But for the past three days Free America had not been on the air — solar static maybe, or perhaps just a power failure. But that rumor that President Brandley had been assassinated — while it hadn’t come from the Free radio … and it hadn’t been denied by them, either, which was a good sign. Still, it worried him.
And that other story that lost Atlantis had pushed up during the quake period and that the Azores were now a little continent — almost certainly a hangover of the “silly season" but it would be nice to hear a follow-up.
Rather sheepishly he let his feet carry him to the car. It wasn’t fair to listen when Meade wasn’t around. He warmed it up, slowly spun the dial, once around and back. Not a peep at full gain, nothing but a terrible amount of static. Served him right.
He climbed the hogback, sat down on the bench he had dragged up there — their “memorial bench," sacred to the memory of the time Meade had hurt her knees on the gravel — sat down and sighed. His lean belly was stuffed with venison and corn fritters; he lacked only tobacco to make him completely happy. The evening cloud colors were spectacularly beautiful and the weather was extremely balmy for December; both, he thought, caused by volcanic dust, with perhaps an assist from atom bombs.
Surprising how fast things went to pieces when they started to skid! And surprising how quickly they were going back together, judging by the signs. A curve reaches trough and then starts right back up. World War III was the shortest big war on record — forty cities gone, counting Moscow and the other slave cities as well as the American ones — and then whoosh! neither side fit to fight. Of course, the fact that both sides had thrown their ICBMs over the pole through the most freakish arctic weather since Peary invented the place had a lot to do with it, he supposed. It was amazing that any of the Russian paratroop transports had gotten through at all.
He sighed and pulled the November 1951 copy of the Western Astronomer out of his pocket. Where was he? Oh, yes, Some Notes on the Stability of G-Type Stars with Especial Reference to Sol, by A. G. M. Dynkowski, Lenin Institute, translated by Heinrich Ley, F. R. A. S. Good boy, Ski — sound mathematician. Very clever application of harmonic series and tightly reasoned. He started to thumb for his place when he noticed a footnote that he had missed. Dynkowski’s own name carried down to it: “This monograph was denounced by Pravda as romantic reactionariism shortly after it was published. Professor Dynkowski has been unreported since and must be presumed to be liquidated,"
The poor geek! Well, he probably would have been atomized by now anyway, along with the goons who did him in. He wondered if they really had gotten all the Russki paratroopers? Well, he had killed his quota; if he hadn’t gotten that doe within a quarter mile of the cabin and headed right back, Meade would have had a bad time. He had shot them in the back, the swine! and buried them beyond the woodpile — and then it had seemed a shame to skin and eat an innocent deer while those lice got decent burial. Aside from mathematics, just two things worth doing — kill a man and love a woman. He had done both; he was rich.
He settled down to some solid pleasure. Dynkowski was a treat. Of course, it was old stuff that a G-type star, such as the sun, was potentially unstable; a G-O star could explode, slide right off the Russell diagram, and end up as a white dwarf. But no one before Dynkowski had defined the exact conditions for such a catastrophe, nor had anyone else devised mathematical means of diagnosing the instability and describing its progress.
He looked up to rest his eyes from the fine print and saw that the sun was obscured by a thin low cloud — one of those unusual conditions where the filtering effect is just right to permit a man to view the sun clearly with the naked eye. Probably volcanic dust in the air, he decided, acting almost like smoked glass.
He looked again. Either he had spots before his eyes or that was one fancy big sun spot. He had heard of being able to see them with the naked eye, but it had never happened to him. He longed for a telescope.
He blinked. Yep, it was still there, upper right. A big spot — no wonder the car radio sounded like a Hitler speech. He turned back and continued on to the end of the article, being anxious to finish before the light failed. At first his mood was sheerest intellectual pleasure at the man’s tight mathematical reasoning. A 3% imbalance in the solar constant — yes, that was standard stuff; the sun would nova with that much change. But Dynkowski went further; by means of a novel mathematical operator which he had dubbed “yokes" he bracketed the period in a star’s history when this could happen and tied it down further with secondary, tertiary, and quaternary yokes, showing exactly the time of highest probability. Beautiful! Dynkowski even assigned dates to the extreme limit of his primary yoke, as a good statistician should.
