by Fritz Leiber
“How can you accomplish anything by operating only here?” Curt objected. “While you stifle our defenses, our enemies are arming to the teeth. When you’ve made us sufficiently helpless, they’ll strike.”
“Did I say we were so restricted?” answered Sark, smiling for the first time. “You cannot imagine what a fresh vegetable means on a professor’s table in Moscow. In Atomgrad a ripe tomato is worth a pound of uranium. How do I know? Because I walked the streets of Atomgrad with my grandfather.”
“Then you’re a—”
Sark’s face grew hard and bitter in the half light of the room. “Was,” he corrected. “Or might have been. There are no nationalities where there are no nations, no political parties where there are only hunger and death. The crime of the future is not any person’s or country’s. It is the whole of humanity’s.”
An alarm sounded abruptly.
“Carlson!” someone tensely exclaimed.
Sark whirled to the panels and adjusted the controls. A small screen lighted, showing the image of a man with graying hair and imperious face. His sharp eyes seemed to burn directly into Curt’s.
“How did it go?” exclaimed Sark. “Was the Prime Continuum shift as expected?”
“No! It still doesn’t compute out. Nothing’s right. The war is still going on. The Continuum is absolute hell.”
“I should have known,” said Sark in dismay. “I should have called you.”
“What is it? Do you know what’s wrong?”
“Johnson. Dr. Curtis Johnson. He’s here.”
* * * *
Rage spread upon Carlson’s face. An oath exploded from his lips. “No wonder the situation doesn’t compute with him out of the Prime Continuum. Why did he come there?”
“Dell sent him. Dell died too quickly. He didn’t have time to instruct Johnson. I have told him what we want of him.”
“Do you understand?” Carlson demanded of Curt with abruptness that was almost anger.
Curt looked slowly about the room and back to the face of his questioner. Understand? If they sent him back, allowed him to go back, could he ever be sure that he had not witnessed a thing of nightmare in this shadowy dream world?
Yes, he could be sure. He had seen the blasted city, just the way he knew it could be—would be unless someone prevented it. He had seen the pattern on the scope, attuned to the tiny tributary of the Prime Continuum that was the life of Dr. Dell, had seen it run out, dying as Dell had died.
He could believe, too, that there was a little farm near Atomgrad, where a tomato on a scientist’s table was more potent than the bombs building in the arsenal.
“I understand,” he said. “Shall I go back now?”
Sark put a paper into his hands. “Here is a list of new names. You will find Dell’s procedures and records in his desk at the farm. Do not underestimate the importance of your work. You have seen the failure of the Prime Continuum to compute properly with you out of it. You will correct that.
“Your only contact from now on will be through Brown, who will bring the tank truck once a year. You know what to do. You are on your own.”
It was like a surrealist painting as he left. The moon had risen, and in all the barrenness there was nothing but the gray cement cube of the building. The light spilling through the open doorway touched the half dozen gaunt men who had followed him out to the car. Ahead was the narrow band of roadway leading through some infinite nothingness that would end in Dell’s truck farm.
* * * *
He started off. When he looked back a moment later, the building was no longer there.
He glanced at the list of names Sark gave him, chilled by the importance of those men. For some there would be death as there had been for Dell. For himself—
He had forgotten to ask. But perhaps they would not have told him. Not at this time, anyway. The chemically treated food produced tumors in refractory, unresponsive cells. He had eaten Dell’s vegetables, would eat more.
It was too late to ask and it didn’t matter. He had important things to do. First would be the writing of his resignation to the officials of Camp Detrick.
As of tomorrow, he would be Dr. Curtis Johnson, truck farmer, specialist in atomic-age produce, luscious table gifts for the innocent and not-so-innocent human matches that would, if he and his unknown colleagues succeeded, be prevented from cremating the hopes of Mankind.
Louise would help him hang the new sign:
YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT
Eat the Best
EAT JOHNSON’S VEGETABLES
Only, of course, she wouldn’t know why he had taken Dell’s job, nor could he ever explain.
