They'd Rather Be Right, or The Forever Machine

by Mark Clifton, Frank Riley

"I did."

  "Your answer has no meaning. You are either sixty-eight or you are not."

  "That is Aristotelian logic,” she said reflectively. “Bossy says humans can never understand themselves through Aristo—"

  "Bossy says! Bossy says!” He all but screamed the words at her in exasperation. “Look here, young woman—"

  "...telian logic,” she continued. “Reasoning along that line is comparable to Zeno's proof that motion does not exist. This is a most interesting dream in that your thought-processes are consistent with those currently in vogue in the cult of psychiatry. By any chance, do you imagine yourself to be a psychiatrist? Bossy says—"

  Dr. Fairfax thrust himself to his feet, and almost ran to the door. “Take her away,” he told the waiting matron harshly. “Lock her up alone for the night. I will have to see her again when she is less disturbed. And she's dangerous. She's very dangerous!"

  The old matron looked at him with veiled contempt. For thirty years she'd been handling her girls. She knew a sweet, innocent young thing when she saw it. They were saying this was old Mabel. Well, they were all nuts-including the psychiatrist.

  "It's all right, dearie,” she said soothingly, and put her arm around Mabel's waist to lead her away. Dangerous, indeed! “It's all right, baby. You can depend on old Clarkie."

  "I know,” Mabel said. “You always were a good scout. Twenty-two years ago, the last time I was here, you got my attorney for me. There was a reform ticket in office, and they were holding me incommunicado."

  The matron drew back from her, turned pale, tottered, and clung to the wall.

  "Nobody ever knew it was me,” she gasped. “I'd of lost my job. Nobody knew except Mabel, herself. And Mabel wouldn't have told nobody-not nobody!"

  "I told you she was disturbed, dangerously disturbed!” the psychiatrist snapped. “Now take her away!"

  Tentatively at first, then comfortingly, the matron took Mabel's arm and guided her down the hall.

  "But you can't be Mabel,” the matron was saying. “You just can't be. Even then, Mabel was getting old and fat. Tell me,” she said desperately, “tell old Clarkie, dearie. How did you do it-Mabel?"

  The lieutenant came back into the hall from another office, and saw the psychiatrist leaning against the door jamb.

  "What do you think, Dr. Fairfax?” he asked brightly.

  The doctor straightened himself, drew himself up, and looked down his nose professionally.

  "A clear case of ... a clear case of—” He was unable to find, in the pat little repertoire of psychotic patterns, a name which precisely fitted this kind. He would have to rationalize it out through symbolisms until it neatly fitted something or another before he expressed his diagnosis. He must be sure to use the established and orthodox patterns of symbolism manipulation so that other qualified psychiatrists would confirm him-if it came to that.

  "A layman wouldn't understand,” he finished, loftily.

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  CHAPTER XI

  The long corridor leading to the courtroom was packed with jostling, noisy people, mostly women. This was not a trial. It was only a hearing for the purpose of setting Mabel's bail. But old Clarkie had talked again, and this time to reporters.

  The papers hadn't had much time to work on it before the deadline of morning editions, but they'd done their best. And the results were quite satisfactory. Most of the articles about this old woman, who had turned into a young girl, were written with tongue-in-cheek, for, as frequently occurs with reason, the editors did not believe the stories turned in by their reporters.

  But the public believed. The public wants miracles. The public demands miracles; and if one source ceases to provide them, they will turn to another source which seems to accomplish the spectacular. Even while they resented and opposed the scientific attitude, they lapped up the miracles which this attitude accomplished with glee.

  The Fountain of Youth, long denied consciously, was still the great secret dream. They believed it because they wanted to believe it. They wanted to see this young and beautiful girl who, up until her disappearance ten days ago, had been a fat old woman. That hers had been an unsavory reputation somehow added to the credibility.

  "If an old thing like that can do it, then I, much more worthy, can also do it,” was the tenor of the refrain in every woman's mind.

