by Pat Frank
I didn’t even know how long she had lived. I thought The Frame was 25 or 26. She was 31. I didn’t know she had been an honor student at her high school in Chicago, and later at the University of Chicago, although of course I knew her father was Professor Ruppe, the archeologist and scientist. She had taken her B.S. at Chicago, and then come to New York and danced.
In New York, too, she had a weird sort of double life, for even while she danced at that seedy uptown tourist trap she was taking a master’s degree at Columbia.
In 1940 she had gone to Hollywood. She had become engaged to Dr. Alfred Magruder, the atomic physicist from Berkeley. He had been killed in the Mississippi explosion.
For two of the war years The Frame had been employed, along with her fiancé and her father, on the Manhattan Project. After the war she returned to Hollywood, making occasional visits to Bohrville.
She was the author of a number of brilliant papers on nuclear fission. On the Manhattan Project she had served as secretary and assistant to the renowned Dr. Felix Pell. The dossier ended: “Loyalty and patriotism unquestioned.”
So that was The Frame! She seemed a most improbable person, and yet I knew the FBI would not be mistaken in any detail. Long after everyone else in the Adam suite had retired, I sat in the living room, staring into the shadowy vastness of Rock Creek Park, and trying to fit The Frame into the puzzle of Homer Adam. No matter how I arranged the pieces, she didn’t seem to fit—except in one way, and that way so sinister that I instantly wanted to throw it out of my mind, just as the mind rejects and quickly forgets a dream too horrible to remember.
Yet it kept coming back—the possibility that The Frame’s interest in Homer Adam was essentially directed at doing away with him, and in this way completing the death of mankind. I kept telling myself that, all in all, The Frame wasn’t a bad sort of a girl, and the phrase in the FBI report, “loyalty and patriotism unquestioned,” I revolved over and over, and yet the thought kept coming back to me.
It was altogether improbable. And yet was it any more improbable than Mississippi blowing up and wrecking me by an unseen, unfelt radiation without my even knowing it? Was it any more improbable than dropping a bit of material the size of an egg on a great city, and thereby reducing some hundreds of thousands of human beings to a few pinches of ashes?
It was not reasonable for The Frame to plot such a thing. And yet it is not reasonable for grown, mature men who go to church on Sundays, and are kind to their families, to spend the better part of their lives seriously plotting, in General Staff conferences, how to eliminate another nation, and most of its people, in the fewest number of days and hours.
I kept looking for a motive. She might be crazy, of course. She was probably a genius, and most of us believe that genius is a little crazy. Or perhaps, having lost her chance of happiness, she wished all others reduced to her level. This is a very peculiar, and often unnoticed, instinct of people. We saw it one day, in March, 1933, when the nation’s economic inequalities were suddenly leveled by the bank holiday. Since for a time nobody had anything, and all were alike in poverty, everyone was relieved and happy.
I felt that I had to know more about The Frame’s relations with Homer Adam, and right away. I went into his room. He had his face almost buried in the pillow, his long arms stretched around the crumpled pillow as if he had been crushing it. His feet extended, toes down, over the edge of the bed. He was asleep, and I shook him awake. “Hey?” he said. “What’s the trouble?”
“Wake up, Homer, I want to talk to you.”
“All right, Steve. Go ahead. Talk.”
“You’re not mad at me, are you?”
“No. Why?”
“I thought you would be sore because I didn’t stick up for you when you said you wanted to pick the first A.I. mother.”
“Oh, no, I’m not sore. I was just trying to do someone a favor.”
“I suppose you wanted to pick Kathy for the first A.I. mother. In a way, I don’t blame you. But I couldn’t conscientiously encourage your request. It would cause a great stir, and it wouldn’t be fair to Mary Ellen.”
Homer turned over and sat up, his hair wild. He blinked the remnants of sleep out of his eyes and said, “Oh, no. I wasn’t thinking of Kathy. I wasn’t thinking of Kathy at all.”
“Well, who were you thinking about?”
