by John Brunner
“Yes. I’m sure that’s so.” Malcolm exchanged one jar for another from the shelf in his kitchenette. “In fact I must have sensed that, I think, when I compared it to loss of the power to excrete allantoin. And what’s most significant is the fact that if VC had evolved naturally it would instantly have caught on.”
“Didn’t someone argue that DDT probably occurred in the. course of evolution?” Sawyer said.
“Yes, I’ve seen mention of that idea.” As a loud creak came from overhead, Malcolm winced. “Oh, dear! I used to think it was Billy’s weight that made that floor squeal as he walked across it. Ruth’s not more than half his weight! The central heating must have loosened the nails during the time I could afford to run it.” He hesitated a moment. “Hmm! I can afford to run it again. I wonder whether I should.”
And switched the subject back again. “Yes, if DDT did occur in a natural species, it very likely killed it off!”
“Malcolm, could I ask …? Well, you know I resigned, so I’m out of work, and I’m blacklisted at the Home Office, so I can’t set up my own agency or join a security force–which I don’t want to do, but couldn’t even if I did–and I have a wife and kid, so I wondered if you could … Well, you’re out of work too, and you’ve lost your lodgers, all of them, and you’re surviving. How?”
“No loss, those lodgers, barring Billy,” Malcolm said, and for a moment his face darkened. “Bastards! How I’d like to get even with the godheads who set fire to that club! But … Well, last Saturday the weather was good enough for there to be football the first time in two months, right?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“So I sent in a pools coupon. I didn’t win the jackpot, but I did get twelve thousand pounds. Gambling, I suspect, is among the things that VC will wipe out.”
Sawyer’s jaw dropped.
“Want a thousand of it?” Malcolm added. “You’re welcome. I can name companies whose shares will double because of the approaching war. Companies that Charkall-Phelps and Lady Washgrave have holdings in!”
“That didn’t occur to me,” Sawyer said. “And it should have done.”
“Why? If the same things occurred to everybody as a result of taking VC, there’d be substance in Ruth’s charge about it turning us into ants. I don’t believe there’s the least risk of that happening. The human genetic pool is inconceivably large. So far, all VC has done is accentuate a bias already there–provided it was a social bias. Antisocial responses seem to be overlaid with an enhanced awareness of what it would feel like to suffer the consequences of the actions that stem from them. The more I think about this, the more I’m convinced that we are witnessing an evolutionary advance, neither planned for by a deity nor the result of blind chance, but a necessary and highly probable occurrence. Put sufficient quantities of raw elements a certain distance from a certain type of sun, and life cannot help but appear. Perhaps if you put a sufficiently large number of conscious beings in a sufficiently terrible predicament that may lead to their extermination, they will necessarily hit on the solution to their problems. If that’s true, then we have some very interesting contacts to look forward to in a century or two, when we’ve cleaned house.”
“I–uh-I get the feeling you mean we,” Sawyer said after a pause.
“I very well may,” Malcolm conceded. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve already started to avoid, automatically, some of the things which I know can accelerate the natural aging of my body. Later, when we have time and leisure for introspection, I see no reason why we shouldn’t analyse the causes of senility and take very effective steps to postpone them. We aren’t built for immortality, and that’s scarcely surprising, but despite our inheritance of a universe in constant flux there’s no obvious reason why we should not attune ourselves to something more like a galactic time-scale.”
He hesitated, gazing into nowhere. “Not the present generation,” he said, “but the next after that, ought to be a very remarkable group of people … That is, if we can bring them into existence.” He briskened. “And we have that problem in mind, don’t we? And its solution!”
He opened a drawer and produced a hypodermic which he carefully rinsed before inserting it into one of the widest red veins in a jar of VC.
“Speaking of godheads, as we were a moment ago,” Sawyer said, “I gather you’ve had no more trouble with them since poor Billy died.”
