Death Quotient and Other Stories

by John D. MacDonald

  Midway in the little cylinder of lead was a milligram of an unstable isotope which he had found five years before, secreted in one of the forbidden books, probably hidden there by a desperate man during the science purge.

  ‘The device was pathetically small, and his theories of its operation were necessarily vague due to his directed training. With an adequate power source, which he hoped to obtain in the form of one of the tiny powerful batteries used in wrist radios, hearing aids and similar devices, the activated tube would subject the isotope to a stimulus which would, he hoped, cause it to throw off, like bullets from a gun, a stream of focused matter which would stimulate the molecular activity of any inert substance. Arbitrarily assuming that the difference between a liquid, a solid and a gas lay only in the index of molecular activity, he hoped to be able to turn any solid into a liquid and then a gaseous state.

  Behind the lead cup was a metallic frame for the battery. He took the screw from the tooth cavity, used it to make rigid another portion of the battery frame.

  To complete it he would need the battery and a thin strip of hard copper. The completed device would be held in one hand, the battery against the heel of his hand, the wires pointing away from him. Firing would be accomplished by pressing the copper strip, not yet obtained, against the battery terminal, thus activating the tube.

  Condemned never to commit any questionable research to writing, Lucas had been forced to carry all the complicated formulae in his mind, achieving at last a receptivity that enabled him to see the equations as though they were written in white fire against a velvet backdrop.

  He had two weeks to snatch from under Ellen Morrit’s watchful eye a larger item than any yet taken, to get it past the search.

  It was impossible.

  Probably the best he could do was to commit his formulae to paper, to hide the paper with the incomplete device, to hope that the next person to inhabit the small white house would be able to carry it further.

  He replaced the device, slid the panel shut, melted the wax with a match flame, rubbing it smooth with his thumbnail.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mad Scientist

  Arden Forester, Director of Search, was a smallish lean man with a spare body, a corded neck and an expression of intent curiosity.

  He walked, snapping his heels firmly against the corridor floor, conscious of the fit of his gray uniform, conscious of the weight of responsibility. He and the Chief of the Bureau of Improvement and the Resident Psychiatrist formed the committee to determine which five workers should be removed to make way for the new ones.

  He thought of himself as a hard and vigorous man, full of snap. When he used the word in his mind it had two syllables: Suh-NAP! The last syllable came out with a whipcrack. No nonsense from these workers!

  He bunched his thin hard knuckles and straightened his shoulders, taking a salute from one of the young guards.

  He turned sharply into the office of the Bureau Chief, clicked his heels and saluted. As always, he detested having to salute paunchy Dale Evan. Why, the man didn’t even keep himself physically fit! How could you be mentally alert if you were smothered?

  Sargo, the resident psychiatrist, sat near Evan. Evan acknowledged the salute with a slight motion of his pudgy hand, said, “Sit down, Arden. Sit down. We have to go over the list again. It’s down to eight. I’ve had the monitors wait. You probably, saw them in the hall.”

  Arden Forrester sat down, careful of the crease in his uniform pants. Evan handed him the list. He pursed his lips and read it. He took a pencil from his blouse pocket, made four neat checks beside four of the eight names.

  He handed the list back. “Those are the ones who have attempted to smuggle forbidden items out of their labs. Those four must go. You men can pick any one you please out of the remaining four.”

  Dale Evan sighed. “I wish you had five on your list, Arden. Whom do you nominate, George?”

  Sargo inspected the glowing end of his cigarette. “Lewisson or Bendas.”

  Evan said, “I had picked Bendas or Lucas.”

  “Then that settles it,” Forrester said, getting to his feet. “My four and Bendas.”

  Irritation showed on Dale Evan’s face. “Sit down, Forrester. We’ll talk to the monitors. Go out and tell the other four to go. Then send in Lucas’ monitor. I believe her name is Morrit.”

  Forrester looked approvingly at Ellen Morrit. It was the first time he had noticed her in street clothes. Her severe working hairdo had been released and the golden hair fell to shoulder length. It softened her face. Her dress, pale aqua, brought out very interesting and very adequate lines. Arden Forrester decided that he would soon exercise his right of substituting personal for automatic search of any employee in the Bureau of Improvement. It would be very interesting.

  “Peter Lucas, number four three, is being considered for electro-surgery, Miss Morrit. This is a confidential meeting. Your comments will not be made a matter of record. What is your opinion of this?”

  Her voice was crisp. “Lucas has the typical instability of all technical employees.”

  “Have you noted any change lately?”

  “No sir.”

  “Does he attempt to … convert you to his way of thinking?”

  “No sir.”

  “Does he sneer at the established order?”

  “No sir.”

  “Would you prefer another assignment?”

  She paused. “I had not thought of it.” She shrugged. “A new one might be more difficult, sir.”

  “That is all. On your way out send Miss Peckingham in, please.”

  * * * *

  Ellen Morrit walked slowly down the hall toward the monitor exit. She showed her stamped search card to the guard at the door and he released the door catch for her.

