The Best of Bova: Volume 1

by Ben Bova

  Jeremy turned to the black man, a nervous giggle bubbling from his throat. “When you say born again, you really mean it!”

  “You spared my life, Mr. Keating,” said Rungawa. “Now we have spared yours.”

  “So we’re even.”

  Rungawa nodded solemnly.

  “What happens now?” Jeremy asked.

  The black man turned away and strode slowly back toward the hospital bed. “What do you mean, Mr. Keating?”

  Following him, Jeremy said, “As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Jeremy Keating is dead. But here I am! Where do I go from here?”

  Rungawa turned to face him. “Where do you wish to go, Mr. Keating?”

  Jeremy felt uncertain, but only for a moment. He was slightly shorter than he had been before, and the Black Saint looked disconcertingly taller.

  “I think you know what I want,” he said. “I think you’ve known it all along.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. This has all been an elaborate form of recruitment, hasn’t it?”

  Rungawa really smiled now, a dazzling show of pleasure. “You are just as perceptive as we thought, Mr. Keating.”

  “So it has been a game, all along.”

  “A game that you played with great skill,” Rungawa said. “You began by sparing the life of a man whom you had been instructed to assassinate. Then you quite conspicuously tried to get your employers to murder you.”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way.”

  “But that is what you did, Mr. Keating. You were testing us! You set up a situation in which we would have to save your life.”

  “Or let me die.”

  Rungawa shook his head. “You accepted what I had told you in Athens. You believed that we would be morally bound to save your life. Your faith saved you, Mr. Keating.”

  “And you, on your part, have been testing me to see if I could accept the fact that there’s a group of extraterrestrial creatures here on Earth, masquerading as human beings, trying to guide us away from a nuclear holocaust.”

  Nodding agreement, Rungawa said, “We have been testing each other.”

  “And we both passed.”

  “Indeed.”

  “But why me? Out of seven billion human beings, why recruit me?”

  Rungawa leaned back and half sat on the edge of the empty hospital bed. “As I told you in Athens, Mr. Keating, you are a test case. If you could accept the fact that extraterrestrials were trying to help your race to avoid its own destruction, then we felt sure that our work would meet with eventual success.”

  Keating stood naked in the middle of the antiseptic white room, feeling strong, vibrant, very much alive.

  “So I’ve been born again,” he said. “A new life.”

  The Black Saint beamed at him. “And a new family, of sorts. Welcome to the ranks of the world saviors, Mr. Keating. There are very few of us, and so many of your fellow humans who seem intent on destroying themselves.”

  “But we’ll save the world despite them.”

  “That is our task,” Rungawa said.

  Keating grinned at him. “Then give me some clothes and let’s get to work.”

  BLOOD OF TYRANTS

  This story was something of an experiment. Two experiments, really: one in style, the other in marketing.

  It was at one of the Milford Conferences in the early Sixties that Harlan Ellison conceived of the anthology he would eventually call Dangerous Visions. In those days, the major market for science fiction short stories was among the magazines such as Analog, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Galaxy, and Amazing. Harlan and many other writers were dissatisfied with the limitations imposed by the magazine publishers. Dangerous Visions was Harlan’s attempt to break out of the taboos and shibboleths of the magazine market, a gigantic anthology of stories that would not be bound by the conventions of newsstand morality.

  Dangerous Visions was a huge success, and Harlan immediately set to work on a second such volume, Again, Dangerous Visions. Much to my surprise, he asked me to contribute a story to the new project. I was surprised because, even though Harlan and I were friends, I did not write the kind of story that I considered a “Dangerous Vision:” a story that went beyond the constraints of taste and subject matter published in the science fiction magazines.

  So I tried an experiment in style, an attempt to write a short story as if it were the shooting script for a film. The subject matter was something that I had been mulling over for years, the idea that our society is breeding barbarians in the decaying ghettos of our major cities, and sooner or later these barbarians are going to declare war against the civilization that produced them. Much the same train of thought eventually led to a full-blown novel, City of Darkness.

