The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works 1911-1987

by C. L. Moore

  The Freak said, "Yes ... yes. All right now, Dad."

  -

  "Just checking on the safety threshold," De Anza said, sticking a blue-headed pin in the map and making a note on a chart. "Let me get this reading, Joe. Five minutes, huh?"

  "I'll vise Margaret. Where—"

  De Anza jerked his thumb toward a corner cubicle. Breden threaded his way through the lab and sat down before the screen. He had some trouble getting the Denver connection; there was a storm in the Rockies; but presently relays clicked over and a Medusalike wig appeared. Margaret's voice said, "Don't ... oh, Joe! What a time to call me! June, where's a towel or something, quick!"

  Breden said, "You look gorgeous."

  She was winding on an improvised turban around her head. "Not when I'm getting a permanent I don't. There. I look a little better. Where are you, Joe?"

  "Manhattan."

  "Oh. Business, I suppose. Do I see you today, or do I have to wait till tomorrow?"

  Breden said, "I don't know. If I can wind everything up today, I'll be completely free this time next week. I'm up at Mike's place now."

  "Say hello for me. Everything fine?"

  "Fine. What about you?"

  "A little pregnancy never hurt anybody," Margaret said. But Breden looked at her closely. She seemed tired. He felt an intolerable aching desire to be with her, to ask for a furlough and forget everything but Margaret. Only he knew that while he could get the furlough, he couldn't get forgetfulness. One thing modern technology hadn't perfected was bottled Lethe.

  "Well, don't change your plans. I'm not sure if I can make it."

  "I haven't any plans. I'm just being lazy. Oh, all right, June. Joe, my hair is being toasted by induction or something and June says it'll fall out unless she works on it right away. I'll be back at the lodge in an hour. Call me then—if you can?"

  He said, "All right. I'll see you." The screen blanked, but Breden sat staring at it for a while. Then, moistening his lips, he went back to De Anza, who was gloating over his map.

  "How's Margaret?"

  "Fine. She said hello. Did you figure out your thresholds?"

  "Yeah," De Anza said, yawning. "It's only routine. Some big shot found a building site on Hilo and I had to make sure the radioactivity wouldn't make the guy fall apart. The area's shrinking, but he can't build that close yet. I'll have to tell him to wait fifty years. He'll love that."

  Breden sat on the edge of the table. "Have you heard anything about some people called Neoculturalists?"

  "Not a word. Who are they?"

  "They're in favor of interplanetary travel being reopened."

  "Oh, that gang. I remember. I get 'em mixed up with Logicians Plus. They want government by machines, as far as I can figure out. If it isn't one pressure group, it's another, these days. They don't do any harm. They merely blow off steam. It's a healthy symptom. What's your interest in the Neoculturalists?"

  "Louis mentioned them this morning. I'm not especially interested. I don't suppose these groups are significant?"

  "Not a bit. They're harmless. After all, GPC—!"

  They considered the paternal autocracy of GPC. De Anza yawned again.

  "Anything new?"

  "Idle speculation," Breden said. "I've plenty of time for that. Ever heard of unconscious mutation?"

  "What's that?"

  "Well—a mutant who doesn't know he's a mutant."

  "Few of 'em did, till mental and physiological tests showed they were variants from the norm. Of course it was easy to spot the failures. But if a guy is born with an especially efficient stomach, how could you tell unless he got a bellyache and had a GI series? Hell, that's why they started to enforce the ten-year physio-mental check-ups."

  "That's what I mean. Have those check-ups kept pace with the times? If I could prove to GPC that there's a real need for new types of checks to be developed, they'd permit research on it."

  "Research!" De Anza said.

  "Well, it's done occasionally."

  "Not independent research, Joe. GPC controlled, is all."

  Breden said doggedly, "Call it a bee in my bonnet. But suppose you've got a mutation that's successful, but recessive in the unconscious. A Jekyll and Hyde business. The mutation remains latent until there's a need for it. Like a bee's stinger. It's extruded only when the bee gets mad."

  De Anza said, "What sort of mutation would this be, anyhow?"

