Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  He remembered Geth and Sand and their tribe in what had been Long Island. Though robbed of all they had ever possessed, their very minds, they struggled on with indomitable courage. They were degraded to savagery, yet they were not selfish hedonists. The instinct of duty persisted. Geth saw to it that the weaker of his tribe were fed and sheltered.

  Prisoned men like Geth were trying to break out into the sunlight, groping, fumbling, bending to help the weaker ones. In Center, though, men built prison walls higher and higher about themselves. Shutting themselves in forever, they used their mighty powers to dig themselves deeper graves.

  Woodley felt inexpressibly depressed as he left the roof garden to seek his bed. Somehow he did not really believe that the hedonists would be induced to aid him in his project. He had half-convinced Sharn, he thought. But what of the others?

  Doubting, wondering, he fell asleep to the tones of languorous music from some concealed amplifier.

  Next morning, right after bathing and shaving, he found a newcomer waiting for him in the garden, a man he had not seen before. He was lounging against the parapet, his eyes on the city beyond. For a moment Woodley wondered if he had found another dweller in Center who, like Sham, was half-aware of the utter futility of their life here.

  The newcomer was young, but on his dark, strong face was a shadow almost of unrest, as if a mood troubled him which he could not understand. Then he heard Woodley’s footstep and turned. The smile that lighted his handsome, dark face drove the moodiness away. Woodley doubted whether he had seen it at all.

  “I’m Rogur,” the newcomer said, his voice soft and friendly. “I’m to be your guide while Sham’s busy.”

  “Glad to know you,” Woodley acknowledged. “Have you had breakfast?”

  “No. We’ll eat together if you like.” Rogur sat down and idly plucked a flower that grew beside his chair. He twirled it between his fingers. “Sham said she’d taken you around Center, but you can’t have seen all of it. It’s a big place.”

  “I imagine so.”

  Woodley. was wondering what the girl was doing now. She had gone to see certain leaders, she had said. Well, that would naturally take time. Meanwhile he’d have to wait, and it would do no harm if he became well acquainted with the situation here.

  A thought crossed his mind. Perhaps Rogur might be induced to become a recruit to his cause. Perhaps he, too, subtly sensed the uselessness and decadence of life here.

  CHAPTER IX

  Garth

  AS the day passed, Woodley was not so sure. In Rogur’s deep-set eyes sometimes was a vague shadow, but this showed only at rare intervals.

  The hedonist devoted himself to showing his charge about Center, and there was much to see. Inevitably Woodley found himself comparing Center’s luxury and loveliness with the hard, brutal environment that existed outside the moat.

  “We work only when we wish,” Rogur explained, halting in a tower room whose transparent walls gave a good view of the roof gardens all around. “My duties are here, at that switchboard, but I need not work if I don’t care to do so. I check those lights and see that certain machines are running smoothly. Simple, isn’t it?”

  Again the shadow flitted across the dark young face.

  “Don’t you ever wish to do more?” Woodley asked.

  “Very often,” Rogur said curtly. “Come, I’ll show you one of our theaters.”

  He did not speak for a time. Woodley became engrossed in a “film” that appealed to the senses of touch, taste and odor, as well as sight and hearing.

  “The principle is a vibratory one,” Rogur explained. “It—it’s rather difficult to explain.”

  Instead the guide began questioning Woodley about the outside world, and Woodley was not loath to answer. He was hoping to arouse interest, and perhaps something more, in Rogur’s mind. Were all the people of Center potentially like Sharn, possible converts to his own way of thinking? Were they all tired of their system of living, without quite realizing it? He could not be sure. But he realized that Rogur drank in every word eagerly.

  “Do you like this life?” Woodley asked at last. They were alone on a terrace, idly smoking, resting from an experience with hypnotically induced dreams that to Woodley had been completely astounding. “Do you feel free?”

  “I suppose so,” Rogur said. His eyebrows were drawn together, his lips compressed ill-temperedly. “I suppose so. Not that I enjoy doing a menial task.”

