Golden Age of Science Fiction Vol XII

by Various

  Would the man with the keys who looked in the door twice a day care whether Purcell died with dignity? He was the only audience, and his expression never changed when Purcell asked him to point out to the authorities that he was not being given anything to eat. It was funny to Purcell to find that he wanted the respect of any audience to his dying, even of a man without response who treated him as if he were already a corpse.

  Perhaps the man would respond if Purcell said, "I have changed my mind. I will tell."

  But if he said that, he would lose his own respect.

  At the biochemists' and bio-physicists' convention, the reporter had asked him if any of his researches could be applied to warfare.

  He had answered with no feeling of danger, knowing that what he did was common practice among research men, sure that it was an unchallengeable right.

  "Some of them can, but those I keep to myself."

  The reporter remained dead-pan. "For instance?"

  "Well, I have to choose something that won't reveal how it's done now, but--ah--for example, a way of cheaply mass-producing specific antitoxins against any germ. It sounds harmless if you don't think about it, but actually it would make germ warfare the most deadly and inexpensive weapon yet developed, for it would make it possible to prevent the backspread of contagion into a country's own troops, without much expense. There would be hell to pay if anyone ever let that out." Then he had added, trying to get the reporter to understand enough to change his cynical unimpressed expression, "You understand, germs are cheap--there would be a new plague to spread every time some pipsqueak biologist mutated a new germ. It isn't even expensive or difficult, as atom bombs are."

  The headline was: "Scientist Refuses to Give Secret of Weapon to Government."

  * * * * *

  Government men came and asked him if this was correct, and on having it confirmed pointed out that he had an obligation. The research foundations where he had worked were subsidized by government money. He had been deferred from military service during his early years of study and work so he could become a scientist, instead of having to fight or die on the battlefield.

  "This might be so," he had said. "I am making an attempt to serve mankind by doing as much good and as little damage as possible. If you don't mind, I'd rather use my own judgment about what constitutes service."

  The statement seemed too blunt the minute he had said it, and he recognized that it had implications that his judgment was superior to that of the government. It probably was the most antagonizing thing that could have been said, but he could see no other possible statement, for it represented precisely what he thought.

  There were bigger headlines about that interview, and when he stepped outside his building for lunch the next day, several small gangs of patriots arrived with the proclaimed purpose of persuading him to tell. They fought each other for the privilege.

  The police had rescued him after he had lost several front teeth and had one eye badly gouged. They then left him to the care of the prison doctor in protective custody. Two days later, after having been questioned several times on his attitude toward revealing the parts of his research he had kept secret, he was transferred to a place that looked like a military jail, and left alone. He was not told what his status was.

  When someone came and asked him questions about his attitude, Purcell felt quite sure that what they were doing to him was illegal. He stated that he was going on a hunger strike until he was allowed to have visitors and see a lawyer.

  The next time the dinner hour arrived, they gave him nothing to eat. There had been no food in the cell since, and that was probably two weeks ago. He was not sure just how long, for during part of the second week his memory had become garbled. He dimly remembered something that might have been delirium, which could have lasted more than one day.

  Perhaps the military who wanted the antitoxins for germ warfare were waiting quietly for him either to talk or die.

  * * * * *

  Ronny got up from the grass and went into the kitchen, stumbling in his walk like a beginning toddler.

  "Choc-mil?" he said to his mother.

  She poured him some and teased gently, "What's the matter, Ronny--back to baby-talk?"

  He looked at her with big solemn eyes and drank slowly, not answering.

  In the cell somewhere distant, Dr. Purcell, famous biochemist, began waveringly trying to rise to his feet, unable to remember hunger as anything separate from him that could ever be ended, but weakly wanting a glass of water. Ronny could not feed him with the chocolate milk. Even though this was another himself, the body that was drinking was not the one that was thirsty.

  He wandered out into the backyard again, carrying the glass.

  "Bang," he said deceptively, pointing with his hand in case his mother was looking. "Bang." Everything had to seem usual; he was sure of that. This was too big a thing, and too private, to tell a grownup.

  On the way back from the sink, Dr. Purcell slipped and fell and hit his head against the edge of the iron cot. Ronny felt the edge gashing through skin and into bone, and then a relaxing blankness inside his head, like falling asleep suddenly when they are telling you a fairy story while you want to stay awake to find out what happened next.

  "Bang," said Ronny vaguely, pointing at a tree. "Bang." He was ashamed because he had fallen down in the cell and hurt his head and become just Ronny again before he had finished sending out his equations. He tried to make believe he was alive again, but it didn't work.

  You could never make-believe anything to a real good finish. They never ended neatly--there was always something unfinished, and something that would go right on after the end.

  It would have been nice if the jailers had come in and he had been able to say something noble to them before dying, to show that he was brave.

  "Bang," he said randomly, pointing his finger at his head, and then jerked his hand away as if it had burned him. He had become the wrong person that time. The feel of a bullet jolting the side of his head was startling and unpleasant, even if not real, and the flash of someone's vindictive anger and self-pity while pulling a trigger.... My wife will be sorry she ever.... He didn't like that kind of make-believe. It felt unsafe to do it without making up a story first.

