by Various
I closed my eyes, trying to escape from color, but that was much worse. The colors inside my head blazed out even brighter, more savage.
I turned my head, trying to find something in the cabin to look at that was not bright blue or green or red. With horror I focused on the spacesuit locker. I had left the locker open, the suit hanging on its wire stretcher. I saw immediately that the spacesuit was alive. It stood there motionless, returning my stare, I could not look away from it. I could not move, with fear. Slowly, very slowly, the spacesuit raised an arm and pointed at me. I stared at its single, oval eye, recalling childhood nightmares. Then the suit came out of its locker and began to advance toward me, still pointing its gauntlet at my face. It seemed to take hours to walk across the cabin toward me. I held my breath, waiting. I thought I would scream if it did not reach me, it was taking too long.
Then it did reach me and, bending low above me, wrapped its metallic arms around my body. I turned my face from its mechanical, fiery breath. It began to crush me, I could not breathe, I felt my ribs begin to bend, slowly splinter. My face was pressed against its metallic chest, it was a thin gray wall....
Then there was nothing but the wall itself, dark, thin as a membrane, but impenetrably strong. I was pressing toward it, forcing my way, flattened against it, being crushed slowly between this thin, gray membrane and the tremendous weight of darkness at my back. I knew that if the membrane did not give, if I did not break through at last, I would suffocate and die. In fact I was already dead, the idea came to me with a weight of horror, I twisted, lashing out in total panic. Then the thin gray wall split and gave way, and I was free.
I was still strapped to my crash couch, regarding the instrument panel with absolute calm. Bronson had been right. I was aware of everything. I took in every meter indication simultaneously and correlated their data in my mind, without the help of the computer. I was aware of every sound, the faint hum of the gas tubes and transformers, the whir of the gyros, the reedy buzz of hydraulic actuators, the periodic clicking of the oxygen reclaim unit. I was aware of everything that was happening in the ship, as if it were my own body.
My body. I knew that I would have to explore my new self before investigating the ship. With an effort of will I shut off my new sense impressions, and--looked inside. I sensed the rhythmic muscular action of my heart, the opening and closing of the valves. I felt the surge of blood in all my vessels. I moved my hand to touch the bulkhead, and found that I could count the number of microseconds it took for the nerve impulses to travel from my fingers to my brain. Time seemed to have slowed down, it took an hour for the second hand on the panel clock to make one circuit.
In retrospect I know that this condition of super-awareness must have lasted only for a few minutes. But it seemed then that I had all the time in the world.
I found that I no longer needed to think in words, or even symbols. I could pose myself a problem in, say, four-dimensional vector analysis and see the solution immediately, like a flash of intuition. I had attained total somatic consciousness; I was able to analyze the exact relationship of the drug to the molecular structure of my own protoplasm.
It was then I knew that, although I had recorded no information about Mars that the Russians didn't already have, I was going to bring back home a piece of candy much sweeter.
Wait, now, I told myself. Wait. You have a specific problem to solve. The problem being how to stop that leak in the hull long enough to get home alive. It was a problem of basic survival. I was confident. I knew that if any possible solution to my predicament existed I would find it. I was my own data computer now, but with eyes and ears and imagination. I opened my senses again and concentrated on the flood of information coming at me from the instrument panel. I found that I had total recall, I could remember--simultaneously--every wiring diagram and blueprint of the ship, every screw and transistor and welded seam, that I had ever glanced at. I saw the entire ship as a single entity, a smoothly functioning organism. In a flash I saw a hundred ways of improving its design. But that would have to wait. For a moment I gathered all my psychic energy and concentrated on the single crucial problem of stopping that leak.
And I saw that there was no way to stop the leak. No logical way.
* * * * *
Back at Lunar Base I tried to explain to Bronson what had happened. But I found that it was impossible to explain in words. In fact I no longer entirely understood, myself, what had happened. It was something that had occurred--not altogether on the conscious level. Something about my becoming aware, for a time, of the separate molecules of air within the cabin as extensions of my own body-mind. But I didn't know how to verbalize it.
Dr. Bronson gave me a thorough physical and a preliminary psychological exam. The effects of the drug had worn off, but I felt somehow--changed, I didn't know just how. In fact I wouldn't know until one day two years later, when I dropped a vial of nitroglycerine, and it miraculously did not go off. Still, Bronson pronounced me ready and fit for a long vacation, and in a few days I was headed back toward Pacific Grove.
The vacation lasted for a week. Then it was a Sunday evening, and I was sitting on the front porch of the white house nursing a highball while my wife was upstairs telling Wendy a bedtime story about a princess who kissed a toad, and it turned into a handsome prince.
I was sitting there in the evening light, inhaling the scent of eucalyptus and thinking for the thousandth time about how much better this was than bottled oxygen. Then a rented car pulled into the driveway, and General Bergen got out, wearing civilian clothes. He came up to the porch and sat down next to me. He did not pause for any pleasantries.
