Case and the Dreamer

by Theodore Sturgeon

  “That’s all you know about the Receiver?”

  “That’s all I know about Wally. The Receiver, well, you’d think without Kert Row and Wallich, Dom Felix would’ve ground to a halt. Far from it. Nothing could’ve stopped a drive like he had; and then, though he had no real training, maybe something of Kert Row’s design genius and Wally’s talent for synthesizing theories had rubbed off on him some way. Anyway, he did it by himself alright, and now you’re talking to me, and all the settlements on all the planets are tied together again.… Funny thing, he started out by failing. Maybe that’s what lit his spark.”

  “Failing? At what?”

  “If you remember, I told you about Arca, the Medean town or shrine or whatever it was. Dom Felix went out there to bring them Acceptance and begin a new era on Medea, love and brotherhood between two different species for the very first time. And that one time he sure laid a big egg. One visit from him and they cut out and we never saw them again.”

  “I never knew Acceptance to fail.”

  The old man laughed. “Maybe they just wouldn’t accept him. I told you he was more than a little crazy.”

  “One more thing, Altair. Will you give me your impression of the Receiver, how you feel about it and what it has done?”

  “I think it’s wonderful and marvelous and a miracle and all the other stuff they say about it, and it certainly has tightened up communications, and anything that does that for humanity is something humanity needs, across space or across a room or across a bed. We are very good at talk and very bad at real communication. Everything we have ever accomplished we have done at the price of something important; it’s as if we weren’t capable of seeing all the factors of any problem. Someone brought rabbits to Australia for pets and the rabbits damn near ate up the continent. Someone found out petroleum could make a fuel and they used it for fuel until, one way or another, it killed more people than any war ever has. Someone found a hormone that would prevent miscarriages and produced a whole generation of women—their daughters—with a new kind of cancer. Someone found out how to keep premature babies alive and produce a couple hundred thousand blind people. We were always like that. I guess we always will be like that.”

  “How do you apply that to the Receiver? Or do you?”

  “Sure I do, but it’s a feeling, that’s all; not enough time has gone by to be sure. But you can see the signs. It’s changed from a great discovery, a miracle, into a toy, the same way all inventions do when they turn into entertainments. I just have this feeling about it.… Don’t know what makes me think about it right now, but when Dom Felix came back from Arca that time, he asked me, ‘Why don’t dolphins bite?’ Well, that was a line I used to spout back in those days; dolphins are carnivores with plenty of sharp teeth, plenty of strength and speed, they can even take on a shark and drive it off; and men have captured them and humiliated them and tortured them and brainwashed them and never once has a dolphin attacked or bitten a man; they even have been known to help a man to shore. And I used to say, it’s because they know something we don’t, and they’re sorry for us.”

  “I still don’t understand how that applies to the Receiver.”

  “Neither do I, friend, not altogether. I told you, it’s just a feeling I have—that by using little parts of whole things, we pass miracles that are a lot smaller than they could have been in their own time, in their own way. I see the Receiver turning into a toy, and it makes me sad.

  “It takes a minimum of redesign to turn a crucifix into a pogo stick.”

  Vengeance Is.

  “You have a dark beer?”

  “In a place like this you want a dark beer?”

  “Whatever, then.”

  The bartender drew a thick-walled Stein and slid it across. “I worked in the city. I know about dark beer and Guinness and like that. These yokels around here,” he added, his tone of voice finishing the sentence.

  The customer was a small man with glasses and not much of a beard. He had a gentle voice. “A man called Grinny …”

  “Grimme,” the barman corrected. “So you’ve heard. Him and his brother.”

  The customer didn’t say anything. The bartender wiped. The customer told him to pour one for himself.

  “I don’t usual.” But the barman poured. “Grimme and that brother Dave, the worst.” He drank. “I hate it a lot out here, yokels like that is why.”

  “There’s still the city.”

  “Not for me. The wife.”

  “Oh.” And he waited.

