The Seventh Science Fiction Megapack

by Robert Silverberg

  The director’s eyes, which had carefully avoided Ollie’s, now came to rest on them. “You, Mr. Lansing, have no business in this office. I fired you and warned you what would happen if you ever returned. You are pressing me pretty far. I’ve had all the trouble I want out of you. You should apologize to these people for such a monstrous fabrication.”

  “Nobody,” Virginia said, “expected you to come right out and admit anything, Doctor. You are saying only what we thought you would say.”

  Schlessenger shook his head. “I had always thought you had good judgment, Mrs. Sherwood. Obviously I credited you with more sense than you have.” He sighed. “Or is it that you both so desperately want to be rid of your amnesia you will believe anything, even a tale told by an idiot?”

  “It was no fabrication,” Ollie said firmly.

  Schlessenger looked him full in the face. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you’re not an idiot at all. Maybe you’re cunning, trying to stir up the Sherwoods against me because I caught you pilfering laboratory equipment.”

  “It so happens,” Sherwood said, coldly, “that we believe Oliver Lansing.”

  “Believe him, then,” Schlessenger snapped. “Make fools of yourselves if you want to. I don’t know anything about a thing that suppresses memories. My God, I wish I did. The Institute could use a thing like that. If I had such a device would I be sitting here like this refuting it? I’d be shouting it from the rooftops! I’d be having press conferences and Schlessenger Institute would be in all the papers!” He snorted. “All this is ridiculous.”

  “It is not ridiculous,” Ollie said.

  Schlessenger said cuttingly, “How would you know?”

  “And that stuff about my stealing equipment is a lie!”

  “Would you like me to name your fences in the Detroit university district?”

  “Yes!” Ollie cried out hotly.

  Sherwood said, “Let’s not get off the track, Doctor. Ollie’s not on trial here.”

  “I suppose you mean to imply that I am?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then,” Schlessenger said, “I’m afraid I will have to stop being civil and order you out of my office.” He pushed a button on his desk and the answering buzz could be heard in the outer office.

  Mrs. Schlessenger laid a white hand on her husband’s arm. “Andrew, I want to say something.”

  At that moment Miss Lawson opened the door and Schlessenger said wearily, “Will you leave the door open, please? This meeting is over.”

  Sherwood took a step toward the massive desk. “This meeting is not over. In your laboratory behind that door I invented a device that was supposed to transmit images from one mind to another, only it didn’t work out that way. It blanked out memory instead.”

  Schlessenger laughed. “That, my dear Dr. Sherwood, is a pipedream. A pipedream fresh from the imaginative head of your friend, Oliver Lansing. Now, if you please—”

  Virginia said, “Your part in it fits very well, Doctor.”

  “Are you all going to get out of here,” Schlessenger said, rising, his eyes slitted and menacing, “or am I going to have to throw you out?”

  “Neither,” Sherwood said. “You thought the suppressor-stimulator would stir your mind, make it sharper, perhaps raise your I.Q., so you worked out that trip to the West, just the three of us, real cozy, and when we reached Los Angeles you managed to get up enough nerve to blank out our minds, our memories for eleven years.”

  “Get out.”

  “A week’s erasure for every half minute with the suppressor, Doctor. And afterwards you invented that story about my quitting.”

  “And,” Ollie said, “you fired me and warned me to keep my mouth shut about it.”

  “You listen to me, Sonny,” Schlessenger said angrily, “you’re just damn lucky I didn’t have you put in jail. It was only because such a scandal would involve the Institute that I—”

  “Tell us, Doctor,” Virginia said, “why you were so sympathetic to us, why you should offer treatment and schooling. That doesn’t seem to go with your feelings about things. Could it be a compensation for what you did?”

  “As of right this minute, those offers are null and void.”

  “Dr. Schlessenger,” Sherwood said, “if you didn’t take the device out of the safe, then it must still be there. Suppose you open the safe?”

  “I’m opening no safe.”

  Sherwood withdrew a ring of keys from his pocket. “I’m sure one of these keys will fit the laboratory door. And there must be ways to open a safe.” He started for the door to the laboratories.

