The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 02

by Anthology

  "All through?" The airedale changed to a cackling Rhode Island Red. "Joseph, you are just beginning."

  "My name isn't Joseph, Dr. Kellner. It's Miller. Peter Ambrose Miller."

  "Excuse me, Peter," and he cackled again. "Nevertheless, you're going to be here quite awhile."

  Peter, hey? No more, Mr. Miller. Pete to my wife, Peter to my mother, and Peter to every school teacher I ever had.

  * * * * *

  They conferred awhile longer and the party broke up. Kellner and a gawkish Great Dane led me sheet and all to what I thought would be the operating room. It looked like one. I found a chair all by myself this time, and watched them hook up an electric fan. They were hipped on fans, I thought.

  Kellner trotted over. "Stop that fan." Not, please stop that fan. Just, stop that fan.

  I shivered ostentatiously. "I'm cold."

  Kellner was annoyed. "Perfectly comfortable in here." Sure, you old goat, you got your pants on. "Come, let's not delay. Stop the fan."

  I told him I was still cold, and I looked at the fan. It threw sparks, and the long cord smoked. I was going to fix those boys.

  The other man yanked the cord from the wall, and from the way he sucked his fingers, it must have been hot. Kellner was pleased at that. He ignored the man's sore fingers and snarled at him until he brought out some dry cells and hooked them in series to a large bell, almost a gong. He pressed the button and it clanged.

  "All right," and Kellner motioned imperiously to me. "No point in fooling. We know you can make it stop ringing. Now, go ahead and ring the bell."

  I looked at him. "Make the bell ring what?"

  "What?" He was genuinely puzzled. "What's this?"

  "I said make the bell ring what?" He stared blankly at me. "And you heard me the first time!" He shot an astonished glance at Stein. "Oh, hell!" I got up and started out, trailing my sheet. I almost stumbled over Stein, who was right at my shoulder.

  "Here, what's this?" Kellner was bouncing with excitement.

  I turned on him. "Listen you; I said I was cold. Not once, but twice I said I was cold. Now, blast it, I want my clothes, and I want them now. Right now!" The airedale became a fish out of water. "Do I look like a ten-year-old in to get his tonsils out? I ask you a civil question and you smirk at me, you tell me to do this and you tell me to do that and never a please or a thank you or a kiss my foot. Don't pull that Doctor write the prescription in Latin on me, because I don't like it! Catch?" Stein was right on my heel when I headed for the door.

  Poor Stein was wailing aloud. "Pete, you can't do this! Don't you know who Doctor Kellner is?"

  "One big healthy pain!" I snapped at him. "Does he know who I am? I'm Pete Miller, Mister Miller to him or to anyone but my friends. I want my pants!"

  Stein wrung his hands and slowed me down as much as I would let him. "You just can't get up and walk out like that!"

  "Oh, no?" I came to a full stop and leered at him. "Who's going to stop me?"

  That's the trouble with the doctors and lawyers and technical boys; they're so used to talking over people's heads they can't answer a civil question in less than forty syllables. Keep all the secrets in the trade. Write it in Latin, keep the patient in the dark, pat his head and tell him papa knows best.

  When Kellner caught up with us he had help. "Here, here, my man. Where do you think you are going?"

  I wished he was my age and forty pounds heavier. "Me? I'm getting out of here. And I'm not your man and I never will be. When you can admit that, and not act like I'm a set of chalkmarks on a blackboard, send me a letter and tell me about it. One side, dogface!"

  One big fellow, just the right size, puffed out his cheeks. "Just whom do you think you are addressing?"

  Whom. I looked him over. I never did like people who wore van Dyke goatees. I put whom and van Dyke on the floor. It was a good Donnybrook while it lasted. The last thing I remember was the gong in the next room clanging steadily while Stein, good old Stein, right in there beside me was swinging and yelling, "Don't hurt him! Don't hurt him!"

  I woke up with another headache. When I sat up with a grunt and looked around I saw Stein and his nose four inches from a mirror, gingerly trying his tongue against his front teeth. I snickered. He didn't like that, and turned around.

  "You don't look so hot yourself."

