A Treasury of Great Science Fiction Vol 2 Part 12

"So? Why should every scientist give us a step-by-step account of his doings?"

"No reason. But for instance, the Swedish Observer corps tracked one thing. Somebody in Stockholm wanted a certain kind of vacuum tube, a very special kind. The manufacturer explained that his whole stock, which was very small because of the low demand, had been bought by someone else. The would-be purchaser looked up the someone else, who turned out to be an agent buying for a fourth party he'd never seen. That got the Observers interested, and they checked every lab in the country; none of them had bought the stuff, so it was probably sent out by private plane or the like. They asked the Observers in other countries to check. It turned out that our customs men had noted a easeful of these same tubes arriving at Idle-wild. That put a bee in my bonnet, and I tried to find where those tubes had gone. No luck-the trail ended there.

"So I started asking Observers around the world myself, and found several similar instances. s.p.a.ceship parts vanishing in Australia, for example, or a load of uranium from the Belgian Congo. It may not mean anything at all, but, well, if it's a legitimate project, why all this secrecy? I want some more men to help me follow up on it. I don't like the smell of it."

Mandelbaum nodded. Something like a crazy, unsafe experiment in nucleonics-it could devastate his whole territory. Or there might be a more deliberate plan. No telling as yet.

'Til see you get them," he said.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

EARLY SUMMER: the first shy green of leaves has become a fullness enchanted with sunlight, talking with wind; it has rained just an hour ago, and the light cool wind shakes down a fine sparkle of drops, like a ghostly kiss on your uplifted face; a few sparrows dance on the long, empty streets; the clean quiet ma.s.s of the buildings is sharp against a luminous blue sky, the thousand windows catch the morning sun and throw it back in one great dazzle.

The city had a sleeping look. A few men and women walked between the silent skysc.r.a.pers; they were casually dressed, some almost nude, and the driven feverish hurry of old days was gone. Now and then a truck or automobile purred down the otherwise bare avenue. They were all running off the new powercast system, and the smokeless, dustless air was almost cruelly brilliant. There was something of Sunday about this morning, though it was midweek.

Sheila's heels tapped loudly on the sidewalk. The staccato noise jarred at her in the stillness. But she could only m.u.f.fle it by slowing her pace, and she didn't want to do that. She couldn't.

A troop of boys, about ten years old, came out of the deserted shop in which they had been playing and ran down the street ahead of her. Young muscles still had to exercise, but it was saddening to her that they weren't shouting. Sometimes she thought that the children were the hardest thing to endure. Theyweren't like children any more.

It was a long walk from the depot to the Inst.i.tute, and she could have saved her energy-for what?-by taking the subway. But the thought of being caged in metal with the new men of Earth made her shiver. It was more open and free aboveground, almost like being in the country. The city had served its day, now it was dying, and the bare blind walls around her were as impersonal as mountains. She was alone.

A shadow ran along the street, as if cast by a cloud traveling swiftly overhead. Looking up, she saw the long metallic shape vanish noiselessly behind the skysc.r.a.pers. Perhaps they had mastered gravity. What of it?

She pa.s.sed by two men who were sitting in a doorway, and their conversation floated to her through the quiet: "-starvish esthetics-the change."

Swift flutter of hands.

"Wiedersehen." Sigh.

"Negate: macrocosm, un-ego, entropy. Human-meaning."

She went on a little faster.

The Inst.i.tute building looked shabbier than the Fifth Avenue giants. Perhaps that was because it was still intensely in use; it did not have their monumental dignity of death. Sheila walked into the lobby. There was no one around, but an enigmatic thing of blinking lights and glowing tubes murmured to itself in a corner. She went over to the elevator, hesitated, and turned off for the staircase. No telling what they had done to the elevator -maybe it was wholly automatic, maybe it responded directly to thought commands, maybe they had a dog running it.

On the seventh floor, breathing a little sharply, she went down the corridor. It hadn't changed, at least-the men here had had too much else to do. But the old fluorescent tubes were gone, not the air itself-or the walls, ceiling, floor?-held light. It was peculiarly hard to gauge distances in that shadowless radiance.

She paused before the entrance to Pete's old laboratory, swallowing a gulp of fear. Stupid, she told herself, they're not going to eat you. But what have they done inside? What are they doing now?

Squaring her shoulders, she knocked on the door. There was a barely perceptible hesitation, then: "Come in." She turned the k.n.o.b and entered.