But, as he went back and reviewed the equations, his mood changed from intellectual to personal. Dynkowski was not talking about just any G-O star; in the latter part he meant old Sol himself, Breen’s personal sun, the big boy out there with the oversized freckle on his face.
That was one hell of a big freckle! It was a hole you could chuck Jupiter into and not make a splash. He could see it very clearly now.
Everybody talks about “when the stars grow old and the sun grows cold" — but it’s an impersonal concept, like one’s own death. Breen started thinking about it very personally. How long would it take, from the instant the imbalance was triggered until the expanding wave front engulfed earth? The mechanics couldn’t be solved without a calculator even though they were implicit in the equations in front of him. Half an hour, for a horseback guess, from incitement until the earth went phutt!
It hit him with gentle melancholy. No more? Never again? Colorado on a cool morning … the Boston Post road with autumn wood smoke tanging the air … Bucks county bursting in the spring. The wet smells of the Fulton Fish Market — no, that was gone already. Coffee at the Morning Call. No more wild strawberries on a hillside in Jersey, hot and sweet as lips. Dawn in the South Pacific with the light airs cool velvet under your shirt and never a sound but the chuckling of the water against the sides of the old rust bucket — what was her name? That was a long time ago — the S. S. Mary Brewster.
No more moon if the earth was gone. Stars — but no one to look at them.
He looked back at the dates bracketing Dynkowski’s probability yoke. “Thine Alabaster Cities gleam, undimmed by —"
He suddenly felt the need for Meade and stood up.
She was coming out to meet him. “Hello, Potty! Safe to come in now — I’ve finished the dishes."
“I should help."
“You do the man’s work; I’ll do the woman’s work. That’s fair." She shaded her eyes. “What a sunset! We ought to have volcanoes blowing their tops every year."
“Sit down and we’ll watch it."
She sat beside him and he took her hand. “Notice the sun spot? You can see it with your naked eye."
She stared. “Is that a sun spot? It looks as if somebody had taken a bite out of it."
He squinted his eyes at it again. Damned if it didn’t look bigger!
Meade shivered. “I’m chilly. Put your arm around me."
He did so with his free arm, continuing to hold hands with the other. It was bigger — the thing was growing.
What good is the race of man? Monkeys, he thought, monkeys with a spot of poetry in them, cluttering and wasting a second-string planet near a third-string star. But sometimes they finish in style.
She snuggled to him. “Keep me warm."
“It will be warmer soon. I mean I’ll keep you warm."
“Dear Potty."
She looked up. “Potty — something funny is happening to the sunset."
“No darling — to the sun."
“I’m frightened."
“I’m here, dear."
He glanced down at the journal, still open beside him. He did not need to add up the two figures and divide by two to reach the answer. Instead he clutched fiercely at her hand, knowing with an unexpected and overpowering burst of sorrow that this
was The End
Project Nightmare
Amazing Stories, May 1953
“Four’s your point. Roll 'em!"
“Anybody want a side bet on double deuces?"
No one answered; the old soldier rattled dice in a glass, pitched them against the washroom wall. One turned up a deuce; the other spun. Somebody yelled, “It’s going to five! Come, Phoebe!"
It stopped — a two. The old soldier said, “I told you not to play with me. Anybody want cigarette money?"
“Pick it up, Pop. We don’t — oh, oh! 'Tenshun!"
In the door stood a civilian, a colonel, and a captain. The civilian said, “Give the money back, Two-Gun."
“Okay, Prof." The old soldier extracted two singles. “That much is mine."
“Stop!" objected the captain. “I’ll impound that for evidence. Now, you men —"
The colonel stopped him. “Mick. Forget that you’re adjutant. Private Andrews, come along." He went out; the others followed. They hurried through the enlisted men’s club, out into desert sunshine and across the quadrangle.
The civilian said, “Two-Gun, what the deuce!"
“Shucks, Prof, I was just practicing."
