiled as though he had been touched by fire.
She watched him as he wiped a trembling hand across his chest. And her globular head glistened in the reflection of the late sun.
She nodded. When you see what I really am, the difference is important. She gathered her cloak around her and stood up. George felt the flush of his face, and he could not meet her eyes. He heard her walk a few steps away. Goodbye, George, she said. He jumped up quickly. That wasn't fair. No, she said slowly. But it proved the value of things. It wasn't fair, George repeated, and it didn't prove anything. I think it did, she said, moving away.
No, listen, Gisela, he said. You can't judge anything by what I did or said. We are different in a physical sense, but that doesn't really matter. If a golden-haired girl materializes in front of my eyes, you can't blame me for what my emotions did. He followed her and caught her arm. She turned to face him.
The embarrassment was still inside him, but the way she denied him it made him want her more than ever. He held to her arm, and then he said, Ghislah, could you change me? I mean, so that other people, even I, would see me as they see you, as a Venusian? She stood very still, staring at him. Could you? He asked. Yes. Then do it, Ghislah. I'll prove to you that nothing is important but you and me. I'll be a Venusian like you are. I'll go back to my family as a Venusian, and I'll take you with me. I'll prove that neither they nor anybody else makes any difference in how I love you." Gisela watched him solemnly. Finally, she said, would you really do that? Yes, he said quickly. Yes. I love you, George, she said in her deep round voice.
He lifted his hands to touch her face, and he found that his skin had turned to pale green. He touched his own face, and he knew that if he looked into a mirror, he would see a round, smooth head with large, lidless eyes. Is that what you wanted? she asked. Yes, he said stubbornly. That's what I wanted. He stood there for a long time, trying to become used to it, fighting the fear that ran through him every time he looked at his hands or touched his head. Finally, he said, quietly, Let's go meet my family.
As they drew near the house, he knew his family was still in the patio. He could hear the voices of his mother and father, and the high, piercing laughter of his sister. And my God, he heard his sister say, did you see the way those horrible eyes looked at you? Whatever gets into George? Dear, dear, dear, he heard his mother say. Gisela was looking at him. You do not have to do this. Yes, he said, feeling his heart jump. I do. He took her hand, and they walked to the gate of the patio. He stood there, feeling Geisla's hand tighten about his own. And as he said, hello everybody, he felt his breath shorten as though he had suddenly gotten stage fright. He saw his father turn around. What's this?
Mr. Kennington said, frowning. Hello, father, George said. Father, Mr. Kennington repeated. What are you doing in this patio? I brought Gisela back. So I see, said Mr. Kennington, his eyes narrow as he looked at Gisela. Where's George? I'm George. I'm not in the mood for joking with minutians, his father snapped. What made you think you could come in here like this? Gisela's hand tightened again. Try to understand, George said. Gisela? What's going on? His sister interrupted. "'Gisla, or whatever her name is,' Mr. Kennington said, "'has brought a friend of hers, another Venusian.' He said the word Venusian as though it were a curse or a filthy word. "'My God,' said his sister, squinting at them.
Mrs. Kennington leaned over in her chair, peering. "'Tell them not to come into the patio, Harry,' she said to her husband. Listen, father, George said, feeling the panic begin. Gisela has changed my appearance, so that I seem to look like a Venusian. I came here to tell you that it doesn't make any difference what I look like, whether I look like a Venusian or a leaf on a vine or anything else. I still love her, and it doesn't make any difference. He heard his voice rising and becoming louder. My God, said his sister, giggling, more black magic. Can you make music? She asked George. Harry, his mother said, they frighten me. Can't you make them keep off the patio? Mother, George began. Now see here, Mr.
Kennington growled. You know we don't allow Venusians around here. I'd advise you to get out of here, quick.
Why does he keep calling you father and mother? His sister asked. Isn't that queer, how he keeps doing that? Make some music, she said to George. George could see the hatred in his father's eyes, and in his mother's. And behind his sister's sarcastic smile, he could see the hatred there, too. He felt himself getting more tense, and the panic raced through him. Listen, he shouted. I'm George, don't you understand? George.
I don't want to tell you again, his father said, his face very red. I don't know what your little game is, but it isn't coming off, and so I'll tell you just this one time. You get the hell off this property or I'll— Listen, George yelled. I'm George. Don't you understand? His father's lips thinned to a white line, and he began shouting for Joe Finch, the gardener.
George knew what he should have done then. He should have taken Gisela and gone. He should have walked with her, hand in hand, down the road and away from there. But instead, the panic made his heart pound, and he saw the hatred all around him. He couldn't help it when he shouted to her, Gisela! For God's sake, change me back, right now. Gisela!
He stood there, breathing hard, his muscles knotted like steel, while she stared at him, looking into his eyes. Suddenly, he heard his father gasp and say, George. He looked at his hands, and they were white, and he felt of his face, and it was his own. He saw his sister's hand against her mouth. And his father stared at him with unbelieving eyes. His mother had gotten up and was coming over to him, her eyes blinking. "'George,' she said. "'What did they do to you?' She patted his shoulder, her hands fluttering like bird wings. He turned back to Gisela and she was gone. Beyond the gate now, he knew, and walking slowly, alone, down the road. Only this time he would not go after her. He couldn't.
And as he stood there— Feeling his mother's hand patting his shoulder, hearing his sister say, My God. Seeing his father shake his head slowly, he felt very young and at the same time very old, and he wanted to cry.
End of George Loves Gisela by James McKimmy, Jr.
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9 09 - Invasion 32:07
Invasion by A. Bertram Chandler. For generations they had wandered about the universe, looking for a planet on which to settle, and now at long last they seemed to have found a suitable home. Rogeres and Suzette were in their tiny cabin, about to retire, when the bulkhead speaker coughed twice and then began to talk in a crisp, authoritative voice.
This is the captain speaking, it said. The Department of Astrophysics has just informed me that the star that we are approaching has a family of ten planets, as well as many satellites and planetoids. It is possible that our voyage is over. In any case, we have been ordered by the Commodore to make the preliminary investigations. If our findings are hopeful, the main fleet will be diverted to this system. All departmental heads will report at once to control. That is all." Rogerez, who was halfway out of his trunks, pulled them on again. He got back into the shirt that carried the silver-crossed-quill pens on its epaulets. He slid his feet into his sandals. Suzette sat on the bunk and watched him.
Her thin, fine-featured face was thoughtful and serious under the pale yellow hair. "'Raj,' she said, "'do you think that this is the real thing this time?' "'It could be,' he said. "'It could be.' She smiled faintly. "'But you're the Chronicler, and you keep the records, and you have access to the records of the Chroniclers before you.' You could tell me just how many sterile balls of rock or mud or water we've investigated since the beginning of the exile. I could, he said. I advise you, Sue, not to get any false hopes. But the captain said that it was possible that our voyage was over, she said. What will it be like to live on the surface of a planet, with room to stretch? What will it be like to have all the food we want?
Instead of rations. All the water we want. What will it be like to be a real gardener? A real farmer, not a biochemist dabbling with seeds and shoots in tanks full of chemicals? What will it be like to be able to have children when we want to, not when some damned committee decides it's our turn to be parents? I hope, he said, that you find out, that we find out. But I must get along to control. One departmental head in the family is one too many, she said, smiling. I wish that you could stay with me to hear the news as it's released. So do I, he said. He kissed her briefly, opened the door, and almost ran out into the alleyway. He was the last to reach control. All the others were already there.
Captain Marris? Kane, the chief officer? Blish and Kat, the two chief engineers. Crandall, the communications officer. Diehl, who commanded the ground forces. Hain, the surgeon. Pamel, the biochemist. Claver, the purser. Keane, the astrophysicist. Rogers stood in the doorway, looking at them, at the men and women who were the rulers of this little man-made world. He looked beyond them, to the banked instruments and controls. To the big screens upon which the stars were, to the layman, meaningless swirls and eddies of light against the blackness. He tried to get the feel of the occasion, began to toy with the phrases that he would use when writing his official account. "'Sit down, man,' snapped Captain Maris.
"'Don't interrupt his train of thought, sir,' said Pamel Cattley. "'Who knows what beautiful purple prose is running through his mind?' Rogeriz glared at her, but said nothing. After all, she was Susat's chief, and could make life hard for her. He took his seat at the foot of the long conference table. It's been worn shiny, he thought, by the elbows of generations. It's old, and the ship is old, and we are growing old with her. Will there never be an end to this voyaging? Keen, said the captain. Tell us of your findings. With your permission, said the astrophysicist, the interstellar drive was shut down and observations made. The tenth, ninth, eighth, seventh, sixth, and fifth planets seem to be utterly incapable of supporting life as we know it.
It would be barely possible to establish a colony on the fourth planet. We have not yet been able to decide whether or not the second planet is suitable. The first planet would be most unsuitable. Come to the point, man," said Colonel Diehl impatiently. On my own time, Diehl, replied Keene. After the preliminary observations, our attention was concentrated upon the third planet. Its mass is almost identical with that of the home world. So is the relative distribution of land and water. The same may be said for atmospheric density and composition. Is it inhabited? asked Diehl. There is life, replied the scientist. Pamel will bear me out on that. Is there intelligent life? asked the soldier. That does not concern us yet, Diehl, said Captain Maris.
My instructions from the Commodore are to make the preliminary survey from a safe orbit. No landing is to be attempted until the arrival of the main fleet. If there is intelligent life— We shall not strike until we are ready. Need there be war, Captain? asked Haine. Might it not be possible to establish friendly relations with the natives? Was it possible, asked Maris, when the Glormingen landed on our homeworld? Between different races there was only one possible state of affairs—war. Our world was taken from us by force. We shall take a new world by force. I am ready, said Deal quietly. He looked around the table, a small, hard smile on his hard face. He sees us all carrying guns, manning his artillery, thought Roger as.
After years of playing at soldiers, of studying strategy and tactics, he sees a chance of achieving what he thinks is his proper place in the scheme of things. Cat, asked the captain, how are your rockets? Ready, Captain, replied the reaction engineer. They are always ready. My fuel tanks were refilled, as you know, only twenty years ago. The only consumption since then has been for the annual tests. Claver, in the unlikely event of our being ordered to send down a landing party before the arrival of the main fleet, how are your boat provisions? All boats are fully stocked, said the purser, as always. She looks, thought Roger as, like a plump, competent housewife in the old stories, and that, with any luck at all, is what she will be soon, with her own little home to worry about, and not a ship.
Roger as, Maris went on, I suppose that your records are up to date? They are, sir. Then get them transmitted to the flagship for recording, and make it, from now on, a half-daily routine. Crandall, is all your equipment in good order? It is, Captain. Keep it so. The Commodore must be kept informed of everything. Everything.
How much can we tell the people, Captain? asked Claver. I realize the dangers of raising false hopes, but there has been considerable despondency of late. You can tell them, said Maris, that we have found our new world. You can tell them, too, that we may have to fight for it." We shall have to fight, said Rogeres. Put me in the picture, said Suzette. Nobody ever tells us anything in hydroponics. That bitch Pamel knows what's going on, but it'd break her heart to pass on information. What's the use of having a husband who's chronicler if I can't get inside information? This is inside information, said Rogeres. For some reason, the old man's decided to keep it secret. This is rather too big for him to handle, and he's waiting for instructions from the Commodore.
As you know, we're in an orbit around the third planet. It's all that astrophysics said it was—mass, atmosphere, climate, and all the rest just right. But it's inhabited. We can see the city lights gleaming from the night hemisphere. Crandall has been able to pick up what seem to be radio broadcasts. Voice is talking in some odd language. Weird music. This much we know for certain. These people have electricity, and they have radio. It's fairly certain that they haven't spaceflight. There are no signs of colonization on their satellite. But, even so, their technological level is uncomfortably high. They may have atomic power. The scientists are still trying to make up their minds about that. What harm can it do if the people do know?
Plenty. If the Commodore decides to carry on without making a landing, an attempt at conquest, think of the disappointment. There might be mutiny, even. The technique for handling such a situation has to be worked out. I have a good mind, she flared, to go out into the alleyways, the public rooms, and shout what you've told me throughout the ship. As wife of the chronicler, he told her, you've taken the oath of loyalty and secrecy. This is more important than any oath, she snapped. It is not. The lights flickered. What was that, she demanded. Crandall's taking some more readings of the native radio signals, she said. They've had to switch off the meteor screen. Isn't that dangerous? No, the chances of our being struck are infinitesimal.
The lights went out. Rogeres realized that he was on the deck with Sousette in his arms. He was deafened by the concussions that had slammed through the huge hull. Heard only faintly the thudding shut of airtight doors, the thin high scream of escaping atmosphere. Somebody was whispering. It was, he realized, the bulkhead speaker. Spacesuits! Put on your spacesuits! The ship is holed! Another voice was heard. There aren't enough, you fool! Attention all! Attention all! This is the Chief Officer. The Captain is dead. I am in command. The ship has been badly damaged. All navigation personnel will report to Control. All engineering personnel to the engine room. The rest of you stay in your cabins and dormitories, and prepare for landing.
Prepare for landing. There will be a brief period of weightlessness when the ship's revolution about her axis is halted. Weight will return with deceleration. Secure everything. Secure yourselves. Roger has gotten steadily to his feet, pulled Sousette to hers. Together, groping blindly in the darkness, they found the bunk, fell into it, Strapped themselves in. They heard the roar as the rockets were fired, felt the dizziness that came when the rotation slowed and halted, when centrifugal force no longer played the part of gravity. Then, after what could have been either centuries or seconds, weight returned as the ship shook to the blasting of the rockets. "'We are going down,' came Kane's voice from the speaker.
Again the rockets fired. And again. There was the whine of the gyroscopes as the ship was turned. There was the thin, barely-heard keening of the first tenuous wisps of atmosphere along her sides. There was the screaming roar, the ear-piercing whistle, as the air through which they were rushing found the holes punctured in the sleekness by the meteor swarm. The ship was tilting. Tilting, and Rogeres was afraid, until he realized what had been down could no longer be down. The cane was turning her again, so that she was approaching the planetary surface stern first, dropping down and down the long column of fire of her exhausts. Creaking, protesting, the long untried mechanism of the bunk adjusted itself to the change of conditions.
Somewhere, children were crying, and a man was swearing. The roar of the rockets was steady now, drowning all other noises. More frightening than any sound was the shuddering of the ship. She was old, thought Rogeres, and the metal of her parts must, over the centuries, have crystallized. She was old, and the damage caused by the meteor swarm must have weakened her still further. He tried to visualize the scene in control. Kane and his officers intent over their instruments The body of the captain flung carelessly and unregarded in some corner. Was it in daylight that they were coming down, he wondered, or was it at night? Was it clear air that they were dropping through, or cloud and storm? One of the rockets was faltering, stammering.
Suzette cried out in fear as the ship tilted again. Roger as held her tightly to him, he was muttering to himself, Fire, you bastard! Fire, you bastard! Another rocket cut out, and the ship righted. If we could only see what was happening, cried Susat. We can guess, said Rogeres. We're coming down on six jets instead of eight. Kane had to cut one of the good ones to counterbalance the bad one. Again there was the uneven, terrifying hammering. Again the ship tilted. Again she righted. And the diminution of the rocket's thunder was more frightening than the tilting had been. "'Control here,' came Cain's voice. "'We are coming down too fast for a safe landing. I am trying to bring her down in what appears to be a body of calm water.
Be ready to throw off your safety belts the moment we touch. The ship is badly hulled and will not stay afloat for long. Get ready to abandon ship as soon as we touch.'" Rogers remembered how, at every council meeting, there had been those who had maintained that the space occupied by the ship's swimming pool could be put to much better use. He was glad that they had never been able to carry their point.
She hit, not too hard, and there was a great hissing and bubbling as her incandescent exhausts boiled the water around her. She went down and down, and then, swaying gently, The ship floated to the surface. Roger has unsnapped the buckles of the belt holding Susettin himself to the bunk. He jumped down onto what had been a bulkhead and was now the deck. He managed to open the sliding door. There were dim emergency lights burning in the alleyway outside, and they were shining on the crowds of people, making their way to the axial shaft. There was little panic, but there was a determination to get out of the ship. As soon as possible. Rogeres knew that should he or Susette fall, they would never be able to get up again.
He took her hand and tucked it in the waistband of his trunks. All they could do thereafter was go with the crowd.
The alleyway had been crowded, but the axial shaft was almost jammed. Rogeres and Susette were pushed into it by the crush behind them, then went up it, almost without touching the ladder rungs. Below them were gurglings and splashings, sounds that told of the encroachment of water into the ship. There was an occasional cry, an occasional curse. Somewhere, with idiot persistence, the speaker was repeating, Abandon ship! Abandon ship!
Then Rogeraz and Suset were at the forward airlock. There was no holding back, no chance of a pause to evaluate, to decide upon a plan of action. They were swept through the little compartment by the press of bodies behind them until in a matter of seconds the deck was gone from beneath their feet and they were falling. The chronicler glimpsed gray sky and tall, incredibly tall trees looming through the mist as he fell, and then all was blotted out by the water. He fought viciously to free himself from the entwining arms and legs of those who had fallen with him. After him. He broke surface at last, coughing and sputtering. He looked around him frantically, until he saw Susette's pale hair and paler face.
Together they struck out for the dark line of the shore. Kane, aided by Deal and Claver, called the roll. Roger, as his stylus and notebook were little the worse for their immersion, wrote down the figures after them. We were lucky. Seven men. Including the captain. Five women and sixteen children died in the meteor shower. Three men, eight women, and six children are missing, presumed drowned, after the landing. Over a thousand of our ship's company have survived. Lucky, demanded Deal, who was holding the hand lamp while Roger is wrote. Lucky, you say? All of our heavy weapons have been lost with the ship. With them, we could have destroyed a city. He turned to Cain. As for you, why couldn't you have landed near one of their cities?
Why couldn't you have landed on solid ground? If I had, replied Cain, we'd have been lucky to have had ten survivors, and the people of this city could have finished us off with ease. I got us here. I did my job. You're in charge now, soldier. Let's see what you can do.
All right, Snap-D. All non-military officers will get the people formed into a column, at the head of which I shall place my own men. We shall march, he consulted his compass, west. I suppose that this planet has got a magnetic field, Cain. It has. All right, we march west, away from the lake. We must get out of this damn jungle as soon as possible. For all we know, it's teeming with night predators. At sunrise, which shouldn't be far off, we halt to take stock. Why not wait until sunrise before marching? Because I say so, Snapdeal. Get the people organized and we'll make a start. What about a rearguard? asked Cain. Are you trying to teach me my business? demanded the soldier. Nevertheless, Roger has noted that he made arrangements for both a rearguard and flanking parties.
Whistles sounded, and the long column began its march. The chronicler, with Souset, took his place with Cain at the head of the civilians. As he walked, he looked around him, trying to make out as much as possible in the dim, misty light. He could see little beyond the tall, straight stems, many times the height of a man, between which they threaded their way. Now and again there were other Thicker trunks and the tops of the growths supported by them were lost in the mist. Roots, like cables over the ground, made going difficult. Ahead of the column, Deal was blowing his whistle, a series of short, urgent blasts. Cain repeated the signal with his whistle. It was repeated again by the other officers.
There were cries of alarm and apprehension as the march halted. "'There's something there,' whispered Cain to Roger as, "'Do you hear it?' There was something there ahead." Something that crashed through the jungle toward them. Something big. Roger as saw it in the glare of the soldiers' hand lamps. It was huge and spiny. And the mouth in that long pointed face was open, showing sharp, yellow teeth. Its black eyes glared at them hungrily. Fire! shouted Deal. The rattle of the handguns was deafening. Blinded, the beast reared up. Its taloned forepaws scrambling at its ruined eyes. Fire! shouted Deal again. The bullets tore into its soft underbelly. It screamed deafeningly, fell on its side, flattening the tall, spear-like growths.
It screamed again and jerked convulsively. It was dead. Walking slowly, Deal came back to confer with Cain. This was supposed to be a civilized world, he said bitterly. How do you account for that?" Even on our own planet, replied Cain, there were vast areas of primitive jungle at the time of the invasion. You yourself said that we should be on our guard against night predators. I didn't expect anything quite so big, said the soldier. I didn't expect something that it would take all my firepower to dispose of. You disposed of it, said the Chief Officer. Yes, but ammunition isn't unlimited. I hope that anything else we meet will be of a size that we can handle with our machetes. Roger has left them talking, walked with Susette to look at the dead animal.
He didn't like what he saw. The spiny body armor suggested that it must have enemies bigger and fiercer than itself. He examined one of the smaller spikes. His hand would just fit comfortably around the base of it. "'Deal!' he shouted. "'Yes, Rogeriz. Come here a minute, will you?' "'What is it?' asked the soldier. "'First of all,' said Rogeriz, "'there must be bigger animals than this one around. It's built for defense rather than for attack. We can assume that it feeds on beasts smaller than itself, such as ourselves. It can supply us with weapons against such creatures.' How? Don't you ever read military history? Pikes, man! Pikes!
The sun was up, but the mist persisted, looming gigantic on either side. Towering high above what he had called in his notes the spear-trees were other growths, seeming to reach to the very sky itself. Ahead of them was the vague silhouette of what could only be a mountain. But a mountain constructed on improbable geometrical lines, in whose sheer sides gleamed enormous sheets of some highly polished material that reflected the almost level rays of the sun. Volcanic, grunted Kane, and Roger as agreed, but in his mind he wasn't sure. Then they were out of the jungle and crossing a wide, bare clearing. Stumbling and slipping a little on the coarse gravel. Deal ordered a detour. He did not, he said, like the looks of tunnels that run down into the earth at a steep angle.
There was something artificial about them, he said. Suddenly the nearer of the tunnels erupted a swarm of glistening red bodies that deployed rapidly over the plain that closed in on the advance guard with a pincer movement. Rogeres was shocked to see that they were not humanoid, that they ran on all six of their jointed legs, that their weapons were their vicious, laterally hinged jaws. Calmly, with deliberation, the soldiers were firing at first. Then, in spite of Deal's shouts, an element of hysteria crept into their fighting. These natives were so hard to kill, pressed onto the attack with their legs missing, And half their bodies shot away. Cain took charge of the rest of the column. Children in the center, he bellowed.
The rest of you, form a tight ring. Use your pikes. The maneuver was accomplished, although not without confusion, not without casualties. Cain was dead, his head ripped from his shoulders. Clever was dead, her body cut in two. Deal, Roger has noted, as he fended off attack with his pike, was down. The air was heavy with the odor of spilled blood and the acrid stench of the ichor flowing from the bodies of the natives. The worst of it was that there were so many of them. In a seemingly inexhaustible stream, they flowed from their tunnels, rushed to the attack over the bodies of their comrades. The soldiers had exhausted their ammunition. were fighting with machetes and spears. The handful of them who survived retreated to the main body.
Roger as was bleeding, his shirt ripped from his body by a serrated claw. It seemed that he had been fighting for an eternity, that all he had ever known, ever would know, was the thrusting of the point of his pike into the soft joints of body armor between gaping, clashing mandibles. Beside him, Susette had lost her spear. It had been bitten clean in two, and was wielding a machete taken from a dead soldier. Roger has realized dimly that it had been all of five minutes since he had used his spear. He looked around him. The tunnel mouths gape black and empty. On the blood-stained gravel were the bodies of men and women, the bodies of the enemy. The human corpses were still. Those of the natives were not.
Clawed legs twitched jerkily, sharp mandibles still opened and shut viciously. Roger, as somebody was saying, what do we do now? Ask Deal, he said. Ask Kane. But Deal was dead, and with him his junior officers and his sergeants. Kane was dead, and the purser was dead, and the engineers had died during the landing. As chronicler, Roger is ranked as an officer. In the past, he had enjoyed the privileges of rank. He had never thought that he would have to accept the responsibilities. He said, find all the handlights that are still working. Collect all the machetes and the shorter spears. We are going down into the city. But the natives will never be safe until we have a fortified place of our own.
The natives must have sent all their soldiers out against us. Killing the rest should be easy. It wasn't easy, but it was not as hard as Roger had anticipated. There was fighting in the tunnels and passages, and there were more casualties, but they were not heavy ones. It was in the very heart of the city that the stiffest resistance was encountered, and there, in a huge chamber, twenty guards put up a desperate and stubborn defense. They went down at last, hacked to pieces by the machetemen. Rogeres looked at the bulk of the being whom they had defended so grimly. He looked at the great flaccid body, at the faceted eyes that glinted in the light of the hand-lamps that glared into his. "'Kill it,' he ordered.
The pikes drove home." "'What now?' asked Suzette. "'This will be our headquarters,' said Rogeres. To as many said, "'Drag that thing out of here into that side tunnel.'" Pass word that I want all the natives' bodies dragged out and buried, and the bodies of our own people brought inside before some vile scavenger finds them. We'll make a grave of one of the tunnels. Then I want parties to go through the city to dispose of any survivors, and to report to me on the discovery of any records or artifacts or stores or foodstuffs. We've seen no artifacts. There's no artificial lighting, even. What about the city lights we saw from our orbit? Civilization and savagery can exist together on the same planet, said Roger as we landed among savages.
He sat on the ground, his back against the wall of the chamber. He was tired, and his wounds were painful. He was thankful for the pain. It kept him awake. He was able to acknowledge the reports of various parties as they told him of the discovery of gardens of fungi, of the finding of a chamber in which in silken bags were loathsome beings that seemed to be the young of the natives. He nibbled a piece of the fungus brought to him by one of the foraging parties, pronounced it edible. It was not unlike the yeast from the ship's vats. At last, with affairs organized to his satisfaction, he felt justified in ordering a general stand-down. Sentries had been posted, and arrangements made to pass messages by word of mouth through the tunnels and passages.
Nothing further could be attempted, he knew, until all hands had been refreshed by sleep. Thankfully, he himself sank into unconsciousness with Susette by his side.
He was awakened just before the end by a confused bawling, as in a dream he heard the words screamed rather than shouted, like mountains, like mountains walking. There was a dreadful thudding overhead that threatened to crush the underground city. And then the scalding water sweeping through tunnels and chambers, seeping into every last crevice, finished conclusively what had begun by shipwreck. The man cursed as the spines of the dead hedgehog pricked his ankle. He stooped to examine the little body. "'Hello,' he said. "'I wonder what did this?' "'Never mind the hedgehog,' said his wife. "'It's those dreadful ants that I'm after,' she stood with the empty cattle in her hand, looking down with satisfaction at the steaming earth around the nest.
"'There'll be more of them,' said her husband pessimistically.
End of Invasion by A. Bertram Chandler
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10 10 - Keep Out 9:40
Keep Out by Frederick Brown. With no more room left on Earth, and with Mars hanging up there empty of life, somebody hit on the plan of starting a colony on the Red Planet. It meant changing the habits and physical structure of the immigrants, but that worked out fine. In fact, every possible factor was covered, except one of the flaws of human nature. Adaptine is the secret of it. Adaptine they called it first. Then it got shortened to daptine. It let us adapt. They explained it all to us when we were ten years old. I guess they thought we were too young to understand before then, although we knew a lot of it already, and they told us just after we landed on Mars. Your home, children, the head teacher told us after we had gone into the glass-eyed dome they'd built for us there, and he told us there'd be a special lecture for us that evening, an important one that we must all attend.
And that evening he told us the whole story, and the whys and the wherefores. He stood up before us. He had to wear a heated space suit and helmet, of course, because the temperature in the dome was comfortable for us, but already freezing cold for him, and the air was already too thin for him to breathe. His voice came to us by radio from inside his helmet.
You are home. This is Mars, the planet on which you will spend the rest of your lives. You are Martians, the first Martians. You have lived five years on Earth and another five in space. Now you will spend ten years until you are adults in this dome, although toward the end of that time you will be allowed to spend increasingly long periods outdoors. Then you will go forth and make your own homes, live your own lives, as Martians. You will intermarry, and your children will breed true. They, too, will be Martians. It is time you were told the history of this great experiment, of which each of you is a part. Then he told us. Man, he said, had first reached Mars in 1985. It had been uninhabited by intelligent life.
There is plenty of plant life and a few varieties of non-flying insects, and he had found it by terrestrial standard uninhabitable. Man could survive on Mars only by living inside glass-eyed domes and wearing space suits when he went outside of them. Except by day in the warmer seasons, it was too cold for him. The air was too thin for him to breathe, and long exposure to sunlight, less filtered of rays harmful to him than on Earth because of the lesser atmosphere, could kill him. The plants were chemically alien to him, and he could not eat them. He had to bring all his food from Earth, or grow it in hydroponic tanks. For fifty years he had tried to colonize Mars, and all his efforts had failed.
Besides this dome which he had built for us, there was only one other outpost, another glassite dome, much smaller and less than a mile away. It had looked as though mankind could never spread to the other planets of the solar system besides Earth, for of all of them, Mars was the least inhospitable. If he couldn't live here, there was no use even trying to colonize the others. And then, in 2034, Thirty years ago, a brilliant biochemist named Weymouth had discovered daptine, a miracle drug that worked not on the animal or person to whom it was given, but on the progeny he conceived during a limited period of time after inoculation. It gave his progeny almost limitless adaptability to changing conditions, provided the changes were made gradually.
Dr. Weymouth had inoculated and then mated a pair of guinea pigs. They had borne a litter of five, and by placing each member of the litter under different and gradually changing conditions, he had obtained amazing results. When they attained maturity, one of those guinea pigs was living comfortably at a temperature of 40 below zero Fahrenheit. Another was quite happy at 150 above. A third was thriving on a diet that would have been deadly poison for an ordinary animal, and a fourth was contented under a constant X-ray bombardment that would have killed one of his parents within minutes. Subsequent experiments with many litters showed that animals who had been adapted to similar conditions bred true, and their progeny was conditioned from birth to live under those conditions.
Ten years later, ten years ago, The head teacher told us. You children were born, born of parents carefully selected from those who volunteered for the experiment, and from birth you have been brought up under carefully controlled and gradually changing conditions. From the time you were born, the air you have breathed has been gradually thinned, and its oxygen content reduced. Your lungs have compensated by becoming much greater in capacity. Which is why your chests are so much larger than those of your teachers and attendants. When you are fully mature and are breathing air like that of Mars, the difference will be even greater. Your bodies are growing fur to enable you to stand the increasing cold.