  “Stop where you are,” Schlessenger said quietly. Sherwood stopped and turned at a new, ugly quality in Schlessenger’s voice.

  Schlessenger slid open a drawer, reached in and picked up a small, nickel-plated revolver, his eyes not leaving Sherwood’s. “You are a trespasser, Dr. Sherwood, if you start to go through that door. As such I would be completely within my rights to kill you.”

  “Andrew,” Mrs. Schlessenger said, rising between her husband and Sherwood, “this has gone far enough. I insist—”

  Schlessenger moved to one side. “Sit down, Georgia,” he said fiercely.

  “I will not sit down, Andrew. I’m sick to death of all this. Did you hear that? Sick to death of it!”

  “Georgia, this is no time—”

  Sherwood’s movement toward the door caused him to move forward, forefinger tightening on the trigger. “Walter, I’m warning you!”

  Sherwood ignored it, stepped toward the door.

  “Andrew, you—!”

  There was a sound of a struggle, the flash and boom of gunfire, but Sherwood felt nothing, halting, turning to the pall of smoke that billowed and eddied about the desk.

  Mrs. Schlessenger, still alone near the desk, her face slack, her eyes staring at her husband, who was moving backward from her, the smoking gun in his hand, his eyes blinking, watching her as she collapsed, hitting the side of the desk and rolling off it to fall to the rug.

  Then Schlessenger tottered on his feet, his face ashen, his eyes riveted to what lay on the floor, and he sent the hand with the gun to the desk to support himself.

  When Sherwood moved toward Mrs. Schlessenger, the director jerked away from the desk, backing away, bringing the gun to bear on them all. His eyes were wild.

  Miss Lawson, who had been standing all this time at the door, uttered a low moan, her eyes disappeared up into her head, and she slumped to the floor.

  Schlessenger turned in her direction, stared for the briefest moment, then quickly crossed the floor, vaulted over the prostrate form through the door and was gone.

  SEVENTEEN

  The shooting of Georgia Schlessenger, the realization by her husband of what he had done, and his resultant flight from the office, lightning fast as these things had been, seemed an incredible study in slow motion to the three people who observed them, rooting them where they stood.

  In a numb daze Sherwood heard the outer office door hiss closed, and his mind was suddenly flooded with a number of unrelated thoughts from which, like sluggish turtles emerging from the surf, came two demanding ones: Mrs. Schlessenger was in urgent need of attention, and he ought to stop the doctor. Even as he stood trying to decide which of these he should do he became aware of other faces, other voices, Rayburn’s, Cox’s, as they rushed in from the labs.

  “See what you can do for Mrs. Schlessenger,” he told Virginia as he grabbed Ollie’s arm. “We’ve got to go after the doctor.”

  Then they stepped over the inert secretary, raced to the door and were outside in time to see the director’s Cadillac spewing gravel as it spun around on the areaway and headed for the hard road.

  As they ran for Sherwood’s car and saw that Schlessenger was taking the road west, Sherwood knew it was a losing battle. The big car had more weight and speed. His own four-door was a fine car but simply lacked the power. Still, there was no alternative—or was there? He saw Mrs. Schlessenger’s convertible there,
gambled precious moments to see if she had left keys in it. When he saw she had, he jumped in, with Ollie crying, “Hey!” and Sherwood not answering but starting the car and sending it zooming out of its berth even before Ollie was settled, pressing him against the cushions, the door only half-closed.

  When they reached the road, Schlessenger was not in sight. The highway was not a straight one, so it did not discourage Sherwood. He accelerated at full power, tires protesting as they whizzed around unbanked turns, until they came to a straightaway where they could see the other car. It was three blocks away.

  It was then sheer power against power, the smooth motor of the convertible versus the equally good motor of the other car, and Sherwood didn’t dare watch the speedometer, his right forearm pressed against the wheel so as not to lose control if a tire should suddenly blow. The surge of power was rewarded by an obvious lessening of. distance.

  “There’s a bad curve up ahead,” Ollie said, bracing himself and looking worriedly at Sherwood. “I know this road. He’ll have to slow down.”

