The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 02

by Anthology

  The helmet itched the back of my neck and the glasses dug into the bridge of my nose. From the open space I had to work in they must have thought I was a ferry-boat, until it dawned on me that all those armed Marines with their backs turned weren't there just for ornament. Peter Valuable Miller. Very, very, queer, I thought, that all those technicians swarming on the carrier deck could be trusted enough to build and fire a Bomb and yet couldn't be allowed to know that there might be a possible defense to that Bomb. I watched Stein scratch his back against a projecting steel rib as the Smith strolled absently out of nowhere. Stein straightened sheepishly, and the old man smiled.

  "Ready?"

  Why not? I gave him the same answer as before. "Ready as I ever will be."

  He handed me a pair of glasses, 7 x 50. "The drone ship took off ten minutes ago. Look due north--no, north is that way--and whenever it comes into whatever you consider your range--"

  "Bingo!"

  "Bingo!" He liked that. "When you fire it--"

  "You mean, if I fire it."

  "If you fire it, just before, you slide the filters over the ends of your binoculars like so. Or better still, turn your back."

  Turn my back? I wanted to see what was going to happen.

  "All right, but make sure you get those filters down in time." He cocked an ear as someone shouted something that was carried away in the freshening breeze. "Must have picked it up with radar. Let's see if we can find it," and together we set to sweeping the northern horizon.

  Radar must have been sharp that day, because the drone, a battered B-24, was right on top of us before we picked it up, a mote in the sun's brazen eye. A flurry of orders relayed to the control ship sent it soaring back into the distance, a mile or so high. Just at the limit of visibility I used the corner of my mouth to Smith.

  "Hold your breath and help me out." Maybe he did, at that. "Motors. I'll try to get the motors first."

  * * * * *

  The slapping of the salty waves against the cruiser's armored hull seemed to pause in midstride. Nothing happened--nothing, until the waves, with a frustrated sigh, gave in and began again their toppling roll and hiss. Then slowly, ever so slowly, so faintly that it was only a speck in the sky, the distant dot tilted and hung suspended on a wingtip, hung, hung, hung.... A jerk, and a warped spiral. My ears rang, and the falling leaf, now swooping and sailing in agonized humpbacked scallops, seemed to double and triple in my tear-swimming eyes. Then I tried--

  There was no sound. There was no booming roar, no thunder. But I forgot to yank down those dark filters over the ends of the Zeiss. They had told me that it would be like looking at the sun. Well, the sun won't throw you flat on your back, or maybe I fell. Not quite flat; Smith threw a block as I reeled, and held me upright. I tried to tell him that I was all right, that it was just the sudden glare that paralyzed me, and to get his arms off my neck before I strangled. No attention did I get from him at all in that respect, but plenty of other unneeded help. Wriggle and swear as I might, with that helmet scoring a raw groove in my neck, I was toted below and dropped on my bunk with, I suppose, what whoever carried me would call gentleness.

  The anxious officer in front of me, when the action was over, had the physician's harried look. He liked my language not one little bit, and only Smith's authority kept him from calling corpsmen to muzzle me while he examined my eyes. When my sore eyes had accustomed themselves to the dim light in the cabin, Smith led the officer to the door of the hatch or whatever they call it, explaining that the recalcitrant patient would doubtless be later in a more receptive mood.

  "If you think so," I yelled at his indignant ramrod back, "you must try sticking in your head and see what happens." I don't like anyone to poke anything in my eyes anytime.

  Smith shut the door quickly. "Must you bellow like that? He was trying to help you."

  I knew that, but I was mad. "I don't want any help. I could have made it down here under my own power, and you know it."

  Smith sat down. "These your cigarettes? Thanks." He lit his own and puffed furiously. "I don't think you can reasonably expect to be let alone, Peter. After all, you're a very valuable--"

  "--piece of property. Sure. In the meantime I don't want anyone fooling around me."

  He smoked in silence, thinking. That meant trouble.

  "Well?"

  "Well, what?"

  He reached for the ashtray. "Ready to talk now?"