"Where's your wife?" he said.
"Upstairs."
"Anyone else in the house?"
"Just my daughter."
He leaned back and lighted a cigarette. I was about to offer him a drink, but he didn't give me a chance.
"Official orders. From now on, you're Top Secret. You're wanted back at the Spacemedic Center in Washington. You have twenty-four hours to straighten out your affairs."
"What?"
He waved a hand. "I wasn't supposed to tell you this yet. Keep it under your hat." I noticed that the fingers holding his cigarette were trembling. "We spent four days going over the hull of your ship--with microscopes. Then we found it. The leak. The hole was still there. It must have been a micrometeor of high density and tremendous velocity. Burned a hole right through the sealing compound--"
Once again I tried to organize words to explain what I had not been able to explain before.
"But the ship's air did stop leaking. I could never have made it back...."
"But the hole was still there!" Then his voice faltered. "Don't you see? My God, what we have yet to learn about psi forces, psychokinesis.... There was nothing to prevent all the air in your ship from leaking out through that pinhole, nothing except--you."
The general leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, looking out into the gathering darkness.
"We've got to find out what this drug does," he said.
"The space program ..." I began.
"Space program?" He pulled on his cigarette. "Hell. What are rockets, compared to this?"
* * *
Contents
THE STANDARDIZED MAN
By Stephen Bartholomew
The turbocar swiped an embankment at ninety miles an hour; the result was, of course, inevitable. It was a magnificent crash, and the driver was thrown clear at the end of it for a distance of 50 feet.
Charles looked at the body and got his bright idea.
* * * * *
The trouble had started a couple of weeks before, when Edwin, Charles' laboratory co-ordinator, had called him into his office just before Charles was due to leave for home. It was a distinct breach of etiquette to cause a worker to arrive home at any time besides his accustomed hour, so Charles knew whatever Edwin wanted must be important. He sat down opposite the Co-ordinator and assumed a politely questioning
look.
"Charles, you know I wouldn't call you here at this hour if it wasn't important," Edwin said, pursing his lips.
"Of course not, sir," Charles replied, waiting.
"The fact of the matter is, we are in dire straits." Edwin stared at the other ominously. "As you well know, the Textile Industry, like every other business firm in the world, has functioned entirely without economic troubles of any sort for the past fifty years."
"Well, of course, sir...."
"And you are also well aware of what would be the results of any financial deviation in any of these firms, particularly in a major industry such as our own."
"Certainly, sir. Ours is a delicately balanced economic system. Any slight change in the economic status of one firm would...."
"Exactly!" Edwin leaned across the desk and glared at him. "I have just come from a Board of Directors meeting. And it was made known to us that during the past three weeks our margin of profit has fallen off by three tenths of a per cent!"
Charles' face turned pasty white. He swallowed and took a deep breath.
"Will that information be made public, sir?"
"Naturally not! But we aren't sure just how long we can keep it a secret! The fact of the matter is, the IBM says that our profit margin will continue to spiral downward at a gradually increasing rate unless some drastic change occurs in our production set-up!"
Edwin leaned back and clasped his hands, composing himself. "The precise reasons for the existence of the situation are quite obscure. However, the IBM has informed us that the problem can be remedied if we make a particular change in our production system, and it has informed us as to the nature of that change."
He stood up and placed a finger on a capacitance switch. A panel in the Wall slid back to reveal six sales charts. There were two each marked Winter, Summer and Spring-Fall. Three were designated marlons, and three marilyns. Each of them showed a red line rising steeply on the left, levelling out to a perfectly straight bar all the way across, then dipping sharply again.
"Look here," Edwin said. "These are the sales charts for our six suits. As you know, we make three different types for marlons, and three for marilyns. Hot-weather, cold-weather, and medium-weather. Each suit is designed to last a carefully calculated length of time, and each consumer need only buy three suits a year. They are exactly alike except for slight size differences, and because of elastic fabrics these differences are held to a minimum. With this system the Textile Industry attained the ultimate in Standardization, the ultimate in efficiency."
Charles rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Has the IBM suggested any alternative to our system, any possible change?"
Edwin sat down again, folded his arms on the desk, and scowled. "That's where you come in! The IBM informs us that there is only one possible way to stabilize our economy, to raise our profit margin to its former level--and that is by further standardization!"
Charles raised his eyebrows. "You mean a sexless wardrobe, sir? That's been tried...."
"No, that's not what I mean!" Edwin snapped. "What I mean is an all-weather suit!"
Charles swallowed audibly at that and said nothing.
"You can see the advantages, of course," Edwin explained. "We'd need only to manufacture two types of suit, marlon and marilyn. Since we'd never have to adjust our factories, we could drop a lot of unnecessary technicians, and with the further standardization, manufacturing would be faster and cheaper--a lot cheaper. The consumer would only purchase one suit a year, but we could make up for that by raising the prices somewhat."
