Possible Tomorrows

by Groff Conklin (Ed. )

  In the Assembly the North delegates always voted for complete independence of Earth and the Southerners fought tooth and nail anything which broke the ties with Earth. Soon it was impossible to have a joint assembly at all, and two new Senates sat in Benoit and Sedgeware.

  The first acts of violence arose over street names. Benoit City started it by changing all street names which savored of Earth—High Street, Fifth Avenue, Broadway, Main Street, King Street, Queen Street, Willowbank. Sedgeware changed all its streets to names of Terran towns. Then maurauders in Benoit City defaced the pure-Perryon street names and raiders in Sedgeware tore down the Earth names.

  After that it wasn’t long before any party of Southerners found in Benoit City were assumed to be there to commit sabotage. Soon after the first fights, the first deaths were reported. . .

  When we arrived, the two factions weren’t far short of open war. And that was all it was about.

  In Benoit City on the day we arrived Lorraine and I stood at the window of the former governor’s residence and watched people pass outside. We could hardly believe our eyes.

  A child of five, sex unknown, went past wearing what looked like a model spaceship. A girl hobbled past in a dress shaped like a waterpipe. A man wore a box-shaped garment about his hips and a shirt in the shape of a sphere. The sphere idea was quite common. Apparently the perfect sphere was passed as non-Terran. The next man we saw wore what looked like a big cannon-ball about his middle and smaller cannon-balls everywhere else. A girl came along in the first skintight outfit we’d seen, with holes cut for her naked breasts to stick through. The idea, we guessed, was that this must be true Perryon style because it certainly wasn’t anything else.

  “Wonder if it’s safe to walk outside looking like we do?” Lorraine murmured. “Or must I get a square bra and rectangular panties?”

  This wasn’t necessary, we found. The split wasn’t because the North hated Earth and the South loved it The Northerners weren’t fighting with Earth, they were fighting with the South Perryonians over Earth.

  We spent the first week at the residence in Benoit City and the second week in Sedgeware. We suspected that the Perryonians would be counting almost to the second the time we spent in the North and in the South, ready to squawk if one was favored over the other.

  For Perryon was proud of us. We were the planet’s first Unit Even in Benoit City it was realized that we weren’t there to rule Perryon on Earth’s behalf, but to help the world independent of Earth. We did a few little jobs in the first few days that helped a lot—small stuff as far as a Unit was concerned, but very useful to the local people, and they were grateful.

  We managed to settle a labor dispute, for example, simply by interpreting one side to the other. We showed the engineers who woe going to dam a river exactly where and how to do it and solved a troublesome case for the Benoit City police. These were just spare-time jobs, but they got a lot of publicity which didn’t do our status in the community any harm.

  So far we didn’t interfere in the North-South arguments. We wanted to know more before we tackled that problem. Nevertheless, we were actually asked by the two Senates to act as liaison officers, and performed our first duties in a manner not too unsatisfactory to either side.

  In the course of our local research it was easy to look for evidences of Trade activity. We found about what we expected. The Traders dealt with Perryon, obviously—all sorts of goods which hadn’t paid duty were to be seen both in Benoit City and in Sedgeware.

  But we didn’t find any evidence that Perryon was the Traders’ base.

  We knew already that none of the Traders’ ships were on any official register. People had been bribed to describe them, and the information thus gained indicated that the Traders’ ships were small and specially built to be easily hidden. They weren’t to be found on any world masquerading as ordinary cargo ships. When not in use they were probably buried in deep holes specially made for them in deserted spots, holes which would be covered carefully while the ships were away so that no aerial survey would reveal anything.

  So we knew we weren’t going to see any large, suspicious, tarpaulin-covered objects in back yards, objects which would turn out to be unregistered Trader ships. We were looking for more subtle indications than that.

  And we didn’t find any. There was no sign on Perryon of Trader money, for example.

  There’s no point in making a kill unless you can benefit by it Criminals through the ages have been notoriously unable to hang on to their loot until the hue and cry has died down before emerging as rich and powerful citizens.

  We investigated all the people on Perryon who seemed to have a lot of money. That was easy, for there were about six of them.

  Perryon was a poor planet and would probably always be a poor planet Her natural resources weren’t high, and the world had only been colonized because it was so similar to Earth. It was a comfortable world to live on, probably the most comfortable after Earth of all the worlds so far settled. But if Perryon didn’t have the discomforts of Fry on and Gersten and Parionar, it didn’t have their rewards either.

  A rich man stood out on Perryon like a sore thumb. All the men we investigated, except one, had brought heir money to Perryon and how they had made it could be easily checked. The one exception was a financial genius who was making money like Henry Ford—only since he was operating on Perryon instead of Earth, cars weren’t enough and he had to run businesses in electronics, engineering, publishing, textiles, mining, banking and a dozen other things. We checked Robert G. Underwood very thoroughly without finding any hint that his coffers might be swelled by Trader profits.

  Toward the end of the second week, Dick and I were discussing things at the residency in Sedgeware. Outside on the lawn Brent, lone and Helen were sunning themselves. Lorraine was in town conferring with the police chief. We worked very closely with the police of both Benoit City and Sedgeware.

