The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works 1911-1987

by C. L. Moore

  It was like throwing a stone into calm water. The ripples moved out for a while, and then slowly quieted. The woodland scene wasn't static; there was a breeze there, and the leaves glittered and the branches swayed. Clouds moved softly across a blue sky. It was a scene Fowler finally recognized, a Vermont woodland he had seen years ago. Yet when did sequoias ever grow in Vermont?

  A composite, then. And the original impetus of his thoughts set the scene into action along normal lines. When he visualized the forest, he had known that there would be a wind, and that the branches would move. So they moved. But slower and slower—though it took a long while for the action to run down.

  He tried again. This time Chicago's lake shore. Cars rushed along the drive. He tried to make them run backwards, but got a sharp headache and a sense of watching a jerky film. Possibly he could reverse the normal course of events, but his mind wasn't geared to handle film running backward. Then he thought hard and watched a seascape appear through the glass. This time he waited to see how long it would take the image to vanish. The action stopped in an hour, but the picture did not fade completely for another hour.

  Only then did the possibilities strike him with an impact as violent as lightning.

  -

  Considerable poetry has been written about what happens when love rejected turns to hate. Psychology could explain the cause as well as the effect—the mechanism of displacement. Energy has to go somewhere, and if one channel is blocked, another will be found. Not that Veronica had definitely rejected Fowler, and certainly his emotion for the girl had not suffered an alchemic transformation, unless one wishes to delve into the abysses of psychology in which love is merely the other face of hatred—but on those levels of semantic confusion you can easily prove anything.

  Call it reorientation. Fowler had never quite let himself believe that Veronica wouldn't fall into his arms. His ego was damaged. Consequently it had to find some other justification, some assurance—and it was unfortunate for Norman that the displacement had to occur when he was available as scapegoat. For the moment Fowler began to see the commercial possibilities of the magic windowpane, Norman was doomed.

  Not at once; in the beginning, Fowler would have been shocked and horrified had he seen the end result of his plan. He was no villain, for there are no villains. There is a check-and-balance system, as inevitable in nature and mind as in politics, and the balance was beginning to tip when Fowler locked Norman in the windowless room for safekeeping and drove to New York to see a patent attorney. He was careful at first. He knew the formula for the telepathically—receptive window paint by now, but he merely arranged to patent the light-switch gadget that was operated by a gesture. Afterwards, he regretted his ignorance, for clever infringements appeared on the heels of his own device. He hadn't known enough about the matter to protect himself thoroughly in the patent.

  By a miracle, he had kept the secret of the telepathic paint to himself. All this took time, naturally, and meanwhile Norman, urged on by his host, had made little repairs and improvements around the house. Some of them were impractical, but others were decidedly worth using—short-cuts, conveniences, clever methods of bridging difficulties that would be worth money in the open market. Norman's way of thinking seemed curiously alien. Given a problem, he could solve it, but he had no initiative on his own. He seemed satisfied to stay in the house—

  Well, satisfied was scarcely the word. He was satisfied in the same sense that a jellyfish is satisfied to remain in its pool. If there were quivers of volition, slight directional stirrings, they were very feeble indeed. There were times when Fowler, studying his guest, decided that Norman was in a psychotic state—catatonic stupor seemed the most appropriate label. The man's will was submerged, if, indeed, he had ever had any.

  No one has ever detailed the probable reactions of the man who owned the goose who laid the golden eggs. He brooded over a mystery, and presently took empirical steps, afterwards regretted. Fowler had a more analytical mind, and suspected that Norman might be poised at a precarious state of balance, during which—and only during which—he laid golden eggs. Metal can be pliable until pressure is used, after which it may become work-hardened and inflexible. Fowler was afraid of applying too much pressure. But he was equally afraid of not finding out all he could about the goose's unusual oviparity.

