by C. L. Moore
"It's just a job to you, then?"
"I like to do my job. That's why I'm working for Reeve—he's the most competent politico around. If there were a better one, I'd change allegiance. But right now—apparently I'm looking for normality in Lawson and you're looking for abnormality."
"He's normal," Ferguson said. "Notice that reaction chart."
They examined the televisor. Lawson was being conditioned against kicking a policeman.
"Will it work?" Archer asked.
"Impossible to tell. We depend a great deal on implanting fear of consequences. But we insure against consequences. In lab conditions, Lawson might very well refrain from kicking a policeman, because he unconsciously knows he wouldn't get his policy if he did. But once he's insured—the policy guarantees against consequences. There's always a margin for error."
Across the screen moved a jiggling green line that meant Lawson refrained from kicking the equivalent of a policeman.
-
Three days later Lawson threw phenylthiourea into the reservoir. He did it within range of one of the watchdog telephoto lenses, set up in a ring around the water supply, and first he held up the labeled bottle so there would be no mistake. Thereafter he laughed hilariously and went away.
-
"I want protection against a homicidal impulse," Ferguson said to the ILC psychiatrist. "Probably it's got a paranoid base. There's a client out to git me."
"Out to git you, is he?" the psychiatrist said. "What's he been up to?"
Ferguson told him. "There's nothing yet," he ended. "Not even a neurosis, as far as I know. But I worry about the guy. He's taken out twenty-two policies, and—I'm afraid of how I may start to feel later."
"Identification with ILC. I expect we can get rid of that feeling. Sublimate it or something. Remove the cause. Oh, well. One swallow doesn't make a dipsomaniac. Well put you through the routine, Ferguson."
"I keep thinking of mature gorillas. A nice therapy would be for me to take a hunting trip and shoot male gorillas. I don't know. This could lead to claustrophobia and agoraphobia. Fear of open spaces, I mean, not fear of crowds. Then I'd have to spend my time like those figures in one of those little houses that foretell weather. Keep dashing in and out. What about a nice padded cell with walls that expand and contract?"
"What about a sedative?" the psychiatrist countered. "The trouble with you staff boys, as a matter of fact, is that the minute you get a hangnail you think it's a major psychosis. These minor things generally adjust themselves automatically. We keep complete, up-to-date charts of all the staff, and we know a great deal more about you than you think. You're all right. Just to keep you happy, we'll go through the routine and make sure you're not a lycanthrope—though you wouldn't be holding down the job you do if you hadn't achieved integration."
"But what about Lawson?" Ferguson inquired plaintively.
-
That was, of course, already taken care of. Naturally ILC called Lawson in for re-examination. He came willingly enough, apparently suppressing a mild amusement at the whole proceeding. Ferguson had a deep-rooted conviction that the psychiatrists would discover nothing. All his old qualms and fears combined to tell him that whatever Lawson had was beyond the range of ILC's precision instruments to discover. The only real way to detect his variation from the norm would be to correlate the effect he had on other bodies—the way Pluto's existence was suspected before it was actually discovered.
But Lawson's psychological pattern came safely within the extreme range of normality.
He had a high resistance-quotient; so had many other people. Repeated treatments of sodium pentothal failed to break down all his barriers—that wasn't a wholly unfamiliar phenomenon. He lay on the couch, doped with the hypnotic drug, and answered questions in a way that entirely failed to satisfy Ferguson.
"How did you feel when you threw phenylthiourea into the reservoir?"
"I felt good," Lawson said.
"Did you remember that we had agreed you couldn't throw phenylthiourea into the reservoir?"
Silence.
They repeated the query.
"No," Lawson said.
"Could you kick a policeman?"
"No."
