by Pat Frank
Professor Ruppe spoke for the first time. He was, except for Root, the calmest of us all. “Kitty,” he said, “I can see that what we have done, and what we hoped to do, would be hopelessly misunderstood. Hadn’t you better tell it all?”
“I think that’s best,” said Pflaum. “I don’t want any mobs tearing my arms out by the roots, or hanging me to a flagpole in front of the Capitol.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “It would be nice to know what’s really going on.”
“Do you agree, Dr. Pell?” The Frame asked.
“What is this, a round table discussion?” Root asked. “If you’ve got anything to say you’d better say it quick.”
“I agree,” Pell said. His head lolled forward on his chest, as if his neck could no longer support it.
The Frame brushed the hair from her face. “In the first place,” she began, “I feel we ought to apologize to Homer. It is true that I persuaded him to leave N.R.P., well, under false pretenses. But it was the only thing we could think of, if we were to act in time. We were just getting around to explaining to Homer when you came in.” She regarded Homer directly, even brazenly, I thought, and said, “When I’m finished, I’m not sure that Homer won’t agree with our point of view.”
“Just forget the propaganda,” I said, “and start putting one plain word after another.”
“Very well, Steve, don’t be so damn overbearing! Here’s the way it is, as we see it. The aftereffects of the Mississippi explosion were terrible, certainly, and yet civilization was presented with its one great opportunity to really begin over again—to really create a splendid and decent world, peopled entirely by splendid and decent humans.”
“All of them with their master’s degree in science,” I suggested.
“If you don’t shut up,” she said, “I shan’t continue.”
“Go ahead. So what happened?”
“You ought to know. You were in the middle of it, and partly responsible. It was bad enough that the government gave Homer to the N.R.P., and approved A.I., instead of turning him over to the National Research Council. But to make matters worse, no provision whatsoever was made for the scientific selection of future mothers. Here we were presented with this magnificent opportunity, and what do we do? A blindfolded man reaches into a goldfish bowl, and the future of the race is decided literally by blind chance. Not only that, but consider some of the creatures the Congress picked to possess a number in that bowl. When mated to Homer, what else could they produce but red-headed monsters?”
“Oh, I see,” I said with what I hoped was sarcasm. “So you people decided to snatch Homer, and present him with a restricted and exclusive clientele. Perhaps you were going to farm him out among your brain-heavy friends, and populate the world with a lot of fine specimens like Dr. Pell here.”
The Frame actually looked shocked. “Oh, no!” she protested. “We weren’t going to use Homer at all! Not for direct conception. Why, I think Homer himself would be the first to agree that it is a mistake for him to father children—any children at all—if we are to produce a superior race for posterity.”
“Gosh, Kathy,” Homer said, “I never thought you felt that way about me. I know I’m not very pretty, and I wasn’t a Quiz Kid, but I don’t think you’ve got any right to say I’m unfit to have children.”
“Don’t you?” The Frame asked, the corners of her mouth touched with humor. She paused, and added: “Homer, I think you’re sweet, and I’m really very fond of you. Intellectually, I think you’d do, but physically—”
“Don’t pay any attention to her, Homer,” I advised him, watching the impact of her words crush him back into his chair. “This theory of a superior race isn’t original at all. Hitler had one too. The only difference is that Hitler had his master race all set up, and she wants to start hers from scratch.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way,” said Professor Ruppe. “I think most intelligent men will acknowledge the soundness of our theories.”
I noticed that Tex Root’s gun was no longer in his hand. It had vanished as miraculously as it had appeared. “This is all very interesting,” Root said, “but if you weren’t going to use Adam, what or who were you going to use?”