  Joe Carter slowly edged his way along one wall toward the high double doors of the courtroom. He gasped as a stout woman dug her elbow into his stomach, and then forgot about the elbow when a spiked heel ground down on his foot.

  The jam grew tighter as he neared the door, and further progress seemed impossible. A perspiring bailiff stood against the door, and stared unhappily at the surging crowd.

  "No more room inside, ladies,” he kept insisting. “You might as well turn around and go home."

  Groans, catcalls and derisive laughter answered his words. This was a mere male, and they knew and exercised their power to give him a bad time.

  "I can't go home like this,” one woman yelled. “My old man wants me to look like eighteen again tonight!"

  "Eighteen!” another woman shrieked. “I'll settle for thirty-five!"

  "Let us see her!” another yelled. “It won't cost you anything to just let us see her."

  "It ain't fair,” screamed another.

  In desperation, Joe singled out one of the loudest of the women and fed the idea into her mind that the hearing had been postponed until two o'clock.

  "Why you—” the woman suddenly yelled at the bailiff. “You know that hearing's been put off, and you just let us stand here!"

  "Put off?” someone else shrilled. “They've put off the hearing?"

  "Of course they have!” the first woman yelled again. “The politicians want to hog everything for themselves. Come on, let's go to the mayor's office. Let's see about them holding out on us taxpayers!"

  The hallways began to clear as the word spread. The tightly packed knot of people around the bailiff began to loosen, untangle itself. Joe squeezed through the first break and stepped up to the bewildered bailiff.

  "Good work,” Joe whispered his congratulations. “It could have been a riot if you hadn't acted just in time. I'll not forget to mention it!"

  The bailiff, without realizing quite why, opened the door just wide enough for Joe to slip inside. Several of the women saw it, but the massive doors closed off their rising clamor.

  The courtroom was relatively quiet. A bitter legal wrangle was going on in front of the bench; but Joe ignored it for the moment while he searched for Mabel. He missed her as he swept the fenced-off arena in front of the judge's box the first time. Then he spotted her at the counsel table where she was almost hidden by a massive gray-haired man who stood behind her chair and was holding up his hand to catch the judge's eye.

  "Your honor,” he intoned, as the judge looked his way, “to my colleague's objections I would like to add the further objection of complete irrelevancy. Appearing unclad on the public street is a simple misdemeanor. Our client has been charged with nothing else. The city attorney has failed to cite a single statute which would deny our client right of bail. Indeed, it has been a deplorable miscarriage of justice that she was detained overnight!"

  The city attorney dabbed at his flushed face with a wadded handkerchief. It was true she had been charged with nothing else. A bad oversight, considering all the things they had to choose from, and somebody would pay for it. But then, nobody had expected the most important legal firm in San Francisco to appear suddenly in Mabel's behalf.

  "The distinguished defense counsel misrepresents the obvious meaning of my words,” he protested uneasily. “I would not deny the defendant bail. I ask only, in the public interest, that she be detained in the psychiatric ward pending further investigation. I respectfully request the Court to appoint two independent psychiatrists, acceptable to the defense counsel as well as to my office, to determine the fitness of the crimin ... prisoner."

  Th
e judge looked appraisingly from one speaker to the other, then lowered his eyes and scribbled small doodles on the pad of yellow paper in front of him.

  Joe knew he was thinking of forthcoming judicial elections. Usually it paid off to play along with the machine because the general public didn't know one judge from another and marked the handiest spot on the ballot. But this case was different. How he acted could really help or hurt his chances in the election.

  In either event he could only adhere to the letter of the law; but then for every yea in the law there was a nay, and it always boiled down to simple expediency. Like a psychiatric diagnosis, it could always be juggled around to fit anything you chose. He'd better play it cautiously. He looked again toward the city attorney.

  "Have you any grounds for questioning this young ... this woman's sanity?"