  “I thought you could do whatever work you wished.”

  Rogur flushed. He refused to answer, turning instead to stare out over the city. The Sun was low.

  “I have a friend who is anxious to meet you, Kent Woodley,” he said finally. “He may be able to help you a great deal. But the meeting must take place secretly. If anyone else learns of it, there would be serious trouble.”

  “A friend?”

  “I wasn’t assigned to the task of guiding you. I asked for it, so I could talk to you alone and arrange for you to meet Garth. He was the one who spoke to you from the red wall-panel.” Woodley started. “How do you know about that?”

  “Garth told me. At midnight tonight, enter the pneumo-tube car in your room. It will be guided to a certain place. There Garth will meet you and tell you things I cannot.” Rogur lifted his hand in a warning gesture as a laughing couple wandered close. “No more now. Remember, midnight.”

  THERE was no further conversation on the subject. Rogur evaded without apparent difficulty Woodley’s attempts to solicit more information. “Wait,” was all he would say.

  So Woodley waited and wondered. Was there more discontent than he had suspected in the city? Was this Garth the leader of an anti-hedonistic band?

  Rogur left Woodley at the door of the suite. His dark, sullen face remained vivid in Woodley’s mind as he smoked a last cigarette on the terrace. He had hoped that Sharn would visit him that night, but she did not appear. Presently he lay down on the bed, fully clothed, and pulled a cover over his body. He dared not sleep.

  At midnight he was tense with expectation. Silently he arose and went to the wall-panel that hid the tube-car. At the touch of a stud the conveyance opened.

  He entered and sank down on a padded seat. The door slid shut. Instantly the car started. It went, he thought, by a circuitous path, more so than was necessary, though it was difficult to judge. But at last the sense of motion ceased and the door opened.

  Woodley looked into a small room, bare save for two chairs and a table. In one of the chairs a man sat, wearing a voluminous cloak, his face hidden by a gray hood. Through slits his eyes gleamed enigmatically. He waited as Woodley stepped forward and heard the panel slide shut behind him.

  “You’re Garth?”

  The hooded man nodded. “Sit down, Woodley. Rogur gave you my message, of course.”

  There was something familiar about the low voice. Rogur had told him it was the one that had spoken to him from the red panel. Yet Woodley felt that was not the only place he had heard it before.

  “I can help you,” Garth said. “I know what you want, but without my aid you cannot get it. You see”—he hesitated—“I have a great deal of power in Center.”

  Woodley did not reply. He waited for further information.

  “Much power, yes, but I am not like the others. I am a man like you, from your own time, and possessing memories that you have forgotten.” The hooded head bent, as though in sadness. “You see, Woodley, I am the one who destroyed your world.”

  IN the deadly stillness of the room, Woodley could distinctly hear the pulse of blood within his ears. Unbelievingly he repeated:

  “You are the one? But how?”

  Garth made a weary gesture.

  “It’s not a short story, by any means. It goes back a hundred and thirty years. More than that . . .”

  “You mean the catastrophe was manmade?” Woodley asked, still unable to believe.

  “Be still and listen,” the tired voice ordered. “Go back to your own time. I was a sc
ientist then, and a good one. Go back in your memory, Woodley, to the days when men worked and dreamed. I dreamed, too. I was young, but I was already recognized as a rising and capable scientist. I’d had papers published. Everything seemed rather wonderful in those days. My future was most promising.”

  Again the hooded head bent.

  “I wanted prestige, the recognition of my fellows, power. Everything else was forgotten, even my forthcoming marriage. I decided against it, for I realized it would mean distractions. Very often now I remember Marian—

  Well, that doesn’t matter. I worked on new theories. My idea was to eliminate disease. I failed in that, but I stumbled across something far more important.”

  “Immortality?” Woodley put in.

  “Not quite. The prolongation of the life-span to more than two thousand years, or so my figures said. Naturally I couldn’t be sure. But I made the mistake of advancing my theories too soon. I was laughed at. I experimented and my backers refused to let me have the money I needed. They wanted practical inventions, they said. No one would listen to me. From being a rising, respected scientist, I became a crackpot and a fool. They laughed at me.”