  "I don't know. It's wonderful protective camouflage, though, isn't it? The mutation simply doesn't exist most of the time. Maybe not even the mutant himself is conscious that he's a mutant. Only his unconscious mind knows."

  "An eerie theory," De Anza commented. "It evokes strange pictures. Got any proof? I thought not. Somehow I have a feeling you'd never be able to convince GPC there was need for research on the subject. What got you started on this? Louis?"

  "Louis knows he's a mutant."

  "But he's no freak. He simply has an abnormally high IQ. He's got more potentialities than most of us. His maturation period took a long time, but he caught up fast."

  "Louis is fifty-two."

  "That's a pity. If he were twenty years younger—" De Anza shrugged.

  "Well, he isn't. You're no help." Breden reached for a narco-cigarette, thought better of it, and moved his shoulders uneasily. Suddenly he felt that he was wasting time. He and De Anza had little in common any more—though, up to a few weeks ago, Breden had not felt that way. An intangible wall seemed to have built itself up around him, isolating him from everyone. If he could find out who was building that wall—

  He left De Anza and went out in search of a public televisor booth.

  -

  Dr. Rodney Ortega said, "I told you not to call me, Ilsa."

  The girl on the screen wore a nurse's uniform. She had sleek black hair and orchid lipstick. She said, "Breden's found the weak link. He's coming here."

  Ortega grimaced. "It was too risky. I knew that. But we had to move instantly to protect Breden when he saw Springfield. Ilsa, if we can just get him past tonight's tests—"

  "You've overstepped yourself. There's only one answer now. Let me tell him the truth."

  "All of it?"

  "Enough. He's got to be satisfied, or the psych-detectors at the island will catch him. His mind has to be camouflaged."

  Ortega shook his head. "It would be too dangerous. If he should be caught, there's scopolamin. And then where would we be—if GPC found out about us?"

  Ilsa said, "It isn't safe to let him go back to work tonight. He knows too much and too little. Tell him the answers; that's the only way. But then seal his mouth."

  "How?"

  "With his Control. Mnemonic erasure."

  "It's risky," Ortega said.

  Ilsa said angrily, "You're getting senile. There's no other way. Unless the Freak knows the answers."

  Ortega said, "He doesn't know, of course. But we can get the answers from him."

  The woman grimaced. "He's a weapon we can't use."

  "I think we can. I'm on the trail of what may be the right explanation. It will mean altering our plans—"

  Ilsa said wearily, "Shall I go ahead, then?"

  "I—suppose so. Yes. Get in touch with Breden's Control. But be as careful as you can."

  She agreed and broke the beam.

  -

  He felt danger. He felt it in the commonplace familiarity of this apartment, like a thousand others in the city; he felt it in the too-ordinary attitude of the girl, her relaxed posture on the couch opposite him, her dark, friendly eyes, her quiet competence. She had struck the first false note. Why should someone like this work in the suburbs for an ill-paid physician like Springfield?

  He asked her that.

  "Suppose you tell me what's on your mind?" she said. "You sounded a little incoherent over the visor."

  "I don't think Dr. Springfield died a natural death. I ... I think I may have killed him."

  Now her eyes widened in real surprise. Breden didn't look
at her. His glance shifted up to the televisor screen above her head.

  "I'm thinking of latent mutation," he said, and went on to explain the theory he had discussed with De Anza. But this time he gave it a personal application. Was it possible that he, himself, might be a latent mutant? And that the mutation could become dominant under certain conditions—and use supranormal powers?

  "Springfield was trying to tell me something when he died. Miss Carter, what happened to the nurse who let me into the office today? She was gone when I left, and you'd taken over. I don't know why that seems surprising to me. It's the whole combination of unlikely factors, I suppose. I want you to tell me—"

  "Why didn't you go to the police?" she asked.

  Breden made an abortive gesture. Ilsa Carter leaned back, looking steadily at him.

  She said, "You'd have found out that Springfield's nurse had had an accident on the Ways. She was killed. It's unfortunate, but we had to move rapidly, and couldn't maneuver her out of the way fast enough. She saw us kill Springfield."

