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

by Various

  When Randolph shut off the TV that night, he was chewing his lip violently. Must have been more than double that fifty thousand dollars, he thought. He reminded himself to phone BDD&O first thing in the morning.

  It was still an hour before noon when Randolph's phone rang.

  "Randolph, here," he said in the formality he'd adopted on an English visit and carefully kept.

  "Good morning," Oswald's voice was formal. "Good morning." There was a silence, while Randolph waited for the other to continue.

  Finally, Randolph said, "Good show, that. Must have cost a lot more than my price," he added. "It was good, though," he said again, thoughtfully.

  "Randolph," Oswald's voice sounded wild, "I don't know what the thing cost. I don't know--"

  "Now, sir, just what do you mean, you don't know the cost? I told you to spend fifty thousand dollars, and from what I saw last night it'll cost four times that. I'll go as high as one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars, but not one cent over. And you'd better make it worth the money, for that's a pretty penny," he said.

  "Look, Randolph, the cleanup job down there was supposed to start this morning. Contracts let, big crews ready to do the job fast so people could go look at the finished product. Every family was signed up to act as guides, like in Williamsburg. We moved 'em all to the country yesterday, so they'd look healthy when they came back, and the job could start at the crack of dawn today."

  "Well?"

  "Well, the job's already done."

  "That's pretty fast. You said you started it this morning."

  "Yeah. And when my man phoned me from down there I told him to get black coffee and sober up. But I went down myself--and the job's done. Exactly the job we specified, too. Done by our plans. Furnished, painted, paint dry, curtains hung, the works, new bathrooms and kitchen and plumbing and electricity. The works. It's finished.

  "My best man was down there moving the families out yesterday. He swears the building hadn't been touched then. The contractor says he's going to sue, because he arrived with his crews to start the job, and somebody else had done it. You come on. You've got to meet me here and tell me the answers.

  "Just what do you put in that soap of yours, anyhow?"

  * * * * *

  By afternoon it was banners in every paper, wire-serviced across the nation and the world.

  Most of the stories were written tongue-in-cheek about the miracle part. It was assumed that Witch Products had done the inside job in advance, and thrown in the outside cleanup during the night.

  The tenants were interviewed--Oswald had the sense to move them right back into their new apartments--and not one of them could be made to break down and admit that those buildings hadn't been slums yesterday. Well, you couldn't blame them for sticking by Witch, look what Witch had done for them was the word that went around Bleek's.

  Of course the thing was a curiosity natural, and the police had so many men assigned there by nightfall it looked like a concentration camp. TV portables and news photographer's flashbulbs didn't lessen the confusion any, and the crowds were being let in and through only when there was room for more.

  Bill Howard was there when Randolph went through, in earnest conversation with a group of youngsters in one room. Oswald arranged that the Witch manufacturer should have a strong police escort, and the crowds moved back to make way for him in each apartment.

  The tenants answered his questions, but they did so with a sullenness that surprised Randolph. Yes, it had been a mess the day before. Yes, it had been rebuilt, obviously, during the night, while they were gone. Yes, just the one night.

  "They should be saying thank you," Randolph noted to Oswald. "They're acting as though I were a suspicious character."

  "It's our escort," Oswald explained suavely. "These people don't think of cops as their friends. Besides, this is pretty new to them."

  Randolph chewed his lip, and decided that Oswald was probably right. But the attitude was general, and it irritated him. He left after the briefest go-through.

  * * * * *

  That night Bill Howard was conservative in recounting the big news-story of the "slum clearance." He wasn't giving it the real Howard try, Randolph thought, sitting in front of his TV. There was a quote in the story he told, too, from the father of the Jones family that had been on the program the night before. "I reckon it's pretty wonderful, Mr. Howard," Jones had told him. "But I don't rightly know that I like it. Must admit I'm scared of this stuff," he had said, and he waved his hand at the newness.

  It was just a single sour note in the story, but it stuck out. The rest was a description, without any mention of the "miracle" part.

  At the break, the witches played the credit line to the hilt, though.

  "Witches of the world unite to make it clean, clean, clean, Witch clean--NOW!" they chanted their cry, and reenacted the scene of the night before, while the announcer's voice rode over the muted jingle to explain that Witch products had been used to make the slum clean, clean, Witch clean, even though it took carpenters and builders and contractors to remodel a slum building itself. That's better, thought Randolph, watching. No more of this "miracle" nonsense.

  It was barely 10:00 a.m. next morning when Randolph's phone rang.

  "Randolph, here," he said, and heard Oswald's voice without preliminary.

  "They've gone."

  "Who's gone?"

  "The tenants of the building. Just picked up their duds and left. I've put dicks on the case, and one family has moved in with relatives in the Bronx. The others scattered, but we'll trace 'em. Here's one of the policemen that was on duty when they left. He'll tell you."

  A new voice came on the phone, as Randolph chewed his lip.

  "Mr. Randolph? This is what happened, near as I can figure. We roped off the area at dark, last night. Figured we'd give the families some rest, and keep out the night-thrill guys.