“Almost none. It’s conceivable that godheads from around here fired the club, isn’t it? Possibly followed him from home. If so, maybe they feel they’ve overstepped the mark at last.” Malcolm’s tone was stern. “They do still show up one or two evenings a week, but they’ve been content to stand begging in the street rather than invade people’s homes. I hope I can ignore them for the time being.”
He closed his eyes for a second. “Matter of fact, they’re about due. If they do come by tonight, it’ll be soon.”
“You–ah–you’re not wearing a watch,” Sawyer said.
“Nor are you,” Malcolm grunted, transferring the contents of his syringe into a small jar already primed with the substrate. “Nor would Ruth be, except that I gave her the one she wears as a present after the first time we made love.”
“I know.” Sawyer licked his lips. “Funny, isn’t it? I’ve been wondering whether the ability to agree on a common subjective time, rather than obey the dictates of clocks, which are after all machines, may not give us back some of our lost sense of shared humanity.”
“That’s a very good point,” Malcolm said. He handed over the jar of VC-infected substrate. “There you are. Harry knows what to do with it, does he?”
“Oh, yes. And, given what the Australian government has been saying, that may make all the difference. Their pompous posturing has made me sick! All those hot-air speeches about how the British have ruined their precious heritage and let their traditions be eroded by admitting dark-skinned immigrants … Lord, it’s the same process which made English the most flexible and versatile language on the planet.”
“And I suspect the only one which can adapt to express what VC endows us with,” Malcolm said. “You saw the note that Maurice left.”
“Yes, and given that he’d reached a stage even more advanced than you have I see what you mean.” Sawyer was hiding the little jar safely in an inside pocket. “Funny!” he muttered. “To think I’m aiding a thief to skip the country … Well, circumstances alter cases.”
He glanced up alertly, like a dog catching a scent. “By the way, your local godheads appear to have changed their minds, don’t they? They’ve started banging at doors again.”
Malcolm concentrated for an instant. “So they have. I wonder why. After the fiery cross was found in the ruins of the Universal Joint, even around here they were being howled down, for the first time ever.”
“Perhaps they’ve taken fresh heart from the fact that Lady Washgrave’s Crusade is still packing in the customers. You saw? Eight thousand in Doncaster, eleven thousand in Liverpool …”
“How people delude themselves,” Malcolm muttered. “Sooner or later all the finest ideals of mankind have led to overreaction. Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire and was perverted into a justification for slavery. The proud slogan of the French Revolution was inscribed over the guillotine. The oppressed victims of the tsars proceeded to treat their former rulers with even greater brutality.”
“It’s a fearful pattern,” Sawyer sighed.
“But one which we’re in a fair way to breaking,” Malcolm said. He was absently listening to the oncoming godheads. They were chanting now, sure sign of a large gang of them.
Before Sawyer could comment, Ruth came rushing down the stairs and ran into the room. Daringly, she had put on a pair of tight jeans such as she might have worn ten years ago for the dusty job of clearing out Billy’s room and packing up his belongings for return to his parents in America; Lady Washgrave had declared it disgusting for a woman to wear man’s clothing, and jeans, pants-suits, sla
cks, hot-pants, had all vanished from London’s streets under a hail of insults and sometimes missiles from her followers.
“Ruth, you look fantastic!” Sawyer said. “It must be–oh, two years at least since I saw a woman in trousers, and doesn’t it suit you?”
She smiled acknowledgement of the compliment, but didn’t answer. Instead, she addressed Malcolm.
“Mal, there are godheads on the way–haven’t you heard them?”
“Yes, of course we have. So?”
“They must have made a killing today. They’re drunk. I have the window open upstairs to blow the dust out, and I can smell whisky on the wind. And glass is being broken, too.”
Sawyer, instantly tense, said, “Not windows.”
“No, empty bottles, I think.”
Malcolm pondered a second. Then he said, “David, how long are you still officially Chief Inspector Jarman-Sawyer?”
“Why, until my four weeks … I’m with you. Yes, it will be a pure pleasure.”