  I finished the short story and presented it to Harlan. He hated it. He found every fault in it that it is possible to find in Western literature, and then some. Chagrined, I told him that the only other story I had on hand that had not yet been published was one that I had just finished writing, “Zero Gee.” Harlan loved that one, and published it in Again, Dangerous Visions. Perhaps what he really wanted was not so much a “Dangerous Vision,” but a technologically solid science fiction story, because that’s what “Zero Gee” is.

  Harlan and I remained friends, of course. We went on to collaborate on a short story called “Brillo,” which led to a lawsuit against the ABC television network, Paramount Pictures, and a certain Hollywood producer. But that’s another story. For now, take a look at “Blood of Tyrants.”

  * * *

  Still photo.

  Danny Romano, switchblade in hand, doubling over as the bullet hits slightly above his groin. His face going from rage to shock. In the background other gang members battling: tire chains, pipes, knives. Behind them a grimy wall bearing a tattered political poster of some WASP promising “EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL.”

  Fast montage of scenes, quick cutting from one to the next.

  Background music: Gene Kelly singing, “You Are My Lucky Star.”

  Long shot of the street. Kids stil fighting. Danny crawling painfully on all fours. CUT TO tight shot of Danny, eyes fixed on the skinny kid who shot him, switchblade still in hand. The kid, goggle-eyed, tries to shoot again, gun jams, he runs. CUT TO long shot again, police cruisers wailing into view, lights flashing. CUT TO Danny being picked up off the street by a pair of angry-faced cops. He struggles, feebly. Nightstick fractures skull, ends his struggling. CUT TO Danny being slid out of an ambulance at hospital emergency entrance. CUT TO green-gowned surgeons (backs visible only), working with cool indifference under the glaring overhead lights. CUT TO Danny lying unconscious in hospital bed. Head bandaged. IV stuck in arm. Private room. Uniformed cop opens door from hallway, admits two men. One is obviously a plainclothes policeman: stocky, hard-faced, tired-eyed. The other looks softer, unembittered, even smiles. He peers at Danny through rimless glasses, turns to the plainclothesman and nods.

  Establishing shots.

  Washington, D.C.: Washington Monument, Capitol building (seen from foreground of Northeast district slums), pickets milling around White House fence.

  An office interior.

  Two men are present. Brockhurst, sitting behind the desk, is paunchy, bald, hooked on cigarettes, frowning with professional skepticism. The other man, Hansen, is the rimless-glasses man from the hospital scene.

  “I still don’t like it; it’s risky,” says Brockhurst from behind his desk.

  “What’s the risk?” Hansen has a high, thin voice. “If we can rehabilitate these gang leaders, and then use them to rehabilitate their fellow delinquents, what’s the risk?” “It might not work.”

  “Then all we’ve lost is time and money.”

  Brockhurst glowers, but says nothing.

  Another montage of fast-cut scenes. Background music: Mahalia Jackson singing, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”

  Danny, between two cops, walks out of the hospital side door and into a police van. Bandages gone now
. CUT TO Danny being unloaded from van, still escorted, at airport. He is walked to a twin-engine plane. CUT TO interior of plane. Five youths are already aboard: two blacks, two Puerto Ricans, one white. Each is sitting, flanked by a white guard. A sixth guard takes Danny’s arm at the entry-hatch and sits him in the only remaining pair of seats. Danny tries to look cool, but he’s really delighted to be next to the window.

  Interior of a “classroom.”

  A large room. No windows, cream-colored walls, perfectly blank. About fifty boys are fidgeting in metal folding-chairs. Danny is sitting toward the rear. All the boys are now dressed in identical gray coveralls. Two uniformed guards stand by the room’s only exit, a pair of large double doors.

  The boys are mostly quiet; they don’t know each other, they’re trying to size up the situation. Hansen comes through the double doors (which a guard quickly closes behind him) and strides to the two-steps-up platform in the front of the room. He has a small microphone in his hand. He smiles and tries to look confident as he speaks.

