by Mark Clifton
Within an hour the pawnshop was completely cleaned out of all its merchandise by souvenir hunters who would pay any price for a slightly used jimmy or the hubcap of an out-of-date automobile.
The world took skid row to her motherly bosom and the winos hovering in cold doorways became the bewildered recipients of much good advice and some help. The shortline became both proud and resentful of their new status. The professional do-gooders had been at it long enough to have at least a little understanding of why a man was on the shortline in the first place. These new uplifters made the men uncomfortable. But they endured it, in the passive way they had endured all the other outrageous demands of a society with which they had never been able to cope.
And they knew that within a week or two the goodwill jag would pass, and be as faded and tired as a forgotten Christmas wreath on the tenth of January.
In fact, the camellia of compassion was already starting to turn brown around the edges, showing that first sign of decay.
“Why?” some of the more respectable members of society were beginning to ask. “Why is Bossy successful only with the most disreputable creatures that could be found? What kind of warped minds had rigged the machine so that it would give immortality only to the worst dregs of society?”
Accustomed to rigging everything from slot machines to semantics in favor of some particular group, they could not conceive of a machine which had not been rigged and slanted deliberately.
Deep beneath the roar of the crowd which was delighted by it all, the voices of the people who really mattered began to coalesce into an opinion which began to be heard around Washington.
It was on the eighth day that some changes in Carney began to be evident. Step by step, and this time for the awed eyes of the world, Carney duplicated the pattern of renewal followed by Mabel.
The plasma supply suddenly became a very important item.
“More plasma,” Bossy’s screen would announce.
The TV commentator would murmur in his best bedside voice:
“More plasma.”
Then, after the requisite two-second pause, the announcer would add:
“This plasma transfusion is by courtesy of Midvale Memorial Hospital, Oakland, fully equipped and staffed for your every need. Luxurious service, modest prices. Pay-as-you-go-plan.”
The figure on the operating table straightened its tired old bones, flaked off the outer epidermis of faded skin, shed the lank wisps of dirty gray hair. The figure of a vibrant young man began to emerge, strong and lithe and beautiful.
The tenth day passed. Now there was a renewed interest in watching the television screen. All the world knew that Mabel had emerged on the tenth day. But to repeated questions on when Doc Carney would emerge, Bossy simply answered:
“Progress satisfactory.”
Perhaps it was the basic differences between the masculine and the feminine psyche which lengthened the therapy; perhaps there were just more cells to be re-educated. Or perhaps it was the additional facts which Joe had fed into Bossy. Facts about psionics, which he hoped would be fed into the patient’s mind to condition him to the shock of unshielded normal minds.
Whatever the reason, it was the twelfth day before Bossy, without any buildup, fanfare, or pyrotechnics of any kind, made her announcement.
“Project completed.” Bossy lacked showmanship.
But Steve Flynn did not. The release of every electrode from Carney’s pulse points was played up as if it were world shaking. For that crucial moment necessary in catering to psychotically frustrated womanhood, the view of the cameras was obscured by the doctors hovering around; and when the public saw him again, the towel which had been draped across Carney’s body had been replaced by a pair of conventional shorts.
The cameras were focused fully upon his face when he opened his eyes. There was no daze in them. Their first expression was one of amusement, a glinting flicker of mischief. Aided by Billings he sat up and looked about him. His eyes found Joe.
“Hi, fella,” he said. They were his first words.
It was all close enough to stock plot number X672, Patient Regains Consciousness after Critical Illness, for the public to understand it. The public cried, it laughed, it shouted, it rang bells, blew whistles, got drunk, enjoyed itself in a national spontaneous Mardi Gras.
With a flourish Steve Flynn provided slacks, an open-throated sports shirt, socks and shoes. To take away the last vestige of an unkempt look, a barber began to cut Carney’s hair. The rust colored hair shaped into a bristling snappy style favored by the hot young bloods of the day.
Carney accepted it all, quietly and pliably. He was impassive except for a tiny crinkle of humor at the corners of his eyes.
In the days to follow twenty million young men would be diligently practicing before their mirrors to get that same spontaneous crinkle of good humor.
“Are you able to talk to us?” Steve Flynn asked Carney.
Again there was that questioning flicker of eyes toward Joe.
“Of course,” Carney answered after the briefest of hesitations.
He endured the process of milking the situation for all the ham drama there was in it which TV considers so necessary to public enjoyment of its programs. Yes, he felt wonderful. Yes, he was very happy and grateful for his restored youth. No, it had not been unpleasant or painful. Yes, he remembered everything which had gone on. No, he didn’t realize it had been twelve days; it seemed to be over in an instant, and yet it had seemed to go on for all eternity. No, he had never doubted it would be a success. Yes there were times when it had been difficult to comprehend Bossy, it was all so different from what he had believed; but he had been willing to listen. Yes, he would say the willingness to listen was a vital factor. Yes, of course he expected to resume his friendship with Mabel.
“No,” he answered to a more direct question. “There is no question of a romance between Mabel and me. Mabel has already found the one she loves, my best friend over there—Joe Carter.”
