The Robert Silverberg Science Fiction Megapack(r)

by Robert Silverberg

  Mattern said, “Good morning, gentlemen. We’ve been waiting for some time for you to arise.”

  “It’s no later than usual, is it?” Leopold asked.

  “Not at all. But my men and I have been up all night. We—ah—did a bit of archaeological prospecting while you slept.” The Colonel leaned forward, fingering his rumpled lapels, and said, “Dr. Leopold, for what reason did you choose to conceal from me the fact that you had discovered an object of extreme strategic importance?”

  “What do you mean?” Leopold demanded—with a quiver taking the authority out of his voice.

  “I mean,” said Mattern quietly, “the robot you named Ozymandias. Just why did you decide not to tell me about it?”

  “I had every intention of doing so before our departure,” Leopold said.

  Mattern shrugged. “Be that as it may. You concealed the existence of your find. But your manner last night led us to investigate the area—and since the detectors showed a metal object some twenty miles to the west, we headed that way. Ozymandias was quite surprised to learn that there were other Earthmen here.”

  There was a moment of crackling silence. Then Leopold said, “I’ll have to ask you not to meddle with that robot, Colonel Mattern. I apologize for having neglected to tell you of it—I didn’t think you were quite so interested in our work—but now I must insist you and your men keep away from it.”

  “Oh?” Mattern said crisply. “Why?”

  “Because it’s an archaeological treasure-trove, Colonel. I can’t begin to stress its value to us. Your men might perform some casual experiment with it and short circuit its memory channels, or something like that. And so I’ll have to assert the rights of the archaeological group of this expedition. I’ll have to declare Ozymandias part of our preserve, and off bounds for you.”

  Mattern’s voice suddenly hardened. “Sorry, Dr. Leopold. You can’t invoke that now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Ozymandias is part of our preserve. And off bounds for you, Doctor.”

  I thought Leopold would have an apoplectic fit right there in the messhall. He stiffened and went white and strode awkwardly across the room towards Mattern. He choked out a question, inaudible to me.

  Mattern replied, “Security, Doctor. Ozymandias is of military use. Accordingly we’ve brought him to the ship and placed him in sealed quarters, under top-level wraps. With the power entrusted to me for such emergencies, I’m declaring this expedition ended. We return to Earth at once with Ozymandias.”

  Leopold’s eyes bugged. He looked at us for support, but we said nothing. Finally, incredulously, he said, “He’s—of military use?”

  “Of course. He’s a storehouse of data on the ancient Thaiquen weapons. We’ve already learned things from him that are unbelievable in their scope. Why do you think this planet is bare of life, Dr. Leopold? Not even a blade of grass? A million years won’t do that. But a superweapon will. The Thaiquens developed that weapon. And others, too. Weapons that can make your hair curl. And Ozymandias knows every detail of them. Do you think we can waste time letting you people fool with that robot, when he’s loaded with military information that can make America totally impregnable? Sorry, Doctor. Ozymandias is your find, but he belongs to us. And we’re taking him back to Earth.”

  Again the room was silent. Leopold looked at me, at Webster, at Marshall, at Gerhardt. There was nothing that could be said.

  This was basically a militaristic mission. Sure, a few archaeologists had been tacked onto the crew, but fundamentally it was Mattern’s men and not Leopold’s who were important. We weren’t out here so much to increase the fund of general knowledge as to find new weapons and new sources of strategic materials for possible use against the Other Hemisphere.

  And new weapons had been found. New, undreamed-of weapons, product of a science that had endured for three hundred thousand years. All locked up in Ozymandias’ imperishable skull.

  In a harsh voice Leopold said, “Very well, Colonel. I can’t stop you, I suppose.”

  He turned and shuffled out without touching his food, a broken, beaten, suddenly very old man.

  I felt sick.

  Mattern had insisted the planet was useless and that stopping here was a waste of time; Leopold had disagreed, and Leopold had turned out to be right. We had found something of great value.