You are comfortable now under conditions which would kill ordinary people quickly. Since you were four years old, your nurses and teachers have had to wear special protection to survive conditions that seem normal to you. In another ten years, at maturity, you will be completely acclimated to Mars. Its air will be your air. Its food plants, your food. Its extremes of temperature will be easy for you to endure, and its median temperatures pleasant to you. Already, because of the five years we spent in space and a gradually decreased gravitational pull, the gravity of Mars seems normal to you. It will be your planet, to live on and to populate. You are the children of Earth, but you are the first Martians.
Of course, we had known a lot of these things already. The last year was the best. By then the air inside the dome Except for the pressurized parts where our teachers and attendants live, was almost like that outside, and we were allowed out for increasingly long periods. It is good to be in the open. The last few months they relaxed segregation of the sexes, so we could begin choosing mates, although they told us there is to be no marriage until after the final day, after our full clearance. Choosing was not difficult in my case. I had made my choice long since, and I'd felt sure that she felt the same way. I was right. Tomorrow is the day of our freedom. Tomorrow we will be Martians. The Martians.
Tomorrow we shall take over the planet. Some among us are impatient, have been impatient for weeks now, but wiser counsel prevailed, and we are waiting. We have waited twenty years, and we can wait until the final day. And tomorrow is the final day. Tomorrow, at a signal, we will kill the teachers and the other earthmen among us before we go forth. They do not suspect, so it will be easy. We have dissimulated for years now, and they do not know how we hate them. They do not know how disgusting and hideous we find them. With their ugly, misshapen bodies, so narrow-shouldered and tiny-chested, their weak, sibilant voices that need amplification to carry in our Martian air, and, above all, their white, pasty, hairless skins.
We shall kill them, and then we shall go and smash the other dome so all the Earthmen there will die too. If more Earthmen ever come to punish us, we can live and hide in the hills where they'll never find us. And if they try to build more domes here, we'll smash them. We want no more to do with Earth. This is our planet, and we want no aliens. Keep off.
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11 11 - A Little Journey 15:36
A Little Journey by Ray Bradbury. There were two important things. One, that she was very old. Two, The Mr. Thirkle was taking her to God. For hadn't he patted her hand and said, Mrs. Bellows, we'll take off into space in my rocket and go to find him together. And that was how it was going to be. Oh, this wasn't like any other group Mrs. Bellows had ever joined. In her fervour to light a path for her delicate, tottering feet, she had struck matches down dark alleys and found her way to Hindu mystics who floated their flickering, starry eyelashes over crystal balls. She had walked on the meadow paths with ascetic Indian philosophers imported by daughters and spirit of Madame Blavatsky. She had made pilgrimages to California's Stuko jungles to hunt the astrological seer in his natural habitat.
She had even consented to signing away the rights to one of her homes in order to be taken into the shouting order of a temple of amazing evangelists who had promised her golden smoke, crystal fire, and the great soft hand of God coming to bear her home. None of these people had ever shaken Mrs. Bellow's faith. Even when she saw them sirened away in a black wagon in the night, or discovered their pictures bleak and unromantic in the morning tabloids. The world had roughed them up and locked them away because they knew too much, that was all. And then, two weeks ago, she had seen Mr. Thurkle's advertisement in New York City. Come to Mars! Stay at the Thurkle Restorium for one week, and then on into space on the greatest adventure life can offer.
Send for free pamphlet, Nearer My God to Thee. Excursion rates, roundtrip slightly lower. Roundtrip, Mrs. Bellows had thought. But who had come back after seeing him? And so she had bought a ticket and flown off to Mars, and spent several mild days at Mr. Thurkle's Restorium, the building with the sign on it which flashed, Thurkle's Rocket to Heaven. She had spent the week bathing in limpid waters and erasing the care from her tiny bones, and now she was fidgeting. Ready to be loaded into Mr. Thurkle's own special private rocket, like a bullet, to be fired on out into space beyond Jupiter and Saturn and Pluto. And thus, who could deny it? You would be getting nearer and nearer to the Lord. How wonderful!
Couldn't you just feel him drawing near? Couldn't you just sense his breath, his scrutiny, his presence? Here I am, said Mrs. Bellows, an ancient rickety elevator, Ready to go up the shaft. God need only press the button. Now, on the seventh day, as she minced up the steps of the restorium, a number of small doubts assailed her. For one thing, she said aloud to no one, it isn't quite the land of milk and honey here on Mars that they said it would be. My room is like a cell. The swimming pool is really quite inadequate. And besides, how many widows who look like mushrooms or skeletons want to swim? And finally, the whole restorium smells of boiled cabbage and tennis shoes. She had opened the front door, and let it slam somewhat irritably.
She was amazed at the other women in the auditorium. It was like wandering on a carnival mirror maze, coming again and again upon yourself—the same flowery face, the same chicken hands and jingling bracelets. One after another of the images of herself floated before her. She put out her hand—but it wasn't a mirror—but It was another lady shaking her fingers and saying, "'We're waiting for Mr. Thurkle.' "'Shh!' whispered everyone. The velvet curtains parted. Mr. Thurkle appeared, fantastically serene, his Egyptian eyes upon everyone. But there was something, nevertheless, in his appearance which made one expect him to call, "'Hi!' while fuzzy dogs jumped over his legs, through his hooped arms and over his back.
Then, dogs and all, he should dance with a dazzling piano-keyboard smile off into the wings. Mrs. Bellows, with a secret part of her mind which she constantly had to grip tightly, expected to hear a cheap Chinese gong sound when Mr. Thurkle entered. His large, liquid, dark eyes were so improbable that one of the old ladies had facetiously claimed she saw a mosquito cloud hovering over them, as they did around summer rain barrels. And Mrs. Bellows sometimes caught the scent of the theatrical mothball and the smell of Calliope steam on his sharply pressed suit. But with the same savage rationalization that had greeted all other disappointments in her rickety life, she bit at the suspicion and whispered, "'This time it's real.
This time it'll work. Haven't we got a rocket?' Mr. Thurkle bowed. He smiled a sudden comedy mask smile. The old ladies looked in at his epiglottis and sensed chaos there. Before he even began to speak, Mrs. Bellows saw him picking up each of his words, oiling it, making sure it ran smooth on its rails. Her heart squeezed in like a tiny fist, and she gritted her porcelain teeth. "'Friends,' said Mr. Thirkle, and he could hear the frost snap in the hearts of the entire assemblage. "'No,' said Mrs. Bellows, ahead of time. She could hear the bad news rushing at her, and herself tied to the track while the immense black wheels threatened and the whistle screamed, helpless. "'There will be a slight delay,' said Mr.
Thurkle. In the next instant Mr. Thurkle might have cried, or been tempted to cry, "'Ladies, be seated!' in minstrel fashion, for the ladies had come up at him from their chairs, protesting and trembling. "'Not a very long delay,' Mr. Thurkle put up his hands to pat the air. "'How long?' "'Only a week.' A week? Yes. You can stay here at the Restore Room for seven more days, can't you? A little delay won't matter, will it, in the end? You've waited a lifetime. Only a few more days. At twenty dollars a day, thought Mrs. Bellows coldly. What's the trouble? A woman cried. A legal difficulty, said Mr. Thurkle. We've a rocket, haven't we? "'Well, yes, but I've been here a whole month waiting,' said one old lady.
"'Delays, delays!' "'That's right,' said everyone. "'Ladies, ladies,' murmured Mr. Thurkle, smiling serenely. "'We want to see the rocket!' It was Mrs. Bellows, forging ahead, alone, branching her fist like a toy hammer. Mr. Thurkle looked into the old lady's eyes, a missionary among albino cannibals. "'Well, now,' he said. "'Yes, now,' cried Mrs. Bellows. "'I'm afraid,' he began. "'So am I,' she said. "'That's why we want to see the ship.' "'No, no, now, Mrs.' He snapped his fingers for her name. "'Bellows!' she cried. She was a small container, but now all the seething pressures that had been built up over long years came steaming through the delicate vents of her body. Her cheeks became incandescent.
With a wail that was like a melancholy-factory whistle, Mrs. Bellows ran forward and hung to him, almost by her teeth like a summer-maddened spitz. She would not, and never could, let go until he died, and the other women followed, jumping and yapping like a pound let loose on its trainer, the same one who had petted them and to whom they had squirmed and whined joyfully an hour before, now milling about him, creasing his sleeves and frightening the Egyptian serenity from his gaze. "'This way,' cried Mrs. Bellows, feeling like Madame Lafarge. "'Through the back.' "'We've waited long enough to see the ship. Every day he's put us off. Every day we've waited. Now let's see.' "'No, no, ladies,' cried Mr.
Thurkle, leaping about. They burst through the back of the stage and out a door like a flood, bearing the poor man with them into a shed, and then out, quite suddenly, into an abandoned gymnasium. "'There it is,' said someone. "'The rocket!' And then a silence fell that was terrible to entertain. There was the rocket. Mrs. Bellows looked at it, and her hand sagged away from Mr. Thurkle's collar. The rocket was something like a battered copper pot. There were a thousand bulges and rents and rusty pipes and dirty vents on and in it. The ports were cladded over with dust, resembling the eyes of a blind hog. Everyone wailed a little sighing wail. "'Is that the rocket ship, Glory B to the highest?' cried Mrs.
Bellows, appalled. Mr. Thurkle nodded, and looked at his feet. "'For which we paid out our one thousand dollars apiece, and came all the way to Mars to get on board with you and go off to find him?' asked Mrs. Bellows. "'Why, that isn't worth a sack of dried peas,' said Mrs. Bellows. "'It's nothing but junk.' "'Junk,' whispered every one, getting hysterical. "'Don't let him get away!' Mr. Thurkle tried to break and run, but a thousand possum traps closed on him from every side. He withered. Everybody walked around in circles like blind mice. There was a confusion and a weeping that lasted for five minutes as they went over and touched the rocket, the dented kettle, the rusty container for God's children.
"'Well,' said Mrs. Bellows. She stepped up into the askew doorway over the rocket and faced everyone. "'It looks as if a terrible thing has been done to us,' she said. I haven't any money to go back home to Earth, and I've too much pride to go to the government and tell them a common man like this has fooled us out of our life savings. I don't know how you feel about it, all of you, but the reason all of us came is because I am 85, and you're 89, and you're 78, and all of us are nudging on towards 100, and there's nothing on Earth for us, and it doesn't appear there's anything on Mars either. We all expected not to breathe much more air or crochet many more doilies or we'd never have come here.
So what I have to propose is a simple thing. To take a chance. She reached out and touched the rusted hulk of the rocket. This is our rocket. We paid for our trip, and we're going to take our trip. Everyone rustled and stood on tiptoes and opened an astonished mouth. Mr. Thurkle began to cry. He did it quite easily and very effectively. We're going to get in this ship. said Mrs. Bellows, ignoring him. And we're going to take off to where we were going.
Mr. Thurkle stopped crying long enough to say, But it was all a fake. I don't know anything about space. He's not out there anyway. I lied. I don't know where he is, and I couldn't find him if I wanted to. And you were fools to ever take my word on it. Yes, said Mrs. Bellows. We were fools. I'll go along on that. But you can't blame us, for we are old, and it was a lovely, good and fine idea. One of the loveliest ideas in the world. Oh, we didn't really fool ourselves that we could get nearer to him physically. It was a gentle, mad dream of old people, the kind of thing you hold onto for a few minutes a day, even though you know it's not true. So all of you who want to go, you follow me in the ship.
But you can't go. said Mr. Thurkle. You haven't got a navigator. And that ship's a ruin. You, said Mrs. Bellows, will be the navigator.
She stepped into the ship, and after a moment the other old ladies pressed forward. Mr. Thurkle, windmilling his arms frantically, was nevertheless pressed through the port, and in a minute the door slammed shut. Mr. Thurkle was strapped into the navigator's seat, with everyone talking at once and holding him down. The special helmets were issued to be fitted over every grey or white head to supply extra oxygen in case of a leakage in the ship's hull. And at long last the hour had come, and Mrs. Bellows stood behind Mr. Thurkle and said, "'We're ready, sir.' He said nothing. He pleaded with them silently, using his great dark, wet eyes, but Mrs. Bellows shook her head and pointed to the control.
"'Take off,' agreed Mr. Thurkle morosely, and pulled a switch. Everybody fell. The rocket went up from the planet Mars on a great fiery glide, with the noise of an entire kitchen thrown down an elevator shaft, with a sound of pots and pans and kettles and fires boiling and stews bubbling, with a smell of burned incense and rubber and sulphur, with a colour of yellow fire and a ribbon of red stretching below them, and all the old women singing and holding to each other, and Mrs. Bellows crawling upright in the sighing, straining, trembling ship. Head for space! Mr. Thurkle. It can't last, said Mr. Thurkle sadly. This ship can't last. It will—it did. The rocket exploded.
Mrs. Bellows felt herself lifted and thrown about dizzily like a doll. She heard the great screamings and saw the flashes of bodies sailing by her in fragments of metal and powdery light. Help! Help! cried Mr. Thurkle, far away on a small radio beam. The ship disintegrated into a million parts, and the old ladies, all one hundred of them, were flung straight on ahead with the same velocity as the ship. As for Mr. Thurkle, for some reason of trajectory, perhaps, he had been blown out of the other side of the ship. Mrs. Bellows saw him falling separate and away from them, screaming, screaming. "'There goes Mr. Thurkle,' thought Mrs. Bellows. And she knew where he was going. He was going to be burned and roasted and broiled good, but very good.
Mr. Thurkle was falling down into the sun. "'And here we are,' thought Mrs. Bellows. "'Here we are, going on out and out and out.' There was hardly a sense of motion at all, but she knew that she was travelling at fifty thousand miles an hour and would continue to travel at that speed for eternity, until—' She saw the other women swinging all about her in their own trajectories, a few minutes of oxygen left to each of them in their helmets, and each was looking up to where they were going. "'Of course,' thought Mrs. Bellows. "'Out into space. Out and out. And the darkness like a great church, and the stars like candles, and in spite of everything, Mr. Thurkle, the rocket, and the dishonesty. "'We are going toward the Lord.' And there—yes, there—as she fell on and on, coming toward her—she could almost discern the outline now.
Coming toward her was his mighty golden hand, reaching down to hold her and comfort her like a frightened sparrow.
"'I'm Mrs. Amelia Bellows,' she said quietly, in her best company voice. I'm from the planet Earth.
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12 12 - The Masked World 9:19
The Masked World by Jack Williamson. The Masked World by Jack Williamson. The Masked World by Jack Williamson. The planet hid itself from the earthman, and what lay behind the mask was fierce and deadly. The planet wore a mask. At ten million miles, it was a sullen yellow eye. At one million, a scarred and evil leer. Outside the smoking circle our landing jets had sterilized, it was a hideous veil of hairy black tentacles and huge sallow blooms, hiding the riddle of its sinister genes. On most worlds that we astronauts have found, the life is vaguely like our own. Similar nucleotides are linked along similar helical chains of DNA, carrying similar genetic messages. A similar process replicates the chains when the cells divide, to carry the complex blueprints for a particular root, or eye, or wing, accurately down across 10,000 generations.
But even the genes were different here, enormously complicated. Here the simplest seeming weed. had more and longer chains of DNA than anything we had seen before. What was their message? We had come to read it with our new genetic microprobe. A hundred precious tons of microscopic electronic gear. It was designed to observe and manipulate the smallest units of life. It could reach even those strange genes. That was our mission. Ours was the seventh survey ship to approach the planet. Six before us had been lost without trace. We were to find out why. Our pilot was Lance Landark, a lean, hard man, silent and cold as the gray-cased microprobe. We hated him. Until someone learned why he had volunteered to come.
His wife had been the pilot of the ship before us. When we knew that, we began to hear the hidden tension in his tired voice. Monotonously calling on every band. Come in, Six. Come in, Six. Six never came in.
For two days we watched the planet. The shallow ditch our jets had dug, the charred stumps, the jungle beyond. The visible mask of those monstrous genes, rank, dark, utterly alien. At the third dawn, Lance Landark took two of us out in a copter. Flying a grid over the landing area, we mapped six shallow pockmarks on the scowling wilderness, where our ships must have landed. We dropped into the newest crater, where black stumps jutted like broken teeth out of the queerly bare red muck. A yellow-scum stream oozed across it. By the stream we found a fine-boned human skeleton. A nightmare plant stood guard beside the bones. Its thick leaves were strangely streaked, twisted, with vegetable agony, half-poisoned spine and half-blighted bloom.
Shapeless blobs of rotting fruit were falling from it over those slender bones. Lance Landark stood up. Her turquoise thunderbird! He showed us the bit of blackened silver and blue-veined stone. Back on Terra, back when we were student pilots, We bought it from an Indian in an old, old town called Santa Fe. He bent again. Lilith, he whispered. Lilith, what killed you?
We found no other bones, nothing even to tell us what force or poison kept the creeping jungle back from that solitary plant.
We left at dusk. Tenderly, Lance Landark brought the gathered bones. Carefully, we carried a few leaves and dried pods from that crazy sentinel plant. We found no other clue. Patiently, day by 48-hour day, we searched the other sites. We found jet marks and stumps and teeming weeds, but nothing like that tormented nightmare over Lilithland Arc's skeleton. We found no wreckage, nothing to show how the planet had murdered the lost expeditions. Day by eternal day, the unknown leered from the secret places of its genes. It was all vegetable. We saw no animal movement, heard no cry or insect hum. The silence became suffocating. Day after desperate day, we returned to the micro probe. The answer's in the genes, Lanslandar whispered grimly.
We've no other chance. He kept the probe running on the strangest genes of all, those of the plant nightmare that had grown beside his wife. They were like nothing else on the planet. The double-stranded chains of DNA were monstrously long, many of the nucleotide links held by copper or arsenic atoms. "'Queer,' Lance kept muttering. "'No copper or arsenic in the other plants here. I'd like to know why.' He was running when we heard the woman scream. In that stifling quiet her cry unnerved us all. We crowded down to the lock. Tattered, stained with blood-colored juices, she slipped through those coiled, constricting creepers. She splashed out into the open ditch, waving a filthy rag. Halfway to the ship she fell into the mud.
Lance Landark led three of us to bring her in. She whimpered and looked up. Tears streaked the grime on her wasted face. "'Lance,' she gasped, "'my dear—' "'Lilith,' he shrank back suddenly. "'I found Lilith dead.' "'I am nearly dead,' she tried weakly to get up. "'You see, we're all marooned out there in the bush. Emergency landing, when we tried to get off. Wrecked our astrogation gear.' Need your spare astro-pilot. Back, he swung on us. Back aboard. What's wrong? We were stunned. It's your wife. Aboard. Instanter. We obeyed his deadly voice. Help, she whispered faintly behind us in the mud. Survivors, need astro-pilot to pilot our way home. The clagging lock cut off her voice. Angrily, we turned on Lance Landark.
Hold it, he snapped. I'm not crazy. The planet is. Come along to the microprobe. I'm probing a seed from the plant we found by Lilith's bones. It puzzled me. So much of it was—in spite of the tension, he had to grope for a word to express meaning. Arbitrary. Those shapeless leaves, twisted stalk, that sterile seed, the copper and arsenic in those needless links. Too many genes had no function. No use at all. I'd just got the key when that thing screened. The copper and arsenic atoms are not genetic instructions to the plant. They're a message to us. Words, replicated a trillion times and concealed in every cell of the plant. Words, someone whispered blankly. Words in the atoms? Written in binary code.
His scowl was bleakly triumphant. That weed's a mutant, you see. The real Lilith formed the first cell with her microprobe. She left it, I suppose, in her own body, as a message that no pseudo-Lilith could intercept. Outside, something screamed again. Call each copper atom a dot. Call each arsenic a dash. Taken in order along the chains of DNA, they do encode a message. The computer's decoding it now. He punched a button, and the computer whirred. To whoever comes, give no aid to anyone. Get off this planet. Its life is pseudomorphic. Don't let it leave. Just take my love to Lance Landark, from Lilith, his wife, and get off this planet fast. Outside, it uttered a frantic, bubbling screech. We did get off the planet, and we expect to stay away.
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13 13 - The Mathematicians 7:13
The Mathematicians by Arthur Feldman. They were in the garden. Now, Zoe, said Xenia Hawkins to her nine-year-old daughter, Quit fluttering around and Papa will tell you a story." Zoe settled down in the hammock. A true story, Papa. It all happened exactly like I'm going to tell you, said Drake Hawkins, pinching Zoe's rosy cheek. Now, two thousand and eleven years ago in 1985, figuring by the earthly calendar of that time, a tribe of beings from the Dog Star Sirius invaded the Earth. And what did these things look like, Father? Like humans in many, many respects. They each had two arms, two legs, and all the other organs that humans are endowed with. Wasn't there any difference at all between the star beings and the humans, Papa?
There was. The newcomers, each and all, had a pair of wings covered with green feathers growing from their shoulders and long, purple tails. How many of these beings were there, Father? Exactly three million and forty-one male adults and three female adults. These creatures first appeared on Earth on the island of Sardinia. In five weeks' time, they were the masters of the entire globe. Didn't the earthlings fight back, Papa? The humans warred against the invaders, using bullets, ordinary bombs, super-atom bombs and gases. What were those things like, Father? Oh, they've passed out of existence long ago. Armonition, they were called. The humans fought each other with such things. And not with ideas like we do now, Father?
No, with guns, just like I told you. But the invaders were immune to the armonition. What does immune mean? Proof against harm. Then the humans tried germs and bacteria against the star beings. What were those things? Tiny, tiny bugs that the humans tried to inject into the bodies of the invaders to make them sicken and die. But the bugs had no effect at all on the star beings. Go on, Papa. These beings overran all Earth. Go on from there. You must know, these newcomers were vastly more intelligent than the earthlings. In fact, the invaders were the greatest mathematicians in the system. What's the system? And what does mathematician mean? The Milky Way. A mathematician is one who is good at figuring, weighing, measuring, clever with numbers.
Then, Father, the invaders killed off all the earthlings? Not at all. They killed many, but many others were enslaved. Just as the humans had used horses and cattle, the newcomers so used the humans. They made workers out of some, others they slaughtered for food. Papa! What sort of language did the star beings talk? Oh, very simple language. But the humans were never able to master it, so the invaders, being so much smarter, mastered all the languages of the globe. What did the earthlings call the invaders, father? Anvils. Half angels, half devils. Then, papa, everything was peaceful on earth after the anvils enslaved the humans? For a little while. Then some of the most daring of the humans, led by a man named Noel escaped into the interior of Greenland.
This Noel was a psychiatrist, the foremost on Earth. What's a psychiatrist? A dealer in ideas. Then he was very rich. He'd been the richest human on Earth. After some profound thought, Noel figured a way to rid the Earth of the anvils. How, Papa? He perfected a method called the Noel Hughes-Infisinki technique. Of imbuing the anvils with human emotions. What does imbuing mean? He filled them full of, and made them aware of. Xenia interrupted. Are you talking a bit about the child's understanding, Drake? No, Mama, said Zoe. I understand what Papa explained, and I don't interrupt. So no all, continued Drake, filled the anvils with human feelings such as love. Hate, ambition, jealousy, malice, envy, despair, hope, fear, shame, and so on.
Very soon, the Anvils were acting like humans, and in ten days terrible civil wars wiped out the Anvil population by two-thirds. Then, Papa, the Anvils finally killed off each other? Almost. Until among them, a being named Zalibar, full of saintliness and persuasion, preached the brotherhood of all Anvils. The invaders quickly converted, quit the quarrels, and the earthlings were even more enslaved. Oh, Papa! Weren't Noel and his followers in Greenland awfully sad the way things had turned out?
For a while, then Noel came up with a final payoff. Is that slang, Papa? Pay-off? Yes, the coup de grace, the ace in the hole that he saved if all else failed. I understand, Papa. The idea that would out-trump anything the other side had to offer. What was it, Father? What did they have? Noel imbued the anvils with nostalgia. What is nostalgia? Homesickness. Oh, Papa, wasn't Noel smart? That meant the anvils were all filled with the desire to fly back to the staff from where they had started? Exactly. So one day, all the anvils and immense army flapped their great green wings, assembled in the black hills of North America, and at a given signal, they all rose up from Earth, and all the humans chanted, Glory, glory, the day of our deliverance.
So then, Father, all the anvils flew away from Earth? Not all. There were two child anvils, one male and one female, aged two years, who had been born on Earth. And they started off with all the others. And flew up into the sky. But when they reached the upper limits of the stratosphere, they hesitated, turned tail and fluttered back to Earth where they had been born. Their names were Zizo and Ziza. And what happened to Zizo and Ziza, Papa? Well, like all the Anvils, they were great mathematicians, so they multiplied. Oh, Papa, laughed Zoe, flapping her wings excitedly. That was a very nice story.
End of the Mathematicians by Arthur Feldman.
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14 14 - Mid Pleasures and Palaces 25:15
Mid-Pleasures and Palaces by James McKimmy, Jr. This planet was remote and set apart, and nothing about it had made William Kirk think he might find human life. Yet just beyond, Through a thorny bush shaped like an exploding rose, Kirk had seen eyes and nose and a flash of yellow hair that were definitely human. Kirk poised motionless. He was three miles from the rocket and Leo, who was waiting inside of it. He thought for a moment of how Leo had told him, as they made their landing, that this is the kind of planet where you could go no further. This is the kind of planet that could be the end of twelve years and you'd better be careful, William Oldsport. Kirk noticed a faint breeze. His palms were wet, and they cooled when the breeze touched them.
He placed his palms against his jacket. Damn you, Leo, he thought. Damn your rotten fortune-telling. Kirk was superstitious when he was in space, and the memory of Leo Mason's cool, quiet voice saying, Watch it now, sport. Be careful. Be careful. Seemed now like some certain kiss of fate. The bush trembled, and Kirk's right hand flicked to his holster. His pistol was cold against his fingers, and he let it fit loosely in his hand, the barrel half-raised. The bush shivered again, and then all at once the figure was rising from behind it, a tall wide figure with a very tan face lined and toughened by the sun. The shoulders, bare like the chest, were massive, yet somehow stretched-looking, as though endless exposure to wind and drain and sun had turned the skin to brown leather.
Kirk had his pistol pointing at the figure's stomach now. And the figure blinked, while the breeze touched and ruffled the long bleached hair. The figure raised a large hand, palm up, and curled the fingers. "'Hello?' he said softly. Kirk was surprised by the word and the polite sound of it. Kirk remained motionless, pistol-pointing. "'Who are you?' he said through his teeth. "'Harry,' said the figure, as though Kirk surely should know who he was. "'I'm Harry, of course.' "'Yes,' said Kirk carefully. "'Harry?' The figure nodded. "'Harry Lauren, don't you know?' "'Oh, yes,' Kirk said, his eyes watchful. "'Harry Lauren.' There was something about the man's eyes, Kirk decided. They were deep-set and very bright within their sockets.
They didn't match the softness of the speech. Harry Lauren smiled and showed his yellow teeth. "'Who are you?' he asked politely. "'I'm William,' Kirk said. It was as though he might be speaking to a frightened child, he thought, who held a sharp knife in his hands. William Kirk, of course." Harry Lauren nodded apologetically. "'Oh, yes. I can't remember everyone. It's been so long. How are you, William?' Kirk's eyes flickered. "'I'm fine.' "'That's nice,' Harry Lauren nodded. His wild hair brushed over his shoulders and reflected its yellowness against the sun. The knife, then—the one that Kirk had thought about a moment ago—appeared in the figure's hand. "'Bastard!' Harry Lauren hissed, and he was leaping at Kirk, the knife making a sweep toward Kirk's stomach.
Something kept Kirk from squeezing the trigger, and instead he swung his pistol so that it struck the brown-weathered knuckles. The knife flew into a thicket, and Lauren, screaming, was upon Kirk. Reaching for Kirk's neck. Kirk wrenched backward and at the same time swung the barrel of the pistol toward the yellow flying hair. There was a cracking sound, and Harry Lauren, brown and wild-looking, crumpled silently before Kirk's feet.
Kirk examined the man, and then he reached down and picked up the knife from the thicket. It was crudely hammered out from some kind of alloy, but sharp nevertheless, and it could have been deadly in a hand like Harry Lauren's. Kirk looked again at the yellow-haired man on the ground. He was wearing some kind of ragged cloth about his waist, and nothing else. Across his back, Kirk could see, was a curving scar, an inch wide and ten or twelve inches long. It was white and very noticeable against the brown of the man's skin. Kirk bent down, looking at the scar carefully. It could have been made during a crash of a rocket, but there were, he noticed, fine, wider ridges running along the length of the scar.
As though they had been made by fine comb-like teeth. A talon, perhaps. Some kind of strange claw. Kirk straightened quickly. It went through his head that Harry Lauren might not be the only animal life on this planet. He tightened his hand on his pistol, stepping backward, his eyes darting. But he could only pivot slowly, trying to see, to discover, and he was much too slow when he finally saw it. It was only a flash of yellow and brown making a hissing kind of sound. He felt the ripping along his right arm. The pistol was going out of his hand, and a swirling blackness got in front of his eyes.
When he awoke he saw Harry Lauren first, who was sitting up now, silent, motionless, with Kirk's pistol resting in his hands. To the side of Lauren and just a little behind rested a peculiar-looking thing. It was alive because its head, shaped like a cone that had been attached to its neck, kept swaying gently back and forth. The dark blue eyes, spaced back from the smallest end of the cone, were rather small, with no lids. The creature's neck was long and thin, a multitude of shades of yellow and brown like the head, and the rest of the body widened out like a funnel, and this area was covered with yellow feathers. It had what appeared to be arms and legs, Long, thin extensions of dark brown with large bony joints.
At the end of each of these, Kirk could see a flat claw with rows of tiny comb-like teeth. Lauren reached out and ran a hand softly along the creature's long neck.
Kirk tried to think, testing his muscles without moving, and he remembered then the ripping along his right arm. He looked at the arm and at the way his jacket had been torn away along with the skin beneath it. He could see the comb-like marking of his skin. The cut was not deep, but it bled a little and stung. He tried to move his arm and found that he could. Kirk looked back to Lorne. Lorne stroked his hand along the thin neck of the creature. Kirk decided to try. "'That's a nice-looking animal, Harry.' Lorne's expression did not change. Kirk paused. From the looks of the man, Lorne had been here a long time. A very long time. It had been a crash, probably, and all the years afterward of loneliness, all the time for the quiet but sure warping of the brain.