  "There was prima-facie evidence that she was completely unclad when arrested on a public thoroughfare—"

  "Incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial,” snapped defense counsel instantly. “Nudity is not prima-facie evidence of insanity. If this case should go to trial, we will prove beyond all doubt that our client was merely sleepwalking."

  "That I would like to see,” the city attorney mumbled under his breath. Then aloud, he persisted, “In the second place, a Consulting Psychiatrist has already conducted a preliminary examination of the defendant. We would like to call him to the stand at this time."

  The judge nodded. He must be fair to both sides, allow no criticism to come his way from a higher court.

  "You may proceed."

  While the psychiatrist was being sworn, and establishing his credentials, Joe tried to reach out and make psionic contact with Mabel. He failed in a most baffling way. He seemed to touch the periphery of her mind and then to lose himself in the characteristic pattern of a dream. Did she think she was still dreaming? Her detachment, her lack of interest, her negative somatic reaction to the whole procedure baffled him. For the true dream state was anything but lacking in somatics. In the conscious state the human mind is seldom capable of reaching the heights of true horror often found in a dream. He came back to the witness who had been speaking.

  "You say you tried to examine the defendant,” prompted the city attorney. “You used the word ‘tried’ advisedly?"

  "Certainly,” snapped the psychiatrist. It was unthinkable that he should use any word without self-advisement. “I say ‘tried,’ because the patient was too disturbed to be cooperative."

  "Would you say she exhibited the characteristics of a rational person?"

  "I would not!"

  "Did you question her about her age?"

  "I did. She said she had no age."

  "Did you ask her why she appeared on the street nude?"

  "I did. She answered that she did not know it was cold.” His expression showed plainly that a belief clothes were necessary simply to keep out the cold was all the evidence they needed to establish her insanity.

  Apparently the city attorney thought so, too. He nodded significantly toward the judge and relinquished his place at the stand. The defense counsel approached the psychiatrist in the manner of an experienced big-game hunter who is called upon to shoot a rabbit. He put one foot on the step in front of the witness stand, carefully drew up his trouser cuff, and leaned toward the psychiatrist in a conversational manner.

  "Do you believe that the defendant has somehow been able to recover her lost youth?"

  The psychiatrist flushed angrily. He wondered if it would be possible to suggest a law which would not permit defense counsels to question the judgment of a psychiatrist.

  "No, I do not believe it,” he snapped.

  "Do you then discount the evidence of the fingerprints? The photographs? The testimony of numerous people who identify her?"

  "I am convinced all of this is a hoax!"

  "And is, therefore, something which no rational person could believe?"

  "Such a claim to rejuvenation is beyond the credibility of a rational man."

  "Then if the city attorney and the Court were to place some credence in the defendant's regeneration, you would hold they are not rational men?"

  A titter swept the courtroom. Several women clapped loudly. The psychiatrist felt called upon to defend his profession.

  "I have not been called upon to examine the city attorney and the Court—"

  The implication was not lost upon the judge that this witness assumed the possibility that everyone was insane except himself. The defense counsel preferred to leave it there before the impression could be corrected.

  "One more question, then,” he said hurriedly. “Do you believe a woman's reluctance to tell her age is a sign of insanity?"

  The courtroom roared with applause and laughter. The psychiatrist's cheek twitched under the indignity of a layman's doubt, but he said nothing. The judge, sensing at last the way the public would respond, permitted himself a small, judicial smile. Joe attuned himself to the judge's relief, mellowed and broadened his mood, fused a warm and noble valence into the judge's concept of himself.

  ...The wisdom of a Solomon ... utterly fair and incorruptible ... stalwart and courageous defender of human rights against the oppression of a growing police state ... kind and compassionate—

  His head came up as if he were posing for a photograph.

  The defense counsel turned impressively toward the bench.