  “I’m not going to say much. I’d like to introduce myself. I’m Dr. Hansen. I’m not a medical doctor, I’m a specialist in education . . .”

  A loud collective groan.

  “No, no . . .” Hansen chuckles slightly. “No, it’s not what you think. I work with teaching machines. You know, computers? Have you heard of them? Well, never mind.”

  One of the kids stands up and starts for the door. A guard points a cattle prod toward the kid’s chair. He gets the idea, goes back sullenly and sits down.

  “You’re here whether you like it or not,” Hansen continues, minus the smile. “I’m confident that you’ll soon like it. We’re going to change you. We’re going to make your lives worth living. And it doesn’t matter in the slightest whether you like it or not. You’ll learn to like it soon enough. No one’s going to hurt you, unless you try to get rough. But we are going to change you.”

  Interior of the “reading room.”

  A much smaller room. Danny and Hansen are alone in it. Same featureless plastic walls. No furniture except an odd-looking chair in the middle of the floor. It somewhat resembles an electric chair. Danny is trying to look contemptuous to cover up his fear.

  “You ain’t gettin’ me in that!”

  “It’s perfectly all right; there’s nothing here to hurt you. I’m merely going to determine how well you can read.”

  “I can read.”

  “Yes, of course.” Doubtfully. “But how well? That’s what I need to know.”

  “I don’t see no books around.”

  “When you sit in the chair and the electrodes are attached to your scalp . . .”

  “You gonna put those things on my head?”

  “It’s completely painless.”

  “No you ain’t!”

  Hansen speaks with great patience. “There’s no use arguing about it. If I have to, I’ll get the guards to strap you in. But it will be better if you cooperate. Mr. Carter—the one you call, uh, ‘Spade,’ I believe—he took the test without hesitating a moment. You wouldn’t want him to know that we had to hold you down, would you?”

  Danny glowers, but edges toward the chair. “Motherhumpin’ sonofabitch.”

  Series of fadeins and fadeouts.

  Danny in the “reading room,” sitting in the chair, cranium covered by electrode network. The wall before him has become a projection screen, and he is reading the words on it. MUSIC UNDER is Marine Corps Band playing Cornell University Alma Mater: (“Far Above Cayuga’s Waters . . .”)

  DANNY (hesitantly): “The car . . . hummed . . . cut quiet-ly to it-self . . .”

  FADEOUT

  FADEIN

  DANNY (tense with concentration): “So my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you . . .”

  FADEOUT

  FADEIN

  DANNY: “‘Surrender?’” he shouted. “‘I have not yet begun to fight!’”

  FADEOUT

  FADEIN

  DANNY (enjoying himself): “Robin pulled his bowstring back carefully, knowing that the Sheriff and all the townspeople were watching him.”

  FADEOUT

  Interior of Brockhurst’s office.

  Hansen is pacing impatiently before the desk, an intense smile on his face.

  “I tell you, it’s succeeding beyond my fondest hopes!

  Those boys are soaking it up like sponges. That Romano boy alone has absorbed more knowledge . . .”

  Brockhurst is less than optimistic. “They’re really learning?”

  “Not only learning. They’re beginning to change. The process is working. We’re changing their attitudes, their value systems, everything. We’re going to make useful citizens out of them.”

  “All of them?”

  “No, of course not. Only the best of them: half a dozen, I’d say, out of the fifty here—Romano, ‘Spade’ Carter, three or four others. At least six out of fifty, better than one out of ten. And this is just the first batch! When we start processing larger numbers of them . . .”

  Brockhurst cuts Hansen short with a gesture. “Do you actually think these—students—of yours will go back to their old neighborhoods and start to rehabilitate their fellow gang members?”

  “Yes, of course they will. They’ll have to! They’re being programmed for it!”

  Interior of library.

  Danny is sitting at a reading table, absorbed in a book. Bookshelves line the walls. A lumpy-faced redhead sits one table away, also reading. Hansen enters quietly, walks to Danny.

  “Hello, Danny. How’s it going today?”