  So he studied Norman. It was like watching a shadow. Norman seemed to have none of the higher reflexes; his activities were little more than tropism. Ego-consciouness was present, certainly, but—where had he come from? What sort of place or time had it been? Or was Norman simply a freak, a lunatic, a mutation? All that seemed certain was that part of his brain didn't know its own function. Without conscious will or volition, it was useless. Fowler had to supply the volition; he had to give orders. Between orders, Norman simply sat, occasionally quivering slightly.

  It was bewildering. It was fascinating.

  Also, it might be a little dangerous. Fowler had no intention of letting his captive escape if he could help it, but vague recollections of peonage disturbed him sometimes. Probably this was illegal. Norman ought to be in an institution, under medical care. But then, Norman had such unusual talents!

  Fowler, to salve his uneasiness, ceased to lock the door of the windowless room. By now he had discovered it was unnecessary, anyhow. Norman was like a subject in deep hypnosis. He would obey when told not to leave the room. Fowler, with a layman's knowledge of law, thought that probably gave him an out. He pictured himself in the dock blandly stating that Norman had never been a prisoner, had always been free to leave the house if he chose.

  Actually, only hunger would rouse Norman to disobey Fowler's commands to stay in his room. He would have to be almost famished, even then, before he would go to the kitchen and eat whatever he found, without discrimination and apparently without taste.

  Time went by. Fowler was reorienting, though he scarcely knew it yet, toward a whole new set of values. He let his illustrating dwindle away until he almost ceased to accept orders. This was after an abortive experiment with Norman in which he tried to work out on paper an equivalent of the telepathic pictures on glass. If he could simply sit and think his drawings onto bristol board—

  That was, however, one of Norman's failures.

  It wasn't easy to refrain from sharing this wonderful new secret with Veronica. Fowler found himself time and again shutting his lips over the information just in time. He didn't invite her out to the house any more; Norman was too often working at odd jobs around the premises. Beautiful visions of the future were building up elaborately in Fowler's mind—Veronica wrapped in mink and pearls, himself commanding financial empires all based on Norman's extraordinary talents and Norman's truly extraordinary willingness to obey.

  That was because of his physical weakness, Fowler felt sure. It seemed to take so much of Norman's energy simply to breathe and eat that nothing remained. And after the solution of a problem, a complete fatigue overcame him. He was useless for a day or two between jobs, recovering from the utter exhaustion that work seemed to induce. Fowler was quite willing to accept that. It made him even surer of his—guest. The worst thing that could happen, of course, would be Norman's recovery, his return to normal—

  -

  Money began to come in very satisfactorily, although Fowler wasn't really a good business man. In fact, he was a remarkably poor one. It didn't matter much. There was always more where the first had come from.

  With some of the money Fowler started cautious inquiries about missing persons. He wanted to be sure no indignant relatives would turn up and demand an accounting of all this money. He questioned Norman futilely.

  Norman simply could not talk. His mind was too empty for coherence. He could produce words, but he could not connect them. And this was a thing that seemed to give him his only real trouble. For he wanted desperately sometimes to speak. There was something he seemed frantic to tell Fowler, in the intervals when his strength was at its peak.

 
Fowler didn't want to know it. Usually when Norman reached this pitch he set him another exhausting problem. Fowler wondered for awhile just why he dreaded hearing the message. Presently he faced the answer.

  Norman might be trying to explain how he could be cured.

  Eventually, Fowler had to face an even more unwelcome truth. Norman did seem in spite of everything to be growing stronger.

  He was working one day on a vibratory headset gimmick later to be known as a Hed-D-Acher, when suddenly he threw down his tools and faced Fowler over the table with a look that bordered on animation—for Norman.

  "Sick—" he said painfully. "I ... know ... work!" It was an anathema. He made a defiant gesture and pushed the tools away.

  Fowler, with a sinking sensation, frowned at the rebellious nonentity.

  "All right, Norman," he said soothingly. "All right. You can rest when you finish this job. You must finish it first, though. You must finish this job, Norman. Do you understand that? You must finish—"

  It was sheer accident, of course—or almost accident—that the job turned out to be much more complicated than Fowler had expected. Norman, obedient to the slow, repeated commands, worked very late and very hard.