  There was a tremor of rage in Garth’s voice as he went on.

  “I decided to prove my theory, give them more than they’d bargained for. It was unwise, of course. But I had justification. I was very angry. I got money. It doesn’t matter how, but I got it. I built my equipment. And—I made mankind immortal!”

  “How?” Woodley asked softly, after a pause.

  The robed figure made an impatient gesture.

  “That doesn’t matter, either. I upset the electronic balance in the body’s structure, altering basal metabolism so that man would lose far less energy. With the money I acquired I built a machine and broadcast my ray over the entire world. But before I did that, I tested it on myself, on a minor scale. That was necessary, of course. If it had harmed or killed me . . . but it didn’t. My atomic structure was altered. I found by laboratory tests that I had seemingly become almost immortal.

  “Then I turned the ray loose on Earth. But I miscalculated. Even yet I do not know how. The ray did not affect me. I’d already been exposed to it. There was an explosion which I survived, though wounded, and I woke to a world of horror. It was not as I had expected. I had thought that man would hail me as a savior.”

  Woodley looked more sharply at Garth, but he did not interrupt.

  “My equipment was destroyed in the explosion. Though man had been made immortal, I think the ray was far too powerful. I lengthened my own lifespan somewhat, without ill effect. But there was too much power in the final experiment, and I made the race almost immortal. They became godlike in body. In mind—”

  GARTH breathed heavily, unwilling to go on.

  “In mind, they suffered,” he said at last. “Nature’s check-and-balance system. I prolonged their lives at the expense of their intelligence. All their memories were wiped out and they were reduced to savagery. Nor could they ever learn again. The ray gave them immortality and ruined their brains. I was alone in a world of beast-people.

  “You cannot comprehend the ghastliness of it, Woodley. All my dreams and hopes and plans shattered! Everywhere I looked, I saw ruin that I myself had made. I contemplated suicide, of course, but not for long. I tried to undo the harm I had done. My equipment was destroyed, as I said.” Woodley frowned. “Wait a minute. Why wasn’t your mind affected by the ray?”

  “I was exposed to it for only a fraction of a second. That was all that saved me. The ultra-violet ray will tan your skin in ten minutes, but over a period of hours it’ll kill you. Well, the immortality ray must have played over Earth for many hours while I lay unconscious, wounded by the explosion.”

  “And the ray didn’t affect you?”

  “My intention was to turn it on for only a short time, less than a second. I’d already been exposed to it, and I feared the results of overexposure. So I wore a protective suit of an alloy I created—a substance which barred the rays completely. That, of course, was why I didn’t suffer the same fate as everyone else.”

  Garth sighed.

  “When I woke, I tried to undo the harm my projector had made. I worked. It took months. I worked blindly, almost. Perhaps the ray had affected my mind a little . . . but I succeeded. I perfected a serum that would shock the victims back to normality.

  Or, rather, they were born again. They didn’t get back their memories, but my serum lifted the blanket that dulled their minds, lifted it more than I had expected.

  “Each man and woman I treated became a genius. I succeeded better than I ever expected. I could not restore the Earth, for I had not sufficient supplies of the necessary chemicals. But at least I had a few hundred intelligent beings to work with. I taught them at first. After that it was scarcely necessary. They learned fast—very fast.”

  There was bitterness and scarcely concealed fury in Garth’s voice.

  “They mastered all we had known in Nineteen-forty-two and went beyond. They built Center and isolated themselves. I was with them, of course, though they did not know the part I had played in the world catastrophe. I thought it best not to . . .”

  He hesitated and went on at a tangent.

  “I ruled them for awhile. Then they outstripped me. They said my mind was degenerating, but that was wrong. They are all geniuses.”