There wasn't much they could do about it that hadn't already been done. They gave him supplementary hypnotic treatments, reinforcing the conditioning even more thoroughly than before. But he was written down under Margin for Error. He was a rare type, yet he came within the limits of normality. If he had extensions beyond that norm—the psychiatrists couldn't detect them. Ferguson thought he had. Convincing other people was another matter. ILC had quite as much evidence on its side as he had on his—if you could call it evidence. Apparently it wasn't. And the points that really convinced Ferguson himself were intangibles, on which he could produce no evidence at all. Sometimes he himself felt doubt, but in the end he always swung back to the blind, illogical conviction that was part of his mind by now. Hypersensitivity? Was that the answer? He had for many years been interested in the subject of the theoretical superman, and there had been times when, looking askance at someone or other, he had wondered—
But never before had he felt conviction. With a part of his brain that seemed to be as specialized and infallible as radar—a sensitivity apparently only he possessed, he knew. He had always, deep within him, expected that some day the theoretical would become the practical. Now he thought that it had happened. But how could he convince anyone who did not already have this same conviction springing from an inner perception to which even he could give no name? He might as well announce the second coming of the Messiah. People would dismiss him as a crank, at best. Public disbelief would in effect invalidate the truth—if it were true. There had never been but one man who could safely have claimed to be Napoleon—and even he, without sufficient evidence, might expect to be certified. Before the time of Galileo, Ferguson told himself, there must have been a number of lunatics who, among their other delusions, were convinced that the Earth went round the Sun.
Margin for Error would not exist if a good many people did not fall into that particular classification. To choose one case arbitrarily looked like simple eccentricity on Ferguson's part. He had no arguments anyone could understand. He was a pre-Galilean convinced of the Earth's orbit. And he had no telescopic apparatus an ordinary human could use.
What could he do about it?
Only what he had already done.
The psychiatrists could help up to a certain point—the limit of visibility on their figurative telescopes. But he dared not tell them all he suspected, for fear of being tagged as a psychotic himself. In effect he had to psychoanalyze himself, a notoriously difficult task—and try to segregate and analyze the nameless, certain sense that told him what Lawson was.
-
Meanwhile Benjamin Lawson went placidly about his business.
Having latched on to a good deal of money from ILC, as the result of his escapade at the reservoir, he deposited it with an investment broker and rented a small cottage fully equipped by Services. He seemed to want to avoid responsibility. There was an odd air of playing to his life. Food, prepared and hot, arrived, a week's supply at a time, and Lawson had only to push a button, make his selection, and eat. Then he pushed another button and the service disappeared for automatic cleansing. Since the house was functional, there were no dust-catchers, and air-conditioning and electronic gadgets took care of the inevitable filth that occurs everywhere except in a hard vacuum. There was a playground-resort a few hundred miles away, and Lawson often flew there to ski, play tennis, have a vigorous game of skatch, or swim. He bought thousands of books and book-reels and read omnivorously. He had a chemical laboratory and other laboratories, all purely amateur. He had a great deal of fun making soap, and only the chlorophyll-deodorizer-units saved the bungalow from becoming a stench and an abomination.
He didn't do any work.
A year later he kicked a policeman. His money was running low.
&nbs
p; -
Ferguson was doing pretty well. A hitherto-unrealized psychosis had been uncovered, involving a forgotten infancy-wish for the moon; and by a remarkable series of associations, involving green cheese, butter, and bread, it had resolved itself into the father-image, which was familiar enough to be handled by even the stupidest psychiatrist. Ferguson called on his father, an ancient and unregenerate oldster who spent most of his time collecting dirty limericks, and was conscious of no particular reaction, except a feeling of mild boredom when his antique sire insisted on repeating every limerick he knew at least three times. He was left with a conviction that his father needed psychoanalysis, and he went back to work mentally cleansed and integrated, he felt.
Then Lawson kicked the policeman.
-
"But that was over two years ago," Archer said into the televisor. "I remember you were all steamed up about it then. Still, it's been two years! Lawson hasn't collected on any more policies, has he?"
