Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume One

by Short Story Anthology

Larry said, so softly as hardly to be heard, “What will that accomplish?”

  “Money is the greatest social-label of them all. The Professor believes that through this step the Movement will have accomplished its purpose. That people will be forced to utilize their judgment, rather than depend upon social-labels.”

  Larry didn't follow that, but he had no time to go further now. He said, still evenly soft, “And when is the Movement going to do this?”

  La Verne moved comfortably. “The trucks go out to distribute the money tonight. The rockets are waiting. The firing will take place in a few days.”

  “And where is the Professor now?”

  “Where the money and the trucks are hidden, darling. What difference does it make?” LaVerne said sleepily.

  “And where is that?”

  “At the Greater Washington Trucking Corporation. It's owned by one of the Movement's members.”

  He said. “There's a password. What is it?”

  “Judgment.”

  Larry Woolford bounced to his feet. He looked down at her, then over at the phone. In three quick steps he was over to it. He grasped its wires and yanked them from the wall, silencing it. He slipped into the tiny elevator, locking the door to the den behind him.

  As the door slid closed, her voice wailed, still sleepily husky, “Larry, darling, where are you—”

  He ran down the walk of the house, vaulted into the car and snapped on its key. He slammed down the lift lever, kicked the thrust pedal and was thrown back against the seat by the acceleration.

  Even while he was climbing, he flicked on the radio-phone, called Personal Service for the location of the Greater Washington Trucking Corporation.

  Fifteen minutes later, he parked a block away from his destination, noting with satisfaction that it was still an hour or more to go until dark. His intuition, working doubletime now, told him that they'd probably wait until nightfall to start their money-laden trucks to rolling.

  He hesitated momentarily before turning on the phone and dialing the Boss' home address.

  When the other's face faded in, it failed to display pleasure when the caller's identity was established. His superior growled, “Confound it, Woolford, you know my privacy is to be respected. This phone is to be used only in extreme emergency.”

  “Yes, sir,” Larry said briskly. “It's the Movement—”

  The other's face darkened still further. “You're not on that assignment any longer, Woolford. Walter Foster has taken over and I'm sympathetic to his complaints that you've proven more a hindrance than anything else.”

  Larry ignored his words, “Sir, I've tracked them down. Professor Voss is at the Greater Washington Trucking Corporation garages here in the Alexandria section of town. Any moment now, they're going to start distribution of all that counterfeit money on some scatterbrain plan to disrupt the country's exchange system.”

  Suddenly alert, the department chief snapped, “Where are you, Woolford?”

  “Outside the garages, sir. But I'm going in now.”

  “You stay where you are,” the other snapped. “I'll have every department man and every Secret Service man in town over there within twenty minutes. You hang on. Those people are lunatics, and probably desperate.”

  Inwardly, Larry Woolford grinned. He wasn't going to lose this opportunity to finish up the job with him on top. He said flatly, “Sir, we can't chance it. They might escape. I'm going in!” He flicked off the set, dialed again and raised Sam Sokolski.

  “Sam,” he said, his voice clipped. “I've cornered the Movement's leader and am going in for the finish. Maybe some of you journalist boys better get on over here.” He gave the other the address and flicked off before there were any questions.

  ***

  From the dash compartment he brought a heavy automatic, and checked the clip. He put it in his hip pocket and left the car and walked toward the garages. Time was running out now.

  He strode into the only open door, without shift of pace. Two men were posted nearby, neither of them truckmen by appearance. They looked at him in surprise.

  Larry clipped out, “The password is Judgment. I've got to see Professor Voss immediately.”

  One of them frowned questioningly, but the other was taken up with the urgency in Woolford's voice. He nodded with his head. “He's over there in the office.”

  Now ignoring them completely, Larry strode past the long rows of sealed delivery vans toward the office.

  He pushed the door open, entered and closed it behind him.

  Professor Peter Voss was seated at a paper-littered desk. There was a cot with an army blanket in a corner of the room, some soiled clothing and two or three dirty dishes on a tray. The room was being lived in, obviously.