  CHAPTER X

  Imperfect Ideal

  WOODLEY was not so sure that Center’s inhabitants were geniuses. If a ray had destroyed mankind’s intelligence, could not a lesser dose of the same ray have affected Garth similarly? He listened again as the hooded man continued.

  “Time went on, and I did not die. The hedonists had lost their immortality when I injected my serum in them, but I still lived. They decided that was an accident. Their memories of the days just after Nineteen-forty-two are very hazy. Indeed, no one is alive now who was among the original band I saved. Their children and grandchildren dwell in Center.”

  There was a question in Woodley’s mind.

  “Why didn’t you go on as you’d planned?” he asked. “Couldn’t you inject the serum in the rest of mankind?”

  “I intended to at first. But as I waited, I saw that I’d failed again. Geniuses? They’re hedonists! Is Center a Utopia?”

  Woodley saw the point.

  “They are geniuses, though,” Garth went on, “and they are more intelligent than I. They know a way to restore the world to its former state. A counter-ray, I think. I’m not certain. My serum would only create more geniuses and eventually a whole world of decadent hedonists.” His voice hardened. “Center must be destroyed and all those who dwell in it. But first we must get from them the secret that will save Earth.”

  “Does a counter-ray exist?”

  “Yes, created by those who worked for the sheer pleasure of it, not for any altruistic purpose. They never intended to use the ray. Science? They can’t understand the word! They play at their tasks.”

  Garth’s gloved hands twisted together. His body shook with an intensity of emotion that startled Woodley. To some extent Woodley could understand the hedonists’ viewpoint, though he didn’t agree with it. But he sensed that Garth hated them with a ferocity that surpassed any other emotion.

  “They must die!” the scientist repeated in a whisper.

  Woodley realized that Garth had come to blame the hedonists for all his failures. They had become a symbol of a prison, perhaps—a prison without walls, which had made Garth a misfit, isolated from humanity as the hedonists were isolated from the world.

  “Together we can accomplish something,” the scientist said. “Alone I could do nothing. But the two of us can do it.”

  Woodley nodded slowly. “Do you really believe that a counter-ray machine has been constructed and that it’ll work?”

  “Yes. Of that I am certain. But the hedonists will never consent to freeing mankind.”

  “I wonder. Perhaps pressure can be brought to bear on them some
how.”

  “They’re geniuses. We are not.”

  “I know,” Woodley agreed. “But I think you’ve forgotten something.

  They’re becoming decadent, too. They’ve allowed for every known factor that might affect their lives. They can guard against such things. But I’m new to them, Garth. They tested me, proved that I brought no infectious diseases into the city. They forgot that the deadliest viruses are created in the mind.”

  GARTH stared questioningly through the slits in the hood. “Why can’t I use psychology on them?” Woodley explained. “To them, I’m an X, an unknown quantity. If I can spread propaganda, make the people dissatisfied with their own way of life—”

  “They’d guard against that, too,” Garth insisted. “Pleasure is all that matters to them. Any discordant notes are removed.”

  “I’d be killed?” Somehow that did not jibe with Woodley’s impression of this strange culture.

  “I said removed. Not harmed physically, but put out of sight, or hypnotically conditioned till all thoughts of revolt passed from your mind. They’re marvelous psychologists. I’d have been conditioned into a hedonist if I hadn’t pretended to be one of them.”

  “Well . . .” Woodley pondered. “Let me get this straight. The ray projector—how long need it be in operation?”

  “Its waves travel at the speed of light. Only a moment or two, and man will regain his memory, pick up his life again where he left off in Nineteen-forty-two.”

  “And the projector is assembled,” Woodley pursued. “Wouldn’t it be possible to get to it and turn it on? Are there guards?”

  “Life in Center follows a pattern of pleasure. Any deviation from it is apt to be detected very quickly. Are you thinking of fighting your way to the projector?”

  “That wouldn’t be necessary, unless there are guards.”

  “There aren’t—the swine!” Garth said with sudden sharpness. “The world would have hailed me as a benefactor! I’d have been famous, greater than Newton or Galileo!”