He raised a hand quickly, watching Loren's eyes. Loren did not change expressions or move the pistol, but Kirk felt a comb-like claw touching his hand, freezing it to motionless with its razor tips. Kirk looked at the creature. The dark blue eyes were steady. Kirk lowered his hands slowly, and the claw was drawn away. The creature's head resumed its gentle swaying, and Lauren's hand resumed its stroking. Kirk licked his lips. "'Where have you been?' Lauren said, his voice sudden and torse now. "'Where have I been?' Kirk said, tight and motionless. "'Why didn't you come before?' Kirk considered it. The dancing lights in the man's eyes, the high-strung sound of his voice were things to make you wary and careful.
Kirk closed his fingers the slightest bit. I didn't know you were here. Lorne's lips thinned. Liar! Kirk thought he might try a smile to reassure Lorne that he was telling the truth. He decided against it. How long have you been here, Harry? How would I know? Kirk thought of the endless nights and days when time ran together and there was no more separation of one time from another. Today would be tomorrow, and tomorrow would be today. No changes. Endless. "'Did you crash, Harry?' "'Did you crash, Harry?' Lauren mimicked, and for a moment Kirk felt a chill dancing through him as he watched the sarcastic leer of Lauren's mouth.
Kirk kept his tone polite. Patronizing. Was there anyone else? Lauren laughed, a laugh that bounced over the rocks and through the scrubs and bushes. Was there, Harry? Oh, yes, Lauren said, grinning and showing his yellow teeth. Six. One, two, three, four, five, six. Would you like to see their graves? I've kept the graves pretty. I know where they are because I dug them. Lauren remained in a half-crouch, the fingers of one hand holding the pistol loosely, the other keeping up its monotonous stroking of the animal. His eyes seemed to become vacant for a moment, as though lost in the memory of the digging of six graves. Then they narrowed. "'Where have you been?' Kirk tried to match his answer to the wants of the man.
"'I came as soon as I could.' "'You did?' "'Yes,' Kirk said. "'I did.' Lauren's right hand stopped its stroking, and his fingers tightened about the thin long neck of the animal. "'Eddie?' he said. Kirk saw the animal's left claw whipping out. He ducked suddenly, but the claw ripped along his left arm. He tried to roll sideways, and then he lay, half sprawled, looking at the blood welling up from this new set of ripped ridges in his arm.
He shifted his eyes to look at the animal. And he was quite certain that he could detect a small mouth fitting around the underside of the funnel-shaped head. It was only a line, but Kirk thought that there was a grinning look to it. "'You didn't come as soon as you could,' Lauren said, his voice an angry, trembling sound. "'I did, Harry,' Kirk said, still remaining in his half-sprawl. "'I really did!' Lauren replaced his hand on the neck of the animal. Squeezing. No, no, Kirk said, and he tried to keep the panic out of his voice. Harry, I'm telling you the truth. Lauren's mouth showed a faint surface of his yellow teeth. He shook his head, slowly, back and forth, his fingers tightening about the animal's neck.
Harry, listen, Kirk said, watching Lauren's squeezing fingers. It's over now. You don't have to wait any longer. I'll take you back now. I'll take you home. Lauren froze, staring. Home? he said. That's right. That's right, Kirk said. That's right, Harry. Home, Lauren breathed, and his eyes were suddenly like a child's, wide and unbelieving. The waiting's all over, Kirk said. You don't have to wait any longer.
I don't have to wait any longer, Lauren repeated softly, and his hand dropped from the neck of the animal. Kirk watched Lauren and the swaying animal. The rocket's ready, he said. Lauren's eyes were lost in some distant memory. Gradually Kirk could see the eyes turn shiny with tears. Is Annette waiting? he asked. Kirk thought quickly. He knew that what he was going to say shouldn't be said, because he had no right. But he was thinking of his own skin. "'Why, yes, Harry,' he said slowly. "'I imagine Annette is waiting.' Lauren let a quick breath come through his teeth. "'Annette,' he whispered. "'And Dickie?' "'Dickie?' Kirk said. "'Little Dickie?' Lauren said, and he held his breath. Oh, yes," Kirk lied.
Of course. I can't ask about Eddie, because we never had the chance," Lauren said, his eyes still lost. I always told Nat that no kid should ever grow up without a brother. Only we never had the chance for Eddie. Lauren reached out absently, and touched the brown and yellow neck of the creature. I called this fellow Eddie, though. Do you s'pose that was all right? He's not very pretty. Kirk nodded. Looking at the waving, funnel-shaped head of the animal. That was all right, Harry. Does she still braid her hair? Lauren asked, his eyes shiny. What? Kirk said. Annette, does she still braid her hair? Why? Kirk said slowly, feeling his palms growing moist. Why wouldn't she, Harry? A faint smile flickered across Lauren's lips as he remembered.
Kirk watched one of the creature's claws out of the corners of his eyes. He opened and closed the fingers of one hand, testing. The claw jerked slightly. The blood of Kirk's new wound was drying, he knew, because it had been only a surface cut. He wondered how it would be if the thing used its claws with serious intent. Like it must have to make the cut that had been raked into Lauren's back. Lauren was bending forward now, and Kirk could see the tip end of that scar. Somehow Lauren had managed to stay alive and befriend the creature. Eddie. The Liddlest eyes stared. Kirk knew that he had to make use of the moment. It could break apart any time. The wildness could return. The unreasoning. Listen, Harry, he said.
We ought to get started, you know. There's no use waiting longer. Started? Lauren said. Of course, Kirk said. Trying to keep his voice matter-of-fact, you're going home. Lauren looked at Kirk, and his eyes turned suddenly hard, and his mouth lost the faint smile. I am, he stated flatly. Yes, Kirk said. Of course. You're a liar. Now, Harry, Kirk said, his eyes flickering to the waiting animal, I surely wouldn't lie to you. "'You haven't come for me until after all this time, and now you say you surely wouldn't lie to me.' "'It was like standing in a gully,' Kirk thought, watching a boulder teetering above you. It tipped this way and that, and you didn't know when or if it was going to come hurtling down.
You waited. But Kirk couldn't wait, he knew. He had to do something.' "'Harry, listen. It wasn't easy to find you, don't you see?' He hoped he was making it sound as though all he had done for the last dozen years of exploring was look for Harry Lauren. He wished that the damned thing would stop swaying its ugly head back and forth. Lauren's hand was inching out toward the yellow and brown neck. Look, Harry, these things aren't done in a day. We—A day! Lauren hissed. A day! All this time, and you say a day! No, I'm sorry. Kirk said quickly. He wished he could shift out of the cramped, half-lying position he was in. I didn't mean a day, Harry. I meant it wasn't easy. We didn't know where you were.
He was talking quickly, whining almost, and he'd never whined before. Lauren's fingers were touching the waving neck. We'd better hurry, Kirk said desperately. Annette's waiting. And Dickie, of course. Lauren blinked. You wouldn't want to keep them waiting any longer. Not after all this time, Harry.
Lauren stroked his fingers slowly down the long neck of the animal. I think, Kirk said, almost hoarsely, now that I really remember it, Annette was still wearing her hair braided. I remember that now, Harry. Positively.
Lauren froze the motion of his hand and stared at Kirk. His lips trembled. And then suddenly he put his hands in front of his face. He bent forward, and Kirk felt his nerves jumping, watching the man start to cry. The animal turned its stare away from Kirk for the first time. It looked at Lauren, and then slowly raised a claw, touching Lauren's shoulder carefully.
It made a sound, then. A peculiar hissing sound. Soft. Barely audible. There was no danger in it, or menace. Only a pitiful sound. Lauren raised his head a little and brought his hands away from his face. Tears had cut through dust and grime, and his face was streaked. "'Shall we go, Harry?' Kirk said. Lauren wiped at his eyes, stupidly, without knowing what he was doing. Then he brought his hands down and wiped them across his chest. "'All right,' he said. "'Let's go.' He picked up Kirk's pistol from where he had dropped it on the ground, and held it out. Kirk looked at the gun, and at the animal. The claw had been drawn away from Lauren's shoulder, and again it was poised, ready. "'You keep it, Harry,' he said.
"'Oh, yes, of course,' Lauren said. There was a moment of silence as Lauren stuck the pistol absently into the waist of his ragged cloth covering beside the knife. The three of them waited then. Kirk, Lauren, and the animal.
Eddie? Lauren said finally. Are you ready? Kirk felt himself smiling in the direction of the animal. He remembered when he was a small boy, going by a house where there had been a mongrel with a flat head and large teeth. He had smiled at that animal as he was doing now. The dog had sensed his fear in spite of the smile.
Lauren was standing up slowly. And the animal's head swayed in slow, circling motions. "'All right,' Lauren said. Kirk glanced at the man, saw the wild, nearly vacant look of the face, the polite tilt of the head. Kirk's palms were wet. "'Goddammit,' he thought, and he stood up suddenly. The animal extended a claw slowly, turning it so that it seemed to wind and circle as it came toward Kirk. Eddie? Lauren said. The claw came away. Kirk caught his breath. "'Shall we go?' Lauren said, his eyes shining. "'Yes,' Kirk said. "'We'll go, Harry.' He turned slowly, so that his back was to Lauren and the animal. He thought about the comb-like claws and the scar on Lauren's back. He thought about Lauren's knife and about the pistol.
He wanted to look back as he walked. He wanted to talk, to hear Loren's answer and so know just where he was. More than anything, he wanted to break into a run, and get into that rocket and get out of here. He could see the gleam of the rocket finally, but he didn't look back yet. He kept moving. As he got closer he could see Leo, standing near the base of the ship, tall, leaning carelessly against the silver surface, smoking. He wanted to shout to Leo, To tell him for God's sake to wake up and protect him.
They reached the edge of the clearing, and Leo, whose careless body had stiffened, waited motionless, one hand on his pistol. Kirk stopped. "'There it is, Harry,' he said, not turning around. "'There's the ship.' He waited, half-closing his eyes, breathing slowly.
There was no sound.
"'That's Leo, my friend, Harry,' Kirk said, putting his palms flat against his thighs. "'Your friend, Harry.' Leo, Kirk could see, was still frozen, his eyes slid into narrow brightness. Kirk began to step into the clearing. "'Hello there, Leo,' he said, his voice a tense, grating sound. "'I've brought some friends.' Leo was lifting his pistol out of his holster, inchingly. "'Friends,' Kirk rasped. Leo's thin eyes flickered, and the pistol slid back into the holster. Kirk turned around slowly, and he saw that Lauren had stopped just inside the clearing. The animal remained beside him, its head making its slow circles. Lauren was staring up at the rocket, and the sun reflecting from the bright surface came down and shone on Lauren's face, deepening the lines there.
"'Leo?' Kirk said slowly. "'This is Harry Lauren and his friend Eddie. Harry's been here quite a while, waiting for us.' "'Oh, yes?' said Leo, still not moving. "'That's right, Leo,' Kirk said, quite a while. "'What year was it, Harry?' he said across the clearing. "'What year did you crash?' Lauren blinked, and there were tears again in his eyes. He reached out slowly. And the animal shifted so that its head touched Lauren's hand. 2419. Kirk put his teeth together. 2419, he said. Lauren nodded slowly, his eyes still upon the rocket. 18 years, Leo said softly. A long time, Leo, Kirk said. He thought of a girl with her hair braided about her head, looking up. While Loren had shot into the depths of sky and space.
He thought of a little boy called Dickie standing there, too, watching a fast disappearing blackness in the sky.
He thought about eighteen years, and the fading of youth. A boy becoming a man, braided hair becoming gray, memories fading and minds adjusting, new love, new dedication, a world shifting, a universe shifting.
Kirk looked at Eddie, the animal, real and alive, waiting patiently at the tips of Lauren's fingers.
Eddie's been with Harry for a long time, he said. Oh? said Leo quietly. Lauren's hand stroked the brown and yellow head. Harry, Kirk said, we're going to leave now. Are you ready? Lauren was silent.
"'You go up first, will you, Leo?' Kirk said. Leo looked at him, a faint frown touching his brow. Then he began moving up the ladder to the airlock. Kirk waited until Leo had disappeared into the rocket. Then he repeated, "'We're going to leave now, Harry. Are you ready?' Lauren remained motionless, his hand touching the animal's head. Suddenly he turned then, and began moving slowly away through the brush. The brown and yellow creature bobbing beside him with queer, rocker-like jumps. "'Good-bye, Harry,' Kirk said. Finally he turned and climbed up the ladder. When he had gotten into his seat, he said, "'Let's go, Leo,' and he moved his hands to the controls."
The rocket settled into the quiet motion of its course through space. "'But I don't get it,' Leo said. "'I really don't. All that time, and then all he has to do is walk a dozen yards and get into the rocket and he's going home. That's all you would have to do.' "'Why?' Kirk said. "'Why?' said Leo, frowning. Kirk nodded, looking at the man. "'Why?' End of Mid-Pleasures and Palaces by James McKimmy, Jr.
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15 15 - Psichopath 1:01:34
Psychopath by Randall Garrett.
Given psi powers like clairvoyance and telepathy, solving problems of sabotage, Would be easy, of course. That is, it seems that way at first thought. The man in the pastel blue topcoat walked with steady purpose, but without haste, through the chill, wind-swirled drizzle that filled the air above the streets of Arlington, Virginia. His matching blue cap hood was pulled low over his forehead, and the clear infrared-radiating face mask had been flipped down to protect his chubby cheeks. and round-nosed from the icy wind. No one noticed him particularly. He was just another average man who blended in with all the others who walked the streets that day. No one recognized him. His face did not appear often in public places, except in his own state.
And, even so, it was a thoroughly ordinary face. But as he walked, Senator John Peter Gonzalez was keeping a mental, fine-webbed Four-dimensional net around him, feeling for the slightest touch of recognition. He wanted no one to connect him in any way with his intended destination. It was not his first visit to the six-floor brick building that stood on street in the lower middle-class district of Arlington. Actually, government business took him there more often than would have been safe for the average man on the street. For Senator Gonzalez, the process of remaining incognito was so elementary that it was almost subconscious. Arriving at his destination, he paused on the sidewalk to light a cigarette, shielding it against the wind and drizzle with cupped hands, while his mind made one last check on the surroundings.
Then he strode quickly up the five steps to the double doors, which were marked the Society for Mystical and Metaphysical Research, Incorporated.
Just as he stepped in, he flipped the face shield up and put on an old-fashioned pair of thick-lensed, black-rimmed spectacles. Then, his face assuming a bland smile that would have been completely out of place on Senator Gonzalez, he went from the foyer into the front office. Good afternoon, Mrs. Jesser, he said in a high, smooth, slightly accented voice that was not his own. I perceive by your aura that you are feeling well. Your normal auricolor is tinged with a positive golden hue. Mrs. Jusser, a well-rounded matron in her early forties, rose to the bait, like a porpoise being hand-fed at a Florida zoo. Dear Swami Chandra, how perfectly wonderful to see you again. You are looking very well yourself.
The swami, whose Indian blood was of the Aztec rather than the Brahmin variety, nonetheless managed to radiate all the mystery of the East. My well-being, dear Mrs. Jesser, is due to the fact that I have been communing for the past three months with my very good friend, the Fifth Dalai Lama, a most refreshingly wise person. Senator Gonzalez was fond of the Society's crackpot receptionist, And he knew exactly what kind of hokum would please her most. Oh, I do hope you will find time to tell me all about it, she said, effusively. Mr. Balfour isn't in the city just now, she went on. He's lecturing in New York on the history of flying saucer sightings. Do you realize that this is the fortieth anniversary of the first saucer sighting back in 1944?"
The first photographed sighting, the Swami corrected condescendingly. Our friends had been watching and guiding us from far longer than that, and were sighted many times before they were photographed. Mrs. Jesser nodded briskly. Of course, you're right as always, Swami. I am sorry to hear, the Swami continued smoothly, that I will not be able to see Mr. Balfour. However, I came at the call of Mr. Brian Taggart, who is expecting me. Mrs. Jesser glanced down at her appointment sheet. He didn't mention an appointment to me. However—she punched a button on the intercom. Mr. Taggart, Swami Chandra is here to see you. He says he has an appointment. Brian Taggart's deep voice came over the instrument.
The swami, as usual, is very astute. I have been thinking about him. Send him right up. You may go up, swami," said Mrs. Jesser, wide-eyed. She watched in awe as the swami marched regally through the inner door and began to climb the stairs toward the sixth floor.
One way to hide an ex-officio agency of the United States government was to label it truthfully. The Society for Mystical and Metaphysical Research. In spite of the fact that the label was literally true, it sounded so crackpot that no one but a crackpot would bother to look into it. As a consequence, better than ninety percent of the membership of the Society was composed of just such people. Only a few members of the Corps knew the organization's true function and purpose. And as long as such scatterbrains as Mrs. Jesser and Mr. Balfour were in their pitching, no one would ever penetrate to the actual core of the society. The Senator had already pocketed the exaggerated glasses by the time he reached the sixth floor, and his face had lost its bland, overly wise smile.
He pushed open the door to Taggart's office. Brian Taggart, a heavily muscled man with dark eyes and black, slightly wavy hair, sat on the edge of a couch in one corner of the room. His desk across the room was there for paperwork only, and Taggart had precious little of that to bother with. He took a puff from his heavy-boweled briar. We're going to have to send an agent in there, someone who can be on the spot, someone who can get the feel of the situation firsthand. That'll be difficult. We can't just suddenly stick an unknown in there and have an excuse for his being there. Couldn't Donahue or Reeves—Taggart shook his head. Impossible, John. Extrasensory perception can't replace sight any more than sight can replace hearing.
You know that. Certainly, but I thought we could get enough information that way to tell us who our saboteur is. No dice, eh? No dice, said Taggart. Look at the situation we've got there. The purpose of the Redford research team is to test the Misan Ultimate Decay Theory of Dr. Theodore Nordred. Now if we... Senator Gonzalez, walking across the room toward Taggart, gestured with one hand. I know. I know. Give me some credit for intelligence. But we do have one suspect, don't we? What about him?
Taggart chuckled through a wreath of smoke. Calm down, John. Or are you trying to give me your impression of Mrs. Jesser in a conversation with a saucerite? The Senator laughed and sat down in a nearby chair. All right. Sorry. This whole thing is lousing up our entire space program. First off, we nearly lose Dr. Chien, and with him gone, the Interstellar Drive project would have been shot. Now, if this sabotage keeps up, the Redford project will be shot. And that means we might have to stick to the old-fashioned rocket to get off planet. Brian, we need anti-gravity, and, so far, Nordred's theory is our only clue. Agreed, said Taggart. Well, we're never going to get it if equipment keeps mysteriously burning itself out, breaking down, and just generally goofing up.
This morning, the primary exciter on the new ultra-cosmotron went haywire, And the beam of sodium nuclei burned through part of the accelerator tube wall. It'll take a month to get it back in working order. Taggart took his pipe out of his mouth and tapped the doddle into nearby Ash Disposal Unit. And you want to pick up our pet spy? Senator Gonzalez scowled. Well, I'd certainly call him our prime suspect, but there was a certain lack of conviction in his manner. Brian Taggart didn't flatly contradict the Senator. Maybe. But you know, John, there's one thing that bothers me about these accidents. What's that? The fact that we have not one shred of evidence that points to sabotage.
In a room on the fifth floor, directly below Brian Taggart's office, a young man was half-sitting. Half reclining in a thickly upholstered adjustable chair. He had dropped the back of the chair to a 45-degree angle and lifted up the footrest. Now he was leaning back in lazy comfort, his ankles crossed, his right hand holding a slowly smoldering cigarette, his eyes contemplating the ceiling, or rather, they seemed to be contemplating something beyond the ceiling. It was pure coincidence that the focus of his thoughts happened to be located in about the same volume of space that his eyes seemed to be focused on. If Brian Taggart and Senator Gonzalez had been in the room below, his eyes would still be looking at the ceiling.
In repose, his face looked even younger than his twenty-eight years would have led one to expect. His close-cropped brown hair added to the impression of youth. And the well-tailored suit on his slim muscular body added to the effect. At any top-flight university, he could have passed for a well-bred, sophisticated, intelligent student who had money enough to indulge himself and sense enough not to overdo it. He was beginning to understand the pattern that was being woven in the room above, beginning to feel it in depth. Senator Gonzalez was mildly telepathic, inasmuch as he could pick up thoughts in the prevocal stage, the stage at which thought becomes definitely organized into words, phrases, and sentences.
He could go a little deeper into the selectivity stage, where the linking processes of logic took over from the non-logical but rational processes of the preconscious, but only if he knew the person well. Where the senator excelled was in detecting emotional tone, And manipulating emotional processes both within himself and within others. Brian Taggart was an analyzer, an originator, a motivator, and more. The young man found himself avoiding too deep a probe into the mind of Brian Taggart. He knew that he had not yet achieved the maturity to understand the multi-layered depths of a mind like that. Eventually, perhaps. Not that Senator Gonzalez was a child, nor that he was emotionally or intellectually shallow.
It was merely that he was not of Taggart's caliber. The young man absently took another drag from his cigarette. Taggart had explained the basic problem to him, but he was getting a wider picture from the additional information that Senator Gonzalez had brought.
Dr. Theodor Nordred, a mathematical physicist and one of the top-flight, high-powered original minds in the field, had shown that Einstein's final equations had only held in a universe composed entirely of normal matter. Since the great Einstein had died before the principle of parity had been overthrown in the mid-fifties, he had been unable to incorporate the information into his unified field theory. Nordred had been able to show, mathematically, that Einstein's equations were valid only for a completely dexter or right-handed universe, or for a completely sinister or left-handed universe. Although the universe in which man lived was predominantly dexter, arbitrarily so designated, it was not completely so.
It had a sinister component, amounting to approximately One one-hundred-thousandth of one percent. On the average, one atom out of every ten million in the universe was an atom of antimatter. The distribution was unequal, of course. Antimatter could not exist in contact with ordinary matter. Most of it was distributed throughout interstellar space in the form of individual atoms, freely floating in space, a long way from any large mass of normal matter. But that minute fraction of a percent was enough to show that the known universe was not totally Einsteinian. In a purely Einsteinian universe, antigravity was impossible. But if the equations of Dr. Theodor Nordred were actually a closer approximation to true reality than those of Einstein, then antigravity might be a practical reality.
And that was the problem the Redford research team was working on. It was a parallel project to the interstellar drive problem being carried on elsewhere. The pet spy, as Taggart had called him, was Dr. Conrad Byrne, a middle-aged Negro from Tanganyika, who was convinced that only under communism could the colored races of the world achieve the technological organization and living standard of the white man.
He had been trained as a sleeper. Not even the exhaustive investigations of the FBI had turned up any relationship between Byrne and the Soviets. It had taken the telepathic programming of the SMMR agents to uncover his real purposes. Known, he constituted no danger. There was no denying that he was a highly competent, if not brilliant, physicist. And since it was quite impossible for him to get any information on the Redford project into the hands of the opposition, it was no longer fashionable to call Communists the enemy. There was no reason why he shouldn't be allowed to contribute to the American efforts to bridge space. Three times in the five months since Byrne had joined the project, agents of the Soviet government had made attempts to contact the physicist.
Three times the FBI, warned by SMMR agents, had quietly blocked the contact. Conrad Byrne had been effectively isolated. But at the project site itself, equipment failure had become increasingly more frequent, all out of proportion to the normal accident rate in any well-regulated laboratory. The work of the project had practically come to a standstill. The ultra-secret project reports to the President were beginning to show less and less progress in the basic research, and more and more progress in repairing damaged equipment. Apparently, though, increasing efficiency in repair work was self-neutralizing. Repairing an instrument at half the time merely meant that it could break down twice as often.
It had to be sabotage. And yet, Not even the SMMR agents could find any trace of intentional damage, nor any thought patterns that would indicate deliberate damage. And Senator John Peter Gonzalez quite evidently did not want to face the implications of that particular fact. We're going to have to send an agent in, Taggart repeated. That's my cue, thought the young man on the fifth floor as he crushed out his cigarette and got up from the chair. I don't know how we're going to manage it, said the Senator. What excuse do we have for putting a new man on the Redford team? Brian Taggart grinned. What they need is an expert repair technician, a man who knows how to build and repair complex research instruments.
He doesn't have to know anything about the purpose of the team itself. All he has to do is keep the equipment in good shape. Senator Gonzalez let a slow smile sprit over his face. "'You've been gulling me, you snake.' "'All right. I deserved it. Tell him to come in.' As the door opened, Taggart said, "'Senator Gonzalez? May I present Mr. David McKeith? He's our man, I think.' David McKeith watched a blue line wriggle its way erratically across the face of an oscilloscope. "'The waveform is way off,' he said flatly. And the frequency is slithering all over the place. He squinted at the line for a moment, then spoke to the man standing nearby. Signal Harry to back her off two degrees, then run her up slowly, ten minutes at a time.
The other man flickered the key on the side of the small carbide-well-spock lamp. The shutters blinked, sending pulses of light down the length of the ten-foot diameter glass-walled tube. in which the men were working. Far down the tube, MacHeath could see the answering flicker from Harry a mile and a half away in the darkness. MacHeath watched the screen again. After a few seconds he said, Okay, hold it. Again the lamp flashed. Well, it isn't perfect, MacHeath said, but it's all we can do from here. We'll have to evacuate the tube to get her in perfect balance. Tell Harry to knock off for the day. While the welcome message was being flashed, McKeith shut off the testing instruments and disconnected them.
It was possible to compensate a little for the testing equipment, but a telephone or even an electric flashlight would simply add to the burden. Bill McGriffin shoved down the key on the lamp he was holding and locked it into place. The shutters remained open. and the lamp shed a beam of white light along the shining walls of the cylindrical tube. How much longer do you figure it'll take, Dave? he asked. Another shift at least, said McKeith, picking up the compact shielded instrument case. You want to carry that mat? Griffin picked up the thick sponge-rubber mat that the instrument case had been sitting on, and the two men started off down the tube. Walking silently on the sponge-rubber-soled shoes which would not scratch the glass underfoot.
Any indication yet as to who our saboteur is, Griffin asked. I'm not sure, McKeith admitted. I've picked up a couple of leads, but I don't know if they mean anything or not. I wonder if there is a saboteur, Griffin said musingly. Maybe it's just a run of bad luck. It could happen, you know, a statistical run of— You don't believe that any more than I do, McKeith said. No. But I find it even harder to believe that a materialistic philosophy like Communism could evolve any workable, psionic discipline. So do I, agreed McKeith. But it can't be physical sabotage, Griffin argued. There's not a trace of it anywhere. It has to be psionic. Right, said McKeith, grinning as he saw what was coming next.
But we've already eliminated that, so? Griffin nodded firmly, as if in full agreement with himself. So we follow the dictum of the Master. Eliminate the impossible. Whatever is left, no matter how improbable, is the truth. And since there is absolutely nothing left, there is no truth. At the bottom, the whole thing is merely a matter of mental delusion. Sherlock Holmes would be proud of you, Bill. McKeith said, and so am I. Griffin looked at McKeith oddly. I wish I was a halfway decent telepath. I'd like to know what's going on in your pre-conscious. You'd have to dig deeper than that, I'm afraid, McKeith said ruefully. As soon as my subconscious has solved the problem, I'll let you know. I've changed my mind, said Griffin cheerfully.
I don't envy your telepathy. I don't envy a guy who has to teepee his own subconscious to find out what he's thinking. McKeith chuckled softly as he turned the bolt that opened the door in the gun end of the stripped nuclei accelerator. The seals broke with a soft hiss. Evidently, the barometric pressure outside the two-mile-long underground tube had changed slightly during the time they had been down there. It'll be a week before we can test it," McKeith said in a tired voice. Even after we get it partly in balance, it'll take that long to evacuate the tube and sweep it clean. It was the first sentence he had spoken in the past hour or so, and it was purely for the edification of the man who was standing on the other side of the airlock, although neither Griffin nor McKeith had actually seen him as yet.
Griffin was not a telepath in the sense that the SMMR used the word, but to a non-psionicist, he would have appeared to be one. Membership in the core group of the Society for Mystical and Metaphysical Research required, above all, understanding. And with that understanding, a conversation between two members need consist only of an occasional gesture and a key word now and then. The word understanding needs emphasis. Without understanding of another human mind, no human mind can be completely effective. Without that understanding, no human being can be completely free. And yet, the English word understanding is only an approximation to the actual process that must take place. Total understanding, in one sense, would require that a person actually become another person, that he be able to feel Completely and absolutely, every emotion, every thought, every bodily sensation, every twinge of memory, every judgment, every decision, and every sense of personal identity that is felt by the other person, no more and no less.
Such totality is, obviously, neither attainable nor desirable. The result would be a merger of identities, a total unification. and as a consequence of complete loss of one of the human beings involved, optimum understanding requires that a judgment be made, and that in turn requires two minds, not a fusion of identity. There must be one to judge and another to be judged, and each mind plays both roles. Love thy neighbor as thyself, but the original Greek word Would better translate as respect and understand than as the modern English love. The founders of our modern religions were not fools. They simply did not have the tools at hand to formulate their knowledge properly. As understanding increases, a critical point is reached, which causes a qualitative change in the human mind.
First, self-understanding must come. The human mind operates through similarities, and the thing most similar to any human mind is itself. The next most similar thing is another human mind. From that point on, all objects, processes, and patterns in the universe can be graded according to their similarity to each other, and ultimately to their similarity to the human mind. Two given identities may seem utterly dissimilar. But they can always be linked by a tertium quid, a third thing, which is similar to both. This third thing, be it a material object or a product of the human imagination, is called a symbol. Symbols are the bridges by which the human mind can reach and manipulate the universe in which it exists.
With the proper symbols, and the understanding to use them, The human mind is limited only by its own inherent structural restrictions. One of the most active research projects of the SMMR was the construction of a more powerful symbology. Psionics had made tremendous strides in the previous four decades, but it was still in the alchemy stage. So far, symbols for various processes could only be worked out by cut-and-try, rule-of-thumb methods. Using symbols already established, including languages and mathematics. None were completely satisfactory, but they worked fairly well within their narrow limits. As far as communication was concerned, the hashed-together symbology used by the SMMR was better than any conceivable code.
The understanding required to break the code was well beyond the critical point. Anyone who could break it was, ipso facto, a member of the SMMR. Most people didn't even realize that a conversation was taking place between two members, especially if a cover conversation was used at the same time. McHeath's verbal discussion of the testing of the nuclei accelerator was just such a cover. Even before he had cracked the airlock, He had known that Dr. Theodor Nordred was standing on the other side of the thick wall. MacHeath pushed the heavy door open on its smooth hinges. Oh, hello, Dr. Nordred. How is everything? The heavy-set mathematician smiled pleasantly as MacHeath and Griffin came into the gun chamber.