  The end of the job found him so completely exhausted he couldn't speak or move for three days.

  -

  As a matter of fact it was the Hed-D-Acher that turned out to be an important milestone in Fowler's progress. He couldn't recognize it at the time, but when he looked back, years later, he saw the occasion of his first serious mistake. His first, that is, unless you count the moment when he lifted Norman across his threshold at the very start of the thing.

  Fowler had to go to Washington to defend himself in some question of patent infringement. A large firm had found out about the Hed-D-Acher and jumped in on the grounds of similar wiring—at least that was Fowler's impression. He was no technician. The main point was that the Hed-D-Acher couldn't be patented in its present form, and Fowler's rivals were trying to squeeze through a similar—and stolen—Hed-D-Acher of their own.

  Fowler phoned the Korys Agency. Long distance television was not on the market yet and he was not able to see Veronica's face, but he knew what expression must be visible on it when he told her what he wanted.

  "But I'm going out on a job, John. I can't just drop everything and rush out to your house."

  "Listen, Veronica, there may be a hundred thousand bucks in it. I ... there's no one else I can trust." He didn't add his chief reason for trusting her—the fact that she wasn't over-bright.

  In the end, she went. Dramatic situations appealed to her, and he dropped dark hints of corporation espionage and bloody doings on Capitol Hill. He told her where to find the key and she hung up, leaving Fowler to gnaw his nails intermittently and try to limit himself to one whiskey-soda every half hour. He was paged, it seemed to him, some years later.

  "Hello, Veronica?"

  "Right. I'm at the house. The key was where you said. Now what?"

  Fowler had had time to work out a plan. He put pencil and note pad on the jutting shelf before him and frowned slightly. This might be a risk, but—

  But he intended to marry Veronica, so it was no great risk. And she wasn't smart enough to figure out the real answers.

  He told her about the windowless room. "That's my houseboy's—Norman. He's slightly half-witted, but a good boy on mechanical stuff. Only he's a little deaf, and you've got to tell him a thing three times before he understands it."

  "I think I'd better get out of here," Veronica remarked. "Next you'll be telling me he's a homicidal maniac."

  Fowler laughed heartily. "There's a box in the kitchen—it's in that red cupboard with the blue handle. It's pretty heavy. But see if you can manage it. Take it in to Norman and tell him to make another Hed-D-Acher with a different wiring circuit."

  "Are you drunk?"

  Fowler repressed an impulse to bite the mouthpiece off the telephone. His nerves were crawling under his skin. "This isn't a gag, Veronica. I told you how important it is. A hundred thousand bucks isn't funny. Look, got a pencil? Write this down." He dictated some technical instructions he had gleaned by asking the right questions. "Tell that to Norman. He'll find all the materials and tools he needs in the box."

  "If this is a gag—" Veronica said, and there was a pause. "Well, hang on."

  -

  Silence drew on. Fowler tried to hear what was happening so many miles away. He caught a few vague sounds, but they were meaningless. Then voices rose in loud debate.

  "Veronica!" Fowler shouted. "Veronica!" There was no answer.

  After that, voices again, but softer. And presently:

  "Johnny," Veronica said, "if you ever pull a trick like that on me again—"

  "What happened?"

  "Hiding a gibbering idiot in your house—" She was breathing fast.

  "He's ... what did he do? What happened?"

  "Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. Except when I opened the door your houseboy walked out and began running around the house like a ... a bat. He was trying to talk—Johnny, he scared me!" She was plaintive.

  "Where is he now?"

  "Back in his room. I ... I was afraid of him. But I was trying not to show it. I thought if I could get him back in and lock the door—I spoke to him, and he swung around at me so fast I guess I let out a yell. And then he kept trying to say something—"

  "What?"

  "How should I know? He's in his room, but I couldn't find a key to it. I'm not staying here a minute longer. I ... here he comes!"

