Astounding Science Fiction Stories: An Anthology of 350 Scifi Stories Volume 2 (Halcyon Classics)

by Various

  In no time at all, there was a first-rate riot in progress, then the lights went out, and Charles had brains enough to fight his way to an exit and slip into the dark alley outside.

  And then Charles inspected himself and realized the horrible truth.

  * * * * *

  The key concept to Charles' society was expressed in the word Standardization. Standardization had had its beginning in the early Industrial Revolution, when men first discovered that it was far more efficient to make a thousand pieces of furniture if you made them all exactly alike.

  And since efficiency means economic predictability, and since predictability means stability, Standardization quickly became the watchword in the world's new industrial economy.

  So, in time, virtually every product manufactured was standardized. From the smallest bolts and screws in a wristwatch, through automobile license plates, to clothing styles; everything manufactured was strictly standard equipment.

  Of course, the only unpredictable factor in this structure was the human element, therefore the logical answer was a standardized consumer.

  The trend had started, undoubtedly, in Hollywood. The Art of Cinematography had not existed long before becoming the Motion Picture Industry. And, naturally, an industry must be efficient.

  The Hollywood tycoons had decided that the best way to reduce the margin of risk on any new movie star was to create an arbitrary criterion, and to require the potential star to measure up to that standard.

  Charles was absently aware that the female standard of beauty had been exemplified by a woman named Marilyn, and that the masculine standard had been represented in someone named Marlon.

  So, gradually, all of the new female stars that were selected by Hollywood resembled Marilyn as much as possible, and male leads were selected to look like Marlon. If anyone had a nose that wasn't quite right, or large ears, a little plastic surgery quickly remedied the problem, and if a female starlet happened to have brown hair, peroxide was always handy.

  And in time, it became increasingly difficult to tell one movie star from another.

  Then the standard, idealized faces and their standards, idealized personal mannerisms became socially fashionable, and with modern cosmetics and readily available plastic surgery, the fashionable men and women in society began to imitate the ideal.

  It became not only fashionable to wear the Standard face, but indecent not to do so. Social conformity was encouraged as much as possible, and the end result was the closest thing to a Standardized, predictable consumer as there ever could be.

  This might have produced difficult problems, because with all women and all men wearing identical clothing and identical faces, it might have become impossible to tell one person from another, which was not desirable even in a Standardized world.

  Along with the Standard face had come name tags by which a person might individualize himself to the minimum necessary degree.

  These name tags were worn about the neck on a colorful plastic band, with the tag itself, a white plastic card, on the right side of the neck. On the tag, in gold lettering, was the person's name, address, and Social Security number.

  And--they were worn all the time.

  The name tag was the only means by which a person might be identified. Without it, anyone might impersonate anyone else he pleased. So, of course, it became obscene to appear in public without one.

  And Charles, standing in the alley, looked down at himself and realized the horrible truth.

  * * * * *

  He found himself running through back streets, sidling around corners, and darting into doorways.

  After an hour or two, he realized that he was no longer within the City Limits.

  Charles took a good look around him and discovered he was standing on a minor highway just outside of town. There were no cars or people in sight, and he dropped off the road into some bushes to get his wind and think.

  He had known there was something wrong with the molecular structure of the suit he was wearing, but Edwin wouldn't listen.

  It had undoubtedly been the humidity. The chemical process had no doubt been going on since he'd first donned the suit, but it had been the heat in that beer joint that had accelerated the action enough to finish the job. Human perspiration acting on the new fiber in the collar of his suit produced some obscure chemical reaction which had a corrosive effect on the plastic band and plastic card of his name tag.

  He had to get home, somehow, and tell Edwin to hold up production on the new thermostatic suit. Perhaps the flaw in it could be eliminated in a short time. If it couldn't....

  He considered. The world Dollar Standard had been absolutely stable for more years than he knew about. What would happen if it suddenly became unstable? A fluctuation of even a fraction of a cent would cause widespread panic; it would jolt the Public's faith in its infallible economic system. And the panic would cause further deviation in the Dollar's purchasing power, and--more panic.

  He wiped his brow. If the situation in the Textile Industry was as critical as Edwin said it was, then Edwin and his superiors weren't going to be at all happy when Charles told them about the suit--and Charles was going to be the fall guy.

  But of course he had to get back and tell them. Because Edwin was all set to start production on the all-weather suit immediately, and if he actually went through with that and got a few million of them onto consumer's backs, the result would be not panic, but disaster.

  And Charles' present problem was how to get home without being arrested.

  * * * * *

  It was then that one individual got an extremely tough break, and Charles got his first lucky one.

  A turbocar came barreling down the highway and, without warning struck an embankment. The driver was thrown fifty feet from the wreckage.

  Under different circumstances, he would never have considered doing what he did then. The penalty for wearing another person's name tag was severe. But Charles was under an extreme emotional strain; and without even thinking, he bent over the limp grey form of the other marlon and removed his tag.

  He straightened, then, clutching the plastic band and looking around at the smoking wreck. Already, he could hear a siren somewhere in the night.