Ruth glanced from one to the other of them in amazement. “What was all that about–? No, don’t tell me. I get it, too. Oh, Mal, I could kick myself, you know, for being so silly when I first realised you’d given me VC! I never had a better present in my life, and I never got one by a nicer means!”
She stretched on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.
“It’s so wonderful not to be at a loss any more. All the time in my job I used to find myself staring and staring for half an hour at a time at columns of figures or new tax regulations, waiting for them to make sense … Now it happens in a flash. You answer, right? I come down the stairs, and David hangs back until they put their necks in the noose. Fine! A sort of–uh–memorial service for Billy!”
She darted out again.
“Has everyone else shown a similarly positive reaction?” Sawyer inquired.
“Oh, yes. Arthur and Wilfred are still successfully duping this man Gifford, whom I hate on the strength of what they’ve told me. Bob Bradshaw is recovering steadily–you know he’s staying with Hector and Anne? Yes? He’s had the worst passage of all of us, even worse than me; he had to undergo the process in ignorance, and what’s more in a strange city, and what’s more he had further to fall, as it were. None of the rest of us had to abandon a long-cherished deep-seated faith; we were all disillusioned in some degree, but he was firmly convinced he was on the side of righteousness until VC changed his mind. I do wish chance had given us a rabid Marxist, for example, as a control study … But Hector says he will be okay in another few days.”
“And well enough to play his part in this?”
“Oh, yes. By the way, later tonight I’m expecting Valentine Crawford and his girl-friend to drop in. He’s going to sow a bit more VC in–ah–crucial places. Here they come!” he interrupted himself, and turned towards the door.
Five seconds, and the doorbell rang. Malcolm gave a wry grin and headed along the hallway.
“This,” he faintly heard from Sawyer, “will make a change!”
He opened the door. At once four burly godheads, with a bespectacled girl following, burst into the hallway, their plastic crosses raised head-high. The first of them he didn’t recognise; the one who entered second, however, was the same whom Billy had shouldered down the steps on the day VC broke loose.
“Ah!” the latter cried with satisfaction. “Mr Fry as ever was! Shut the door, you!” he added to the girl, and as number four pushed Malcolm out of the way she compliantly did as she was told.
Very clearly they had all been drinking; the harshness of whisky was fierce in Malcolm’s sensitised nostrils.
“A while since you tithed to us, isn’t it?” the godhead rasped, while Malcolm convincingly pantomimed agitation. “Last time I remember was before that bugger Cohen knocked me over!” He laughed with relish. “And we all know what became of him, don’t we? Good riddance, too!”
“Malcolm, what in the world is–?”
That was Ruth, rounding the curve of the stairs, and stopping dead with her hand to her mouth as she came in sight of the godheads.
“Well, I never!” the spokesman said, staring at her. “The Scarlet Woman herself! Like it both ways, do you, then?” He poked Malcolm in the ribs with the butt of his cross. “Well, someone that perverted owes us a lot more than the average run of decent people. Fifty quid, let’s say–shall we?”
“Fifty?” Malcolm echoed, feigning horror.
“From each of you,” the godhead said. And grinned broadly. “Come on, be quick about it! Otherwise … Well, you wouldn’t want to wake up one morning and find yourself fried in your bed, would you? All melted down together into a big charred intimate lump!” He snapped his fingers at Malcolm. “Come on, let’s be having you!”
“You’re under arrest,” said a quiet firm voice, and David Sawyer appeared from the living-room door, while Malcolm in the same moment pushed the girl in glasses away from the door and set his back to it. “I am Detective Chief Inspector Sawyer, and I am charging you with demanding money with menaces. I warn you that anything you–”
“Malcolm, look out!” Ruth shouted. But Malcolm’s newly sharpened reflexes were adequate to cope with the wild swing the nearest godhead aimed. He snatched the heavy cross and used its butt to drive the wind out of its owner, and then the ends of the cross-piece to break the grip of the nearer two of the survivors on their own weapons, and by then Sawyer had tripped up and disarmed the remaining man. The girl simply stood there staring in dismay until Malcolm relieved her of her cross, too; then she started crying.
