The 19th Golden Age of Science Fiction

by Charles V. De Vet

  Simmons pondered for a time. “Again I am in complete agreement with your views,” he said. “Now, perhaps, you can tell me something about the Fishers. How long have they suffered their persecution?”

  “Nearly as long,” Graetin replied. “But of course that can have nothing to do with the danger. It is a normal thing; one must expect it.”

  “Why do you say that?” Simmons asked. “I would think a man with your background and sympathies would recognize the injustice of that suppression.”

  Graetin pushed out one arm in a gesture of brushing the argument aside. “The morality of it is too minor to concern me,” he said, “so I will not argue with you. I was considering merely its political aspect. You must know that the best way for a government to secure social solidarity is for it to acquire a war. There are no wars on Mogden: We have a universal government. The second best means of securing that social solidarity—especially for a government exercising absolute authority—is to have an oppressed minority. You can find many instances of it in your own Earth’s history. Back in your middle ages you had the Jews under Hitler; the bourgeois under Stalin and Lenin; Papists under Protestants; and heretics under the Catholics. The Fishers are ours.”

  Simmons had to admit that the man was learned—he might even be forced to admit that he was wise. But the oppression of the Fishers stayed strong in his mind as a vital clue.

  * * * *

  The next few days, Simmons had other discussions with Graetin, and learned more of the cultural background of Mogden IV. The man was obstinate and more dogmatic than he himself realized, but he was a thinking man, and his interests extended to many fields.

  During those few days Simmons gave the problem of Mogden’s imminent disaster much deep thought. By this time, he was certain, he had all, or nearly all, the facts he needed. Any day now some small occurrence or conversation would supply the stimulus that would trigger his intuition, and the answer would come tumbling out.

  Many times he thought of the Fishers, and how they fitted into the pattern, especially when his intuition seemed bubbling just beneath the surface of his mind, waiting to break out. Somewhere there, he was positive, lay the vital clue. Often he wondered about the young Fisher, Michel. He still remembered the look of stark despair in his eyes when LeBlamc had shattered his hallucination.

  Twice daily he received phone reports from Harris, and was assured that his hiding place was still a secret from his pursuers. However, Harris warned him each time not to leave Graetin’s house. He had too much ignorance of the small habits and daily behavior of the Mogdenians, Harris insisted, to risk exposing himself. Simmons agreed—but each time more reluctantly. He was safe where he was, but he was making no progress with his larger problem. His helplessness was slowly building up to a gray frustration.

  On the third day he could wait no longer. The thought of the boy, Michel, had been pricking at his consciousness like a thistle burr in a thumb, and he had to find out what had happened to him. He decided to risk a visit to the Fisher district.

  * * * *

  Simmons had some acquaintance with the wharf sector and decided to begin his inquiries there. “Do you know a man named Michel?” he asked a passing Fisher.

  “There is a Michel who owns a boat at the end of that small pier,” The Fisher answered, indicating the pier with a nod of his head.

  “Thank you,” Simmons said. As he turned to walk on he noticed, without attaching any significance to it, that a young Fisher, in a blue, open-necked, sweater had stopped to listen to their conversation.

  He found the man named Michel mending a strip of net. “Are you related to the boy who was a patient of the psycho-therapist, LeBlamc?” he asked.

  “The young one was my nephew, sir,” the Fisher answered.

  “And how is he now?”

  “He is dead, Monsieur. He killed himself on the night he last visited M. LeBlamc.”

  Simmons experienced a brief moment of shock—and his intuition moved with an almost tangible meshing of mental gears. He knew the danger that threatened Mogden IV!

  * * * *

  Simmons had walked back the length of the pier before he became aware, consciously, of what he was doing. And then it was because his intuition operated again, sounding a sharp note of alarm. He stopped and looked around. The only person near him was the Fisher in the open-necked blue sweater.

  With an effort of will Simmons forced himself to let his glance pass over the Fisher with no display of interest. He weighed and measured the man with that glance and walked slowly up the street bordering the wharf sector.

  At a store front with an oblique glass he observed his own reflection, and his heart sank as he saw the Fisher ten paces behind. His last doubt was gone. They had found him!

  Danger acted as a mental stimulus and he knew he was thinking as clearly as he ever had in his life. All was not yet lost. If he kept moving, his pursuer would have no opportunity to put in a call and report his find—without losing him. And Simmons knew where he must go to be safe.

  The international spaceport.

  In the early days of interplanetary travel one of the main sources of stress and dissention had been the landing fields of the ships of space. So many wealth-hungry governments had laid custom and import duties on their fields—to be reciprocated in kind by punitive taxes of other governments—that both trade and amicable relations had been threatened. The trouble was resolved by placing the fields under international jurisdiction. Violators were subject to the penalty of isolation. The restrictions were rigidly observed.

  If he could reach the spaceport Simmons knew they would not dare come after him. And he felt fully capable of coping with this one man, should he attempt to stop him.

  But Simmons’ mind, despite its instinct for safety, would not cease its sharp functioning—and it carried his actions to their logical conclusion.

