The Golden Age Of Science Fiction Vol V Part 74

Smithy was fl.u.s.tered. "I--well, that is--" He could think of no convincing answer. Hypno-research was one of Possy's most secret projects. He had used it constantly in his efforts to determine reasons for non-conformity to set patterns of behavior in some of his more recalcitrant students. He had kept it a secret because it added up to an admission that perhaps heredity could play a part in the development of a student's character.

"Smithy, my dear old friend," he said with mock humility. "This is no time for us to quarrel. Let us face the facts candidly. You have been spying on my school--and I in turn have been spying on yours. I know, for instance, that when your students don't behave the way their heredity charts predict you often use hypno-therapy to change their thought-lines, and force them to conform. Is that any less fair than what I do?"

Smithy sighed. "I guess not, my friend. No, wait. I will go farther than that. It is not a matter of guessing. I am quite certain about it. We are a couple of aging frauds, struggling selfishly along, playing with the lives of these children solely to keep our jobs. Perhaps we should--"

"Nevertheless, we have a problem," interrupted Possy. "It's a problem that won't be solved by our becoming senile idiots. Get your mind back on Herbux, and help me. I feel this is a most desperate situation. If it gets beyond just the two of us, we are likely to be thoroughly investigated. Then goodness knows what would happen."

"But why? The child can do no real harm. Suppose he does 'destruct' an animal or two? There are plenty more. And sooner or later they would die of natural causes, anyway. And it's unthinkable that he could ever do it to--to people ..."

Smithy paused, obviously struck by a startling thought. He turned to Herbux. "Boy," he said, quite sternly. "Come here."

Herbux obeyed, advancing to within a foot of the old doctor and facing him squarely.

"Look me in the eyes," Smithy commanded.

Questioningly, Herbux began to stare at Smithy.

"Well," Smithy said, after a time, "turn it on."

A set look came over Herbux's face. His lips were compressed and a thin dew of sweat had broken out on his forehead.

Possy stood aghast, slowly comprehending what his old friend Smithy was doing. He was actually risking his life--or so he believed--to prove that the child could not destruct a human being. He wanted to stop the boy, but he could not move from where he stood.

Suddenly Herbux broke and turned away. He began to sob.

"It's no use!" he cried. "I can't do it. I just can't do it ..."

Smithy went to him and put an arm on his shoulders.

"Tell me, boy," he exclaimed. "What do you mean? Do you mean that you can't bring yourself to do it, or that it is physically impossible?"

Herbux just stood there, his head bowed, crying wildly.

"I just can't do it," he repeated, sounding now completely heart-broken.

Possy, coming alive again, said soothingly, "Don't cry, son. It's not bad. It's good, that you can't do it."

Herbux whirled around, facing Possy, his face inflamed with a sudden rage.

"But I will," he screamed, "I will do it! I will! When I grow up!"

Contents

AND ALL THE EARTH A GRAVE.

BY C.C. MacAPP

There's nothing wrong with dying--it just hasn't ever had the proper sales pitch!

It all began when the new bookkeeping machine of a large Midwestern coffin manufacturer slipped a cog, or blew a transistor, or something. It was fantastic that the error--one of two decimal places--should enjoy a straight run of okays, human and mechanical, clear down the line; but when the figures clacked out at the last clacking-out station, there it was. The figures were now sacred; immutable; and it is doubtful whether the President of the concern or the Chairman of the Board would have dared question them--even if either of those two gentlemen had been in town.

As for the Advertising Manager, the last thing he wanted to do was question them. He carried them (they were the budget for the coming fiscal year) into his office, staggering a little on the way, and dropped dazedly into his chair. They showed the budget for his own department as exactly one hundred times what he'd been expecting. That is to say, fifty times what he'd put in for.

When the initial shock began to wear off, his face a.s.sumed an expression of intense thought. In about five minutes he leaped from his chair, dashed out of the office with a shouted syllable or two for his secretary, and got his car out of the parking lot. At home, he tossed clothes into a travelling bag and barged toward the door, giving his wife a quick kiss and an equally quick explanation. He didn't bother to call the airport. He meant to be on the next plane east, and no nonsense about it....

With one thing and another, the economy hadn't been exactly in overdrive that year, and predictions for the Christmas season were gloomy. Early retail figures bore them out. Gift buying dribbled along feebly until Thanksgiving, despite brave speeches by the Administration. The holiday pa.s.sed more in self-pity than in thankfulness among owners of gift-oriented businesses.