  "Your honor, I trust the Court, in its vast wisdom, agrees with us that this defendant should not be subjected to further indignities. She has clearly undergone a harrowing experience. She needs a period of rest. In good time, medical science will be able to develop the facts about her case, which could be of great benefit to humanity. All of us should cooperate to that larger cause. In the glorious pages of history, we must not be found wanting!"

  The judge was regretful that he had barred news photographers from the courtroom. Really, this moment should be caught and recorded for the pages of history.

  "Meanwhile,” continued the defense counsel, “I withdraw our request that the defendant be released on bail."

  The judge, the city attorney, the psychiatrist looked at him in surprise. The courtroom held its breath.

  "Instead I do petition the court to dismiss the misdemeanor charge against her entirely!"

  The courtroom exploded from silence into thunderous applause. Joe did not need to intensify it with broadcasted waves of mass psychology feedback. The counsel knew his rabble-rousing well.

  The judge tapped his gavel and crinkled the character lines around his eyes with kind and mild reproof. He held up his hand for silence, and the crowd leaned forward in anticipation. He dismissed the charges. He arose in statuesque dignity and retired to his chambers amid the roar of approval.

  With a courtly gesture, the defense attorney took Mabel by the arm and hurried her out of the room, refusing to pose outside for the newspaper and television cameramen. But reporters did stop them, momentarily, on the front steps. They answered one, and only one, of the barrage of questions.

  "Who does your firm actually represent in this case?"

  The lawyer smiled a bland, courteous smile.

  "Why, the defendant, of course,” he answered.

  But behind the smile was the name Joe had been seeking-the name of Howard Kennedy, the multimillionaire industrialist who had given the newspaper that surprising interview in defense of Bossy.

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  CHAPTER XII

  Kennedy Enterprises, Inc., occupied all fourteen floors of the modernistic Tower Building in the center of the financial district. This was the home office, the center of an organization vaster in wealth and power than many nations. The government of this organization often was the government of many nations.

  As Joe stood in the lobby, and scanned the building directory, he realized for the first time the scope of these enterprises. In the long list of Kennedy Corporations in the directory board, there seemed to be provision for almost every human activ
ity.

  Of course, like everyone else, he had always associated Howard Kennedy with vast and sometimes speculative industrial operations. Now, alphabetically listed, he saw corporations covering everything from mines to trinket sales. There were other corporations, too, from research foundations to philanthropy. One could only guess at the research, and the personnel, back of these enterprises.

  Obviously, Howard Kennedy was one who had not been oppressed by opinion control. As sometimes happens in a tradition-bound and expiring civilization, here was a man who seemed to have stepped directly out of a past era, the era of bold pioneers who were unafraid to explore; who had not sold the birthright of man's rise to the stars for a mess of security.

  Somehow he had not been crushed, in spite of the many attempts. Joe did not know too many details; his own interests had been far removed from the industrial world; but he did recall the many congressional investigations when some farmer boy congressman decided this would be a way to get his name in headlines; the underground rumblings of lawsuits among industrial titans; the charges of trusts and cartels flaring into headlines one day and not even followed up in the back pages on the next.

  No one had been able to get Howard Kennedy, bring him to heel, make him conform to the all pervading grayness of mediocrity. He was a giant in stature and as yet they had not been able to bind him to the dirt with thousands of tiny ropes.

  This was the man who, a few days previously, had dared to come out in favor of Bossy in an editorial.

  And this was the man whose attorneys had somehow learned with extraordinary speed about Mabel; had stepped in and taken over her case even before Joe and Carney had been able to get Mabel's own attorney out of bed.

  This was the man who now held Mabel, somewhere, like the high tramp card in a game. Obviously, the editorial had been a bid to Billings and Hoskins: “Come, let us negotiate. I am interested and will be fair."

  Now, characteristic of his operations, Kennedy held the high trump, and could afford to wait in the certain knowledge that they would have to come. In some way, he had connected the phenomenon of Mabel's rejuvenation with Bossy.