“Why don’t you practice against Grandma Wilkins?"
The soldier snorted. “Do I look silly?"
The colonel put in, “You’re keeping a crowd of generals and V.I.P.s waiting. That isn’t bright."
“Colonel Hammond, I was told to wait in the club."
“But not in its washroom. Step it up!"
They went inside headquarters to a hail where guards checked their passes before letting them in. A civilian was speaking:" — and that’s the story of the history-making experiments at Duke University. Doctor Reynolds is back; he will conduct the demonstrations."
The officers sat down In the rear, Dr. Reynolds went to the speaker’s table. Private Andrews sat down with a group set apart from the high brass and distinguished civilians of the audience. A character who looked like a professional gambler — and was — sat next to two beautiful redheads, identical twins. A fourteen-year-old Negro boy slumped in the next chair; he seemed asleep. Beyond him a most wideawake person, Mrs. Anna Wilkins, tatted and looked around. In the second row were college students and a drab middle-aged man.
The table held a chuck-a-luck cage, packs of cards, scratch pads, a Geiger counter, a lead carrying case. Reynolds leaned on it and said, “Extra-Sensory Perception, or E.S.P., is a tag for little-known phenomena — telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience, precognition, telekinesis. They exist; we can measure them; we know that some people are thus gifted. But we don’t know how they work. The British, in India during World War One, found that secrets were being stolen by telepathy." Seeing doubt in their faces Reynolds added, “It is conceivable that a spy five hundred miles away is now 'listening in’ — and picking your brains of top-secret data."
Doubt was more evident. A four-star Air Force general said, “One moment, Doctor — if true, what can we do to stop it?"
“Nothing."
“That’s no answer. A lead-lined room?"
“We’ve tried that, General. No effect."
“Jamming with high frequencies? Or whatever 'brain waves’ are?"
“Possibly, though I doubt it. If E.S.P. becomes militarily important you may have to operate with all facts known. Back to our program: These ladies and gentlemen are powerfully gifted in telekinesis, the ability to control matter at a distance. Tomorrow’s experiment may not succeed, but we hope to convince the doubting Thomases" — he smiled at a man in the rear — “that it is worth trying."
The man he looked at stood up. “General Hanby!"
An Army major general looked around. “Yes, Doctor Withers?"
“I asked to be excused. My desk is loaded with urgent work — and these games have nothing to do with me."
The commanding general started to assert himself; the four-star visitor put a hand on his sleeve. “Doctor Withers, my desk in Washington is piled high, 'but I sin here because the President sent me. Will you please stay? I want a skeptical check on my judgment."
Withers sat down, still angry. Reynolds continued: 'We will start with E.S.P. rather than telekinesis — which is a bit different, anyhow." He turned to one of the redheads. “Jane, will you come here?"
The girl answered, “I’m Joan. Sure."
“All right — Joan. General LaMott, will you draw something on this scratch pad?"
The four-star flyer cocked an eyebrow. “Anything?"
“Not too complicated."
“Right, Doctor." He thought, then began a cartoon of a girl, grinned and added a pop-eyed wolf. Shortly he looked up. “Okay?"
Joan had kept busy with another pad; Reynolds took hers to the general. The sketches were alike — except that Joan bad added four stars to the wolf’s shoulders. The general looked at her; she looked demure. “I’m convinced," he said drily. “What next?"
“That could be clairvoyance or telepathy," Reynolds lectured. “We will now show direct telepathy." He called the second twin to him, then said, “Doctor Withers, will you help us?"
Withers still looked surly. “With what?"
“The same thing — but Jane will watch over your shoulder while Joan tries to reproduce what you draw. Make it something harder."
“Well…okay." He took the pad, began sketching a radio circuit, while Jane watched. He signed it with a “Clem," the radioman’s cartoon of the little fellow peering over a fence.
“That’s fine!" said Reynolds. “Finished, Joan?"
“Yes, Doctor." He fetched her pad; the diagram was correct — but Joan had added to “Clem" a wink.
