Ahead of Time

by Henry Kuttner

  There were shadows in the station. After a few days Dr. Ford noticed those intangible, weary shadows that, vampiric, drew the life and the energy from everything. The sphere of influence extended beyond the station itself. Occasionally Crockett went topside and, muffled in his heat-unit parka, went off on dangerous hikes. He drove himself to the limits of exhaustion as though hoping to outpace the monstrous depression that crouched under the ice.

  But the shadows darkened invisibly. The gray, leaden sky of the Antarctic had never depressed Crockett before; the distant mountains, gigantic ranges towering like Ymir's mythical brood, had not seemed sentient till now. They were half alive, too old, too tired to move, dully satisfied to remain stagnantly crouching on the everlasting horizon of the ice fields. As the glaciers ground down, leaden, powerful, infinitely weary, the tide of the downbeat thrust against Crockett. His healthy animal mind shrank back, failed, and was engulfed.

  He fought against it, but the secret foe came by stealth and no wall could keep it out. It permeated him as by osmosis. It was treacherous and deadly.

  Bronson, squatting in silence, his eyes fixed on nothing, sunk into a black pit that would prison him for eternity—Crockett pictured that and shuddered. Too often these days his thoughts went back to illogical tales he had read; M. R. James, and his predecessor Henry James; Bierce and May Sinclair and others who had written of impossible ghosts. Previously Crockett had been able to enjoy ghost stories, getting a vicarious kick out of them, letting himself, for the moment, pretend to believe in the incredible. Can such things be? "Yes," he had said, but he had not believed. Now there was a ghost in the station, and Ford's logical theories could not battle Crockett's age-old superstition-instinct.

  Since hairy men crouched in caves there has been fear of the dark. The fanged carnivores roaring outside in the night have not always been beasts. Psychology has changed them; the distorted, terrible sounds spawned in a place of peril—the lonely, menacing night beyond the firelight's circle—have created trolls and werewolves, vampires and giants and women with hollow backs.

  Yes—there is fear. But most of all, beating down active terror, came the passive, shrouding cloak of infinitely horrible depression.

  The Irishman was no coward. Since Ford's arrival, he had decided to stay, at least until the psychologist's experiment had succeeded or failed. Nevertheless he was scarcely pleased by Ford's guest, the manic-depressive the doctor had mentioned.

  William Quayle looked not at all like Bronson, but the longer he stayed, the more he reminded Crockett of the other man. Quayle was a thin, dark, intense-eyed man of about thirty, subject to fits of violent rage when anything displeased him. His cycle had a range of approximately one week. In that time he would swing from blackest depression to wild exultation. The pattern never varied. Nor did he seem affected by the ghost; Ford said that the intensity of the upcurve was so strong that it blocked the effect of the integrators' downbeat radiation.

  "I have his history," Ford said. "He could have been cured easily at the sanitarium where I found him, but luckily I got my requisition in first. See how interested he's getting in plastics?"

  They were in the Brainpan; Crockett was unwillingly giving the integrators a routine inspection. "Did he ever work in plastics before, Doc?" the Irishman asked. He felt like talking; silence only intensified the atmosphere that was murkiest here.

  "No, but he's dexterous. The work occupies his mind as well as his hands; it ties in with his psychology. It's been three weeks, hasn't it? And Quayle's well on the road to sanity."

  "It's done nothing for . . . for this." Crockett waved toward the white towers.

  "I know. Not yet—but wait a while. When Quayle's completely cured, I think the integrators will absorb the effect of his therapy. Induction—the only possible treatment for a radioatom brain. Too bad Bronson was alone here for so long. He could have been cured if only——"

  But Crockett didn't like to think about that. "How about Quayle's dreams?"

  Ford chuckled. "Hocus-pocus, eh? But in this case it's justified. Quayle is troubled or he wouldn't have gone mad. His troubles show up in dreams, distorted by the censor band. I have to translate them, figuring out the symbolism by what I know of Quayle himself. His word-association tests give me quite a lot of help."

  "How?"

