by C. L. Moore
-
Cody remembered something an old poet had written. Something there is that doesn't love a wall. Too many walls had been built, for too long, walls that kept each man apart from his neighbor. In infancy, perhaps in early childhood, anyone was capable of receiving telepathic thoughts, given the Inductor. In infancy the mind of the child was whole and healthy and complete, able to learn telepathic as well as verbal communication. But soon, fatally soon, as the child grew and learned, the walls were built.
Then man climbed his wall and sat on it like Humpty Dumpty—and somehow, somewhere, in the long process of maturing and learning, the mind was forever spoiled. It was the fall, not only of Humpty Dumpty, but the immemorial fall of man himself. And then—
All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again.
For Lucy, it was forever too late.
After a little while, Cody said, "What about the paranoids? They were telepathic as children. What happened to them?"
Allenby shook his head.
"I don't know the answer to that one, Jeff. It may be an hereditary malfunction. But they don't matter now; they're a minority among telepaths—a very small minority. They've been dangerous only because we were a minority among non-telepaths, and vulnerable to scapegoating. We won't be, if ..."
"What about the secret wave-bands?"
"The Inductor can be built to adapt to any wave-length the human brain can transmit. There won't be any more walls at all."
"If our offer is accepted. If it isn't—if the pogrom goes on—then I still have the responsibility for Operation Apocalypse."
"Is it your responsibility?" Allenby asked. "Is it ours, even? The non-telepaths will be making their own choice."
"The telecast's starting," Cody said. "I wonder how many will listen to it."
-
The mob that swept through the town of Easterday, secretly led by a paranoid, swirled toward a big house with a wide verandah. The mob sent up a yell at sight of the row of men standing on the verandah waiting. But the paranoid hesitated.
The man beside him did not. He shouted and sprinted forward. There was a sharp crack and dust spurted at his feet.
"They've got guns!" somebody yelled.
"Get 'em!"
"Lynch 'em.'"
The mob surged forward. Again a rifle snapped.
The mob-leader—not the paranoid, but the apparent leader—swore and dropped to the ground, clutching at his leg.
On the verandah a man stepped forward.
"Get out of here," he said crisply. "Get going—fast."
The leader stared in amazement.
"Doc!" he said. "But you're not a Baldy. What the hell are you doing?"
The doctor swung his rifle slowly back and forth.
"A lot of us up here aren't Baldies," he said, glancing along the row of silent men. Several races were represented, but the mob was not concerned with race just now. The lynchers searched out the men on the porch whom they knew to be Baldies—and found each one flanked by coldly determined non-telepaths, armed and waiting.
There weren't many of them, though—the defenders.
That occurred to the leader. He stood up, testing the flesh wound in his calf. He glanced over his shoulder.
"We can take 'em," he shouted. "It's ten to one. Let's go get all of 'em!"
He led the wave.
He died first. On the verandah a runty man with spectacles and a scrubby moustache shivered and lowered his gun for a moment. But he did not move from where he stood in the determined line.
The mob drew back.
There was a long pause.
"How long do you think you can hold us off, Doc?" someone called.
The dead man lay on the open ground between the two groups.
The air quivered with heat. The sun moved imperceptibly westward. The mob coalesced tighter, a compact, murderous mass waiting in the sunlight.
Then a telecast screen within the house lit up, and Allenby's voice began to speak to the world.
-
The telecast was over.
Baldy minds were busy searching, questioning, seeking their answer in minds that could not conceal their true desires. This was a poll that could not be inaccurate. And within minutes the poll would be finished. The answer would be given. On that answer would depend the lives of all who were not telepaths.
Jeff Cody sat alone before the electronic calculator, waiting for the answer.
There could be only one answer a sane man, a sane people, could give. For the Inductor meant, for the first time in human history, a unity based on reality. It opened the gates to the true and greatest adventures, the odyssey into the mysteries of science and art and philosophy. It sounded the trumpet for the last and greatest war against the Ilium of nature itself—the vast, tremendous, unknown universe in which man has struggled and fought and, somehow, survived.
No adult living today could live to see more than the beginning of that vast adventure. But the children would see it.
There could be only one answer a sane people could give. A sane people.
Cody looked at the keyboard before him.
The earth is filled with violence through them.
Yes, there could be another answer. And if that answer were given—the end of all flesh is come before me.
I will destroy them with the earth!
Cody's mind leaped ahead. He saw his finger pressing the button on the keyboard, saw Operation Apocalypse flooding like a new deluge across the planet, saw the race of man go down and die beneath that destroying tide, till only telepaths were left alive in all the world, perhaps in all the universe. He remembered the terrible, lonely pang Baldies feel when a Baldy dies.
And he knew that no telepath would be able to close his mind against that apocalyptic murder of all mankind.
-
There would be the wound which could not heal, which could never heal among a telepathic race whose memories would go on and on, unweakened by transmission down through the generations. A hundred million years might pass, and even then the ancient wound would burn as on the day it had been made.
Operation Apocalypse would destroy the Baldies too. For they would feel that enormous death, feel it with the fatal sensitivity of the telepath, and though physically they might live on, the pain and the guilt would be passed on from generation to crippled generation.