Homer seemed uncomfortable as if the bed were infested with red ants. “I’d rather not say.”
“Oh, come on, Homer, you can tell me!”
“No, I don’t think I’d better.”
“Why, that’s silly, Homer. If you are really set on picking some particular person, maybe I can fix it up. Perhaps it’s Mary Ellen. Perhaps you’d like to have another child yourself. Nobody could blame you for that.”
Homer didn’t look at me. He looked at his hands, and he looked at the door, and he looked everywhere but at me. “No, it was not Mary Ellen,” he said. He hesitated, and then blurted out, “If you have to know, Steve, it was Marge.”
“Marge!” I tried to pull myself together. I knew that I should be urbane about it, and perhaps nonchalant, and that by no means should I alarm Homer, but I knew I wasn’t succeeding.
“Please, Steve,” Homer pleaded. “Please don’t be angry. I was only trying to repay all your favors and your kindness. And I know that more than anything else Marge wants to have children, and she’s always been so nice to me, and she said that she would be delighted to have an Adam child. She’s hinted herself, several times today. She’s always said she’d be proud to have one.”
“Oh, she has, has she?”
“Yes. You see, Steve, that’s all I have to give.”
Well, I thought, I have to be broad-minded, and Homer is really being very decent and sincere, and there isn’t any reason to be jealous. “That is really very decent and generous of you, Homer,” I said. “I am touched. But I think that on behalf of the Smith family I must decline. As a matter of fact, as Gableman pointed out, people would call it nepotism, and charge graft and favoritism within the Administration. Why, it would be just like an official of the Department of the Interior deeding himself oil land owned by the government.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Homer. “But it seems to me that every time I want to do anything, myself, somebody blocks me. I ought to have some rights.”
“Homer,” I advised him, “I think you had just better dedicate yourself to unselfish service. You will be happier.” I remembered my original mission in waking him. “Homer,” I asked, “does Kathy want to have children?”
“No. I’m quite sure she doesn’t.”
“How sure?”
“Oh, I am absolutely sure. Absolutely. She said she wasn’t ready to have children yet.”
That answer fitted in with the theory I could not ignore. “Did Kathy ever suggest that you shouldn’t go through with A.I.?”
Homer considered a few moments before he spoke, his bony fingers picking at the mauve blanket. “Not exactly,” he said. “She said I was being used improperly, and she doesn’t have a very high regard for the N.R.P.”
“Did Kathy ever talk to you about nuclear fission, or anything like that?”
“Oh, no! All we’ve ever talked about was archeology—and us. If you don’t mind Steve, I’d rather not go into it any further. You know how it is—it’s very personal with me. I think at least that part of my life is private property.”
“I can’t help but agree with you,” I told him. His answers left me not far from where I was in the beginning. Forget it, I said to myself. Forget it. If The Frame wanted to destroy Homer, she’d had plenty of opportunity that night in the hotel. I promised myself I would forget it, and that, as Maria always insisted, I had a naturally suspicious mind, and yet I knew I would not forget.
“Honestly,” Homer said. “You’re not sore about my suggesting—about Marge?”
“Not a bit, Homer. Go on to sleep. Just dismiss it from your mind.”
“Thanks, Steve,” he said, and f
ell back on the pillow.
I went to my bedroom and turned on the light and Marge instantly raised her head and said, “Stephen, this is a fine time to be getting to bed. It is—” she looked at her watch—“nearly three o’clock. If that’s all you think of me you can just get into your own bed.”
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “I will!”
“Stephen, what on earth is the matter with you?”
“There are a number of kinds of infidelity,” I said, taking off my shoes and slamming them on the floor. “It isn’t necessary to be physically unfaithful. You can be unfaithful in spirit. One is as bad as the other.”
“Stephen, stop talking in riddles.”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
She made a face at me. “All right, then, stay over there in your own bed.”
“You certainly have changed a lot,” I said, “since this morning. This morning you were silky sweet to me. Now, you don’t want me to touch you.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want you to touch me.”