  Since their clearing and training lone and Helen had become almost dumb. And Brent had been dumb anyway. Dick and Lorraine did most of the Unit’s talking between them, though occasionally when some Unit representative had to be sent somewhere merely to make an appearance and pick up facts Helen or lone was sent.

  “You’re sure there’s no danger?” I asked, nodding at the three on the lawn. Anyone who wanted to take a shot at them could do so without hindrance. We had no guards in attendance.

  “Oh yes,” said Dick confidently. “Making an attempt on Lorraine’s life in the ship, something that might have passed off as an accident, was one thing. Jack Kelman was just a thug hired to do a job, Rhoda Walker an assistant in case he needed one. But trying anything here would merely prove that there was something here for a Unit to find, and the U-A would probably send out about six Units to make sure it was found.”

  “It’s all very well for you,” I commented. “It isn’t your responsibility to look after the safety of the Unit—it’s mine.”

  “Believe me,” said Dick, “if something happened to a member of this Unit—any member—you wouldn’t care half as much about it as we would.”

  “I don’t quite get that,” I said. “Suppose you lost lone, say. The four of you who were left would still have plenty of brains and drive and personality and brawn, wouldn’t you? Would it make all that difference? Surely the Unit would function much as before?”

  Dick shook his head very decidedly. “Absolutely not,” he said. “We’re trained so that we each cover so much. We could have been trained so that the four of us without lone could do a decent job . . . but we weren’t When anything happens to any one of us, you’re supposed to take his place—“but frankly, Edgar, you’d be no good at all.”

  “Seems to me,” I remarked, “that it’s a queer way to build up a working force—useless if one member is missing.” Dick grinned. “What a wonderful argument that is. You could make a car with only three wheels. Does that mean that if you make a car with four, you should make it so that it can run quite well on thre
e? Should you construct your car so that it will run if necessary without a carburettor, or without the gas pump, or the oil pump?”

  “All right, you win,” I grunted.

  “That analogy isn’t too bad. The five of us are the engine, the transmission, the body, the wheels and the controls. Without any one of us, what good is the car?”

  The phone rang. Strictly I should have answered, but Dick was nearest He picked it up.

  People who are cleared don’t lose their emotions. They are said to feel all the more pleasant emotions much more clearly and strongly than ordinary people, and though the less pleasant emotions like fear and anger and desperation don’t necessarily affect them the way they do us, they’re still there.

  But cleared people don’t have to show these emotions. If they’re with others who are showing theirs, they do, usually, just to be sociable. They seldom make demonstrations which are artificial as far as they’re concerned.

  Dick was solemn I thought this was just a routine call. So it was a shock when he put the phone down and said: “Someone just shot six bullets into Lorraine. She won’t live. Let’s get down to the hospital, shall we?”

  It took a while before even the considerable authority we could wield got us in to see Lorraine. They’d been operating when we arrived. There was a faint chance to save her life, apparently, but so faint that it was mentioned only for the sake of accuracy.

  “Don’t you understand, idiot” Dick said heatedly to the head surgeon, for once letting his exasperation with ordinary uncleared people show, “that that’s exactly why we’ve got to see her right away? She’s a member of a Unit. With the rest of us helping her, she’ll pull through if there’s a ghost of a chance. But if—”

  The head surgeon walked away.

  Cleared or not Dick was raging. It was as if someone was insisting on amputating his right leg and he knew the leg didn’t have to be amputated.

  “Cool down,” I said. “We’ve got to do this their way.”

  “While Lorraine dies!” Dick exclaimed.

  On Earth the Units are commoner and better understood. People know that if a Uniteer has a baby, for example, the other members of the Unit are always with her. The husband, whoever he is, stays outside as usual, but the four other members of her Unit are there beside her, helping her. Not that they need to be there for a confinement.

  They do need to be there when it’s something really serious.

  You see, in one way cleared people aren’t as sensible as the rest of us. If they’re in supreme danger, if they’re badly injured, they refuse to give up. They won’t lapse into unconsciousness and cease to take any responsibility for what happens to them. They go on fighting until at last they die.

  That’s if they’re on their own—or surrounded by ordinary people, which comes to the same thing as far as a cleared person is concerned.

  If the Unit is there, they trust it completely, as usual. The Unit tells them to sleep, or concentrate on something, or block off something, or go into deep trance for days at a time if necessary, and they do exactly as they’re told.

  Uniteers aren’t medically qualified, but they do know far more about their own bodies and about some aspects of healing than doctors do.

  I sent lone to find out what had happened, Brent to check on conditions at the hospital to make sure that whoever had done this didn’t have a chance to make absolutely sure, Helen to see the police chief, and Dick to find out from some responsible doctor exactly what Lorraine’s injuries were. I gave them four minutes.

  I myself went to see the medical supervisor. He’d be up-to-date in his information and would know that Uniteers shared everything—even operations.

  That was what I hoped. What I found was an old man who tried to argue with me.