  We had found a machine that could spew forth new and awesome recipes for death. We held in our hands the sum and essence of the Thaiquen science—the science that had culminated in magnificent weapons, weapons so superb they had succeeded in destroying all life on this world. And now we had access to those weapons. Dead by their own hand, the Thaiquens had thoughtfully left us a heritage of death.

  Grey-faced, I rose from the table and went to my cabin. I wasn’t hungry now.

  “We’ll be blasting off in an hour,” Mattern said behind me as I left. “Get your things in order.”

  I hardly heard him. I was thinking of the deadly cargo we carried, the robot so eager to disgorge its fund of data. I was thinking what would happen when our scientists back on Earth began learning from Ozymandias.

  The works of the Thaiquens now were ours. I thought of the poet’s lines: “Look on my works, ye Mighty—and despair.”

  THE PAIN PEDDLERS

  Originally published in Galaxy, August 1963.

  Pain is Gain.

  —Greek proverb

  The phone bleeped. Northrop nudged the cut-in switch and heard Maurillo say, “We got a gangrene, chief. They’re amputating tonight.”

  Northrop’s pulse quickened at the thought of action. “What’s the tab?” he asked.

  “Five thousand, all rights.”

  “Anesthetic?”

  “Natch,” Maurillo said. “I tried it the other way.”

  “What did you offer?”

  “Ten. It was no go.”

  Northrop sighed. “I’ll have to handle it myself, I guess. Where’s the patient?”

  “Clinton General. In the wards.”

  Northrop raised a heavy eyebrow and glowered into the screen. “In the wards?” he bellowed. “And you couldn’t get them to agree?”

  Maurillo seemed to shrink. “It was the relatives, chief. They were stubborn. The old man, he didn’t seem to give a damn, but the relatives—”

  “Okay. You stay there. I’m coming over to close the deal,” Northrop snapped. He cut the phone out and pulled a couple of blank waiver forms out of his desk, just in case the relatives backed down. Gangrene was gangrene, but ten grand was ten grand. And business was business. The networks were yelling. He had to supply the goods or get out.

  He thumbed the autosecretary. “I want my car ready in thirty seconds. South Street exit.”

  “Yes, Mr. Northrop.”

  “If anyone calls for me in the next half hour, record it. I’m going to Clinton General Hospital, but I don’t want to be called there.”

  “Yes, Mr. Northrop.”

  “If Rayfield calls from the network office, tell him I’m getting him a dandy. Tell him—oh, hell, tell him I’ll call him back in an hour. That’s all.”

  “Yes, Mr. Northrop.”

  Northrop scowled at the machine and left his office. The gravshaft took him down forty stories in almost literally no time flat. His car was waiting, as ordered, a long, sleek ’08 Frontenac with bubble top. Bulletproof, of course. Network producers were vulnerable to crack- pot attacks.

  He sat back, nestling into the plush upholstery. The car asked him where he was going, and he answered.

  “Let’s have a pep pill,” he said.

  A pill rolled out of the dispenser in front of him. He gulped it down. Maurillo, you make me sick, he thought. Why can’t you close a deal without me? Just once?

  He made a menta
l note. Maurillo had to go. The organization couldn’t tolerate inefficiency.

  * * * *

  The hospital was an old one. It was housed in one of the vulgar green-glass architectural monstrosities so popular sixty years before, a tasteless slab-sided thing without character or grace. The main door irised and Northrop stepped through, and the familiar hospital smell hit his nostrils. Most people found it unpleasant, but not Northrop. It was the smell of dollars, for him.

  The hospital was so old that it still had nurses and orderlies. Oh, plenty of mechanicals skittered up and down the corridors, but here and there a middle-aged nurse, smugly clinging to her tenure, pushed a tray of mush along, or a doddering orderly propelled a broom. In his early days on video, Northrop had done a documentary on these people, these living fossils in the hospital corridors. He had won an award for the film, with its crosscuts from baggy-faced nurses to gleaming mechanicals, its vivid presentation of the inhumanity of the new hospitals. It was a long time since Northrop had done a documentary of that sort. A different kind of show was the order of the day now, ever since the intensifiers had come in.