“We were going to use Adam, but not for A.I., or any other kind of conception,” The Frame explained. “Homer is a source of priceless experimental matériel—the only source. We simply intended to borrow Homer for a few days, for experimental purposes. We had reached a stage in our experiments where it was absolutely necessary to have Homer for a few days. And we knew that once A.I. started we’d never again, perhaps, have a chance to use him. If we were able to use Homer for a short time we felt that we’d find a way—oh, it might take years—but eventually we’d find a way to restore the fertility of other men. Then, we could choose the best males and females, and in a few generations we’d have enough perfect humans so that paired with the inevitably poor stock produced by A.I., matters would not be hopeless.”
“And Homer—what were you going to do with him?” I asked.
“We hadn’t thought much about that. You see, after his services were no longer necessary, we could proceed with our work, which is the only important thing. I suppose we would have simply told Homer to walk home.”
“And the repercussions from such action?”
Kathy shrugged. “After he returned, everyone would have been relieved, and it would be forgotten. Anyway, most people would believe it was simply a clandestine affair. Wouldn’t they, Steve?”
I think I whistled. “Kathy,” I said, “you’re a wicked, ruthless woman.”
“All women are ruthless,” she replied, “when they’re really after something. And as for being wicked—the N.R.P. is wicked, but what we are attempting is, I feel, simply acting as instruments of the will of God.”
Her eyes were shining, as I had seen them before. I asked Root, “How about them, Tex? What are you going to do with them?”
Root considered this, carefully appraising The Frame, and her father, and Pell, and Canby. He was measuring them, I knew, for signs of deceit and trickery, as an experienced tailor measures with his eyes a length of cloth. “I don’t see how I can hold them for kidnaping,” he said. “Anyway, it sounds more like an intramural scrap within the government than anything else. That is, unless Adam wants to bring charges against them. Even then, I don’t see what charges he can bring, except maybe breach of promise.”
“Oh, no. No charges,” said Homer. “All I want to do is get out of here.”
He was desperate with shame. “Well,” I told The Frame, “you may be stacked, and you’re certainly clever, but when it comes to the snatch racket you’re a dope.” I suppose I said it more in revenge for the hurt she had inflicted on Homer than anything else.
“This isn’t over,” she said quietly, “not yet.”
I looked at my watch, and was amazed to find it wasn’t yet twelve. It seemed that we had been away from the hotel for a day or two. I thought of Mary Ellen, and what news of this might do to her. “Root,” I said, “I think we’d better keep this whole thing as quiet as possible, don’t you?”
“That’s okay with me,” Root said.
“Please,” said Pell. “Please, no publicity. It is bad enough as it is. I do feel, now, that perhaps we went too far. But we were only doing what we thought was the sole right thing to do.”
“Well, please don’t try it any more,” I warned him, “because from now on if anything happens to Adam something is going to happen to you too. Something fatal.”
Kathy was smiling again, in a way that wasn’t funny. “I’m sure everything will work out all right. I’m quite sure, now. Please go home, because you bore me.”
Outside the night air was cool and clean. “Smells good, doesn’t it, Homer?” I said.
He didn’t answer. “I’m not sore at you, Homer. I’m not blaming you a bit. It wasn’t your fault.”
We got into Root’s sedan, Homer and I in the back. He didn’t say anything. I fel
t he should say something. “Homer,” I said, “there’s been no damage. Things have just been delayed for a day.”
He put his head in his hands and pulled at his hair. “Oh, what a fool I was,” he said, the words forcing their way out of him. “What a fool, fool, fool!”
“Don’t feel that way Homer. You’re not the first guy who has been taken by a scheming bitch. It happens to millions, every year. Lots of them smarter than you. Usually, they’re after money, or want to get their names in the Social Register, or run a business from behind the scenes. With you, there was a different motive, but in every other way it was exactly the same. Just tell yourself, ‘I’ve been taken,’ and then forget about it.”
He didn’t answer. He kept his face buried in his hands.
Root parked the car in the hotel driveway and we all got out and Homer walked to the elevator silent and stiff-legged as if he were going to a place of execution.