Reynolds interrupted awed comment with, “I will skip card, demonstrations and turn to telekinesis. Has anyone a pair of dice?" No one volunteered; he went on, “We have some supplied by your physics department. This chuck-a-luck cage is signed and sealed by them and so is this package." He broke it open, spilled out a dozen dice. “Two-Gun, how about some naturals?"
“I’ll try, Prof."
“General LaMott, please select a pair and put them In this cup."
The general complied and handed the cup to Andrews. “What are you going to roll, soldier?"
“Would a sixty-five suit the General?"
“If you can."
“Would the General care to put up a five spot, to make it interesting?" He waited, wide-eyed and innocent.
LaMott grinned. “You’re faded, soldier." He peeled out a five; Andrews covered it, rattled the cup and rolled. One die stopped on the bills — a five. The other bounced against a chair — a six.
“Let it ride, sir?"’
“I’m not a sucker twice. Show us some naturals."
“As you say, sir." Two-Gun picked up the money, then rolled 6-1, 5-2, 4-3, and back again. He rolled several 6’s, then got snake eyes. He tried again, got acey-deucey. He faced the little old lady. “Ma’am," he said, “if you want to roll, why don’t you get down here and do the work?"
“Why, Mr. Andrews!"
Reynolds said hastily, “You’ll get your turn, Mrs. Wilkins."
“I don’t know what you gentlemen are talking about." She resumed tatting.
Colonel Hammond sat down by the redheads. “You’re the January Twins — aren’t you?"
“Our public!" one answered delightedly.
“The name is 'Brown,’" said the other.
“'Brown,’" he agreed, “but how about a show for the boys?"
“Dr. Reynolds wouldn’t like it," the first said dutifully. “I’ll handle him. We don’t get USO; security regulations are too strict. How about it, Joan?"
“I’m Jane. Okay, if you fix it with Prof."
“Good girls!" He went back to where Grandma Wilkins was demonstrating selection — showers of sixes in the chuck-a-luck cage. She was still tatting. Dr. Withers watched glumly. Hammond said, 'Well, Doc?"
“These things are disturbing," Withers admitted, “but it’s on the molar level — noth
ing affecting the elementary particles."
“How about those sketches?"
“I’m a physicist, not a psychologist. But the basic particles — electrons, neutrons, protons — can’t be affected except with apparatus designed in accordance with the laws of radioactivity. Dr. Reynolds was in earshot; at Withers’ remark he said, “Thank you, Mrs. Wilkins. Now, ladies and gentlemen, another experiment. Norman!"
The colored boy opened his eyes. “Yeah, Prof?"
“Up here. And the team from your physics laboratory, please. Has anyone a radium-dial watch?"
Staff technicians hooked the Geiger counter through an amplifier so that normal background radioactivity was heard as occasional clicks, then placed a radium-dial watch close to the counter tube; the clicks changed to hail-storm volume. “Lights out, please," directed Reynolds.
The boy said, “Now, Prof?"
“Wait, Norman. Can everyone see the watch?" The silence was broken only by the rattle of the amplifier, counting radioactivity of the glowing figures. “Now, Norman!"
The shining figures quenched out; the noise, died to sparse clicks.
The same group was in a blockhouse miles out in the desert; more miles beyond was the bomb proving site; facing it was a periscope window set in concrete and glazed with solid feet of laminated filter glass. Dr. Reynolds was talking with Major General Hanby. A naval captain took reports via earphones and speaker horn; he turned to the
C.O. “Planes on station, sir." “Thanks, Dick." The horn growled, “Station Charlie to Control; we fixed it." The navy man said to Hanby, “All stations ready, range clear." “Pick up the count." “All stations, stand by to resume count at minus seventeen minutes. Time station, pick up the count. This is a live nun. Repeat, this is a live run."
Hanby said to Reynolds, “Distance makes no difference?"
“We could work from Salt Lake City once my colleagues knew the setup." He glanced down. “My watch must have stopped."
“Always feels that way. Remember the metronome on the first Bikini test? It nearly drove me nuts."
“I can imagine. Um, General, some of my people are high-strung. Suppose I ad lib?"
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