The place had hardly changed at all. That was perhaps the most difficult thing to understand. Some of the apparatus was standing in a corner, dusty with neglect, and she did not comprehend the thing which had grown up to cover three tables. But it had always been that way when she visited her husband in the old days, a clutter of gadgetry that simply didn't register on her ignorance. It was still the same big room, the windows opened on a heartlessly bright sky and a remote view of docks and warehouses, a shabby smock hung on the stained wall, and a faint smell of ozone and rubber was in the air. There were still the worn reference books on Pete's desk; his table-model cigarette lighter-she had given it to him for Christmas, oh, very long ago-was slowly tarnishing by an empty ashtray, the chair was shoved back a little as if he had only gone out for a minute and would return any time.

Grunewald looked up from the thing on which he worked, blinking in the nearsighted manner she recalled. He looked tired, his shoulders stooped more than they once did, but the square blond face wasthe same. A dark young man whom she didn't know was helping him.

He made a clumsy gesture. (Why, Mrs. CorinthI This is an unexpected pleasure. Do come in.) The other man grunted and Grunewald waved at him. (This is) "Jim Manzelli," he said. (He's helping me out just now. Jim, this is) "Mrs. Corinth," (wife of my former boss.) Manzelli nodded. Curtness: (Pleased to meet you.) He had the eyes of a fanatic.

Grunewald went over to her, wiping grimy hands. "Why" (are you here, Mrs. Corinth)?

She answered slowly, feeling her timidity harsh in her throat. (I only wanted to) "Look around." (I) "Won't bother" (you very) "long." Eyes, fingers twisting together: Plea for kindness.

Grunewald peered more closely at her, and she saw the expressions across his face. Shock: You have grown so thinl There is something haunted about you, and your hands are never still. Compa.s.sion: Poor girl, it's been hard for you, hasn't it? We all miss him. Conventional courtesy: (I hope you are over your) "Illness?"

Sheila nodded. (Where is) "Johansson?" she asked. (The lab doesn't seem the same without his long glum face-or without Pete.) (He's gone to help out in) "Africa, I think." (A colossal job before us, too big, too sudden.) (Too cruel!) Nodding: (Yes.) Eyes to Manzelli: (Question.) Manzelli's gaze rested on Sheila with probing intensity. She shivered, and Grunewald gave his partner a reproachful look.

(I came up) "From Long Island today." Bitterness in her smile, she has grown harder, and a nod: (Yes, they seem to think it's all right to let me loose now. At least, they had no way to compel me, and too much else to do to worry about me in any case.) A gray ness flitted through Grunewald's expression. (You came up to say good-by, didn't you?) (I wanted to) "See" (the) "place" (once again, only for a little while. It holds so many of his days).

Sudden pleading in her: "He is dead, isn't he?"

Shrug, pity: (We can't say. But the ship is months overdue, and only a major disaster could have stopped her. She may have run into the) "In-hibitor field" (out in s.p.a.ce, in spite of all precautions).

Sheila walked slowly past him. She went over to Pete's desk and stroked her fingers across the back of his chair.

Grunewald cleared his throat. (Are you) "Leaving civilization?"

She nodded mutely. It is too big for me, too cold and strange.

(There is still) "Work to do," he said.

She shook her head. (Not for me. It is not a work I want or understand.) Taking up the cigarette lighter, she dropped it into her purse, smiling a little.Grunewald and Manzelli traded another look. This time Manzelli made a sign of agreement.

(We have been) "Doing work" (here which might-interest you), said Grunewald. Give you hope. Give you back your tomorrows.

The brown eyes that turned to him were almost unfocused. He thought that her face was like white paper, stretched across the bones; and some Chinese artist had penned the delicate blue tracery of veins across her temples and hands.

He tried awkwardly to explain. The nature of the inhibitor field had been more fully worked out since the star ship left. Even before that time, it had been possible to generate the field artificially and study its effects; now Grunewald and Manzelli had gotten together on a project of creating the same thing on a huge scale. It shouldn't take much apparatus-a few tons, perhaps; and once the field was set up, using a nuclear disintegrator to furnish the necessary power, solar energy should be enough to maintain it.

The project was highly unofficial: now that the first press of necessity was gone, those scientists who chose were free to work on whatever suited their own fancy, and materials weren't difficult to obtain.