Marge was waiting for us at the door. “Just like Cinderella, on the stroke of twelve!” she said. “Homer, I’m so glad to see you back.”
He walked past her without speaking, and she looked at his face and didn’t say anything more. He walked to his bedroom, and lunged inside and shut the door behind him.
“What’s wrong with him?” she asked. “What happened? Should I bring him a drink, or anything?”
“We’d better leave him alone,” I said. “He’s had a harrowing experience.” Root went to the telephone, and called his office, and began talking, and while he was on the phone I told Marge what had happened.
When Root was finished with the phone I took it. I called Gableman, at his home, and told him Homer was back. “I’m very glad to hear it,” he said, with about as much interest as if he had just heard that his second cousin, in Des Moines, had been elected secretary of the Kiwanis. “But I’m through, Steve. I’ve taken that job in Interior, and I think if you are smart you will remove yourself from N.R.P. and go back to the AP. If I know anything about the government at all, I know that it is neither smart nor healthy to stay with N.R.P. Good night, Steve.”
I called Klutz. He said he was delighted, but his voice sounded shaky. He said he hoped there wouldn’t be any publicity, and I assured him there wouldn’t be any. He said that was fine, and he would visit Mr. Pumphrey in the hospital first thing in the morning and tell him the good news, and he was sure this would speed Mr. Pumphrey’s recovery.
I called Danny Williams. He said he’d pass the word along to the President right away. He asked me what had happened, and I told him I didn’t think I could describe it adequately over the telephone, but that anyway Homer was back, and seemed undamaged.
When I was finished Root was putting on his topcoat, and nibbling at the edge of a cracker. “Well, good night,” he said. “If anything more happens don’t call me. Call somebody else—anybody. This business is too much for me.”
“Are you completely satisfied,” I said, “that they weren’t really going to knock him off?”
“No,” he admitted, “not completely.”
“I’m not either,” I told him. “I still think that Pell is a villain.”
Tex Root shook his head. “Spies, I can catch,” he said. “Kidnaping for ransom is a cinch. Murder and bond thefts and embezzlement are normal activities. But this is different. This, I don’t like. I can’t tell who is a criminal, and who isn’t, and I can’t tell right from wrong. For all I know this Kathy Riddell—and she is a remarkable woman, isn’t she?—well, she may be perfectly right. All my life I’ll wonder whether what I’ve done tonight didn’t put the world back ten thousand years. Good night, Steve. Good night, Marge. Pleasant dreams.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “What do you think I ought to do?”
“If I were you,” he said, before he closed the outer door, “I would retreat to Little America.”
I went into Homer’s room. He was undressed, and in bed, the pillow pulled over his head so I could not tell whether or not he was asleep, and his feet hanging nakedly over the bed’s end. As I put out his light I told myself that we really should get a special extra long bed for Homer.
Out in the living room Marge was folding up dresses. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“Packing,” she said.
CHAPTER 13
I didn’t sleep late the next morning. A sense of urgency ploughed me out of bed before Marge was awake. I tiptoed into Homer’s room, and gently opened the door. He was asleep, and snoring, but his bed looked as if it had been occupied by a threshing machine. I ran up coffee and toast in the kitchenette, and then caught Arthur Godfrey’s first news. “Well,” he said cheerily, “in case you celebrated A.I. Day yesterday you can have all the fun all over again, because it is going to be today. The White House announced early this morning that everything will go ahead according to schedule, but it will be twenty-four hours late.”
Homer came into the kitchenette. He was wearing a striped dressing gown, ludicrously short, and when he leaned against the refrigerator somehow he looked like a beach umbrella that has been stacked for the season. “Can I have some coffee?” he said.
“Certainly, Homer.” I gave him plenty of sugar and cream. “Well, feel better today?” I asked.
“Oh, I feel all right, Steve, but I don’t think you’re going to feel very well.”
“Why not?”