  "He's been a misfit. It stemmed from his early relationships; he hated and feared his father, who was a tyrant. Quayle as a child was made to feel he could never compete with anyone—he'd be sure to fail. He identifies his father with all his obstacles."

  Crockett nodded, idly watching a vernier. "You want to destroy his feeling toward his father, is that it?"

  "The idea, rather, that his father has power. I must prove Quayle's capabilities to himself, and also alter his attitude that his father was infallible. Religious mania is tied in, too, perhaps naturally, but that's a minor factor."

  "Ghosts!" Crockett said suddenly. He was staring at the nearest integrator.

  In the cold clarity of the fluorescents Ford followed the other man's gaze. He pursed his lips, turning to peer down the length of the great underground room, where the silent pillars stood huge and impassive.

  "I know," Ford said. "Don't think I don't feel it, too. But I'm fighting the thing, Crockett. That's the difference. If I simply sat in a corner and absorbed that downbeat, it would get me. I keep active—personifying the downbeat as an antagonist." The hard, tight face seemed to sharpen. "It's the best way."

  "How much longer——"

  "We're approaching the end. When Quayle's cured, we'll know definitely."

  —Bronson, crouching in shadows, sunk in apathetic, hopeless dejection, submerged in a blind blank horror so overwhelming that thought was an intolerable and useless effort—the will to fight gone, leaving only fear, and acceptance of the stifling, encroaching dark——

  This was Bronson's legacy. Yes, Crockett thought, ghosts existed. Now, in the Twenty-first Century. Perhaps never until now. Previously ghosts had been superstition. Here, in the station under the ice, shadows hung where there were no shadows. Crockett's mind was assaulted continuously, sleeping or waking, by that fantastic haunting. His dreams were characterized by a formless, vast, unspeakable darkness that moved on him inexorably, while he tried to run on leaden feet.

  But Quayle grew better.

  Three weeks—four—five—and finally six passed. Crockett was haggard and miserable, feeling that this would be his prison till he died, that he could never leave it. But he stuck it out with dogged persistence. Ford maintained his integrity; he grew tighter, drier, more restrained. Not by word or act did he admit the potency of the psychic invasion.

  But the integrators acquired personalities, for Crockett. They were demoniac, sullen, inhuman afreets crouching in the Brainpan, utterly heedless of the humans who tended them.

  A blizzard whipped the icecap to turmoil; deprived of his trips topside, Crockett became more moody than ever. The automats, fully stocked, provided meals, or the three would have gone hungry. Crockett was too listless to do more than his routine duties, and Ford began to cast watchful glances in his direction. The tension did not slacken.

  Had there been a change, even the slightest variation in the deadly monotony of the downbeat, there might have been hope. But the record was frozen forever in that single phase. Too hopeless and damned even for suicide, Crockett tried to keep a grip on his rocking sanity. He clung to one thought: presently Quayle would be cured, and the ghost would be laid.

  Slowly, imperceptibly, the therapy succeeded. Dr. Ford, never sparing himself, tended Quayle with gentle care, guiding him toward sanity, providing himself as a crutch on which the sick man could lean. Quayle leaned heavily, but the result was satisfying.

  The integrators continued to pour out their downbeat pattern—but with a difference now.

  Crockett noticed it first. He took Ford down to the Brainpan and asked the doctor for his reactions.

  "Reactions? Why? Do you think there's�
��—"

  "Just—feel it," Crockett said, his eyes bright. "There's a difference. Don't you get it?"

  "Yeah," Ford said slowly, after a long pause. "I think so. It's hard to be sure."

  "Not if both of us feel the same thing."

  "That's true. There's a slackening—a cessation. Hm-m-m. What did you do today, Crockett?"

  "Eh? Why—the usual. Oh, I picked up that Aldous Huxley book again."

  "Which you haven't touched for weeks. It's a good sign. The power of the downbeat is slackening. It won't go on to an ascending curve, of course; it'll just die out. Therapy by induction—when I cured Quayle, I automatically cured the integrators." Ford took a long, deep breath. Exhaustion seemed to settle down on him abruptly.

  "You've done it, Doc," Crockett said, something like hero worship in his eyes.

