At two minutes after two o’clock a small group of men filed out onto the field from a point just back of home plate. The crowd buzzed more loudly for a moment and then burst into applause. The men carefully climbed a few wooden steps, walked in single file across the platform, and seated themselves in the chairs set out for them. Traub turned around and was interested to observe high in the press box, the winking red lights of television cameras.
“Remarkable,” said Traub softly to his companion.
“I suppose,” said the man. “But effective.”
“I guess that’s right,” said Traub. “Still, it all seems a little strange to me. We do things rather differently.”
“That’s what makes horse-racing,” said his companion.
Traub listened for a moment to the voices around him. Surprisingly, no one seemed to be discussing the business at hand. Baseball, movies, the weather, gossip, personal small-talk, a thousand-and-one subjects were introduced. It was almost as if they were trying not to mention the hating.
His friend’s voice broke in on Traub’s reverie.
“Think you’ll be okay when we get down to business? I’ve seen ‘em keel over.”
“I’ll be all right,” said Traub. Then he shook his head. “But I still can’t believe it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know, the whole thing. How it started. How you found you could do it.”
“Beats the hell out of me,” said the other man. “I think it was that guy at Duke University first came up with the idea. The mind over matter thing has been around for a long time, of course. But this guy, he was the first one to prove scientifically that mind can control matter.”
“Did it with dice, I believe,” Traub said.
“Yeah, that’s it. First he found some guys who could drop a dozen or so dice down a chute of some kind and actually control the direction they’d take. Then they discovered the secret—it was simple. The guys who could control the dice were simply the guys who thought they could.
“Then one time they got the idea of taking the dice into an auditorium and having about 2,000 people concentrate on forcing the dice one way or the other. That did it. It was the most natural thing in the world when you think of it. If one horse can pull a heavy load so far and so fast it figures that 10 horses can pull it a lot farther and a lot faster. They had those dice fallin’ where they wanted ‘em 80 percent of the time.”
“When did they first substitute a living organism for the dice?” Traub asked.
“Damned if I know,” said the man. “It was quite a few years ago and at first the government sort of clamped down on the thing. There was a little last-ditch fight from the churches, I think. But they finally realized you couldn’t stop it.”
“Is this an unusually large crowd?”
“Not for a political prisoner. You take a rapist or a murderer now, some of them don’t pull more than maybe twenty, thirty thousand. The people just don’t get stirred up enough.”
The sun had come out from behind a cloud now and Traub watched silently as large map-shaped shadows moved majestically across the grass.
“She’s warming up,” someone said.
“That’s right,” a voice agreed. “Gonna be real nice.”
Traub leaned forward and lowered his head as he retied the laces on his right shoe and in the next instant he was shocked to attention by a gutteral roar from the crowd that vibrated the floor.
In distant right center-field, three men were walking toward the platform. Two were walking together, the third was slouched in front of them, head down, his gait unsteady.
Traub had thought he was going to be all right but now, looking at the tired figure being prodded toward second base, looking at the bare, bald head, he began to feel slightly sick.
It seemed to take forever before the two guards jostled the prisoner up the stairs and toward the small kitchen chair.
When he reached it and seated himself the crowd roared again. A tall, distinguished man stepped to the speaker’s lectern and cleared his throat, raising his right hand in an appeal for quiet. “All right,” he said, “all right.”
The mob slowly fell silent. Traub clasped his hands tightly together. He felt a little ashamed.
“All right,” said the speaker. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the President of the United States I welcome you to another Public Hating. This particular affair,” he said, “as you know is directed against the man who was yesterday judged guilty in United States District Court here in New York City—Professor Arthur Ketteridge.”
At the mention of Ketteridge’s name the crowd made a noise like an earthquake-rumble. Several pop-bottles were thrown, futilely, from the center-field bleachers.
“We will begin in just a moment,” said the speaker, “but first I should like to introduce the Reverend Charles Fuller, of the Park Avenue Reborn Church, who will make the invocation.”
A small man with glasses stepped forward, replaced the first speaker at the microphone, closed his eyes, and threw back his head.
“Our Heavenly Father,” he said, “to whom we are indebted for all the blessings of this life, grant, we beseech Thee, that we act today in justice and in the spirit of truth. Grant, O Lord, we pray Thee, that what we are about to do here today will render us the humble servants of Thy divine will. For it is written the wages of sin is death. Search deep into this man’s heart for the seed of repentance if there be such, and if there be not, plant it therein, O Lord, in Thy goodness and mercy.”
There was a slight pause. The Reverend Fuller coughed and then said, “Amen.”
The crowd, which had stood quietly during the prayer, now sat down and began to buzz again.
The first speaker rose. “All right,” he said. “You know we all have a job to do. And you know why we have to do it.”
