Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  What about Mike de Anza?

  Mike had been close to him since their university days; Mike, too, had become a nuclear physicist. They still saw each other often. And Mike would be highly curative. He was a chubby, blond, wide-eyed man with an unquenchable enthusiasm for practically everything, and a deep sympathy for any of his friends who might need help. Mike de Anza might be able to suggest something. It would be safe to talk to him, anyway. And that was a vital factor.

  Relieved, Breden placed the call. But de Anza was out, and no one knew when he would be back.

  Then—Margaret?

  No. He couldn’t dump his trouble in her lap at this time. Louis was not the one; he had tried that already. Carrie Kohl—no! Who, then?

  Nobody. Nobody he knew.

  Well, what about somebody he didn’t know? What about Springfield? It had been twelve years since he had seen the old physician. And Springfield was unorthodox, so much so that he wasn’t held in high esteem by the medical authorities of GPC.

  The pressure was unendurable. He had to talk to someone. Make it Springfield, then.

  He made it Springfield.

  Dr. Sam Springfield lived in the suburbs. He was seventy-three, a gaunt, white-haired man with wrinkled, drooping eyelids and liver-spotted hands. The neighborhood was as shabby as was permissible. There was only one nurse, who also served as receptionist, a tired-looking woman with unlikely auburn hair.

  She announced Breden and went out. Breden shook hands with the old physician, sat down in a comfortable plastic chair, and presently was smoking. Springfield looked at him.

  “Sedative cigarette,” he said. “Why, Joe?”

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about. But it’s got to be highly confidential. First I want your promise that you won’t pass this on to anyone. I mean anyone.”

  Springfield blinked. “What have you been up to? Murder or treason? Let me try your pulse.”

  “Not just yet, please. There’s time enough for that later. I mean this, Doc; I hold a responsible position, and if I’m not in perfect health, I’ll be fired.”

  Springfield said, “I know what position you hold. I see Louis occasionally. But he never told me you were ill.”

  “I. . . I’m not, physically. The medics at the base would have caught anything like that.”

  “Mental?” Springfield said. “You’ve done a lot of psychiatric work, haven’t you?”

  “Not so much lately. I’m getting old, Joe. I’m satisfied just to sit back. Anyhow, research is forbidden, except along conventional lines.”

  “Not forbidden,” Breden said. “That’s what it amounts to, though, doesn’t it? Ah, well. People are getting conditioned against research anyway. Well, what’s bothering you? Hear voices or something?” Springfield laughed and lit a black cigar.

  Braden said, “My work is to guard Uranium Pile One. Well, I’ve been having recurrent dreams. In my dream I detonate the pile.”

  “Uh. You do, eh? Well, go on.”

  “That’s all.”

  “How do you feel about it, I mean? In the dream? Happy or scared? Do you wake up feeling better or worse?”

  “Worse. I’m scared. Naturally.”

  “But you detonate the pile anyhow.”

  “It’s like a compulsion,” Breden said painfully. “I suppose it’s easy to explain. The medics at the base could do it and cure it. But then I’d be fired.”

  “Funny word to use,” Springfield said. “People don’t get fired nowadays. We’ve got security. What would you do if they fired you?”

  Breden hesitated. “I . . . don’t know. It would be the end, pretty much.”

  “Yet you could be cured of this ailment, whatever it is, and go on into different work—along your own line, naturally.”

  “I suppose I could.”

  “But this is the only work you care about?”

  “It’s the most important work in the world,” Breden said with violence.

  “It is, eh? Why?”

  “Well . . . it’s obvious. After all, a uranium pile—”

  “Just what’s the nature of your work, if you can tell me.”

  “I can tell you some of it.” Breden did. Springfield waved his cigar impatiently.

  “You sit around and look at dials. But the machines—those robot gadgets you mentioned—they’d take care of any trouble, wouldn’t they?”

  “To a certain extent. They aren’t intelligent. Some emergencies might arise that would necessitate trained human reactions.”

