Were those human voices? Cuff shifted uneasily on his Indian fakir’s seat. He had gone about four miles after leaving Hickey’s scientific station.
They were voices, but not human ones. They belonged to a dozen ‘fene abantu, who came loping through the grass with old Indlovu at their head.
Cuff reached back and thumped Soga’s tail. If he could get the croc going all out, he might be able to run away from his late hosts. Soga wasn’t as fast as a horse, but he could trot right along. Cuff was relieved to see that they hadn’t brought his rifle along. They were armed with kerries and spears, like any of the more savage abantu. Perhaps the fear of injuring their pet would make them hesitate to throw things at him. At least he hoped so.
A familiar voice caught up with him in a piercing yell of “Soga!” The croc slackened his pace and tried to turn his head. Cuff whacked him unmercifully. Indlovu’s yell came again, followed by a whistle. The croc was now definitely off his stride. Cuff’s efforts to keep him headed away from his proper masters resulted in his zigzagging erratically. The contrary directions confused and irritated him. He opened his jaws and hissed. The baboon-men were gaining rapidly.
So, thought Cuff, this is the end. I hate like hell to go out before I’ve had a chance to write my report. But mustn’t show it. Not an Englishman and an officer of the Crown. Wonder what poor Mtengeni’ll think.
Something went whick past him; a fraction of a second later, the crash of an elephant rifle reached him. A big puff of dust ballooned up in front of the baboon-men. They skittered away from it as if the dust and not the bullet that made it were something deadly. George Mtengeni appeared from behind the nearest patch of thorn scrub, and yelled, “Hold still there, or me, I’ll blow your heads off.” If the ‘f ene abantu couldn’t understand his English, they got his tone.
Cuff thought vaguely, good old George, he could shoot their ears off at that distance, but he has more sense then to kill any of them before he finds out. Cuff slid off Soga and almost fell in a heap.
The warden came up. “What … what in the heavens has been happening to you, Mr. Cuff? What are these?” He indicated the baboon-men.
“Joke,” giggled Cuff. “Good joke on you, George. Been living in your dashed Park for years, and you never knew—Wait, I’ve got to explain something to these chaps. I say, Indlovu … hell, he doesn’t know English. Got to use Xosa. You know Xosa, don’t you George?” He giggled again.
“Why, me, I … I can follow it. It’s much like Zulu. But my God, what happened to the seat of your pants?”
Cuff pointed a wavering finger at Soga’s sawtoothed back. “Good old Soga. Should have had a saddle. Dashed outrage, not providing a saddle for His Majesty’s representative.”
“But you look as if you’d been skinned! Me, I’ve got to get you to a hospital … and what about your foot?”
“T’hell with the foot. ‘Nother joke, Can’t stand up, can’t sit down. Jolly, what? Have to sleep on my stomach. But, Indlovu! I’m sorry I had to run away. I couldn’t marry Ingwamza. Really. Because … because—” Athelstan Cuff swayed and collapsed in a small, ragged pile.
Peter Cuff’s eyes were round. He asked the inevitable small-boy question: “What happened then?”
Athelstan Cuff was stuffing his pipe. “Oh, about what you’d expect. Indlovu was jolly vexed, I can tell you, but he didn’t dare do anything with George standing there with the gun. He calmed down later after he understood what I had been driving at, and we became good friends. When he died, Cukata was elected chief in his place. I still get Christmas cards from him.”
“Christmas cards from a baboon?”
“Certainly. If I get one next Christmas, I’ll show it to you. It’s the same card every year. He’s an economical fella, and he bought a hundred cards of the same pattern because he could get them at a discount.”
“Were you all right?”
“Yes, after a month in the hospital. I still don’t know why I didn’t get sixteen kinds of blood poisoning. Fool’s luck, I suppose.”
“But what’s that got to do with me being a ‘dopted boy?”