  “Okay,” Sherwood said, reluctantly letting up on the accelerator. To his dismay the other car, now only a block ahead, crept away as it came to a small rise and sank quickly over it out of sight. Schlessenger wasn’t slowing down.

  When they reached the rise they were in a position to see more than a mile, the roadway before them dipping to a low point a few blocks distant. It was then that they saw the Schlessenger car barreling down the road with no compromise with danger, speedily heading for the curve in plain sight, the curve that ended in a clump of bushes and trees.

  “He’s a fool!” Ollie’s voice jumped at him. “There’s a bridge down there! He’s not going to make it!”

  They slowed and watched fascinatedly as the inevitable happened, just as if they were seeing it through a zoomar lens that brought them closer. The other car started around the distant curve, teetering slightly on two wheels at first, slamming back on all four, then the other two, suddenly shaking in protest, doing a little dance, all at once flipping on its side, hitting an obstruction at the side of the road, catapulting into the air and end over end into the bushes and out of sight.

  Sherwood braked the car at the curve’s beginning, set the convertible well on the shoulder, and got out.

  There wasn’t a sound except the faint murmur of trickling water in a stream, a slight soughing of hot summer wind in the bushes, a bird’s distant call. Something underfoot skittered away.

  “He’s dead,” Ollie said as they ran across the road to the place where the bushes had been crushed by Schlessenger’s big car.

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Nothing could have survived that.”

  They saw at the side of the road the train of logs that had accounted for the car’s sudden jump end over end; one of the logs was split in two. They pressed their way through the thicket, broke into a low, clear area, saw the wreck a short distance away. It had come to rest on its wheels, oddly enough, a crumpled car with wrinkled fenders, a long gash along its top with jagged pieces of metal still holding splinters of wood, mud and grass and weeds. Through the broken, splintered windows they could see that Schlessenger hadn’t been thrown out, and Sherwood thought it’s a good thing because it’s the throwing out that kills people and maybe he’s still alive.

  They reached the wreckage and Ollie grabbed a door handle. To his surprise the door came open with a shriek of metal-on-metal and sagged precariously on one hinge.

  Schlessenger still sat in the driver’s seat, his blond hair no longer neat and trim, his face flaccid, his blue eyes empty, staring, his expensive tweed suit torn, one foot twisted grotesquely to one side.

  Sherwood thought at first he was dead—or unconscious. But he was neither, because the doctor, in a drunken twist of his head, suddenly knew they were there and tried to focus his eyes. He tried to move, clenched his teeth and moaned.

  “Can you hear me?” Sherwood asked. “Can you understand me?”

  Schlessenger mumbled something unintelligible and his head bobbed down, his chin resting on his chest, his forehead inches from the bent steering wheel.

  Sherwood turned to Ollie, whose face was as white as Schlessenger’s. “Think you could drive to town all right?” Ollie stared at him.

  Sherwood said, “Get hold of yourself. I want you to get an ambulance. I’ll stay with him.”

  Ollie said, “I—” Then his eyes went wide and Sherwood turned to see Schlessenger sitting there looking at them, the revolver in his hand.

  “No,” Schlessenger said hoarsely, trying to control the nodding of his head. He drew lips away from his teeth and his breath whistled through them as he sought to bear his pain. His eyes became clearer and brighter with each passing moment.

  Sherwood could see blood pulsing through a cut over his left eye, wondering oddly which way it would run, before he said, “I’m sending Ollie for an ambulance.”

  The gun muzzle came up in a tight list, Schlessenger moved his shoulders a little and winced. The blood from the cut made a bright red rivulet down to his eyebrow. With his free hand he wiped the blood away. Again the clenched teeth and the word, “No.”

  “You can’t sit there and bleed to death,” Sherwood said.

  Schlessenger managed a crooked smile, motioned with the gun. “Stand closer together,” he said in a whisper. “I want to get you both.”

  Sherwood made a move toward him, stopped when he saw the determination in the doctor’s face

  “I had to kill one,” Schlessenger said. “I didn’t know it would be so easy.” A tiny river of blood ran from the corner of his mouth. “Two more won’t make any difference. Stand together. I haven’t much time.”