"That's not the point," Ferguson said, a muscle in his cheek twitching. "Everyone but me has forgotten about Lawson—he's down in the files as just another case. I called to see if you'd lost interest, too."
Archer made a noncommittal sound.
Ferguson looked at him across the miles. "I'd be willing to bet," he said, "that you've got Lawson's name on your calendar for a future checkup."
Archer hesitated. "All right," he said. "You win. But its simply routine; I've checked on him every six months. I do that with a good many people—I told you once I don't take chances. Luckily I've got a competent staff, so I can afford the time. But it's just routine."
"It may be routine with your other cases," Ferguson said, "but don't tell me it's only that with Lawson."
Archer smiled. "I know you've got a phobia about him. Is there anything new?"
Ferguson looked thoughtfully at Archer, wondering how much of his motive he should reveal at this time. He decided to stick to the facts.
"You know what I believe, Archer. I haven't any proof. He has been careful never to do anything that would give him away. Neither has he shown any indication of what he intends to do when he does use his—powers. I think I've found out why."
"Could it be simply because he's a normal man without any special powers?" Archer asked gently.
"No, it couldn't! I'll tell you what it really is. He's still a child."
"At twenty-three?"
Ferguson smiled. "Do you know the ages of all your routine cases that well?"
"Well, go on," Archer said, shrugging.
"I've been studying his case very thoroughly. I've made charts and graphs from the information I've gathered, and I've showed them to specialists. I've got opinions and I've made comparisons. Lawson's activity-patterns are those of a twelve-year-old child—with variations. Intellectually he's not twelve years old, but his recreations—his periods of relaxation, when the intellectual centers of the brain aren't exclusively in control—that's when the important factors begin to show. He thinks like an adult, but he plays like a child. It's delayed maturation; it must be."
"So you believe he'll turn into a superman when he grows up?”
“That’s why he went to your patron Reeve when he graduated from his crêche. It wasn't the immaturity pension angle. He wasn't as altruistic as he seemed; by his own standards he was immature at the time. He still is. He's simply waiting until he grows up."
"Then what? He'll conquer the world?"
"I think he could if he wanted to." Ferguson considered Archer's face on the screen. "Well?" he said.
"What do you expect me to say to that?"
"I'm waiting for you to cross Lawson's name off your list. If your only interest in him has been curiosity about the altruism angle, you can check him off as of now. Are you going to?"
Archer paused a fraction of a second too long before he said, "Sure."
"That means you're not going to. You're too accurate a barometer to dismiss me as a crackpot entirely."
"You keep leaving me with nothing to say except go on."
Ferguson said, "I've got a phobia, I'll admit that. I've been living with it for a long time now. I don't like it. It's like living with one leg and no prosthetic device—I can get used to it, but my own adjustment won't help the rest of the world. I'm going to make Lawson furnish proof that will convince you and everybody else that he's—what he is. I'll need your help. He's made some good investments. That's why he hasn't yet needed to collect on any of those other policies he got originally. I'm beginning to think he took out so many just to disarm suspicion, so he could remain within the margin for error if he had to break two or three. He's broken two. He's been investigated. If he broke a third, I think other people besides me might begin to worry and wonder. I want him to break another. It's time people did begin to worry. This is where you come in. If Lawson's investments went wrong, he'd need more dough. I want them to go wrong. That's more your line than mine. What do you say?"
"What's in it for me?" Archer asked.
"You can stop worrying about that memo on your calendar—one way or the other. I promise that if nothing happens I'll never bother you again about it." That was the end of what Ferguson said aloud. In his own mind he finished the sentence. "—but I won't have to. Lawson will!"
Lawson was not likely to take that lying down. Ferguson did not expect vindictiveness from the boy; Lawson would be above petty revenge. But he could not afford to let a thing like this happen unchecked; Ferguson meant Lawson to know that this was a deliberate attack. And if Lawson was what Ferguson believed him to be, he could not afford to let the knowledge of his superior potentialities be spread abroad. If guns are being fired at you, you spike those guns. There need be nothing vindictive about it—but self-preservation must be as strong in the immature superman as it is in any other organism.
