Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  They were, and they greeted Clocker with gladness and drinks. Diplomatically, they made only the most delicate references to the revamping job Clocker had done on his tip sheet.

  "It's just like opening night, that's all," comforted Arnold Wilson Wyle. "You'll get back into your routine pretty soon."

  "I don't want to," said Clocker pugnaciously. "Handicapping is only a way to get people to read what I really want to tell them."

  "Took me many minutes to find horses," Oil Pocket put in. "See one I want to bet on, but rest of paper make me too worried to bother betting. Okay with Injun, though--horse lost. And soon you get happy again, stick to handicapping, let others worry about world."

  Buttonhole tightened his grip on Clocker's lapel. "Sure, boy. As long as the bobtails run, who cares what happens to anything else?"

  "Maybe I went too easy," said Clocker tensely. "I didn't print the whole thing, just a little part of it. Here's the rest."

  * * * * *

  They were silent while he talked, seeming stunned with the terrible significance of his story.

  "Did you explain all this to the doctors?" Doc Hawkins asked.

  "You think I'm crazy?" Clocker retorted. "They'd have kept me packed away and I'd never get a crack at telling anybody."

  "Don't let it trouble you," said Doc. "Some vestiges of delusion can be expected to persist for a while, but you'll get rid of them. I have faith in your ability to distinguish between the real and unreal."

  "But it all happened! If you guys don't believe me, who will? And you've got to so I can get Zelda back!"

  "Of course, of course," said Doc hastily. "We'll discuss it further some other time. Right now I really must start putting my medical column together for the paper."

  "What about you, Handy Sam?" Clocker challenged.

  Handy Sam, with one foot up on the table and a pencil between his toes, was doodling self-consciously on a paper napkin. "We all get these ideas, Clocker. I used to dream about having arms and I'd wake up still thinking so, till I didn't know if I did or didn't. But like Doc says, then you figure out what's real and it don't mix you up any more."

  "All right," Clocker said belligerently to Oil Pocket. "You think my story's batty, too?"

  "Can savvy evil spirits, good spirits," Oil Pocket replied with stolid tact. "Injun spirits, though, not white ones."

  "But I keep telling you they ain't spirits. They ain't even human. They're from some world way across the Universe--"

  Oil Pocket shook his head. "Can savvy Injun spirits, Clocker. No spirits, no savvy."

  "Look, you see the mess we're all in, don't you?" Clocker appealed to the whole group. "Do you mean to tell me you can't feel we're getting set to blow the joint? Wouldn't you want to stop it?"

  "If we could, my boy, gladly," Doc said. "However, there's not much that any individual or group of individuals can do."

  "But how in hell does anything get started? With one guy, two guys--before you know it, you got a crowd, a political party, a country--"

  "What about the other countries, though?" asked Buttonhole. "So we're sold on your story in America, let's say. What do we do--let the rest of the world walk in and take us over?"

  "We educate them," Clocker explained despairingly. "We start it here and it spreads to there. It doesn't have to be everybody. Mr. Calhoun said I just have to convince a few people and that'll show them it can be done and then I get Zelda back."

  Doc stood up and glanced around the table. "I believe I speak for all of us, Clocker, when I state that we shall do all within our power to aid you."

  "Like telling other people?" Clocker asked eagerly.

  "Well, that's going pretty--"

  "Forget it, then. Go write your column. I'll see you chumps around--around ten miles up, shaped like a mushroom."

  He stamped out, so angry that he untypically let the others settle his bill.

  * * * * *

  Clocker's experiment with the newspaper failed so badly that it was not worth the expense of putting it out; people refused to buy. Clocker had three-sheets printed and hired sandwich men to parade them through the city. He made violent speeches in Columbus Circle, where he lost his audience to revivalist orators; Union Square, where he was told heatedly to bring his message to Wall Street; and Times Square, where the police made him move along so he wouldn't block traffic. He obeyed, shouting his message as he walked, until he remembered how amusedly he used to listen to those who cried that Doomsday was near. He wondered if they were catatonics under imperfect control. It didn't matter; nobody paid serious attention to his or their warnings.

