Robert Silverberg The Science Fiction Hall Of Fame Volume One, 1929-1964

by Robert Silverberg

  Dr. Wagner was scarcely conscious of the faint sounds from the Manhattan streets far below. He was in a different world, a world of natural, not man-made, mountains.

  High up in their remote aeries these monks had been patiently at work, generation after generation, compiling their lists of meaningless words. Was there any limit to the follies of mankind? Still, he must give no hint of his inner thoughts. The customer was always right. . . .

  "There's no doubt," replied the doctor, "that we can modify the Mark V to print lists of this nature. I'm much more worried about the problem of installation and maintenance. Getting out to Tibet, in these days, is not going to be easy."

  "We can arrange that. The components are small enough to travel by air—that is one reason why we chose your machine. If you can get them to India, we will provide transport from there."

  "And you want to hire two of our engineers?"

  "Yes, for the three months that the project should occupy."

  "I've no doubt that Personnel can manage that." Dr. Wagner scribbled a note on his desk pad. "There are just two other points—"

  Before he could finish the sentence the lama had produced a small slip of paper.

  "This is my certified credit balance at the Asiatic Bank."

  "Thank you. It appears to be—ah—adequate. The second matter is so trivial that I hesitate to mention it—but it's surprising how often the obvious gets overlooked.

  What source of electrical energy have you?"

  "A diesel generator providing fifty kilowatts at a hundred and ten volts. It was installed about five years ago and is quite reliable. It's made life at the lamasery much more comfortable, but of course it was really installed to provide power for the motors driving the prayer wheels."

  "Of course," echoed Dr. Wagner. "I should have thought of that."

  The view from the parapet was vertiginous, but in time one gets used to anything.

  After three months, George Hanley was not impressed by the two-thousand-foot swoop into the abyss or the remote checkerboard of fields in the valley below. He was leaning against the wind-smoothed stones and staring morosely at the distant mountains whose names he had never bothered to discover.

  This, thought George, was the craziest thing that had ever happened to him.

  "Project Shangri-La," some wit back at the labs had christened it. For weeks now the Mark V had been churning out acres of sheets covered with gibberish. Patiently, inexorably, the computer had been rearranging letters in all their possible combinations, exhausting each class before going on to the next. As the sheets had emerged from the electromatic typewriters, the monks had carefully cut them up and pasted them into enormous books. In another week, heaven be praised, they would have finished. Just what obscure calculations had convinced the monks that they needn't bother to go on to words of ten, twenty, or a hundred letters, George didn't know. One of his recurring nightmares was that there would be some change of plan, and that the high lama (whom they'd naturally called Sam Jaffe, though he didn't look a bit like him); would suddenly announce that the project would be extended to approximately a.d. 2060. They were quite capable of it.

  George heard the heavy wooden door slam in the wind as Chuck came out onto the parapet beside him. As usual, Chuck was smoking one of the cigars that made him so popular with the monks—who, it seemed, were quite willing to embrace all the minor and most of the major pleasures of life. That was one thing in their favor: they might be crazy, but they weren't bluenoses. Those frequent trips they took down to the village, for instance . . .

  "Listen, George," said Chuck urgently. "I've learned something that means trouble."

  "What's wrong? Isn't the machine behaving?" That was the worst contingency George could imagine. It might delay his return, and nothing could be more horrible.

  The way he felt now, even the sight of a TV commercial would seem like manna from heaven. At least it would be some link with home.

  "No—it's nothing like that." Chuck settled himself on the parapet, which was unusual because normally he was scared of the drop. "I've just found what all this is about."

  "What d'ya mean? I thought we knew."

  "Sure—we know what the monks are trying to do. But we didn't know why. It's the craziest thing—"

  "Tell me something new," growled George.

  "—but old Sam's just come clean with me. You know the way he drops in every afternoon to watch the sheets roll out. Well, this time he seemed rather excited, or at least as near as he'll ever get to it. When I told him that we were on the last cycle he asked me, in that cute English accent of his, if I'd ever wondered what they were trying to do. I said, 'Sure'— and he told me."