  "Sure," I said. "Talk or listen?"

  "A little of both."

  I talk too much. It would do me no harm to listen. "Shoot."

  "This, then, Peter, is the situation; you, without a doubt, are the most remarkable person in the whole wide world. Almost an institution in yourself."

  I grinned. "Like the Maine farmer; a character."

  "Right. As far as I, and anyone else that has had any contact with you at all, can tell or even guess, you are absolutely and perfectly unique."

  "You said that before."

  "So I did. You know--" and he held my eye steadily--"you're so completely unique, and so--dangerous, that more than once I have been personally tempted to arrange your--elimination. From behind."

  I couldn't put up more than a weak grin for that. I had wondered about that, myself. A variation, a deadly one, of the old "if you can't lick 'em, join 'em" theme. And I hadn't been too cooperative.

  He went on, slowly. "My personal reactions, for obvious reasons, do not enter into this. But I think, Peter, that you should consider those words very seriously before you are tempted to do or say anything rash."

  * * * * *

  I agreed that he was probably right, and that it might be better if I piped a quiet tune. "But that's not the way I operate. As far as I'm concerned, I'm responsible to myself, and myself alone. If I wanted to be told what to say and what to think, and when to say it, I would have stayed in when I got my discharge."

  He shrugged. "It might be better for all concerned if you were under military discipline, although it might not suit your ego. Take, for example, the two generals you met in Detroit; Generals Hayes and Van Dorf. They both are regarded as brilliant; they are both regarded as too mentally precocious to be risked in physical action. They are two of the most agile minds on the staff."

  I took his word for it. "They are still generals to me. And I don't have to stand at attention, and I don't have to take their orders."

  "Exactly," and he reached for the cigarettes again. "It is not going to do any good by adding more fuel to your mental furnace, but it is only fair to tell you that the ... elimination thing was more or less seriously discussed before you left Detroit."

  He didn't give me a chance to blow up, but raced on. "General Hayes and General Van Dorf are sensible men, dealing in material and sensible things. You are neither practical or sensible, in many ways, this being one. They, as well equipped as they are, are not prepared to cope with such a problem presented with such as you. I might add here, that neither is anyone else. What are you laughing at?"

  I couldn't help it. "The military mind at its best. First cross up the world by getting a weapon with no defense. Then when someone comes up with a defense for any weapon, including the weapon with no defense, they start turning back flips."

  "Take that idiotic grin off your face." Just the same, he thought it was rather comic, himself. "Neither of us are in the Armed Forces, so for the present we can talk and plan freely. If you think, Peter, that all this can be solved with prejudice and a smart remark, you're very, very wrong. The worst is yet to come."

  I asked him if I'd had a bed of roses, so far. "I don't think I could be much worse off than I've been so far. How would you like to be penned up--"

  "Penned up?" He snorted disgustedly. "You've had yourself a holiday, and you can't see it. Try to see the military, the legal point of view. Here is one person, Peter Ambrose Miller, one man and only one man, with the ability, the power, to cancel at one stroke every scientific advancement that armament has made in the past three thou
sand years."

  "And the big boys don't like it," I mused.

  "The little boys, as you use the word, won't like it, either," he said. "But, that's not the point. Not the point at all. The stem of the apple is this--what are we going to do with you?"

  "We?" I asked him.

  "We," he explained carefully, as to a baby, "is a generic term for the army, the navy, the government, the world in general. As long as you live, as long as you continue to be able to do the things you can do now, a gun or an airplane is so much scrap metal. But--only as long as you live!"

  * * * * *

  That I didn't like. "You mean that--"

  "Exactly what I said. As long as you're alive a soldier or a sailor might as well be a Zulu; useful for the length he can throw a spear or shoot an arrow, but useless as he now stands. There is no army, apparently, right now that is worth more than its body weight--again, as long as you live."

  "Do you have to harp on that?"

  "Why not? Do you want to live forever, or do you expect to?"

  He had me there. You bet I wanted to live forever. "Well?"