  The next step, logically, was a barrage of letters to the heads of nations, to the U.N., to editors of newspapers. Only a few of his letters were printed. The ones in Doc's tabloid did best, drawing such comments as:

  "Who does this jerk think he is, telling us everybody's going to get killed off? Maybe they will, but not in Brooklyn!"

  "When I was a young girl, some fifty years ago, I had a similar experience to Mr. Locke's. But my explanation is quite simple. The persons I saw proved to be my ancestors. Mr. Locke's new-found friends will, I am sure, prove to be the same. The World Beyond knows all and tells all, and my Control, with whom I am in daily communication Over There, assures me that mankind is in no danger whatever, except from the evil effects of tobacco and alcohol and the disrespect of youth for their elders."

  "The guy's nuts! He ought to go back to Russia. He's nothing but a nut or a Communist and in my book that's the same thing."

  "He isn't telling us anything new. We all know who the enemy is. The only way to protect ourselves is to build TWO GUNS FOR ONE!"

  "Is this Locke character selling us the idea that we all ought to go batty to save the world?"

  Saddened and defeated, Clocker went through his accumulated mail. There were politely non-committal acknowledgments from embassies and the U.N. There was also a check for his article from the magazine he'd sent it to; the amount was astonishingly large.

  He used part of it to buy radio time, the balance for ads in rural newspapers and magazines. City people, he figured, were hardened by publicity gags, and he might stir up the less suspicious and sophisticated hinterland. The replies he received, though, advised him to buy some farmland and let the metropolises be destroyed, which, he was assured, would be a mighty good thing all around.

  The magazine came out the same day he tried to get into the U.N. to shout a speech from the balcony. He was quietly surrounded by a uniformed guard and moved, rather than forced, outside.

  * * * * *

  He went dejectedly to his hotel. He stayed there for several days, dialing numbers he selected randomly from the telephone book, and getting the brushoff from business offices, housewives and maids. They were all very busy or the boss wasn't in or they expected important calls.

  That was when he was warmly invited by letter to see the editor of the magazine that had bought his article.

  Elated for actually the first time since his discharge from the hospital, Clocker took a cab to a handsome building, showed his invitation to a pretty and courteous receptionist, and was escorted into an elaborate office where a smiling man came around a wide bleached-mahogany desk and shook hands with him.

  "Mr. Locke," said the editor, "I'm happy to tell you that we've had a wonderful response to your story."

  "Article," Clocker corrected.

  The editor smiled. "Do you produce so much that you can't remember what you sold us? It was about--"

  "I know," Clocker cut in. "But it wasn't a story. It was an article. It really--"

  "Now, now. The first thing a writer must learn is not to take his ideas too seriously. Very dangerous, especially in a piece of fiction like yours."

  "But the whole thing is true!"

  "Certainly--while you were writing it." The editor shoved a pile of mail across the desk toward him. "Here are some of the comments that have come in. I think you'll enjoy seeing the reaction."

  Cl
ocker went through them, hoping anxiously for no more than a single note that would show his message had come through to somebody. He finished and looked up blankly.

  "You see?" the editor asked proudly. "You're a find."

  "The new Mark Twain or Jonathan Swift. A comic."

  "A satirist," the editor amended. He leaned across the desk on his crossed forearms. "A mail response like this indicates a talent worth developing. We would like to discuss a series of stories--"

  "Articles."

  "Whatever you choose to call them. We're prepared to--"

  "You ever been off your rocker?" Clocker asked abruptly.

  * * * * *

  The editor sat back, smiling with polite puzzlement. "Why, no."

  "You ought to try it some time." Clocker lifted himself out of the chair and went to the door. "That's what I want, what I was trying to sell in my article. We all ought to go to hospitals and get ourself let in and have these aliens take over and show us where we're going."

  "You think that would be an improvement?"

  "What wouldn't?" asked Clocker, opening the door.

  "But about the series--"

  "I've got your name and address. I'll let you know if anything turns up. Don't call me; I'll call you."