  “They lied a lot. Come in here, get drunk, tell about what they done, mostly women. Bad, what they said they done. Worse when it wasn’t lies. You want another?”

  “Not yet.”

  “No lie about the Fannen kid, Marcy. Fourteen, fifteen maybe. Tooken her out behind the Johnson’s silo, what they done to her. And then they said they kill her, she said anything. She didn’t. Not about that, not about anything, ever again, two years. Until the fever last November, she told her mom. She died. Mom came told me ’fore she moved out.”

  The customer waited.

  “Hear them tell it, they were into every woman, wife, daughter in the valley, anytime they wanted.”

  The customer blew through his nostrils, once, gently. A man came in for two six-packs and a hip-sized Southern Comfort and went away in a pickup truck. “ ‘Monday busy’ I call this,” said the bartender, looking around the empty room. “And here it’s Wednesday.” Without being asked, he drew another beer for the customer. “To have somebody to talk to,” he said an explanation. Then he said nothing at all for a long time.

  The customer took some beer. “They just went after local folks, then.”

  “Grimme and David? Well yes, they had the run of it, the most of the men off with the lumbering, nothing grows in these rocks around here. Except maybe chickens, and who cares for chickens? Old folks, and the women. Anyway, that Grimme, shoulders this wide. Eyes that close together, and hairy. The brother, maybe you’d say a good-looking guy for a yokel, but, well, scary.” He nodded at his choice of words and said it again. “Scary.”

  “Crazy eyes,” said the customer.

  “You got it. So the times they wasn’t just lyin’, the women didn’t want to tell and I got to say it, the men just as soon not know.”

  “But they never bothered anyone except their own valley people.”

  “Who else is ever around here to bother? Oh, they bragged about this one and that one they got to on the road, you know, blonde in a convertible, give them the eye, give them whiskey, give them a good time up the back roads. All lies and you know it. They got this big old van. Gal hitchhiker, they say the first woman ever used ’em both up. Braggin’, lyin’. Shagged a couple city people in a little hatchback, leaned on them ’til the husband begged ’em to ball the wife. I don’t believe that at all.”

  “You don’t.”

  “What man would say that to a couple hairy yokels, no matter what? Man got to be yellow or downright kinky.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened, I told you I don’t believe it! It’s lies, brags and lies. Said they found ’em driving the quarry road, ’way yonder. Passed ’em and parked the van to let ’em by, look ’em over. Passed ’em and got ahead, when they caught up David was lying on the road and Grimme made like artificial you know, lifeguards do it.”

  “Respiration.”

  “Yeah, that. They seen that and they stopped, the couple in the hatchback, got out, Grimme and David jumped ’em. Said the man’s a shrimpy little guy look like a professor, woman’s a dish, too good for him. But that’s what they said. I don’t believe any of it.”

  “You mean they’d never do a thing like that.”

  “Oh they would all right. Cutting off the woman’s clo’es to see what she got with a big old skinning knife. Took a while, said it was a lot of laughs. David holdin’ both her arms behind her back one-handed, cuttin’ away her clo’es and makin’ jokes, Grimme holdin’ the little perf
essor man around the neck with one elbow, laughin’, ’til the man snatched his head clear and that’s when he said it. ‘Give it to him,’ he told the woman, ‘Go on, give it to him,’ and she says, ‘For the love of God, don’t ask me to do that.’ I don’t believe any man would say a thing like that.”

  “You really don’t.”

  “No way. Because listen, when the man jerked out his head and said that, and the woman said don’t ask her to do that, then the perfessor guy tried to fight Grimme. You see what I’m saying? If Grimme breaks him up and stomps on the pieces, then you could maybe understand him beggin’ the woman to quit and give in. The way Grimme told it right here standing where you are, the man said it when Grimme hadn’t done nothing yet but hold his neck. That’s the part Grimme told over and over, laughin’. ‘Give it to him,’ the man kept telling her. And Grimme never even hit him yet. ’Course when the little man tried to fight him Grimme just laughed and clobbered him once side of the neck, laid him cold. That was when the woman turned into a wildcat, to hear them tell it. It was all David could do to hold her, let alone mess around. Grimme left him to it and went around back to see what they got in their car. Mind you, I don’t know if he really done all this; I’m just telling you what he said. I heard it three, four times just that first week.”

