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

by Various

  Brownlee excused himself and followed the cop out, leaving me to explain things to His Grace.

  "Do you remember that, a couple of centuries ago, the laws of some countries provided the perfect punishment for pickpockets and purse-snatchers?"

  He gave me a wry grin. "Certainly. The hands of the felon were amputated at the wrist. Usually with a headsman's ax, I believe."

  "Exactly. And they never picked another pocket again as long as they lived." I said. "Society had denied them the means to pick pockets."

  "Go on."

  * * * * *

  "Do you remember Manny the Moog? The little fellow who was brought in yesterday?"

  "Distinctly. I thought it was odd at the time that you should release a man who has a record of such activities as car-stealing and reckless driving, especially when the witness against him turned out to be a perfectly respectable person. I took it for granted that he was one of your ... ah ... 'tame zanies', I think you called them. But I did not and still don't understand how you can be so positive."

  "I let Manny go because he's incapable of driving a car. The very thought of being in control of a machine so much more powerful than he is would give him chills. Did you ever see what happens when you lock a claustrophobe up in a dark closet--the mad, unreasoning, uncontrollable panic of absolute terror? That's what would happen to Manny if you put him behind the wheel of a running automobile. It's worse than fear; fear is controllable. Blind terror isn't.

  "Manny had one little twist, in his mind. He liked to get into a car--any car, whether it was his or not--and drive. He became king of the road. He wasn't a little man any more. He was God, and lesser beings had better look out.

  "We got to him before he actually killed anyone, but there is a woman in Queens today who will never walk again because of Manny the Moog. But there won't be any more like her. We took the instrument of destruction away from him; we 'cut off his hands'. Now he's leaving a reasonably useful life. We don't need to sacrifice another's life before we neutralize the danger."

  "What about Joey Partridge?" His Grace asked. "He's one of your zanies, too, isn't he?

  "That's right. He couldn't keep from using his fists. He liked the feel of solid flesh and bone giving under the impact of those big fists of his. Boxing wasn't enough; he had to be able to feel flesh-to-flesh contact, with no padded glove between. He almost killed a couple of men before we got to him."

  "What did you do to his hands?"

  "Nothing. Not a thing. There's nothing at all wrong with his hands. But he thinks there is. He's firmly convinced that the bones are as brittle as chalk, that if he uses those fists, he will be the one who will break and shatter. It even bothers him to shake hands, as you saw last night. It took a lot of guts to do what he did last night--walk over to those two thugs knowing he couldn't defend himself. He's no coward. But he's as terrified of having his hands hurt as Manny is of driving a car."

  "I see'" the Duke said thoughtfully.

  * * * * *

  "There are other cases, plenty of them," I went on. "We have pyromaniacs who are perfectly harmless now because they have a deathly terror of flame. We have one fellow who used to be very nasty with a knife; he grows a beard now because the very thought of having a sharp edge that close to him is unnerving. The reality would send him screaming. We have a girl who had the weird idea that it was fun to drop things out of windows or off the tops of high buildings. Aside from the chance of people below being hurt, there was another danger. Two cops grabbed her just as she was about to drop her baby brother off the roof of her apartment house.

  "But we don't worry about her any more. People with acute acrophobia are in no condition to pull stunts like that."

  "What will you do to this Hammerlock Smith, then?" His Grace asked.

  "Actually, he's one of the simpler cases. A large percentage of our zanies lose control when they're under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Alcohol is by far the more common. Under the influence, they do things they would never do when sober.

  "As long as they remain sober, they have control. But, give them a few drinks and the control slips and then vanishes completely. One of our others was a little like Manny the Moog; he drove like a madman--which he was when he was drunk. Sober, he was as careful and cautious a driver as you'd want--a perfectly reliable citizen. But, after losing his license and the right to own a car, he'd still get drunk and steal cars.

  "He has his license back now, but we know we can trust him with it. He will never be able to take another drink.