  Ronny decided to be Indian braves again. They weren't very real, and when they were, they had simple straightforward emotions about courage and skill and pride and friendship that he would like.

  * * * * *

  A man was leaning his arms on the fence, watching him. "Nice day." What's the matter, kid, are you an esper?

  "Hul-lo." Ronny stood on one foot and watched him. Just making believe. I only want to play. They make it too serious, having all these troubles.

  "Good countryside." The man gestured at the back yards, all opened in together with tangled bushes here and there to crouch behind, when other kids were there to play hide and seek, and with trees to climb. It can be the Universe if you pick and choose who to be, and don't let wrong choices make you shut off from it. You can make yourself learn from this if you are strong enough. Who have you been?

  Ronny stood on the other foot and scratched the back of his leg with his toes. He didn't want to remember. He always forgot right away, but this grownup was confident and young and strong-looking, and meant something when he talked, not like most grownups.

  "I was playing Indian." I was an old chief, captured by enemies, trying to pass on to other warriors the wisdom of my life before I died. He made believe he was the chief a little to show the young man what he was talking about.

  "Purcell!" The man drew in his breath between his teeth, and his face paled. He pulled back from reaching Ronny with his feelings, like holding his breath in. "Good game." You can learn from him. Don't leave him shut off, I beg you. You can let him influence you without being pulled off your own course. He was a good man. You were honored, and I envy the man you will be if you contacted him on resonant similarities.

  The grownup
looked frightened. But you are too young. You'll block him out and lose him. Kids have to grow and learn at their own speed.

  Then he looked less afraid, but uncertain, and his thoughts struggled against each other. Their own speed. But there should be someone alive with Purcell's pattern and memories. We loved him. Kids should grow at their own speed, but.... How strong are you, Ronny? Can you move ahead of the normal growth pattern?

  Grownups always want you to do something. Ronny stared back, clenching his hands and moving his feet uneasily.

  The thoughts were open to him. Do you want to be the old chief again, Ronny? Be him often, so you can learn to know what he knew? (And feel as he felt. It would be a stiff dose for a kid.) It will be rich and exciting, full of memories and skills. (But hard to chew. I'm doing this for Purcell, Ronny, not for you. You have to make up your own mind.)

  "That was a good game. Are you going to play it any more?"

  * * * * *

  His mother would not like it. She would feel the difference in him, as much as if he had read one of the books she kept away from him, books that were supposed to be for adults only. The difference would hurt her. He was being bad, like eating between meals. But to know what grownups knew....

  He tightened his fists and looked down at the grass. "I'll play it some more."

  The young man smiled, still pale and holding half his feelings back behind a dam. Then mesh with me a moment. Let me in.

  He was in with the thought, feeling Ronny's confused consent, reassuring him by not thinking or looking around inside while sending out a single call, Purcell, Doc, that found the combination key to Ronny's guarded yesterdays and last nights and ten minutes agos. Ronny, I'll set that door, Purcell's memories, open for you. You can't close it, but feel like this about it--and he planted in a strong set, questioning, cool, open, a feeling of absorbing without words ... it will give information when you need it, like a dictionary.

  The grownup straightened away from the fence, preparing to walk off. Behind a dam pressed grief and anger for the death of the man he called Purcell.

  "And any time you want to be the old chief, at any age he lived, just make believe you are him."

  Grief and anger pressed more strongly against the dam, and the man turned and left rapidly, letting his thoughts flicker and scatter through private memories that Ronny did not share, that no one shared, breaking thought contact with everyone so that the man could be alone in his own mind to have his feelings in private.

  * * * * *

  Ronny picked up the empty glass that had held his chocolate milk from the back steps where he had left it and went inside. As he stepped into the kitchen, he knew what another kitchen had looked like for a five-year-old child who had been Purcell ninety years ago. There had been an iron sink, and a brown-and-green-spotted faucet, and the glass had been heavier and transparent, like real glass.

  Ronny reached up and put the colored plastic tumbler down.

  "That was a nice young man, dear. What did he say to you?"

  Ronny looked up at his mamma, comparing her with the remembered mamma of fifty years ago. He loved the other one, too.

  "He tol' me he's glad I play Indian."

  * * *

  Contents

  THE DEADLY DAUGHTERS

  By Winston K. Marks

  These gorgeous fanatics were equally at home with men, murder, or matrimony, and they used all three with amazing success.

  Dr. Hubert Long, 40, bachelor and assistant professor of political science at Mentioch University, thrust his rugged, unlovely face forward, sticking out his neck literally and figuratively.

  "The Humanist Party," he shouted at the 800 odd students in the lecture hall, "is not a political party at all. It's an oligarchy, so firmly established in Washington that our electoral form of government is an empty ritual, a ridiculous myth. Our elections are rigged to perpetuate a select group of feminists in absolute power."

  The mixed group of seniors stirred in their seats with wide eyes, and many began taking notes.

