The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume VI: An Anthology of 50 Short Stories

by Various

  He laughed suddenly, with his old boisterousness and clapped me on the shoulder.

  "This is the way out!" he shouted, and pointed to the silver tub that contained the champagne bottle.

  His voice sounded loudly above the music.

  "The way out!" he repeated. He got to his feet. His eyes were congested. The sweat streamed down his cheeks. "Here," he called in his deep powerful voice, "here, all you who are afraid--here is the way out." He waved his arms. People stopped drinking and talking to turn and stare at him. "Back to the animals!" he shouted. "Back to the fur and hair and flesh! I was up on the mountain top, but I've found the way back. Here it is--here is the magic you need, if you're tired of the frozen heights!"

  He swayed as he spoke. Strangely interested, I stared up at him.

  "He's delirious," called out the emerald young woman. "He's got that horrid disease."

  The manager and a couple of waiters came up. "It's coming," shouted Sarakoff; "I saw it sweeping over the world. See, the world is white, like snow. They have robbed it of colour." The manager grasped his arm firmly.

  "Come with me," he said. "You are ill. I will put you in a taxi."

  "You don't understand," said Sarakoff. "You are in it still. Don't you see I'm a traveller?"

  "He is mad," whispered a waiter in my ear.

  "A traveller," shouted the Russian. "But I've come back. Greeting, brothers. It was a rough journey, but now I hear and see you."

  "If you do not leave the establishment at once I will get a policeman," said the manager with a hiss.

  Sarakoff threw out his hands.

  "Make ready!" he cried. "The great uprooting!" He began to laugh unsteadily. "The end of disease and the end of desire--there's no difference. You never knew that, brothers. I've come back to tell you--thousands and thousands of miles--into the great dimension of hell and heaven. It was a mistake and I'm going back. Look! She's fading--further and further----" He pointed a shaking hand across the room and suddenly collapsed, half supported by the manager.

  "Dead drunk," remarked a neighbour.

  I turned.

  "No. Live drunk," I said. "The champagne has brought him back to the world of desire."

  The speaker, a clean-shaven young man, stared insolently.

  "You have no business to come into a public place with that disease," he said with a sneer.

  "You are right. I have no business here. My business is to warn the world that the end of desire is at hand." I signalled to a waiter and together we managed to get Sarakoff into a taxi-cab.

  As we drove home, all that lay behind Sarakoff's broken confused words revealed itself with increasing distinctness to me.

  Sarakoff spoke again.

  "Harden," he muttered thickly, "there was a flaw--in the dream----"

  "Yes," I said. "I was sure there would be a flaw. I hadn't noticed it before----"

  "We're cut off," he whispered. "Cut off."

  CHAPTER XXI

  JASON

  Next morning the headlines of the newspapers blazed out the news of the meeting at the Queen's Hall, and the world read the words of Sarakoff.

  Strange to say, most of the papers seemed inclined to view the situation seriously.

  "If," said one in a leading article, "it really means that immortality is coming to humanity--and there is, at least, much evidence from Birmingham that supports the view that the germ cures all sickness--then we are indeed face to face with a strange problem. For how will immortality affect us as a community? As a community, we live together on the tacit assumption that the old will die and the young will take their place. All our laws and customs are based on this idea. We can scarcely think of any institution that is not established upon the certainty of death. What, then, if death ceases? Our food supply----"

  I was interrupted, while reading, by my servant who announced that a gentleman wished to see me on urgent business. I laid aside the paper and waited for him to enter.

  My early visitor was a tall, heavily-built man, with strong eyes. He was carefully dressed. He looked at me attentively, nodded, and sat down.

  "My name is Jason--Edward Jason. You have no doubt heard of me."

  "Certainly," I said. "You are the proprietor of this paper that I have just been reading."

  He nodded.

  "And of sixty other daily papers, Dr. Harden," he said in a soft voice. "I control much of the opinion in the country, and I intend to control it all before I die."