I just thought I'd come down and see how you were getting along, he said. His voice was a low tenor, with just a touch of Midwestern twang. Sometimes the creative mind gets bogged down in the nth-order abstractions that have no discernible connection with anything at all," he chuckled. When that happens, I drop everything and go out to find something mundane to worry about. Nordred was only an inch shorter than the slim McHeath, and he weighed in at close to two hundred pounds. At twenty-five, he had the build of a lightweight wrestler. Thirty more years had added poundage, a roll beneath his chin, and a bulge at the belly, but he still looked capable of going a round or two without tiring. His shock of heavy hair was a mixture of mouse-brown and grey, and it seemed to have a tendency to stand up on end, which added another inch and a half to his height.
His round face had a tendency to smile when he was talking or working with his hands. When he was deep in thought, His face usually relaxed into thoughtful blankness. He frowned rarely, and only for seconds at a time. "'It seems to me you have enough to worry about, Doctor,' MacHeath said banteringly, without looking for it. He put down his instrument case and took out a cigarette, while Griffin closed the door to the acceleration tube. "'Oh, I don't have to look far,' Nordred said. "'How long do you think it'll be before we can resume our work with the monster?' Ten days to two weeks, McKeith said promptly. I see.
One of his rare frowns crossed his face. I wish I knew why the exciter arced across. It shouldn't have. Don't you have any idea? McKeith asked innocently. At the same time, he opened his mind wide to net in every wisp and filament of Nordred's thoughts that he could reach. None at all, admitted the mathematician. Weakness in the insulation, I suppose, although it tested solidly enough. And his mind as far back as his pre-conscious, and the upper fringes of his subconscious agreed with his words. MacHeath could go no deeper as yet. He didn't know Nordred well enough. There were suspicions in Nordred's mind that the insulation weakness must have been caused by deliberate sabotage. But he had no one to pin his suspicions on.
Neither he nor anyone else connected with the Redford Project was aware of the true status of Dr. Conrad Byrne.
Well, let's hope it doesn't happen again, McKeith said. Balancing these babies so that they work properly is hard enough for a Deuteron accelerator. But the monster is ten times as touchy. Nordred nodded absently. I know, but our work can't be done with anything less. Nordroth actually knew less about the engineering details of the big accelerator than anyone else on the project. He was primarily a philosopher-mathematician, and only secondarily a physicist. He was theoretically in charge of the project, but the actual experimentation was done by the other four men—Doctors Roger Kent, Paul Ljewiczek, Solomon Besserman, and Conrad Byrne. These four and their assistants set up and ran off the experiments designed to test Dr.
Nordred's theories. McHeath picked up his instrument case again, and the three men went out of the gun chamber into the outer room, and then started up the spiral stairway that led to the surface, talking as they went. But the apparent conversation had little to do with the instruction that McHeath was giving Griffin as they climbed. So when McKeith stopped suddenly and patted at his coverall pockets, Griffin was ready for the words that came next. Damn, McKeith said, I've left my notebook. Will you go down and get it for me, Bill? Dr. Nordred had neither understood nor noticed the actual instructions. Bill, as soon as I give you an excuse, get back down there and check that gun chamber. Give it a thorough going over.
I don't really think you'll find anything. But I don't want to take any chances at this stage of the game." Right," said Griffin, starting back down the stairway. McKeith and Dr. Nordred went on climbing. David McKeith sat at a table in the project's cafeteria, absently stirring his coffee and trying to look professionally modest, while Dr. Ljewiczek and Dr. Besserman alternately praised him for his work. Ljewiczek! A tubby little butterball of a man, whose cherubic face would have made him look almost childlike if it weren't for the blue of his jaw, said, You and those two men of yours have really done a marvelous job in the past four days, Mr. McKeith. Really marvelous. I'll say, Besserman chimed in, I was getting pretty tired of looking at burned-out equipment and spending three-quarters of my time putting in replacement parts and wielding a soldering gun.
Besserman was leaner than Ljouvacek, but, like his brother's scientist, he was balding on top. Both men were in their middle thirties. "'I don't understand this jinx myself,' Ljouvacek said. "'At first it was just little things. But the accidents got worse and worse. And then, when the monster blew,' he stopped and shook his head slowly. "'I'd suspect sabotage, except that there was never any sign of tampering with the equipment I saw.' What do you think of the sabotage idea? Besserman asked McKeith.
McKeith shrugged. Haven't seen any signs of it. Run of bad luck, said Louvachek. That's all. As they talked, McKeith absorbed the patterns of thought that wove in and out of the two men's minds. Both men were more open than Dr. Nordred. They were easier for McKeith to understand. Nowhere was there any thought of guilt. At least as far as sabotage was concerned. McKeith drank his coffee slowly and thoughtfully, keeping up his part of the three-way conversation, while he concentrated on his own problem. One thing was certain. Nowhere in the minds of any of the personnel of the Redford project was there any conscious knowledge of sabotage, not even in the mind of Conrad Byrne. Dr. Roger Kent, a tall, lantern-jawed, sad-eyed man in his forties, had been hard to get through to at first.
But as soon as McKeith discovered that the hard block Kent had built up around himself was caused by grief over a wife who had been dead five years, he became as easy to read as a billboard. Kent had submerged his grief in work, the eternal drive of the true scientist to drag the truth out of Mother Nature. He was constitutionally incapable of sabotaging the very instruments that had been built to dig in after that truth. Dr. Conrad Byrne, on the other hand, was difficult to read below the preconscious stage. Science, to him, was a form of power, to be used for idealistic purposes. He was perfectly capable of sabotaging the weapons of an enemy if it became necessary. Whether that meant ruining a physical instrument or carefully falsifying the results of an experiment.
Outwardly, he was a pleasant enough chap, but his mind revealed a rigidly held pattern of hatreds, fears, and twisted idealism. He held them tightly against the onslaughts of a hostile world. And that meant that he couldn't possibly have any control over whatever psionic powers he may have had. Unless... Unless he was so expert and so well-trained that he was better than anything the SMMR had ever known. McKeith didn't even like to think about that. It would mean that all the theory of psionics that had been built up so painstakingly over the past years would have to be junked in toto. Something was gnawing in the depths of his mind. In the perfectly rational But utterly non-logical part of his subconscious, where hunches are built, something was trying to form.
McKeith didn't try to probe for it. As soon as he had had enough information for the hunch to be fully formed, it would be ready to use. Until then, it would be worthless, and probing for it might interrupt the formation.
He was just finishing his coffee as Bill Griffin came in the door and headed towards the table where McKeith, Ljubicek, and Besserman were sitting. McKeith stood up and said, Excuse me, I'll have to be getting some work done if you guys are ever going to get your own work done. Sure. Go ahead. Thanks for the coffee, McKeith added as he moved away. Anytime, said Besserman, grinning. You guys just keep up the good work. When you fix them, they stay fixed. We haven't had a burnout since you came." "'Maybe you broke our statistical jinx,' said Louvachek, with a chubby smile." "'Maybe,' said McKeith. "'I hope so.'" For some reason, the gnawing in his hunch factory became more persistent. As he and Griffin walked toward the door, Griffin reported rapidly.
"'I checked everything in the gun chamber. No sign of any tampering. Everything's just as we left it. The dust film hasn't been disturbed. It figures," said McKeith.
Outside, in the corridor, they met Dr. Conrad Byrne, hurrying toward the cafeteria. He stopped as he saw them. Oh, hello, Mr. McKeith, Mr. Griffin, he said. His white-toothed smile was friendly, but both of the SMMR agents could detect the hostility that was hard and brittle beneath the surface. I wanted to thank you for the wonderful job you've been doing." "'Why, thank you, Doctor,' said McKeith honestly. We aim to satisfy." Byrne chuckled. "'You're doing well so far. Odd streak of luck we've had, isn't it? Poor Dr. Nordred has been under a terrible strain. His whole life work is tied up in this project.' He made a vague gesture with one hand. "'Would you care for some coffee?' "'Just had some, thanks,' said McKeith.
"'But we'll take a rain check.' "'Fine.' Any time, and he went on to the cafeteria. "'Wow,' said Griffin, as he walked on down the corridor with McKeith. "'That man is scared silly. But what an actor! You'd never know he was eating his guts out.' "'Sure, he's scared, with all this sabotage talk going around. He's afraid there'll be an exhaustive investigation, and he can't take that right now.' Griffin frowned. "'I guess I missed that. What did you pick up?' He's supposed to meet a Soviet agent tonight, and he's afraid he'll be caught. He doesn't know what happened to the first three, and he won't know what will happen to number four tonight. We'll keep him around as long as he's useful. He's not a bore or a pally or a fermi, but he—McKeith stopped himself suddenly and came to a dead halt.
My God, he said softly, that's it. His hunch had hatched. After a moment, he said, "'Harry is getting back from the target end of the tube now, Bill. He can't pick me up, so beetle it down to the tool room, get him, and get up to the workshop fast. If I'm not there—wait. I have a little prying to do.' "'Can do,' said Griffin. He went toward the elevator in an easy lope. David McKeith went in the opposite direction. When McKeith returned to the workshop which he had been assigned, Bill Griffin and Harry Benbow were waiting for him. Beside the big-muscled Griffin, Harry Benbow looked even thinner than he was. He was a good six-two, which made him a head taller than Griffin, but, unlike many tall, lean men, Benbow had no tendency to slouch.
He stood tall and straight, reminding McKeith of a poplar-tree towering proudly over the countryside. Benbow was one of those rare American Negroes whose skin was actually as close to being black as human pigmentation will allow. His eyes were like disks of obsidian set in spheres of white porcelain, which gave an odd contrast similarity effect when compared with Griffin's China Blue eyes. If the average man had wanted to pick two human beings were opposites. He could hardly have made a better choice than Benbow in the short Thickly-built, blond-haired, pink-skinned Bill Griffin. But the average man would be so struck by the differences that he would never notice that the similarities were vastly more important.
"'You look as if you've just been kissed by Miss America,' Harry said as McKeith came through the door. "'Better than that,' McKeith said. "'We've got work to do.' "'What's the pitch?' Griffin wanted to know. "'Well—' In the first place, I'm afraid Dr. Conrad Byrne is no longer of any use to the Redford Project. We're going to have to arrest him as an unregistered agent of the Soviet government." "'It's just as well,' said Harry Benbow gently. "'His research hasn't done us any good, and it hasn't done the Soviets any good. The poor guy's been on edge ever since he got here. All the pale hide around this place stirs up every nerve in him.' What got you on to this? Griffin asked McKeith. A hunch first, McKeith said.
Then I got Data to back it up. But first. Harry, how do you know about Byrne's reactions? He keeps those prejudices of his down pretty deep. I didn't think you could go that far. I didn't have to. He spent half an hour talking to me this morning. He was so happy to see a fellow human being, according to his definition of human being, That he was as easy to read as if you were doing the reading. McKeith nodded. I hate to throw him to the wolves, but he's got to go. What was the snooping you said you had to do, Griffin asked? Dates, times. Briefly, I found that the run of accidents has been building up to a peak. At first, it was just small meters that went wrong. Then, bigger, more complex stuff.
And finally, the monster went. See the pattern? The other men nodded. You're the therapist, Griffin said. What do you suggest? Shock treatment, said David McKeith. Just how Dr. Conrad Byrne got wind of the fact that a squad of FBI men had come to the project to arrest him that evening is something that McKeith didn't know until later. He was busy at the time, ignoring anything but what he was interested in. It always fascinated him to watch the mind of a psychokinetic expert at work. He couldn't do the trick himself, and he was always amazed at the ability of anyone who could. It was like watching a pianist play a particularly difficult concerto. A person can watch a pianist, see every movie he is making, and why he is making it, but being able to see what's going on doesn't mean that one can duplicate the action.
McKeith was in the same position. Telepathically, he could observe the play of emotions that ran through a psychokinetic's mind, the combinations of avid desire and the utter loathing which, playing one against another, could move a brick, a book, or a Buick, if the mind was powerful enough. But he couldn't do it himself, no matter how carefully he tried to follow the raging emotions that acted as two opposing jaws of a pair of tongs to lift and move the object. And so engrossed was he with the process that he did not notice that Conrad Byrne had eluded the FBI. He was unaware of what had happened until one of the Federal agents rapped loudly on the workshop door. Almost instantly, McKeith picked up the information from the agent's mind.
He glanced at Griffin and Benbow. You two can handle it. Be careful you don't overdo it. Then he went to the door and opened it a trifle. Yes? The man outside showed a gold badge. Morgan, FBI. You David McKeith? Yes. McKeith stepped outside and showed the FBI man his identification. We were told to cooperate with you in this Conrad Byrne case. He's managed to slip away from us somehow. But we know he's still in the area. He can't get past the gate. McKeith let his mind expand until it meshed with that of Dr. Conrad Byrne. There is a way out, McKeith snapped. The acceleration tube. What? Come on, he started sprinting toward the elevators. He explained to the FBI agent as they went. The acceleration tube of the Ultra Cosmotron runs due north of here for two miles underground.
The guard at the other end won't be expecting anyone to be coming from the inside of the target building. If Byrne plays his cards right, he can get away. Can't we phone the target building, the FBI-man asked? No. We shut off all the electrical equipment and took down some of the wires so we could balance the acceleration fields. Well, if he's on foot, we could send a car out there. We'd get there before he does, wouldn't we? Maybe. But he'll kill himself if he sees he's trapped. That wasn't quite true. Byrne was ready to fight to the death, and he had a heavy pistol to back him up. McKeith didn't want to see anyone killed, and he didn't want stray bullets flying around the inside of that tube or in the target room.
McKeith and the FBI agent piled out of the elevator at the bottom of the shaft. Dr. Roger Kent was standing at the head of the stairs that spiraled down to the gun chamber. Dr. Kent knew that Byrne had gone down the stairway, but he didn't know why. He's our saboteur, McKeith said quickly. I'm going after him. As soon as I close the door and seal it, you turn on the pumps. Lower the air pressure in the tube to a pound per square inch below atmospheric. That'll put a force of about a ton and a quarter against the doors, and he won't be able to open them. Dr. Kent didn't grasp the fact that Byrne was a spy. Explain to him, Morgan, McKeith told the Federal agent. He went on down the spiral staircase, knowing that Kent would understand and act in plenty of time.
The door to the tube was standing open. McKeith slipped on a pair of the sponge-soled shoes, noticing angrily that Byrne hadn't bothered to do so. He went into the tube and closed the door behind him. Then he started down the blackness of the tube at a fast trot. Ahead of him, in the utter darkness, He could hear the click of heels as the leather-shod Byrne moved toward the target end of the long tube. Neither of them had lights. They were unnecessary, for one thing, since there was only one direction to go and there were no obstacles in the path. Byrne would probably have carried a flashlight if he had been able to get his hands on one quickly, but he hadn't. So he went in darkness. McHeath didn't want a light in the darkness.
He had the advantage of knowing where his opponent was. Every so often, Byrne would stop, listening for sounds of pursuit, since his own footsteps echoing down the glass line's cylinder drowned out any noise from behind. But McKeith, running silently on the toes of his thick-soled shoes, kept in motion, gaining on the fleeing spy.
A two-mile run is a good stretch of exercise for anyone, but McKeith didn't dare slow down. As it was, Conrad Byrne was already tugging frantically at the door that led to the target room by the time McKeith reached him. But the faint sighing of the pumps had already told McKeith that the air pressure had been dropped. Byrne couldn't possibly get the door open. McKeith's lungs wanted to be filled with air. His chest wanted to heave. He wanted to pant. Taking in great gulps of life-giving oxygen, but he didn't dare. He didn't want Byrne to know he was there, so he strained to keep his breath silent. He stepped up behind the physicist in the pitch blackness, and, judging carefully, brought his fist down on the nape of the man's neck in a hard rabbit punch.
Conrad Byrne dropped unconscious to the floor of the tube. Then McKeith let his chest pump air into his lungs in long, harsh gasps. Shakily, he lowered himself to the floor beside Byrne and squatted on his haunches, waiting for the hiss of the bleeder valve that would tell him that the air pressure had been raised to allow someone to enter the airlock. It was Morgan, the FBI man, who finally cracked the door. Griffin and Dr. Kent were with him. "'You all right?' asked Morgan. "'I'm fine,' McKeith said, "'but Byrne is going to have a sore neck for a while.' I didn't hit him hard enough to break it, but he'll get plenty of sleep before he wakes up. More FBI men came in, and they dragged out the unprotesting burn.
Dr. Kent said, Well, I'm glad that's over. I'll have to get back and see what Dr. Nordred is raving about. Raving? asked McKeith innocently. Yes. While I was in the pump room reducing the pressure, he called me on the interphone. He said he'd been looking all over for me. He and Ljewiczek and Besserman were up in the lab. He frowned. They claimed that one of the radio-led samples was floating in the air in the lab. It's settled down now, I gather, but it only weighs a fraction of what it should, though it's gaining all the time. And that's ridiculous. It's not at all what Dr. Nordred's theory predicted. Then he clamped his lips together, thinking perhaps he had talked too much. Interesting, said Makeith blandly.
Very interesting.
Senator Gonzalez sat in Brian Taggart's sixth-floor office in the SMMR building and looked puzzled. All right. I grant you that Byrne couldn't have been the saboteur. Then why arrest him? Dave McKeith took a drag from his cigarette before he answered. We had to have a patsy, someone to put the blame on. No one really believed that it was just bad luck. But they'll all accept the idea that Byrne was a saboteur. We would have had to arrest him eventually anyway, said Brian Taggart. Give me a quick rundown, Gonzalez said. I've got to explain this to the President. Did you ever hear of the Pauli effect? McKeith asked. Something about the number of electrons, that? No. McKeith said quickly, that's the Pauli principle, better known as the exclusion principle.
The Pauli effect is a different thing entirely, a psionic effect.
It used to be said that a theoretical physicist was judged by his inability to handle research apparatus. The clumsier he was in the research, the better he was with theory. But Wolfgang Pauli was a lot more than clumsy. Apparatus would break, topple over, go to pieces, or burn up if Pauli just walked into the room. Up to the time he died in 1958, His colleagues kidded about it, without really believing there was anything behind it. But it is recorded that the explosion of some vacuum equipment in a laboratory at the University of Göttingen was the direct result of the Pauly effect. It was definitely established that the explosion occurred at the precise moment that a train on which Pauly was traveling stopped for a short time at the Göttingen railway station, the senator said.
The poltergeist phenomenon.
Not exactly, McKeith said, although there is a similarity. The poltergeist phenomenon is usually spectacular and is nearly always associated with teenage neurotics. Then there's the pyrotic. Fires always start in his vicinity. But there's always a reason for psionic phenomenon to react violently under subconscious control. Senator Gonzalez pointed out. There's always a psychological quirk. Sure. And I almost fell into the same trap myself. How so? I was thinking that if Byrne were the saboteur, all our theories of psionics would have to be thrown out. We'd have to start from a different set of precepts. And I didn't even want to think about such an idea. Nobody likes their pet theories overthrown, Gonzalez observed.
Of course not. But here is the point. The only way that a scientific theory can be proved wrong is to uncover a phenomenon which doesn't fit in with the theory. A theoretical physicist is a mathematician. He makes logical deductions and logical predictions by juggling symbols around in accordance with some logical system. But the axioms, the assumptions upon which those systems are built, are non-logical. You can't prove an axiom. It comes right out of the mind. So imagine that you're a trained theoretical physicist, a really original type thinker. You come up with a mathematical system that explains all known phenomena at that time, and predicts others that are as yet unknown. You check your math over and over again.
There's no error in your logic, since it all follows step by step. Okay, go on, Gonzalez said, interestedly. Very well, then. You've built yourself a logical universe, based on your axioms, and the structure seems to have a one-to-one correspondence with the actual universe. Not only that, but if the theory is accepted, you've built your reputation on it, your life. Now what happens if your axioms, not the logic about the axioms, But the axioms themselves are proven to be wrong.
Brian Taggart took his pipe out of his mouth. Why, you give up the erroneous set of axioms and build a new set that will explain the new phenomena. Isn't that what a scientist is supposed to do? His manner was that of wide-eyed innocence, laid on with a large trowel. Oh, sure it is, said the senator. A man builds his whole life, his whole universe, on a set of principles. He claims he will, McKeith said. Any scientist worth the paper his diploma is printed on is firmly convinced that he will change his axioms as soon as they're proven false. Of course, ninety-nine percent of them can't, and won't, and don't. They refuse to look at anything that suggests changing axioms.
Some scientists eagerly accept the axioms that they were taught in school, and hang on to them all their lives, fighting change tooth and nail. Oh, they'll accept new ideas all right, provided they fit in with the structures based on the old axiom. Then there are the young iconoclasts who don't like the axioms as they stand, so they make up some new ones of their own. Men like Newton. Einstein, Planck, and so on. Then, once the new axioms have been forced down the throats of their colleagues, the innovators become the old order. The iconoclasts become the ones who put the fences around the new images to safeguard them. And they're even more firmly wedded to their axioms than anyone else. This is their universe.
Of course, these men proclaim to all the world that they are perfectly willing to change their axioms. And the better a scientist he is, the more he believes, in his heart of hearts, that he really would change. He really thinks consciously that he wants others to test his theories. But notice, a theory is only good if it explains all known phenomena in its field. If it does, then the only thing that can topple it is a new fact. The only thing that can threaten the complex structure formulated by a really creative, painstaking mathematical physicist is experiment. Senator Gonzales' attentive silence was eloquent. Experiment, McKeith repeated. That can wreck a theory quicker and more completely than all the learned arguments of a dozen men.
And every theoretician is aware of that fact. Consciously, he gladly accepts the inevitable, but his subconscious mind will fight to keep those axioms, even if it has to smash every experimental device around. After all, if nobody can experiment in your pet theory, it can't be proved wrong, can it?
In Nordred's case, in Pauli's, this subconscious defense actually made itself felt in the form of broken equipment. Dr. Theodore Nordred was totally unconscious of the fact that he detested and feared the idea of anyone experimenting to prove or disprove his theory. He had no idea that he himself was rechanneling the energy in those machines to make them burn out.
Brian Taggart looked at McKeith pointedly. Do you think the shock treatment you gave him will cause any repercussions? No. Griffin and Benbow held that block of radio lead floating in the air only while Dr. Nordred was alone in the lab. He pushed at it, felt of it, and moved it around for more than ten minutes before he'd admit the reality of what he saw. Then he called Ljubicek and Besserman in to look at it. Griffin and Benbow let the sample settle on the desk, so that by the time the other two scientists got to the lab, The lead didn't have an apparent negative weight, but was still much lighter than it should be. All the while that Besserman and Ljewiczek were trying to weigh the lead block to get an accurate measurement, Griffin and Benbow, three rooms away, kept increasing the weight slowly towards normal.
And so far, no one has invented a device which will give an instantaneous check on the weight of an object. A balance can't check the weight of a sample unless that weight is constant. There's too much time lag involved. So, what evidence do they have? Scientifically speaking, none. They have no measurements, and the experiment can't be repeated. And only Nordred actually saw the sample floating. Luvacek and Besserman will eventually think up a natural explanation for the apparent steady gain in weight. Only Nordred will remain convinced that what he saw actually happened. I don't see how there could be any serious repercussions in the field of physics, but he looked at Taggart for confirmation.
Taggart gave it to him with an approving look. It's a funny thing," said Gonzalez, musingly. Some time back we were in a situation where we had to go to the extreme of physical violence to keep from demonstrating to a scientist that psionic powers could be controlled, just to keep from ruining the physicist's work. Now we turn right around and demonstrate the impossible to another physicist in order to pull his hard-earned axioms out from under him," he smiled wryly. There ain't no justice in the world.
No, agreed McKeith, but the trick worked. He won't have any subconscious desire to smash equipment just to protect a theory that has already been smashed. On the contrary, he'll let them go through in order to find new data to build another theory on.
He'll never again be the man he was, said Taggart regretfully. He's lost the force of his convictions. He won't be capable of taking a no-nonsense, dogmatic, black-and-white stand. But it was necessary. He made an odd gesture with one hand. What else can you do with a man who's a psionic psychopath?
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16 16 - Shipwreck in the Sky 17:01
Shipwreck in the Sky by Iando Binder. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Robert Schwartz. The flight into space that made pilot captain Dan Barstow famous. The flight was listed at GHQ as Project Songbird. It was sponsored by the Space Medicine Labs of the U.S. Air Force. And its pilot was Captain Dan Barstow. A hand-picked man, Dan Barstow, chosen for the Air Force's most important project of the year, because he and his VX-3 had already broken all previous records set by hordes of V-2s, Navy Aerobees, and anything else that flew the skyways. Dan Barstow. First man to cross the sea of air and sight open unlimited space.
Pioneer flight to infinity. He grinned and hummed himself as he settled down for the long jaunt. Too busy to be either thrilled or scared, he considered the thirty-seven instruments he'd have to read, the twice that many records to keep, and the miles of camera film to run. He had been hand-picked and thoroughly conditioned to take it all. Without more than 10% increases in his pulse rate. So he worked as matter-of-factly as if he were down in the GE's centrifuge of the space medicine labs where he had been schooled for this trip for months. He kept up a running fire of oral reports through his helmet radio, down to Rough Rock and his CO. All roger, sir. Temperature falling fast. But this rubberoid spacesuit keeps me cozy.
No chills. Doc Blaine will be happy to hear that. Weightless sensations pretty queer, and I feel upside down as much as right side up. But no bad effects. Taking shots of the sun's corona now with colour film. Huh? Oh, yes, sir. It's beautiful, all right, now that you mentioned it. But hell, sir, who's got the time for aesthetics now? Oops, that was a close one. Tenth meteor whizzing past. Makes me think of flack back on those Berlin bombing runs. Dan couldn't help wincing when the meteors peppered down past. The flack of space. Below, he could see the meteors flare up brightly as they hit the atmosphere. Most of those near his position were small, none bigger than a baseball, and Dan took comfort in the fact that his rocket was small, too, in the immensity around him.
A direct hit would be sheer bad luck. But the good old law of averages were on his side. Yes, Colonel, this tin cannon riding is holding together okay, Dan continued to rough rock. If he paused even a second in his reports, a top sergeant's yell from the colonel's throat came back for him to keep talking. Every bit of information he could transmit to them was a vital revelation in this U.S. Air Force Alpha exploration of open space beyond Earth's air cushion, with ceiling unlimited to infinity. "'Cosmic rays, sir?' "'Sure, the reading shot up double on the Geiger.' "'Huh?' "'Nah, I don't feel a thing,' like Doc Baird suspected." We invented a lot of old wives' tales in advance, before going into space.
I feel fine, so you can put down cosmic ray intensity as a boogeyman. What's that? Yeah, yeah, sir. The stars shine without winking up here. What else? Space is icky black. No deep purples are queer. More than blacks like some jetted-up writers dreamed up. Just plain old ordinary dead black. Earth, sir? While it does look dis-shaped from up here, concave. Sure, I can see all the way to Europe and say, here's something unexpected. I can see that hurricane off the coast of Florida. You said it, sir. Once we install permanent space stations up here, it will be easy to spot typhoons, volcano eruptions, tidal waves, earthquakes, what have you, the moment they start up. If you ask me, with a good telescope, you could even spot forest fires the minute they broke out.
Not to mention a sneak bombing on a target city. Huh? Sorry, sir, I forgot. Dan broke off and almost retched as his stomach turned a flip-flop to end all flip-flops. The VX3 had reached the peak of its trajectory at over a thousand miles altitude and now turned down, lazily at first. He gulped oxygen from the emergency tube at his lips and felt better. Turning back on schedule, Rough Rock. Peak altitude, 1,037 miles. Everything's fine. No danger. This was all a cinch. Hey, wait! Something not in the books has popped up. Standby! Dan had felt the rockets swing a bit, strangely, as if gripped by a strong force. Instead of falling directly down towards Earth with a slight pitch, it slanted sideways and spun on its long axis.
And then Dan saw what it was. Beneath, intercepting his trajectory, coming around fast over the curvature of the Earth, Was a tiny black worldlet, 998 miles above Earth. It might be an enormous meteor, but Dan felt he was right the first time, for it wasn't falling like a meteor, but swinging parallel to Earth's surface on an even keel. He stared at the unexpected discovery, as amazed as if it were a fire-breathing dragon out of a legend. For it was, actually, he realized in a swift, stunned comprehension, more amazing than any legend. Dan kept his voice calm. Hello, Rough Rock? Listen. Nobody expected this. Hold your hat, sir, and sit down. I've discovered a second moon of Earth. Huh? You heard me right.
A second moon. Tie that, will you? Sure, it's tiny. Less than a mile in diameter, I'd say. Dead black in color. Guess that's why telescopes never spotted it. Tiny and black. Blends into the black backdrop of space. It has terrific speed. And that little Maverick's gravitational field caught my rocket. Of course, it can't yank me away from Earth's gravity, but the trouble is, yape, my rocket and that moonlet may be in for a mutual collision course. Dan's trained eyes suddenly saw that grim possibility, barreling around Earth in a narrow orbit with a speed of something near over 12,000 miles an hour, the tiny new moon had, since his ascent, charged directly into his downward freefall. It was a chance in a thousand for a direct hit, except for one added factor.
The moonlet exerted enough gravity pull out of its many million ton bulk to warp the rocket into its path, and the thousands won odds were thus wiped out, becoming even money. Nip and tuck, reported Dan, answering the excited pleadings and questions from Rough Rock. It won't be a head-on crash. I may even miss entirely. Oh Lord, not with that spire of rock sticking up from it. I'm going to hit that. Dan had heard an atomic bomb blast once, and it sounded like a string of them set off at once as the rocket smashed into the rocky prominence. The rock splintered. The rocket splintered. But Dan was not there to be splintered likewise. He had jammed down a button at the critical moment, and the rocket's emergency escape hatch had ejected him a split second before the violent impact.
But Dan blacked out, receiving some of the concussion of the exploding rocket. When his eyes snapped open, He was floating like a feather in open, airless space. His rubberoid spacesuit, living up to its rigid tests, have inflated to its elastic limit. But it held, and within, its automatic units began feeding him oxygen, heat, and radio power. He had a chance now, because he had been ejected cleanly from the rocket, without damage to the protective suit. The stars wheeled dizzily around him. Dan finally saw the reason why. He was not just floating as a free agent in space. He was circling the black moonlet, at perhaps a thousand yards from its pitted surface. "'Hello, Rough Rock,' he called.