“Yes!” screamed thousands of voices.
“Then let us get to the business at hand. At this time I would like to introduce to you a very great American who, to use the old phrase, needs no introduction. Former president of Harvard University, current adviser to the Secretary of State, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Howard S. Weltmer!”
A wave of applause vibrated the air.
Dr. Weltmer stepped forward, shook hands with the speaker, and adjusted the microphone. “Thank you,” he said. “Now, we won’t waste any more time here since what we are about to do will take every bit of our energy and concentration if it is to be successfully accomplished. I ask you all,” he said, “to direct your unwavering attention toward the man seated in the chair to my left here, a man who in my opinion is the most despicable criminal of our time—Professor Arthur Ketteridge!”
The mob shrieked.
“I ask you,” said Weltmer, “to rise. That’s it, everybody stand up. Now, I want every one of you . . . I understand we have upwards of seventy thousand people here today . . . I want every single one of you to stare directly at this fiend in human form, Ketteridge. I want you to let him know by the wondrous power that lies in the strength of your emotional reservoirs, I want you to let him know that he is a criminal, that he is worse than a murderer, that he has committed treason, that he is not loved by anyone, anywhere in the universe, and that he is, rather, despised with a vigor equal in heat to the power of the sun itself!”
People around Traub were shaking their fists now. Their eyes were narrowed their mouths turned down at the corners. A woman fainted.
“Come on,” shouted Weltmer. “Let’s feel it!”
Under the spell of the speaker Traub was suddenly horrified to find that his blood was racing, his heart pounding. He felt anger surging up in him. He could not believe he hated Ketteridge. But he could not deny he hated something.
“On the souls of your mothers,” Weltmer was saying, “on the future of your children, out of your love for your country, I demand of you that you unleash your power to despise. I want you to become ferocious. I want you to become as the beasts of the jungle,
as furious as they in the defense of their homes. Do you hate this man?”
“Yes!” roared the crowd.
“Fiend!” cried Weltmer, “Enemy of the people— Do you hear, Ketteridge?”
Traub watched in dry-mouthed fascination as the slumped figure in the chair straightened up convulsively and jerked at his collar. At this first indication that their power was reaching home the crowd roared to a new peak of excitement.
“We plead,” said Weltmer, “with you people watching today on your television sets, to join with us in hating this wretch. All over America stand up, if you will, in your living rooms. Face the East. Face New York City, and let anger flood your hearts. Speak it out, let it flow!”
A man beside Traub sat down, turned aside, and vomited softly into a handkerchief. Traub picked up the binoculars the man had discarded for the moment and fastened them on Ketteridge’s figure, twirling the focus-knob furiously. In a moment the man leaped into the foreground. Traub saw that his eyes were full of tears, that his body was wracked with sobs, that he was in obvious pain.
“He is not fit to live,” Weltmer was shouting. “Turn your anger upon him. Channel it. Make it productive. Be not angry with your family, your friends, your fellow citizens, but let your anger pour out in a violent torrent on the head of this human devil,” screamed Weltmer. “Come on! Let’s do it! Let’s get it over with!”
At that moment Traub was at last convinced of the enormity of Ketteridge’s crime, and Weltmer said, “All right, that’s it. Now let’s get down to brass tacks. Let’s concentrate on his right arm. Hate it, do you hear. Burn the flesh from the bone! You can do it! Come on! Burn him alive!”
Traub stared unblinking through the binoculars at Ketteridge’s right arm as the prisoner leaped to his feet and ripped off his jacket, howling. With his left hand he gripped his right forearm and then Traub saw the flesh turning dark. First a deep red and then a livid purple. The fingers contracted and Ketteridge whirled on his small platform like a dervish, slapping his arm against his side.
“That’s it,” Weltmer called. “You’re doing it. You’re doing it. Mind over matter! That’s it. Burn this offending flesh. Be as the avenging angels of the Lord. Smite this devil! That’s it!”
The flesh was turning darker now, across the shoulders, as Ketteridge tore his shirt off. Screaming, he broke away from his chair and leaped off the platform, landing on his knees on the grass.
“Oh, the power is wonderful,” cried Weltmer. “You’ve got him. Now let’s really turn it on. Come on!”
Ketteridge writhed on the grass and then rose and began running back and forth, directionless, like a bug on a griddle.
Traub could watch no longer. He put down the binoculars and staggered back up the aisle.
Outside the stadium he walked for 12 blocks before he hailed a cab.
<
* * * *
HOME THERE’S NO RETURNING
by
Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore
If the last story was uncomfortably close to home, be warned that this is even closer. But don’t quit now. It’s the last one in the book, so you may be certain it will have a happy ending—of sorts. And, being the work of science-fantasy’s foremost collaborators, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Kuttner, you may be equally certain that the background of the fable will be painted in clear glowing colors; that the action of the story will move at a pulse-beat pace; and that the moral, when it comes, will be stated with an appropriate question mark.