  "A curious intention. But why should you die? You will get the germ in time. I calculate that in a month at the outside the whole of London and the best part of the country will be infected."

  While I spoke he stared hard at me. He nodded again, glanced at his boots, pinched his lips, and then stared again.

  "A year ago I made a tour of all the big men in your profession, both here, in America, and on the continent, Dr. Harden. I had a very definite reason for doing this. The reason was that--well, it does not matter now. I wanted a diagnosis and a forecast of the future. I consulted forty medical men--all with big names. Twenty-one gave me practically identical opinions. The remaining nineteen were in disagreement. Of that nineteen six gave me a long life."

  "What did the twenty-one give you?"

  "Five years at the outside."

  I looked at him critically.

  "Yes, I should have given the same--a year ago."

  He coloured a little, and his gaze fell; he shifted himself in his chair. Then he looked up suddenly, with a strong glow in his eyes.

  "And now?"

  "Now I give you--immortality." I spoke quite calmly, with no intention of any dramatic effect.

  The colour faded from his cheeks, and the glow in his eyes increased.

  "If I get the Blue Disease, do you swear that it will cure me?"

  "Of course it will cure you."

  He got to his feet. He seemed to be in the grip of some powerful emotion, and I could see that he was determined to control himself. He walked down the room and stood for some time near the window.

  "A gipsy once told me I would die when I was fifty-two. Will you believe me when I say that that prophecy has weighed upon me more than any medical opinion?" He turned and came up the room and stood before me. "Did you ever read German psychology and philosophy?"

  "To a certain extent--in translations."

  "Well, Dr. Harden, I stepped out of the pages of some of those books, I think. You've heard of the theory of the Will to Power? The men who based human life on that instinct were right!" He clenched his hands and closed his eyes. "This last year has been hell to me. I've been haunted every hour by the thought of death--just so much longer--so many thousand days--and then Nothing!" He opened his eyes and sat down before me. "Are you ambitious, Dr. Harden?"

  "I was--very ambitious."

  "Do you know what it is to have a dream of power, luring you on day and night? Do you know what is to see the dream becoming reality, bit by bit--and then to be given a time limit, when the dream is only half worked out?"

  "I have had my dream," I said. "It is now realized."

  "The germ?"

  I nodded. He leaned forward.

  "Then you are satisfied?"

  "I have no desires now."

  He did not appear to understand.

  "I don't believe yet in your theory of immortality," he said slowly. "But I do believe that the germ cures sickness. I have had private reports from Birmingham, and to-morrow I'm going to publish them as evidence. You see, Harden, I've decided to back you. To-morrow I'm going to make Gods of you and your Russian associate. I'm going to call you the greatest benefactors the race has known. I'm going to lift you up to the skies."

  He looked at me earnestly.

  "Doesn't that stir you?" he asked.

  "No, I told you that I have no desires."

  He laughed.

  "You're dazed. You must have worked incredibly hard. Wait till you see your name surrounded by the phrases I will devise you. I can make men o
ut of nothing." His eyes shone into mine. "I once heard a man say that the trail of the serpent lay across my papers. That man is in an asylum now. I can break men, too, you see. Now I want to ask you something."

  I watched him with ease, totally uninfluenced by his magnetism--calm and aloof as a man watching a mechanical doll.

  "Can you limit the germ?" he asked softly.

  I shook my head.

  "Can you take any steps to stop it or keep it--within control?"

  I shook my head again. He stared for a minute at me.

  "I believe you," he said at last. "It's a pity. Think what we could have done--just a few of us!" He sat for some time drumming his fingers on his knees and frowning slightly. Then he stood up.

  "Never mind," he exclaimed. "I'm convinced it will cure me. That is the main thing. I'll have plenty of time to realize my dream now, Harden, thanks to you. You don't know what that means--ah, you don't know!"

  "By the way," I said, "I see you are suggesting that food may become a problem in the future. I think we'll be all right."

  "Why?"

  "Well, you see, if there's no desire, there's no appetite."