There was a small organization which helped get what was necessary; all that Grunewald and Manzelli were doing here at the Inst.i.tute was testing, the actual construction went on elsewhere. Their labor seemed harmless to everyone else, a little dull compared to what was going on in other lines of endeavor.

No one paid any attention to it, or reasoned below the surface of Grunewald's public explanation.

Sheila regarded him vaguely, and he wondered about the regions into which her inner self had gone.

"Why?" she asked. "What is it you're really doing?"

Manzelli smiled, with a harshness over him. (Isn't it obvious? We mean to) "Build an orbital s.p.a.ce station" (and set it going several thousand miles above the surface). "Full-scale field generators" (in it.

We'll bring mankind back to the) "Old days."

She didn't cry out, or gasp, or even laugh. She only nodded, as if it were a blurred image of no meaning.

(Retreat from reality-how sane are you?) asked Grunewald's eyes.

(What reality?) she flashed at him.

Manzelli shrugged. He knew she wouldn't tell anyone, he could read that much in her, and that was what counted. If it didn't give her the excited joy Grunewald had hoped for, it was no concern of his.

Sheila wandered over to one side of the room. A collection of apparatus there looked peculiarly medical.

She saw the table with its straps, the drawer with hypodermic needles and ampules, the machine which crouched blackly near the head of the table---"What is this?" she asked. Her tone should have told them that she knew already, but they were too immersed in their own wishes.

"Modified electric-shock treatment," said Grunewald. He explained that in the first weeks of the change there had been an attempt to study the functional aspects of intelligence by systematic destruction of the cerebral cortex cells in animals, and measurement of the effects. But it had soon been abandoned as too inhumane and relatively useless. "I thought you knew" (about it), he finished. (It was) "In the biology and psych departments when Pete" (was still here. I remember he) "protested strongly" (against it. Didn't he gripe to) "you" (about it too)?

Sheila nodded dimly.

"The change" (made) "men cruel," said Manzelli. (And) "Now" (they) "aren't" (even that, any longer.

They've become something other than man, and this world of rootless intellect has lost all its old dreamsand loves. We want to restore humanness).

Sheila turned away from the ugly black machine. "Good-by," she said.

"I-well---" Grunewald looked at the floor. "Keep in touch, won't you?" (Let us know where you are, so if Pete comes back---) Her smile was as remote as death. (He will never come back. But good-by, now.) She went out the door and down the corridor. Near the staircase was a washroom door. It was not marked "Men" or "Women," even the Western world had gone beyond such prudery, and she went in and looked in a mirror. The face that regarded her was hollow, and the hair hung lank and dull to her shoulders. She made an effort with comb and water to spruce up, not knowing or caring why she did, and then went down the stairway to the first floor.

The door to the director's office stood open, letting a breeze find its way between the windows and the building entrance. There were quiet machines inside, probably doing the work of a large secretarial staff.

Shelia went past the outer suite and knocked on the open door of the inner office.

Helga Arnulfsen glanced up from her desk. She'd grown a little thin too, Sheila realized, and there was a darkness in her eyes. But even if she was more informally dressed than had once been her habit, she was strong and smooth to look on. Her voice, which had always been husky, lifted a trifle in surprise: "Sheila!"

"How do you do?"

"Come in," (do come in, sit down. It's been a long time since I saw you). Helga was smiling as she came around the desk and took Sheila's hand, but her fingers were cold.

She pressed a b.u.t.ton and the door closed. (Now we can have) "Privacy." she said. (This is the sign I'm not to be bothered.) She pulled up a chair across from Sheila's and sat down, crossing her long trim legs man-fashion. "Well, good" (to see you. I hope you're feeling well.) You don't look well, poor kid.

"I---" Sheila clasped her hands and unclasped them again and picked at the purse in her lap.

"I---" (Why did I come?) Eyes: (Because of Pete.) Nod: (Yes. Yes, that must be it. Sometimes I don't know why---But we both loved him, didn't we?) "You," said Helga without tone, "are the only one he cared for." And you hurt him. Your suffering was grief within him.

I know. That's the worst of it. (And still) "He wasn't the same man," said Sheila. (He changed too much, like all the world. Even as I held him, he slipped by me, time itself carried him away.) "I lost him even before he died."

"No. You had him, it was always you." Helga shrugged. "Well, life goes on," (in an amputated fashion.

We eat and breathe and sleep and work, because there is nothing else we can do.) "You have strength," said Sheila. (You have endured where I couldn't.) "Oh, I kept going," answered Helga."You still have tomorrow."