  Danny looks up and smiles pleasantly. “Fine, Mr. Hansen.”

  “I just got the computer’s scoring of your economics exam. You got the highest mark in the class.”

  “Did I? Great. I was worried about it. Economics is kind of hard to grasp. Those booster pills you gave me must have helped.”

  “You did extremely well What are you reading?”

  “Biography, by Harold Lamb. It’s about Genghis Khan.”

  Hansen nods. “I see, look, it’s about time we started thinking about what you’re going to do when you go back home. Why don’t you drop over to my office tonight, after supper?”

  “Okay.”

  “See you then.”

  “Right.”

  Hansen moves away, toward the other boy. Danny closes his book, stands up. He turns to the bookshelf directly behind him and reaches unhesitatingly for another volume. He puts the two books under his arm and starts for the door. The title of the second book is Mein Kampf.

  Brockhurt’s office.

  Six boys are standing in front of Brockhurst’s desk, the six Hansen spoke of. They are now dressed in casual slacks, shirts, sport coats. Hansen is sitting beside the desk, beaming at them. Brockhurst, despite himself, looks impressed.

  “You boys understand how important your mission is.” Brockhurst is lapsing into a military tone. “You can save your friends a lot of grief . . . perhaps save their lives.”

  Danny nods gravely. “It’s not just our friends that we’ll be saving, it’ll be our cities, all the people in them, our whole country.”

  “Exactly.”

  Hansen turns to Brockhurst. “They’ve been well-trained. They’re ready to begin their work.”

  “Very well. Good luck, boys. We’re counting on you.”

  Exterior shot, a city street.

  Mid-afternoon, a hot summer day. A taxi pulls to the curb of the dingy, sun-baked street. Danny steps out, ducks down to pay the cabbie. He drives away quickly. Danny stands alone, in front of a magazine/tobacco store. He is dressed as he was in Brockhurst’s office. Taking off the jacket, he looks slowly up and down the street. Deserted, except for a few youngsters sitting, listlessly, in the shade. With a shrug, he steps to the store.

  Interior, the store.

  Magazine racks on one side of the narrow entrance; store counter featuring cigarettes and candy on the other. No one at the counter. Overhead, a batt
ered fan drones ineffectually. Farther back, a grimy table surrounded by rickety chairs. Three boys, two girls, all Danny’s age, sit there. The boys in jeans and tee shirts, girls in shorts and sleeveless tops. They turn as he shuts the door, gape at him.

  “Nobody going to say hello?” He grins at them.

  “Danny!”

  They bounce out of the chairs, knocking one over.

  “We thought you was dead!”

  “Or in jail . . . nobody knew what happened to you.”

  “It’s been almost a year!”

  They cluster around him as he walks slowly back toward the table. But no one touches him.

  “What happened to ya?”

  “You look . . . different, sort of.” The girl gestures vaguely.

  “What’d they do to you? Where were you?”

  Danny sits down. “It’s a long story. Somebody get me a coke, huh? Who’s been running things, Marco? Find him for me, I want to see him. And, Speed . . . get word to the Bloodhounds. I want to see their Prez . . . is it still Waslewski? And the one who shot me . . .”

  “A war council?”

  Danny smiles. “Sort of. Tell them that, if that’s what it’ll take to bring them here.”

  Interior, the back of the store.

  It is night. Danny sits at the table, his shirt-sleeves rolled up, watching the front door. Two boys flank him: Marco, slim and dark, his thin face very serious; and Speed, bigger, lighter, obviously excited but managing to keep it contained. Both boys are trying to hide their nervousness with cigarettes. The door opens, and a trio of youths enter. Their leader, Waslewski, is stocky, blond, intense. His eyes cover the whole store with a flick. Behind him is the skinny kid who shot Danny, and a burlier boy who’s trying to look cool and menacing.

  “Come on in,” Danny calls from his chair. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

  Waslewski fixes his eyes on Danny and marches to the table. He takes a chair. His cohorts remain standing behind him. “So you ain’t dead after all.”