  “Well, let’s make some tests,” Springfield said, standing up. “Take off your shirt. Now—”

  Finally he returned to his desk and made marks on a pad. Breden, zipping his open-necked shirt into place, watched the doctor anxiously.

  Springfield said, “How’s your wife, Joe?”

  “Fine. We’re expecting a child, you know.”

  “Yes, Louis told me. I had three of my own. Don’t see ’em much nowadays; they’re all married. However, a normal home’s very useful therapy; it’s a good environment. Why don’t you take a long furlough from your work and stay with Margaret for a bit?”

  Breden said, “No. They’d ask questions—there is something wrong, then?”

  “You could call it that. Joe, I’m going to ask you something.”

  “Well?”

  “How would you feel about going to your own medics at your base and telling them everything you told me?”

  Breden stood up quickly. “No. It would mean—”

  “It would symbolize failure to you; I know that. But I’ve found something extremely important. More important than either of us. I want you to listen to me now.” Breden said furiously, “I came here for help? This is confidential; you promised me—” Springfield put his hand up to his forehead. He said, “Joe, please listen. You’ve been under—”

  The televisor buzzed. Automatically Breden glanced toward it. There was—

  —something different about the room. A noise. A faint noise he remembered. The televisor was silent and blank. But Springfield lay where he had fallen across his desk. It must have been the noise of his body thudding softly down. That was it. Yes, that was it.

  “Doc!” Breden said urgently. He caught the man by the shoulders and lifted him back into his chair. There was no sign of breathing. Breden scarcely waited to check the heartbeat; he went hastily into the outer office to find the nurse.

  The auburn-haired woman was gone; there was a smart-looking girl with sleek black hair and orchid lipstick. She looked up inquiringly. Breden said, “The doctor—I think he’s dying.”

  Being a nurse, she knew what to do, and did it efficiently. She even enlisted Breden’s aid to help her inject adrenalin, directly into Springfield’s heart muscle. But the doctor was thoroughly dead.

  Breden said helplessly, “He was sitting there talking to me—”

  “I believe it must have been his heart,” the nurse said, studying the body with a practiced air. “He had angina, you know. The emergency medics will be here in a moment. I’ve called them.”

  Breden drew a long breath.

  V.

  The Freak said plaintively, “I don’t want to think yet. I can’t. The sutures are still open. Must I?”

  Ortega said, “You must.”

  “Then turn the lights off. My head hurts.”

  Ortega dimmed the glow and the Freak opened two of his eyes. He whined a little. “My head—” Very carefully Ortega adjusted the flow through the tank that kept the Freak’s head moist in its saline solution. The Freak said, “When can I get out of this thing, Rod?”

  “Perhaps never. Not in my lifetime, unless—”

  “It isn’t worth it. It isn’t worth it. Let me die.”

  “You don’t mean that. You know what chance you have.”

  “It costs too much. That thing is coming up again.”

  “Your rational periods are much more frequent now the pressure’s off and you’re in the right condition. You’d have died i
n the sanatorium. I couldn’t have tried these new methods there. Once you’re back to complete sanity, things should speed up tremendously. But we can’t wait till then.”

  “Oh, I don’t care. My head aches.”

  “Even you can’t wait. You’ll be dead before this chance comes again, unless we take advantage of it now. We can’t get what we need here. Equipment, yes, but not the power. We can’t tap enough of it. It’d be noticed.”

  The Freak said wearily, “Well, what now?”

  Ortega’s gentle hands adjusted the temperature in the tank. “That better? Good. We had to move fast in New York this morning. We covered up, but handling Breden will be more delicate than we expected—and we knew it would be delicate. He’s beginning to talk.”

  “Oh. And?”

  “That’s taken care of. However, Breden’s on duty tonight again, and then off for a week. I want to know if we can make him move tonight.”

  The Freak stared into the darkness, considering. “No, we can’t. It would be fatal. He isn’t ready. The conditioning is incomplete. We must work on his conscious as well as his unconscious, and that takes time. The shadows are—”

  “Easy!”