“Use of reasonable force to prevent them evading arrest,” Sawyer said didactically. “Score one, as it were. Ruth, kindly dial nine-nine-nine and ask for a Black Maria to take these ruffians away!”
XX
“You! Kneller!”
The voice was as brutal as a blow from a club. Kneller and Randolph, who had been talking together in low tones close to the big window of the former’s office–rain-smeared like half-melted gelatine–spun around in unison to face the door.
“Gifford!” Kneller snapped. “What the hell do you mean by marching in here without an invitation?”
“It’s Doctor Gifford!” the intruder barked, and strode towards them, fists clenched. “Oh, I know damned well you think I’m a stupid son-of-a-bitch with no right to call myself a scientist–I know because I’ve overheard you!”
He realised abruptly that his hands were doubled over, and with a visible effort unfolded them and thrust them in the side-pockets of his invariable dark-blue blazer.
“Overheard?” Kneller repeated slowly. “Do you mean you’ve been–uh–bugging us?”
Gifford ignored that. He said, “But I wasn’t such a fool as you thought! Oh, you went to considerable lengths, you displayed considerable ingenuity … but it’s my job to smoke out traitors, and anybody with the wits of a jackass could tell you’re both traitors within an hour of meeting you!”
He was on the verge of ranting; tiny drops of spittle flew from his lips.
“What in the world are you talking about?” Randolph said.
“Your theft of VC!” Gifford blasted. “A theft of government property, what’s more!”
“What theft–?” Randolph said, but Kneller cut him short.
“I don’t know what you mean when you refer to ‘government property’! And I warn you, Doctor Gifford–since you insist on the title–that uttering charges of theft at random could involve you in a suit for slander, which I must confess would delight me. I should love to hear you explain in a court of law how you eavesdropped on private conversations, illegally under the Privacy Act of nineteen seventy-six, and decided to let fly with wild accusations because you heard yourself described as what you are!”
Planting his knuckles on his desk, he scowled at Gifford.
With intense difficulty the latter kept his answer down to a similar conversational level. He said, “Government property, Professor. On my recommendation, Mr Charkall-Phelps this morning signed an order req
uisitioning all stocks of VC wherever they may be located … under the provisions of the National Emergency Act, nineteen seventy-eight!” He straightened to his full height with an expression of triumph.
“I’m sure you thought you were being very clever when you aped Dr Post’s example and filched some VC from these labs. But you made away with so much of it!”
Randolph and Kneller exchanged meaning glances.
“I don’t know what use you have in mind for it,” Gifford went on. “But most likely you’ve been planning to sell it to the highest bidder. I know what you’re like when you’re crossed. I know how desperately you cling to what you think is rightfully yours, determined to milk it for everything it can yield! Regardless of what other people’s best interests may dictate!”
He glared furiously from one to the other of them. “It’s the plain duty of someone who makes an invention essential to national defence to assign it to the government! I say again, the plain duty! Not that you’d know what the word means without looking it up in the dictionary, would you?” He sniffed and turned down the corners of his lips.
“I think I know what’s happened,” Kneller said, his face reflecting the great light which had just dawned on him.
“What’s happened is that you stole at least a test-tubeful of VC from these labs and imagined that you could muddle the trail enough to fool me–me, the man with no right to call himself a scientist!” Gifford breathed heavily. “But I got on to you! I felt that breath of suspicion which people in my profession learn to respond to.”
“Your profession?” Kneller said from the side of his mouth, and without awaiting a reply continued to Randolph, “Arthur, the trustees of the Gull-Grant Foundation.”
“Yes. Eager to move us off this potentially valuable site.”
“And Washgrave Properties.”
“Ditto. Eager to buy.”
“And–uh–a certain cabinet minister?”
