Baldy

by Henry Kuttner

  "You see, this will be a microcosm of what the whole world ought to be--would have been if the Blowup hadn't brought us telepaths into being ahead of our normal mutation time. It will be a community of humans dominated by telepaths, controlled by them benevolently. We'll learn how to regulate relations with humans, and there'll be no danger while we learn. It'll be trial and error without punishment for error. A little hard on the humans, perhaps, but no harder than it's been for generations on the Baldy minority all over the world. We might even hope that in a few years' time the experiment may go well enough that even if the news leaked out, the community members would elect to stay put. Well, we'll have to wait and see. It can't be solved any better way that we know of. There is no solution, except adjustment between the races. If every Baldy on earth committed voluntary suicide, there'd still be Baldies born. You can't stop it. The Blowup's responsible for that, not us. We ... wait a minute."

  Hobson turned his head sharply, and in the rustling night silences of the forest, broken only by the subdued noises of the proposition far below, they listened for a sound not meant for ears.

  Burkhalter heard nothing, but in a moment Hobson nodded.

  "The town's about to go," he said.

  Burkhalter frowned. "There's another loose end, isn't there? What if they blame Pinewood for dusting Sequoia off?"

  "There won't be any proof either way. We've about decided to spread rumors indicating two or three other towns along with Pinewood, enough to confuse the issue. Maybe we'll say the explosion might have come from an accident in the Egg dump. That's happened, you know. Pinewood and the rest will just have to get along under a slight cloud for awhile. They'll have an eye kept on them, and if, they should show any more signs of aggression... but of course, nothing will happen. I think ... look, Burkhalter! There she goes!"

  Far away below them the glow that was Sequoia lay like a lake of light in the mountains' cup. As they watched, it changed. A nova flamed in incandescent splendor, whitening the men's faces and showing the pines in starkly black silhouette.

  For an instant the soundless ether was full of a stunning, mindless cry that rocked the brain of every telepath within its range. Then there was that terrible void, that blankness of cessation into which no Baldy cares to look. This time it was a mighty vortex, for a great many telepathic minds perished together in that nova. It was a vortex that made the mind reel perilously near its great, sucking brink. Paranoid they may have been, but they were telepathic too, and their going shook every brain that could perceive the passing.

  In Burkhalter's mind a reeling blindness struck. He thought, Barbara, Barbara....

  It was an utterly unguarded cry. He made no effort to hush it from Hobson's perception.

  Hobson said, as if he had not heard, "That's the finish. Two mutes in copters dropped the eggs. They're watching now. No survivors. Burkhalter-"

  He waited. Slowly Burkhalter pulled himself out of that blind abyss into which the beautiful, terrible, deadly image of Barbara Pell whirled away toward oblivion. Slowly he brought the world back into focus around him. "Yes?"

  "Look. The last of the Sequoians are going by. You and I aren't needed here anymore, Burk."

  There was significance in that statement. Burkhalter shook himself mentally and said with painful bewilderment, "I don't ... quite get it. Why did you bring me up here? Am I-" He hesitated. "I'm not going with the others?"

  "You can't go with them," the Mute said quietly. There was a brief silence; a cool wind whispered through the pine needles. The pungent fragrance and freshness of the night washed around the two telepaths. "Think, Burkhalter," Hobson said, "Think."

  "I loved her," Burkhalter said. "I know that now." There was shock and self-revulsion in his mind, but he was too stunned by the realization for much emotion to come through yet.

  "You know what that means, Burkhalter? You're not a true Baldy. Not quite." He was silent for a moment. "You're a latent paranoid, Burk," Hobson said.

  There was no sound or thought between them for a full minute. Then Burkhalter sat down suddenly on the pine needles that carpeted the forest floor.

  "It isn't true," he said. The trees were reeling around him.

  "It is true, Burk." Hobson's voice and mind were infinitely gentle. "Think. Would you--could you--have loved a paranoid, and such a paranoid as that, if you were a normal telepath?"