  At the agent's entry, the little man looked up and blinked in distress through his heavy lenses.

  Larry snapped, “You're under arrest, Voss.”

  The professor was obviously dismayed, but he said in as vigorous a voice as he could muster, “Nonsense! On what charge?”

  “Counterfeiting, among many. Your whole scheme has fallen apart, Voss. You and your Movement, so-called, are finished.”

  The professor's eyes darted, left, right. To Larry Woolford's surprise, the Movement's leader was alone in here. Undoubtedly, he was awaiting others, drivers of the trucks, technicians involved in the rockets, other subordinates. But right now he was alone.

  If Woolford correctly diagnosed the situation, Voss was playing for time, waiting for the others. Good enough, so was Larry Woolford. Had the Professor only known it, a shout would have brought at least two followers and the government agent would have had his work cut out for him.

  Woodford played along. “Just what is this fantastic scheme of yours for raining down money over half the country, Voss? The very insanity of it proves your whole outfit is composed of a bunch of nonconformist weirds.”

  The Professor was indignant—and stalling for time. He said, “Nonconformists is correct! He who conforms in an incompetent society is an incompetent himself.”

  Larry stood, his legs apart and hands on hips. He shook his head in simulated pity at the angry little man. “What's all this about raining money down over the country?”

  “Don't you see?” the other said. “The perfect method for disrupting our present system of social-labels. With billions of dollars, perfect counterfeit, strewing the streets, the fields, the trees, available for anyone to pick up, all social currency becomes worthless. Utterly unusable. And it's no use to attempt to print more with another design, because we can duplicate it as well. Our experts are the world's best, we're not a group of sulking criminals but capable, trained, dedicated men.

  “Very well! We will have made it absolutely impossible to have any form of mass-produced social currency.”

  Larry stared at him. “It would completely foul the whole business system! You'd have chaos!”

  “At first. Private individuals, once the value of money was seen to be zero, would have lost the amount of cash they had on hand. But banks and such institutions would lose little. They have accurate records that show the actual values they held at the time our money rains down.”

  Larry was bewildered. “But what are you getting at? What do you expect to accomplish?”

  The Professor, on his favorite subject, said triumphantly, “The only form of currency that can be used under these conditions is the personal check. It's not mass produced, and mass-production can't duplicate it. It's immune to the attack. Business has to go on, or people will starve—so personal checks will have to replace paper money. Credit cards and traveler's checks won't do—we can counterfeit them, too, and will, if necessary. Realize of course that hard money will still be valid, but it can't be utilized practically for any but small transactions. Try taking enough silver dollars to buy a refrigerator down to the store with you.”

  “But what's the purpose?” Larry demanded, flabbergasted.

  “Isn't it obvious? Our whole Movement is devo
ted to the destruction of social-label judgments. It's all very well to say: You should not judge your fellow men but when it comes to accepting another man's personal check, friend, you damn well have to! The bum check artist might have a field day to begin with—but only to begin with.”

  Larry shook his head in exasperation. “You people are a bunch of anarchists,” he accused.

  “No,” the Professor denied. “Absolutely not. We are the antithesis of the anarchist. The anarchist says, ‘No man is capable of judging another.’ We say, ‘Each man must judge his fellow, must demand proper evaluation of him.’ To judge a man by his clothes, the amount of money he owns, the car he drives, the neighborhood in which he lives, or the society he keeps, is out of the question in a vital culture.”

  Larry said sourly, “Well, whether or not you're right, Voss, you've lost. This place is surrounded. My men will be breaking in shortly.”

  Voss laughed at him. “Nonsense. All you've done is prevent us from accomplishing this portion of our program. What will you do after my arrest? You'll bring me to trial. Do you remember the Scopes' Monkey Trial back in the 1920s which became a world appreciated farce and made Tennessee a laughingstock? Well, just wait until you get me into court backed by my organization's resources. We'll bring home to every thinking person, not only in this country, but in the world, the fantastic qualities of our existing culture. Why, Mr.-Secret-Agent-of-Anti-Subversive-Activity you aren't doing me an injury by giving me the opportunity to have my day in court. You're doing me a favor. Newspapers, radios, TriD will give me the chance to expound my program in the home of every thinking person in the world.”