  “Yes. All right. It will be necessary to—Opening my head to give my brain more room was necessary but it lets the shadows in and they are hungry today.”

  “Easy. Stop thinking. Stop thinking.”

  But the Freak had opened his third eye and the darkness was no barrier. He whined, “They only want my type of brain. It’s your fault. You didn’t have to work with atomic radiation and they’re chewing in fast reaching the—STOP THEM. STOP—”

  Ortega snapped on a dim light and very quickly made a hypodermic injection. The echoing screams stopped. Sweat stood on Orttega’s forehead under the smooth gray hair. His mouth was tight.

  The monster lay still now.

  After a while Ortega said, “Relax. Don’t think. All right now?”

  The Freak said, “Yes . . . yes. All right now, Dad.”

  “Just checking on the safety threshold,” De Anza said, sticking a blue-headed pin in the map and making a note on a chart. “Let me get this reading, Joe. Five minutes, huh?”

  “I’ll vise Margaret. Where—” De Anza jerked his thumb toward a corner cubicle. Breden threaded his way through the lab and sat down before the screen. He had some trouble getting the Denver connection; there was a storm in the Rockies; but presently relays clicked over and a Medusalike wig appeared. Margaret’s voice said, “Don’t . . . oh, Joe! What a time to call me! June, where’s a towel or something, quick!”

  Breden said, “You look gorgeous.”

  She was winding an improvised turban around her head. “Not when I’m getting a permanent I don’t. There. I look a little better. Where are you, Joe?”

  “Manhattan.”

  “Oh. Business, I suppose. Do I see you today, or do I have to wait till tomorrow?”

  Breden said, “I don’t know. If I can wind everything up today, I’ll be completely free this time next week. I’m up at Mike’s place now.”

  “Say hello for me. Everything fine?”

  “Fine. What about you?”

  “A little pregnancy never hurt anybody,” Margaret said. But Breden looked at her closely. She seemed tired. He felt an intolerable aching desire to be with her, to ask for a furlough and forget everything but Margaret. Only he knew that while he could get the furlough, he couldn’t get forgetfulness. One thing modern technology hadn’t perfected was bottled Lethe.

  “Well, don’t change your plans. I’m not sure if I can make it.”

  “I haven’t any plans. I’m just being lazy. Oh, all right, June. Joe, my hair is being toasted by induction or something and June says it’ll fall out unless she works on it right away. I’ll be back at the lodge in an hour. Call me then—if you can?”

  He said, “All right. I’ll see you.” The screen blanked, but Breden sat staring at it for a while. Then, moistening his lips, he went back to De Anza, who was gloating over his map.

  “How’s Margaret?”

  “Fine. She said hello. Did you figure out your thresholds?”

  “Yeah,” De Anza said, yawning. “It’s only routine. Some big shot found a building site on Hilo and I had to make sure the radioactivity wouldn’t make the guy fall apart. The area’s shrinking, but he can’t build that close yet. I’ll have to tell him to wait fifty years. He’ll love that.”

  Breden sat on the edge of the table. “Have you heard anything about some people called Neoculturalists?”

  “Not a word. Who are they?”

  “They’re in favor of interplanetary travel being reopened.”

  “Oh, that gang. I remember. I get ’em mixed up with Logicians Plus. They want government by machines, as far as I can figure out. If it isn’t one pressure group, it’s another, these days. They don’t do any harm. They merely blow off steam. It’s a healthy symptom. What’s your interest in the Neoculturalists?”

  “Louis mentioned them this morning. I’m not especially interested. I don’t suppose these groups are significant?”

  “Not a bit. They’re harmless. After all, GPC—!”

  They considered the paternal autocracy of GPC. De Anza yawned again.

  “Anything new?”

  “Idle speculation,” Breden said. “I’ve plenty of time for that. Ever heard of unconscious mutation?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well—a mutant who doesn’t know he’s a mutant.”

  “Few of ’em did, till mental and physiological tests showed they were variants from the norm. Of course it was easy to spot the failures. But if a guy is born with an especially efficient stomach, how could you tell unless he got a bellyache and had a GI series? Hell, that’s why they started to enforce the ten-year physio-mental check-ups.”