“Yes you did. You told me to get into my own bed.”
She sat up, looking very pink and round and powdered and clean and smooth. “Stephen, you don’t know a damn thing about women!”
I turned out the light.
CHAPTER 10
It was one of those awakenings when you know something is wrong, and for a while you cannot figure out what it is, and then you discover that it is yourself. My head felt floaty, as if it were filled with helium and wanted to disengage itself from my trunk, and my elbows and knees ached. When I sat up I definitely had white flashes and spots in front of my eyes. “Oh,” I groaned. “I feel awful.”
“That’s too bad,” said Marge, looking at me with deep interest. “What’s the matter, hangover?”
“I didn’t drink enough to have a hangover.”
“Oh, I think you did,” Marge said.
“No I didn’t. I think I’m sick.”
“Oh, I hope not,” Marge said apprehensively. “I certainly hope not. I’ll bring you some aspirin, and coffee.”
The coffee tasted horrible. “You put salt in here,” I accused her, “instead of sugar.”
“No I didn’t. Really I didn’t, Stephen. Just stay in bed and you’ll feel better. I’m sure you’ll feel better.”
“Call Tommy Thompson,” I said. “I think I’ve got pneumonia, or something.”
She got Thompson in a hurry. He was sleepy-eyed, and wearing a maroon dressing gown I suspect he had filched from the Army. He held my wrist, and felt my forehead, and looked under my eyelids. “Pulse is a little rapid,” he said. “I don’t see anything else wrong.”
“When I look at things,” I said, “they won’t stand still. Things keep jumping around.”
“Nerves,” Thompson said. “Just plain nerves. You’ll feel better in a little while. You ought to relax for a few days. Why don’t you and Marge fly down to Florida?”
“Oh, no,” I said. “We’re in the last lap, now. I’m not going to leave here and have something happen. I want to get this job wrapped up, and finished. Then we’ll take a vacation, won’t we, dear?”
“It would be lovely,” Marge said.
After thirty or forty minutes I began to feel better, as Thompson had predicted. But all day long everything I ate and drank tasted salty.
Tommy and Maria and J.C. Pogey went back to New York on the Congressional that afternoon, and Homer and Marge and Jane went to the station to see them off. The last thing Pogey said, he said to Homer. “Son,” he told him, “if everything doesn’t work out the way it is planned, don’t feel too badly about it. Not your fault. It just wasn’t set up to be that way.” I never saw such an incorrigible pessimist.
Monday, on which we had hoped to begin A.I., passed, and the other days of the week trooped past after it. Generally, people seemed satisfied with the N.R.P. plan for selecting the first A.I. mother, and those who would be next in line. But Moscow wasn’t satisfied, and said so very plainly. The Russians didn’t mind selecting an American for the first A.I. mother, but the second ought to be Russian, and the third perhaps might go to Great Britain. As to the smaller states, they weren’t to be considered until much, much later. As a matter of fact, the Russians didn’t see any need for including Poles, Rumanians, Hungarians, Turks, Egyptians, or Persians in the plan at all. Those lands, the Russians said, could be re-populated any time, and the Soviet Union would be glad to attend to it. The State Department countered by asking Russia, for the tenth time, whether it was true about the two Mongolians. The Russians said this was strictly an internal matter.
Domestically, things were better. The Congress viewed the plan as an unexpected and welcome gift of patronage. Whenever a Congressman has a chance to give away something that doesn’t belong to him, it is so much gravy. It was a splendid opportunity to pay off political debts, win social favor, and endear themselves with women’s organizations. It was just ticklish enough, politically, to be exciting. And since the N.R.P. had placed a week’s deadline on the nominations, they could always plead that the Administration forced them to choose in haste, in case their nominations failed to meet public approval. Some made their choices public—when they were absolutely certain they were politically foolproof. But most said they wouldn’t divulge the names until the drawings.