It would probably be the death of Curt Johnson, but that was cheap enough if humanity survived.
THE ORDEAL OF COLONEL JOHNS, by George H. Smith
Originally published in IF Worlds of Science Fiction, June 1954.
Clark Decker winced and scrounged still lower in his seat as Mrs. Appleby-Simpkin rested her enormous bosom on the front of the podium and smiled down on the Patriot Daughters of America in convention assembled as she announced: “And now, my dears, I will read you one more short quotation from Major Wicks’ fascinating book ‘The Minor Tactics of The American Revolution.’ When I am finished, I know that you will all agree that Rebecca Johns-Hayes will be a more than fitting successor to myself as your President.”
Decker looked wildly about for a way of escape from the convention auditorium. If he had only remained in the anteroom with Professor MacCulloch and the Historical Reintegrator! After suffering through four days of speeches by ladies in various stages of mammalian top-heaviness, he hadn’t believed it possible that anyone could surpass Mrs. Appleby-Simpkin for either sheer ability to bore or for the nobility of her bust. Mrs. Rebecca Johns-Hayes had come as something of a shock as she squirmed her way onto the speaker’s platform. But there she was as big as life, or rather bigger, smiling at Mrs. Appleby-Simpkin, the Past President, beaming at Mrs. Lynd-Torris, a defeated candidate for the presidency and whose ancestor had been only a captain, and completely ignoring Mrs. Tolman, the other defeated candidate whose ancestor had been so inconsiderate as to have been a Continental sergeant. Only the thought that now that the voting was over and the new president chosen, the ladies might be ready for the demonstration of the Reintegrator had brought Decker onto the convention floor, and now he was trapped and would have to listen.
“And so,” Mrs. Appleby-Simpkin was reading, “upon such small events do the great moments of history depend. The brilliant scouting and skirmishing of the riflemen under Colonel Peter Johns prevented the breakthrough of Captain Fosdick’s column and the possible flanking of the American army before Saratoga. Thus, this little known action may have been the deciding factor in the whole campaign that prevented General Burgoyne from carrying out the British plan to divide the colonies and end the war. It is impossible for the historian to refrain from speculation as to what might have happened had Colonel Johns not been on hand to direct the riflemen and militia in this section; as indeed he might not have been, since his own regiment of short-term enlistees had returned to Pennsylvania a few days previously. Only the Colonel’s patriotism and devotion to duty kept him in the field and made his abilities available to the country when they were most needed.”
Mrs. Appleby-Simpkin waited until the burst of applause had died down and then continued, “That is the man whose great-great-great-great-granddaughter you have elected your president today…Mrs. Rebecca Johns-Hayes!” Turning to Mrs. Johns-Hayes she went on, “Before you make your acceptance speech, dear, we have a little surprise for you.”
Clark Decker had been edging his way toward the side of the auditorium where the Men’s Auxiliary of the Daughters had their seats but he turned back at the mention of the surprise. It sounded as though it was time for him and
the Professor to start their demonstration.
“A surprise which we hope will also be a surprise to the whole world of science,” Mrs. Appleby-Simpkin was holding the podium against a determinedly advancing Mrs. Johns-Hayes. “Indeed we may be able to say in future years, that this year’s Convention of the Patriot Daughters was marked by the first public demonstration of one of the most momentous inventions in the history of science.” The Past President was speaking faster and faster, because the new President with a hand full of notes was doing her best to edge her away from both the podium and the microphone.
“Thank you, darling,” Mrs. Johns-Hayes said, pulling the microphone firmly toward her, “but we really must get along with business. I have quite a few things I want to say and several motions which I want to place before the Convention.”