  "Smith is of that type. So, apparently, is Nestor. When we get through with Smith, he'll be sober, and he'll stay that way to his grave."

  * * * * *

  "Astounding." The Duke looked at me again. "I can see the results, of course. I'm going to see that some sort of similar program is started in England, even if I have to stand up in the House of Lords to do it. But, I still don't understand how it can be done so rapidly--a matter of hours. What is the technique used?"

  "It all depends on the therapist," I said. "Brownlee is one of the best, but there are others who are almost as good. Some of the officers have started calling them hexperts because, in effect, that's exactly what they do--put a hex on the patient."

  "A geas, in other words."

  I'd never heard the word before. "A what?"

  "A geas. A magical spell that causes a person to do or to refrain from doing some act, whether he will or no. He has no choice, once the geas has been put on him."

  "That's it exactly."

  "But, man, it isn't magic we're discussing, is it?"

  "I don't know," I admitted frankly. "You tell me. Was it magic this morning when both you and I had a hunch that little Shirley was not in the park, in spite of the way it looked? Was it magic when we eliminated, without even searching, every spot but the place where she actually was?"

  "Well, no, I shouldn't say so. I think every good policeman gets hunches like that every so often. He gets a feel for his work and for the types he's dealing with."

  "Well, then, call it hunch or telepathy or extra-sensory perception or thingummybob or whatever. Brownlee has just what you say a good cop should have--a feel for his work and for the types he's dealing with. Within a very short time, Dr. Brownlee can actually get the feel of being inside his patient's mind--deep enough, at least, so that he can spot just what has to be done to put a compensating twist in a twisted mind.

  "He says the genuine zanies are very simple to operate on. They have already got the raw materials in them for him to work with. A normally sane, normally well integrated person would require almost as much work to put a permanent quirk in as removing such a quirk would be in a zany. The brainwashing techniques and hypnotism can introduce such quirks temporarily, but as soon as a normally sane person regains his balance, the quirks tend to fade away.

  "But a system that is off balance and unstable doesn't require much work to push it slightly in another direction. When Brownlee finds out what will do the job, he does it, and we have a tame zany on our hands."

  "It sounds as though men of Brownlee's type are rather rare," His Grace said.

  "They are. Rarer than psychiatrists as a whole. On the other hand, they can take care of a great many more cases."

  "One thing, though," the Duke said thoughtfully. "You mentioned the amputation of a pickpocket's hands. It seems to me that this technique is just as drastic, just as crippling to the person to whom it is done."

  "Of course it is! No one has ever denied that. God help us if it's the final answer to the problem! A man who can't drive a car, or use a razor, or punch an enemy in the teeth when it's necessary is certainly handicapped. He's more crippled than he was before. The only compensation for society is that now he's less dangerous.

  "There are certain compensations for the individual, too. He stands less chance of going to prison, or to a death cell. But he's still hemmed in; he's not a free man. Of course, in most instances, he's not aware of what has been done to
him; his mind compensates and rationalizes and gives him a reason for what he's undergoing. Joey Partridge thinks his condition is due to the fractures he suffered the last time he beat up a man; Manny the Moog thinks that he's afraid to drive a car because of the last wreck he was in. And, partly, maybe they're both right. But they have still been deprived of a part of their free will, their right of choice.

  "Oh, no; this isn't the final answer by a long shot! It's a stopgap--a necessary stopgap. But, by using it, we can learn more about how the human mind works, and maybe one of these days we'll evolve a science of the mind that can take those twists out instead of compensating for them.

  "On the other hand, we can save lives by using the technique we have now. We don't dare not use it.

  "When they chopped off those hands, centuries ago, the stumps were cauterized by putting them in boiling oil. It looked like another injury piled on top of the first, but the chirurgeons, not knowing why it worked, still knew that a lot more ex-pickpockets lived through their ordeal if the boiling oil was used afterward.