"'Still alive and kicking, sir. Only now, of all crazy mad things, I'm a moon of this moon. The collision must have knocked me clear out of my down-to-earth orbit. I must have been ejected in the same direction as the moonlet's course. In its gravity field, I don't know.' Let an electric brain figure it out sometime. Anyway, now I'm being dragged along in the orbit of the moonlet. How about that? Yes, sir, I'm circling down closer and closer to the moonlet. No, don't worry, sir. It was a weak gravity pull, only a fraction of an Earth-G. So I'm drifting down, gently as a cloud. Stand by for my landing on Earth's second moon. The bloated figure in the bulging spacesuit circled the black stony surface several more times.
In a narrowing spiral, and finally landed with a soft skidding bump that didn't even jar Dan's teeth. He bounced several more times from a diminishing height of fifty-odd feet in grotesque slow motion before he finally came to a stop. He sat still for a moment, adjusting to the fantastic fact of being shipwrecked on an uncharted moonlet, crowding down his pulse rate, which might be over ten percent normal now. Okay, Rough Rock, I hear you. You're telling me, sir? Obviously, I'm marooned here. No rocket to leave with. No way to get back to the Terra Firma. What? If you'll pardon my saying so, sir, that's a silly question. Of course I'm scared. Scared green. Sorry about the rocket, sir. Losing it for you.
Me, sir? Thank you, sir. But stop apologizing, will you? I know you haven't got any duplicates of the VX-3 ready. No rescue rocket. Dan listened for a moment longer, then broke in roughly. Oh, for Pete's sake, will you stop crying over me, sir? So I get mine here. I might have gotten it over Berlin, too. Forget it, sir. Dan grinned suddenly. Look, what have I got to kick about? I'll go out in a flash of glory, at least one headline will put it that way, and I'll get credit in the history books as the man who discovered that Earth has two moons. What more could I ask, really? Dan blushed at the reply from Rough Rock. Will you lay off, please, Colonel? How else should a man take it? I'm still scared silly inside.
But look, I've really got something to report now. This little runt moon makes tracks around Earth in probably two hours minus. If I remember my space nautics right, I'm already looking down over the Grand Canyon, heading west. I'm going to get a pretty terrific bird's eye view of the whole world in two more hours, which is just about how much oxygen I've got left. Lucky, eh? Dan looked down, watching in fascination the majestic wheeling of the earth below him. His little moonlet did not rotate, or rather, it rotated once for every revolution around the earth, as the moon did, keeping one face earthward, giving him an uninterrupted view. The Sierras on earth, Hove into clear view, and the broad Pacific.
There would follow Hawaii, then Japan, Asia, Europe. No, he saw he was slanting southwest. It would be across the equator, past Australia, perhaps near the South Pole, then up and around over the top of the world, past Greenland, following that great circle around the globe. In any case, his was the speediest trip around the world ever made by man. Before we're out of mutual range, Rough Rock, I'm going to explore this new moon. Me and Columbus, stand by for reports. Dan did his walking in huge leaps that propelled him fifty feet at a step with slight effort, due to the extremely feeble gravity of the tiny body. What did he weigh here? Probably no more than an ounce or two. Nothing much to report, Colonel.
It's a dead, airless, pipsqueak planetoid. Just a big, mile-thick rock, probably. No life, no vegetation, no people, no nothing. Guess you might call me the man in the second moon. And the joke's on me. Well, one and three-quarter hours of oxygen left by the gauge, or 105 minutes, sounds like more that way. What's that, sir? Your voice is getting faint. Any last requests from me? Well, one favor, maybe. Pick up my body someday, with another rocket. Yeah, it'll stay preserved up here in this deep freeze of space. That's... Sir? Can't hear you much now. Going out of range. Give Betty my fondest. You know the blonde. Well, sir, goodbye now. Dan was glad that Rough Rock's radio voice faded to a whispery nothingness.
It wasn't easy to stay casual now, there was nothing more to say, really, and he didn't want to hear any more crying from the CO. The old man had sounded almost hysterical. He wanted just to be alone, with his thoughts now, making his final peace with the universe. He checked the gauge with his watch, 90 minutes of oxygen to zero, or, he thought with a grin, eternity minus 90 minutes. He was beginning to have trouble breathing, but it was awesomely grand watching the sweep of earth beneath him, the procession of dots that were islands strung across the Pacific's south seas like a necklace of green beads. He was still within radio range of ships below at sea, yet he didn't contact them. He had nothing to say, like a ghost in the sky.
Idly, he kept pitching loose stones, watching their rifle-like speed away from him. Again, a phenomenon of the weak gravity of the moonlet. Actually, he was able to pick up a boulder ten feet across and heave it away with ease. We who are about to die amuse ourselves, he thought. Then, because a thread of stubborn hope still clung on a corner of his mind, he got an idea. It had lurked just beyond his mental grasp for some time now. Something significant. Abruptly facing a light, Dan switched on his radio and contacted a ship below. Asking them to relay him to Rough Rock with their more powerful transmitter. Ahoy, Rough Rock! Stop adding up my insurance, Colonel. I'm coming back. No, sir. I haven't gone out of my head, sir.
It's so simple it's a laugh, sir. See you in a few hours, sir. And he did. Dan grinned when they hauled his dripping form from the sea. Aboard the search plane, they cut him out of the space suit to which was still attached his emergency twin parachute. But his helmet was gone. Ripped loose, for Dan had been breathing fresh earth air during the long parachute descent. They stared at him, as had a dead man come alive. Impossible to escape, he chuckled, repeating their babble. That's what I thought, too. Until I remembered those data tables on gravity and escape velocity and such. How, on the moon, the escape velocity is much less than on earth. And on that tiny second moon, well, my clue was when I threw a stone into the air and it never came back.
Dan gulped hot coffee. I got off the moonlit myself, then. Got up to more than a mile above it, where I was free of its feeble gravity. But I was still in the same orbit-circling Earth. I'd have continued revolving as a human satellite forever, of course, but for this emergency gadget hooked to my belt. Dan held up a metal gun, with its empty tank and needle nose half burned away. Reaction pistol. Fire's hydrazine and oxidizer. Ordinary jet rocket principle. Aiming it towards the stars opposite Earth, its reactive blast shoved me Earthward, thanks to Newton. I needed a speed of about one half mile a second. The powerful little jet gun had only my small mass to shove in free space without gravity or friction.
That broke me from freefall around Earth to gravityfall toward Earth. Then I spiraled down under gravity pull. I reached lung-filling air density just in time before my oxygen gave out. One more danger was that I began heating up like a meteor due to air friction. I flung out a prayer first, followed by my twin parachutes, designed for extreme initial shock. They held, slowed me to a paratrooper's drift the rest of the way down. Wait, a puzzled pilot objected. Your story doesn't hang together. How did you get off that moonlet? How did you get up there, a mile above it, away from its gravity? There was nobody to throw you like a stone. I threw myself, said Dan. First, I ran as fast as I could, maybe halfway around that moonlet to get a good running start.
And then? Dan Barstow's grin then was undoubtedly the biggest grin in history. Well, then, since the feeble gravity couldn't pull me back again, what I really did was to jump clear off that moon. Shipwreck in the Sky by Yando Binder. Recorded by Robert Schwartz. www.rsvo.ca
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17 17 - The Spy in the Elevator 38:47
The Spy in the Elevator by Donald E. Westlake.
The Spy in the Elevator by Donald E. Westlake When the elevator didn't come, that just made the day perfect. A broken egg yolk, a stuck zipper, a feedback in the aircon exhaust, the window sticking at full transparency. Well, I won't go through the whole sorry list. Suffice it to say that when the elevator didn't come, that put the roof on the city, as they say. It was just one of those days. Everybody gets them. Days when you're lucky if you make it to nightfall with no bones broken. But of all times for it to happen. For literally months I'd been building my courage up, and finally, just today, I had made my mind up to do it, to propose to Linda. I'd called her second thing this morning, right after the egg yolk, and invited myself down to her place.
Ten o'clock, she'd said, smiling sweetly at me out of the phone. She knew why I wanted to talk to her, and when Linda said ten o'clock, she meant ten o'clock. Don't get me wrong. I don't mean that Linda's a perfectionist or a harridan or anything like that. Far from it. But she does have a fixation on that one subject of punctuality. The result of her job, of course. She was an oarsled dispatcher. Oarsleds, being robots, were invariably punctual. If an oarsled didn't return on time, no one waited for it, they simply knew that it had been captured by some other project and had blown itself up. Well, of course, after working as an oarsled dispatcher for three years, Linda quite naturally was a bit obsessed.
I remember one time, shortly after we started dating, when I arrived at her place five minutes late, and found her having hysterics. She thought I'd been killed. She couldn't visualize anything less than that keeping me from arriving at the designated moment. When I told her what actually had happened, I'd broken a shoelace. She refused to speak to me for four days. And then the elevator didn't come. Until then I'd managed somehow to keep the day's minor disasters from ruining my mood, even while eating that horrible egg. I couldn't very well throw it away, broken yolk or no. It was my breakfast allotment, and I was hungry. And while hurriedly jury-rigging drapery across that gaspingly transparent window, one hundred and fifty-three stories straight down to slag, I kept going over and over my prepared proposal speeches, trying to select the most effective one.
I had a whimsical approach. Honey, I see there's a nice little Don P. apartment available up on 173. And I had a romantic approach. Darling, I can't live without you at the moment. Temporarily I'm madly in love with you. I want to share my life with you for a while. Would you be provisionally mine? I even had a straightforward approach. Linda, I'm going to be needing a wife for at least a year or two, and I can't think of anyone I would rather spend that time with than you. Actually, though I couldn't have admitted this to Linda, much less to anyone else, I loved her in more than a non-pea way. But even if we had both been genetically desirable, neither of us were. I knew that Linda relished her freedom and independence too much to ever contract for any kind of marriage other than non-pea, non-permanent, no progeny.
So I rehearsed my various approaches, realizing that when the time came I would probably be so tongue-tied I'd be capable of no more than a blurted, "'Will you marry me?' And I struggled with zippers and malfunctioning air-cons, and I managed somehow to leave the apartment at five minutes to ten. Linda lived down on the 140th floor, thirteen floors away. It never took more than two or three minutes to get to her place, so I was giving myself plenty of time. But then the elevator didn't come. I pushed the button, waited. Nothing happened. I couldn't understand it. The elevator had always arrived before, within thirty seconds of the button being pushed. This was a local stop, with an elevator that traveled between the 133rd floor and the 167th floor, where it was possible to make connections for either the next local or for the express.
So it couldn't be more than twenty stories away, and this was a non-rush hour. I pushed the button again, and then I waited some more. I looked at my watch, and it was three minutes to ten. Two minutes, and no elevator. If it didn't arrive this instant, this second, I would be late. It didn't arrive. I vacillated, not knowing what to do next, stay, hoping the elevator would come after all, or hurry back to the apartment and call Linda to give her advance warning that I would be late. Ten more seconds, and still no elevator. I chose the second alternative, raced back down the hall, and thumbed my way into my apartment. I dialed Linda's number, and the screen lit up with white letters on black, Privacy Disconnection.
Of course, Linda expected me at any moment, and she knew what I wanted to say to her, so quite naturally she had disconnected the phone to keep us from being interrupted. Frantic, I dashed from the apartment again, back down the hall to the elevator, and leaned on that blasted button with all my weight. Even if the elevator should arrive now, I would still be almost a minute late. No matter, it didn't arrive. I would have been in a howling rage anyway, but this impossibly piled on top of all the other annoyances and breakdowns of the day was just too much. I went into a frenzy and kicked the elevator door three times before I realized I was hurting myself more than I was hurting the door. I limped back to the apartment, fuming, slammed the door behind me, grabbed the phone book, and looked up the number of the transit staff.
I dialed, prepared to register a complaint so loud they'd be able to hear me in sub-basement three. I got some more letters that spelled busy. It took three tries before I got through to a hurried-looking female receptionist. "'My name is Rice,' I bellowed. "'Edmund Rice. I live on the hundred and fifty-third floor. I just rang for the elevator, and—'''The elevator is disconnected.' She said it very rapidly, as though she were growing very used to saying it. It only stopped me for a second. "'Disconnected? What do you mean, disconnected? Elevators don't get disconnected,' I told her. "'We will resume service as soon as possible,' she rattled. My bellowing was bouncing off her like radiation off the Project Force screen.
I changed tactics. First, I inhaled, making a production out of it. Giving myself a chance to calm down a bit. And then I asked, as rationally as you could please, would you mind terribly telling me why the elevator is disconnected? I am sorry, sir, but that... Stop, I said. I said it quietly, too. But she stopped. I saw her looking at me. She hadn't done that before. She'd merely gazed blankly at her screen and parroted her responses. But now she was actually looking at me. I took advantage of the fact. Calmly, rationally, I said to her, I would like to tell you something, miss. I would like to tell you just what you people have done to me by disconnecting the elevator. You have ruined my life.
She blinked, open-mouthed. Ruined your life? Precisely. I found it necessary to inhale again, even more slowly than before. I was on my way, I explained, to propose to a girl whom I dearly love. In every way but one, she is the perfect woman. Do you understand me? She nodded, wide-eyed. I had stumbled on a romantic, though I was too preoccupied to notice it at the time. In every way but one, I continued, she has one small imperfection, a fixation about Punctuality. And I was supposed to meet her at ten o'clock. I'm late. I shook my fist at the screen. Do you realize what you've done? Disconnecting the elevator. Not only won't she marry me, she won't even speak to me. Not now. Not after this. Sir, she said tremulously, please don't shout.
I'm not shouting. Sir. I'm terribly sorry. I understand your—' You understand?' I trembled with speechless fury. She looked all about her, and then leaned closer to the screen, revealing a cleavage that I was too distraught at the moment to pay any attention to. "'We're not supposed to give this information out, sir,' she said, her voice low. "'But I'm going to tell you, so you'll understand why we had to do it.' I think it's perfectly awful that it had to ruin things for you this way. But the fact of the matter is," she leaned even closer to the screen, there's a spy in the elevator. Two. It was my turn to be stunned. I just gaped at her.
A what? A spy. He was discovered on the 147th floor, and managed to get into the elevator before the army could catch him. He jammed it between floors, but the army is doing everything it can think of to get him out. Well, but why should there be any problem about getting him out? He plugged in the manual controls. We can't control the elevator from outside at all, and when anyone tries to get into the shaft, he aims the elevator at them. That sounded impossible. He aims the elevator? He runs it up and down the shaft. she explained, trying to crush anybody who goes after him. Oh, I said, so it might take a while. She leaned so close this time that even I, distracted as I was, could hardly help but take note of her cleavage.
She whispered, They're afraid they'll have to starve him out. Oh, no! she nodded solemnly. I'm terribly sorry, sir, she said. Then she glanced to her right, suddenly straightened up again, and said, We will resume service as soon as possible. Click. Blank screen. For a minute or two, all I could do was sit and absorb what I had been told. A spy in the elevator. A spy who had managed to work his way all the way up to the 147th floor before being unmasked. What in the world was the matter with the Army? If things were getting that lax, the project was doomed. Force screen or no? Who knew how many more spies there were in the project, still unsuspected? Until that moment the state of siege in which we all lived had no reality for me.
The project, after all, was self-sufficient and completely enclosed. No one ever left. No one ever entered. Under our roof we were a nation, two hundred stories high. The ever-present threat of other projects had never been more for me, or for most people either, I suspect, than occasional oarsleds that didn't return, occasional spies shot down as they tried to sneak into the building, occasional spies of our own leaving the project in tiny radiation-proof cars. Hoping to get safely within another project and bring back news of any immediate threats and dangers that project might be planning for us. Most spies didn't return. Most oarsleds did. And within the project life was full, the knowledge of external dangers merely lurking at the backs of our minds.
After all, those external dangers had been no more than potential for decades, since what Dr. Kilbelly called the ungentlemanly gentlemen's war. Dr. Kilbelly, intermediate project history, when I was fifteen years old, had private names for every major war of the twentieth century. There was the ignoble nobleman's war, The racial, non-racial war, and the ungentlemanly gentleman's war, known to the textbooks, of course, as World Wars I, II, and III. The rise of the projects, according to Dr. Kilbelly, was the result of many, many factors, but two of the most important were the population explosion and the Treaty of Oslo. The population explosion, of course, meant that there was continuously more and more people, but never any more space.
So that housing, in the historically short time of the century, made a complete transformation from horizontal expansion to vertical. Before 1900, the vast majority of human beings lived in tiny huts of from one to five stories. By 2000, everybody lived in projects. From the very beginning, small attempts were made to make these projects more than dwelling places. By mid-century, projects, also called apartments and co-ops, Already installed restaurants, shopping centers, babysitting services, dry cleaners, and a host of other adjuncts. By the end of the century, the projects were completely self-sufficient, with food grown hydroponically in the sub-basements, separate floors set aside for schools and churches and factories, robot ore sleds capable of seeking out raw materials unavailable within the projects themselves, and so on.
And all because of, among other things, the population explosion. and the Treaty of Oslo. It seems there was a power struggle between two sets of then-existing nations. They were something like projects, only horizontal instead of vertical. And both sets were equipped with atomic weapons. The Treaty of Oslo began by stating that atomic war was unthinkable. It added that just in case anybody happened to think of it, only tactical atomic weapons could be used. No strategic atomic weapons. A tactical weapon is something you use on the soldiers, and a strategic weapon is something you use on the folks at home. Oddly enough, when somebody did think of the war, both sides adhered to the Treaty of Oslo, which meant that no projects were bombed.
Of course, they made up for this as best they could by using tactical atomic weapons all over the place. After the war, almost the whole world was quite dangerously radioactive, except for the projects. Or at least those of them which had in time installed the force screens which had been invented on the very eve of battle and which deflected radioactive particles. However, what with all the other treaties which were broken during the ungentlemanly gentleman's war, by the time it was finished nobody was quite sure any more who was on which side. That project over there on the horizon might be an ally, and then again it might not. Since they weren't sure either, it was risky to expose yourself in order to ask.
And so life went on, with little to remind us of the dangers lurking outside. The basic policy of eternal vigilance and instant preparedness was left to the army. The rest of us simply lived our lives and let it go at that. But now there was a spy in the elevator. When I thought of how deeply he had penetrated our defenses, and of how many others there might be, still penetrating, I shuddered. The walls were our safeguards only so long as all potential enemies were on the other side of them. I sat, shaken, digesting this news, until suddenly I remembered Linda. I leaped to my feet, reading from my watch that it was now 10.15. I dashed once more from the apartment and down the hall to the elevator, praying that the spy had been captured by now, and that Linda would agree with me that a spy in the elevator was good and sufficient reason for me to be late.
He was still there. At least the elevator was still out. I sagged against the wall, thinking dismal thoughts. Then I noticed the door to the right of the elevator. Through that door was the stairway. I hadn't paid any attention to it before. No one ever uses the stairs, except adventurous young boys playing cops and robbers, running up and down from landing to landing. I myself hadn't set a foot on a flight of stairs since I was twelve years old. Actually, the whole idea of stairs was ridiculous. We had elevators, didn't we? Usually, I mean, when they didn't contain spies. So what was the use of stairs? Well, according to Dr. Kilbelly, a walking library of unnecessary information, the project had been built when there were still such things as municipal governments, something to do with cities, which were more or less grouped projects.
And the local municipal government had had on its books a fire ordinance, anachronistic even then, which required a complete set of stairs in every building constructed in the city. Ergo, the project had stairs, thirty-two hundred of them. And now, after all these years, the stairs might prove useful, after all. It was only thirteen flights to Linda's floor. At sixteen steps of flight, that meant two hundred and eight steps. Could I descend two hundred and eight steps for my true love? I could, if the door would open. It would, though reluctantly. Who knew how many years it had been since this door had been opened? It squeaked and wailed and groaned and finally opened halfway. I stepped through to the musty, dusty landing, took a deep breath, and started down.
Eight steps and a landing. Eight steps and a floor. Eight steps and a landing. Eight steps and a floor. On the landing between 150 and 149, there was a smallish door. I paused, looking curiously at it. The letters had long since flaked away, but they left a lighter residue of dust than that which covered the rest of the door, and so the words could still be read, if with difficulty. I read them. They said, Emergency entrance. Elevator shaft. Authorized personnel only. Keep locked. I frowned, wondering immediately why this door wasn't being firmly guarded by at least a platoon of army men. Half a dozen possible answers flashed through my mind. The more recent maps might simply have omitted this discarded and unnecessary door.
It might be sealed shut on the other side. The army might have caught the spy already. Somebody in authority might simply have goofed. As I stood there pondering these possibilities, the door opened, and the spy came out, waving a gun. Three. He couldn't have been anybody else but the spy, the gun in the first place, the fact that he looked harried and upset and terribly nervous in the second place, and, of course, the fact that he came from the elevator shaft. Looking back, I think he must have been just as startled as I was when we came face to face like that. We formed a brief tableau, both of us open-mouthed and wide-eyed. Unfortunately, he recovered first. He closed the emergency door behind him, quickly but quietly.
His gun stopped waving around, and instead pointed directly at my middle. "'Don't move,' he whispered harshly. "'Don't make a sound.' I did exactly as I was told. I didn't move, and I didn't make a sound, which left me quite free to study him. He was rather short, perhaps three inches shorter than me, with a bony, high-cheek-boned face featuring deep-set eyes and a thin-lipped mouth. He wore gray slacks and a shirt, with brown slippers on his feet. He looked exactly like a spy, which is to say that he didn't look like a spy. He looked overpoweringly ordinary. More than anything else, he reminded me of a rather taciturn milkman who used to make deliveries to my parents' apartment. His gaze darted this way and that.
Then he motioned with his free hand at the descending stairs and whispered, "'Where do they go?' I had to clear my throat before I could speak. "'All the way down,' I said. "'Good,' he said, just as we both heard a sudden raucous squealing from perhaps four floors down, a squealing which could be nothing but the opening of a hall door. It was followed by the heavy thud of ascending boots. The army.' But if I had any visions of immediate rescue, the spy dashed them. He said, "'Where do you live?' "'One fifty-three,' I said. This was a desperate and dangerous man. I knew my only slim chance of safety lay in answering his questions promptly, cooperating with him, until and unless I saw a chance to either escape or capture him.
"'All right,' he whispered. "'Go on,' and he prodded me with a gun. And so we went back up the stairs to 1.53 and stopped at the door. He stood close behind me, the gun pressed against my back, and grated in my ear, I have this gun in my pocket. If you make one false move, I'll kill you. Now, we're going to your apartment. We're friends, just strolling along together. You got that? I nodded. All right, let's go. We went. I have never in my life seen that long hall quite so empty as it was right then. No one came out of any of the apartments, no one emerged from any of the branch halls. We walked to my apartment. I thumbed the door open, and we went inside. Once the door was closed behind us, he visibly relaxed, sagging against the door, his gun-hand hanging limp at his side, a nervous smile playing across his lips.
I looked at him, judging the distance between us, wondering if I could leap at him before he could bring the gun up again. But he must have read my intentions on my face. He straightened, shaking his head. He said, "'Don't try it. I don't want to kill you. I don't want to kill anybody. But I will if I have to. We'll just wait here together until the hue and cry passes us. Then I'll tie you up so you won't be able to sic your army on me too soon, and I leave. If you don't try any silly heroics, nothing will happen to you.'" You'll never get away, I told him. The whole project is alerted. You let me worry about that, he said. He licked his lips. You got any Chico coffee? Yes. Make me a cup. I don't get any bright ideas about dousing me with boiling water.
I only have my day's allotment, I protested. Just enough for two cups, lunch and dinner. Two cups is fine, he said. One for each of us. And now I had another grudge against this blasted spy. Which reminded me again of Linda. From the looks of things I wasn't ever going to get to her place. By now she was probably in mourning for me, and might even have the sanitation staff searching for my remains. As I made the Chico, he asked me questions, my name first, and then, What do you do for a living? I thought fast. I'm an oarsled dispatcher, I said. That was a lie, of course, but I'd heard enough about oarsled dispatching from Linda to be able to maintain the fiction should he question me further about it.
Actually, I was a gymnast instructor. The subjects I taught included wrestling, judo, and karate, talents I would prefer to disclose to him in my own fashion when the time came. He was quiet for a moment. What about radiation level on the oarsleds? I had no idea what he was talking about and admitted as much. When they come back, he said, how much radiation do they pick up? Don't you people ever test them? Of course not, I told him. I was on secure ground now, with Linda's information to guide me. All radiation is cleaned from the sleds and their cargo before they're brought into the building. I know that, he said impatiently. But don't you ever check them before deradiating them? No. Why should we?
To find out how far the radiation level outside has dropped. "'For what? Who cares about that?' He frowned bitterly. "'The same answer,' he muttered more to himself than to me. "'The same answer every time. You people have crawled into your caves, and you're ready to stay in them forever.' I looked around at my apartment. "'Rather a well-appointed cave,' I told him. "'But a cave, nevertheless.' He leaned toward me, his eyes gleaming with a fanatical flame. Don't you ever wish to get outside?" Incredible. I nearly poured boiling water all over myself. Outside? Of course not. The same thing, he grumbled, over and over again. Always the same stupidity. Listen, you— Do you realize how long it took man to get out of the caves, the long, slow, painful creep of progress, for millennia before he ever made that first step from the caves?
I have no idea, I told him. I'll tell you this, he said belligerently, a lot longer than it took for him to turn around and go back into the cave again. He started pacing the floor, waving the gun around in an agitated fashion as he talked. Is this the natural life of man? It is not. Is this even a desirable life for man? It is definitely not. He spun back to face me, pointing the gun at me again, but this time he pointed it as though it were a finger, not a gun. Listen, you," he snapped. Man was progressing. For all his stupidities and excesses he was growing up. His dreams were getting bigger and grander and better all the time. He was planning to tackle space. The moon first, and then the planets, and finally the stars.
The whole universe was out there, waiting to be plucked like an apple from a tank. And man was reaching out for it. He glared as though daring me to doubt it. I decided that this man was doubly dangerous. Not only was he a spy, he was also a lunatic. So I had two reasons for humoring him. I nodded politely. "'So what happened?' he demanded. And immediately answered himself, I'll tell you what happened. Just as he was about to make that first giant step, man got a hot foot. That's all it was, just a little hot foot. So what did man do? I'll tell you what he did. He turned around, and he ran all the way back to the cave he started from, his tail between his legs. That's what he did. To say that all this was incomprehensible would be an extreme understatement.
I fulfilled my obligation to this insane dialogue by saying, "'Here's your coffee.' "'Put it on the table,' he said, switching instantly from raving maniac to watchful spy. I put it on the table. He drank deep, then carried the cup across the room and sat down in my favorite chair. He studied me narrowly, and suddenly said, "'What did they tell you I was, a spy?' "'Of course,' I said. He grinned bitterly with one side of his mouth. "'Of course.' The damn fools. Spy. What do you suppose I'm going to spy on? He asked the question so violently and urgently that I knew I had to answer quickly and well. The maniac would return. I wouldn't know exactly, I stammered. Military equipment, I suppose. Military equipment?
What military equipment? Your army is supplied with uniforms, whistles, and handguns, and that's about it. The defenses, I started. The defenses, he interrupted me, are nonexistent. If you mean the rocket launches on the roof, they've rusted through with age. And what other defenses are there? None. If you say so, I replied stiffly, the Army claimed that we had adequate defense equipment. I chose to believe the Army over an enemy spy. Your people send out spies, too, don't they? he demanded. Well, of course. And what are they supposed to spy on? Well, it was such a pointless question it seemed silly even to answer it. They're supposed to look for indications of an attack by one of the other projects.
And did they find any indications, ever? I'm sure I don't know, I told him prostily. That would be classified information. You bet it would, he said with malicious glee. All right. If that's what your spies are doing, and I'm a spy, then it follows that I'm doing the same thing, right? "'I don't follow you,' I admitted. "'If I'm a spy,' he said impatiently, "'then I'm supposed to look for indications of an attack by your people on my project.' I shrugged. "'If that's your job,' I said, "'then that's your job.' He got suddenly red-faced and jumped to his feet. "'That's not my job, you blatant idiot,' he shouted. "'I'm not a spy. If I were a spy, that would be my job.' The maniac had returned in full force.
All right, I said hastily. All right. Whatever you say. He glowered at me for a moment longer, then shouted, Bah! and dropped back into the chair. He breathed rather heavily for a while, glaring at the floor, then looked at me again. All right. Listen. What if I were to tell you that I had found indications that you people were planning to attack my project? I stared at him. That's impossible, I cried. We aren't planning to attack anybody. We just want to be left in peace. How do I know that? he demanded. It's the truth. What would we want to attack anybody for? Aha! he sat forward tensed, pointing the gun at me like a finger again. Now then, he said, if you know it doesn't make any sense for this project to attack any other project, then why in the world should you think they might see some advantage in attacking you?
I shook my head, dumbfounded. I can't answer a question like that, I said. How do I know what they're thinking? They're human beings, aren't they? He cried. Like you? Like me? Like all the other people in this mausoleum? Now wait a minute. No, he shouted. You wait a minute. I want to tell you something. You think I'm a spy. That blundering army of yours thinks I'm a spy. That fathead who turned me in thinks I'm a spy. But I'm not a spy, and I'm going to tell you what I am. I waited, looking as attentive as possible. "'I come,' he said, "'from a project about eighty miles north of here. I came here by foot, without any sort of radiation shield at all to protect me.' The maniac was back. I didn't say a word.
I didn't want to set off the violence that was so obviously in this lunatic. "'The radiation level,' he went on, "'is way down. It's practically as low as it was before the atom war. I don't know how long it's been that low, but I would guess about ten years at the very least.' He leaned forward again, urgent and serious. The world is safe out there now. Man can come back out of the cave again. He can start building the dreams again. And this time he can build better, because he has the horrible example of the recent past to guide him away from the pitfalls. There's no need any longer for the projects. And that was like saying there's no need any more for stomachs, but I didn't say so. I didn't say anything at all.
I'm a trained Atomic engineer, he went on, in my project. I worked on the reactor. Theoretically, I believe that there was a chance the radiation outside was lessening by now, though we had no idea exactly how much radiation had been released by the atom war. But I wanted to test the theory, and the Commission wouldn't let me. They claimed public safety, but I knew better. If the outside were safe, and the projects were no longer needed, then the Commission was out of a job, and they knew it. Well, I went ahead with the test anyway, and I was caught at it. From my punishment, I was banned from the project. They kicked me out, telling me if I thought it was safe outside, I could live outside, and if it really was safe, I could come back and tell them, except that they also made it clear that I would be shot if I tried to get back in, because I would be carrying deadly radiation."