  “That’s what I mean. Have those check-ups kept pace with the times? If I could prove to GPC that there’s a real need for new types of checks to be developed, they’d permit research on it.”

  “Research!” De Anza said.

  “Well, it’s done occasionally.”

  “Not independent research, Joe. GPC controlled is all.”

  Breden said doggedly, “Call it a bee in my bonnet But suppose you’ve got a mutation that’s successful, but recessive in the unconscious. A Jekyll and Hyde business. The mutation remains latent until there’s a need for it. Like a bee’s stinger. It’s extruded only when the bee gets mad.”

  De Anza said, “What sort of mutation would this be, anyhow?”

  “I don’t know. It’s wonderful protective camouflage, though, isn’t it? The mutation simply doesn’t exist most of the time. Maybe not even the mutant himself is conscious that he’s a mutant. Only his unconscious mind knows.”

  “An eerie theory,” De Anza commented. “It evokes strange pictures. Got any proof? I thought not. Somehow I have a feeling you’d never be able to convince GPC there was need for research on the subject. What got you started on this? Louis?”

  “Louis knows he’s a mutant.”

  “But he’s no freak. He simply has an abnormally high IQ. He’s got more potentialities than most of us. His maturation period took a long time, but he caught up fast.”

  “Louis is fifty-two.”

  “That’s a pity. If he were twenty years younger—” De Anza shrugged.

  “Well, he isn’t. You’re no help.” Breden reached for a narcocigarette, thought better of it, and moved his shoulders uneasily. Suddenly he felt that he was wasting time. He and De Anza had little in common any more—though, up to a few weeks ago, Breden had not felt that way. An intangible wall seemed to have built itself up around him, isolating him from everyone. If he could find out who was building that wall—He left De Anza and went out in search of a public televisor booth.

  Dr. Rodney Ortega said, “I told you not to call me, Ilsa.”

  The girl on the screen wore a nurse’s uniform. She had sleek black hair and orchid lipstick. She said, “Bred
en’s found the weak link. He’s coming here.”

  Ortega grimaced. “It was too risky. I knew that. But we had to move instantly to protect Breden when he saw Springfield. Ilsa, if we can just get him past tonight’s tests—”

  “You’ve overstepped yourself. There’s only one answer now. Let me tell him the truth.”

  “All of it?”

  “Enough. He’s got to be satisfied, or the psych-detectors at the island will catch him. His mind has to be camouflaged.”

  Ortega shook his head. “It would be too dangerous. If he should be caught, there’s scopolamin. And then where would we be—if GPC found out about us?”

  Ilsa said. “It isn’t safe to let him go back to work tonight. He knows too much and too little. Tell him the answers; that’s the only way. But then seal his mouth.”

  “How?”

  “With his Control. Mnemonic erasure.”

  “It’s risky,” Ortega said.

  Ilsa said angrily, “You’re getting senile. There’s no other way. Unless the Freak knows the answers.”

  Ortega said, “He doesn’t know, of course. But we can get the answers from him.”

  The woman grimaced. “He’s a weapon we can’t use.”

  “I think we can. I’m on the trail of what may be the right explanation. It will mean altering our plans—”

  Ilsa said wearily, “Shall I go ahead, then?”

  “I—suppose so. Yes. Get in touch with Breden’s Control. But be as careful as you can.”

  She agreed and broke the beam.

  He felt danger. He felt it in the commonplace familiarity of this apartment, like a thousand others in the city; he felt it in the too-ordinary attitude of the girl, her relaxed posture on the couch opposite him, her dark, friendly eyes, her quiet competence. She had struck the first false note. Why should someone like this work in the suburbs for an ill-paid physician like Springfield?

  He asked her that.

  “Suppose you tell me what’s on your mind?” she said. “You sounded a little incoherent over the visor.”

  “I don’t think Dr. Springfield died a natural death. I . . . I think I may have killed him.”