  He was right. I couldn't see much out of my left eye. We grinned at each other. "Right in there pitching, weren't you?"

  He shrugged. "What did you expect me to do?"

  "Run for help," I told him. "Or stand there and watch me get a going over."

  "Sure." He looked uncomfortable. "I'm supposed to keep an eye on you."

  "So you did." I thought back. "What happened to Whom when I addressed him properly?"

  It must have hurt his cheek when he tried to smile. "Still out, at last report. You know, Pete, you have a fairly good left--and a lousy temper."

  I knew that. "I just got tired of getting pushed around. Besides, with no pants I was stuck to that chair."

  "Probably." His tongue pushed gently against his sore lip. "You think that was the right way to go about making things better?"

  Maybe not. But did he have any better ideas?

  He wasn't sure, but he didn't think a laboratory was just the right place for a brawl.

  "Just why I started it. Now what?"

  He didn't know that either. "Kellner is having hysterics, and I just made some phone calls."

  If the Old Man showed up I had some nice words ready to use. "Now we might get some action."

  Stein gave me a sour look. "Not necessarily the kind you'll like. I'll be back after I try to talk some sense into Kellner."

  "Hey!" I yelled after him. "Where's my pants?"

  "Back in a few minutes," he tossed over his shoulder; "make yourself comfortable," and he left.

  * * * * *

  Comfortable with a cot and a mirror and a washbowl. I washed my face and lay on the cot with a washrag soaked in cold water on my throbbing eye. I must have dozed off. When I woke the Old Man was standing over me. I sat up and the rag fell off my eye.

  "What's cooking, Bossman?"

  I don't think his frown was completely genuine. "You, apparently."

  I swung my legs over the edge of the cot and stretched. "Have a seat and a cigarette."

  He sat down beside me and reached for his lighter. "Peter, I wish--"

  I cut in on him. "Item one, I want my pants."

  He gestured impatiently. "You'll get them. Now--"

  "I said, I want my pants."

  He began to get annoyed. "I told you--"

  "And I told you I want my pants. I don't want them later or in a while; I want my pants and I want them now."

  He sat back and looked at me. "What's all this?"

  I let fly. "For the record, I want my pants. I'm certainly no patient in this morgue, and I'm not going to be treated like one, so whatever you or anyone else has got to say to me is not going to be while I'm as bare as a baby. My mind's made up," and I scrunched together ungracefully on the little space that remained on my end of the cot and pulled the sheet over my head. Kid stuff, and we both knew it.

  He didn't say anything, although I could feel his eyes boring through the flimsy sheet, and I lay there until I felt the springs creak as he got up and I could hear his footsteps retreating. When he came back with my clothes over his arm I was sitting up. While I was dressing he tried to talk to me, but I would have none of it.

  When I was dressed I said, "Now, you were saying--?"

  I drew a long speculative stare. "Peter, what's eating you?"

  I told him. "I just got tired of being shoved around. With the physical exam over with you give me one reason why I should sit around in my bare hide. Am I a machine? My name's Miller, not the Patient in Cell Two."

  He thought he was being reasonable. "And you think you get results by knocking around people that are trying to help you?"

  "With some people, you do. I tried talking,
and that didn't work. I got action my way, didn't I?"

  He sighed. "Action, yes. Do you know what Kellner said?"

  "Not interested. Whatever he's got to say to me is going to have a please in front and a thank you after."

  Wearily, "Peter, must you always act like a child?"

  "No, I don't," I blazed at him. "But I'm damn well going to. I'm free, white and a citizen, and I'm going to be treated like one, and not a side-show freak!"

  "Now, now," he soothed. "Doctor Kellner is a very famous and a very busy man. He might not have realized--"

  "Realize your hat! He's so used to living in the clouds he thinks the world is one big moron. Well, I may be one, but no one is going to tell me I am!"

  "I see your point," and he stood up. "But you try to be a little more cooperative. I'll see Kellner now," and he started out.

  "Cooperative?" I bellowed at his back. "What do you think I've been doing? What do you--"

  * * * * *

  He must have read the riot act. When they took me in to Kellner and his crew it was "please, Mr. Miller" and "thank you, Mr. Miller." The place didn't seem so cold and bare so long as I had my pants. I didn't see Whom and his van Dyke, but I hoped it was the tile floor and not me that gave him the concussion.