He smiled bitterly. They had it all their own way, he said. But it is safe out there. I'm living proof of it. I lived outside for five months, and gradually I realized I had to tell others. I had to spread the word that man could have his world back. I didn't dare try to get back into my own project. I would have been recognized and shot before I could say a word. So I came here." He paused to finish the cup of Chico that I should have had with lunch. I knew better, he continued, than to simply walk into the building and announce that I came from outside. Man has an instinctive distrust for strangers, anyway. The projects only intensify it. Once again I would have been shot. So I've been working in a more devious way.
I snuck into the project. Not a difficult thing for a man with no metal on his person, no radiation shield cocooning him. And for the last two months I've been wandering around the building talking with people. I strike up a conversation, I try to plant a few seeds of doubt about the deadliness of outside, and I hope that at least a few of the people I talked to begin to wonder, as I once did. Two months! This spy, by his own admission, had been in the project two months before being detected. I'd never heard of such a thing, and I hoped I'd never hear of such a thing again. Things worked out pretty well, he said, until today. I said something wrong. I'm still not sure what. And the man I was talking to hollered for army, shouted I was a spy.
He pounded the chair arm. But I'm not a spy, and it's the truth. Outside is safe. He glared suddenly at the window. Why have you got that drape up there? The window broke down, I explained. It stuck at transparent. Transparent? Fine. He got it from the chair, strode across the room, and ripped the drape down from the window. I cowered away from the sun glare, turning my back to the window. "'Come over here,' he shouted. When I didn't move, he snarled. "'Get up! Come over here, or I swear I'll shoot!' And he would have. It was plain in his voice. I got to my feet, hesitant, and walked, trembling, to the window, squinting against the glare. "'Look out there,' he ordered. "'Look!' I looked. 4. Terror.
Horror. Dizziness. Nausea. Far and away, and far, nothing and nothing, only the glare and the high blue, and the far, far horizon, and the broken gray slag stretching out way down below. Do you see? He demanded. Look down there. We're so high up it's hard to see. But look for it. Do you see it? Do you see the green? Do you know what that means? There are green things growing again outside. Not much yet. It's only started back, but it's begun. The radiation is down. Plants are growing again. The power of suggestion, and, of course, the heightened sensitivity caused by the double threat of a man beside me carrying a gun and that yawning, aching expanse of nothing beyond the window. I nearly fancied that I did see faint specks of green.
"'Do you see it?' he asked me. "'Wait,' I said. I leaned closer to the window, though every nerve in me wanted to leap the other way. "'Yes,' I said. "'Yes, I see it. Green!' he sighed, a long, painful sigh of thanksgiving. "'Then now you know,' he said. "'I've been telling you the truth. It is safe outside.' And my lie worked. For the first time his guard was completely down. I moved like a whirlwind. I leaped and twisted his arm in a hard hammerlock, which caused him to cry out and drop the gun. That was wrestling. Then I turned and twisted and dipped, causing him to fly over my head and crash to the floor. That was judo. Then I jabbed one rigid forefinger against a certain spot on the side of his neck, causing the blood in his veins to forever stop its motion.
That was karate. Well, by the time the army men had finished questioning me, it was three o'clock in the afternoon, and I was five hours late. The army men corroborated my belief that the man had been a spy, who had apparently lost his mind when cornered in the elevator. Outside was still dangerous, of course, they assured me of that. And he'd been lying about having been here two months. He'd been in the project less than two days. Not only that, the Army men told me they'd found the radiation-proof car he'd driven, and in which he'd hoped to drive back to his own project once he'd discovered all our defenses. Despite the fact that I had the most legitimate excuse for tardiness under the roof, Linda refused to forgive me for not making our ten o'clock meeting.
When I asked her to marry me, she refused, at length and descriptively. But I was surprised and relieved to discover how rapidly I got over my heartbreak. This was aided by the fact that once the news of my exploit spread, there were any number of girls more than anxious to get to know me better, including the well-cleavaged young lady from the transit staff. After all, I was a hero. They even gave me a medal.
The Spy in the Elevator by Donald E. Westlake.
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18 18 - The Venus Trap 59:16
The Venus Trap by Evelyn E. Smith. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Rebecca Nemethy. One thing man never counted on to take along into space with him was the eternal triangle, especially a true blue triangle like this. What's the matter, darling? James asked anxiously. Don't you like the planet? Oh, I love the planet, Phyllis said. It's beautiful. It was. The blue, really blue grass. Blue-violet shrubbery, and loveliest of all, the great golden tree with sapphire leaves and pale pink blossoms, instead of looking alien, resembled nothing so much as a fairy-tale version of Earth.
Even the fragrance that filled the atmosphere was completely delightful to terrestrial nostrils. Which was unusual. For most other planets, no matter how well adapted for colonization otherwise, tended, from the human viewpoint anyway, to stink. Not that they were not colonized nevertheless, for the population of Earth was expanding at too great a rate to permit merely all factory considerations to rule out an otherwise suitable planet. This particular group of settlers had been lucky, indeed, to have drawn a planet as pleasing to the nose as to the eye, and moreover, free from hostile Aborigines. As a matter of fact, the only apparent evidence of animate life were the small, bright-hued creatures winging back and forth through the clear air, and which resembled terrestrial birds so closely that there seemed no point to giving them any other name.
There were insects, too, although not immediately perceptible. But the ones like bees were devoid of stings, and the butterflies never had to pass through the grub stage but were born in the fullness of their beauty.
However, fairest of all creatures on the planet to James Haught, just then anyhow, was his wife, and the expression on her face was not a lovely one. You do feel alright, don't you? He asked. The light gravity gets some people at first. Yes, I guess I'm alright. I'm still a little shaken, though, and you know, it's not the gravity. He would have liked to take her in his arms and say something comforting, reassuring, but the constraint between them had not yet been worn off. Although he had sent her an Ethergram nearly every day of the voyage, the necessarily public nature of the messages had kept them from achieving communication in the deeper sense of the word. Well, I suppose you did have a bit of a shock, he said lamely.
Somehow I thought I had told you on my grams.
You told me plenty in the grams, but not quite enough, it seems. Her words didn't seem to make sense. The strain had evidently been a little too much. Maybe you ought to go inside and lie down for a while. I will, just as soon as I feel less wobbly. She brushed back the long, light brown hair which had got tumbled when she fainted. He remembered a golden rather than reddish tinge in it. But that had been under the yellow sun of Earth. Under the scarlet sun of this planet, it took on a different beauty.
How come the preliminary team didn't include IT in their report? She asked, avoiding his appreciative eye. They didn't know. We didn't find out ourselves until we sent that first message to Earth. I suppose by the time we did relay the news, you were on your way. Yes, that must have been it. The preliminary exploration team had established the fact that the planet was more or less Earth-type, that its air was breathable, its temperature agreeably spring-like, its mineral composition very similar to Earth's, with only slight traces of unknown elements, that there was plenty of drinkable water and no threatening life forms. Human beings could, therefore, live on it. It remained for the scout team to determine whether human beings would want to live on it, whether, in fact, they themselves would want to because, if so, they had the option of becoming the first settlers.
That was the way the system worked, and, in the main, it worked well enough. After less than two weeks, the scout team had beamed back to Earth the message that the planet was suitable for colonization, so suitable that they would like to give it the name of Elysium. If there was no objection. There would be none, Earth had replied, so long as the pioneers bore in mind the fact that six other planets had previously been given that name, and a human colony currently existed on only one of those. No need to worry about a conflict of nomenclature, however, because the name of that other planet Elysium had subsequently been changed by unanimous vote of settlers to Hades. After this somewhat sinister piece of information, Earth had added the more cheerful news that the wives and families of the Scouts would soon be on their way.
Bringing with them the tools and implements necessary to transform the wilderness of the frontier into another earth. In the meantime, the men were to set up the package buildings, with which all scout ships were equipped, so that when the women came, homes would be ready for them. The men set to work, and before the month was out, they discovered that Elysium was neither a wilderness nor a frontier. It was populated by an intelligent race, which had developed its culture to the limit of its physical abilities. Actually, well beyond the limit of what the astounded terrestrials could have conceived its physical abilities to be. Then, owing to unavoidable disaster, had started to die out. The remaining natives were perspicacious enough to see the terrestrials coming not a threat but a last hope of reviving their own moribund species.
Accordingly, the Earthmen were encouraged to go ahead building on the sites originally selected, the only ban being on the type of construction materials used, and a perfectly reasonable one under the circumstances. James had built his cottage near the largest, handsomest tree in the area allotted to him. Since there were no hostile life forms, there was no need for a closely knit community. Everyone who had seen it agreed that his house was the most attractive one of all. For, although it was only a standard prefab, he had used taste and ingenuity to make it a little different from the other unimaginative homes. And now Phyllis, for whom he had performed all this labor of love, for whom he had waited five long months, the tedium of which had been broken only by the intellectual pleasure of teaching English to a sympathetic native neighbor, Phyllis seemed unappreciative.
She had hardly looked at the inside of the cottage, when he had shown her through, and now was staring at the outside in a blank sort of way. The indoctrination courses had not, he reflected, reconciled her to the frontiersman's necessarily simple mode of living, which was ironic, considering that one of her original attractions for him had been her apparent suitability for the pioneer life. She was a big girl, radiantly healthy, even though a little green at the moment. He'd just managed to keep his voice steady. You don't like the house, is that it? But I do like it. Honestly, I do. She touched his arm diffidently. Everything would be perfect if only... If only what? Is it the curtains? I'm sorry if you don't like them.
I brought them all the way from Earth in case the planet turned out to be habitable. I thought blue was your favorite color. Oh, it is! It is! I'm mad about the curtains! Perhaps it wasn't the house that disappointed her. Perhaps it was he himself who hadn't lived up to the dim memory and ardent expectation. If you want to know what is bothering me, she glanced up apprehensively, lowering her voice as she did. It's that tree. It's stuck on you. I just know it is. He laughed. Now where did you get a preposterous idea like that, Phil? You've been on the planet exactly 24 hours, and I have in my luggage 132 othergrams talking about practically nothing but Magnolia this and Magnolia that. Oh, I had my suspicions even before I landed, James.
The only thing I didn't suspect was that she was a tree. What are you talking about, honey? Magnolia and I were just friends. Purely a platonic relationship, I assure you, the tree herself agreed. It would have been silly for her to pretend not to have overheard, since the two were still standing almost directly underneath her. Purely platonic. She's more like a sister to me. James tried to explain. Phyllis stiffened. Frankly, if I had imagined I was going to have a tree for a sister-in-law, I would have thought before I married you, James. Bursting into tears, she ran inside the cottage. Sorry, he said miserably to Magnolia. It's a long trip out from Earth, and an uncomfortable one. I don't suppose the other women were especially nice to her either.
Faculty wives, mostly. And you know how they are. No. I don't suppose you would, but she shouldn't have acted that way toward you. Not your fault, Magnolia told him, sighing with such intensity that he could feel the humidity rise. I know how you've been looking forward to her arrival. Rather a letdown, isn't it? Oh, I'm sure it'll be alright. He tried to sound confident. And I know you'll like Phyllis when you get to know her. Possibly, but so far I'm afraid I must admit, since there never has been any pretense between us, that she is a bit of a disappointment. I, and my sisters also, had expected your females when they came to be as upright and true blue as you. Instead, what are they? Shrubs.
The door to the cottage flew open. A shrub, am I? Phyllis brandished an axe which, James winced to recall, was an item of the equipment he had ordered from Earth before the scout team had learned that the trees were intelligent. I'll shrub you! Phyllis! He wrested the axe from her grip. That would be murder! Woodman, as the terrestrial poem goes, the tree remarked. Spare that tree, touch not a single bow. In youth, it sheltered me, and I'll protect it now. Good of her to take the whole thing so calmly. Rather, to pretend to take it so calmly, for he knew how sensitive Magnolia really was. But he was afraid this show of moral courage would not diminish Phyllis's dislike for her. Those without self-control seldom appreciate those who have it.
If you'll excuse us, he said, putting his arm around his wife's heaving shoulders, I'd better see to Phyllis. She's a little upset. Hold over from space sickness, I expect. Poor girl, she's a long way from home and frightened. I understand, Jim," Magnolia told him. And remember, whatever happens, you can always count on me.
I must say, you're not a very admirable representative of terrestrial womanhood, James snapped as soon as the door had slammed behind him and his wife, leaving them alone in the principal room of the cottage, insulting the very first native you meet. I did not either insult her. All I said was, what beautiful flowers. Do you suppose the fruit is edible? How was I to know she could understand? Naturally, I wouldn't dream of eating her fruit now. It would probably taste nasty anyway. And how do you think I felt when a tree answered me back? You don't care that I fainted dead away, and I've never fainted before in my life. All you care about is that old vegetable's feelings. It was bad enough, feeling for five months that someone had come between us, but to find out it wasn't someone but something?
Phyllis, he said coldly, I'll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head. Dropping into the overstuffed chair, his wife dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. She wasn't so very polite to me. Look, Phyllis. He strove to make his voice calm, adult, reasonable. You happen to have hit on a rather touchy point with her. Those trees are dioecious, you know, like us. And she isn't mated. And, well, she has rather a lot of xylem zones. Rings, you know. Are you trying to tell me she's old? Well, she's no sapling anymore. And consideration aside, you should know it's government policy for us to establish good relations with any intelligent lifeform we have to share a planet with. You weren't in there trying.
Phyllis put away her handkerchief with what he hoped would be a final sniff. I suppose I shouldn't have acted that way, she conceded. Now you're talking like my own dear Phyllis, James said tenderly, though as a matter of fact— He had a very remote idea of what his own dear Phyllis was like. He had met her only a couple of months before the scout mission was scheduled, and so their courtship had been brief, and the actual weeks of marriage even briefer. He had remembered Phyllis as beautiful. She was beautiful. He had not, however, remembered her as pigheaded. And pigheaded she was, too. How come she hasn't a mate? I didn't think trees were choosy. He wouldn't take exception to that statement, uncharitable though it was.
After all, someone whose only acquaintance with trees had been the terrestrial variety would naturally be incapable of appreciating the total tree at its highest development. It's a great tragedy, he told her in a hushed tone. There was a blight some years back, and most of the male trees died off. Except for a few on the other side of the planet. Well, out of bee shot. Even if the females there would let the females here have any pollen, which they absolutely won't. I don't blame them, Phyllis said coldly. Of course she would identify at once with the trees whose domestic lives seem to be threatened. It's not that so much. It's that the male trees produce so little pollen. This would be a good place for people with hay fever, then, wouldn't it?
And even when there is fruit, so much of it tends to be Parthenocarpus. No seeds, he sighed. The entire race is dying out. How is it you know so much about botany? She asked suspiciously. It's not your field. I don't know so very much, really, he smiled. I had to learn a little if I wanted to work the land, so I borrowed an elementary text from Cutler. Had he been a trifle idealistic in quitting his snug, if uninspiring, job on the faculty to join in this utopian venture? So many of the other men at the university had enrolled. It had seemed a splendid idea until Phyllis' arrival. Daddy never had any trouble working his land, and he doesn't know a thing about botany. You've been boning up on it just to please her.
Phyllis, how can you jump to conclusions without a shred of evidence? Not that she wouldn't be able to collect such evidence later, because the allegation happened to be correct.
If instead of coming to Elysium, I had merely gone to China... Would she have thought it so odd that I studied Chinese? Then why? Where the natives are trees, shouldn't I study botany? The woman is unreasonable. And will her people let you farm? Now he could show her how cogently and comprehensively he could answer a logical question. That aspect of the situation will be all right, dear, because only the trees are an intelligent species, and even of them, some aren't so bright. They won't have any more objection to our eating the other fruit and vegetables than we would have to an extraterrestrial's eating our eggs and chickens, for example. We're going to try to introduce some earth plants here, though, as the higher forms of vegetation are dying out, and we're afraid the lower might follow.
Pity it's too late for a sound conservation program. Phyllis said grimly. She doesn't think it's too late for a sound conservation program. She still has hopes. Far-fetched, maybe. And I'm not so sure they are. Mark my words, James. She's got designs on you. Don't be idiotic, he protested. That would be... he attempted to introduce a light note. It would be miscegenation. These foreigners can't be expected to have our standards, and she burst into tears again. A fine thing to go through that miserable five-month trip, only to find out a tree has alienated my husband's affections.
Oh, come on, Phil. He still was trying for a smile. What would a tree see in me? I'm beginning to wonder what I saw in you. You never loved me. You just wanted a wife to come out and colonize with you and b-b-breed. What could he say? It was almost true. Phyllis was a beautiful girl, and he loved her, but if he had planned to remain as an instructor with the Romance Languages Department instead of joining the Scout Mission, He knew he would never have asked her to be his wife, for her sake, of course, as well as his own. He should say something to reassure her, but the words wouldn't come. I don't like it here, Phyllis sobbed. I don't like the blue leaves. I don't like the blue grass. I like them green, the way they're supposed to be.
I hate this nasty planet. It's all wrong. I want to go home. She was very young. Less than eight years younger than he, true, but he was mature for his age. They didn't know each other very well, and, finally, there were more men than women on the planet, and he had noticed that the bachelors had seemed readily disposed upon her arrival the day before to overlook the fact that she had no college degree. So he must be patient with her. There's nothing wrong about it, dear. The plants here synthesize cyanophyll instead of chlorophyll. That's why the leaves are blue instead of green. And, of course, there are different minimal constitutes of the soil, more aluminum and copper, for instance, than on Earth, and some elements we haven't quite isolated yet.
So, you see, they're bound to be a little different from terrestrial trees. A little different I wouldn't mind, she said sulkily. But they're a lot different without being nearly alien enough. Look, Phyllis. Dear, those trees have been very hospitable, very kind. We owe them a lot. They themselves suggested that we come here and live with them in, so to speak, symbiosis. That's a fine idea.
He beamed. I knew you'd understand after I had explained it to you. We provide the brains and they provide the furniture. Phyllis, what a thing to say. I've heard of man-eating trees before. I suppose there could be man-loving ones, too. Phyllis, these trees are as gentle and sweet as... as... He didn't know how he could explain it to her. No one who had ever been friends with a tree could appreciate the true beauty of the Xylemic character. Why, we even offered to go over to the other side of the planet and fetch some pollen for them, but they wouldn't hear of it. Unfortunately, they'd rather die than be mated to anyone they had never met. What a perfectly disgusting idea. I don't think so. Trees can be idealistic.
You fetching pollen for her, I mean. Naturally, she wouldn't want pollen from a tree on the other side of the planet. She wants you. Don't be silly. Incompatibility usually exists between the pollen of one species and the stigmata of another. Besides, he added patiently, I haven't got pollen. You'd better not, or it won't be her who will have the stigmata. Phyllis. He sat down on the arm of her chair and tried to embrace her. You know that you're the only life form I love. Please, James. She pushed him away. I guess I love you too, in spite of everything, but I don't want to make a public spectacle of myself. What do you mean now? That tree would know everything that goes on. She's telepathic.
Where did you get a ridiculous idea like that? What kind of rubbish have you been reading? All right, tell me. How else did she learn to speak such good English? It's because she's of a very high order of intelligence. And I suppose, he laughed modestly, because I'm such a good teacher. I don't care how good a teacher you are. A tree couldn't learn to speak a language so well in five months. She must be telepathic. It's the only explanation. Give her time, the tree advised later, as James came under the lawn to talk to his only friend on the planet. He hadn't seen much of the other scouts since the house-building frenzy had started, and visits among the men had decreased. The base camp, where the bachelors and the older married couples lived, was located a good distance away from his land, for he had raised his honeymoon cottage far from the rest.
He had wanted to have his Phyllis all to himself, and the idol he had visualized for the two of them, she would need no company but his. Little had he imagined that, within 24 hours of her arrival, he would be looking for company himself. I suppose so, he said, kicking out a root. Oh, I'm sorry, Maggie. I didn't think. That's all right, Magnolia said bravely. It didn't really hurt. That female's got you all upset, you poor boy. James muttered a feeble defense of his wife. Jim, forgive me if I speak frankly, the tree went on, in a low rustle. But do you think she's really worthy of you? Of course she is. Surely on your planet you could have found a mate more admirable, high-minded, exemplary, more, in short, like yourself.
Or are all the human females inferior specimens like Phyllis? There... she suits me, James said doggedly. Of course, of course. It's very noble of you to defend her. You would have disappointed me if you had said anything else. I honor you for it, James. He kicked at one of the pebbles. The tree meant well, he knew, yet like so many well-meaning friends, she succeeded only in dispiriting him. It was almost like being back at the faculty club. I don't suppose a Claude like her would have brought any more books along. The tree changed the subject. James's own library had been insufficient to slight the tree's intellectual thirst, so he had gone all over the planet to borrow books for Magnolia. Dr.
Lakin, at base, who had formerly taught English literature, possessed the fine collection which he had been reluctant to lend, until he had learned that they were not for James, but for a tree. At that, he had fetched the books himself, since he was anxious to meet her. A lot of the trees here have learned the English language, he had told James, but none seems to have developed a taste for its literature. Your magnolia is undoubtedly a superior specimen. Excellent natural taste, too. Perhaps a little unformed when it comes to poetry and the more sophisticated aspects of life, but she'll learn. She'll learn. Unfortunately, the same, James knew, could hardly be said of his wife. Phyllis did bring some books, he told Magnolia.
For you, no doubt. That was kind of her. I'm sure she has many good qualities which will unfold one by one, as her merriestems start differentiating. I hope you don't feel I've been too, well, personal, Jim. I was only trying to help. If I've gone too far... Of course not, Maggie. After all, he laughed bitterly, I do know you better than I know her. We have been good friends, haven't we, Jim? It was rather nice, those five months we spent alone together. For the first time in my life, I have never regretted being so far from my sisters. And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. Her blue leaves shone violet in the scarlet rays of the setting sun.
The gold of her trunk was lit with red radiance. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. But she was a tree, not a woman. I'm sure she'll fit in after a while. Magnolia continued. Perhaps she isn't well. She seems to guttate an awful lot. Do you suppose she's been overwatered? That wasn't guttation, James said heavily. It was tears. It means she's unhappy. Unhappy? Perhaps she won't fit in on this planet, in which case she should by all means go back to Earth. It's cruel and unfair to keep it intelligent, loosely speaking. Life-form anywhere against her will, don't you think? She'll be happy here, James vowed. I'll make her happy. Well, I certainly hope you can manage it. By the way, do you suppose you'll have a chance to read me the books she brought, or will she be keeping you too busy?
I'll never be too busy to read to you, Magnolia. That's very nitrogenous of you, Jim. Our intellectual communions have meant a lot to me. I'd hate to have to give them up. So would I, he said. But there won't be any need to. Phyllis will understand. I certainly hope so. I so admire your English literature. It's so deeply cognizant of the really meaningful things in life. And if your coming to this planet has served only to add poetry to our cultural heritage, It would be reason enough to welcome you with open limbs. For it was truly a perceptive versifier who wrote the immortally simple lines. Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree. And such a charming tune to go with it, too," Magnolia went on.
We have always sung the music that the wind and the rain have taught us, but until you came, we never thought of putting words and melody together to form one glorious whole." A tree that may in summer wear, she caroled in a pleasing contralto, a nest of robins in her hair. By the way, Jim, ever since reading that poem, I've been meaning to ask you precisely what are robins, and do you think they'd look well in my hair? By which I suppose the bard refers, in somewhat pedestrian flight of fancy, to leaves. They're a kind of bird, he said drearily. Birds nesting in my hair. I wouldn't think of allowing it, but then I suppose terrestrial birds are quite different from ours. More housebroken, shall we say?
Everything's different, James said, and for an irrational moment he hated everything that was blue and should have been green, everything sweet that should have been vicious, everything intelligent that should have been mindless.
Since matters could not grow much worse, they improved to a degree. After a day or two had passed, Phyllis, being a conscientious girl, came to realize how wrong it had been for her as a terrestrial immigrant to show overt hostility toward a native of the planet that had welcomed her. But how could she be... a... a person? Phyllis wanted to know when they were inside the cottage, for she had learned to hold her tongue when they were near Magnolia or any of her sisters, who, though they could not speak the language as fluently as she, understood it very well and eavesdropped at every possible opportunity and order, they said, to improve their accents. She's a tree, a plant, and plants are just vegetables.
She stabbed her needle energetically through the tablecloth she was embroidering. You mustn't project terrestrial attitudes upon Elysian ones, James said, patiently looking up from his book. And don't underestimate Magnolia's capabilities. She has sense organs, and motor organs, too. She can't move from where she is, because she's rooted to the ground, but she's capable of turgor movements, like certain terrestrial forms of vegetation, for example, the sensitive plant, or bluegrass. Bluegrass. Phyllis exclaimed, I'm sick of bluegrass. I want green grass. However, these trees have conscious control of their pulvini, whereas the earth's plants don't, and so they can do a lot of things that earth plants can't.
It sounds like a dirty word to me. Pulvini merely means motor organs. Oh. He closed his book, which was a more advanced botany text covered with the jacket of a French novel in order to spare Phyllis's feelings. Darling, can't you get it through your pretty head that they're intelligent life forms? If it'll make it easier for you to think of them as human beings who happen to look like trees, then do that. That's exactly what I am doing, and I'm quite sure she thinks of you as a tree who happens to look like a human being. Phyllis, sometimes I think you're being deliberately difficult. Do you know one of the reasons why I took such pains to teach Magnolia English? It was that I hoped she would be a companion for you.
That you could talk to each other when I had to be away from home. Why do you call her Magnolia? She isn't a lot like one. Isn't she? I thought she was. You see, I don't know so much about botany after all. Actually, he had picked that name for the tree because it expressed both the arboreal and the feminine at the same time, and also because it was one of the loveliest names he knew. But he couldn't tell Phyllis that. There would be further misunderstanding. Of course, she has a name in her own language, but I can't pronounce it. They do have a language of their own then, naturally, though they don't get much chance to speak it since they've grown so few and far apart that verbal communication has become difficult.
They communicate by a network of roots that they've developed. I don't think that's so clever. I merely said, oh, what's the use of trying to explain everything to you? You just don't want to understand. Phyllis put down her needlework and closed her eyes. James, she said, opening them again. It's no use pretending. I've been trying to be sympathetic and understanding, but I can't do it. That tree... I've forced myself to be nice to her, but the more I see of her, the more convinced I am that she's trying to steal you from me. Phyllis was beginning to poison his mind, he thought, because it seemed to him also, in his last conversation with Magnolia, That he had discerned more than ordinary warmth in her attitude toward him.
And perhaps a trace of spite toward his wife? Preposterous, the tree had only been trying to cheer him up as any friend might reasonably do. After all, a tree, and a man... Nonsense. One had an anabolic metabolism, one a catabolic. But this was a different kind of tree. She spoke, she read, she was capable of conscious turgor movements. And he... He had often thought secretly was a different kind of man. Whereas Phyllis... but that was disloyalty. To the type as well as the individual. The tree could be a companion to him, but she could not give him sons to work his land. She could not give him daughters to populate his planet. Moreover, she did not, could not possibly know what human love meant, while Phyllis could at least learn.
Look, dear. He said, sitting down beside his wife on the couch and taking her hand in his. She didn't draw away this time. Suppose what you're saying is true. Not that it is, of course. Just because the tree has a crush on me doesn't mean I necessarily have a crush on her, does it? His wife looked up at him, her rose-red lips parted, her moss-gray eyes shining. Oh, if only I could believe that, James. Anyhow, she doesn't know what the whole thing's about. Poor kid. Poor kid? Phyllis, you know you're prettier than any tree. That was not literally true, but reason was useless. He had to make his point in terms she could understand. And remember, she's got a lot of rings. She must be centuries old, while you're only nineteen.
Twenty, Phyllis corrected. I had a birthday on the ship. Well, you certainly must allow me to wish you a happy birthday, darling. She was in his arms at last. He was about to kiss her, and the trees seemed very remote when she drew back. But are you sure she doesn't, she isn't, she can't be watching us? Darling, I swear it. Lady by yonder blessed moon, I swear that tips with silver all these fruit tree tops. But he had sense enough not to say it. And Elysium had not one blessed moon, but three. And everything was all right. For a while, anyway. I see your wife is developing a corm, the tree remarked as James paused for a chat. He hadn't much time to be sociable those days, for there was such a lot of work to be done, so many preparations to be made, so many things to be requisitioned from Earth.
The supply ships were beginning to come now, bringing necessities and an occasional luxury for those who could afford it. She's pregnant, James explained. Happened before I left Earth. How do you mean? She's about to fruit. Didn't I read that zoology book to you? Yes, but— Oh, James, it all seems so vulgar. To fruit without ever having bloomed. How squalid. It all depends on how you look at it, he said. I, that is, we, had hoped that when the baby came, you would be godmother to it. You know what that is, don't you? Of course I do. You read Cinderella to me. I know it's a great honor, but I'm afraid I must decline. Why? I thought you were my... our friend. Jim, there's something I must confess.
My feelings toward you are not merely those of a friend. Although Phyllis doesn't have too many rings of intellect, she is a female, so she knew all along. Magnolia's leaves rustled diffidently. I feel toward you the way I never felt toward any intelligent life form, but only toward the sun, the soil, the rain. I sense a tropism that seems to incline me toward you. In fact, I'm afraid, Jim, in your own terms, I love you. But you're a tree. You can't love me in my own terms, because trees can't love in the way people can. And, of course, people can't love like trees. We belong to two entirely different species, Maggie. You can't have listened to that zoology book very attentively. Our race is a singularly adaptable one, or we wouldn't have survived so long, Jim, or gone so far in our particular direction.
It's lack of fertility, not lack of enterprise, that's responsible for our decline. And I think your species must be an adaptable one, too. You just haven't really tried. Oh, James, let us reverse the classical roles. Let me be the Apollo to your Daphne. Don't let Phyllis stand in our way. The Greek gods never let a little thing like marriage interfere with their plans. But I love Phyllis, he said in confusion. I love you, too, he added, but in a different way. Yes, I know. More like a sister. However, I have plenty of sisters, and I don't need a brother. We're starting a conservation program, he tried to comfort her. We have every hope of getting some pollen from the other side of the planet, once we've explained to the trees there how far we can make a little go, and you've got to accept it.