  But Ford wasn't listening. "I'm tired," he muttered. "Oh, my God, I'm tired! The tension's been terrific. Fighting that damned ghost every moment. . . . I haven't dared allow myself a sedative, even. Well, I'm going to break out the amytal now."

  "What about a drink? We ought to celebrate. If——" Crockett looked doubtfully at the nearest integrator. "If you're sure."

  "There's little doubt about it. No, I want my sleep. That's all!"

  He took the lift and was drawn up out of sight. Left alone in the Brainpan, Crockett managed a lopsided grin. There were still shadows lurking in the distance, but they were fading.

  He called the integrators an unprintable name. They remained imperturbable.

  "Oh, sure," Crockett said, "you're just machines. Too damn sensitive, that's all. Ghosts! Well, from now on, I'm the boss. I'm going to invite my friends up here and have one drunken party from sunrise to sunset. And the sun doesn't set for a long time in these latitudes!"

  On that cogent thought, he followed Ford. The psychologist was already asleep, breathing steadily, his face relaxed in tired lines. He looked older, Crockett thought. But who wouldn't?

  The pulse was lessening; the downbeat was fading. He could almost detect the ebb. That unreasoning depression was no longer all-powerful. He was—yeah!—beginning to make plans!

  "I'm going to make chile," Crockett decided. "The way that guy in El Paso showed me. And wash it down with Scotch. Even if I have to celebrate by myself, this calls for an orgy." He thought doubtfully of Quayle, and looked in on the man. But Quayle was glancing over a late novel, and waved casually at his guest.

  "Hi, Crockett. Anything new?"

  "N-no. I just feel good."

  "So do I. Ford says I'm cured. The man's a wonder."

  "He is," Crockett agreed heartily. "Anything you want?"

  "Nothing I can't get for myself." Quayle nodded toward the wall automat slot. "I'm due to be released in a few days. You've treated me like a brother Christian, but I'll be glad to get back home. There's a job waiting for me—one I can fill without trouble."

  "Good. Wish I were going with you. But I've a two-year stretch up here, unless I quit or finagle a transfer."

  "You've got all the comforts of home."

  "Yeah!" Crockett said, shuddering slightly. He hurried off to prepare chile, fortifying himself with smoky-tasting, smooth whisky. If only he wasn't jumping the gun—— Suppose the downbeat hadn't been eliminated? Suppose that intolerable depression came back in all its force?

  Crockett drank more whisky. It helped.

  Which, in itself, was cheering. Liquor intensifies the mood. Crockett had not dared touch it during the downbeat. But now he just got happier, and finished his chile with an outburst of tuneless song. There was no way of checking the psychic emanation of the integrators with any instrument, of course; yet the cessation of that deadly atmosphere had unmistakable significance.

  The radioatom brains were cured. Bronson's mental explosion, with its disastrous effects, had finally run its course and been eliminated—by induction. Three days later a plane picked up Quayle and flew back northward toward South America, leaving Ford to clean up final details and make a last checkup.

  The atmosphere of the station had changed utterly. It was bright, cheerful, functional. The integrators no longer sat like monstrous devil-gods in a private hell. They were sleek, efficient tubes, as pleasing to the eye as a Brancusi, containing radioatom brains that faithfully answered the questions Crockett fed them. The station ran smoothly. Up above, the gray sky blasted a cleansing, icy gale upon the polar cap.

  Crockett prepared for the winter. He had his books, he dug up his sketch pad and examined his water colors, and felt he could last till spring without trouble. There was nothing depressing about the station per se. He had another drink and wandered off on a tour of inspection.

  Ford was standing before the integrators, studying them speculatively. He refused Crockett's offer of a highball.

  "No, thanks. These things are all right now, I believe. The downbeat is completely gone."

  "You ought to have a drink," said Crockett. "We've been through something, brother. This stuff relaxes you. It eases the letdown."

  "No . . . I must make out my report. The integrators are such beautifully logical devices it would be a pity to have them crack up. Luckily, they won't. Now that I've proved it's possible to cure insanity by induction."