* * * *
The General opened the door and came softly into the big, bright underground room. There by the wall under the winking control panels lay the insulated box, nine feet long, four feet wide, just as it always lay, just as he always saw it—day or night, waking or sleeping, eyes open or closed. The box shaped like a tomb. But out of it, if they were lucky, something would be born.
The General was tall and gaunt. He had stopped looking at himself in the mirror because his own face had begun to frighten him with its exhaustion, and he hated to meet the look of his own sunken eyes. He stood there feeling the beat of unseen machinery throb through the rock all around him. His nerves secretly changed each rhythmic pulse into some vast explosion, some new missile against which all defenses would be useless.
He called sharply in the empty laboratory, “Broome!” No answer. The General walked forward and stood above the box. Over it on the control panel lights winked softly on and off, and now and then a needle quivered. Suddenly the General folded up his fist and smashed the knuckles down hard on the reverberent metal of the box. A sound like hollow thunder boomed out of it.
“Easy, easy,” somebody said. Abraham Broome was standing in the doorway, a very old man, small and wrinkled, with bright, doubtful eyes. He shuffled hastily to the box and laid a soothing hand on it, as if the box might be sentient for all he knew.
“Where the hell were you?” the General asked.
Broome said, “Resting. Letting some ideas incubate. Why?”
“You were resting?” The General sounded like a man who had never heard the word before. Even to himself he sounded strange. He pressed his eyelids with finger and thumb, because the room seemed to be dwindling all around him, and the face of Broome receded thinly into gray distances. But even with shut eyes he could still see the box and the sleeping steel giant inside, waiting patiently to be born. Without opening his eyes, he said, “Wake it up, Broome.”
Broome’s voice cracked a little. “But I haven’t fin—”
“Wake it up.”
“Something’s gone wrong, General?”
General Conway pressed his eyelids until the darkness inside reddened—as all this darkness underground would redden when the last explosions came. Perhaps tomorrow. Not later than the day after. He was almost sure of that. He opened his eyes quickly. Broome was looking at him with a bright, dubious gaze, his lids sagging at the outer corners with the weight of unregarded years.
“I can’t wait any longer,” Conway said carefully. “None of us can wait. This war is too much for human beings to handle any more.” He paused and let the rest of his breath go out in a sigh, not caring—perhaps not daring—to say the thing aloud that kept reverberating in his head like steadily approaching thunder. Tomorrow, or the day after —that was the deadline. The enemy was going to launch an all-out attack on the Pacific Front Sector within the next forty-eight hours.
The computers said so. The computers had ingested every available factor from the state of the weather to the conditions of the opposing general’s childhood years, and this was what they said. They could be wrong. Now and then they were wrong, when the data they receivedwas incomplete. But you couldn’t go on the assumption that they would be. You had to assume an attack would come before day after tomorrow.
General Conway had not—he thought—slept since the last attack a week ago, and that was a minor thing -compared to what the computers predicted now. He was amazed in a remote, unwondering way, that the general who preceded him had lasted so long. He felt a sort of gray malice toward the man who would come after him. But there wasn’t much satisfaction in that thought, either. His next in command was an incompetent fool. Conway had taken up responsibility a long time ago, and he could no more lay it down now than he would detach his painfully swimming head for a while and set it gently aside on some quiet shelf to rest. No, he would have to carry his head on his shoulders and his responsibilities on his back until—
“Either the robot can take over the job or it can’t” he said. “But we can’t wait any longer to find out.”
He stooped suddenly and with a single powerful heave tore the box-lid open and sent it crashing back. Broome stepped up beside him and the two of them looked down on the thing that lay placidly inside, face up, passionless, its single eye unlit and as blank as Adam’s before he tasted the fruit. The front panel of its chest was open upon a maze of transistors, infinitely miniature components, thin silver lines of printed circuits. A maze of f
ine wiring nested around the robot, but most of it was disconnected by now. The robot was almost ready to be born.
“What are we waiting for?” Conway demanded harshly. “I said wake it up!”
“Not yet, General. It isn’t safe—yet. I can’t predict what might happen—”
“Won’t it work?”
Broome looked down at the steel mask winking with reflected lights from the panel boards above it. His face wrinkled up with hesitation. He bent to touch one finger to a wire that led into the massive opened chest at a circuit labeled “In-Put.”
“It’s programed,” he said very doubtfully. “And yet—”
“Then it’s ready,” Conway’s voice was flat. “You heard me, Broome. I can’t wait any longer. Wake it up.”
The Year's Greatest Science Fiction & Fantasy 1 - [Anthology] Page 34