  Dumbly Burkhalter shook his head. He knew it was true. Love between telepaths is a far more unerring thing than love between blind and groping humans. A telepath can make no mistake about the quality of the beloved's character. He could not if he wished. No normal Baldy could feel anything but utter revulsion toward the thing that had been Barbara Pell. No normal Baldy--

  "You should have hated her. You did hate her. But there was something more than hate. It's a paranoid quality, Burk, to feel drawn toward what you despise. If you'd been normal, you'd have loved some normal telepathic woman, someone your equal. But you never did. You had to find a woman you could look down on. Someone you could build up your ego by despising. No paranoid can admit any other being is his equal. I'm sorry, Burk. I hate to say these things."

  Hobson's voice was like a knife, merciless and merciful, excising diseased tissue. Burkhalter heard him, and trod down the latent hatred which the truth-and he knew the truth of it-brought out in his double mind.

  "Your father's mind was warped too, Burk," Hobson went on. "He was born too receptive to paranoid indoctrination--"

  "They tried their tricks on him when he was a kid," Burkhalter said hoarsely. "I remember that."

  "We weren't sure at first about what ailed you. The symptoms didn't show till you took on the consulate. Then we began to build up a prognosis, of sorts. You didn't really want that job, Burkhalter. Not subconsciously. Those heavy fatigues were a defense. I caught that daydream, of yours today--not the first one you've had. Daydreams concerned with suicide--another symptom, and another means of escape. And Barbara Pell--that was the payoff. You couldn't let yourself know what your real feelings were, so you projected the opposite emotion-hatred. You believed she was persecuting you, and you let your hatred have full freedom. But it wasn't hatred, Burk."

  "No. It wasn't hatred. She... she was horrible, Hobson! She was horrible!"

  "I know."

  Burkhalter's mind boiled with violent emotions, too tangled to sort out. Hatred, intolerable grief, bright flashes of the paranoid world, memory of Barbara Pell's wild mind like a flame in the wind.

  "If you're right, Hobson," he said with difficulty, "you've got to kill me. I know too much. If I'm really a latent paranoid someday I might betray-Us."

  "Latent," Hobson said. "There's a world of difference--if you can be honest with yourself."

  "I'm not safe if I live. I can feel-disease-back in my mind right now. I--hate you, Hobson. I hate you for showing me myself. Some day the hate may spread to all Mutes and all Baldies. How can I trust myself anymore?"

  "Touch your wig, Burk," Hobson said.

  Bewildered, Burkhalter laid a shaking hand upon his head. He felt nothing unusual. He looked at Hobson in complete confusion.

  "Take it off, Burk."

  Burkhalter lifted off the wig. It came hard, the suction caps that held it in place giving way with reluctance. When it was off, Burkhalter was amazed to feel that there was still something on his head. He lifted his free hand and felt with unsteady fingers a fine cap of wires like silk, hugging his skull. He looked up hi the moonlight and met Hobson's eyes. He could see the fine wrinkles around them, and the look of kindness and compassion on the Mute's round face. For an instant he forgot even the mystery of the strange cap on his head. He cried voicelessly,

  Help me, Hobson! Don't let me hate you!

  Instantly into his mind came a firm, strong, compassionate locking of thoughts from many, many minds. It was a communion more intimate and of a different quality than anything he had ever felt before. And it was to the mind as the clasp of many supporting hands would be to the b
ody when the body is weary and in infinite need of support.

  You're one of us now, Burkhalter. You wear the Helmet. You are a Mute. No Paranoid can ever read your mind.

  It was Hobson's thought that spoke to him, but behind it spoke the thoughts of many others, many trained minds from hundreds of other Mutes, all speaking as if in a chorus that echoed and amplified all Hobson said.

  But I ...I'm a latent--

  The hundreds of minds blended into a cohesive unit, the psychic colloid of the round robin, but a different, more intense union, wrought into something new by the caps that filtered all their thoughts. The unit became a single mind, strong and sane and friendly, welcoming the newcomer. He did not find miraculous healing there--he found something better.

  Truth. Honesty.

  Now the warp in his mind, the paranoid quirk and its symptoms and illogic, became very clear. It was the highest kind of psychoanalysis, which only a Baldy can know.