  "I don't understand," he said. "It seems clear that if disease is mastered by the germ, then the death-rate will drop, and there will be more mouths to fill. If everyone lives for their threescore and ten, the food question will be serious."

  "Oh, they'll live longer than that. They'll live for ever, Mr. Jason."

  He laughed tolerantly.

  "In any case there will be a food problem," he said in a quiet friendly voice. "There will be more births, and more children--for none will die--and more old people."

  "There won't be more births," I said.

  He swung round on his heel.

  "Why not?" he asked sharply.

  "Because there will be no desire, Mr. Jason. You can't have births without desires, don't you see?"

  At that moment Sarakoff entered the room. I introduced him to the great newspaper proprietor. Jason made some complimentary remarks, which Sarakoff received with cool gravity.

  I could see that Jason was very puzzled. He had seated himself again, and was watching the Russian closely.

  "The effects of last night have vanished," said Sarakoff to me. "My head is clear again and I have no intention of ever repeating the experiment."

  "You got back, to some extent."

  "Yes, partly. It was tremendously painful. I felt like a man in a nightmare."

  I turned to Jason and explained what had happened at the restaurant. He listened intently.

  "You see," I concluded, "the germ kills desire. Sarakoff and I live on a level of consciousness that is undisturbed by any craving. We live in a wonderful state of peace, which is only broken by the appearance of physical danger--against which, of course, the germ is not proof."

  Jason was silent.

  "Do you mean to tell me," he said at length, in a very deliberate voice, "that the effect of the germ is to destroy ambition?"

  "Worldly ambition, certainly," I replied. "But I believe that, in time, ambitions of a subtler nature will reveal themselves in us, as Immortals."

  Jason smiled very broadly.

  "Gentlemen," he said, "you are wonderful men. You have discovered something that benefits humanity enormously. But take my advice--leave your other theories alone. Stick to the facts--that your germ cures sickness. Drop the talk about immortality and desire. It's too fantastic, even for me. In the meantime I shall spread abroad the news that the end of sickness is at hand, and that humanity is on the threshold of a new era. For that I believe with all my heart."

  "One moment," said Sarakoff. "If you believe that this germ does away with disease, what is going to cause men to die?"

  "Old age."

  "But that is a disease itself."

  "Wear and tear isn't a disease. That's what kills most of us."

  "Yes, but wear and tear comes from desire, Mr. Jason," I said. "And the germ knocks that out. So what is left, save immortality?"

  When Jason left us, I could see that he was impressed by the possibility of life being, at least, greatly prolonged. And this was the line he took in his newspapers next day.

  CHAPTER XXII

  THE FIRST MURDERS

  The effect of Jason's newspapers on public opinion was remarkable. Humanity ever contains within it the need for mystery, and the strange and incredible, if voiced by authority, stir it to its depths. The facts about the healing of sickness and the cure of disease in Birmingham were printed in heavy type and read by millions. Nothing was said about immortality save what Sarakoff and I had stated at the Queen's Hall meeting. But instinctively the multitude leaped to the conclusion that if the end of disease was at hand, then the end of death--at least, the postponement of death--was to be expected.

  Jason, pale and masterful, visited us in the afternoon, and told us of the spread of the tidings in England. "They've swallowed it," he exclaimed; "it's stirred them as nothing else has done in the last hundred years. I visited the East End to-day. The streets are full of people. Crowds everywhere. It might lead to anything."

  "Is the infection spreading swiftly?"

  "It's spreading. But there are plenty of people, like myself, who haven't got it yet. I should say that a quarter of London is blue." He looked at me with a sudden anxiety. "You're sure I'll get it?"

  "Quite sure. Everyone is bound to get it. There's no possible immunity."

  He sat heavily in the chair, staring at the carpet.