  “So he open up the back and there was a stack of pictures, you know painting like on canvas. He hauled ’em all out and put them all down flat on the ground and walked up and back looking at them. He says, ‘David, you like these?’ and David he said, ‘Hell no,’ and Grimme walked the whole line, one big boot in the middle of each and every picture. And he says at the first step that woman screamed like it was her face he was stepping on and she hollered, ‘Don’t, don’t, they mean everything in the world to him!’ she meant the perfessor, but Grimme went ahead anyway. And then she just quit, she said go ahead, and Dave tooken her into the van and Grimme sat on the perfessor till he was done, then Grimme went in and got his while Dave sat on the man, after that they got into their van and come here to get drunk and tell about it. And if you really want to know why I don’t believe any of it, those people never tried to call the law.” And the barman gave a vehement nod and drank deep.

  “So what happened to them?”

  “Who—the city people? I told you—I don’t even believe there was any.”

  “Grimme.”

  “Oh. Them.” The barman gave a strange chuckle and said with sudden piety, “The Lord has strange ways of fighting evil.”

  The customer waited. The barman drew them another beer and poured a jigger for himself.

  “Next time I see Grimme it’s a week, ten days after. It’s like tonight, nobody here. He comes in for a fifth of sourmash. He’s walking funny, kind of bowlegged. I thought at first trying to clown, he’d do that. But every step he kind of grunted, like you would if I stuck a knife in you, but every step. And the look on his face I never saw the like before. I tell you, it scared me. I went for the whiskey and outside there was screaming.”

  As he talked his gaze went to the floor and wall and somehow through it, his eyes were round and bulging. “I said ‘What in God’s name is that?’ and Grimme said, ‘It’s David, he’s out in the van, he’s hurtin’. And I said ‘Better get him to the doctor,’ and he said they just came from there, full of painkiller but it wasn’t enough, and he took in his whiskey and left, walking that way and grunting every step, and drove off. Last time I saw him.”

  His eyes withdrew from elsewhere, back into the room, and became more normal. “He never paid for the whiskey. I don’t think he meant to stiff me, the one thing he never did. He just didn’t think of it at the time. Couldn’t,” he added.

  “What was wrong with him?”

  “I don’t know. The doc didn’t know.”

  “That would be Dr. McCabe?”

  “McCabe? I don’t know any Dr. McCabe around here. It was Doctor Thetford over the Allersville Corners.”

  “Ah. And how are they now, Grimme and David?”

  “Dead is how they are.”

  “Dead?… You didn’t say that.”

  “I didn’t?”

  “Not until now.” The customer got off his stool and put money on the bar and picked up his car keys. He said, his voice quite as gentle as it had been all along, “Man wasn’t yellow and he wasn’t kinky. It was something far worse.” Not caring at all what this might mean to the bartender, he walked out and got into his car.

  He drove until he found a telephone booth—the vanishing kind with a door that would shut. First he called Information and got a number; then he dialed it.

  “Dr. Thetford? Hello … I want to ease your mind about something. You recently had two fatalities, brothers.… No, I will not tell you my name. Bear with me, please. You attended these two and you probably performed the autopsy, right? Good. I hoped you had. And you couldn’t diagnose, correct? You probably certified peritonitis, with good reason.… No, I will not tell you my name! And I am not calling to question your competence. Far from it. My purpose is only to ease your mind, which presupposes that you are good at your job and you really care about a medical anomaly. Do we understand each other? Not yet? Then hear me out.… Good.”