  "Go on: I'll buy it."

  "Well, they believe that when they have listed all His names—and they reckon that there are about nine billion of them—God's purpose will be achieved. The human race will have finished what it was created to do, and there won't be any point in carrying on. Indeed, the very idea is something like blasphemy."

  "Then what do they expect us to do? Commit suicide?"

  "There's no need for that. When the list's completed, God steps in and simply winds things up . . . bingo!"

  "Oh, I get it. When we finish our job, it will be the end of the world."

  Chuck gave a nervous little laugh.

  "That's just what I said to Sam. And do you know what happened? He looked at me in a very queer way, like I'd been stupid in class, and said, 'It's nothing as trivial as that.'"

  George thought this over for a moment.

  "That's what I call taking the Wide View," he said presently. "But what d'you suppose we should do about it? I don't see that it makes the slightest difference to us.

  After all, we already knew that they were crazy."

  "Yes—but don't you see what may happen? When the list's complete and the Last Trump doesn't blow—or whatever it is they expect— we may get the blame. It's our machine they've been using. I don't like the situation one little bit."

  "I see," said George slowly. "You've got a point there. But this sort of thing's happened before, you know. When I was a kid down in Louisiana we had a crackpot preacher who once said the world was going to end next Sunday. Hundreds of people believed him—even sold their homes. Yet when nothing happened, they didn't turn nasty, as you'd expect. They just decided that he'd made a mistake in his calculations and went right on believing. I guess some of them still do."

  "Well, this isn't Louisiana, in case you hadn't noticed. There are just two of us and hundreds of these monks. I like them, and I'll be sorry for old Sam when his lifework backfires on him. But all the same, I wish I was somewhere else."

  "I've been wishing that for weeks. But there's nothing we can do until the contract's finished and the transport arrives to fly us out."

  "Of course," said Chuck thoughtfully, "we could always try a bit of sabotage."

  "Like hell we could! That would make things worse."

  "Not the way I meant. Look at it like this. The machine will finish its run four days from now, on the present twenty-hours-a-day basis. The transport calls in a week. OK—then all we need to do is to find something that needs replacing during one of the overhaul periods—something that will hold up the works for a couple of days. We'll fix it, of course, but not too quickly. If we time matters properly, we can be down at the airfield when the last name pops out of the register. They won't be able to catch us then."

  "I don't like it," said George. "It will be the first time I ever walked out on a job.

  Besides, it would make them suspicious. No, I'll sit tight and take what comes."

  "I still don't like it," he said, seven days later, as the tough little mountain ponies carried them down the winding road. "And don't you think I'm running away because I'm afraid. I'm just sorry for those poor old guys up there, and I don't want to be around when they find what suckers they've been. Wonder how Sam will take it?"

  "It's funny," replied Chuck, "but when I said go
od-by I got the idea he knew we were walking out on him—and that he didn't care because he knew the machine was running smoothly and that the job would soon be finished. After that —well, of course, for him there just isn't any After That.

  George turned in his saddle and stared back up the mountain road. This was the last place from which one could get a clear view of the lamasery. The squat, angular buildings were silhouetted against the afterglow of the sunset: here and there, lights gleamed like portholes in the side of an ocean liner. Electric lights, of course, sharing the same circuit as the Mark V. How much longer would they share it? wondered George. Would the monks smash up the computer in their rage and disappointment?

  Or would they just sit down quietly and begin their calculations all over again?

  He knew exactly what was happening up on the mountain at this very moment.

  The high lama and his assistants would be sitting in their silk robes, inspecting the sheets as the junior monks carried them away from the typewriters and pasted them into the great volumes. No one would be saying anything. The only sound would be the incessant patter, the never-ending rainstorm of the keys hitting the paper, for the Mark V itself was utterly silent as it flashed through its thousands of calculations a second. Three months of this, thought George, was enough to start anyone climbing up the wall.

  "There she is!" called Chuck, pointing down into the valley. "Ain't she beautiful!"