Then, on Friday following Thanksgiving, the coffin ads struck.

Struck may be too mild a word. People on the streets saw feverishly-working crews (at holiday rates!) slapping up posters on billboards. The first poster was a dilly. A toothy and toothsome young woman leaned over a coffin she'd been unwrapping. She smiled as if she'd just received overtures of matrimony from an eighty-year-old billionaire. There was a Christmas tree in the background, and the coffin was appropriately wrapped. So was she. She looked as if she had just gotten out of bed, or were ready to get into it. For amorous young men, and some not so young, the message was plain. The motto, "The Gift That Will Last More Than a Lifetime", seemed hardly to the point.

Those at home were a.s.sailed on TV with a variety of bright and clever skits of the same import. Some of them hinted that, if the young lady's grat.i.tude were really precipitous, and the bedroom too far away, the coffin might be comfy.

Of course the more settled elements of the population were not neglected. For the older married man, there was a blow directly between the eyes: "Do You Want Your Widow to Be Half-Safe?" And, for the spinster without immediate hopes, "I Dreamt I Was Caught Dead Without My Virginform Casket!"

Newspapers, magazines and every other medium added to the a.s.sault, never letting it cool. It was the most horrendous campaign, for sheer concentration, that had ever battered at the public mind. The public reeled, blinked, shook its head to clear it, gawked, and rushed out to buy.

Christmas was not going to be a failure after all. Department store managers who had, grudgingly and under strong sales pressure, made s.p.a.ce for a single coffin somewhere at the rear of the store, now rushed to the telephones like touts with a direct p.r.o.nouncement from a horse. Everyone who possibly could got into the act. Grocery supermarkets put in casket departments. The a.s.sociation of Pharmaceutical Retailers, who felt they had some claim to priority, tried to get court injunctions to keep caskets out of service stations, but were unsuccessful because the judges were all out buying caskets. Beauty parlors showed real ingenuity in merchandising. Roads and streets clogged with delivery trucks, rented trailers, and whatever else could haul a coffin. The Stock Market went completely mad. Strikes were declared and settled within hours. Congress was called into session early. The President got authority to ration lumber and other materials suddenly in starvation-short supply. State laws were pa.s.sed against cremation, under heavy lobby pressure. A new racket, called boxjacking, blossomed overnight.

The Advertising Manager who had put the thing over had been fighting with all the formidable weapons of his breed to make his plant managers build up a stockpile. They had, but it went like a toupee in a wind tunnel. Compet.i.tive coffin manufacturers were caught napping, but by Wednesday after Thanksgiving they, along with the original one, were on a twenty-four hour, seven-day basis. Still only a fraction of the demand could be met. Jet pa.s.senger planes were stripped of their seats, supplied with Yankee gold, and sent to plunder the world of its coffins.

It might be supposed that Christmas goods other than caskets would take a bad dumping. That was not so. Such was the upsurge of prosperity, and such was the shortage of coffins, that nearly everything--with a few exceptions--enjoyed the biggest season on record.

On Christmas Eve the frenzy slumped to a crawl, though on Christmas morning there were still optimists out prowling the empty stores. The nation sat down to breathe. Mostly it sat on coffins, because there wasn't s.p.a.ce in the living rooms for any other furniture.

There was hardly an individual in the United States who didn't have, in case of sudden sharp pains in the chest, several boxes to choose from. As for the rest of the world, it had better not die just now or it would be literally a case of dust to dust.

Of course everyone expected a doozy of a slump after Christmas. But our Advertising Manager, who by now was of course Sales Manager and First Vice President also, wasn't settling for any boom-and-bust. He'd been a frustrated victim of his choice of industries for so many years that now, with his teeth in something, he was going to give it the old bite. He gave people a short breathing spell to arrange their coffin payments and move the presents out of the front rooms. Then, late in January, his new campaign came down like a hundred-megatonner.

Within a week, everyone saw quite clearly that his Christmas models were now obsolete. The coffin became the new status symbol.

The auto industry was of course demolished. Even people who had enough money to buy a new car weren't going to trade in the old one and let the new one stand out in the rain. The garages were full of coffins. Petroleum went along with Autos. (Though there were those who whispered knowingly that the same people merely moved over into the new industry. It was noticeable that the center of it became Detroit.) A few trucks and buses were still being built, but that was all.