“And as I was saying, dear,” Mrs. Appleby-Simpkin said, pulling the microphone back with equal firmness, “I know that you will be just unbearably thrilled.” There was another brief struggle for the mike and Mrs. Appleby-Simpkin won and went on. “I know that he will be just as proud of you as you are of him. That is why we have arranged for Professor MacCulloch to demonstrate his historical Reintegrator at our convention by bringing into our midst Colonel Peter Johns, the hero of the action at Temple Farm, to see his great-great-great-great-granddaughter installed as the fifty-fourth president of the Loyal Order of Patriot Daughters of America. Now I.…” Mrs. Johns-Hayes again won control of the mike.
“Thank you very much, dear.” Her voice was a genteel screech. “I’m sure that we will be only too glad to have the…who? Who did you say?” Mrs. Appleby-Simpkin regained the microphone from the other woman’s relaxing grip.
“I believe I see Mr. Decker, the Professor’s assistant, in the audience,” she said. “Will you be so good as to tell the Professor that we are ready for his epic-making experiment?”
With a great feeling of relief, Decker escaped from the rising turmoil of the convention hall into the relative quiet of the anteroom where MacCulloch waited with the Reintegrator. He found the Professor sitting with his head in his hands staring at the machine. The little man looked up and smiled quizzically as his assistant approached him.
“They’re ready, Professor! They’re ready!” Still under the influence of the convention, Decker found himself shouting.
“Ah. Ah, yes. Then it will be today. I’ve waited so long. Ten years of work and now instead of a scientific gathering, I have to demonstrate my machine before a woman’s club.”
* * * *
Decker began to wheel the platform which held the Reintegrator toward the door. “After today, Professor, all the scientific organizations in the world will have heard of you and will be demanding demonstrations.”
“Yes, but these Patriot Daughters! Who are they? Who in the scientific world ever heard of them?”
“No one except a few scientists unfortunate enough to fall afoul of their Loyalty and Conformity Committee.”
“I think we should have gone elsewhere for our demonstration.”
“Now Professor. Who in the world today would be interested in the past except a group of ancestor conscious women?”
“Some historical society perhaps,” the Professor said wistfully.
“And what historical society could have advanced all the funds we needed to complete the machine?”
“I suppose you’re right, my boy,” MacCulloch sighed as he helped push the Reintegrator onto the auditorium floor.
By the time Clark Decker reached the platform to explain the demonstration, the fight for the microphone had turned into a three-way struggle. A lady who represented the Finance Committee was trying to win it away from both the Past President and the new President.
Taking them by surprise, Decker managed to gain control long enough to explain what was about to happen.
“You mean,” demanded Mrs. Johns-Hayes, “that this is some sort of time machine and you’re going to transport great-great-great-great-grandfather from the past into the present?”
“No, Mrs. Hayes. This isn’t a time machine in the comic book use of the term. It is just what Professor MacCulloch has called it, an historical Reintegrator. The theory upon which it is based, the MacCulloch Reaction, says that every person who ever existed, and every event which ever took place caused electrical disturbances in the space-time continuum of the universe by displacing an equal and identical group of electrons. The task of the Reintegrator is to reassemble those electrons. That is why Professor MacCulloch is now placing your ancestor’s sword in the machine. We will use that as a base point from which our recreation will begin.”
The machine was humming and small lights were beginning to play about its tubes and dials. “If our calculations are accurate, and we believe that they are,” Decker said, “within a very few minutes, Colonel Johns should be standing before us as he was on a day approximately a week before his heroic action in the battle at Temple Farm.”
Mrs. Johns-Hayes, although still gripping her notes, was beginning to get a little flustered. “Oh my, that would be before he married great-great-great-great-grandmother Sayles. They were married only two days before the battle, you know. It was so romantic…a wartime romance and all.”
“Just imagine,” Mrs. Tolman remarked, “at that time your whole family was just a gleam in the Colonel’s eye!”