  "Harden, I didn't quite like the look of those crowds in the East End. Anything big like this stirs up the people. It excites them and then the incalculable may happen. I've been thinking about the effect upon the uneducated mind. I've spread over the country the vision of humanity free from disease, and that's roused something in them--something dangerous--that I didn't foresee. Disease, Harden, whatever you doctors think of it, puts the fear of God into humanity. It's these sudden releases--releases from ancient fears--that are so dangerous. Are you sure you can't stop the germ, or direct it along certain channels?"

  "I have already told you that's impossible."

  "You might as well try and stop the light of day," said Sarakoff from a sofa, where he was lying apparently asleep. "Let the people think what they like now. Wait till they get it themselves. There are rules in the game, Jason, that you have no conception of, and that I have only realized since I became immortal. Yes--rules in the game, whether you play it in the cellar or the attic, or in the valley, or on the mountain top."

  "Your friend is very Russian," said Jason equably. "I have always heard they are dreamers and visionaries. Personally, I am a practical man, and as such I foresee trouble. If the masses of the people have no illness, and enjoy perfect health, we shall be faced by a difficult problem. They'll get out of hand. Depressed states of health are valuable assets in keeping the social organization together. All this demands careful thought. I am visiting the Prime Minister this evening and shall give him my views."

  At that moment a newspaper boy passed the window with an afternoon edition and Jason went out to get a copy. He returned with a smile of satisfaction, carrying the paper open before him.

  "Three murders in London," he announced. "One in Plaistow, one in East Ham and one in Pimlico. I told you there was unrest abroad." He laid the paper on the table and studied it "In every case it was an aged person--two old women, and one old man. Now what does that mean?"

  "A gang at work."

  He shook his head.

  "No. In one case the murderer has been caught. It was a case of patricide--a hideous crime. Curiously enough the victim had the Blue Disease. The end must have been ghastly, as it states here that the expression on the old man's face was terrible."

  He sat beside the table, drumming his fingers on it and staring at the wall before him. I was not particularly interested in the news, but I was interested in Jason. Character had formerly appealed little to me, but now I found an absorbing problem in it.
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  "Harden, do you think that son killed his father because he had the Blue Disease?"

  I was struck by the remark. For some reason the picture of Alice's father came into my mind. Jason sprang to his feet.

  "Yes, that's it," he exclaimed. "That's what lay behind those restless crowds. I knew there was something--a riddle to read, and now I've got the answer. The crowd doesn't know what's rousing them. But I do. It's fear and resentment, Harden. It's fear and resentment against the old." He brought his fist down on the table. "The germ's going to lead to war! It's going to lead to the worst war humanity has ever experienced--the war of the young against the old. Not the ancient strife or struggle between young and old, but open bloodshed, my friends. That's what your germ is going to do."

  I smiled and shook my head.

  "Wait," said Sarakoff from the sofa; "wait a little. Why are you in such a hurry to jump to conclusions?"

  "Because it's my business to jump to conclusions just six hours before anyone else does," said Jason. "I calculate that my mind, for the last twenty years, has been six hours ahead of time. I live in a state of chronic anticipation, Dr. Sarakoff. Just let me use your telephone for a moment."

  He returned a quarter of an hour later. His expression was calm, but his eyes were hard. "I was right," he said. "Those two old women had the Blue Disease, and a girl, a daughter, is suspect in one case. Can't you imagine the situation? Girl lives with her aged mother--can't get free--mother has what money there is--not allowed to marry--girl unconsciously counts on mother's death--probably got a secret love-affair--is expecting the moment of release--and then, along comes the Blue Disease and one of my newspapers telling her what it means. The old lady recovers her health--the future shuts down like a rat trap and what does the poor girl do? Kills her mother--and probably goes mad. That, gentlemen, is my theory of the case."

  He strode up and down the room.

  "You may think I'm taking a low view," he cried. "But there are hundreds of thousands of similar cases in England. God help the old if the young forget their religion!"

  For some reason I was unmoved by the outcry. It was no doubt owing to the peculiar emotionless state that the germ induced in people. Jason was roused. He paced to and fro in silence, with his brows contracted. At length he stopped before me.