  By fleeing, he was abandoning Mogden IV to its doom. And just at the moment when he knew what had to be done to save it.

  Could he place his own safety before that of an entire World? Slowly his stride shortened, until he turned abruptly aside from his goal. He would return to Graetin’s house.

  Once in the building, he went to the nearest phone and called Harris. He was fortunate enough to find him in. He talked for several minutes. After he finished he put in a quick call to his bank.

  * * * *

  Simmons made his way up the stairs and into Graetin’s study. He found Graetin bent over his writing desk, underlining passages in a black-covered book.

  “Good day, my friend,” Graetin greeted him.

  Simmons nodded soberly. He walked to a window facing on the main street and sat on its ledge. Against the gray brick building across the street the blue-sweatered Fisher leaned negligently.

  Simmons had trouble beginning what he had to say. It was so difficult that when he did begin he found himself trying to reach his vital matter by a subtle, circuitous play of words.

  “There is a beautiful and enlightening world of talk,” he said to a Graetin so puzzled and impressed with the gravity of Simmons’ manner that he was forgetting to frown, “in which everything makes sense. And there is another world—a more practical world—that is governed by the unintelligibility of necessity.”

  “What are you trying to say?” Graetin demanded irritably.

  Simmons sighed deeply. “I am trying to say,” he made his effort again, “that I have admired your zeal, I have enjoyed conversing with you, and that I am grateful to you for hiding me. But now the time comes when I must oppose you. And if you do not accept what I command without struggle, I must fight you. Perhaps even kill you.”

  Graetin’s scowl returned while Simmons spoke. “You have said too much, M., not to say more.”

  “Then I will be blunt.” Simmons abandoned any attempt at subtlety. “You are the entity that is the threat to Mogden IV!”

  Graetin strode toward him, his face turning a mottled red. “You.” For the first time in Si
mmons’ experience Graetin was at a loss for words.

  “You are a damned fool!” Graetin choked. He reached out and grabbed a fistful of Simmons’ blouse collar and twisted it with violent strength.

  Calmly, with both hands, Simmons forced the fist to loosen its grip. “I will try to explain,” he said, “by telling you a story. A story of a Fisher boy who had a neurosis.

  “His name was Michel,” Simmons went on as Graetin stood over him with his shoulders hunched and his body bent into a half-crouch. “He was sensitive, and intelligent. So sensitive and intelligent, that he could not bear the knowledge that he was doomed to a life of degradation, menial work, and the scorn of others actually no better than he. And without hope of ever being able to escape his fate. This boy invented a story—which he believed himself—that he had actually been born to a higher station.

  “You, as a learned man, will recognize what had happened,” Simmons said. “Most insanity and neuroses are the same. A man is unable to cope with his environment, so he invents another world where he is someone better. On Earth the insane imagine they are semi-legendary figures, such as the general Napoleon, or the statesman-philosopher Jefferson.”

  “Get on with it!” Graetin rasped.

  “A psycho-therapist cured the Fisher boy of his neurosis. He was not wise enough to realize that the neurosis was the boy’s shield against a world with which he could not cope. There was only one escape left. The boy killed himself.”

  Simmons glanced down into the street. Two men had joined the Fisher in blue. And another group was gathering farther down the roadway. He looked back at Graetin. The burly man’s scowl was still on his face, but it was strained now. As though it were fighting against some recognition.

  “I think you see the simile,” Simmons said. “You were right when you said Mogden’s blood-letting was a neurosis—a planetary neurosis. But that neurosis is also its protection—as Michel’s was his. The environment Mogden cannot face without its neurosis is overpopulation. Overpopulation, with its unfavorable relationship between man and his environment, brings wholesale destruction of planetary resources, hunger, revolution, war, and wholesale extermination.

  “And you, Georg Graetin, are the psycho-therapist trying to cure that neurosis!” Simmons looked into the street where more men were gathering. When he turned back Graetin was slumped in a chair. The light of anger was gone from his eyes, and a double chin had appeared on his face.

  Simmons knew he was being cruel, but he had to finish what he had to say. “I hope that I can trust to your good reason to abandon your endeavors,” he said. “But I must be certain. I’ve made arrangements with a bank to supply Harris with any money he might need to accomplish a task. That task is to kill you if you persist in your efforts.”

  Simmons made one attempt to soften the damage to Graetin’s crushed ego before he left. “There are other ways of continuing your fight—safely,” he said. “You can strive for a means of limiting Mogden’s births. It would be practical then to fight the forces that bring death—after you have interfered with the forces that bring life. That would be a very fine substitute for the killings that are necessary now.” He paused, but Graetin had nothing to say. “If, when I am gone, you decide to follow my counsel I will await with interest any correspondence you wish to have with me. And for now goodby and good luck.”

  Graetin did not raise his head as Simmons walked out of the room.

  * * * *

  After the scene in Graetin’s study the ride with Harris to the international spaceport was almost an anti-climax. Once again Harris used his weapon of surprise, by riding a swift Mogden pony through the men surrounding Graetin’s home. Simmons was waiting, and sprang on the pony Harris led, and they were away before the Council’s men realized what was happening.