  "And that's what we're doing with this technique right here and now. We're using it because it saves lives, lives that may potentially or actually be a great deal more valuable than the warped personality that might have taken such a life.

  "But the one thing that I am working for right now and will continue to work for is a real cure, if that's possible. A real, genuine, usable kind of psychotherapy; one which is at least on a par with the science of cake-baking when it comes to the percentages of successes and failures."

  * * * * *

  His Grace thought that over for a minute. Then he leaned back and looked at me through narrowed eyes. There was a half smile on his lips "Royall, old man, let's admit one thing, just between ourselves," His voice became very slow and very deliberate. "Both you and I know that this process, whatever it is, is not psychotherapy."

  "Why do you say that?" I wasn't trying to deny anything; I just wanted to know the reasoning behind his conclusions.

  "Because I know what psychotherapy can and can't do. And I know that psychotherapy can not do the sort of thing we've been discussing.

  "It's as if you'd taken me out on a rifle range, to a target two thousand yards from the shooter and let me watch that marksman put fifty shots out of fifty into a six-inch bull's-eye. I might not know what the shooter is using, but I would know beyond any shadow of doubt that it was not an ordinary revolver. More, I would know that it could not be any possible improvement upon the revolver. It simply would have to be an instrument of an entirely different order.

  "If, in 1945, any intelligent military man had been told that the Japanese city of Hiroshima had been totally destroyed by a bomber dropping a single bomb, he would be certain that the bomb was a new and different kind from any ever know before. He would know that, mind you, without necessarily knowing a great deal about chemistry.

  "I don't need to know a devil of a lot about psychotherapy to know that the process you've been describing is as far beyond the limits of psychotherapy as the Hiroshima bomb was beyond the limits of chemistry. Ditto for hypnosis and/or Pavlov's 'conditioned reflex', by the way.

  "Now, just to clear the air, what is it?"

  "It has no official name yet," I told him. "To keep within the law, we have been calling it psychotherapy. If we called it something else, and admitted that it isn't psychotherapy, the courts couldn't turn the zanies over to us. But you're right--it is as impossible to produce the effect by psychotherapy as it is to produce an atomic explosion by a chemical reaction.

  "I've got a hunch that, just as chemistry and nucleonics are both really branches of physics, so psychotherapy and Brownlee's process are branches of some higher, more inclusive science--but that doesn't have a name, either."

  "That's as may be," the Duke said, "but I'm happy to know that you're not deluding yourself that it's any kind of psychotherapy."

  "You know," I said, "I kind of like your word geas. Because that's exactly what it seems to be--a geas. A hex, an enchantment, if you wish.

  "Did you know that Brownlee was an anthropologist before he turned to psychology? He has some very interesting stories to tell about hexes and so on."

  "I'll have to hear them one day." His Grace took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. "Cigarette?"

  "No, thanks. I gave up smoking a few years back."

  * * * * *

  He puffed his alight. "This geas," he said, "reminds me of the fact that, before the medical profession came up with antibiotics that would destroy the microorganisms that cause gas gangrene, amputation was the only method of preventing the death of the patient. It was crippling, but necessary."

  "No!" My voice must have been a little too sharp, because he raised one eyebrow. "The analogy," I went on in a quieter tone, "isn't good because it gives a distorted picture. Look, Your Grace, you know what's done to keep a captive wild duck from flying away?"

  "One wing is clipped."

  "Right. Certain of the feathers are trimmed, which throws the duck off balance every time he tries to fly. He's crippled, right? But if you clip the other wing, what happens? He's in balance again. He can't fly as well as he could before his wings were clipped--but he can fly!

  "That's what Brownlee's geas does--restore the balance by clipping the other wing."

  His Grace smiled. There was an odd sort of twinkle in his eyes. "Let me carry your analogy somewhat farther. If the one wing is too severely clipped, clipping the other won't help. Our duck wouldn't have enough lift to get off the ground, even if he's balanced.

  "Now, a zany who was that badly crippled--?"