  He slipped the name tag over his head and struck out through the bushes toward the city.

  His plan was simple; he had another name tag in his apartment for emergency purposes, and if Ingrid was in bed he'd have no trouble getting it, destroying the one he was wearing now, and putting on his other suit.

  Briefly, he wondered what the police would think of finding a body near a smashed car with no name tag. They'd probably decide it was the same person that had caused the disturbance at the night club earlier in the evening.

  Charles realized that the lettering on the car had indicated it was a public, coin-operated vehicle, so the authorities would have no means of identifying the body.

  After awhile it occurred to him that if he should go into hiding someplace, the body might easily be identified as his own, and he wouldn't have to worry about what Edwin and the other bosses would do to him. It probably wouldn't be noticed that the torn and blood-spattered clothes on the corpse were not thermostatic. But he shook his head resolutely. Even if he were crazy enough to try it, the body would be reported missing by somebody or other, so that would never do.

  Eventually, Charles reached a main thoroughfare in the city and hailed a cab. He climbed in the back, told the driver briefly to take him home, and then slumped down in the seat and brooded.

  He stared out the window, watching the buildings go by, and the emotional reaction of the evening began to set in. Morbidly, Charles wondered what they'd do to him if he kept his mouth shut and let the Industry put the suit into production, and waited for the millions of ID tags to begin to drop off.

  The prospect was so frightening that his apprehension over what would happen if it was discovered he was wearing somebody else's tag almost disappeared.

 
Finally, the cab rolled to a stop. Charles got out and dropped some coins into the hand protruding from the front seat, and, head low, he turned and entered the apartment house.

  He trudged dismally up the stairs, thinking about his wife. He wondered what would happen if she were awake and waiting for him. If she saw that he had on somebody else's name tag.

  The door was unlocked.

  And the light was on.

  He wondered if he could duck into the bedroom without being seen, and then someone leaped at him and he knew it was too late.

  "Oh, James dear!" she cried, throwing her arms around Charles' neck. "When you walked out of here, I thought you'd never come back to me!"

  Charles looked at the marilyn's name tag with slow horror and realized that in his preoccupation, out of sheer force of habit, he had simply said to the cab driver, "Take me home," and the driver had looked at the address on his tag and complied. The apartment building so much resembled Charles' own that he hadn't known the difference, and he hadn't bothered to look at the number on the door.

  When Charles walked in, this Marilyn, Stasia her name was, had looked at his name tag and thought he was her James. She didn't have the slightest idea of who he really was.

  Then Charles closed his eyes, swallowed, and knew something else.

  It really didn't make the least bit of difference who he was. And of course, the solution to all his troubles was obvious.

  With a sigh, Charles leaned over Stasia and kissed her.

  * * *

  Contents

  THE HONORED PROPHET

  By William E. Bentley

  The black dwarf sun sent its assassin on a mission which was calculated to erase the threat to its existence. But prophesies run in strange patterns and, sometimes, an act of evasion becomes an act of fulfillment....

  The ruler of a planet with a black dwarf sun had called a meeting of the council. It was some time before they were assembled, and he waited patiently without thought.

  When the patchwork of mentalities was complete he allowed the conclusions of the prognosticator to occupy his mind. A wall of unanimous incredulity sprang up. The statement was that when the inhabitants of a distant planet achieved space flight they would come to this planet, and use a weapon invented by an individual to destroy it. The prognosticator could not lie, and soon the facade dissolved into individual reactions as acceptance became general. Anger, fear, resignation, and greedy little thoughts of self-aggrandizement. Those thoughts were replaced by a quiescent, questioning receptivity. The questioning grew out of proportion, became hysterical, assumed the panic shape. Self-preservation demanding that there be a solution. Minor prophecies had been evaded before. Details of the individual had been supplied, could not something be done?

  The Assassin was summoned.

  The pattern of Dr. Simon Cartwright's encephalic emanations, and the approximate position of the center of these emanations were impressed on its mind. And in a strangely bulbous ship it plunged outward from that eternally dark and silent planet towards Earth.

  * * * * *

  A man was walking along a road. A high road. A silent, dark road. Below him on both sides of the road flat marshland swept away, and a little wind caressed him with chill fingers. His tiny world of road beneath him, darkness around him, sky above him, contained only the sound of his footsteps--and one other. A regular, liquid sound. He thought it was a sound from the marsh. He listened to it, and wondered how long it had been with him. It was close behind him on the road. He stopped, turned round in small curiosity, and bellowed in great horror. He threw up his hands against an immense bulk, a frog-like shape, a lurching, flowing movement. Then it was upon him, and stilled his futile writhings, and passed over him, and left him dead.

  The Assassin continued along the road. It was aware that it had killed, but it could not contemplate the fact. It possessed all the mental powers of its race, but its conditioning had focused them in one direction, the assassination of Dr. Cartwright. It could consider only those factors which had a direct relation to that purpose.

  Daylight was one of those factors.

  It was not aware of the passage of time, but when the sensitive patch on its back began to contract it left the road and went to the marsh. There it burrowed into the slime until green-flecked water closed over it. And deeper until a depth of mud protected it from the sun.