  She certainly was, thought George. The battered old DC3 lay at the end of the runway like a tiny silver cross. In two hours she would be bearing them away to freedom and sanity. It was a thought worth savoring like a fine liqueur. George let it roll round his mind as the pony trudged patiently down the slope.

  The swift night of the high Himalayas was now almost upon them. Fortunately, the road was very good, as roads went in that region, and they were both carrying torches. There was not the slightest danger, only a certain discomfort from the bitter cold. The sky overhead was perfectly clear, and ablaze with the familiar, friendly stars. At least there would be no risk, thought George, of the pilot being unable to take off because of weather conditions. That had been his only remaining worry.

  He began to sing, but gave it up after a while. This vast arena of mountains, gleaming like whitely hooded ghosts on every side, did not encourage such ebullience. Presently George glanced at his watch.

  "Should be there in an hour," he called back over his shoulder to Chuck. Then he added, in an afterthought: "Wonder if the computer's finished its run. It was due about now."

  Chuck didn't reply, so George swung round in his saddle.

  He could just see Chuck's face, a white oval turned toward the sky.

  "Look," whispered Chuck, and George lifted his eyes to heaven. (There is always a last time for everything.)

  Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.

  IT'S A GOOD LIFE

  by Jerome Bixby

  Published in 1953

  Aunt Amy was out on the front porch, rocking back and forth in the high-backed chair and fanning herself, when Bill Soames rode his bicycle up the road and stopped in front of the house.

  Perspiring under the afternoon “sun,” Bill lifted the box of groceries out of the big basket over the front wheel of the bike and came up the front walk.

  Little Anthony was sitting on the lawn, playing with a rat. He had caught the rat down in the basement—he had made it think that it smelled cheese, the most rich-smelling and crumbly-delicious cheese a rat had ever thought it smelled, and it had come out of its hole, and now Anthony had hold of it with his mind and was making it do tricks.

  When the rat saw Bill Soames coming, it tried to run, but Anthony thought at it, and it turned a flip-flop on the grass and lay trembling, its eyes gleaming in small black terror.

  Bill Soames hurried past Anthony and reached the front steps, mumbling. He always mumbled when he came to the Fremont house, or passed by it, or even thought of it. Everybody did. They thought about silly things, things that didn’t mean very much, like two-and-two-is-four-and-twice-is-eight and so on; they tried to jumble up their thoughts and keep them skipping back and forth, so Anthony couldn’t read their minds. The mumbling helped. Because if Anthony got anything strong out of your thoughts, he might take a notion to do something about it—like curing your wife’s sick headaches or your kid’s mumps, or getting your old milk cow back on schedule, or fixing the privy. And while Anthony mightn’t actually mean any harm, he couldn’t be expected to have much notion of what was the right thing to do in such cases.

  That was if he liked you. He might try to help you, in his way. And that could be pretty horrible.

  If he didn’t like you—well, that could be worse.

  Bill Soames set the box of groceries on the porch railing and stopped his mumbling long enough to say, “Everythin’ you wanted, Miss Amy.”

  “Oh, fine, William,” Amy Fremont said lightly. “My, ain’t it terrible hot today?”

  Bill Soames almost cringed. His eyes pleaded with her. He shook his head violently no, and then interrupted his mumbling again, though obviously he didn’t want to. “Oh, don’t say that, Miss Amy. It’s fine, just fine. A real good day!”

  Amy Fremont got up from the rocking chair and came across the porch. She was a tall woman, thin, a smiling vacancy in her eyes. About a year ago Anthony had got mad at her, because she’d told him he shouldn’t have turned the cat into a cat rug, and although he had always obeyed her more than anyone else, which was hardly at all, this time he’d snapped at her. With his mind. And that had been the end of Amy Fremont’s bright eyes, and the end of Amy Fremont as everyone had known her. And that was when word got around in Peaksville (population forty-six) that even the members of Anthony’s own family weren’t safe. After that, everyone was twice as careful.