  She was confused. Peter Lucas had so irritated her during the past month that a dozen times she had been on the verge of reporting him to Dale Evan. In fact, she had told some of the other monitors that she was about to turn him in.

  And yet when she had been called in to testify, even though the irritation was fresh in her mind, she had—why, she had deliberately lied!

  It was unthinkable. All of the monitors had been carefully conditioned so that there was not the slightest chance of an emotional attachment between a worker and his monitor.

  And yet she had lied!

  She was walking slowly toward the bus stand. She stopped. She knew why she had lied: because she wanted to spend the rest of her time in the Bureau of Improvement in the same room with Peter Lucas.

  The obvious thing to do was to report for new conditioning. No! To do that would be to create the suspicion that she had lied to Evan.

  Ellen knew that it was atavistic to think of a technical worker with anything except loathing. Mr. Evan and Captain Forrester and Mr. Sargo were sensible men doing a sensible job. It was evident that the burden of administration could be made easier by eliminating the most volatile workers each year. It was equally evident that Peter Lucas should be eliminated.

  Yet when she thought of the soulless faces she had seen, the faces of the laborers, and thought of Lucas looking like that—something twisted her heart.

  * * * *

  Peter Lucas paused in the cool morning light and looked up at the building which housed Automatic Search. The guard pushed him roughly and said, “Stop dreaming, you.”

  In the first locker room he stripped, put his clothes in his locker, glanced at the narrow doorway. The laconic guard, as he stepped up, turned the dial to Lucas’ number. Peter Lucas stepped into the shallow area.

  His weight, size, allowable metal in the form of tooth fillings, ring and wristwatch, matched the settings on the machine. A low musical note sounded and he was free to enter the further locker room where he put on Bureau uniform. As he strapped on his sandals he wondered how on earth he wo
uld get the necessary battery, through that doorway.

  Tonight he would leave the removable filling in the lab, come through Search with a tiny strip of hard copper in his mouth, come back through the next morning with a useless bit of metal he would throw away as soon as he was in his lab. That was simple enough. It was the battery that had been baffling him for eleven months.

  It was too large to project it into the fenced passage, as he had done with the tiny tube. No one could be trusted to risk throwing it to him through the narrow doorway in Search, even if he could have caught it without the guard’s noticing.

  Captain Forrester gave him a sardonic look as he passed into the main building. He wondered idly how many times he had considered the incredible satisfaction to be gained by striking the Director of Search with a clenched fist.

  He knew the schedule of work ahead. Today he would get his hands on a good battery: compact and powerful, an inch and a quarter by an inch by three quarters of an inch. He could conceal it in his hand, get it down to the locker room, snap it onto the spring clip he had fashioned on the underside of the thin metal shelf.

  But what then?

  The lab door was open. Morrit, as usual, was waiting for him. He noticed absently that she looked as though she’d had a rough night. That didn’t seem in character.

  “Have a spirited evening, Morrit?”

  “I was unable to sleep,” she said primly. Her eyes were shadowed. She indicated a package on his desk. “Police broadcasting unit. Portable. The statistical section reports that fifteen percent of them get a blurred tone after three months’ use.”

  He forced himself to yawn. Here was the battery, and it would be a good one.

  * * * *

  Ellen Morrit watched him carefully throughout the day. She had come to a difficult decision just before dawn. She would watch Lucas with great care, and she would report him immediately if he stepped out of line; but not until then.

  He had finished the analysis of the small broadcasting unit, finding that the ultra-short waves had magnetized the little screws that held the edge of the speaker diaphram. The recommendation was that the screws in future models be made of non-ferrous alloy.

  He swept the dismantled parts into the waste bin, put the two magnetized screws and the revised bill of materials into the familiar envelope, and stood up.

  She saw him start toward the door, heard him say, “See you tomorrow, jinx.” Something was wrong but she didn’t know quite what it was.

  “Just a minute!” she snapped.

  He stopped, turned slowly. There was something strained about his smile.

  She walked to him and said, “Something is wrong, Mr. Lucas. You are holding your hand in an odd way.”

  She reached out quickly and took his wrist. He let her open his hand. The small battery, emblem of guilt, lay on his broad palm.

  The door was still closed. She saw how wrong she had been to lie, to defend him by misdirection. “I am going to—” She could not finish the sentence. His face was frighteningly close to hers, and his hand had closed on her throat.

  He forced her roughly back against the wall. His eyes were quite mad. There was a muted drumming in her ears and the room swam with mist while she strained her lungs to drag air past her closed throat.

  Even as consciousness faded, she knew that he would be caught in whatever evil plan he was carrying out.

  His face loomed impossibly large, impossibly close. Other monitors had been killed in the past. They were essentially unstable, these technical workers. But a diagnosis was of small comfort now.

  Then surprisingly his fingers left her throat. She gagged and coughed and the tears ran down her cheeks. He stood looking at her in a queer way. His voice was husky as he said, “Morrit, I think I could have gotten away with it. What happens when you hate somebody and can’t kill them? When you don’t want to kill them. When you even want to—” He forced her back against the wall once more and kissed her roughly.