  “Why?” Ollie said in a surprisingly calm voice. “Why must you kill us, Dr. Schlessenger?”

  “Georgia will never tell. I’ll never tell. Now you’ll never tell.”

  “Tell what, Doctor?” Sherwood asked, his mind working furiously trying to find a way out of this.

  Schlessenger’s grin was evil. “You thought you won, didn’t you, Walter. But you didn’t. The door’s been locked and the key’s been thrown away.”

  They all listened as a car approached and passed.

  Sherwood said desperately, “Dr. Schlessenger, you’ve had a bad accident and you need help. Your wife isn’t dead, only hurt. You shouldn’t talk. You should save your strength. You’re going to need it.”

  Schlessenger gave a wry smile, the gun came up again, pointed straight at Sherwood. Now he grinned and said, “I’m the victor, Dr. Sherwood. I’m always the victor.” Suddenly his head dipped a little and with effort he caught it and brought it up. His face was ashen and blood-streaked. He had difficulty in focusing his eyes.

  Suddenly the hand with the gun jerked spasmodically, Schlessenger’s eyes widened, his face twisted and he cried out, “Walter, damn you! Where are you? What are you doing to me?”

  He gave a low moan as the life went out of his body, his face slackened, eyes glazed. His hand fell and the gun dropped to the floor from empty fingers and his limp body fell forward against the steering wheel.

  EIGHTEEN

  If Andrew Schlessenger had died of natural causes there would not have been the repercussions and ramifications there were because of the manner of his going. Under ordinary circumstances the researchers could have weathered the flurry occasioned by his death, might have even continued their work without interruption, but the wounding of Mrs. Schlessenger and her husband’s death in the car following the accident closed the Institute—“for a few days,” authorities said—until the matter had been fully investigated.

  The Merrittville Record, a weekly given to the goings and comings of the more prominent permanent residents, reports from area members in Congress, and releases from the Department of Agriculture, and which would have ordinarily given considerable space and prominence to the passing of such an important citizen as Dr. Schlessenger, did not disappoint its readers. The eulogy was there, but
the shooting of his wife was relegated to a subordinate position, as if it were an afterthought, and all a mistake. Not so the Detroit, Grand Rapids and Lansing newspapers. They leaned heavily the other way, reading into the incident much more than the facts allowed, and since there was little else in the state news budget for the wire services, the story placed prominently newswise.

  There was no change in the townspeople—on the surface. They did not read the metropolitan papers more, nor did they read them less. They seemed to be indifferent to the several reporter and photographer teams that scurried about Merrittville and talked to everyone. But the townspeople did not ignore each other and, like Don Basilio’s breath of detraction, the whispers grew until they far out-sized the already more-than-fair stretch of truth appearing in the daily papers.

  Georgia Schlessenger, hospitalized with a shoulder wound (her condition was listed as “good”), told what she could to newsmen, the Merrittville police and sheriff’s deputies (since her husband’s death had taken place in the county), all of them reluctant but nonetheless willing to believe Dr. Schlessenger simply had gone berserk. She used the secret nature of Institute work as an excuse for not elaborating and telling why he so suddenly should have taken leave of his senses, merely implying overwork and the pressure of patronizing government agencies, which everybody seemed to understand.

  One enterprising newspaperman who had sought out Dr. Schlessenger’s secretary for an exclusive interview (with pictures), rushed to Mrs. Schlessenger’s side, breathlessly demanding a confirmation or denial of certain fantastic angles of the story as divulged by Miss Lawson (“this business about a memory—a—suppressor, I think she said, and a stimulator, too”) and his face colored a little with the telling.

  Georgia Schlessenger merely laughed and told him if he wanted to she had no objection to his printing it (“But it is a little fantastic, wouldn’t you say?”) meanwhile making a note that Grace Lawson had just proved herself unfit to be anybody’s secretary.

  The newsman then asked if there was any truth to the rumor that one of the researchers and his wife suffered from amnesia, whereupon Mrs. Schlessenger asked him if he thought it likely that a man and wife would suffer amnesia at the same time, with or without the fantastic device referred to.