  Someday Anthony might undo what he’d done to Aunt Amy. Anthony’s Mom and Pop hoped he would. When he was older, and maybe sorry. If it was possible, that is.

  Because Aunt Amy had changed a lot, and besides, now Anthony wouldn’t obey anyone.

  “Land alive, William,” Aunt Amy said, “you don’t have to mumble like that.

  Anthony wouldn’t hurt you. My goodness, Anthony likes you!” She raised her voice and called to Anthony, who had tired of the rat and was making it eat itself, “Don’t you, dear? Don’t you like Mr. Soames?”

  Anthony looked across the lawn at the grocery man—a bright, wet, purple gaze.

  He didn’t say anything. Bill Soames tried to smile at him. After a second Anthony returned his attention to the rat. It had already devoured its tail, or at least chewed it off—for Anthony had made it bite faster than it could swallow, and little pink and red furry pieces lay around it on the green grass. Now the rat was having trouble reaching its hindquarters.

  Mumbling silently, thinking of nothing in particular as hard as he could, Bill Soames went stiff-legged down the walk, mounted his bicycle and pedaled off.

  “We’lI see you tonight, William,” Aunt Amy called after him. As Bill Soames pumped the pedals, he was wishing deep down that he could pump twice as fast, to get away from Anthony all the faster, and away from Aunt Amy, who sometimes just forgot how careful you had to be. And he shouldn’t have thought that. Because Anthony caught it. He caught the desire to get away from the Fremont house as if it was something bad, and his purple gaze blinked, and he snapped a small, sulky thought after Bill Soames—just a small one, because he was in a good mood today, and besides, he liked Bill Soames, or at least didn’t dislike him, at least today. Bill Soames wanted to go away—so, petulantly, Anthony helped him.

  Pedaling with superhuman speed—or, rather, appearing to, because in reality the bicycle was pedaling him—Bill Soames vanished down the road in a cloud of dust, his thin, terrified wail drifting back across the summerlike heat.

  Anthony looked at the rat. It had devoured half its belly, and had died from pain.

  He thought it into a grave out deep in the cornfield—h
is father had once said, smiling, that he might as well do that with the things he killed—and went around the house, casting his odd shadow in the hot, brassy light from above.

  In the kitchen, Aunt Amy was unpacking the groceries. She put the Mason-jarred goods on the shelves, and the meat and milk in the icebox, and the beet sugar and coarse flour in big cans under the sink. She put the cardboard box in the corner, by the door, for Mr. Soames to pick up next time he came. It was stained and battered and torn and worn fuzzy, but it was one of the few left in Peaksville. In faded red letters it said “Campbell’s Soup.” The last cans of soup, or of anything else, had been eaten long ago, except for a small communal hoard which the villagers dipped into for special occasions—but the box lingered on, like a coffin, and when it and the other boxes were gone the men would have to make some out of wood.

  Aunt Amy went out in back, where Anthony’s Mom—Aunt Amy’s sister—sat in the shade of the house, shelling peas. The peas, every time Mom ran a finger along a pod, went lollop-lollop-lollop into the pan on her lap.

  “William brought the groceries,” Aunt Amy said. She sat down wearily in the straight-backed chair beside Mom and began fanning herself again. She wasn’t really old; but ever since Anthony had snapped at her with his mind, something had seemed to be wrong with her body as well as her mind, and she was tired all the time.

  “Oh, good,” said Mom. Lollop went the fat peas into the pan.

  Everybody in Peaksvile always said, “Oh, fine,” or “Good,” or “Say, that’s swell!” when almost. anything happened or was mentioned—even unhappy things like accidents or even deaths. They’d always say “Good” because if they didn’t try to cover up how they really felt Anthony might overhear with his mind, and then nobody knew what might happen. Like the time Mrs. Kent’s husband, Sam, had come walking back from the graveyard because Anthony liked Mrs. Kent and had heard her mourning.

  Lollop.

  “Tonight’s television night,” said Aunt Amy. “I’m glad. I look forward to it so much every week. I wonder what we’ll see tonight.”