  He thought, It will take time. The cure will take—

  Hobson was standing behind him. I'll be with you. Until you can stand alone. And even then--we'll all be with you. You are one of us. No Baldy is ever alone.

  Humpty Dumpty

  Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore

  And God said to Noah, the end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them....

  Under a stone sky Jeff Cody stood, his hands clasped behind him. He was trying to read the mind of an electronic calculator, and trying to keep his own mind from being read with all the violence in it. He shut down all his barriers around his own desperation, pushing hard upon the one thought he did not dare to face. He held it down, trying to drown it under the surface turmoil of his mind. The calculator had a broad, bland, glassy brow, winking with lights and reflections. Somewhere inside it a thin slice of crystal lay that could wipe human life off the face of the planet. Not Jeff Cody's life, and not the life of his people. But all human, nontelepathic life. The responsibility for the crystal was one man's. Cody's.

  Behind him Allenby shifted from one foot to another, his reflection blurring in the shining surface of the calculator's control panel. Cody said without turning,

  "But if the Inductor is a failure, then we'll have to--" An image of death and dying formed like a cloud in his thoughts.

  He had not said this aloud. Allenby interrupted very quickly, not speaking aloud either, but his thought cutting into Cody's, ending it before the image of destruction could take full shape in Cody's mind.

  "No. We've had another set-back. But we'll try again. We'll keep on trying. We may never have to use--that." His mind sketched in the thin crystal in the calculator, with death for most of the race of man locked in it.

  "Call it set-back or call it failure," Cody said, in the silence of his mind. "The goal's too high. Nobody knows what makes a man telepathic. Nobody's ever going to induce it with a machine. No Inductor will ever work. You know that."

  "I don't know it," Allenby's thought said quietly. "I think it can be done. Jeff, you're under too much pressure."

  Cody laughed shortly. "Merriam lasted three months in this job," he said. "Brewster stood it longest-eight months. This is my sixth month. What's the matter? Afraid I'll resign the way Brewster did?"

  "No," Allenby said. "But--"

  "Okay," Cody interrupted the thought irritably. "Forget it." He felt Allenby's mind touch the edges of his with tentative, uneasy brushing motions. Allenby was a psychologist. And therefore Cody was a little afraid of him. He did not want expert attention brought to bear on him just now. There was something terrifying and yet very tempting down close under the surface of his thoughts, and he did not mean to expose it just yet to anyone. He made an effort of the will and summoned up a shimmer of pleasant images like a smokescreen to puff in Allenby's face. Pine woods with warm rain blowing through them, a quarter of a mile over their heads above the limestone sky. The quiet and clearness of the empty heavens broken only by the buzz of a helicopter and the soft, continual swish of its vanes. The face of Cody's wife when she was hi a good mood and laughing gently.

  He felt Allenby's uneasiness tentatively subside. He did not turn as he heard Allenby's feet shift on the floor.

  "I'll get back, then," Allenby said without words. "I just wanted to see you when I told you that we'd hit another dead end. Is it all right, Jeff?"

  "Fine," Cody said. "I won't keep you."

  Allenby went out.

  Cody listened while the receding footsteps crossed the room beyond. He heard the door close and lock. He was alone now, physically, though all through the cavern an interlacing play of telepathic thoughts moved continually, touching his own and passing. Even Allenby sent back a vague uneasiness as he moved away. So Cody kept the images of pine woods and clear sky and laughing woman playing over the surface of his mind. But his eyes turned sidewise and without moving his head he saw lying on the edge of a work table within reach of his hand the thing he had not dared to admit into his mind till now. Too many other minds were watching.

  What he saw was a knife with a heavy, narrow blade and a sharp point, left by some careless workman. What he thought of was the man before him in this job, and the way Brewster had resigned from it after eight months. Brewster had used a revolver. But a knife was good, too. There is a place inside the collarbone, near the neck, and consciousness goes out like a blown candle in a matter of seconds if you drive the knife in there. If your burden is too much to bear, as Merriam's was, and Brewster's. And Jeff Cody's.