  He yanked pensively at his upper lip. "Two solutions; one, announce you to the world with a clang of cymbals and a roll of drums. Two, bury you someplace. Oh, figuratively speaking," he added hastily as he saw my face.

  "Solution one sounds good to me," I told him. "I could go home then."

  He made it quite clear that Solution One was only theoretical; he was firm about that. "Outside of rewriting all the peace treaties in existence, do you remember how our Congress huddled over the Bomb? Can you see Congress allowing you, can you see the General Staff agreeing to share you with, for example, a United Nations Commission? Can you?"

  No, I couldn't.

  "So," with a regretful sigh, "Solution One leaves only Solution Two. We'll grant that you must be kept under cover."

  I wondered if Stein was somewhere at the earphones of a tape recorder. For someone with as big a job as the old man likely had, it seemed that we were talking fairly freely. He went on.

  "And that Solution Two has within itself another unsolved problem; who watches you, and who watches the watchers?"

  That didn't matter to me, and I said so.

  "I suppose not to you, but it would matter to the army, and it would matter to the navy, and when J. Edgar Hoover gets around to thinking about it, it will matter to the FBI."

  "So what? Would I get a choice?"

  * * * * *

  He was curious for a moment. "Would you want one?"

  "Maybe, maybe not. I had a uniform once. The FBI go to college and take off their hats in the house, but they're still cops, and I don't like cops. Don't look at me like that; you wouldn't like cops either, if you made less than a couple of hundred a week. Nobody does. So I'm prejudiced against everybody, and just what difference does it make?"

  "Not a great deal. I was just curious." He was honest, anyway. "But you can see the possibilities, or the lack of them."

  "Look," and I got up to take as many steps as the cabin would allow. "This is where we came in. We could talk all day and get no further. All I want to know is this--what's going to happen to me, and when, and where?"

  He followed me with his steady eyes. "Well, at the immediate moment, I'm afraid that--" He hesitated.

  "I'm afraid that, quick like a bunny, you're going to have one solid headache if we don't quit using the same words over and over again. Here I am stuck in the middle of all the water in the world, and I'm tired, and I'm disgusted, and I'm starting to get mad. You're trying to smother my head in a pillow, I've got nothing but a first-class run-around from you and everyone I've seen, who has been one man named Bob Stein. I see nothing, I know less, I get cold shoulders and hot promises."

  I sailed right on, not giving him a chance to slide in one word. "Why, there must be ten thousand men and maybe some women right upstairs, and who knows how many within a few miles from here, and do I get to even pass the time of day with any of them? Do I? You bet your sweet life I don't!"

  "There aren't any women within miles of here, except nurses, and maybe a reporter, and I'm not sure about that."

  "Nurses and reporters are human, aren't they?"

  Had he found a chink in the armor? He frowned. "Is it women you want?"

  "Sure, I want women!" I flared at him. "I want a million of them! I want Esther Williams and Minnie Mouse and anyone else that looks good to me. But I don't want them on a silver platter with a gilt chain. I want them when I want them--my wife and the waitress at Art's, and the beer I used to drink would taste a lot better than the beer you said I'd get and never seen!"

  * * * * *

  The Smith stood up and I sat down. "Women and beer. Anything else?"

  "Sure," I snapped at him. "Women and beer and traffic piled up on Gratiot and the same double feature at all the movies in town--" I got a look at him. I felt silly. "All right, take out the needle. You win."

  He was a gentleman. He didn't laugh. "Win? Yes, I suppose I win." Before I could think of anything else to say, he was gone.

  [Illustration]

  [Illustration]

  PART II

  Smith knocked early the next morning when Stein was still clearing the breakfast coffee. For that time of day he was disgustingly happy.

  "The customary greeting, I believe, is good morning, is it not?"

  I gulped the rest of my cup. "Yeah. What's on your mind?"

  He sat down and waved away Stein's wordless offer of a cup. "How would we like to take a little trip?"

  We. The editorial we. "Why not?"

  "This little trip--how would you like to go back home for awhile?"