One of two things would happen; Lawson would collect on another policy, which would put him perilously close to the outside limits of Margin for Error. ILC would worry and wonder, remembering the suspicions Ferguson had already planted. Lawson could scarcely afford to break his hypnosis a third time openly. The alternative could only be an overt retaliation on his attackers; that was what Ferguson hoped for with part of his mind. It would be the more certain way of proving his case. And Archer had to be in on it. In a perfunctory way Ferguson was sorry he had to drag Archer into this. He would have had no objection to staking himself out alone as bait for the tiger if it would do any good. But no tethered goat has ever killed a tiger yet, alone. Ferguson had already established himself too firmly as a crackpot in the minds of those whose opinions mattered. If he could pull Archer down with him, Archer would have to fight back against the superman, or go under. Corroborative evidence from a man like Archer would have some weight with the authorities.
Ferguson watched Archer's face anxiously. He saw the decision hang in the balance for an interminable chain of seconds. Then Archer nodded.
"I'll see what I can do," he said.
Ferguson let out his breath in a long sigh.
-
The ease with which Lawson thought of a third alternative was infuriating. He did neither of the things Ferguson expected. Instead, he took out insurance on the Nestor, a luxury liner on the Earth-Moon run, and since a great many people wanted similar policies—it was almost a lottery, in view of an epidemic of meteor swarms—no attention was aroused at ILC. Besides, the usual margin for error had been allowed. The Nestor blasted off three days after its announced time for departure, which gave it a sufficient safety factor and caused dozens of people to cancel their policies.
So the Nestor avoided the meteor swarms, but ran into an atomic warhead which had been orbiting in free space for years, awaiting the fatal appointment.
The Nestor was running on atomic fuel. The great ship blazed white for an instant and disintegrated.
-
So did Ferguson. Not literally, of course; not with the spectacular finality of the ship.
Perhaps the wor
st part was the waiting. He was almost certain that Lawson knew what had been intended, and why, and who was responsible.
But nothing happened.
There was no yardstick. Ferguson didn't know what to expect because he didn't know Lawson's limitations. Ferguson might, unknown to himself, be walking straight toward an apparently accidental demise, hours or days from now, as final as that of the Nestor. It seemed fairly obvious that Lawson had foreseen that final rendezvous between the ship and the wandering warhead in its orbit. Was there a rendezvous ahead for Ferguson? Or was he being ignored? He didn't know which thought he liked less.
His work began to suffer. He wasn't eating well these days, which might have brought on his headaches. He overheard his secretary complaining that he was developing a temper like a bear, but he knew that was the wrong simile; the adult gorilla exhibited tendencies more like what Ferguson was feeling now. Irritation, a desire for solitude, above all suspicion. It was the suspicion that bothered him most.
After he had made the third major mistake in a row in office routine he took a vacation by request. He was more glad than sorry when the request came through—not that he thought a vacation would help to solve his problem—you can't negate a fact like Lawson by ignoring it—but he was at least relieved of the troublesome suspicion which had been developing to major proportions of late.
He was suspicious of new clients.
He kept remembering Lawson's aggressively normal face and manner in their first interview. And now he read behind every application the potential for—
A second Lawson.
-
For six months he tried to run away from a nightmare. The Himalaya Playground didn't help. Specialized occupational therapy didn't help either. Nor did the Moon. Ferguson found the satellite bleak and unfriendly, even at the stimulating Shady Glen north of Tycho. When he looked up at the clouded disk of Earth in the sky, he kept thinking the masses of light and dark had the shape of Lawson's face. It covered the whole planet, just as the shadow of Lawson had covered all of Ferguson's life by now. Lawson watched him unwinkingly from above.