You mustn't be silly about it. It isn't the same thing, Jim, and you know it. One of the penalties of intelligence is the diffusiveness of the natural instincts. I would rather not fruit at all, then. Magnolia, you just don't understand. No matter how much you, well, pursue me, I can never turn into a laurel tree. I didn't. Or any kind of tree. Look. Some more books were just sent over from base. Magnolia gave a rueful rustle. Just were sent. Didn't they come over a month ago? James flushed. I know I haven't had a chance to do much reading to you in the last few weeks, Maggie. Or any at all, in fact. But I've been so busy. After the baby's born, things will be much less hectic, and we'll be able to catch up.
Of course, James. I understand. Naturally, your family comes first. One of the books that came was an advanced zoology text that might make things a little clearer. I should very much like to hear it when you have the time to spare, that is. Tell you what, he said. I'll get the book and read you the chapter on the reproductive system in mammals. Won't take more than an hour or so. If you're in a hurry, it can wait. No, he told her. This will make me feel a little less guilty about having neglected you. Whereupon the umbilical cord is severed, he concluded, and the human infant is ready to take its place in the world as a separate entity. Now do you understand, Magnolia? No, she said. Where do the bees come in?
I thought you were in such a hurry to get to base, James, Phyllis remarked sweetly from the doorway, wiping her reddening hands on a dish towel. I am, dear, he slipped the book behind his back. It was possible that, in her present state of mind, induced, of course, by her delicate condition, Phyllis might misunderstand his motive in reading that particular chapter of that particular book to that particular tree. I just stopped for a chat with Magnolia. She's agreed to be godmother to the baby. How very nice of her. Earth government will be so pleased at such a fine example of Rapport with the natives. You might even get a medal. Wouldn't that be nice, James? She hurried on before he could speak.
You still haven't found any green leaf plants on the planet, have you? Have you looked everywhere? Have you looked hard? Haven't I told you time and time again, Miss Hott, the tree said, that there aren't any. That there can't be any. It's impossible to synthesize chlorophyll from the light rays given off by our sun. Only cyanophyll. What do you want with a green-leaf plant anyway? Phyllis' voice broke. I think I'd lose my mind if I was convinced that I'd never see a green-leaf again. All this awful blue. Blue. Blue all the time, and the leaves never fall off. Or if they do, there are new ones right away to take their place. They're always there. Always blue. Wherever blue. Magnolia explained.
Sorry, but that's the way it is.
Jim, I hate to hurt your feelings, but I just have to take down those curtains. The colors. I can't stand it. Pregnant women sometimes get fanciful notions, James said to the tree. It's part of the pregnancy syndrome. Try not to pay any attention.
Kindly don't explain me to a tree, Phyllis cried. I have a right to prefer green, don't I?
There is, as your proverb says, no accounting for strange tastes, the tree murmured. However... We're going to have a formal christening, James interrupted for the sake of peace. We thought we should, since ours will be the first baby born on the planet. Everybody on Elysium will come. That is, all the human beings. Only because they can come, you know. We'd love to have the trees if they were capable of locomotor movement. You'll get to widen your social contacts, Maggie. Dr. Lakin and Dr. Cutler will probably be here. I know you'll be glad to see Dr. Lakin again. You've been anxious to meet Dr. Cutler. They've been asking after you, too. I think Dr. Lakin is planning to write a monograph on you for the Journal of American Association of Professors of English Literature.
With your permission, of course. Christening. That's one of your native festivals, isn't it? It should be most interesting. That's right, Phyllis murmured. It will be Christmas soon. I'd almost forgotten. It'll be the first Christmas I've ever spent away from home, and there won't be any snow or anything. She started to guttate, to cry again. Cheer up, honey, Jim said. It won't be as bad as you think. Because I didn't forget Christmas was coming. There's something specially nice for you on its way from Earth. I only hope it gets here on time. Phyllis sniffled. Maybe we'll have a Christmas party, too. Would you like that? But she remained unresponsive. He turned to the tree. Christening's entirely different, though, he explained.
It's… I guess naming the fruit would be the best way to describe it. Is that so? Magnolia said. What kind of fruit do you expect to have, Mrs. Hott? Oranges? Bananas? As your good St. Luke says, the tree is known by its fruit. You look as if yours might be a watermelon. Why, the idea! Phyllis choked. Are you going to stand there, James, and let that vegetable insult me? I'm sure she didn't mean to, he protested. She got all confused by... That zoology book I read her. The door slammed behind his weeping wife. I don't think you quite understand, Maggie, he said. In fact, sometimes I almost think you, too, don't want to understand. I know what kind of fruit it's going to be, the tree concluded triumphantly.
Sour apples. Ouch, exclaimed Magnolia. That tickles. There's more to acting as a Christmas tree than I had anticipated from your glowing descriptions, Jim. Here, dear," Phyllis said. Maybe you'd better let me put the decorations on her. You can't get on the ladder in your condition, he said apprehensive, not only for her welfare, but for the trees. Phyllis had not taken kindly to the idea of having Magnolia as official Christmas tree, suggesting that if she must participate in the ceremonies, it might be better in the capacity of Yule Log. However, Jim knew Magnolia would be offended if any other tree were chosen to be decorated. I'll manage all right. He assured his wife. If you want to be useful, you might put on some coffee and make sandwiches or something.
The bachelors are coming over from base with that equipment that arrived yesterday, and they'll probably be glad of a snack before turning in. The coffee is already on, and the canapé is made, Phyllis smiled. And I've baked cookies, too, and whipped up a bunch of panuche. What kind of Christmas party do you think it would be without refreshments? Very efficient, isn't she? Magnolia remarked as the battery-powered lights that James had affixed to her began to wink on, for the deep red-violet dusk had already fallen and the first moon was rising. Have you thought, Mrs. Hott, that if you fruit today, it will save the expense of another festival? I don't expect to fruit for another two months, Phyllis said coldly.
And why shouldn't we have another festival? We can afford it, and I like parties. I haven't been to one since the day I landed. Is the life out here getting a little quiet for you, Pettyole? The tree asked solicitously. It must be hard when one has no intellectual resources upon which to draw.
Phyllis held her peace for ten seconds. Then, I wonder where those boys can be, she said. I hope they bring some pickles along. I've asked to have some scent, but I'm accustomed to having no attention paid to what I want. There's a surprise coming for you, Phyllis. James could not help telling her again, hoping to arouse some semblance of interest. Something I know you'll love, and for you, too, he said courteously to Magnolia. You mean the same surprise for both, or a surprise apiece? Latry asked. Oh, one for each, of course. I see lights on the copter now, and running out into the middle of the lawn began waving her handkerchief. He hadn't seen her so pleasantly excited for a long time. I don't suppose I'll need to turn on the landing lights, he said to Magnolia.
You should do the trick. Am I all finished? She rustled anxiously. I do wish I could see myself. How do I look? Splendid. I've never had as beautiful a Christmas tree as you, Maggie, he told her with complete honesty. Not even on Earth. I'm glad, Jim, but I still wish I could be more to you than just a Christmas tree. Shh, the others might hear. For the helicopter had landed and the visitors were pouring out with shouts of admiration. Not only the bachelors had come, and in full force, but some of the older men from base, who apparently felt they could manage to do without their wives for twelve hours, even if those hours included Christmas Eve. He wondered where he and Phyllis could put them all, but some could sleep outside.
If need be. For it was never cold on Elysium. The winds were gentle, and the rains light and fragrant. While the visitors were crowding around Phyllis and the tree, James rooted eagerly through the packages they had brought, until he found what he wanted. Then he rushed over to the group. I know I should wait until tomorrow, but I wanted to give the girls their presents now. The other men smiled sympathetically, almost as joyful as he. Merry Christmas, Magnolia. He hoped Phyllis would understand that it was etiquette which dictated that the alien life-form should get her gift first. Thank you, the tree said. I am deeply touched. I don't believe anyone ever gave me a present before. What is it?
Liquid plant food. Vitamins and minerals, you know. For you to drink. What fun, she exclaimed in pretty excitement. Pour some over me right now. Not so fast, Jim boy. Dr. Cutler, the biologist, snatched the jug from James' hand. First you all better let me take a sample of this here stuff back to the base to test on a lower life form, so as I can make sure it won't do anything bad to Miss Magnolia. Might have iron in it, and I have a theory that iron might not be beneficial for the local vegetation. Oh, thank you, the tree rustled. It's so very thoughtful of you, doctor, but I'm sure Jim would never give me anything that would injure me. I'm sure he isn't fixing to do a thing like that, ma'am, but he's no botanist.
And for you, Phyllis? James handed his wife the awkward bundle to unwrap for herself. She tore the papers off slowly. Oh, Jim, darling, it's... it's... You wanted a bit of green, so I ordered a plant from Earth. You like it? I hope you do. Oh, Jim! She embraced him and the pot simultaneously. More than anything. It won't stay green, Magnolia observed. Either it'll turn blue or it'll die. Puny-looking specimen, isn't it? Well, said James, it's only a youngster. I guess this Christmas is too early, but next Christmas there ought to be berries. It's a holly plant, Phil. Holly, she repeated, her voice shaking a little. Holly. She and Dr. Cutler exchanged glances. I told you, Miss Phyllis ma'am. He may know the first thing about botany, but he doesn't know anything after that.
Jim, Phyllis said, linking her free arm through his. I misjudged you. Dr. Cutler is right. You don't know so very much about botany after all. He looked at her blankly. Her voice was trembling, and not with tears this time. I love this little plant. It's just what I wanted. But there aren't ever going to be any berries, because to have berries, you have to have two plants. And the right two. Halley's die, die, oh, it's just like us. Oh, James said, feeling thoroughly inadequate. I'm sorry. But you mustn't be sorry. I'm going to plant it here on Elysium. And I hope it will stay green in spite of what she says. And it'll have blossoms anyway. And it was very, very sweet of you, dear. She kissed his cheek.
Is this one a boy or a girl? Magnolia asked. You all can't tell till it blooms, Miss Magnolia, ma'am, Dr. Cutler informed her. Maybe I can. Hand it up here, please. Phyllis paused, for an irresolute moment, then smiling nervously at her guests, obliged. It's a boy, Magnolia announced after a minute. A boy. She gave back the pot reluctantly. Phyllis, she said, you and I have never been friends, and I admit that it's been my fault just as much as yours. As much as mine, Phyllis echoed. I like that—she was going to go on, when she obviously recollected that they had company and stopped. So, I know it's presumptuous of me to ask you a favor. Yes, Magnolia, Phyllis said, her fine corn silk eyebrows arched a trifle.
What is this favor? When you plant the little fellow. You said you were going to anyhow. Would you plant him near me? Phyllis looked down at the plant she held cradled in her arms and then up at the tree. Of course, Magnolia, she said, frowning slightly. I didn't realize. Her voice began to tremble. I have been pretty rotten, haven't I? She looked toward James, but he turned his glance away. Just because you were a plant, Phyllis continued, didn't mean I had to be a bu- bu- Beast, it must have been awful for you seeing me like this, practically crowing over you and knowing that you yourself would never have the chance to be a m-m-mother.
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, Magnolia said sadly, and waste its sweetness on the desert air. Phyllis was crying unshamedly now. I'll plant him right next to you, Maggie. I want you to have him. He can be your baby. Thank you, Phil, Maggie said softly. That's very blue of you. Although I think it's a Jim Dandy idea, Biologist said, and I sure wouldn't want to do anything to discourage it. Being real interested in the results of an experiment like that my own self, I don't think you ought to feel so mean about it, Miss Phyllis. If all she wanted, begging your pardon, Miss Magnolia, ma'am, was a baby, why didn't she take an interest in the holly until she found out it was a male? Why wouldn't a little old girl holly have done as well?
Why, why, you scheming vegetable! Phyllis exploded at Magnolia, clutching the holly plant to her protective bosom. He's much too young for you, and I'm going to plant him far away, where he can't possibly fall into your clutches. Now, Miss Phyllis, we all mustn't look at things out of their proper perspective. Then why do you take your hat off when you are introduced to Miss Magnolia, Cutler? Dr. Lakin asked interestedly. Sir, where I come from, we respect femininity, whether it be animal, vegetable, or mineral. Nonetheless, we all got to remember, though Miss Magnolia is unquestionably a lady, she is not a woman. Phyllis began to laugh hysterically. You're right. I had almost forgotten. She was only a tree, and that it is only a little Christmas holly plant that's probably going to die anyway.
They almost always do. That's cruel, Phyllis, James said, and you know it is. Do you really think I'm cruel? Are you going to tell the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Vegetables on me? Why am I cruel? I'm giving her the holly. That's what she wants, isn't it? Do you hear that, Miss Magnolia, ma'am? He's all yours. We'll plant him next to you, right away. And I hope he doesn't die. I hope he grows up to make you a good husband." She's really quite remarkable, Dr. Lakin said to James later that same evening, after the planting ceremonies were over, and the rest of the party had gone to the cottage for fresh coffee and more sandwiches and cookies and panuche. Quite remarkable. You're a lucky man, Hot.
Thank you, sir, James replied abstractedly. I'm sure Phyllis will be pleased to— Phyllis? Oh, Mrs. Hott is a very remarkable woman, of course. A handsome, strong girl. She'll make a splendid mother, I'm sure. But I was referring to Miss Magnolia. She's a credit to you, my boy. If for no other reason, your name will go down in the history of our colony as that of the guide and mentor of Miss Magnolia. That's quite a tree you have there. James looked at the dark form of the tree. For the lights had been turned out, silhouetted against the three pale moons and the violet night. Yes, she is, he said. You're fortunate to be her neighbor, and her friend. Yes, I am. Well, I expect I better join the rest.
Are you coming on in, Jim? In a little while, sir. I thought I'd... I wanted to have a word with Magnolia. I won't be long. Of course, of course. I'm delighted to see that there is such an excellent relationship between you. Good night. Good night, Miss Magnolia, he called. Good night, Dr. Lakin, the tree replied, politely enough, but it was obvious that she was preoccupied with her new charge, who stood as close to her as it was possible to plant him and yet allow room for him to grow. The door closed. James walked across the lawn until he was quite near Magnolia. Maggie, he whispered, reaching out to touch her trunk. Smooth it was, and hard, but he could feel the vibrant life pulsing inside it.
Certainly she was not a plant, not just a plant, even though she was a tree. She was a native of Elysium. Neither animal nor vegetable. Unique unto the planet, unique unto herself. Maggie? Yes, Jim. Don't you think his silhouette is so graceful there in the moonlight? He isn't really puny, just frail. Maggie, you're not serious about this holly. What do you mean? And still, he didn't have her full attention. Would he ever have it again? Serious about raising him to be your... your... Why not, Jim? It's impossible, is it? It certainly is far more possible with him, isn't it? That much I understood from your zoology books. I suppose so. Besides, I have nothing to lose, have I? But even if it were possible, wouldn't it be humiliating for you?
The creature is mindless. Magnolia's leaves rustled in the darkness. She was laughing, a little bitterly. Your Phyllis isn't your intellectual equal, Jim, and yet you say you love her, and I suppose you do. Am I not entitled to my follies also? But she couldn't compare Phyllis to a holly plant. It was unreasonable. He may die, of course," Magnolia said. I've got to be prepared for that. The soil is different. The air is different. The sun is different. But the chances are, if he survives, he'll turn blue, and if he turns blue, who knows what other changes might be brought about. Maybe the plants on your earth aren't inherently mindless, Jim. Maybe they just didn't have a chance. Know ye the land, or the cypress and myrtle are emblems of deeds that are done in their climb.
That land isn't Earth, Jim. So it might just possibly be Elysium. Again, he didn't say anything. What he wanted to say, he had no right to say, so he just kept silent. It'll be a chance for me too, Jim. At least we're both plants, he and I. That gives us a head start. Yes, I suppose it does. Intellect doesn't count for much in the propagation of the species. Life goes on without regard for reason, and that's mainly what we're here for, to make sure that life goes on. And if we're here for anything at all, thanks to your kind, Jim, life will continue on this planet, and it will certainly be your kind of life, and I hope it can be ours as well." Yes, he said. I hope so, too. And he did. But he wished it didn't have to continue in quite that way.
Perhaps it was a trick of the three moons, but the hollyplant's leaves seemed to have changed color. They were no longer green, but almost blue. Powder blue. You'd best be getting on to your party, Jim, Magnolia said. You wouldn't want to be remiss in your duties as host. And please, close the door gently when you go inside. The little hollyplant's asleep. As he closed the door carefully behind him, he heard a burst of laughter coming from the kitchen. Where the guests apparently had assembled. Raucous animal laughter, and rising shrill and noisy above it, Phyllis' company laugh.
End of The Venus Trap by Evelyn E. Smith Recording by Rebecca Nemethy.
RebeccaNemethy.com R-E-B-E-K-A-H. N-E-M-E-T-H-Y dot com.
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19 19 - A Victim of Higher Space 54:10
A Victim of Higher Space by Algernon Blackwood.
"'There's an extraordinary gentleman to see you, sir,' said the new man. "'Why extraordinary?' asked Dr. Silence, drawing the tips of his thin fingers through his brown beard. His eyes twinkled pleasantly. "'Why extraordinary, Barker,' he repeated, encouragingly, noticing the perplexed expression in the man's eyes. "'He's so—so thin, sir. I could hardly see him at all, at first.' He was inside the house before I could ask the name, he added, remembering strict orders. And who brought him here? He come alone, sir, in a closed cab. He pushed by me before I could say a word, making no noise that I could hear. He seemed to move very soft. The man stopped short with obvious embarrassment, as though he had already said enough to jeopardize his new situation.
But trying hard to show that he remembered the instructions and warnings he had received with regard to the admission of strangers not properly accredited. And where is the gentleman now? asked Dr. Silence, turning away to conceal his amusement. I really couldn't exactly say, sir. I left him standing in the awl. The doctor looked up sharply. But why in the hall, Barker? And why not in the waiting room? He fixed his piercing, though. Kindly eyes on the man's face. Did he frighten you? he asked quickly. I think he did, sir, if I may say so. I seem to lose sight of him, as it were. The man stammered, evidently convinced by now that he had earned his dismissal. He come in so funny, just like a cold wind, he added boldly, setting his heels at attention and looking his master full in the face.
The doctor made an internal note of the man's halting description. He was pleased that the slight evidence of intuition which had induced him to engage Barker had not entirely failed at the first trial. Dr. Silence sought for this qualification in all his assistance, from secretary to serving man, and if it surrounded him with a somewhat singular crew, the drawbacks were more than compensated for, on the whole, by their occasional flashes of insight. So the gentleman made you feel queer, did he? That was it, I think, sir, repeated the man stolidly. And he brings no kind of introduction to me, no letter or anything, asked the doctor with feigned surprise, as though he knew what was coming. The man fumbled both in mind and pockets, and finally produced an envelope.
I beg pardon, sir, he said, greatly flustered. The gentleman handed me this for you. It was a note from a discerning friend, who had never yet sent him on a case that was not vitally interesting from one point or another. "'Please see the bearer of this note,' the brief message ran, "'though I doubt if even you can do much to help him.' John's silence paused a moment, so as to gather from the mind of the writer all that lay behind the brief words of the letter. Then he looked up at his servant with a graver expression than he had yet worn. Go back and find this gentleman, he said, and show him into the green study. Do not reply to his question, or speak more than actually necessary, but think kind, helpful, sympathetic thoughts as strongly as you can, Barker.
You remember what I told you about the importance of thinking when I engaged you. Put curiosity out of your mind and think. Gently, sympathetically, affectionately, if you can. He smiled, and Barker, who had recovered his composure in the doctor's presence, bowed silently and went out. There were two different reception rooms in Dr. Silence's house. One intended for persons who imagined they needed spiritual assistance, when really they were only candidates for the asylum, had padded walls, And was well supplied with various concealed contrivances by means of which sudden violence could be instantly met and overcome. It was, however, rarely used. The other, intended for the reception of genuine cases of spiritual distress and out-of-the-way afflictions of a psychic nature, was entirely draped and furnished in a soothing deep green.
Calculated to induce calmness and repose of mind. And this room was the one in which Dr. Silence interviewed the majority of his queer cases, and the one into which he had directed Barker to show his present caller. To begin with, the armchair in which the patient was always directed to sit was nailed to the floor, since its immovability tended to impart this same excellent characteristic to the occupant. Patients invariably grew excited when talking about themselves, and their excitement tended to confuse their thoughts and to exaggerate their language. The immobility of the chair helped to counteract this. After repeated endeavors to drag it forward or push it back, they ended up by resigning themselves to sitting quietly.
And with the futility of fidgeting, there followed a calmer state of mind.
Upon the floor, and at intervals in the wall immediately behind, were certain tiny green buttons, practically unnoticeable, which on being pressed, permitted a soothing and pervasive narcotic to rise invisibly about the occupant of the chair. The effect upon the excitable patient was rapid, admirable, and harmless. The green study was further provided with a secret spy-hole. For John Silence liked, when possible, to observe the patient's face before it had assumed that mask the features of the human countenance invariably wear in the presence of another person. A man sitting alone wears a psychic expression, and this expression is the man himself. It disappears the moment another person joins him.
And Dr. Silence often learned more from a few moments A very light, almost dancing step followed Barker's heavy tread toward the green room, and a moment afterwards the man came in and announced that the gentleman was waiting. He was still pale, and his manner nervous. If you were not intuitive, the man would have had no effect upon you at all. You only need training and development. And when you have learned to interpret these feelings and sensations better, you will feel no fear, but only a great sympathy." Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. And Barker bowed and made his escape, while Dr. Silence, an amused smile lurking about the corners of his mouth, made his way noiselessly down the passage. I put his eye to the spy-hole in the door of the green study.
This spy-hole was so placed that it commanded a view of almost the entire room, and, looking through it, the doctor saw a hat, gloves, and umbrella lying on a chair by the table, but searched at first in vain for their owner. The windows were both closed, and a brisk fire burned in the grate. There were various signs—signs intelligible, at least to a keenly intuitive soul— That the room was occupied, yet so far as human beings were concerned, it seemed undeniably empty. No one sat in the chairs. No one stood on the mat before the fire. There was no sign, even, that a patient was anywhere close against the wall, examining the Bocklin reproduction, as patients so often did when they thought they were alone, and therefore rather difficult to see from the spy-hole.
Ordinarily speaking, there was no one in the room. It was unoccupied. Yet Dr. Silence was quite well aware that a human being was in the room. His sensitive system never failed to let him know the proximity of an incarnate or disincarnate being. Even in the dark, he could tell that. And he knew positively that his patient The patient who had alarmed Barker, and had then tripped down the corridor with that dancing footstep, was somewhere concealed within the four walls commanded by his spyhole. He also realized that this was most unusual, that this individual, whom he desired to watch, knew that he was being watched, and further, that the stranger himself was also watching in his turn. In fact, that it was he, the doctor, who was being observed, and by an observer as keen and trained as himself.
An inkling of the true state of the case began to dawn upon him, and he was on the verge of entering. Indeed, his hand already touched the doorknob, when his eye, still glued to the spyhole, detected a slight movement, directly opposite between him and the fireplace. Something stirred. He watched very attentively and made certain that he was not mistaken. An object on the mantelpiece, it was a blue vase, disappeared from view. It passed out of sight altogether with the portion of the marble mantelpiece on which it rested. Next, that part of the fire and grate and brass fender immediately below it vanished entirely, as though a slice had been taken clean out of them. Dr. Silence then understood that something between him and these objects was slowly coming into being, something that concealed them and obstructed his vision by inserting itself in the line of sight between them and himself.
He quietly awaited further results before going in. First he saw a thin perpendicular line tracing itself from just above the height of the clock, And continuing downwards till it reached the woolly fire-mat. This line grew wider, broadened, grew solid. It was no shadow. It was something substantial. It defined itself more and more. Then suddenly, at the top of the line, and about on a level with the face of the clock, he saw a small luminous disk gazing steadily at him. It was a human eye. Looking straight into his own. Pressed there, against the spy-hole. And it was bright with intelligence. Dr. Silence held his breath for a moment and stared back at it. Then, like someone moving out of deep shadow into light, he saw the figure of a man come sliding sideways into view.
A whitish face followed the eye, and the perpendicular line he had first observed broadening out. And developing into the complete figure of a human being. It was the patient. He had apparently been standing there in front of the fire all the time. A second eye had followed the first, and both of them stared steadily at the spyhole, sharply concentrated, yet with a sly twinkle of humor and amusement that made it impossible for the doctor to maintain his position any longer. He opened the door and went in quickly. As he did so, he noticed for the first time the sound of a German band coming in noisily through the open ventilators. In some intuitive, unaccountable fashion, the music connected itself with the patient he was about to interview.
This sort of prevision was not unfamiliar to him. It always explained itself later. The man he saw was of middle age and of a very ordinary appearance. So ordinary, in fact, that he was difficult to describe, his only peculiarity being his extreme thinness. Pleasant, that is, good, vibrations issued from his atmosphere, and met Dr. Silence as he advanced to greet him, yet vibrations alive with currents and discharges, betraying the perturbed and disordered condition of his mind and brain. There was evidently something wholly out of the usual in the state of his thoughts. Yet, though strange, it was not altogether distressing. It was not the impression that the broken and violent atmosphere of the insane produces upon the mind.
Dr. Silence realized in a flash that here was a case of absorbing interest that might require all his powers to handle properly. I was watching you through my little peephole, as you saw, he began with a pleasant smile, advancing to shake hands. I find it of the greatest assistance sometimes. But the patient interrupted him at once. His voice was hurried, and had odd, shrill changes in it, breaking from high to low, in unexpected fashion. One moment it thundered, the next it almost squeaked. I understand without explanation. He broke in rapidly. You get the true note of a man in that way when he thinks himself unobserved. I quite agree. Only in my case I fear you saw very little. My case, as you of course grasp, Dr.
Silence, is extremely peculiar, uncomfortably peculiar. Indeed, unless Sir William had positively assured me— My friend has sent you to me, the doctor interrupted gravely. With a gentle note of authority, and that is quite sufficient. Pray be seated, Mr. Mudge, Racine Mudge, returned the other. Take this comfortable one, Mr. Mudge, leading him to the fixed chair, and tell me your condition in your own way and at your own pace. My whole day is at your service if you require it. Mr. Mudge moved toward the chair in question and then hesitated.
"'You will promise me not to use the narcotic buttons,' he said, before sitting down. "'I do not need them. Also, I ought to mention that anything you think of vividly will reach my mind. That is apparently part of my particular case.' He sat down with a sigh and arranged his thin legs and body into a position of comfort. Evidently he was very sensitive to the thoughts of others. For the picture of the green buttons had only entered the doctor's mind for a second, yet the other had instantly snapped it up. Dr. Silence noticed, too, that Mr. Mudge held on tightly with both hands to the arms of the chair. "'I'm rather glad the chair is nailed to the floor,' he remarked, as he settled himself more comfortably.
"'It suits me admirably. The fact is—' And this is my case in a nutshell, which is all that a doctor of your marvelous development requires. The fact is, Dr. Silence, I am a victim of higher space. That's what's the matter with me. Higher space!
The two looked at each other for a space in silence, the little patient holding tightly to the arms of the chair, which suited him admirably, and looking up with staring eyes. His atmosphere positively trembling with the waves of some unknown activity, while the doctor smiled kindly and sympathetically, and put his whole person, as far as possible, into the mental condition of the other. Higher space, repeated Mr. Mudge. That's what it is. Now, do you think you can help me with that?
There was a pause, during which the men's eyes steadily searched down below the surface of their respective personalities. Then Dr. Silence spoke. "'I am quite sure I can help you,' he answered quietly. "'Sympathy must always help, and suffering always claims my sympathy. I see you have suffered cruelly. You must tell me all about your case.' And when I hear the gradual steps by which you reached this strange condition, I have no doubt I can be of assistance to you. He drew a chair up beside his interlocutor and laid a hand on his shoulder for a moment. His whole being radiated kindness, intelligence, desire to help. For instance, he went on, I feel sure it was the result of no mere chance that you became familiar with the terrors of what you term higher space.
For higher space is no mere external measurement. It is, of course, a spiritual state, a spiritual condition, an inner development, and one that we must recognize as abnormal since it is beyond the reach of the senses at the present stage of evolution. Higher space is a mystical state. Oh, cried the other, rubbing his bird-like hands with pleasure, the relief it is to me to talk with someone who can understand. Of course what you say is the utter truth, and you are right that no mere chance led me to my present condition, but on the other hand, prolonged and deliberate study. Your chance in a sense now governs it. I mean, by entering the condition of higher space, seems to depend upon the chance of this and that circumstance.
He sighed and paused a moment. For instance, he continued, starting, the mere sound of that German band sent me off. Not that all music will do so, but certain sounds, certain vibrations at once key me up to the requisite pitch, and off I go. Wagner's music always does it, and that band must have been playing a stray bit of Wagner. But I'll come to that later. Only first," he smiled lubricatingly, I must ask you to send away your man from the spy-hole. John's silence looked up with a start, for Mr. Mudge's back was to the door, and there was no mirror. He saw the brown eye of Barker glued to the little circle of glass, and he crossed the room without a word and snapped down the black shutter provided for the purpose, and then heard Barker shuffle away along the passage.
Now, continued the little man in the chair, I can go on. You have managed to put me completely at my ease, and I feel I may tell you my whole case without shame or reserve. You will understand, but— You must be patient with me if I go into details that are already familiar to you—details of higher space, I mean—and if I seem stupid when I have to describe things that transcend the power of language and are really, therefore, indescribable. My dear friend," put in the other calmly, that goes without saying. To know higher space is an experience that defies description, and one is obliged to make use of more or less intelligible symbols. But pray proceed. Your vivid thoughts will tell me more than your halting words."
An immense sigh of relief proceeded from the little figure, half lost in the depths of the chair. Such intelligent sympathy meeting him halfway was a new experience, and it touched his heart at once. He leaned back, relaxing his tight hold of the arms, and began in his thin, scale-like voice. My mother was a Frenchwoman, and my father an Essex bargeman, he said abruptly. Hence my name, Racine and Mudge. My father died before I ever saw him. My mother inherited money from her Bordeaux relations, and then she died soon after. I was left alone with wealth and a strange freedom. I had no guardian, trustees, sisters, brothers, or any connection in the world to look after me. I grew up, therefore, utterly without education.