  The rest of the tests, you can imagine, were almost anticlimactic. I stopped motors, blew tubes, turned lights off and on, rang bells and cooked the insulation on yards and yards of wire. My head they kept connected with taped terminals and every time I blew a fuse or a motor they would see the dials spin crazily. Then they would stand around clucking and chattering desperately. They took X-rays by the score, hoping to find something wrong with the shape of my head, and for all the results they got, might have been using a Brownie on a cue ball. Then they'd back off to the corner and sulk. One little bearded rascal, in particular, to this day is certain that Kellner was risking his life in getting within ten feet. He never turned his back on me that I recall; he sidled around, afraid I would set his watch to running backwards. You know, one of the funniest and yet one of the most pathetic things in the world is the spectacle of someone who has spent his life in mastering a subject, only to find that he has built a sled without runners. Long before we were finished I thought Kellner, for one, was going to eat his tie, stripes and all. Running around in ever-widening circles they were, like coon dogs after a scent. They didn't get a smell. The medico who ran the electro-cardiograph refused to make sense, after the fifth trials, out of the wiggly marks on his graphs.

  "Kellner," he stated flatly, "I don't know just what your game is, but these readings are not true."

  Kellner didn't like that. Nor did he like the man who wanted to shave my head. I wouldn't let them do that. I look bad enough now. I compromised by letting them soak my head in what smelled like water, and then tying or pasting strands of tape all over my scalp. A pretty mess I was, as bad as a woman getting a permanent wave. Worse. One whole day I stood for that. This specialist, whatever he did, had Kellner get me to run through my repertoire of bells and fans and buzzers while he peered nearsightedly at his elaborate tool shop. When the fuse would blow or the bell would ring, the specialist would wince as though he were pinched. Kellner stood over his shoulder saying at intervals, "What do you get? What do you get?" Kellner finally got it. The specialist stood up, swore in Platt-deutsch, some at Kellner and some at me and some at his machine, and left in all directions. The gist of it was that he was too important and too busy to have jokes played on him. Kellner just wagged his head and walked out.

  The Old Man said, "You're not one bit different from anyone else."

  "Sure," I said. "I could have told you that long ago. It shouldn't take a doctor."

  "Miller, what in blazes are we going to do with you?"

  I didn't know. I'd done my share. "Where do we go from here?"

  The Old Man looked out the window. The sun was going down. "Someone wants to see you. He's been waiting for Kellner to finish with you. We leave tonight."

  "For where?" I didn't like this running around. "Who's 'he'?"

  "For Washington. You'll see who it is."

  Washington, more than just a sleeper jump away. Washington? Oh, oh.... Well, let's get it over with. We did. We left for the capital that night.

  We slipped in the back door, or what passed for the back door. Pretty elaborate layout, the White House. Our footsteps rang as hollow as my heart on the shiny waxed floors.

  The Old Man did the honors. "Mr. President, this is Mr. Miller."

  He shook hands. He had a good grip.

  "General Hayes, you know. Admiral Lacey, Admiral Jessop, Mr. Hoover you know, General Buckley. Gentlemen. Mr. Miller."

  We shook hands all around. "Glad to know you." My palms were slippery.

  The President sat, and we followed suit. The guest of honor, I felt like my head was shaved, and I had a slit pants leg. You don't meet the President every day.

  The President broke the ice. It was thin to begin with. "You have within yourself the ability, the power, to do a great deal for your country, Mr. Miller, or would you prefer to be called Pete?"

  Pete was all right. He was older, and bigger. Bigger all around.

  "A great deal of good, or a great deal of harm."

  No harm. I'm a good citizen.

  "I'm sure of that. But you can understand what I mean, by harm."

  Likely I could, if I really wanted to. But I didn't. Not the place where you were born.

  "Naturally, Pete, it makes me feel a great deal better, however, to hear you say and phrase it just like that." The light of the lamp glittered on his glasses. "Very, very much better, Pete."