  There was a fiery dedication in the little man's eyes. “This will be my victory, not my defeat!”

  There were sounds now, coming from the other rooms—the garages. Some shouts and scuffling. Faintly, Larry Woolford could hear Steve Hackett's voice.

  He was staring at the Professor, his eyes narrower.

  The Professor was on his feet. He said in defiant triumph, “You think that you'll win prestige and honor as a result of tracking the Movement down, don't you, Mr. Woolford? Well, let me tell you, you won't! In six months from now, Mr. Woolford, you'll be a laughingstock.”

  That did it.

  Larry said, “You're under arrest. Turn around with your back to me.”

  The Professor snorted his contempt, turned his back and held up his hands, obviously expecting to be searched.

  In a fluid motion, Larry Woolford drew his gun and fired twice. The other with no more than a grunt of surprise and pain, stumbled forward to his knees and then to the floor, his arms and legs akimbo.

  The door broke open and Steve Hackett, gun in hand, burst in.

  “Woolford!” he barked. “What's up?”

  Larry indicated the body on the floor. “There you are, Steve,” he said. “The head of the counterfeit ring. He was trying to escape. I had to shoot him.”

  Behind Steve Hackett crowded Ben Ruthenberg of the F.B.I. and behind him half a dozen others of various departments.

  The Boss came pushing his way through.

  He glared down at the Professor's body, then up at Larry Woolford.

  “Good work, Lawrence,” he said. “How did you bring it off?”

  Larry replaced the gun in his holster and shrugged modestly. “The Polk girl gave me the final tip-off, sir. I gave her some Scop-Serum in a drink and she talked. Evidently, she was a member of the Movement.”

  The Boss was nodding wisely. “I've had my eye on her, Lawrence. An obvious weird. But we will have to suppress that Scop-Serum angle.” He slapped his favorite field man on the arm jovially. “Well, boy, this means promotion, of course.”

  Larry grinned. “Thanks, sir. All in a day's work. I don't think we'll have much trouble with the remnants of this Movement thing. The pitch is to treat them as counterfeiters, not subversives. Try them for that. Their silly explanations of what they were going to do with the money will never be taken seriously.” He looked down at the small corpse. “Particularly now that their kingpin is gone.”

  A new wave of agents, F.B.I. men and prisoners washed into the room and Steve Hackett and Larry were for a moment pushed back into a corner by themselves.

  Steve looked at him strangely and said, “There's one thing I'd like to know: Did you really have to shoot him, Woolford?”

  Larry brushed it off. “What's the difference? He was as weird as they come, wasn't he?”

  Revolution, by Mack Reynolds

  Before you wish for something—or send agents to get it for you—make very, very sure you really want it. You might get it, you know....

  Preface ... For some forty years critics of the U.S.S.R. have been desiring, predicting, not to mention praying for, its collapse. For twenty of these years the author of this story has vaguely wondered what would replace the collapsed Soviet system. A return to Czarism? Oh, come now! Capitalism as we know it today in the advanced Western countries? It would seem difficult after almost half a century of State ownership and control of the means of production, distribution, communications, education, science. Then what? The question became increasingly interesting following recent visits not only to Moscow and Leningrad but also to various other capital cities of the Soviet complex. A controversial subject? Indeed it is. You can't get much more controversial than this in the world today. But this is science fiction, and here we go.

  PAUL KOSLOV nodded briefly once or twice as he made his way through the forest of desks. Behind him he caught snatches of tittering voices in whisper.