  Dr. Cartwright groaned and sat up in bed. He silenced the ringing telephone by putting the receiver to his ear.

  "Do you know what time it is?" he asked, aggrieved.

  "Hello? Doctor Cartwright? This is the police."

  "It is half-past seven," continued Simon. "For me, the middle of the night. I am in no fit state to measure a drunk's reactions."

  "I'm sorry, sir, but there's been an accident. On the Waverton Highway. A man is dead, Inspector Andrews is in charge of the case."

  "Inspector Andrews? Is mayhem suspected? Never mind, I'll get down there, right away."

  He put the receiver down and got out of bed. His wife muttered something unintelligible and wrapped his share of the blankets round her. Simon went downstairs. He made a cup of coffee and drank it while he dressed. The engine of his car was cold, but his house was on a hill and he was able to coast down to the Highway.

  The road was level and straight, and after a few minutes driving a little tableau came into sight--two cars, a group of uniforms. Inspector Andrews, tall, thin, dyspeptic, greeted him with a limp handshake. "Something funny about this," he said. "See what you think."

  Simon went down on one knee beside the body and began to undo the clothing. After a time he looked up into the sky. "This is very strange," he murmured.

  "I know," grunted Andrews. "Can they take the body now?"

  Simon stood up and nodded. He remained staring out across the marsh until the body had been removed, and the ambulance a distant object. Then he went and sat in his car. Andrews finished giving instructions to his Sergeant, and joined him. "I'll let you give me breakfast," he said.

  "You're very kind," said Simon absently, and released the brake.

  "Any use asking for the cause of death?" asked Andrews.

  "Oh, the cause of death was crushing, but the cause of the cause of death--" Simon shook his head. "There wasn't an unbroken bone in his body. Could he have been dropped from an airplane?"

  Andrews shook a ponderous head. "He was a bus driver on his way to work without an enemy in the world. And I've a feeling his death is going to keep me awake at nights. Anyway, Sergeant Bennet is going over the area with a magnifying glass. We'll put up a pretty good show. Can you suggest anything?"

  "It wasn't a car," said Simon carefully. "The skin was unbroken, except from the inside. I can only imagine something like a rubber-covered steam-roller."

  * * * * *

  That night the Assassin killed two people.

  When it grew dark it heaved itself up out of the slime. A long business of bodily expansion and contraction. Two men were on the road and heard the noise it made.

  "Somethin' out there."

  "Stray cow, maybe."

  They stood and peered into the dark, trying to see a familiar shape. The Assassin approached them, and was too big for them to see. They stood in its path and looked for a familiar object in the blackness of its body. So the instant of apprehension was small, the panic and exertion soon over. Without pausing the Assassin moved over them and continued on its way.

  A little later Inspector Andrews found them. He was in a radio patrol car, and he was moving in the same direction as the Assassin. With him in the car were three large men carrying automatic rifles. Andrews stopped the car, and one of the men got out and knelt by the bodies. Andrews watched him somberly for a moment then reached for the microphone. He spoke to the station sergeant.

  "Inspector Andrews here. Send an ambulance out here, will you, and phone Doctor Cartwright. Tell him the steam-roller's loose again. It may be on the road heading his way. Yes, steam-roller. He'll underst
and."

  He put the microphone down, called to the man on the road. "I'm leaving you here, Roberts. There's an ambulance on its way. Go back with it. Get in Sergeant Bennet's car and both of you join us up ahead."

  He closed the car window and released the brake. The empty road began to unwind slowly into the area of light ahead.

  Simon put the receiver down and looked at his wife. She was concentrating on a sock by the fire. He went over and kissed the top of her head. "Goodbye," she said.

  "Listen," he said quietly. "When I'm gone lock the door behind me and don't go out. If you hear any funny noises go down to the cellar. Understand?"

  She was a little frightened. "Honey, what is it?"

  He smiled. "It's nothing. Long John Andrews is out hunting. I'm going along in case he shoots himself."

  He took his shot-gun off the mantle and stuffed his pockets with cartridges.

  "I'll bring you back a rabbit," he said. "So long."

  He drove down slowly. He was scared, but he was still young enough to find it exhilarating. The loaded shot-gun was a great help.

  He turned on to the highway, and slowed to walking pace. He stared into the darkness ahead until his eyes burned, and imagination peopled his surroundings with writhing shapes.

  Then he saw it, and the muscles across his chest trembled convulsively. Fear clutched his stomach. He slammed his foot down on the brake and gaped up at it. It was standing still in the middle of the road, a giant, pear shaped body, looking something like a man kneeling upright. At the front, turned inwards, were a number of arm-like appendages.

  The shot-gun was ridiculous now, the car made of paper. To get out and run was impossible, and he longed to be able to sit still and do nothing. And the seconds dragged by. Time for contemplation built up, and a strange realization dropped into his seething mind. He sensed something about its attitude. A cringing, a withdrawal. "God," he whispered. "It doesn't like the light."