  Clocker closed the door behind him, went out of the handsome building and called a taxi. All through the long ride, he stared at the thinning out of the city, the huddled suburban communities, the stretches of grass and well-behaved woods that were permitted to survive.

  He climbed out at Glendale Center Hospital, paid the hackie, and went to the admitting desk. The nurse gave him a smile.

  "We were wondering when you'd come visit your wife," she said. "Been away?"

  "Sort of," he answered, with as little emotion as he had felt while he was being controlled. "I'll be seeing plenty of her from now on. I want my old room back."

  "But you're perfectly normal!"

  "That depends on how you look at it. Give me ten minutes alone and any brain vet will be glad to give me a cushioned room."

  Hands in his pockets, Clocker went into the elevator, walked down the corridor to his old room without pausing to visit Zelda. It was the live Zelda he wanted to see, not the tapping automaton.

  He went in and shut the door.

  * * * * *

  "Okay, you were right and I was wrong," Clocker told the board of directors. "Turn me over to Barnes and I'll give him the rest of the dope on racing. Just let me see Zelda once in a while and you won't have any trouble with me."

  "Then you are convinced that you have failed," said Mr. Calhoun.

  "I'm no dummy. I know when I'm licked. I also pay anything I owe."

  Mr. Calhoun leaned back. "And so do we, Mr. Locke. Naturally, you have no way of detecting the effect you've had. We do. The result is that, because of your experiment, we are gladly revising our policy."

  "Huh?" Clocker looked around at the comfortable aliens in their comfortable chairs. Solid and respectable, every one of them. "Is this a rib?"

  "Visits to catatonics have increased considerably," explained Dr. Harding. "When the visitors are alone with our human associates, they tentatively follow the directions you gave in your article. Not all do, to be sure; only those who feel as strongly about being with their loved ones as you do about your wife."

  "We have accepted four voluntary applicants," said Mr. Calhoun.

  Clocker's mouth seemed to be filled with cracker crumbs that wouldn't go down and allow him to speak.

  "And now," Dr. Harding went on, "we are setting up an Information Section to teach the applicants what you have learned and make the same arrangement we made with you. We are certain that we shall, before long, have to increase our staff as the number of voluntary applicants increases geometrically, after we release the first few to continue the work you have so admirably begun."

  "You mean I made it?" Clocker croaked unbelievingly.

  "Perhaps this will prove it to you," said Mr. Calhoun.

  He motioned and the door opened and Zelda came in.

  "Hello, hon," she said. "I'm glad you're back. I missed you."

  "Not like I missed you, baby! There wasn't anybody controlling my feelings."

  Mr. Calhoun put his hands on their shoulders. "Whenever you care to, Mr. Locke, you and your wife are free to leave."

  Clocker held Zelda's hands and her calmly fond gaze. "We owe these guys plenty, baby," he said to her. "We'll help make the record before we take off. Ain't that what you want?"

  "Oh, it is, hon! And then I want you."

  "Then let's get started," he said. "The quicker we do, the quicker we get back."

  * * *

  Contents

  NO CHARGE FOR ALTERATIONS

  By H. L. Gold

  "We got a way to handle that on Deneb. A girl gets highfalutin up there, the Doc puts her in the Ego Alter room. Thicken up her ankles a little, take some of the sparkle out of her eyes and hair, and you get a woman fit to pull a plow!"

  Hold it, Madam! H. L. Gold said that; not us. Personally, we like girls--not Percherons!]

  If there was one thing Dr. Kalmar hated, and there were many, it was having a new assistant fresh from a medical school on Earth. They always wanted to change things. They never realized that a planet develops its own techniques to meet its own requirements, which are seldom similar to those of any other world. Dr. Kalmar never got along with his assistants and he didn't expect to get along with this young Dr. Hoyt who was coming in on the transfer ship from Vega.

  Dr. Kalmar had been trained on Earth himself, of course, but he wistfully remembered how he had revered Dr. Lowell when he had been Lowell's assistant. He'd known that his own green learning was no match for Dr. Lowell's wisdom and experience after 30 years on Deneb, and he had avidly accepted his lessons.