Some of the new caskets were true works of art. Others--well, there was variety. Compact models appeared, in which the occupant's feet were to be doubled up alongside his ears. One manufacturer pushed a circular model, claiming that by all the laws of nature the foetal position was the only right one. At the other extreme were virtual houses, ornate and lavishly equipped. Possibly the largest of all was the "Togetherness" model, triangular, with graduated recesses for Father, Mother, eight children (plus two playmates), and, in the far corner beyond the baby, the cat.

The slump was over. Still, economists swore that the new boom couldn't last either. They reckoned without the Advertising Manager, whose eyes gleamed brighter all the time. People already had coffins, which they polished and kept on display, sometimes in the new "Coffin-ports" being added to houses. The Advertising Manager's reasoning was direct and to the point. He must get people to use the coffins; and now he had all the money to work with that he could use.

The new note was woven in so gradually that it is not easy to put a finger on any one ad and say, "It began here." One of the first was surely the widely-printed one showing a tattooed, smiling young man with his chin thrust out manfully, lying in a coffin. He was rugged-looking and likable (not too rugged for the spindly-limbed to identify with) and he oozed, even though obviously dead, virility at every pore. He was probably the finest-looking corpse since Richard the Lion-Hearted.

Neither must one overlook the singing commercials. Possibly the catchiest of these, a really cute little thing, was achieved by jazzing up the Funeral March.

It started gradually, and it was all so un-violent that few saw it as suicide. Teen-agers began having "Popping-off parties". Some of their elders protested a little, but adults were taking it up too. The tired, the unappreciated, the ill and the heavy-laden lay down in growing numbers and expired. A black market in poisons operated for a little while, but soon pinched out. Such was the pressure of persuasion that few needed artificial aids. The boxes were very comfortable. People just closed their eyes and exited smiling.

The Beatniks, who had their own models of coffin--mouldy, scroungy, and without lids, since the Beatniks insisted on being seen--placed their boxes on the Grant Avenue in San Francisco. They died with highly intellectual expressions, and eventually were washed by the gentle rain.

Of course there were voices shouting calamity. When aren't there? But in the long run, and not a very long one at that, they availed naught.

It isn't hard to imagine the reactions of the rest of the world. So let us imagine a few.

The Communist Block immediately gave its Stamp of Disapproval, denouncing the movement as a filthy Capitalist Imperialist Pig plot. Red China, which had been squabbling with Russia for some time about a matter of method, screamed for immediate war. Russia exposed this as patent stupidity, saying that if the Capitalists wanted to die, warring upon them would only help them. China surrept.i.tiously tried out the thing as an answer to excess population, and found it good. It also appealed to the well-known melancholy facet of Russian nature. Besides, after pondering for several days, the Red Bloc decided it could not afford to fall behind in anything, so it started its own program, explaining with much logic how it differed.

An elderly British philosopher endorsed the movement, on the grounds that a temporary setback in Evolution was preferable to facing up to anything.

The Free Bloc, the Red Bloc, the Neutral Bloc and such sc.r.a.ps as had been too obtuse to find themselves a Bloc were drawn into the whirlpool in an amazingly short time, if in a variety of ways. In less than two years the world was rid of most of what had been bedeviling it.

Oddly enough, the country where the movement began was the last to succ.u.mb completely. Or perhaps it is not so odd. Coffin-maker to the world, the American casket industry had by now almost completely automated box-making and gravedigging, with some interesting a.s.sembly lines and packaging arrangements; there still remained the jobs of management and distribution. The President of General Mortuary, an ebullient fellow affectionately called Sarcophagus Sam, put it well. "As long as I have a single prospective customer, and a single Stockholder," he said, mangling a stogie and beetling his brows at the one reporter who'd showed up for the press conference, "I'll try to put him in a coffin so I can pay him a dividend."

Finally, though, a man who thought he must be the last living human, wandered contentedly about the city of Denver looking for the coffin he liked best. He settled at last upon a rich mahogany number with platinum tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, an Automatic Self-Adjusting Cadaver-contour Innerspring Wearever-Plastic-Covered Mattress with a built in bar. He climbed in, drew himself a generous slug of fine Scotch, giggled as the mattress prodded him exploringly, closed his eyes and sighed in solid comfort. Soft music played as the lid closed itself.