  "Everybody in the apartments must have gotten together after we cleared out the crowds. It was pretty quiet, but the lights stayed on till about 2:00 a.m. Then they all started parading out, some even wearing their old clothes. They were carrying a few things, but nothing that looked like they hadn't had it before the change, so we figured what they were taking was theirs, probably.

  "Didn't say a word. Just paraded past us. Some of the kids was crying, but otherwise they were quiet."

  "Then one man came running back to me, and he said 'Get out of here. It's the devil's work. Get away from this place if you're a God-fearing man.' Then he turned and ran toward the subway with the rest.

  "I couldn't figure we had any orders to stop 'em, so we didn't try. We just watched."

  Oswald came back on the phone.

  "Can you keep it out of the papers?" Randolph asked.

  "It's already on every newscast, and the papers'll have it by noon--it's on the wires," Oswald said.

  Randolph coughed nervously, but Oswald didn't wait for him to speak.

  "I'm working on something to counteract this," he said. "We're being witch-hunted," Oswald said. "I'll get the whole firm to work on it and call you back."

  * * * * *

  In Washington, meantime, another conference was going on, far more intent, far more critical.

  "It's more than just a pest plane that crashed in Formosa, Mr. President," the CIA Chief was saying. "It carried bacterial bombs, and they exploded.

  "There's been no attempt to hide its source. It's, of course, of enemy make. No identification on the bodies aboard, they're in civilian clothes. But again, the make is Moscow.

  "It shouldn't be long before we know the worst."

  "Will they clean this one up as they did the last one, or will they demand surrender terms on this one?" the President asked.

  The Secretary of State and the Secretary of War started to answer together, but it was State that got the first word in.

  "I think they'll clean this one up," he said. "It would be a direct threat on which they'll demand surrender terms. That's just a g
uess, of course.

  "The best teams of doctors are being organized and jetted over. The best bacteriologists the nation has at its command. Every antibiotic available is being sent."

  "Will that make a dent?"

  "No."

  "How long can we keep it under wraps?"

  "A week. Ten days, perhaps, with top security."

  "Give it everything you've got. But keep it quiet until we know what the next move is. Twenty-four hour alert, of course, immediately."

  "Even if the alert itself endangers the security wraps?"

  "Yes. A week to ten days of security isn't enough to pay for taking a chance the other way."

  * * * * *

  By 4:00 p.m. Oswald was on the phone to Randolph. "We've got the antidote," he said jubilantly.

  Randolph was quiet for a minute, chewing his lip. Then: "I'm being vilified in the press as the creator of a hoax that even those who stood to benefit by it couldn't take," he said. "The few who have decided that a real miracle occurred have also decided that I'm in league with the devil, and that witches are for burning. Mostly Witch is the butt of every joke that can be dreamed up by every cub reporter in the nation. Saxton has started laying the groundwork for making Witch a political issue. There is talk of an FCC investigation."

  [Illustration]

  "I trust," he said formally, "that your antidote is an efficient one."

  Oswald's voice sounded smug, and not at all disgruntled. "Try this on for size," he said. "First, Witch is known far and wide as nothing less could have made it known--"

  "Yes, and if the churches ban the use of Witch, we'll wish we weren't."

  "O.K., O.K. Tonight we explain carefully that the 'miracle' was a miracle of cleanliness, and that carpenters and contractors and all that did the miracle. You know, American technology and mass production in operation, something to be proud of. Tie Witch right in to the whole picture of the United States as the leader of mechanical--stress mechanical--miracles.

  "Then--what's the most appealing thing in the world?" He didn't wait for an answer. "A child. A small, crippled child, for whom Witch can provide the funds to make her walk." Oswald hurried on, knowing that Randolph had to go through a bit of lip chewing before he could interrupt, and taking advantage of the fact to ride over objections.

  "We've got a kid that an expensive operation will save from being a cripple. I've consulted two top surgeons already, and they say it's nearly positive.

  "We don't do any hocus-pocus. We just say that Witch is going to pay for the operation. She leaves the broadcast and goes straight to the hospital. We get a movie of the operation, and we do movies on her convalescence, and we play it for weeks until she walks on stage cured--weeks later."

  Now Oswald waited. It was a long wait, an unusually long wait, even for Randolph. Finally, he said:

  "All right. But if anything unusual occurs you will answer for it in court."

  "Nothing unusual could occur. I admit I still don't know what happened last time, but we'll find out.

  "Meantime, we'll take a week to build this one up," Oswald continued. "The buildup will stress that this is a cure being bought by money. No miracle, except the miracle of American medical know-how. No miracles meantime. Just keep Witch clean and stay well, and Witch buys the operation the kid needs. She's pretty, too," he added as an afterthought. "Ten years old."

  * * * * *

  That night Bill Howard leaned across the desk toward the TV audience, and tiny droplets of sweat stood on his forehead. His voice was calm, though. A big map of New York City hung on the wall behind him.

  The big news that night was a dope raid. He described the dope traffic in the nation, the efforts of the FBI and every law enforcement body in the country, to track it down, clean it out. He described what it did to the young, who got caught and were slaves for life, unless they could be cured--and he spoke of the meagerness of the cures that were known.