“Peter!” Cuff gave the clicks represented in the Bantu languages by x and in English by tsk. “Isn’t it obvious? That tube of Hickey’s was on when I approached his house. So I got a full dose of the radiations. Their effect was to produce violent mutations in the germ-plasm. You know what that is, don’t you? Well, I never dared have any children of my own after that, for fear they’d turn out to be some sort of monster. That didn’t occur to me until afterward. It fair bowled me over, I can tell you, when I did think of it. I went to pieces, rather, and lost my job in South Africa. But now that I have you and your mother, I realize that it wasn’t so important after all.”
“Father—” Peter hesitated.
“Go on, old man.”
“If you’d thought of the rays before you went to the house, would you have been brave enough to go ahead anyway?”
Cuff lit his pipe and looked off at nothing. “I’ve often wondered about that myself. I’m dashed if I know. I wonder … just what would have happened—”
FLIGHT INTO DARKNESS
Webb Marlowe
Writers of science-fiction attempt logical guesses about the future but they seldom set themselves up as prophets. Yet (as in “Nerves”) some amazingly accurate forecasts have crept into recent stories. Written in 1942, “Flight into Darkness,” predicts the building of the first rocket ship by a Nazi. And, as Mr. Ley has illustrated, that is exactly what happened! Further, author Marlowe presents an all-too-reasonable hypothesis of what might happen if we grow too lax in our rule of the beaten, but unreconstructed, Fascists.
* * *
DR. LINKMAN stepped rapidly across the subway platform and into the elevator that went to the street. He stood quiet, with soldierly erectness, as the elevator shot from a depth of three hundred feet below ground to more than five hundred above it. His hard face was expressionless, showing no sign of the triumph that boiled within him.
He left the elevator at the eighth level, walked a block down the glass-enclosed span and entered his apartment. He skirted the comfortable living room, went through a bedroom and entered a small closet. The closet was bare of furniture. What hung on the wall gave the tiny room distinction and lent it the air of being a shrine.
A large, framed photograph of Hoffman hung there. The fat, cruel face, magnified many times life-size, stared out challengingly. Below the picture hung a battered sword and an officer’s dress helmet.
Dr. Linkman lifted his hand in the forbidden salute.
“At last, my Leader,” he breathed. “The day of restoration is dawning!”
The door of the bedroom behind him opened. Linkman whirled, took a step forward, blocking the door of the closet. His crippled brother, Franz, limped into the room.
Linkman smiled thinly.
“Ah, Franz,” he said. “I have good news for you.”
. The cripple’s sad face lighted.
“Josef! They have made you manager of the plant?”
“Yes, I have worked my way up in the approved democratic fashion! After much pondering, our masters have decided that Colonel General Linkman is gone and the recently graduated Dr. Linkman is a thoroughly reformed character. Why, if I make good on this assignment, they may even let me—what do they say?—run for office! Bah!”
“But, Josef, will they … will they let you work on my—”
“Silence!”
Dr. Linkman strode forward and put both hands on his brother’s twisted shoulders.
“You will forget that—as they have forgotten it! You hear?” He shook the boy a little. “Yes, I will work on it! I will build it! But you must be silent about our work. Understand?”
Franz nodded. Then he caught sight of the picture.
“The Leader!” he gasped. “Josef! His picture is forbidden!” Linkman drove his fingers into Franz’s shoulders until the boy cried aloud.
/>
“That, too, is another thing you will never mention,” he said slowly.
“Oh, don’t, Josef! You’re hurting me! But it is against the law—” His voice trailed off into broken sobs.
Linkman’s fingers relaxed slowly, almost reluctantly, and his arms dropped to his sides.
“Against their law, boy. I obey the Leader’s law!”
Franz’s small body seemed to shrink even more.
“But my ship … your position … I thought—”
Linkman grinned down at him.
“Do not worry, little Franz. Your ship will be built. It shall be a tribute to his memory.”
He turned back to the closet and saluted again. Then he closed the closet door, reverently.