  She gasped and her cheeks flamed. She struck him across the mouth and slid away from him. “Mr. Lucas, I am taking this evidence immediately to the office of—”

  She stopped and they both turned at the click of the door latch. Miss Glaydeen, Director of Monitors, walked in, her cheeks jiggling, her heavy steps rattling apparatus across the room on the zinc work table.

  Her eyes had a look of mockery. She stopped three paces from Ellen Morrit and said, “I was going to send you the message, Morrit, but then I thought I’d come and take another look at you and see if I’d missed any hidden talent.”

  “What do you mean?” Ellen Morrit asked.

  “You are honored, my dear. The Director of Search, Captain Forrester, has just indicated to me his desire to conduct a personal rather than a mechanical search of you tonight. Very flattering. And don’t object. He has the right, you know.”

  “But I—”

  “Report to Room C, my dear. I believe the good Captain is already there, impatiently waiting.”

  Miss Glaydeen smiled, turned on her heel and walked heavily out. The door slammed behind her.

  Ellen Morrit had a feeling of nightmare. She took two steps closer to Peter Lucas and said, “Is—isn’t there any way to—”

  “Not in the manual there isn’t,” he said. She was surprised to see that he had a troubled look.

  The world had gone upside down. A man who should have killed her had kissed her instead. She had lied to her superiors. And now Captain Forrester planned some unknown and unthinkable thing. Her loyalties were torn and confused.

  “You must want this badly,” she said, holding out the battery.

  “Very badly,” he admitted. He coughed. “If you took the battery right to Uncle Evan maybe you could throw a smoke-screen over the whole thing.”

  She realized that he was offering her the only out, an impossibly quixotic sacrifice of himself to save her humiliation.

  She left the office with the battery in her hand. She went directly to Room C, opened the door quietly, shut it behind her.

  * * * *

  Lucas waited for them to come for him. But they didn’t.

  He found the strip of copper he wanted, walked slowly down to the locker room. He was late; most of the others had gone. The guard told him to hurry it up. He went through Search, dressed again with a slowness that infuriated the guard and walked slowly down the fenced corridor.

  Only one other worker was with him. The guard was surly. Lucas turned and saw the girl coming across the grass to the corridor fence. He saw her hair, gold in the twilight.

  “Get away from the fence, you!” the guard roared.

  “I am a monitor,” the girl said firmly. Lucas recognized her voice, stared almost with disbelief at Morrit. It was the first time he had ever seen her in street clothes, seen her with the hair that fell to shoulders that were straight and perfect.

  “Come here, guard!” she ordered.

  The guard turned to them. “You two stand where you are.” He went to the fence.

  Lucas looked at her and saw the new hardness of her face, a bitter curve of mouth, an angry look in her eyes.

  “Guard,” she said, “you are to search the clothes of that tall one there. Lucas. An item was smuggled through Search.”

  As the guard turned toward him, Lucas caught the pleading look in her eyes. He was thoroughly confused. She was trying to tell him something.

  The other worker looked on without much interest. Lucas held his arms up and the guard went through every pocket with care. Lucas stopped breathing as he saw Morrit back away from the fence, saw the small object in her hand.

  She swung her arm as though practicing. With narrowed eyes she watched the guard. The search over, the guard turned back toward Morrit. In the instant of his turning, she threw the battery over the high fence.

  By the time the guard had turned co
mpletely, her arms were back at her sides.

  Lucas saw it against the darkening sky. He took two quick steps to one side and it splatted into the palm of his hand. He dropped it into his pocket.

  “Nothing on him, Miss,” the guard mumbled.

  The other worker had seen the exchange. Lucas faced him tensely. He saw the fleeting grin, saw the other worker form the unspoken words, “Nice going!”

  “Sorry to have troubled you,” Morrit said. She called to Lucas, “I will not be reporting tomorrow, Mr. Lucas.”

  The words meant nothing to him; not until he had shut the door of the small white house behind him.

  Morrit was not reporting. Under the stringent rules, no monitor could give up her position until the full five years had been served. To refuse to report would create the suspicion that the monitor had somehow become infected with the creative psychosis of the technical workers. And it was a free ticket to the little gray amphitheater where they wielded the electric scalpel.

  Something had cracked Ellen Morrit. Something had made her betray the regime. And she would have to become a fugitive. He could not see her waiting for them to come and get her.

  Thus her words became a message. She had said, “You are right, Peter, and I have been wrong. Maybe this battery will help you become free. If so, I will be in the dead city.”

  And suddenly he knew there had been only one way for her to get the battery past Captain Arden Forrester. Acquiescence. A very high price to pay; and a very impetuous decision to make.

  His smile was a grimace that pressed his lips back against his teeth. Lucas had made a convert to heresy, had added another prisoner to the world.

  He ate slowly, stretched out on the bed. His hand touched the wall, and he sat up in sudden panic. The wax was cracked. At last they had found the hiding place.

  He pulled the sliding panel down, reached inside. His hand touched the device. He took it out and inspected it. They had not removed it, had seen that it was an odd thing, too small to be dangerous—possibly a physical indication that the mind of Peter Lucas was failing. And it had been left behind as evidence.