Like Bossy, he seemed to lack showmanship. It was said so quietly, almost tossed away, that even Steve failed to grasp the import of it all at once. Then, frantically, Steve waved the camera to focus on Joe. Here was news as important as Carney’s revival. Mabel was in love!
The cameras focused over where Joe sat. It was the first time that Joe Carter had come fully into the eye of the public.
Out of camera range for the moment, Carney allowed his lips to broaden into a delighted grin.
“Come on, Joe,” he flashed psionically. “Take it like a man. That’s what you told me to do, when I asked if I should answer those stupid questions.”
Joe’s face was controlled, but he flashed back an answer.
“Very well—Geoffery-Mortimonte.”
Carney burst into a soundless chuckle.
“You are good,” he conceded. “I thought the little secret of my fancy names was known only to Bossy and me.”
“I’ll make it Jeff,” Joe promised, while he continued to nod and smile into the impertinent cameras. “And let’s keep Carney as a last name. You’re public property now, and there’s no use confusing people.”
The public, who had thought its cup was full, found the cup now running over. Here was stock situation Faithful Friend-Girl-Lover. Would there be a juicy triangle? Crime and tragedy of passion? Who knew what uncontrolled fires of tenor this rejuvenation would unleash?
The public licked its lips in anticipation.
CHAPTER XXIV
The public’s cup was not the only vessel full and overflowing.
For the first time, Joe had found both love and companionship. For the first time, in a lifetime of bottomless loneliness, there were those of his own species with whom he could communicate. Denied love before, because he could not reconcile himself to the normal mind, first he had been given Mabel.
But Mabel was wise. Even before she had gone into Bossy, she knew that no woman could fill all of a man’s life, that her relationship to him was compa
rtmentalized, that the woman who tries to monopolize both love and companionship usually winds up with neither. She did not pretend to fill more than a woman’s place in Joe’s life.
In the instant recognition when Carney came out of Bossy, an instantaneous bond of masculine companionship even while Jeff was still on the table attached to the lead controls into Bossy, the last ache of Joe’s chronic loneliness was eased and stilled.
Jeff, too, would need love, but not yet. In time there would be other women who could surrender their values to Bossy’s corrections. The three of them, Mabel and Jeff and Joe, knew with complete certainty that the public would be denied its anticipated scandal, and could somehow survive without it.
The days passed. The schedule of television appearances began to slacken. The three were allowed occasional moments to themselves. Mabel and Jeff were public property. Joe, whose place in the total scheme of Bossy was still known only to Billings and Hoskins, although suspected by Kennedy and Flynn, was a minor bit of public property by virtue of his love affair with Mabel.
The psionic communion the three of them shared was completely beyond the level of news releases. True, around the clinic, there was considerable wonder at the way Mabel and Jeff adopted Joe, some sly comment about the secret reasons for the inseparability of the three, some recalling of Mabel’s past life and criticism of Bossy that such things were not cured—but no comprehension.
There was a healthier concern, too, over the fact that the three of them began to slip away from the Clinic. Superintendent Jones admonished them with a shaking finger, and Steve Flynn portrayed the horrors of being mobbed by an admiring public; but to all questions and admonishments, Joe made a simple reply: “They need to get out and contact some of the world at first hand. We do not hold with the prevailing theory of psychology that the way to understand man is to shut oneself off from him in an ivory tower. We think the way to understand men is to look at them.”
It was more than that, of course. Bossy, with the material given her by Joe, had done an excellent job of preparing Carney against the shock of raw and unshielded human motivations. His reactions were amused and healthy.
But Mabel, unprepared because Joe had not realized what a shock sudden esperance would bring, still needed further therapy. Her background helped, of course. Her knowledge had been wide and deep. But even in such a house, as under the questioning of the most skilled psychologist, mankind still conceals more than it reveals.
And there was still another reason for their occasional escape from the Clinic. It was a healing therapy for Joe, too, that he should now be able to walk the same streets in full companionship which he had walked in such complete loneliness, shut off from all others because there had been no others. A man likes and needs to take his new love and his new friend to see the places he has known, to see them again through fresh, delighted eyes, to show the beauty and to lessen the memory of ugliness.
They were young.
Most often they took the car which Kennedy had placed at Joe’s disposal, and went down from the hills into Berkeley. They had no difficulty in blurring their features for anyone who looked closely, and easily passed as three students from the adjoining campus of the University of California, they were regarded by the townspeople as just three more specimens of the ten thousand examples of learned brain lessness.
All around them, wherever they walked, was the clamor of man’s thoughts about immortality. In the fashion of a catch phrase which unaccountably sweeps the country, everyone knew that only five per cent of human beings were worth perpetuating.
At a bus stop, two homeward-bound businessmen were being practical about the whole problem.
“The things we’ve gotta watch,” one of them said, “is to see that some bunch of subversives don’t get control of this thing. What we need is a committee of sound-thinking people in each community to decide on who should get immortal.”
“Yeah,” the other agreed instantly. “You know as well as I do that only about five per cent of any community take hold of their responsibilities. The rest are dead weight.”