“Come, Franz,” he said, almost pleasantly, “it is time for dinner. And if you doubt me or my course, little brother, just remember how all their technicians laughed at you when you went to them with plans for a rocketship that would travel to the Moon and beyond!”
Hastings looked from General McClernand to Oliver. He shifted uneasily in his chair and looked down at the papers in his hand.
“After all, gentlemen,” he murmured, “I’m just the head of a department and—”
“And I’m just an old soldier!” roared McClemand. He scowled fiercely at Oliver. “I don’t pack any weight here, either.”
Mark Oliver grinned amiably at the old man. His long figure slouched lower in the chair behind the big desk.
“Sorry, Hastings,” he said gently. “Don’t let the general’s bickering with me embarrass you. And don’t be alarmed because he takes your side of the matter.”
“It isn’t a question of sides, sir,” Hastings said. “It’s just a question of fact advanced by my department.”
“Exactly!” bellowed McClernand. He leaned forward and pounded Oliver’s desk. “Here’s this soulless Department of Psychological Correction comin’ out and challengin’ your pet, Linkman. D’ye remember, now, how I kicked when you appointed him?”
“Of course. You won’t let me forget.” Oliver’s quiet voice grew a little weary. “You just won’t forget, Mac, that the war’s over and we’ve got a job to do—without prejudice.”
“Maybe I won’t forget. But Hastings, here—he doesn’t know anything about Linkman’s past—an’ he comes here—”
“I ah, beg your pardon, general.”
Hastings was acutely uneasy. The general’s roars would never have been tolerated in the Psycho section. He looked at Oliver’s face, placid under the old man’s wrath. There was strength, there, underneath the calm. Why didn’t he use some of it against the soldier’s irrational outbreaks?
He cleared his throat again.
“If I might state my report,” he ventured.
“Yes, Mac,” said Oliver. “For Heaven’s sake, pipe down and let Mr. Hastings state his case.”
Oliver clasped his hands behind his neck and leaned back. His attitude was one of careless ease, but his eyes were intent on the psychologist.
“Very well, sir. Ahem.” He leafed through the report. “Ah, three mechanics, Cutlar, Vomov and Lockheim were discharged from the Zellerkraft plane factory. That’s a native-managed concern.”
“Your precious Linkman is the head man,” growled McClernand.
“Charges were,” continued Hastings, “maladjustment to occupation, lack of disciplinary balance, no receptivity to routine, general debility and so on.”
“Put that in my language,” ordered McClernand.
“Certainly. It means, simply, that they were lazy, incompetent, insubordinate and took poor physical care of themselves.”
“Well,” asked Oliver, “why have you come to me?” He unclasped his hands and sat up straight in his chair.
“Just this, sir. The primary character and aptitude analyses that were made on these men gave no indication of such a development. When they were pronounced ready to begin work under our government, we had every reason to believe they would progress, not deteriorate.”
“I see.”
“Further—” Hastings swallowed and plunged on. “They have voluntarily applied to us for testing. Our preliminary examination gives no evidence that the alleged character reversal has taken place.”
McClernand jumped to his feet again.
“See!” he snapped. “There’s dirty work. That Linkman—”
“Just a minute!” Oliver did not raise his voice, but McClernand became quiet. “A psychograph of your emotional balance, Mac, might not give you a very high rating. Now, please be quiet until I’m through with Mr. Hastings.”
He turned to Hastings and the young man fidgeted in his chair again. But Oliver’s tone was kindly.
“Just what conclusion is your department trying to draw?” the director asked. “And why have you come to me?”
“Well, sir—” Hastings began to wish he’d never been promoted to such arduous jobs as arguing with big shots. “We can see no reason why such charges should have been preferred against these men. The manager of the factory is a native of doubtful antecedents—”
Oliver took out a pipe and began to fill it. He stared at McClernand’s beet-red face. Although Oliver’s face was impassive, Hastings could have sworn he saw the director’s lips twitch.