  I was glad it was dark beyond the range of the lamp. My face was red. "Thank you, Mr. President."

  "I like it better, Pete, because from this day on, Pete, you and I and all of us know that you, and you alone, are going to have a mighty hard row to hoe." That's right; he was a farmer once. "Hard in this respect--you understand, I know, that for the rest of your natural life you must and shall be guarded with all the alert fervor that national security demands. Does that sound too much like a jail sentence?"

  It did, but I lied. I said, "Not exactly, Mr. President. Whatever you say is all right with me."

  He smiled. "Thank you, Pete.... Guarded as well and as closely as--the question is, where?"

  * * * * *

  I didn't know I'd had a choice. The Old Man had talked to me before on that.

  "Not exactly, Pete. This is what I mean: General Buckley and General Hayes feel that you will be safest on the mainland somewhere in the Continental United States. Admirals Lacey and Jessop, on the other hand, feel that the everpresent risk of espionage can be controlled only by isolation, perhaps on some island where the personnel can be exclusively either military or naval."

  I grinned inwardly. I knew this was going to happen.

  "Mr. Hoover concedes that both possible places have inherent advantages and disadvantages," the President went on. "He feels, however, that protection should be provided by a staff specially trained in law-enforcement and counter-espionage."

  So where did that leave me? I didn't say it quite that way, but I put across the idea.

  The President frowned a bit at nothing. "I'm informed you haven't been too ... comfortable."

  I gulped. Might as well be hung for a sheep. If the Boss likes you, the Help must. "I'm sorry, Mr. President, but it isn't much fun being shifted around pillar and post."

  He nodded slowly. "Quite understandable, under the circumstances. That, we'll try to eliminate as much as we can. You can see, Pete," and he flashed that famous wide grin, "it will be in the national interest to see that you are always in the finest physical and mental condition. Crudely expressed, perhaps, but the truth, nevertheless."

  I like people to tell me the truth. He could see that. He's like that, himself. On his job, you have to be like that.

  "Now, Pete; let's get down to cases. Have you any ideas, any preferences, any suggestions?"
He took a gold pencil out of his breast pocket and it began to twirl.

  I had an idea, all right. "Why not just let me go back home? I'll keep my mouth shut, I won't blow any fuses or raise any hell, if you'll excuse the expression."

  Someone coughed. The President turned his head out of the circle of light. "Yes, Mr. Hoover?"

  J. Edgar Hoover was diffident. "Er ... Mrs. Miller has been informed of her husband's ... demise. An honorable one," he hastened to add, "and is receiving a comfortable pension, paid from the Bureau's special funds."

  "How much?" I wanted to know.

  He shifted uncomfortably. "Well ... a hundred a month."

  I looked at the President. "Bought any butter lately?"

  The President strangled a cough. "Have you, Mr. Hoover, bought any butter lately?"

  J. Edgar Hoover couldn't say anything. It wasn't his fault.

  I flicked a glance at General Hayes. "How much does it cost the Army for an antiaircraft gun?" I looked at one of the admirals. "And how much goes down the drain when you launch a battleship? Or even a PT boat?"

  The President took over. "Rest assured, Mr. Miller. Your wife's pension is quadrupled, effective immediately." He swung his chair to face Hoover; "Cash will be transferred tomorrow to the Bureau from the State Department's special fund. You'll see to that?" to the Old Man. So that was what he did for a living. That State Department is a good lifetime job, I understand.

  * * * * *

  That took a load from my mind, but not all. I spoke to Hoover directly.

  "How is my ... widow?"

  As tense and as bad as I felt just then, I was sorry for him.

  "Quite well, Mr. Miller. Quite well, considering. It came as a blow to her, naturally--"

  "What about the house?" I asked him. "Is she keeping up the payments?"

  He had to admit that he didn't know. The President told him to finish the payments, pay for the house. Over and above the pension? Over and above the pension. And I was to get a regular monthly report on how she was getting along.

  "Excuse me, Mr. President. I'd rather not get a regular monthly report, or any word at all, unless she--unless anything happens to her."

  "No report at all, Pete?" That surprised, him, and he eyed me over the top of his bifocals.