  "This may cost me my position at the university," he said grimly, "but the time has come for all responsible citizens to face the fact that the Government of the United States of America has degenerated into little better than an absolute dictatorship!"

  This time a rustle of whispering grew to restless buzzing. A young man in a bowtie leaped to his feet breaking the no-questions rule in Long's over-size classes. "May the Mentioch Bugle quote you, Dr. Long?"

  "You may headline those views, and I hope you do," Long declared belligerently, adding extra emphasis.

  * * * * *

  "Exactly what do you imply when you call the Humanist Party a group of feminists?" the young man asked, encouraged.

  Long's gaze swept out, noting the mild amusement on the faces of the men students, the growing annoyance in the women. He fixed the reporter for the campus paper with a level stare. "I suppose you feel that because only 30 percent of our legislatures are women, that men still dominate Congress?"

  "I think that is the popular conception," the reporter said in a patronizing tone.

  "Then think again, young man. Analyze the composition of the Senate and House, and break down the key committee appointments by sexes. You will find three-fourths of these posts held by women, and the balance are held by men whose wives are members of the top-level Humanist Party movement. I say to you that our whole nation is dominated by a handful of female fanatics to whom intellectual integrity is unknown."

  "What are your indictments? Please enumerate--"

  "I will, I will," Long shouted, ignoring the microphone before him. "Without consideration of our national prestige the Humanist Party has emasculated our influence as a world power with its pacifistic actions. On the domestic front, the Party has initiated a program of so-called Internal Security, a cradle-to-the-grave pampering that amounts to the most vicious State-Socialism the world has seen since the fall of Soviet Russia. We are fast becoming slaves to the soft, gutless bureaucracy in Washington that feeds us, wipes our noses, encourages excessive breeding and enforces its fantastic policies by use of goon squads!"

  "Goon squads?" The young reporter lost his smile. "You had better clarify that, Dr. Long. I wouldn't want to join you in a libel action."

  "Keep quoting me," Long snarled. "I said goon squads, and I meant just that. Once I belonged to a scholarly fraternity of political scientists who were critical of our government. Of some eighteen members, I am the only one left in public life. The rest have all disappeared, and I have no doubt that my previous silence on these matters is all that has saved me. But the time for discretion is past. If we are to save our independence and democratic freedoms the time for action is now! I say to you--"

  * * * * *

  It made more than the headlines of the college campus at Mentioch. The news-wire services picked it up, and Dr. Long's radical views made pages two and three all over the nation.

  Emily Bogarth, head of Internal Security, raged at her assistant, bald-headed Terman Donlup. "Must I read about these things in the papers to keep up on subversive activity?"

  "But the man's record shows complete stability," Donlup defended. "He simply blew up without any warning at all. The Dean of Women at Mentioch tells me that Dr. Long has never had a word of criticism from his department head. I suppose we had better remove him from his position at once, eh?"

  Madame Secretary Bogarth shook her head. "That's not enough. This calls for liquidation. I want a special squad on this one." She began writing names on a sheet of paper, names of some of the most effective unscrupulous yet faithful operators in the party's top echelon.

  She handed it to Donlup. "This man is dangerous. He could force us into open control of the press and higher education. Get these people here not later than tomorrow. We can't waste time."

  "Yes, Madame Secretary," Donlup saluted with a full bow and went to work.

  * * * * *

  The following afternoon Emily Bogarth faced the squad w
ith its brilliant, green-eyed leader. She told them their mission and then dismissed all but one. "I'm sorry to hand this one to you. I know what a promising career you had before you. But this man is deadly to our purpose. Believe me, I am not wasting your special aptitudes."

  "If it's for the good of the Party--"

  "Dr. Hubert Long is a lighted fuse," Emily Bogarth said, her cold eyes hard on her operator, "that could blow the Humanist movement sky-high. I want you to snuff out that fuse." She squeezed a forefinger against her spatulate thumb.

  The operator nodded and the green eyes flashed with the same fanatic spark that electrified American politics at the turn of the 21st century and launched the Humanist Party into its 30-year tenure of power.

  * * * * *

  At first only a shocked, embarrassed silence greeted Dr. Long on the campus of Mentioch University, but as the press notices of his utterances grew in volume so did his prestige.

  He began to have a number of local visitors who evinced sharp interest in his views. At the end of the first week he was holding forth each evening to a sizable audience in his tiny bungalow on the edge of faculty row.

  By nature a careful, practical man, Hubert Long now carried a small pistol in his coat pocket, but being also a fearless, independent individual, he admitted all callers and exposed himself daily to the public. It wasn't entirely personal bravado, however. He knew from his years of intense, discreet research that the goon squads rarely made their attacks in the public eye. When they liquidated him he fervently hoped they would make this mistake and prove his point concerning their operations.

  Although he didn't seek martyrdom, Dr. Long was prepared for it, as he explained to the informal seminar that had accumulated at his home this Sunday afternoon. It was now late evening and the endless questions were beginning to grow wearying.

  "How do you know," asked a skeptical businessman, "that I am not an assassin who will ambush you on the way to the bathroom tonight?"