Suddenly Cody moved.
His finger pushed a button. Instantly the guarding monitor began to operate. There was a soft humming that lasted less than a second. Then a light burned bright on the control panel, and under it was a number.
Cody pressed another button. The unerring selectors searched the calculator for the bit of crystal that held the code of Operation Apocalypse. The crystal, with its cipher of frozen dots of energy, was ready.
A thousand minds, sensing Cody's thought, reached toward him, touched him, spoke to him.
He paused for an instant while he learned that man had not yet made his decision.
The voices in his mind became a tumultuous clamor. But the ultimate decision was neither man's nor theirs; the responsibility was his own, and he waited no longer. "
He moved his hand quickly forward and felt the cool, smooth plastic of a lever sink with absolute finality beneath his fingers.
On the bit of ferroelectric crystal waiting in the calculator, the cipher-pattern of energy shivered, faded and vanished completely.
Operation Apocalypse was gone.
Still Cody's fingers moved. Memory after memory died within the great machine. Its vast pools of data drained their energy back into the boundless sea of the universe and were lost. Then at last the brain of the calculator was empty. There was no way to re-create the Apocalypse—no way and no time.
Only waiting was left.
He opened his mind. All around him, stretching across the earth, the linked thoughts of the Baldies made a vast, intricate webwork, perhaps the last and mightiest structure man w
ould ever build. They drew him into their midst and made him one with them. There were no barriers at all. They did not judge. They understood, all of them, and he was part of them all in a warm, ultimate unity that was source of enough strength and courage to face whatever decision mankind might make. This might be the last time man would ever bind itself together in this way. The pogrom might go on until the last Baldy died. But until then, no Baldy would live or die alone.
So they waited, together, for the answer that man must give.
-
The helicopter has landed. Men run toward me. They're strangers. I can't read their thoughts. I can't see them clearly; everything is dim, fading into wavering, shadowy ripples.
Something is being slipped around my neck. Something presses against the back of my head.
An Inductor.
A man kneels beside me. A doctor. He has a hypodermic.
The hypodermic comes second. The Inductor first of all. For none of us should die alone. None of us live alone any more. Either we are Baldies, or else we wear the Inductor that has made all men telepaths.
The Inductor begins to operate.
I meant to ask the doctor if I would live, but now I know that this is not the important thing. I know that, as warmth and life come back into the universe, and I am no longer alone. What is important is that my mind, my self, is no longer cut off and incomplete, it is expanding, joining with my people, with all life, as I rise from this lonely grave in which I have lain and I am—
We are—
We are one. We are man. The long, long war is ended, and the answer has been given. The dream has been cleansed, and the fire on the hearth is guarded.
It will not burn out, now, until the last man dies.
The End
Hogben
(1947-1949)*
with Henry Kuttner
Contents
The Old Army Game by Henry Kuttner (non-genre, not available)
EXIT THE PROFESSOR
PILE OF TROUBLE by Henry Kuttner
SEE YOU LATER
COLD WAR
EXIT THE PROFESSOR
Hogben 01
Thrilling Wonder Stories - October 1947
We Hogbens are right exclusive. That Perfesser feller from the city might have known that, but he come busting in without an invite, and I don't figger he had call to complain afterward. In Kaintuck the polite thing is to stick to your own bill of beans and not come nosing around where you're not wanted.
Time we ran off the Haley boys with that shotgun gadget we rigged up—only we never could make out how it worked, somehow—that time, it all started because Rafe Haley come peeking and prying at the shed winder, trying to get a look at Little Sam. Then Rafe went round saying Little Sam had three haids or something.
Can't believe a word them Haley boys say. Three haids! It ain't natcheral, is it? Anyhow, Little Sam's only got two haids, and never had no more since the day he was born.
So Maw and I rigged up that shotgun thing and peppered the Haley boys good. Like I said, we couldn't figger out afterward how it worked. We'd tacked on some dry cells and a lot of coils and wires and stuff and it punched holes in Rafe as neat as anything.
Coroner's verdict was that the Haley boys died real sudden, and Sheriff Abernathy come up and had a drink of corn with us and said for two cents he'd whale the tar outa me. I didn't pay no mind. Only some damyankee reporter musta got wind of it, because a while later a big, fat, serious-looking man come around and begun to ask questions.
Uncle Les was sitting on the porch, with his hat over his face. "You better get the heck back to your circus, mister," he just said. "We had offers from old Barnum hisself and turned 'em down. Ain't that right, Saunk?"
"Sure is," I said. "I never trusted Phineas. Called Little Sam a freak, he did."
The big solemn-looking man, whose name was Perfesser Thomas Galbraith, looked at me. "How old are you, son?" he said.
"I ain't your son," I said. "And I don't know, nohow."
"You don't look over eighteen," he said, "big as you are. You couldn't have known Barnum."
"Sure I did. Don't go giving me the lie. I'll wham you."
"I'm not connected with any circus," Galbraith said. "I'm a biogeneticist."
We sure laughed at that. He got kinda mad and wanted to know what the joke was.