  Why, he grumbled to himself on his way to the spaceport to meet the unknown whippersnapper, why didn't Earth turn out young doctors the way it used to? They ought to have the arrogance knocked out of them before they left medical school. That's what must have happened to him, because his attitude had certainly been humble when he landed.

  The spaceport was jammed, naturally. Ship arrivals were infrequent enough to bring everybody from all over the planet who was not on duty at the farms, mines, factories, freight and passenger jets and all the rest of the busy activities of this comparatively new colony. They brought their lunches and families and stood around to watch. Dr. Kalmar went to the platform.

  The ship sat down on a mushroom of fire that swiftly became a flaming pancake and then was squashed out of existence.

  "I'm waiting for a shipment of livestock," enthused the man standing next to Dr. Kalmar.

  "You're lucky," the doctor said. "They can't talk back."

  The man looked at him sympathetically. "Meeting a female?"

  "Gabbier and more annoying," said Dr. Kalmar, but he didn't elaborate and the man, with the courtesy of the frontier, did not pry for an explanation.

  Livestock and freight came down on one elevator and passengers came down another. Slidewalks carried the cargo to Sterilization and travelers to the greeting platform. Dr. Kalmar felt his shoulders droop. The man with the medical bag had to be Dr. Hoyt and he was even more brisk, erect and muscular than Dr. Kalmar had expected, with a superior and inquisitive look that made the last assistant, unbearable as he'd been, seem as tractable as one of the arriving cows.

  Dr. Hoyt spotted him instantly and came striding over to grab his hand in a grip like an ore-crusher. "You're Dr. Kalmar. Glad to know you. I'm sure we'll get along fine together. Miserable trip. Had to change ships four times to get here. Hope the food's better than shipboard slop. Got a nice hospital to work in? Do I live in or out?"

  Dr. Kalmar was grudgingly forced to say rapidly, "Right. Likewise. I hope so. Too bad. Suits us. I think so. In."

  He got Dr. Hoyt into a jetcab and told the driver to make time back to the hospital. Appointments were piling up while he had to make the courtesy
trip out to the spaceport, which was another nuisance. Now he'd have all of those and a talkative assistant who'd want to know the reasons for everything.

  "Pretty barren," said Dr. Hoyt, looking out the window at the vegetationless ground below. "Why's that?"

  He'd known he was going to Deneb, Dr. Kalmar thought angrily. The least he could have done was read up on the place. He had.

  "It's an Earth-type planet," Dr. Kalmar said in a blunt voice, "except that life never developed on it. We had to bring everything--benign germ cultures, seed, animals, fish, insects--a whole ecology. Our farms are close to the cities. Too wasteful of freight to move them out very far. Another few centuries and we'll have a real population, millions of people instead of the 20,000 we have now in a couple of dozen settlements around this world. Then we'll have the whole place a nice shade of green."

  "City boy myself," said Dr. Hoyt. "Hate the country. Hydroponics and synthetic meat--that's the answer."

  "For Earth. It'll be a long time before we get that crowded here on Deneb."

  "Deneb," the young doctor repeated, dissatisfied. "That's the name of the star. You mean to tell me the planet has the same name?"

  "Most solar systems have only one Earth-type planet. It saves a lot of trouble to just call that planet Deneb, Vega or whatever."

  "Is that clutch of shacks the city?" exclaimed Dr. Hoyt.

  "Denebia," said Dr. Kalmar, beginning to enjoy himself finally.

  "Why, you could lose it in a suburb or Bosyorkdelphia!"

  "That monstrosity that used to be New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts? I wouldn't want to."

  He was pleased when Dr. Hoyt sank into stunned silence. If luck was with him, that stupefaction might last the whole day. It seemed as though it might, for the sight of the modest little hospital was too much for the youngster who had just come from the mammoth health factories of Earth.

  Dr. Hoyt revived somewhat when he saw the patients waiting in the scantily furnished outer room, but Dr. Kalmar said, "Better get yourself settled," and opened a door for his immature colleague.