  "Home?" I couldn't believe my ears, and I stared at him.

  He'd made a slip, and he was sorry. "I meant, back Stateside."

  I slumped back in my chair. "Then you heard me the first time. What's the difference?"

  "Quite a bit of difference. No, Stein, you stay here. We're all in this together."

  "Sure," I said. "Stick around. I'm the last one to find out what's going on around here."

  He didn't appreciate my sarcasm. "I wouldn't say that, Peter."

  "Forget it. What's the story?"

  "We want you to go back where we can run some tests, this time as comprehensive as we can arrange."

  I couldn't see why what we'd done wouldn't be enough. "Don't tell me you have more than the Bomb up your sleeve."

  No, it wasn't like that. "There aren't more than four or six that know anything but that the Bomb was set off prematurely because of motor failure on the drone. The general knowledge is that it was just another test in routine fashion. But, as I said, there are a few that know the truth. They think it desirable that you be examined scientifically, and completely."

  "Why?" I felt ornery.

  He knew it, and showed a little impatience. "Use your head, Peter. You know better than that. We know you're unique. We want to know why, and perhaps how, perhaps, your ability can be duplicated."

  That appealed to me. "And if you can find out what makes me tick I can go back to living like myself again?" I took his silence for assent. I had to. "Good. What do I do, and when?"

  He shrugged. "Nothing, yet. You'll go to ... well, let's call it college. It shouldn't take too long. A week, maybe, maybe two, or four, at the most."

  "Then what?"

  He didn't know. We'd talk about that later. Okay with me. If a doctor could find out how I was whistling chords, all well and good. If not--could I be any worse off?

  "Then it's settled. We'll leave today, if it can be arranged, and I feel sure it can. Robert--" to Stein--"if you'll come with me we'll try to make the necessary arrangements." Stein left, and Smith left, and I got up and looked into the mirror. I needed a shave again.

  * * * * *

  My college didn't have a laboratory worth counting when I went to school. We'd had a stadium, and a losing football team instead. Now the balding, bearded physicists sat in the front row when the appr
opriations were spooned out. I suppose that's all for the better. I really wouldn't know. The old fellow that met us at the front door looked like an airedale, and like an airedale he sniffed all around me before getting into combat range.

  "So you're Peter Miller!"

  "That's my name," I admitted. I wondered what all the dials and the gadgets were for. It looked to me like the front end of one of these computers I used to see in the magazines.

  "I'm Kellner. You must be Stein, right? Never mind your coats. Just follow me," and off he trotted, and we trailed him into a bare office with what looked like the equipment of a spendthrift dentist.

  "You sit here," and he waved at a straightbacked chair. I sat down, Stein shifted nervously from one foot to the other, and in a moment Kellner came back with a dozen others. He didn't bother to introduce any of them. They all stood off and gaped at who'd killed Cock Robin.

  Kellner broke the silence. "Physical first?" There was a general nod. "Physical, psychological, then--we'll come to that later." To Stein: "Want to come along? Rather wait here? This is going to take some time, you know."

  Stein knew that. He also wanted to come along. Those were his orders.

  I felt self-conscious taking off my clothes in front of that ghoulish crew. The sheet they left me kept off no drafts, and I felt like a corpse ready for the embalmer, and likely appeared one. Stethoscope, a scale for my weight, a tape for my arm and the blood pressure, lights that blinked in my eyes and bells that rang in my ear ... when they were finished with me I felt like a used Tinker-Toy.

  "Do I pass? Will I live?"

  Kellner didn't like juvenile humor. He turned me over to another group who, so help me, brought out a box of children's blocks to put together, timing me with a stopwatch. They used the same stopwatch to time how long it took me to come up with answers to some of the silliest questions I ever heard outside of a nursery. Now I know why they label well the patients in an insane asylum. The man with the watch galloped off and came back with Kellner and they all stood around muttering. The sheet and I were sticking to the chair.

  "Kellner. Doctor Kellner!" They didn't like me to break up the kaffeeklatch. "Can I go now? Are you all through?"