Charles finally got a word in. "But, sir! An all-weather suit? How can we design a suit that will be equally comfortable in the middle of a Florida heat-wave or a New England snowstorm?"
"How? How?" Edwin's voice raised and his finger pointed. "You're the research chemist, Charles! You're supposed to tell me how!"
"Sir? I...."
"Listen!" Edwin poked the other in the chest. "I assume you know what will happen to Society if the Textile Industry becomes economically unstable?"
"Well, yes sir, but...."
"Then I assume you realize that the Board of Directors will stop at nothing to preserve the status quo! And since you happen to be our chief industrial chemist, the entire problem lands in your lap! Now, we want to know how to make an all-weather suit, and we want to know fast. Therefore, Charles, you're going to tell us how to do it! Understand?"
Charles nodded unhappily. "Yes sir, I understand."
* * * * *
Charles went to work the next day after informing his wife that she could expect him to begin keeping rather irregular hours at the laboratory. The idea of any kind of irregularity was enough to worry any wife, and Ingrid was the naturally suspicious type. She was always nagging and had, upon occasion, even gone so far as to insinuate that Charles had individualist tendencies.
So he knew that she would, embarrassingly, call Edwin to check up on him, but he didn't really care.
The real problem was the all-weather suit.
Charles put his small corps of assistants on the project, investigating several lines of thought at once. Every day, someone would drop around for a while to check on his progress, and he had no delusions about what would happen if he failed. The entire economic stability of his society depended on his coming up with an all-weather suit, and he began to have trouble sleeping nights.
Eventually, he found what looked like a workable solution.
He called Edwin to tell him about it, and Edwin came down to the lab to see for himself.
"Is this it?" he asked, picking up what looked like a burlap handkerchief.
Charles cleared his throat. "Well, that's the first sample, sir. Of course, it's possible to obtain a finer weave once we find out a few things about it, and when it's bleached...."
Edwin nodded impatiently. "Yes, yes. Well, what's so special about it?"
"Well, it's made of a radically new type of fiber, sir...."
"How's it new?"
"I can show you more technical data on it, sir, but basically the difference between this and conventional types of fiber is that this is thermostatic."
"How do you mean, thermostatic?"
"Well, sir, basically, the diameter of the fiber is inversely proportional with the temperature. When the temperature rises, the fiber contracts, and when the temperature drops, it expands. So in cold weather, you have a fine, tight weave with good insulation, and in warm weather you have a loose weave with ventilation...."
Edwin nodded and dropped the fabric on a lab bench. "Sounds good."
"Well sir, we have to make a few more tests on it, and it'll have to be field tested before we can decide if it's safe to use in garments...."
Edwin tapped him on the shoulder. "Test it, Charlie."
"Sir?"
Edwin frowned. "We don't have as much time as you think. We need that suit of yours fast. We can't afford to waste any more time puttering around the laboratory. You have the fellows downstairs make up some of this stuff into a Standard suit, and I want you to put it on yourself. What I mean is, today!"
Charles' jaw dropped. "Today! But...."
"No buts! Wear it a couple of days, and if you say it checks out, we go into production immediately."
So Charles went home that night in a new suit and a worried frown.
* * * * *
Things were smooth for about two days. Charles continued to wear the suit and Edwin insisted on his making the preliminary preparations for the mass-production of thermostatic fabric. Charles was kept busy working out specifications.
Then there were two factors that brought about a drastic change in his life.
One was that he was worried. Charles wasn't exactly sure what he was worried about, but at the back of his mind there was something in the complicated molecular structure of the new fiber that bothered him.
The other factor was that Ingrid was still nagging him. Perhaps if Charles had been able to tell her what he was working on she wou
ld have understood why he was worried. But he didn't tell her, and she didn't understand.
One day after Charles had come home and eaten, she started an argument with him about something or other, and in the most heated part of the battle she had hurled at him the supreme insult.
"Charles," she said, "I think you look different!"
Coupled with the strain that Charles was under, that had been enough to make him stare at Ingrid for a moment, wheel and stalk out of the apartment.
After all, to say that one's face was even subtly different--even if it really was--was an unforgivable insult.
Charles went out for a long, solitary evening walk and ended up at one of those places that features six varieties of beer, a continuous floor show and a loud band. Charles was not quite aware of entering, but once inside, watching the bump-and-grinders who wore nothing but their name tags, he found it difficult to leave.
The room was just ventilated enough to prevent suffocation, but it was purposely kept hot and stuffy in the hope that this would induce thirst on the part of the customers.
When he thought about it later he decided it was undoubtedly the humidity that had caused the catastrophe, but when it happened he hadn't the foggiest notion what was going on.
All he knew was that he had signalled a waitress for a third beer, she had come threading her way between the postage-stamp tables, he had looked up to give his order, she had looked down impersonally, and then there was a scream.
It took a moment to realize that the waitress was screaming at him, and by that time there were shouts from the surrounding tables as well, and men and women alike were stumbling all over themselves to get away from Charles.