  A mechanical took him to Ward Seven. Maurillo was waiting there, a short, bouncy little man who wasn’t bouncing much now, because he knew he had fumbled. Maurillo grinned up at Northrop, a hollow grin, and said, “You sure made it fast, chief!”

  “How long would it take for the competition to cut in?” Northrop countered. “Where’s the patient?”

  “Down by the end. You see where the curtain is? I had the curtain put up. To get in good with the heirs. The relatives, I mean.”

  “Fill me in,” Northrop said. “Who’s in charge?”

  “The oldest son. Harry. Watch out for him. Greedy.”

  “Who isn’t?” Northrop sighed. They were at the curtain, now. Maurillo parted it. All through the long ward, patients were stirring. Potential subjects for taping, all of them, Northrop thought. The world was so full of different kinds of sickness—and one sickness fed on another.

  He stepped through the curtain. There was a man in the bed, drawn and gaunt, his hollow face greenish, stubbly. A mechanical stood next to the bed, with an intravenous tube running across and under the covers. The patient looked at least ninety. Knocking off ten years for the effects of illness still made him pretty old, Northrop thought.

  He confronted the relatives.

  There were eight of them. Five women, ranging from middle age down to teens. Three men, the oldest about fifty, the other two in their forties. Sons and daughters and nieces and granddaughters, Northrop figured.

  He said gravely, “I know what a terrible tragedy this must be for all of you. A man in the prime of his life—head of a happy family…” Northrop stared at the patient. “But I know he’ll pull through. I can see the strength in him.”

  The oldest relative said, “I’m Harry Gardner. I’m his son. You’re from the network?”

  “I’m the producer,” Northrop said. “I don’t ordinarily come in person, but my assistant told me what a great human situation there was here, what a brave person your father is…”

  The man in the bed slept on. He looked bad.

  Harry Gardner said, “We made an arrangement. Five thousand bucks. We wouldn’t do it, except for the hospital bills. They can really wreck you.”

  “I understand perfectly,” Northrop said in his most unctuous tones. “That’s why we’re prepared to raise our offer. We’re well aware of the disastrous effects of hospitalization on a small family, even today, in these times of protection. And so we can offer—”

  “No! There’s got to be anesthetic!” It was one of the daughters, a round, drab woman with colorless thin lips. “We ain’t going to let you make him suffer!”

  Northrop smiled. “It would only be a moment of pain for him. Believe me. We’d begin the anesthesia immediately after the amputation. Just let us capture that single instant of—”

  “It ain’t right! He’s old, he’s got to be given the best treatment! The pain could kill him!”

  “On the contrary,” Northrop said blandly. “Scientific research has shown that pain is often beneficial in amputation cases. It creates a nerve block, you see, that causes a kind of anesthesia of its own, without the harmful side effects of chemotherapy. And once the danger vectors are controlled, the normal anesthetic procedures can be invoked, and—” He took a deep breath, and went rolling glibly on to the crusher, “with the extra fee we’ll provide, you can give your dear one the absolute finest in medical care. There’ll be no reason to stint.”

  Wary glances were exchanged. Harry Gardner said, “How much are you offering?”

  “May I see the leg?” Northrop countered.

  The coverlet was peeled back. Northrop stared.

  It was a nasty case. Northrop was no doctor, but he had been in this line of work for five years, and that was long enough to give him an amateur acquaintance with disease. He knew the old man was in bad shape. It looked as though there had been a severe burn, high up along the calf, which had probably been treated only with first aid. Then, in happy proletarian ignorance, the family had let the old man rot until he was gangrenous. Now the leg was blackened, glossy, and swollen from midcalf to the ends of the toes. Everything looked soft and decayed. Northrop had the feeling that he could reach out and break the puffy toes off, one at a time.