  Curiously, the first emotion he felt was relief. They had murdered Springfield—whoever they were. That was better than—

  He stood up. Ilsa Carter raised her hand; there was a shining silver disk, like a compact, in her palm. A tiny lens watched him like an eye. She said, "Sit down, Breden. I'm going to explain. But I could paralyze or kill you with this—it's what killed Springfield."

  Breden sat down. "You'll kill me anyway," he said.

  "No. We need you. We chose you because you're perhaps the only man in the world who's in a position to help us. And you're the right man. That combination may not occur again for a long while. Now ... here it is. We're an underground organization dedicated to a certain purpose."

  "You're the Neoculturalists?"

  She smiled. "Oh no. We've never bothered with names. The Neoculturalists and all the other groups are harmless—so far. Harmless to GPC, I mean. But we're not. We want to overthrow GPC."

  He leaned forward slightly. Ilsa Carter turned the disk so that the lens flashed glitteringly. Breden relaxed.

  "There aren't many of us," she went on. "But so far we've managed to keep our existence a secret."

  "I don't believe you," Breden said. "GPC—well, you can't keep secrets from GPC."

  "You are," Ilsa said. "They don't know about your dreams, do they?"

  The earth moved beneath him. That shivering instability came up again, mingled with the heartbeat of a machine six thousand miles away. He wondered if the mind, too, could reach critical mass, and whether it could survive that level. He didn't think so. He looked at the visor screen and thought of Margaret. That was an anchor to sanity.

  Ilsa said, "We want to overthrow GPC because we think that's the only solution."

  "Solution to what? The world's safe—"

  "So is a patient in cataleptic stupor," she said. "Do you know what has stopped civilization in its tracks? It was an omission. It was something that didn't happen, but should have happened, for the sake of the world."

  "What?"

  "The Third World War," she told him flatly. "It should have happened, a hundred years ago. But, since it didn't, we intend to make it happen now."

  -

  It was obscene. He sat there and looked at her. There was nothing he could say. His conditioning had never covered stark insanity. She seemed rational. But she wasn't. She couldn't be.

  She sounded rational.

  "I'll tell you about myself later," she said. "I'm a malcontent, naturally. That isn't important, except that all of us, in the organization, are malcontents. We have to be, or we'd never have formed it or joined it. It's our way of keeping a balance, staying sane."

  "Sane!" Breden said.

  "I hope you don't think you're sane," she remarked. "Oh, you're well adjusted to this world, but—it's a psychopathic world! The only satisfied people on earth now are the drudges. Like your friend Carolyn Kohl, at the island. She's satisfied to watch lights and push buttons. But her type of technician is in the minority. A man doesn't take up technology, usually, unless he's got an itch. And that's a hard itch to scratch satisfactorily—impossible, under this set-up. The result is stagnation."

  "But safety," Breden said, vaguely surprised to find himself arguing. "An atomic war—"

  "Would be a tangible we could analyze. One thing GPC has overlooked, Breden. This planet isn't isolated. It isn't safe. It is now, I suppose, but eventually—GPC may be surprised to find it isn't alone in time and space. We've reached the planets, yes. But what's beyond? Do you suppose there's no life, no civilization equal to ours in the entire Galaxy?"

  "They'd have communicated—"

  "The Galaxy's big," Ilsa said. "Time and space are big. One day a ship may come in from outside, and—under this set-up—we'd have to attack it to maintain our isolation. That might be just too bad for us. Personally, I'd be glad to see that day come. But I don't want to wait for visitors from interstellar space. A race can die of dry rot , too. A race can go mad. Since GPC took over, humans have been forced into an alien social and psychological pattern, and most of the race is insane. It isn't recognized, because it's become the norm. It isn't incurable. But shock therapy must be used by this time. All progress has stopped. You can say that the status quo can be Utopia, but that ignores the fact that men grow. No one can be sane unless he uses his full potentialities. Even a moron must do that.

  Breden said, "But you're the one who's insane. Don't you realize what an atomic war would mean?"