  Then he described the raid. He took a pointer from his desk and he outlined how the raid had been staged, and he pointed out the location of the building where it had occurred. Then he followed with his pointer the route to the precinct jail where the victims were being held.

  "Cannot our best researchers find a cure for this addiction?" he asked in his husky voice. "Cannot our best law-enforcement agencies find the real perpetrators of these crimes? The perpetrators are the fiends who import dope and create addicts to peddle it for them. These who are confined are the victims. If no way can be found to cure them, they must be confined again and again and again, for that addiction will force them to ever-increasing crime to satisfy it.

  "If no way can be found to cure them, these are potential slaves for life--"

  As he ended the station break came, and the camera shifted to the Witches, dancing on stage, crying their chant.

  "Witches of the world, unite to make it clean, clean, clean, Witch clean--NOW!

  "Which soap or detergent, Witch cleanser upsurgent--"

  The announcer's voice, when it came in over the muted jingle "explained" the miracle of the slum-clearance again--a miracle of American technology. Then he outlined the next "miracle" the Witch Corporation would promote. This, he said, would be a miracle of American Medical know-how. Witch would pay for the expensive operation needed to make a little girl walk again after a crippling disease several years before. Bone would be grafted, new muscles would be grafted, American medical know-how in its full extent would be put at her service.

  Keep healthy by keeping clean with Witch, the announcer suggested. Witch would pay for the expensive operation to undo the effects of one disease. Meanwhile, Witch's customers could use the preventive medicine of cleanliness to help them in their fight against disease, while the researchers of American medicine "seek to find you real protection."

  * * * * *

  It was 10:30 the next morning when the doorbell rang.

  A big man was standing outside in a topcoat, hat in hand. Randolph stood in the door, waiting.

  The man silently held out a badge, and Randolph moved aside, gesturing him in.

  "I didn't look at your badge close enough," Randolph said as he closed the door behind his visitor. "Who are you?"

  "Narcotics squad," the man said briefly. "I was on the raid last night."

  "Oh? The one Bill Howard was talking about in his newscast?"

  "Yes. That one. I don't figure there's any connection, and my boss just laughed when I suggested there was a connection."

  "Connection?"

  "You see, I took a break from questioning those boys we pulled in. Trying to get a lead to the higher-ups. They were doped to the ears, and sometimes you can get info from them right quick. I took a break for a cup of coffee across the street, and there was a TV in the place, and I watched your Bill Howard.

  "I left just when your witches came on, shouting that thing about make it clean NOW. I went right back and started in on the questioning again, but the guy they brought in for me to question next was--not dopey. He was ... well, there's a difference between boys with the monkey on their back, and when there's no monkey. There was no monkey, but the kid began giving me everything he knew would take us to the higher-ups. It was being taped, of course, and I asked him when he'd had his last shot. Not twenty minutes before the raid, he said, calm as you please.

  "I had the guys brought back that I'd talked to before and they were--different. Only way I can describe it is, no monkey. The monkey had been there before. I don't know. They each gave us all they had in leads--they'd been stubborn before, but they sang like canaries.

  "I checked and nobody'd done anything to 'em to bring 'em off their jazz. If there's anything can be done to pull a guy out of a jazz, anyhow, I've never heard of it, and I've been in the narcotics squad since the year One. I couldn't figure it. I'd been hearing stories about Witch Products and that miracle at the Battery, sort of as a joke, and I thought, just maybe, just possibly, you know....

  "Anyhow, I took the tapes to my boss,
and spoke my bit, but he just laughed.

  "Maybe you'll just laugh, too, but I thought I'd ask."

  * * * * *

  At the same time in Washington, the cabinet was in full session. Reports coming in from Formosa were worse than even the most pessimistic had dreamed. The bacteria hit at the nerves and the brain, and the victims--excruciating was a word being used.

  "It's hit everywhere on the island at once. I assume it is contagious as well as having been broadcast from whatever bombs or broadcast methods were used," the CIA chief reported.

  "Any word from their embassy?"

  State answered that one. "No word at all. Phone calls to the Ambassador only elicit reports that he is not available. I can't reach anybody higher than a fourth assistant undersecretary."

  "At least it's not been on the air or in the press."

  "I don't know how long we can hold them in leash. Most of your leading papers know there's a twenty-four hour alert on--that was bound to leak--but I've kept them quiet. We'll have to give them something soon, though. They won't take a muzzle too long without at least knowing why."

  "Could you give them the story and trust them, when it's this important, and the consequences of leakage this apparent?"

  "I'd thought of that. You can convince some newsmen--but there's always a Joe somewhere who figures the American people have a right to know their destiny before it's decided, no matter what the effect--and no matter if their most highly elected officials feel it would not be good for them."

  "Keep it top security as long as possible. Let me know before it breaks."

  "If I can. I'm not a witch. I might not know when it was breaking." The CIA chief grinned sourly at his own allusion.

  The next night, the big news was the countdown in process at Canaveral to put a functioning "dome" on the moon. If the dome could be landed successfully, complete with live animals, a man would follow shortly. That was foregone. The question was landing the dome, just a small spaceship body, but completely equipped to keep a man alive for two years, in case anything went wrong with plans to bring him back pronto.