  "Veronica! Tell him to go back to his room. Loud and—like you mean it!"

  She obeyed. Fowler could hear her saying it. She said it several times.

  "It doesn't work. He's going out—"

  "Stop him!"

  "I won't! I had enough trouble coaxing him back the first time—"

  "Let me talk to him," Fowler said suddenly. "He'll obey me. Hold the phone to his ear. Get him to listen to me." He raised his voice to a shout. "Norman! Come here! Listen to me!" Outside the booth people were turning to stare, but he ignored them.

  He heard a faint mumble and recognized it.

  "Norman," he said, more quietly but with equal firmness. "Do exactly what I tell you to do. Don't leave the house. Don't leave the house. Don't leave the house. Do you understand?"

  Mumble. Then words: "Can't get out ... can't—"

  "Don't leave the house. Build another Hed-D-Acher. Do it now. Get the equipment you need and build it in the living room, on the table where the telephone is. Do it now."

  A pause, and then Veronica said shakily: "He's gone back to his room. Johnny, I ... he's coming back! With that box of stuff—"

  "Let me talk to him again. Get yourself a drink. A couple of 'em." He needed Veronica as his interpreter, and the best way to keep her there would be with the aid of Dutch courage.

  "Well—here he is."

  Norman mumbled.

  Fowler referred to his notes. He gave firm, incisive, detailed directions. He told Norman exactly what he wanted. He repeated his orders several times.

  And it ended with Norman building a Hed-D-Acher, with a different type of circuit, while Veronica watched, made measurements as Fowler commanded, and relayed the information across the wire. By the time she got slightly high, matters were progressing more smoothly. There was the danger that she might make inaccurate measurements, but Fowler insisted on check and double-check of each detail.

  Occasionally he spoke to Norman. Each time the man's voice was weaker. The dangerous surge of initiative was passing as energy drained out of Norman while his swift fingers flew.

  In the end, Fowler had his information, and Norman, completely exhausted, was ordered back to his room. According to Veronica, he went there obediently and fell flat on the floor.

  "I'll buy you a mink coat," Fowler said. "See you later."

  "But—"

  "I've got to hurry. Tell you all about it when I see you."

  -
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  He got the patent, by the skin of his teeth. There was instant litigation, which was why he didn't clean up on the gadget immediately. He was willing to wait. The goose still laid golden eggs.

  But he was fully aware of the danger now. He had to keep Norman busy. For unless the man's strength remained at a minimum, initiative would return. And there would be nothing to stop Norman from walking out of the house, or—

  Or even worse. For Fowler could, after all, keep the doors locked. But he knew that locks wouldn't imprison Norman long once the man discovered how to pose a problem to himself. Once Norman thought: Problem how to escape—then his clever hands would construct a wall-melter or a matter-transmitter, and that would be the end for Fowler.

  Norman had one specialized talent. To keep that operating efficiently—for Fowler's purpose—all Norman's other faculties had to be cut down to minimum operation speed.

  -

  The rosy light in the high-backed booth fell flatteringly upon Veronica's face. She twirled her martini glass on the table and said: "But John, I don't think I want to marry you." The martini glass shot pinpoints of soft light in his face as she turned it. She looked remarkably pretty, even for a Korys model. Fowler felt like strangling her.

  "Why not?" he demanded.

  She shrugged. She had been blowing hot and cold, so far as Fowler was concerned, ever since the day she had seen Norman. Fowler had been able to buy her back, at intervals, with gifts or moods that appealed to her, but the general drift had been toward estrangement. She wasn't intelligent, but she did have sensitivity of a sort, and it served its purpose. It was stopping her from marrying John Fowler.

  "Maybe we're too much alike, Johnny," she said reflectively. "I don't know. I ... how's that miserable houseboy of yours?"

  "Is that still bothering you?" His voice was impatient. She had been showing too much concern over Norman. It had probably been a mistake to call her in at all, but what else could he have done? "I wish you'd forget about Norman. He's all right."