This much was to my advantage. I learned none of that deceitful rubbish taught in schools, and so had nothing to unlearn when I awakened to my true love. Mathematics. Higher mathematics and higher geometry. These, however, I seemed to know instinctively. It was like the memory of what I had deeply studied before. The principles were in my blood, and I simply raced through the ordinary stages and beyond, and ended the same with geometry. Afterwards, when I read the books on these subjects, I understood how swift and undeviating the knowledge had come back to me. It was simply memory. It was simply recollecting the memories of what I had known before, in a previous existence, and required no books to teach me.
In his growing excitement, Mr. Mudge attempted to drag the chair forward a little nearer to his listener, and then smiled faintly as he resigned himself instantly again to its immobility, and plunged anew into the recital of his singular disease.
The audacious speculations of Bollier, the amazing theories of Gauss, that, through a point more than one line could be drawn parallel to a given line, the possibility that the angles of a triangle are altogether greater than two right angles, if drawn upon immense curvatures, the breathless intuitions of Beltrami and Lobachewski, all these I hurried through and emerged. Panting, but unsatisfied, upon the verge of my—my world, my higher space possibilities—in a word, my disease. How I got there, he resumed after a brief pause, during which he appeared to be listening nervously for an approaching sound, is more than I can put intelligibly into words. I can only hope to leave your mind with an intuitive comprehension of the possibility of what I say.
Here, however, came a change. At this point, I was no longer absorbing the fruits of studies I had made before. It was the beginning of new efforts to learn for the first time, and I had to go slowly and laboriously through terrible work. Here I sought for the theories and speculations of others. The books were few and far between, and with the exception of one man, a dreamer the world called him, whose audacity and piercing intuition amazed and delighted me beyond description, I found no one to guide or help. You, of course, Dr. Silence, understand something of what I am driving at with these stammering words, though you cannot perhaps yet guess what depths of Pain my new knowledge brought me to, nor why an acquaintance with a new dimension of space should prove a source of misery and terror.
Mr. Racine Mudge, remembering that the chair would not move, did the next best thing he could in his desire to draw nearer to the attentive man facing him. And sat forward upon the very edge of the cushions, crossing his legs and gesticulating with both hands, as though he saw into this region of new space he was attempting to describe. And might any moment tumble into it bodily from the edge of the chair and disappear from view? John's silence, separated from him by three paces, sat with his eyes fixed upon the thin white face opposite, noting every word. And every gesture with deep attention. This room we now sit in, Dr. Silence, has one side open to space, to higher space. A closed box only seems closed.
There is a way in and out of a soap bubble without breaking the skin. You tell me no new thing, the doctor interposed gently. Hence, if— Higher space exists, and our world borders upon it and lies partially in it. It follows, necessarily, that we see only portions of all objects. We never see their true and complete shape. We see three measurements, but not their fourth. The new direction is concealed from us, and when I hold this book and move my hand all around it, I have not really made a complete circuit. We only perceive those portions of any object which exist in our three dimensions. The rest escapes us, but once learned to see in higher space, and objects appear as they actually are, only they will thus be hardly recognizable.
Now you may begin to grasp something of what I am coming to. I am beginning to understand something of what you must have suffered. observed the doctor soothingly, for I have made similar experiments myself, and only stopped just in time. "'You are the one man in all the world who can understand and sympathize,' exclaimed Mr. Mudge, grasping his hand and holding it tightly while he spoke. The nailed chair prevented further excitability. "'Well!' he resumed after a moment's pause. I procured the implements and the colored blocks for practical experiment, and I followed the instructions carefully till I had arrived at an imaginative conception of four-dimensional space, the tesseract, the figure whose boundaries are cubes I knew by heart.
That is to say, I knew it and saw it mentally, for my eye, of course, could never take in a new measurement, nor my hands and feet handle it. So at least I thought," he added, making a wry face. I had reached the stage, you see, when I could imagine in a new dimension. I was able to conceive the shape of that new figure, which is intrinsically different to all we know, the shape of the Tesseract. I could perceive in four dimensions. When, therefore, I looked at a cube, I could see all its sights at once. Its top "'It was not foreshortened, nor its farther side and base invisible. I saw the whole thing out flat, so to speak. Moreover, I also saw its content, its insides.' "'You were not yourself able to enter this new world?' interrupted Dr.
Silence. "'Not then. I was only able to conceive intuitively what it was like, and how exactly it must look. Later—' When I slipped in there and saw objects in their entirety, unlimited by the paucity of our poor three measurements, I very nearly lost my life. For you see, space does not stop at a single new dimension of fourth. It extends in all possible new ones, and we must conceive it as containing any number of new dimensions. In other words, there is no space at all. But only a condition. But meanwhile, I had come to grasp the strange fact that the objects in our normal world appear to us only partially. Mr. Mudge moved farther forward till he was balanced dangerously on the very edge of the chair.
From this starting point, he resumed, I began my studies and experiments and continued them for years. I had money, and I was without friends. I lived in solitude and experimented. My intellect, of course, had little part in the work, for intellectually it was all unthinkable. Never was the limitation of mere reason more plainly demonstrated. It was mystically, intuitively, spiritually that I began to advance, and what I learnt, and knew, and did... is all impossible to put into language, since it describes experiences transcending the experiences of men. It is only some of the results, what you would call the symptoms of my disease, that I can give you, and even these must often appear absurd contradictions and impossible paradoxes.
I can only tell you, Dr. Silence. His manner became grave suddenly. That I reached sometimes a point of view whence all the great puzzles of the world became plain to me, and I understood what they call in the yoga books the great heresy of separateness, why all great teachers have urged the necessity of man loving his neighbor as himself. How men are all really one? And why the utter loss of self is necessary to salvation and the discovery of the true life of the soul. He paused a moment and drew breath. Your speculations have been my own long ago, the doctor said quietly. I fully realize the force of your words. Men are doubtless not separate at all, in the sense they imagine. All this about the very much higher space I only dimly, very dimly conceived, of course," the other went on, raising his voice again by jerks.
But what did happen to me was the humbler accident of the simpler disaster. Oh dear, how shall I put it? He stammered, and showed visible signs of distress. It was simply this, he resumed with a sudden rush of words, That accidentally, as the result of my years of experiment, I one day slipped bodily into the next world, the world of four dimensions, yet without knowing precisely how I got there or how I could get back again. I discovered, that is, that my ordinary three-dimensional body was but an expression, a partial projection of my higher four-dimensional body. Now you understand what I meant much earlier in our talk when I spoke of chance. I cannot control my entrance or exit. Certain people, certain human atmospheres, certain wandering forces, thoughts, desires even, the radiations of certain combinations of color, and above all, The vibrations of certain kinds of music will suddenly throw me into a state of what I can only describe as an intense and terrific inner vibration.
And behold, I am off, off in the direction at right angles to all our known directions, off in the direction the cube takes when it begins to trace the outlines of the new figure, the Tesseract. Off into my breathless and semi-divine higher space. Off inside myself, into the world of four dimensions. He gasped and dropped back into the depths of the immovable chair.
And there, he whispered, his voice issuing from among the cushions, there I have to stay until these vibrations subside. "'But until they do something which I cannot find words to describe properly or intelligibly to you, and then, behold, I am back again. First, that is, I disappear. Then I reappear. Only,' he sighed, "'I cannot control my entrance, nor my exit.' "'Just so,' exclaimed Dr. Silence. "'That is why a few—' "'Why, a few moments ago,' interrupted Mr. Mudge, taking the words out of his mouth, "'you found me gone, and then saw me return. The music of that wretched German band set me off. Your intense thinking about me brought me back when the band had stopped its Wagner. I saw you approach the peephole, and I saw Barker's intention of doing so later.
For me—' No interiors are hidden, I see inside. When in that state the content of your mind, as of your body, is open to me as the day, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear." Mr. Mudge stopped and mopped his brow. A light trembling ran over the surface of his small body, like wind over grass. He still held tightly to the arms of the chair. At first! He presently resumed. My new experiences were so vividly interesting that I felt no alarm. There was no room for it. The alarm came a little later. Then you actually penetrated far enough into that state to experience yourself as a normal portion of it, asked the doctor, leaning forward deeply interested. Mr. Mudge nodded a perspiring face in reply. I did. He whispered.
Undoubtedly, I did. I am coming to all that. It began first at night, when I realized that sleep brought no loss of consciousness. The spirit, of course, can never sleep. Only the body becomes unconscious, interposed John's silence. Yes, we know that, theoretically. At night, of course. The spirit is active elsewhere, and we have no memory of where and how, simply because the brain stays behind and receives no record. But I found that, while remaining conscious, I also retained memory. I had attained to the state of continuous consciousness for at night regularly, with the first approaches of drowsiness. I entered Nolens Volens, The four-dimensional world. For a time this happened frequently, and I could not control it, though later I found a way to regulate it better.
Apparently sleep is unnecessary in the higher, the four-dimensional body. Yes, perhaps. But I should infinitely have preferred dull sleep to the knowledge. For unable to control my movements, I wandered to and fro, attracted Owing to my partial development and premature arrival, to parts of this new world that alarmed me more and more, it was the awful waste and drift of a monstrous world, so utterly different to all we know and see, that I cannot even hint at the nature of the sights and objects and beings in it. More than that, I cannot even remember them. I cannot now picture them to myself even, but can recall only the memory of the impression they made upon me, the horror and devastating terror of it all.
To be in several places at once, for instance. Perfectly interrupted John's silence, noticing the increase of the other's excitement. I understand exactly, but now please tell me a little more. Of this alarm you experienced, and how it affected you. It's not the disappearing and reappearing per se that I mind, continued Mr. Mudge. So much as certain other things. It's seeing people and objects in their weird entirety, in their true and complete shapes, that is so distressing. It introduced me to a world of monsters—horses, dogs, cats— All of which I loved—people, trees, children—all that I have considered beautiful in life—everything, from a human face to a cathedral, appeared to me in a different shape and aspect to all I have known before.
Instead of seeing their partial expression in three dimensions, I saw them complete in four. I cannot perhaps convince you why this should be terrible. But I assure you that it is so. To hear the human voice proceeding from this novel appearance, which I scarcely recognize as a human body, is ghastly, simply ghastly. To see inside everything, and everybody, is a form of insight, peculiarly distressing. To be so confused in geography as to find myself one moment at the North Pole, And the next at Clapham Junction, or possibly at both places simultaneously, is absurdly terrifying. Your imagination will readily furnish other details without my multiplying my experiences now, but you have no idea what it all means and how I suffer."
Mr. Mudge paused in his panting account and lay back in his chair. He still held tightly to the arms, as though they could keep him in the world of sanity in three measurements, and only now and again released his left hand in order to mop his face. He looked very thin and white and oddly unsubstantial, and he stared about him as though he saw into this other space he had been talking about. John's silence, too, felt warm. He had listened to every word, and had made many notes. The presence of this man had an exhilarating effect upon him. It seemed as if Mr. Racine Mudge still carried about with him something of that breathless, higher space condition he had been describing. At any rate, Dr. Silence had himself advanced sufficiently far to realize that the visions of this extraordinary little person had a basis of truth for their origin.
After a pause that prolonged itself into minutes, He crossed the room and unlocked a drawer and a bookcase. Taking out a small book with a red cover, it had a lock to it, and he produced a key out of his pocket, and proceeded to open the covers. The bright eyes of Mr. Mudge never left him for a single second. It almost seems a pity, he said at length, to cure you, Mr. Mudge. You are on the way to discovery of great things. Though you may lose your life in the process, that is, your life here in the world of three dimensions, you would lose thereby nothing of great value. You will pardon my apparent rudeness, I know, and you might gain what is infinitely greater. Your suffering, of course, lies in the fact that you alternate between the two worlds and are never wholly in one or the other.
Also, I rather imagine, though I cannot be certain of this from any personal experiments, that you have here and there penetrated into space of more than four dimensions, and have hence experienced the terror you speak of. The perspiring son of the Essex bargeman and the woman of Normandy bent his head several times in assent, but uttered no word in reply. Some strange psychic predisposition dating. No doubt from one of your former lives has favored the development of your disease, and the fact that you had no normal training at school or college, no leading by the poor intellect into the cul de sac, falsely called knowledge, has further caused your exceedingly rapid movement along the lines of direct inner experience.
None of the knowledge you have foreshadowed has come to you through the senses, of course.
Mr. Mudge, sitting in his immovable chair, began to tremble slightly. A wind again seemed to pass over his surface, and again to set it curiously in motion like a field of grass. "'You are merely talking to gain time,' he said hurriedly, in a shaking voice. "'This thinking aloud delays us. I see ahead what you are coming to. Only please be quick, for something is going to happen.' A band is again coming down the street, and if it plays, if it plays Wagner, I shall be off in a twinkling." Precisely. I will be quick. I was leading up to the point of how to effect your cure. The way is this. You must simply learn to block the entrances. Prevent the center's acting. But how, in the name of space, can that be done?
By concentration. They are all within you, these centers, although outer causes, such as color, music, and other things, lead you towards them. These external things you cannot hope to destroy, but once the entrances are blocked, they will lead you only to bricked walls and closed channels. You will no longer be able to find the way. Quick, quick," cried the bobbing figure in the chair. How is this concentration to be affected? This little book, continued Dr. Silence calmly, will explain to you the way he tapped the cover. Let me now read out to you certain simple instructions, composed, as I see you divine, entirely from my own personal experiences in the same direction. Follow these instructions, and you will no longer enter the state of higher space.
The entrances will be blocked effectively. Mr. Mudge sat bolt upright in his chair to listen, and John's silence cleared his throat and began to read slowly in a very distinct voice. But before he had entered a dozen words, something happened. A sound of street music entered the room through the open ventilators, for a band had begun to play in the stable mews at the back of the house. The March from Tannhauser. Odd as it may seem that a German band should twice within the space of an hour enter the same muse and play Wagner. It was nevertheless the fact. Mr. Racine Mudge heard it. He uttered a sharp, squeaking cry, and twisted his arms with nervous energy round the chair. A piteous look that was not far from tears spread over his white face.
Gray shadows followed it, the gray of fear. He began to struggle convulsively. Hold me fast! Catch me! For God's sake, keep me here! I'm on the rush already! Oh, it's frightful! He cried in tones of anguish, his voice as thin as a reed. Dr. Silence made a plunge forward to seize him, but in a flash, before he could cover the space between, the Mr. Racine Mudge, screaming and struggling, seemed to shoot past him into invisibility. He disappeared like an arrow from a bow, propelled at infinite speed, and his voice no longer sounded in the external air, but seemed, in some curious way, to make itself heard somewhere within the depths of the Doctor's own being. It was almost like a faint singing cry in his head, like a voice of dream, a voice of vision and unreality.
It cried faintly, with distance in it. Give me alcohol! It's the quickest way! Alcohol before I'm out of reach! The doctor, accustomed to rapid decisions and even more rapid action, remembered that a brandy flask stood upon the mantelpiece, and in less than a second he had seized it and was holding it out toward the space above the chair recently occupied by the visible mudge. But before his very eyes, and long ere he could unscrew the metal stopper, he saw the contents of the closed glass-file sink and lessen, as though someone were drinking violently and greedily of the liquor within. "'Thanks! Enough! It deadens the vibrations!' cried the faint voice in his interior as he withdrew the flask and set it back upon the mantelpiece.
He understood that in Mudge's present condition, one side of the flask was open to space, and he could drink without removing the stopper. He could hardly have had a more interesting proof of what he had been hearing described at such length. But the next moment, the very same moment it almost seemed, the German band stopped midway in its tune, and there was Mr. Mudge, back in his chair again, gasping and panting. Quick, he shrieked. Stop that band! Send it away! Catch hold of me! Block the entrances! Block the entrances! Give me the red book! Oh! Oh! Oh! The music had begun again. It was merely a temporary interruption. The Tannhauser march started again, this time, at a tremendous pace that made it sound like a rapid two-step, as though the instruments played against time.
And the brief interruption gave Dr. Silence a moment in which to collect his scattering thoughts, and before the band had got through half a bar, he had flung forward upon the chair and held Mr. Racine Mudge, the struggling little victim of higher space, in a grip of iron. His arms went all round his diminutive person, taking in a good part of the chair at the same time. He was not a big man, yet he seemed to smother Mudge completely. Yet, even as he did so, and felt the wriggling form underneath him, it began to melt and slip away like air or water. The wood of the armchair somehow disentangled itself from between his own arms and those of Mudge. The phenomenon known as the passage of matter through matter took place.
The little man seemed actually to be interfused with the other's being. Dr. Silence could just see his face beneath him. Puckered and grew dark as though from some great internal effort, he heard the thin reedy voice crying his ear to, "'Block the entrances! Block the entrances!' And then, but how in the world describe what is indescribable? John's silence half rose up to watch. Racine Mudge, his face distorted beyond all recognition, was making a marvelous inward movement, as though doubling back upon himself. He turned funnel-wise like water in a whirling vortex, and then appeared to break up somewhat as a reflection breaks up and divides in a distorting convex mirror. He went neither forward nor backward, neither to the right nor the left, neither up nor down, but he went.
He went utterly. He simply flashed away out of sight like a vanishing projectile. All but one leg. Dr. Silence just had the time and the presence of mind to seize upon the left ankle and boot as it disappeared, and to this he held on for several seconds like grim death. Yet all the time he knew it was a foolish and useless thing to do. The foot was in his grasp one moment, and the next it seemed—this was the only way he could describe it—inside his own skin and bones. And at the same time, Outside his hand and all round it. It seemed mingled in some amazing way with his own flesh and blood. Then it was gone, and he was tightly grasping a mere draft of heated air. "'Gone! Gone! Gone!' cried a faint, whispering voice somewhere deep within his own consciousness.
"'Lost! Lost! Lost!' it repeated, growing fainter and fainter. Till at length it vanished into nothing, and the last signs of Mr. Racine Mudge vanished with it. John Silence locked his red book and replaced it in the cabinet, which he fastened with a click, and when Barker answered the bell, he inquired if Mr. Mudge had left a card upon the table. It appeared that he had, and when the servant returned with it, Dr. Silence read the address and made a note of it. It was in North London. Mr. Mudge has gone, he said quietly to Barker, noticing his expression of alarm. He's not taking his hat with him, sir. Mr. Mudge requires no hat where he is now, continued the doctor, stooping to poke the fire, but he may return for it.
And the umbrella, sir? And the umbrella. He didn't go out my way, sir, if you please, stuttered the amazed servant. His curiosity overcoming his nervousness. Mr. Mudge has his own way of coming and going, and prefers it. If he returns by the door at any time, remember to bring him instantly to me, and be kind and gentle with him, and ask no questions. Also, remember, Barker, to think pleasantly, sympathetically, affectionately of him while he is away. Mr. Mudge is a very suffering gentleman. Barker bowed and went out of the room backwards, gasping and feeling round the inside of his collar, with three very hot fingers of one hand.
It was two days later when he brought in a telegram to the study. Dr. Silence opened it and read as follows. Bombay. Just slipped out again. All safe. Have blocked entrances. Thousand thanks. Address. Cooks, London. Mudge. Dr. Silence looked up and saw Barker staring at him bewilderingly. It occurred to him that somehow he knew the contents of the telegram. Make a parcel of Mr. Mudge's things, he said briefly, and address them, Thomas Cook & Sons Ludgate Circus, and send them there exactly a month from today, marked to be called for.
Yes, sir, said Barker, leaving the room. with a deep sigh and a hurried glance at the waste-paper basket where his master had dropped the pink paper.
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20 20 - Zeritsky's Law 18:42
ZORISKY'S LAW by Anne Griffith. ZORISKY'S LAW by Anne Griffith.
Somebody, someday, will make a study. of the influence of animals on history. Although not as famous as Mrs. O'Leary's cow, Mrs. Graham's cat should certainly be included in any such study. It has now been definitely established that the experiences of this cat led to the idea of quick-frozen people, which in turn led to the passage of Zeritsky's Law. We must go back to the files of the Los Angeles newspapers for 1950 to find the story. In brief, a Mrs. Fred C. Graham missed her pet cat on the same day that she put a good deal of food down in her home deep-freeze unit. She suspected no connection between the two events. The cat was not to be found until six days later, when its owner went to fetch something from the deep-freeze.
Much as she loved her pet, we may imagine that she was more horror than grief-stricken at her discovery. She lifted the little ice-encased body out of the deep-freeze, and set it on the floor. Then she managed to run as far as the next-door neighbor's house before fainting.
Mrs. Graham became hysterical after she was revived. And it was several hours before she could be quieted enough to persuade anybody that she hadn't made up the whole thing. She prevailed upon her neighbor to go back to the house with her. In front of the deep freeze, they found a small pool of water, and a wet cat busily licking itself. The neighbor subsequently told reporters that the cat was concentrating its licking on one of its hind legs, where some ice still remained, so that she, for one, believed the story.
A follow-up dispatch, published a week later, reported that the cat was unharmed by the adventure. Further, Mrs. Graham was quoted as saying that the cat had had a large meal just before its disappearance, that as soon after its rescue as it had dried itself off, it took a long nap, precisely as it always did after a meal, and that it was not hungry again until evening. It was clear from the accounts that the life processes had been stopped dead in their tracks, and had, after defrosting, resumed at exactly the point where they left off.
Perhaps it is unfair to put all the responsibility on one luckless cat. Had such a thing happened anywhere else in the country, it would have been talked about Believed by a few, disbelieved by most, and forgotten. But as the historic kick of Mrs. O'Leary's cow achieved significance because of the time and place that it was delivered, so the falling of Mrs. Graham's cat into the deep freeze became significant because it occurred in Los Angeles. There, and probably only there, the event was anything but forgotten. The principles it revealed became the basis of a hugely successful business.
How shall we regard the Zoritsky brothers? As arch-villains or pioneers? In support of the latter view, it must be admitted that the spirit of inquiry and the willingness to risk the unknown were indisputably theirs. However, they're pioneering, if we agree to call it that. was equally indisputably bound up with the quest for a fast buck.
Some of the first clients paid as high as $15,000 for the initial freezing, and the exorbitant rate of $1,000 per year as a storage charge. The Zoritsky brothers owned and managed one of the largest quick-freezing plants in the world, And it was their claim that converting the freezing equipment and storage facilities to accommodate humans was extremely expensive, hence the high rates.
When the early clients who paid these rates were defrosted years later, and found other clients receiving the same services for as little as $3,000, they threatened a row, and the Tsaritskis made substantial refunds. By that time they could easily afford it, and since any publicity about their enterprise was unwelcome to them, all refunds were made without a whimper. Three thousand dollars became the standard rate, with one hundred dollars per year the storage charge, and no charge for defrosting. The Zeritskys were businessmen first and last. Anyone who had the fee could put himself away for whatever period of time he wished. And no questions asked. The ironclad rule that full payment must be made in advance was broken only once, as far as the records show.
A certain young man had a very wealthy uncle, residing in Milwaukee, whose heir he was, but the uncle was not getting along in years fast enough. The young man, then eighteen years old, did not wish to waste the best years of his life as a poor boy. He wanted the money while he was young, but his uncle was as healthy as he was wealthy. The Zoritskys were the obvious answer to his problem.
The agreement between them has been preserved. They undertook to service the youth without advance payment. They further undertook to watch the Milwaukee papers until the demise of the uncle should be reported, whereupon they would defrost the boy. In exchange for this, the youth, thinking, of course, that money would be no object when he came out, agreed to pay double. The uncle lived seventeen years longer, during which time he seems to have forgotten his nephew, and to have become deeply interested in a mystic society to which he left his entire fortune. The Tsaritskis duly defrosted the boy, and whether they or he were the more disappointed is impossible to imagine. They never forgot the lesson, and never made another exception to their rule.
He, poor fellow, spent the rest of his life, including the best years, paying off his debt. which at $3,000 plus 17 years at $100 per year, and the whole doubled, amounted to $9,400. The books record his slow but regular payments over the next 43 years, and indicate that he had only $250 left to pay when he died. We may, I think, assume that various underworld characters who were grateful ex-clients of the Tsaritskis were instrumental in persuading the boy to keep up his payments.
Criminals were the first to apply for quick-freezing, and formed the mainstay of the Tsaritsky's business through the years. What more easy than to rob, hide the loot , present yourself to the Tsaritsky's, and remain in their admirable chambers for five or ten years? Emerge to find the hue-and-cry long since died down and the crime forgotten, recover your haul, and live out your life in luxury. Due to the shady character of most of their patrons, the Tsaritskis kept all records by a system of numbers. Names never appeared on the books, and anonymity was guaranteed. Law enforcement agents looking for fugitives from justice found no way to break down the system. Nor any law which they could interpret as making it illegal to quick-freeze.
Perhaps the truth is that they did not search too diligently for a law that could be made to apply. As long as the Tsaritskis kept things quiet, and did not advertise or attract public attention, they could safely continue their bizarre business.
City officials of Los Angeles, and particularly members of the police force, enjoyed a period of unparalleled prosperity. Lawyers and other experts, who thought they were on the track of legal means by which to liquidate the Tsaritsky Empire, found themselves suddenly able to buy a ranch or a yacht or both, and retire forever from the arduous task of earning a living. Even with a goodly part of the population of Los Angeles as permanent pensioners, The Tsaritsky fortune grew to incredible proportions. By the time the Tsaritsky brothers died and left the business to their sons, it was a gold mine, and an inexhaustible one at that.
During these later years, the enterprise began to attract a somewhat better class of people. Murderers and other criminals continued to furnish the bulk of the business, but as word of this amazing service seeped through the country, Others began to see in it an easy way of solving their problems. They were encouraged, too, by the fact that the process was painless and the firm completely reliable. There were no risks, no accidents, no fatalities. One could, in short, have confidence in the Tsaritskis.
Soon after Monaghan's great exposure rocked the nation, however, many of these better-type clients leaped into print One of the most poignant stories came from the daughter of a Zoritsky client. Her father was still, at the age of one hundred and two, passionately interested in politics, but the chances of his lasting until the next election were not good. The daughter herself suggested the deep freeze, and he welcomed the idea. He decided on a twenty-year stay, because, in his own words, If the Republicans can't get into the White House in twenty years, I give up. Upon his return, he found that his condition had not been fulfilled. His daughter described him as utterly baffled by the New World.
He lived in it just a week before he left it, this time for good. She states his last words were, How do you people stand it?
Some professional people patronized the Zeritskys, chiefly movie stars. After the exposé, fan magazines were filled with accounts of how the stars had kept youthful. The more zealous ones had prolonged their screen lives for years by the simple expedient of storing themselves away between pictures. We may imagine the feelings of their public upon discovering that the seemingly eternal youth of their favorites was due to the Zoritskys, and not, as they had been led to believe, to expensive creams, lotions, diet, and exercise. There was a distinctly unfavorable reaction, and the letter columns of the fan magazines bristled with angry charges of cheating.
But next to criminals, The majority of people who applied for quick-freezing seems to have been husbands or wives caught in insupportable marital situations. Their experiences were subsequently written up in the confession magazines. It was usually the husband who fled to Los Angeles, and incarcerated himself for an appropriate number of years, at the end of which time his unamiable spouse would have died or made other arrangements. If we can believe the magazines, this scheme worked out very well in most cases.
There was, inevitably, one spiteful wife who divined her husband's intentions. By shrewd reasoning, she figured approximately the number of years he had chosen to be absent, and put herself away for a like period. In a TV dramatization rather pessimistically entitled You Can't Get Away, the husband described his sensations upon being defrosted after fifteen years, only to find his wife waiting for him right there in the reception room of the Tsaritsky plant. She was as perfectly preserved as I was. He said, every irritating habit that had made my life unbearable with her was absolutely intact.
The sins of the fathers may be visited on the sons, but how often we see repeated the old familiar pattern of the sons destroying the life-work of the fathers. The Tsaritsky brothers were fanatically meticulous. They supervised every detail of their operations, and kept their records with an elaborate system of checks and double-checks. They were shrewd enough to realize that complete dependability was essential to their business. A satisfied Zariski client was a silent client. One dissatisfied client would be enough to blow the business apart.
The sons, in their greed, Over-expanded, to the point where they could not, even among the four of them, personally supervise each and every detail. A fatal mistake was bound to occur sooner or later. When it did, the victim broadcast his grievance to the world.
The story appeared in a national magazine, every copy of which was sold an hour after it appeared on the stands. Under the title, They Put the Freeze on Me, John A. Monaghan told his tragic tale. At the age of thirty-seven, he had fallen desperately in love with a girl of sixteen. She was immature and frivolous, and wanted to play around a little more before she settled down. She told me, he wrote, to come back in five years, and that started me thinking. In five years I'd be forty-two. And what would a girl of twenty-one want with a man twice as old as her?
John Monaghan moved in circles, where the work of the Zoritskys was well known. Not only did he see an opportunity of being still only thirty-seven when his darling reached twenty-one, but he foresaw a painless way of passing the years which he must endure without her. Accordingly, he presented himself for the deep freeze, paid his $3,000 and the $500 storage charge in advance, and left, he claimed, written instructions to let me out in five years so there'd be no mistakes.
Nobody knows how the slip happened. But somehow, John A. Monaghan, or rather the number assigned to him, was entered on the books for twenty-five years instead of five years. Upon being defrosted and discovering that a quarter of a century had elapsed, his rage was awesome. Along with everything else, his love for his sweetheart had been perfectly preserved, but she had given up waiting for him, and was a happy mother of two boys and six girls.
Monaghan's accusation that the Tsaritskis had ruined his life may be taken with a grain of salt. He was still a young man, and the rumor that he received a hundred thousand for the magazine rights to his story was true. As most readers are aware, what has come to be known as Tsaritsky's Law was passed by Congress and signed by the President three days after Monaghan's story broke.
Seventy-five years after Mrs. Graham's cat fell into the freezer, it became the law of the land that the mandatory penalty for anyone applying quick-freezing methods to any living thing, human or animal, was death. Also, all quick-frozen people were to be defrosted immediately.
Los Angeles papers reported that beginning on the day Monaghan's story appeared, men by the thousands poured into the city. They continued to come, choking every available means of transport for the next two days. Until, that is, Zeritsky's law went through.
When we consider the date, And remember that due to the gravity of the international situation, a bill had just been passed drafting all men from sixteen to sixty. We realize why Congress had to act. The Tsaritskis, of course, were among the first to be taken. Because of their experience, they were put in charge of a military warehouse for dehydrated foods, And warned not to get any ideas for a new business.
End of Tsaritsky's Law by Anne Griffith. Recorded by Peter Eastman.