Professor MacCulloch made one or two last passes at the machine and then stood back to watch, a look of pure scientific ecstasy on his face. A mistiness began to gather on the platform where the Colonel’s sword lay and through it from time to time shot sparks of electricity. Suddenly a gasp went up from the assembled Daughters as a man’s head and shoulders appeared and expanded downward, a long way downward, to a large pair of feet. There was one last hum from the machine and then a tall young man in faded blue regimentals and very much in need of a shave was standing blinking in the blazing lights of the auditorium.
“Oh, Mr. Decker, surely there’s some mistake!” was Mrs. Johns-Hayes’ first comment as she surveyed the very tall, very tattered, and very dirty young man. “Great-great-great-great-grandfather’s pictures always show him as a dignified old gentleman.”
The Colonel took one quick look around and made a grab for his sword, but the Professor managed to calm him and to explain the situation before any violence could take place. After a few minutes of hurried talk, MacCulloch steered the Colonel in the direction of the speaker’s platform for the meeting with his great-great-great-great-granddaughter.
Peter Johns’ bewilderment faded into astonishment, but he still gripped his sword as the Professor guided him through the throngs of excited ladies onto the stage. He paused momentarily to look at the brilliant lights and at the huge number of American flags which hung overhead. A picture of George Washington, hung among the flags, seemed to reassure him and he allowed the Professor to lead him to Mrs. Johns-Hayes.
That lady had drawn herself together at the approach of her ancestor and had obviously decided to carry it off as best she could. She advanced to meet him crying, “Dear, dear great-great-great-great-grandfather! This is such a pleasure! You can’t know how proud all of us in the family have always been of you.”
The young Continental officer stared open mouthed at the red-faced, big-bosomed woman who was twice his age, but who addressed him as great-great-great-great-grandfather. Then he turned to MacCulloch who stood beside him. “Are you sure you have the right man?” he asked.
“Oh yes! Perfectly, perfectly! You’re Colonel Peter Johns of Pamworth, Pennsylvania, and this is your great-great-great-great-granddaughter, Rebecca Johns-Hayes.”
“Rebecca? You mean she’s named after Becky Sayles?” The Colonel rubbed a hand across his several days’ growth of beard.
“That’s right, dear great-great-great-great-grandfather. I’m named after great-great-great-great
-grandmother,” Mrs. Johns-Hayes announced.
“Then I married Becky Sayles?” the Colonel asked.
“Why, of course! Aren’t you planning on getting married in a few days?” Clark Decker asked.
The Colonel was embarrassed but he grinned, “Well, I don’t rightly know. Miss Sayles and I have been courtin’ for some months but there’s little Jennie Taylor down in Trenton.… To tell the truth, I haven’t quite made up my mind.”
“Well! Of all things! What would the family think! What would great Aunt Mary Hayes say?” Mrs. Johns-Hayes puffed out even farther than usual.
“Well, we can ease your mind on that subject, Colonel. The history books say that you married Miss Sayles—and here is Mrs. Johns-Hayes to prove it.”
The Colonel scratched his chin again as he looked at Mrs. Johns-Hayes. “Is that so? Is that so? What’s all this about history books? You mean I got in history because I married Becky Sayles?”
The Professor laughed. “Well, not exactly. It was because of your heroism in the defeat of Burgoyne’s army. If you hadn’t blocked Captain Fenwick’s flanking move at Temple Farm, the American army under General Gates might have been defeated and the Colonies might even have lost the war.”
“Well, I’ll be.… Me? I did all that? I didn’t even know there was going to be a battle. Did I end up a live hero or a dead one?” The Colonel was beginning to feel a bit more easy in his surroundings, and, to the horror of Mrs. Johns-Hayes, took a plug of tobacco out of his pocket and bit off a piece and began to chew it.
“You came through the battle with only a slight wound and lived to a ripe old age surrounded by grandchildren,” the Professor told him.
“Then I reckon I won’t go back to Pennsylvania with the other boys. They figure that since their enlistments are up, it’s time to get back to the farm and let them New Yorkers do some of their own fighting.”