"Yes, I suppose so."

Sheila smiled, it trembled on her mouth. (I'm luckier than you are. I have yesterday.) "They may come back," said Helga. (There's no telling what has happened to them. Have you the courage to wait?) "No," said Sheila. "Their bodies may come back," (but not Pete. He has changed too much, and I can't change with him. Nor would I want to be a weight around his neck.) Helga laid a hand on Sheila's arm. How thin it was! You could feel the bones underneath. "Wait," she said. "Therapy" (is progressing. You can be brought up to) "Normal" (in-well-a) "few years, at most."

"I don't think so."

There was a touch of contempt, thinly veiled, in the cool blue eyes. Do you want to live up to the future? Down underneath, do you really desire to keep pace? "What else" (can you do) "but wait?

Unless suicide---"

"No, not that either." (There are still mountains, deep valleys, shining rivers, sun and moon and the high stars of winter.) "I'll find my-adjustment."

(I've kept in touch with) "Kearnes." (He) "Seemed (to) "think" (you were) "progressing."

"Oh, yes." I've learned to hide it. There are too many eyes in this new world. "But I didn't come to talk about myself, Helga." (I just came to say) "Good-by."

"Where" (are you going? I have to keep in touch with you, if he should come back.) "I'll write" (and let you know).

"Or give a message to a Sensitive." (The postal system is obsolete.) That too? I remember old Mr. Barneveldt, shuffling down the street in his blue uniform, when I was a little girl, lie used to have a piece of candy for me.

"Look, I'm getting hungry," said Helga. (Why don't we go have) "Lunch?"

(No, thank you. I don't feel like it.) Sheila got up. "Good-by, Helga."

"Not good-by, Sheila. We'll see you again, and you'll be well then."

"Yes," said Sheila. "I'll be all right. But good-by."

She walked out of the office and the building. There were more people abroad now, and she mingled with them. A doorway across the street offered a hidden place.

She felt no sense of farewell. There was an emptiness in her, as if grief and loneliness and bewilderment had devoured themselves. Now and then one of the shadows flitted across her mind, but they weren't frightening any longer. Almost, she pitied them. Poor ghosts! They would die soon.

She saw Helga emerge and walk alone down the street, toward some place where she would swallow asolitary lunch before going back to work. Sheila smiled, shaking her head a little. Poor efficient Helgal Presently Grunewald and Manzelli came out and went the same way, lost in conversation. Sheila's heart gave a small leap. The palms of her hands were cold and wet. She waited till the men were out of sight, then crossed the street again and re-entered the Inst.i.tute.

The noise of her shoes was hard on the stairway. She breathed deeply, trying for steadiness. When she came out on the seventh floor, she stood for a minute waiting for the self-control she needed. Then she ran down the hall to the physical laboratory.

The door gaped ajar. She hesitated again, looking at the unfinished machine within. Hadn't Grunewald told her about some fantastic scheme to---? No matter. It couldn't work. He and Manzelli, that whole little band of recidivists, were insane.

Am I insane? she wondered. If so, there was an odd strength in her. She needed more resolution for what she was going to do than it took to put a gun barrel in her mouth and squeeze a trigger.

The shock machine lay like some armored animal beside the table. She worked swiftly, adjusting it.

Memory of Pete's anger at its early use had, indeed, come back to her in the house of isolation; and Kearnes had been pleased to give her all the texts she asked for, glad that she was finding an objective interest. She smiled again. Poor Kearnes! How she had fooled him.

The machine, hummed, warming up. She took a small bundle from her purse and unwrapped it. Syringe, needle, bottle of anesthetic, electrode paste, cord to tie to the switch so she could pull it with her teeth.

And a timer for the switch, too. She had to estimate the safe time for what was necessary, she would be unconscious when the process must be stopped.

Maybe it wouldn't work. Quite likely her brain would simply fry in her skull. What of it?

She smiled out the window as she injected herself. Good-by, sun, good-by, blue heaven, clouds, rain, airy song of home-bound birds. Good-by and thank you.

Stripping off her clothes, she lay on the table and fastened the electrodes in place. They felt cold against her skin. Some of the straps were easy to buckle, but the right arm-well, she had come prepared, she had a long belt that went under the table, around her wrist, a padlock she could snap shut. Now she was immobile.

Her eyes darkened as the drug took hold. It was good to sleep.