“In case you think this is A.I. Day, you had better think again,” Homer said quietly. “At least so far as I am concerned. What I said yesterday about resigning goes double. I’m through.”
“Now, Homer—”
“Sorry, Steve. It’s all over.”
“Now, Homer, why get those notions in your head? You know as well as I do that there isn’t any way out of it. Look at the trouble you got into yesterday when you went off half-cocked. Why make it more difficult for yourself.”
“I’ve thought it all out, Steve. It isn’t going to be difficult for me. But from now on it is going to be damn difficult for women.”
I didn’t like the way he was talking. He was too sure of himself. “For women?” I said.
“Yes. To hell with them. To hell with them all.”
“Why, Homer, you of all people shouldn’t be talking like that.”
Homer drank his coffee, unconcerned, and refilled his cup. “Why not?”
“Because you’re fated to have so much to do with them.”
“Oh, no I’m not. From now on I’m going to have no more to do with them than is absolutely necessary—excepting Mary Ellen and little Eleanor—of course.”
“But won’t that still be quite a lot?”
“No. You see, I’ve figured it all out. If I don’t want to go through with A.I. there isn’t any way you can force me, now is there?”
Somehow, this was a possibility I had never considered. I said, “No, I suppose there isn’t, but—”
“Well, I’m not going through with it. If you take me to the laboratories today, it will be because you are dragging me there by the heels, and if you get me there I can assure you that nothing will happen, except perhaps some surgical equipment and instruments will get broken up.”
“Oh, Homer!” I said, not without admiration.
“Will they suffer!” he gloated. “Will they scream!”
Marge came in, sleepy and a little surprised to find us there, and said, “What a cozy little kaffeeklatsch. Can I join you?”
“Yes, but you’ll wish you hadn’t,” I told her. “Homer has decided not to go on. He has said to hell with it all, particularly women.”
“Well, can you blame him?” Marge said, with her delightful inconsistency. “If I were Homer I wouldn’t have anything to do with women either.”
Homer leaned over, in something resembling a bow. “In my list of exceptions to what I just said, I will include Marge.”
“You see, Homer,” I argued, “most women are pretty decent, like Marge. You just had the misfortune to encounter a particularly wicked and talented wench.”
“To hell with them all,” Homer said. “I don’t think there is any use in discussing the subject further. I want to go back to Tarrytown.”
“Now, Homer,” I told him, “please don’t get me in any more trouble. It’s true I can’t force you to go through with A.I., but on the other hand I cannot take the responsibility of letting you return to Tarrytown. If anything is done, it will have to be done officially. All I can do is report your decision to N.R.P., and the White House.”
“Okay, Steve,” he agreed calmly. “Let’s have some more coffee.”
I could hear the phone ringing in the living room, and Jane answered, and called for me, and said it was Mr. Klutz. I picked it up, and said “Good morning, Percy.”
“Good morning, indeed,” said Klutz. “I just reached the office, and the Planning Board is meeting in a few moments, and I’d like to report to them on Mr. Adam. How does he feel this morning?”
“He feels fine. Never saw him look better.”
“Ah, that’s splendid. Poor Mr. Pumphrey was so cheered when I told him Adam had returned. I think that within a few days he’ll have completely recovered.”
“I don’t,” I said.
“You what?”
“I don’t think Mr. Pumphrey will quickly recover, if news of Adam has anything to do with it, because you see, Percy, Homer Adam has decided not to go through with A.I.”
I could hear Klutz gasp. “Him!” he shouted. “What right has he to decide such a thing? That’s a matter for the Inter-Departmental Committee, and the Congress, and the Planning Board! He’s got nothing to do with it!”
“Oh, I’m afraid he has,” I said.
“Absurd!”
“Well, if you think it is absurd,” I suggested, “take him down to the laboratories today and try to make him do something he doesn’t want to do.”
Homer was standing at my elbow, listening. He was smiling. “Steve,” he said, “you certainly have caught on to the idea.”