  "... That's him ... The Chief's hatchetman ... Know what they call him in Central America, a pistola, that means ... About Iraq ... And that time in Egypt ... Did you notice his eyes ... How would you like to date him ... That's him. I was at a cocktail party once when he was there. Shivery ... cold-blooded—"

  Paul Koslov grinned inwardly. He hadn't asked for the reputation but it isn't everyone who is a legend before thirty-five. What was it Newsweek had called him? "The T. E. Lawrence of the Cold War." The trouble was it wasn't something you could turn off. It had its shortcomings when you found time for some personal life.

  He reached the Chief's office, rapped with a knuckle and pushed his way through.

  The Chief and a male secretary, who was taking dictation, looked up. The secretary frowned, evidently taken aback by the cavalier entrance, but the Chief said, "Hello, Paul, come on in. Didn't expect you quite so soon." And to the secretary, "Dickens, that's all."

  When Dickens was gone the Chief scowled at his trouble-shooter. "Paul, you're bad for discipline around here. Can't you even knock before you enter? How is Nicaragua?"

  Paul Koslov slumped into a leather easy-chair and scowled. "I did knock. Most of it's in my report. Nicaragua is ... tranquil. It'll stay tranquil for a while, too. There isn't so much as a parlor pink—"

  "And Lopez—?"

  Paul said slowly, "Last time I saw Raul was in a swamp near Lake Managua. The very last time."

  The Chief said hurriedly, "Don't give me the details. I leave details up to you."

  "I know," Paul said flatly.

  His superior drew a pound can of Sir Walter Raleigh across the desk, selected a briar from a pipe rack and while he was packing in tobacco said, "Paul, do you know what day it is—and what year?"

  "It's Tuesday. And 1965."

  The bureau chief looked at his disk calendar. "Um-m-m. Today the Seven Year Plan is completed."

  Paul snorted.

  The Chief said mildly, "Successfully. For all practical purposes, the U.S.S.R. has surpassed us in gross national product."

  "That's not the way I understand it."

  "Then you make the mistake of believing our propaganda. That's always a mistake, believing your own propaganda. Worse than believing the other man's."

  "Our steel capacity is a third again as much as theirs."

  "Yes, and currently, what with our readjustment—remember when they used to call them recessions, or even earlier,
depressions—our steel industry is operating at less than sixty per cent of capacity. The Soviets always operate at one hundred per cent of capacity. They don't have to worry about whether or not they can sell it. If they produce more steel than they immediately need, they use it to build another steel mill."

  The Chief shook his head. "As long ago as 1958 they began passing us, product by product. Grain, butter, and timber production, jet aircraft, space flight, and coal—"

  Paul leaned forward impatiently. "We put out more than three times as many cars, refrigerators, kitchen stoves, washing machines."

  His superior said, "That's the point. While we were putting the product of our steel mills into automobiles and automatic kitchen equipment, they did without these things and put their steel into more steel mills, more railroads, more factories. We leaned back and took it easy, sneered at their progress, talked a lot about our freedom and liberty to our allies and the neutrals and enjoyed our refrigerators and washing machines until they finally passed us."

  "You sound like a Tass broadcast from Moscow."

  "Um-m-m, I've been trying to," the Chief said. "However, that's still roughly the situation. The fact that you and I personally, and a couple of hundred million Americans, prefer our cars and such to more steel mills, and prefer our personal freedoms and liberties is beside the point. We should have done less laughing seven years ago and more thinking about today. As things stand, give them a few more years at this pace and every neutral nation in the world is going to fall into their laps."

  "That's putting it strong, isn't it?"

  "Strong?" the Chief growled disgustedly. "That's putting it mildly. Even some of our allies are beginning to waver. Eight years ago, India and China both set out to industrialize themselves. Today, China is the third industrial power of the world. Where's India, about twentieth? Ten years from now China will probably be first. I don't even allow myself to think where she'll be twenty-five years from now."

  "The Indians were a bunch of idealistic screwballs."

  "That's one of the favorite alibis, isn't it? Actually we, the West, let them down. They couldn't get underway. The Soviets backed China with everything they could toss in."