  “I know it’s done,” he agreed, “but surely it’s merely a sort of Unit privilege. Now in this case I understand the woman has two bullets through the right lung and one in the stomach. It’s purely a surgical—”

  “Doctor Green,” I said savagely, “If you delay us ten seconds more, I’ll have you broken and thrown into the street”

  The doctor drew himself erect “Intimidation won’t get you anywhere, young man,” he snapped. “I’m in charge here, and I haven’t refused your request, merely—”

  “Merely delayed us so that when we get to Lorraine it may be too late. Dr. Green, if Lorraine dies you may be charged with murder.”

  That got through and frightened him. It wasn’t an idle threat either, and perhaps he could see that. If Lorraine died and later investigation showed that the assistance of her Unit might have saved her life, Green would be hounded by the U-A So he climbed down, trying to pretend that wasn’t what he was doing. He and I arrived back at the theater just as Dick, Brent and Helen got back from their errands. We had to wait ten seconds for lone.

  We went in. We were lucky, we were able to stop the heavy sedation they were putting Lorraine under. Trouble with medicine is, it’s ninety-five per cent generalization. Since Lorraine had been shot six times, with three wounds which could be classed as fatal, they were naturally treating her for shock as well.

  Which was wrong, for Lorraine wasn’t, couldn’t be, suffering from shock.

  When she first opened her eyes, we were all there. She was conscious only for a few seconds, but even that dumbfounded the doctors. She shouldn’t have regained consciousness at all.

  They all spoke to her, rapidly, quietly. Dick told her briefly and with bluntness which shocked the doctors exactly what her injuries were and how serious they were. He told her what to do. Helen, who as a woman could tell her more than Dick could, amplified his recommendations. lone added a word or two. Brent merely said her name, but I gathered it carried a promise that she need devote no attention to self-defense—he was taking that over.

  In less than half a minute it was over. The Unit could cover a lot of ground in a very short time.

  When she went under again Dick breathed a sigh of relief. “She’s okay,” he said. “She’ll sleep for about six hours. We’ll have to be back here then.” He looked at the doctors round us. “And before you do a thing to her, check with us, understand?”

  The chief surgeon still hadn’t recovered from the shock of seeing Lorraine open her eyes. “I don’t understand this . . .” he began.

  “That’s what I was telling you,” said Dick. “You don’t understand it at all. Get this for a start. Lorraine’s cleared. That means she has much more control of her so-called autonomous nerve centre than you’ve ever known any one to have. When she suffers an injury the brain doesn’t cut out just to save itself, it wants to know if there’s anything it can do and won’t go out of phase until it’s satisfied. That’s why we had to be here. We told her she’d be all right and that she could sleep for six hours with everything under control.”

  “But you don’t know—”

  Dick sighed. “I know exactly what her injuries are and exactly how she can help them to heal. Doctor, if Lorraine felt like it she could step up her thyroid activity or cut it down. She could stimulate or diminish her heartbeat. She has some control over all the endocrine glands and can exert a small influence over the behaviour of most groups of cells she decides to concentrate on. If you looked at her wounds now you’d be astonished to find how clean they are already.” The surgeon looked at me. I nodded. I’d seen one or two demonstrations at the U-A depot.

  “I’ll believe you,” said the surgeon. Obviously it was an effort.

  We held a discussion with the doctors about Lorraine’s treatment and then went out—except Brent He had taken charge of Lorraine. He had promised her that it was safe to sleep, and he was going to keep his promise.

  The doctors still believed Lorraine was going to the, obviously. That didn’t worry us.

  We compared notes. Apparently Lorraine had just left the police chief and was walking in the street when a man in a gray suit fired six shots into her from twenty yards’ range, jumped into a car and was driv
en off. The car had already been found abandoned. It had been stolen anyway.

  There had been no pursuit because there weren’t many cars in Sedgeware and the only one in the street at the time had been going the other way. The only description we could get of the assassin was that he was tall and wore a gray suit There had been someone in the car, but there was no description of him at all.

  I couldn’t help remarking: “You’d just been proving this wouldn’t happen, Dick.”

  “I know,” said Dick. “This seems crazy. It’s been Lorraine both times. Could someone be trying to kill Lorraine, independent of the Unit?”

  My thoughts somersaulted. Lorraine, though she no longer knew it was A.D.’s daughter. And A.D. was mixed up in all sorts of things and might have all sorts of enemies.

  “Could be,” I said. “I’ll tell you what I know later.”

  “Tell me what you know now,” said Dick, though we were still standing in the corridor outside the operating theater.

  I told him.

  “We’ll check on that,” said Dick. “But it doesn’t sound likely.”

  “You thought h wasn’t likely that Lorraine would be shot—”

  Dick nodded. One thing about Uniteers—you can’t needle them. Dick had made a mistake, and it didn’t bother him. He didn’t blame himself for not having foreseen the attempt on Lorraine’s life.

  We left the hospital. Nothing was said about taking extra care now, but I noticed lone wasn’t even listening to what Dick and I were saying. She was looking about her like a lynx. With Brent guarding Lorraine, she had taken over the job of protecting us.

  “Next thing,” said Dick. “Could it have been meant to happen just like this? Lorraine seriously hurt, but not dead? After all, an old explosive gun was used. If it had been a new gun, it wouldn’t have been worth taking what was left to the hospital.”