“Tell me, Mac,” the director asked, “just what your attitude is.”
“Well,” snarled the old man, “I think there’s some of these natives that ought to be taken out and shot! Linkman’s one of ’em. I know—I fought him for five years! But you think he’s reformed! So—after he gets this job—he cans some employees under suspicious circumstances— I want it investigated.”
Oliver applied the glowing tip of his lighter to his pipe. He puffed slowly for a few seconds, then leaned back easily in his chair. “Gentlemen,” he said, “it has been investigated. Dr. Linkman wrote me of his intention to discharge those men. With his letter, he sent affidavits from workmen in the plant, corroborating his charges. As a final point, I would remind you that their dismissal was approved by the plant guild.”
Hastings looked down at his papers.
McClernand made a wordless noise.
Oliver got up from his desk and walked to the window. He stared out over the clean, white city, his view a tangle of arching traffic spans, needlelike spires of dwellings, spotted here and there by the dark green of hanging parks.
“Come here, gentlemen,” he said.
They got up wonderingly and stood by him.
“See,” he said. “That is theirs. Not ours, theirs. And we must give it back to them as soon as we can. We have a home of our own, you know, and I, for one, would like to get back to it. Because, fundamentally, we don’t belong here.”
Young Hastings then realized why Mark Oliver was director of this Occupied Area. He realized, more dimly perhaps, why he, himself, could never hold such a job.
Oliver turned from the window.
“That is why, Mac, and you, too, Mr. Hastings, that is why I have given Dr. Linkman his position. Why I will give others similar positions. I may make mistakes. If I do, I will remedy those errors as fully as I am able. But we must, all of us, run the risk of error—and run that risk cheerfully, so we can get our job done and go home.”
He put his hand on Hasting’s shoulder.
“Continue with your tests, Mr. Hastings. When you have a complete report, bring it to me.”
“Yes, sir.” Hastings put his papers in his brief case and walked to the door. There he turned. His eyes behind his glasses were very bright. “Thank you, sir,” he said.
The door had barely slid shut behind him when McClernand grabbed Oliver by the arm.
“That was all very pretty, Mark,” he growled. “And good for the youngster. But you can’t fool these psychiatrists. They’re scientists—”
“They’re scientists as long as they agree with your prejudices, Mac. Now, let go my arm and I’ll
order up a drink for us.” McClernand straightened and moved back a pace.
“I’m an old has-been,” he muttered. “My opinion doesn’t count in these days of love and kisses for the enemy!”
Oliver threw his arms wide in a gesture of despair.
“For the love of Heaven, Mac,” he cried, “just what do you suspect Linkman of doing?”
“I don’t know. I only know he’s in a spot to do harm if he’s a mind to. And I know damn well he’s a mind to! The butcher!”
Oliver shook his head wearily.
“Sony, Mac,” he said quietly. “I can’t discuss it further. If I err, it’s got to be on the side of tolerance. That’s why I’m here.”
“All right, all right!” McClernand stamped to the door. “Just remember, son, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks!”
If it had been an old-fashioned door, he would have slammed it shut behind him.
Dr. Linkman glanced at his wrist watch. It showed five minutes past five. In the outer office he could hear his secretary close hex electrotyper.
She appeared in the doorway, coat in hand.
“Good night, Dr. Linkman.”
Linkman smiled benevolently.
“Good night, my dear.”
She frowned a little.
“Don’t stay late, sir. You’ve been working awfully hard lately.” “Now, now,” he said. “You run along and don’t worry about me.
You must enjoy yourself—not think of an old man like me.”
She shook her curly head. “You’re not old, doctor.”
She smiled again as she went out. Linkman heard the office door slide shut behind her. The benevolent look was replaced by a scowl.
“Little flirt,” he grated. “Women in industry—bah! Their place is in the home, bearing children for the race!” He shrugged. “Ah, well. That, too, will change.”
He walked over to the production chart on the wall.
Adventures in Time and Space Page 93