  Ilsa looked at him oddly. "Yes, Breden. I do. Because I've seen it, and seen its results." She frowned a little. "There was a mutant born, apparently insane—dementia praecox. Hard radiations had mixed up his genes plenty. By rights he shouldn't have been viable at all; he was premature, and reared in an incubator for months. His father is one of our leaders. Eventually we discovered that this freak has a certain mutated power, a natural talent, that had been born into him. It's rather an unknown factor even now. Call it prescience, though it isn't exactly that. He can see into what seems to be the future, and in his rational periods he can tell us what he sees. That's how we got this weapon"—she raised the shining disk—"and other things. We have certain televisor attachments that enable us to keep underground. The Freak has described to us what he sees in this future world—if that's what it is. And—it's closer to Utopia than our world. We've called it Omega, for definitive purposes. Though it's a beginning rather than an end."

  Breden said cautiously, "If that's the future, what can you do to change it? If you act now, you may be warping the future away from your—Omega pattern."

  "Or our actions may have brought about that pattern," she said. "I don't know. There are variables we don't understand; the Freak has told us things that don't fit at all—but one thing is clear. There'll be a Third World War. The result will come very quickly. It will be blitz, with modern technologies. There'll be an atomic holocaust, the nations will decentralize immediately, and there'll be bacteriological warfare. Not many people will remain alive on the planet. But research will be given the greatest impetus since World War Two. In Omega, Breden, the life span is two hundred years. And there are very few pathologies—the people are healthy. They live to their fullest potentiality. Scientists, artists, farmers—the boundaries are removed for them. They are reaching out to the stars. For their great men don't die as soon as they've achieved mastery of their professions. Their mutants—well, maturation's slower with mutants, and in this time-era they simply don't have time to reach their peak. But in Omega there's no senility at the age of seventy. And there's no obsolescence through disuse!"

  "Yes," Breden said. "I see your point. I don't agree with it. You can't survive without GPC."

  "Conditioning!" Ilsa snapped. "You've been made to believe that! Why do you suppose we've been giving you that recurrent dream?"

  "You ... what did you say?"

  -

  "Dr. Springfield was about to tell you about that," Ilsa said. "He'd discovere
d you'd been under hypnosis—posthypnotic suggestion. You see, you've been conditioned too well. We could never hypnotize you into setting off the uranium pile. But we could make you dream you were doing that, as long as you knew you were dreaming. It was a preparation of your unconscious for what your conscious mind wouldn't accept without groundwork. We can convince your conscious that we're right—but we couldn't have done it two months ago. If we hadn't begun to change your ideas and your thinking already, you wouldn't be sitting here now. Two months ago you'd have reacted instantly by jumping at my throat."

  Breden kept the tight control on his mind and body. He said, "You can never set off the pile. There are too many safeguards."

  "You could set it off, though. As one of the nuclear physicists in charge, you could make an opportunity."

  "I could. But I wouldn't. You couldn't hypnotize me into doing that."

  Ilsa said slowly, "Of all the key physicists in the world, you're the only one who can be convinced. We did a lot of checking before we decided on you. Psychologically you're the right subject. Here's what you're going to do. Return to the island tonight, stand your guard duty, and then, tomorrow morning, begin your furlough. During that furlough, we'll convince you that you must set off the uranium pile. When you go back on your job—you'll do that."

  Breden said, "Unfortunately I'll be eliminated as soon as I take the psych-tests tonight. The psychologists—Medical Administration—will find out all you've been telling me, even if I wanted to keep it secret, which I don't."

  "They won't find it out. I had to tell you this, because you'd begun to suspect too much. There were too many questions in your mind—unanswered questions. The psych tests would have detected something haywire if you'd gone back to the island without getting your questions answered. But now you know the truth; you realize you're not a mutant, and the danger is one you feel able to understand and cope with. As for your talking—you won't talk. You'll forget all this, until tomorrow, when your Control tells you to remember. That will protect you and us, when you're at the island."

  "My Control?"

  "The one who hypnotized you. Who suggested your dreams. The one who gave you mnemonic amnesia, through the televisor, in Springfield's office when I had to kill him. You see, Breden, we're quite ruthless. We prefer not to be, but we will take no chances. It may be a risk letting you go back to the island tonight, but it's a risk we must take, for we need you, and we need you in your present job. So you'll forget this interview. Your mind will be at ease, but you won't remember that your questions have been answered. I don't think any psych tests can get through the hypnosis your Control will work on you."