  Rather less urgently, he went on: “An analogy is a disease called granuloma inguinale, which, I don’t have to tell you, can destroy the whole sexual apparatus with ulcerations and necrosis, and penetrate the body to and all through the peritoneum.… Yes, I know you considered that and I know you rejected it, and I know why.… Right. Just too damn fast. I’m sure you looked for characteristic bacterial and viral evidence as well, and didn’t find any.

  “… Yes, of course, Doctor—you’re right and I’m sorry, going on about all the things it isn’t without saying what it is.

  “Actually, it’s a hormone poison, resulting from a biochemical mutation in—in the carrier. It’s synergistic, wildly accelerating—as you saw. One effect is something you couldn’t possibly know—it affects the tactile neurons in such a way that morphine and its derivatives have an inverted effect—in much the same way that amphetamines have a calmative effect on children. In other words, the morphine aggravated and intensified their pain.… I know, I know; I’m sorry. I made a real effort to get to you and tell you this in time to spare them some of that agony, but—as you say it’s just too damn fast.

  “… Vectors? Ah. That’s something you do not have to worry about. I mean it, doctor—it is totally unlikely you will ever see another case.

  “… Where did it come from? I can tell you that. The two brothers assaulted and raped a woman—very probably the only woman on earth to have this mutated hormone poison.… Yes, I can be sure. I have spent most of the last six years researching this thing. There have been only two other cases of it—yes, just as fast, just as lethal. Both occurred before she was aware of it. She—she is a woman of great sensitivity and a profound sense of responsibility. One was a man she cared very little about, hardly knew. The other was someone she cared very much indeed about. The cost to her when she discovered what had happened was—well, you can imagine.

  “She is a gentle and compassionate person with a profound sense of ethical responsibility. Please believe me when I tell you that at the time of the assault she would have done anything in their power to protect those—those men from the effects of that … contact. When her husband—yes, she has a husband, I’ll come to that—when he became infuriated at the indignities they were putting on her, and begged her to give in and let them get what they deserved, she was horrified—actually hated him for a while for having given in to such a murderous suggestion. It was only when they vandalized some things that were especially precious to her husband—priceless—that she too experienced the same deadly fury and let them go ahead. The reaction has been terrible for her—first to see her husband seeking vengeance, when she was convinced he could rise above that—and in a moment find that she herself could be swept away by that same thing.… But I’m sorry, Dr. Thetford—I’v
e come far afield from medical concerns. I meant only to reassure you that you are not looking at some mysterious new plague. You can be sure that every possible precaution is being taken against its recurrence.… I admit that total precautions against the likes of those two may not be possible, but there is little chance of it happening again. And that sir, is all I’m going to say, so good—

  “What? Unfair?… I suppose you’re right at that—to tell you so much and so little all at once. And I do owe it to you to explain what my concern is in all this. Please—give me a moment to get my thoughts together.

  “… Very well. I was commissioned by that lady to make some discreet inquiries about what happened to those two, and if possible to get to their doctor in time to inform him—you—about the inverted effect of morphine. There would be no way to save their lives, but they might have been spared the agony. Further, she found that not knowing for sure if they were indeed victims was unbearable. This news is going to be hard for her to take, but she will survive that somehow; she’s done it before. Hardest of all for her—and her husband—will be to come to terms with the fact that, under pressure, they both found themselves capable of murderous vengefulness. She always believed, and by her example he came to believe, that vengeance is unthinkable. And he failed her. And she failed herself.” Without a trace of humor, he laughed. “ ‘Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.’ I can’t interpret that, doctor, or vouch for it. All I can derive from this—episode—is that vengeance is. And that’s all I intend to say to you—what?

  “… One more question … Ah—the husband. Yes, you have the right to ask about that. I’ll say it this way: There was a wedding seven years ago. It was three years before there was a marriage, you follow? Three years of the most intensive research and the most meticulous experimentation. And you can accept as fact that she is the only woman in the world who can cause this affliction—and he is the only man who is immune.