  Crockett leered at the integrators. "Little devils. Look at 'em, squatting there as though butter wouldn't melt in their mouths."

  "Hm-m-m. When will the blizzard let up? I want to arrange for a plane."

  "Can't tell. The one before last didn't stop for a week. This one——" Crockett shrugged. "I'll try to find out, but I won't make any promises."

  "I'm anxious to get back."

  "Well——" Crockett said. He took the lift, went back to his office, and checked incoming calls, listing the questions he must feed into the integrators. One of them was important; a geological matter from the California Sub-Tech Quake Control. But it could wait till all the calls were gathered.

  Crockett decided against another drink. For some reason he hadn't fulfilled his intention of getting tight; ordinary relief had proved a strong intoxicant. Now, whistling softly, he gathered the sheaf of items and started back toward the Brainpan. The station looked swell, he thought. Maybe it was the knowledge that he'd had a reprieve from a death sentence. Only it had been worse than knowledge of certain death—that damned downbeat. Ugh!

  He got into the lift, a railed platform working on old-fashioned elevator principles. Magnetic lifts couldn't be used near the integrators. He pushed the button, and, looking down, saw the Brainpan beneath him, the white cylinders dwarfed by perspective.

  Footsteps sounded. Turning, Crockett discovered Ford running toward him. The lift was already beginning to drop, and Crockett's fingers went hastily toward the stop stud.

  He changed his mind as Ford raised his hand and exhibited a pistol. The bullet smashed into Crockett's thigh. He went staggering back till he hit the rail, and by that time Ford had leaped into the elevator, his face no longer prim and restrained, his eyes blazing with madness, and his lips wetly slack.

  He yelled gibberish and squeezed the trigger again. Crockett desperately flung himself forward. The bullet missed, though he could not be sure, and his hurtling body smashed against Ford. The psychologist, caught off balance, fell against the rail. As he tried to fire again, Crockett, his legs buckling, sent his fist toward Ford's jaw.

  The timing, the balance, were fatally right. Ford went over the rail. After a long time Crockett heard the body strike, far down.

  The lift sank smoothly. The gun still lay on the platform. Crockett, groaning, began to tear his shirt into an improvised tourniquet. The wound in his thigh was bleeding badly.

  The cold light of the fluorescents showed the towers of the integrators, their tops level with Crockett now, and then rising as he continued to drop. If he looked over the edge of the platform, he could see Ford's body. But he would see it soon enough anyway.

  It was utterly silent.

  Tension, of course, and delayed reacti
on. Ford should have got drunk. Liquor would have made a buffer against the violent reaction from those long weeks of hell. Weeks of battling the downbeat, months in which Ford had kept himself keenly alert, visualizing the menace as a personified antagonist, keying himself up to a completely abnormal pitch.

  Then success, and the cessation of the downbeat. And silence, deadly, terrifying—time to relax and think.

  And Ford—going mad.

  He had said something about that weeks ago, Crockett remembered. Some psychologists have a tendency toward mental instability; that's why they gravitate into the field, and why they understand it.

  The lift stopped. Ford's motionless body was about a yard away. Crockett could not see the man's face.

  Insanity—manic-depressives are fairly simple cases. The schizophrenic are more complex. And incurable.

  Incurable.

  Dr. Ford was a schizoid type. He had said that, weeks ago.

  And now, Dr. Ford, a victim of schizophrenic insanity, had died by violence, as Bronson had died. Thirty white pillars stood in the Brainpan, cryptically impassive, and Crockett looked at them with the beginning of a slow, dull horror.

  Thirty radioatom brains, supersensitive, ready to record a new pattern on the blank wax disks. Not manic-depressive this time, not the downbeat.

  On the contrary, it would be uncharted, incurable schizophrenic insanity.

  A mental explosion—yeah. Dr. Ford, lying there dead, a pattern of madness fixed in his brain at the moment of death. A pattern that might be anything.

  Crockett watched the thirty integrators and wondered what was going on inside those gleaming white shells. He would find out before the blizzard ended, he thought, with a sick horror.

  For the station was haunted again.