"There ain't no such word," Maw said. And at that point Little Sam started yelling, and Galbraith turned white as a goose wing and shivered all over. He sort of fell down. When we picked him up, he wanted to know what had happened.
"That was Little Sam," I said. "Maw's gone in to comfort him. He's stopped now."
"That was a subsonic," the Perfesser snapped. "What is Little Sam—a short-wave transmitter?"
"Little Sam's the baby," I said, short-like. "Don't go calling him outa his name, either. Now, s'pose you tell us what you want."
He pulled out a notebook and started looking through it.
"I'm a—a scientist," he said. "Our foundation is studying eugenics, and we've got some reports about you. They sound unbelievable. One of our men has a theory that natural mutations can remain undetected in undeveloped cultural regions, and—" He slowed down and stared at Uncle Les. "Can you really fly?" he asked.
Well, we don't like to talk about that. The preacher gave us a good dressing-down once. Uncle Les had got likkered up and went sailing over the ridges, scaring a couple of bear hunters outa their senses. And it ain't in the Good Book that men should fly, neither. Uncle Les generally does it only on the sly, when nobody's watching.
So anyhow Uncle Les pulled his hat down further on his face and growled.
"That's plumb silly. Ain't no way a man can fly. These here modern contraptions I hear tell about—'tween ourselves, they don't really fly at all. Just a lot of crazy talk, that's all."
Galbraith blinked and studied his notebook again.
"But I've got hearsay evidence of a great many unusual things connected with your family. Flying is only one of them. I know it's theoretically impossible—and I'm not talking about planes—but—"
"Oh, shet your trap."
"The medieval witches' salve used aconite to give an illusion of flight—entirely subjective, of course."
"Will you stop pestering me?" Uncle Les said, getting mad, on account of he felt embarrassed, I guess. Then he jumped up, threw his hat down on the porch and flew away. After a minute he swooped down for his hat and made a face at the Perfesser. He flew off down the gulch and we didn't see him fer a while.
I got mad, too.
"You got no call to bother us," I said. "Next thing Uncle Les will do like Paw, and that'll be an awful nuisance. We ain't seen hide nor hair of Paw since that other city feller was around. He was a census taker, I think."
Galbraith didn't say anything. He was looking kinda funny. I gave him a drink and he asked about Paw.
"Oh, he's around," I said. "Only you don't see him no more. He likes it better that way, he says."
"Yes," Galbraith said, taking another drink. "Oh, God. How old did you say you were?"
"Didn't say nothing about it."
"Well, what's the earliest thing you can remember?"
"Ain't no use remembering things. Clutters up your haid too much."
"It's fantastic," Gaibraith said. "I hadn't expected to send a report like that back to the foundation."
"We don't want nobody prying around," I said. "Go way and leave us alone."
"But, good Lord!" He looked over the porch rail and got interested in the shotgun gadget. "What's that?"
"A thing," I said.
"What does it do?"
"Things," I said.
"Oh. May I look at it?"
"Sure," I said. "I'll give you the dingus if you'll go away."
He went over and looked at it. Paw got up from where he'd been sitting beside me, told me to get rid of the damyankee and went into the house. The Perfesser came back. "Extraordinary!" he said. "I've had training in electronics, and it seems
to me you've got something very odd there. What's the principle?"
"The what?" I said. "It makes holes in things."
"It can't fire shells. You've got a couple of lenses where the breech should—how did you say it worked?"
"I dunno."
"Did you make it?"
"Me and Maw."
He asked a lot more questions.
"I dunno," I said. "Trouble with a shotgun is you gotta keep loading it. We sorta thought if we hooked on a few things it wouldn't need loading no more. It don't, neither."
"Were you serious about giving it to me?"
"If you stop bothering us."
"Listen," he said, "it's miraculous that you Hogbens have stayed out of sight so long."
"We got our ways."
"The mutation theory must be right. You must be studied. This is one of the most important discoveries since—" He kept on talking like that. He didn't make much sense.
Finally I decided there was only two ways to handle things, and after what Sheriff Abernathy had said, I didn't feel right about killing nobody till the Sheriff had got over his fit of temper. I don't want to cause no ruckus.
"S'pose I go to New York with you, like you want," I said. "Will you leave the family alone?"
He halfway promised, though he didn't want to. But he knuckled under and crossed his heart, on account of I said I'd wake up Little Sam if he didn't. He sure wanted to see Little Sam, but I told him that was no good. Little Sam couldn't go to New York, anyhow. He's got to stay in his tank or he gets awful sick.
Anyway, I satisfied the Perfesser pretty well and he went off, after I'd promised to meet him in town next morning. I felt sick, though, I can tell you. I ain't been away from the folks overnight since that ruckus in the old country, when we had to make tracks fast.
Went to Holland, as I remember. Maw always had a soft spot fer the man that helped us get outa London. Named Little Sam after him. I fergit what his name was. Gwynn or Stuart or Pepys—I get mixed up when I think back beyond the War between the States.
That night we chewed the rag. Paw being invisible, Maw kept thinking he was getting more'n his share of the corn, but pretty soon she mellowed and let him have a demijohn. Everybody told me to mind my p's and q's.