  All around him in the air, like an eyeless, invisible staring, uneasy telepathic minds were swinging around toward him. A ripple of panic was running through the cavern. Something, somewhere, was wrong. But Cody had controlled his surface thoughts skillfully. He had not let himself really see the knife, really think clearly of that spot inside the collarbone, until now.

  Now he drew a deep breath and let the wonderful release of the thought flash bright and clear through the cavern. They couldn't stop him. Nobody was near enough. He was free.

  "So the Inductor won't work," he said aloud. "So you can't induce telepathy in a human mind. But there's one way to stop telepathy!"

  He took one long sidewise step and the knife was in his hand. With two fingers he felt for the ridge of his collarbone, to guide the blade.

  "Let the Inductor fail," he thought. "Let the pogrom come. Let the race die. Turn loose Apocalypse. It's not my problem now!"

  Generations ago, the Blowup had posed the problem by mutating a sub-species of telepaths. And there had been a time when the Baldies hoped that eugenics could solve that problem. But not anymore. Time was too short.

  Even though the telepathic function was carried by a dominant gene, there were too few Baldies. Given enough time and enough intermarriage, the world might become peopled entirely by telepaths, but there was not enough time. The only answer was the one which Baldies had been seeking for years now--a mechanical device, an Inductor, which would induce the telepathic power in a nontelepath.

  It was theoretically possible. The minds of the greatest scientists on earth lay open to the Baldies. And here in the caves the electronic calculator could solve the problem, given enough data. But this problem it had not completely solved, for there was not enough data, in spite of the treasure of knowledge stolen from hundreds of brilliant, seeking non-Baldy minds.

  Still, it was the answer. If every man and woman in the world could become a telepath, simply by wearing a compact mechanical device, the miracle could be worked. The last barriers would go down. The fear and hatred nontelepaths had for Baldies would vanish--not instantly, but it would dissolve little by little in the great sea of interacting minds. The walls, the difference, would vanish, and with it the fear that relentlessly forced the coming of the pogrom.

  But the Inductor was still a theory. The calculator had not yet solved that problem, if it ever would. Instead, it had given the answer to the basic problem in an unexpected way, coldly mechanical and terribly logical. Th
e problem could be solved, the calculator said. Destroy all nontelepathic humans. The method? It searched its vast memory--library and found--Operation Apocalypse.

  There was a virus which, by means of certain stimuli, could be mutated into a variant which was air-borne and propagated quickly. It destroyed human neural tissue. There was only one kind of human neural tissue it could not harm. Telepaths were naturally immune to the mutated virus. No Baldy knew what the virus was, or the method of mutation. Only the calculator knew those things, and the inhuman mind of an electronic calculator cannot be read. Somewhere in the great machine was a tiny crystal of barium titanate bearing a series of frozen dots of energy hi a binary digit code. Arid that code held the secret of the deadly virus. If Jeff Cody took three steps forward and sat down in the cushioned operator's chair before the control panel, and if he touched a certain button, a monitor device would examine the electronic pattern of his brain and identify it as surely as fingerprints are identified. Only one man in the world could satisfy the question the monitor would silently ask.

  And then a light would begin to glow-somewhere--on the control panel, and under it would be a number, and, seeing that number, Cody could make the calculator reveal its secret. Before Cody, Brewster had carried this crushing burden. And before Brewster, Merriam. And after Cody--someone else would have the unendurable responsibility for deciding whether to say: The end of all flesh is come before me... behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

  The crash of protesting minds burst by sheer force through the shell of defense Cody had put up around his own as he took up the knife. From all over the busy cavern telepaths stopped in their tracks and hurled their strong, urgent thoughts toward the interlocked center that was Cody.

  It was stunning. He had never felt so strong an impact before. He did not mean to falter, but the burden of their protest was almost tangible, almost a thing to stagger under. Even from above-ground he could hear and feel the instant thrust of down-driving thought. A quarter of a mile above this limestone sky, above the rock and the soil with the pine tree roots clenched downward through it, a hunter in ragged buckskins paused among the trees and sent his own shocked, sympathetic protest dropping toward the cavern. The thought came blurred to Cody by the stone between, and starred with tiny, bright, brainless thoughts of small burrowing things in the soil overhead.