In that week we took Homer down to the Eastern Shore, for fishing, and to Bowie for the opening of the spring racing season, and to the National Theater, and for a trip through the Shenandoah Valley, and by the time the next Monday rolled around Homer really appeared fairly healthy. I do not mean that he could go out and chop down trees. I merely mean that he looked as if he could beget a number of babies.
On noon Monday we went to the Capitol. That is, Marge and I went to the Capitol. We left Homer at the hotel, at his own insistence. He was fearful, and I suppose rightly, that he would receive an ovation if he were discovered sitting in a gallery while the drawing took place, and he was deathly afraid of public attention.
The drawing was held on the floor of the House, and the scene was so familiar, with its warlike connotation, that it seemed like looking at an old newsreel. Only this time it wasn’t Wilson or Roosevelt wearing the blindfold.
When the preliminaries were over, the President reached his hand into the goldfish bowl and drew out a capsule and handed it to the Clerk of the House. He opened it, unfolded a slip of paper, and shouted into the banked microphones: “Number 646. The number is 646!”
Up from the well of the House there floated an excited feminine scream. “What was that?” Marge asked.
“Just an overwrought female,” I said.
“I don’t know,” said Marge. “Do you know what it sounded like to me. It sounded just like when a woman wins a door prize at a bridge party, or right after she yells ‘Bingo.’ I wonder who had number 646?”
I noticed an unusual commotion in the Press Gallery. Ordinarily the Press Gallery moves swiftly and efficiently to get out the flash, but now it seemed to be erupting in all directions. “I’ll find out what happened,” I told Marge, left my seat, and worked my way down the corridor.
I ran into Bingham, the UP man. “How about a statement?” he asked before I had a chance to speak.
“On what?”
“Don’t you know who he picked?”
“No.”
“Number 646,” Bingham said, “is held by Fay Knott.”
“You mean one of her candidates?”
“No, by her, personally.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I feel sick. You’ll have to excuse me.” I did feel sick. The baroque tiled walls of the corridor were all leaning in towards me. I blundered my way back to Marge. “Let’s go,” I told her, “646 is Fay Sumner Knott. What a catastrophe! What a disaster!” I thought of the President. “That poor unlucky man,” I said. “That poor, poor unlucky man!”
When we reached our car Marge asked, “But why did she nominate herself? I don’t think that is fair.”
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“I suppose,” I said, “Fay Sumner Knott couldn’t find any other woman in her own state as admirable as herself. That’s the way she figures, you know.”
“What’s going to happen?” Marge asked. “Can’t you get it cancelled, or something? Is it really so bad?”
“Wait until I break the news to Homer,” I said.
We reached the hotel and we went up to 5-F. Jane opened the door for us and I walked in, feeling that there should be signs around saying, “Achtung—Minen!”
Homer was waiting in the living room, with the early editions of the afternoon papers strewn around his chair. “Well,” he said, “what’s the verdict?”
“Senator Knott,” I said.
“What about her?” Homer asked.
“She won the draw. She’s going to be A.I. Mother Number One.”
Homer started to rise, lost control of his legs, and sat down again, his mouth hanging open. “No!” he said when he could speak. “No! No! I won’t do it, Steve. I won’t have anything to do with this any more. Why she’s the worst—the absolute worst—I’m going away right now.” He got to his feet, and started for the door.
“Now wait a minute, Homer,” I pleaded, clinging to his arm. “Wait a minute and let me tell you something.” He was hard to stop as a telegraph pole that wants to go somewhere, but I slowed him down before he reached the door. “Homer,” I said, “there are a lot of things to consider—an awful lot!”
I led him back to his chair, and he sat down and he put his head in his hands. Every few seconds he’d shake his head and pull his hair. “Homer,” I said, “what is to be will be. It was all done fair and square, and you can bet that the President didn’t want to pull her number out of the goldfish bowl because he doesn’t like her any better than you do or I do. But this is a democracy, Homer, and that’s the way we have to do things.”
“It is a democracy for everyone except me,” Homer protested. “I’ve got a hundred and forty million dictators sitting on my neck and I don’t like it and I’m going away.”