  Three hours later Simmons rode in the spaceship cutting its way through the thin envelope of atmosphere surrounding the planet Mogden IV.

  His vacation was over.

  COUNTERCHECK

  Originally appeared in Future Science Fiction, November 1953.

  Bill Van Horne said, carefully selecting each word, “We investigated our employees, as you requested, and we find that one of them, a certain Edgar Jeske, has no past!”

  “I presume you mean that you have been able to find nothing about his background,” Herbert Smith replied.

  “No,” Van Horne answered, unequivocally. “I mean exactly what I said. Jeske has no background—no past!”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Of course it is,” Van Horne agreed. “Nevertheless, when we make an investigation it’s thorough; improbable as it may seem, Jeske’s existence began the day he took employment with your company.”

  “How do you explain such a statement?”

  “I can’t; I was hoping you could.”

  Smith shrugged helplessly. “The only thing I can suggest is that you continue the investigation. Surely an organization with the resources of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and backed by the government, should have little trouble in a case of this kind.”

  “We’ve used those resources you mentioned,” Van Horne persisted, “and the fact that they are so extensive makes me certain that we missed nothing.”

  * * * *

  In the outer offices of Herbert Smith Associates, Projects Unlimited, a young man seated at a desk bearing the name-plate Edgar Jeske, was leaning on one elbow, with his chin in his hand, apparently lost in thought. He might have been enjoying a pleasant daydream, but he was not; one hand rested on the interoffice communicator and only he was aware that a third threadlike wire the exact color of the two standard wires, ran along its electrical connection.

  Jeske was following every word spoken in the office of the president, Herbert Smith. When Van Horne made his report, Jeske knew that the time had come to move—fast.

  He did not pause for his hat, nor wait for an elevator, but went directly down the stairs and out into the street.

  He paused for a moment at the exit of the office building. From his right he caught the strong wash of danger, and fear blossomed up in his stomach. Someone, very near, had detected him and the emotional-pattern of that someone’s thoughts were deadly. Jeske let the fear ride him for he knew his reflexes would be all the sharper because of it. Casting one lightning glance at the source of the danger—a dark man in a blue serge suit—he moved!

  A pedestrian stood open-mouthed, staring at the spot from which Jeske had vanished. The wall next to the spot blackened abruptly, the center of the black liquefying, and bits of smoldering concrete trailed small streams of smoke as they fell to the ground.

  The dark man in the blue serge suit cursed under his breath and pocketed the small weapon he held in his hand. “I’ve lost him,” he broadcast. “He vanished right before my eyes.”

  One flight up, Smith caught the broadcast as he sat talking with Van Horne. “Find him again,” Smith flashed back.

  “I’ve located him,” a thought from a second man reached Smith.

  “Kill him. Quick.”

  “Damn!” the exclamation came to Smith from the second source. “He disappeared again!”

  “Follow his thoughts, you fools,” Smith stormed. “He can move faster than your eyesight can follow, so forget about looking for him. But he has to think. Keep your mental identify-pattern of every person within the pocket, then wait for an extraneous thought-pattern! It will have to be his. Be alert!”

  All this thought-exchange occurred on the instant as Smith, with another facet of his mind carried on a conversation with Van Horne. “I really don’t know anything about him, except what information he gave on his application-blank,” Smith said. “I’d suggest we go over it together, and see what we can find.”

  Jeske paused. This high speed was a tremendous drain on his vitality; he had to use it as sparingly as possible, for he might have need of all his energy before he could escape the net he felt around him.

  Across the street, a third man in a bl
ue serge suit went into action the moment Jeske paused and became visible to normal optics. Jeske smiled ironically as he noted the suit. That was one of the weaknesses of the Kunklies: Little imagination or ingenuity. Blue serge was a good anonymous color and suit, material, ideal for subterfuge, and so every Kunklie wore one making himself conspicuous to the most stupid observer.

  Once again Jeske caught the danger-emanation, well in time, and moved another abrupt block. The Kunklies broadcast emotions faster than they were able to move, and Jeske knew he could easily avoid harm—as long as they never concentrated more than one man against him, at one place.

  Three more times he was forced to switch localities. His chest was beginning to tighten with the strain of his frantic breathing. Moving at this speed took as much exertion as though he had gone the distance slower—more, in fact—and he had covered a great deal of territory in a brief period of time.

  But he couldn’t linger; each time he stopped there was a Kunklie waiting. Suddenly he understood why: They were following his thoughts! He should have realized that sooner. Desperately he searched for means of evasion. He had no time to establish a decoy of false identity. Swiftly he formed his plan and turned his every effort to keeping his mind blank.

  When he came to a stop the next time no Kunklie menaced him and he jumped into an idle heliocab. “Up!” he barked. “Ten dollars if you make the top lane in ten seconds!”

  The cabby was a child of this city-jungle and his survival reflexes responded to the promise of money with action. The cab went up with a leap that pulled Jeske down into his seat and bent his neck backward.