  I grinned back at him. "Right. It would be so obvious that he would have been put away very quickly. He would not be just psychopathic, but completely psychotic--and demonstrably so."

  "Then," the Duke said, still pursuing the same track, "the only way to 'cure' that kind would be to find a method to ... ah ... 'grow the feathers back', wouldn't it? And where does that put today's psychotherapy? Providing, of course, that the analogy follows."

  "It does," I said. "The real cure that I want to find would do just that--'grow the feathers back'. And that's beyond the limits of psychotherapy, too. That's why Dr. Brownlee and his boys want to study every zany we bring in, whether he can be helped or not. They're looking for a cure, not a stopgap."

  "Let me drag that analogy out just a tiny bit more," said His Grace. "Suppose there is a genetic defect in the duck which makes it impossible--absolutely impossible--to grow feathers on that wing. Will your cure work?"

  I was very quiet for along time. At least, it seemed long. The question had occurred to me before, and I didn't even like to think about it. Now, I had to face it again for a short while.

  "Frankly," I said as evenly as I could, "I doubt that anything could be done. But that's only an opinion. We don't know enough yet to make any such predictions. It is my hope that some day we'll find a method of restoring every human being to his or her full potential--but I'm not at all certain of what the source of that potential is.

  "But when we do get our cure," I went on, "then our first move must be to abolish the geas. And I wish that day were coming tomorrow."

  * * * * *

  There seemed to be a sudden silence in the room. I hadn't realized that I'd been talking so loudly or so vehemently.

  The Duke broke it by saying: "Look here, Royall; I'm going to stay on here until I've learned all about every phase of this thing. It may sound a bit conceited, but I'm going to try to learn in a few weeks everything you have learned in a year. So you'll have to teach me, if you will. And then I'd like to borrow one or two of your therapists, your hexperts, to teach the technique in England.

  "Allowing people like that to kill and maim when it can be prevented is unthinkable in a civilized society. I've got to learn how to stop it in England. Will you teach me?"

  "On one condition," I said.

  "What's that?"

  "That you teach me how to use a walking
stick."

  He laughed. "You're on!"

  The officer stuck his head in the waiting room again. "Pardon me. Inspector Acrington? The District Attorney would like to see you."

  "Surely."

  After he had left, I sat there for a minute or two, just thinking. Then Brownlee came back from his conference with the D.A. and sat down beside me.

  "I met your noble friend heading for the D.A.'s office," he said with a smile. "He said that any man who was as determined to find a better method in order to replace a merely workable method is a remarkable man and therefore worth studying under. I just told him I agreed with him."

  "Thanks," I said. "Thanks a lot."

  Because Brownlee knows why I'm looking for a cure to replace the stopgap. Brownlee knows why I gave up smoking three years ago, why I don't have any matches or lighters in the house, why I keep the ashtrays for guests only, and why, for that reason, I don't have many guests. Brownlee knows why there are only electric stoves in my apartment--never gas.

  Brownlee knows why my son quivers and turns his head away from a match flame. Brownlee knows why he had to put the geas on Stevie.

  And I even think Brownlee suspects that I concealed some of the evidence in the fire that killed Stevie's mother--my wife.

  Yes, I'm looking for a cure. But until then, I'll be thankful for the stopgap.

  * * *

  Contents

  OR YOUR MONEY BACK

  By Randall Garrett

  There are times when I don't know my own strength. Or, at least, the strength of my advice. And the case of Jason Howley was certainly an instance of one of those times.

  When he came to my office with his gadget, I heard him out, trying to appear both interested and co-operative--which is good business. But I am forced to admit that neither Howley nor his gadget were very impressive. He was a lean, slope-shouldered individual, five-feet-eight or nine--which was shorter than he looked--with straight brown hair combed straight back and blue eyes which were shielded with steel-rimmed glasses. The thick, double-concave lenses indicated a degree of myopia that must have bordered on total blindness without glasses, and acute tunnel vision, even with them.