“Yeah, that’s been proved by statistics. Now you take you and me, Henry. We’re successful businessmen. How many people can make the grade? Only about five percent! And you and me, we gotta carry all the rest of the people on our backs.” He waved vaguely in the direction of the university, and saw three students, coming down the sidewalk toward him. He lowered his voice:
“And I don’t mean just employees, either. You take all them high and mighty professors up there. Where would they be if us businessmen didn’t carry them on our backs?”
Henry pursed his lips judiciously.
“Well, you’re right, Harry. But we gotta be big about this thing. Can’t afford to be narrow-minded and not see the other fellow’s point of view. Takes all kinds of people to make a world you know.”
“Oh, sure, sure, Henry. But on the other hand birds of a feather flock together and too many cooks spoil the soup. When you boil it all down there’s still only about five per cent of the people that aren’t completely worthless.”
They fell silent as the three young people came within earshot.
Mabel and Joe both gasped at the sudden spasm of laughing mischief which flooded Jeff’s mind.
“No, Jeff,” Joe murmured aloud. “Don’t.”
But Jeff lacked Joe’s lifetime of caution and concealment. He spoke just loudly enough to be overheard, and in the learned accents of the scholar which practical men find so insufferable.
“I tell you we must be careful who is allowed immortality. Some attention must be given to the appearance of the human race.”
He seemed to become conscious that the two men were watching them.
The three passed the two on the sidewalk. Each group was silent so as not to be eavesdropped upon. Each group eyed the other with a compound of contemptuous and amused hostility which usually separates one generation from another.
“Think what the human race would look like,” Jeff continued, still in earshot, “if a couple of tubs of lard like those two were given immortality to seed the earth with broadbottomed, pot-bellied kids!”
Mabel gasped and staggered under the impact of the wave of choleric fury which swept over them. Even Jeff was silenced. Mabel drew a deep breath and straightened.
“Your therapy is pretty strenuous, Jeff,” she said. “A couple of days ago I couldn’t have taken a blast like that.”
Jeff’s concern washed over her, healing, soothing.
“I didn’t think about the effect of their reaction on you, Mabel,” he said contritely. “I was just testing to see just how big about it all they were capable of being when they made their selections. In their minds they had already summed us up and rejected us, you know.”
“I’m glad to know I can take it,” Mabel said.
“Yes,” Joe agreed silently. “So am I. Let’s turn this corner wide open, without testing first. Try to stay wide open. I’ll be there.”
They turned the corner—wide open. The visual scene and the psionic scene both lay in clear view.
A car, driven by a scholarly old gentleman, had just pulled past the pumps of the service station and over to the door of the garage at one side. The motor was missing, would the mechanic please look into it? The mechanic lifted the hood, and saw that one of the wires from the distributor cap had worked loose. Well of all the stupid old goats. Naturally that spark plug wouldn’t fire without any juice getting to it! He curbed the impulse to flare up in disgust at the helplessness of drivers in general. All the guy had to do was lift the hood and look!
But that was human beings for you. Ninety-five per cent of them wouldn’t know a piston ring from a fan belt. If it weren’t for the five per cent of guys like himself, guys who knew what made motors tick, the whole civilization would come to a stop. No matter how mechanized things got, it still boiled down to five per cent of the people carrying the other ninety-five per cent on their backs!
Interplayed
with his thoughts was the great excitement in the old man’s mind. He was on his way up to the University with an unmistakable connecting link between the Tu’un and the Sung Dynasty in Chinese Art. He was filled with elation at this long sought discovery. He could hardly contain his impatience at the delay, but his visit would be a long one and last far into the night; a night of exhilarating discussion. And if that pesty motor got worse he might be left afoot. The mechanic was still bent over the frame of the car, fiddling with wires.
The old gentleman tasted the triumph of saying to the mechanic, “I have just discovered the connecting link between—” The awe which would fill the man’s face!
Then realization. The mechanic probably wouldn’t even recognize a Ming piece, much less a Tu’un! Like the simple peasants of China, beasts of toil and burden, living only to sleep, to eat, to procreate their own misery.
It was only about five per cent of mankind which carried the lamp of knowledge and kept it glowing! Only five per cent to carry the other ninety-five per cent on their backs. He unconsciously straightened his back, as if to shift the load, make it easier to bear.
From the window of his third-floor walk-up across the street, a middle-aged writer looked down on the scene below him. Gradually his eyes focused on the three students, the mechanic and the old man. His thoughts left his space scout still fighting the controls of his ship to keep from being pulled into the sun, and, instead, analyzed the people below him in terms of his possible reading public. It would be a miracle if more than one of these belonged to the elite five per cent who read his stuff.
What a tragedy, what a horrible condemnation of the human race. Ninety-five per cent of the culture lagged far behind, as much as a quarter to a half century. Only five per cent were capable of speculating about a new idea, looking to the future, harbingers of progress. Five per cent who had to carry the rest of the culture on their backs, otherwise man would never progress at all!
Jeff could not resist the temptation. He shafted a thought into the writer’s mind.