From a building nearby a turkey-buzzard swooped down, cawing in raucous anger because it had let its attention wander for a moment. It was too late. It clawed screaming at the solid cover, hissed in frustration and finally gave up. It flapped into the air again, still grumbling. It was tired of living on dead small rodents and coyotes. It thought it would take a swing over to Los Angeles, where the pickings were pretty good.

As it moved westward over parched hills, it espied two black dots a few miles to its left. It circled over for a closer look, then grunted and went on its way. It had seen them before. The old prospector and his burro had been in the mountains for so long the buzzard had concluded they didn't know how to die.

The prospector, whose name was Adams, trudged behind his burro toward the buildings that shimmered in the heat, humming to himself now and then or addressing some remark to the beast. When he reached the outskirts of Denver he realized something was amiss. He stood and gazed at the quiet scene. Nothing moved except some skinny packrats and a few sparrows foraging for grain among the unburied coffins.

"Tarnation!" he said to the burro. "Martians?"

A half-buried piece of newspaper fluttered in the breeze. He walked forward slowly and picked it up. It told him enough so that he understood.

"They're gone, Evie," he said to the burro, "all gone." He put his arm affectionately around her neck. "I reckon it's up to me and you agin. We got to start all over." He stood back and gazed at her with mild reproach. "I sh.o.r.e hope they don't favor your side of the house so much this time."

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BLACK EYES AND THE DAILY GRIND.

By Stephen Marlowe

The little house pet from Venus didn't like New York, so New York had to change.

He liked the flat cracking sound of the gun. He liked the way it slapped back against his shoulder when he fired. Somehow it did not seem a part of the dank, steaming Venusian jungle. Probably, he realized with a smile, it was the only old-fashioned recoil rifle on the entire planet. As if anyone else would want to use one of those old bone-cracking relics today! But they all failed to realize it made sport much more interesting.

"I haven't seen anything for a while," his wife said. She had a young, pretty face and a strong young body. If you have money these days, you could really keep a thirty-five-year-old woman looking trim.

Not on Venus, of course. Venus was an outpost, a frontier, a hot, wet, evil-smelling place that beckoned only the big-game hunter. He said, "That's true. Yesterday we could bag them one after the other, as fast as I could fire this contraption. Today, if there's anything bigger than a mouse, it's hiding in a hole somewhere. You know what I think, Lindy?"

"What?"

"I think there's a reason for it. A lot of the early Venusian hunters said there were days like this. An area filled with big lizards and cats and everything else the day before suddenly seems to clear out, for no reason. It doesn't make sense."

"Why not? Why couldn't they all just decide to make tracks for someplace else on the same day?"

He slapped at an insect that was buzzing around his right ear, then mopped his sweating brow with a handkerchief. His name was Judd Whitney, and people said he had a lot of money. Now he laughed, patting his wife's trim shoulder under the white tunic. "No, Lindy. It just doesn't work that way. Not on Earth and not on Venus, either. You think there's a pied-piper or something which calls all the animals away?"

"Maybe. I don't know much about those things."

"No. I don't think they went anyplace. They're just quiet. They didn't come out of their holes or hovels or down from the trees. But why?"

"Well, let's forget it. Let's go back to camp. We can try again tomor--look! Look, there's something!"

Judd followed her pointing finger with his eyes. Half-hidden by the creepers and vines clinging to an old tree-stump, something was watching them. It wasn't very big and it seemed in no hurry to get away.

"What is it?" Lindy wanted to know.

"Don't know. Never saw anything like it before. Venus is still an unknown frontier; the books only name a couple dozen of the biggest animals. But h.e.l.l, Lindy, that's not game. I don't think it weighs five pounds."

"It's cute, and it has a lovely skin."

Judd couldn't argue with that. Squatting on its haunches, the creature was about twenty inches tall. It had a pointed snout and two thin, long ears. Its eyes were very big and very round and quite black. They looked something like the eyes of an Earthian tarsier, but the tarsier were b.l.o.o.d.y little beasts. The skin was short and stiff and was a kind of silvery white. Under the sheen, however, it seemed to glow. A diamond is colorless, Judd thought, but when you see it under light a whole rainbow of colors sparkle deep within it. This creature's skin was like that, Judd decided.