  The patient wasn’t going to survive. Amputation or not, he was probably rotten to the core by this time, and if the shock of amputation didn’t do him in, general debilitation would. It was a good prospect for the show. It was the kind of stomach-turning vicarious suffering that millions of viewers gobbled up avidly.

  Northrop looked up and said, “Fifteen thousand if you’ll allow a network-approved surgeon to amputate under our conditions. And we’ll pay the surgeon’s fee besides.”

  “Well…”

  “And we’ll also underwrite the entire cost of postoperative care for your father,” Northrop added smoothly. “Even if he stays in the hospital for six months, we’ll pay every nickel, over and above the telecast fee.”

  He had them. He could see the greed shining in their eyes. They were faced with bankruptcy, and he had come to rescue them, and did it matter all that much if the old man didn’t have anesthetic when they sawed his leg off? He was hardly conscious even now. He wouldn’t really feel a thing, not really.

  Northrop produced the documents, the waivers, the contracts covering residuals and Latin-American reruns, the payment vouchers, all the paraphernalia. He sent Maurillo scuttling off for a secretary, and a few moments later a glistening mechanical was taking it all down.

  “If you’ll put your name here, Mr. Gardner…”

  Northrop handed the pen to the eldest son. Signed, sealed, delivered.

  “We’ll operate tonight,” Northrop said. “I’ll send our surgeon over immediately. One of our best men. We’ll give your father the care he deserves.”

  He pocketed the documents. It was done. Maybe it was barbaric to operate on an old man that way, Northrop thought, but he didn’t bear the responsibility, after all. He was just giving the public what it wanted, and the public wanted spouting blood and tortured nerves. And what did it matter to the old man, really? Any experienced medic could tell you he was as good as dead. The operation wouldn’t save him. Anesthesia wouldn’t save him. If the gangrene didn’t get him, postoperative shock would do him in. At worst, he would suffer only a few minutes under the knife, but at least his family would be free from the fear of financial ruin.

  On the way out, Maurillo said, “Don’t you think it’s a little risky, chief? Offering to pay the hospitalization expenses, I mean?”

  “You’ve got to gamble a little sometimes to get what you want,” Northrop said.

  “Yeah, but that could run to fifty, sixty thousand! What‘ll that do to the budget?�
��

  Northrop shrugged. “We’ll survive. Which is more than the old man will. He can’t make it through the night. We haven’t risked a penny, Maurillo. Not a stinking cent.”

  * * * *

  Returning to the office, Northrop turned the papers on the Gardner amputation over to his assistants, set the wheels in motion for the show, and prepared to call it a day. There was only one bit of dirty work left to do. He had to fire Maurillo.

  It wasn’t called firing, of course. Maurillo had tenure, just like the hospital orderlies and everyone else below executive rank. It was more a demotion than anything else. Northrop had been increasingly dissatisfied with the little man’s work for months, now, and today had been the clincher. Maurillo had no imagination. He didn’t know how to close a deal. Why hadn’t he thought of underwriting the hospitalization? If I can’t delegate responsibility to him, Northrop told himself, I can’t use him at all. There were plenty of other assistant producers in the outfit who’d be glad to step in.

  Northrop spoke to a couple of them. He made his choice. A young fellow named Barton, who had been working on documentaries all year. Barton had done the plane-crash deal in London in the spring. He had a fine touch for the gruesome. He had been on hand at the World’s Fair fire last year in Juneau. Yes, Barton was the man.

  The next part was the sticky one. Northrop phoned Maurillo, even though Maurillo was only two rooms away—these things were never done in person—and said, “I’ve got some good news for you, Ted. We’re shifting you to a new program.”

  “Shifting…?”

  “That’s right. We had a talk in here this afternoon, and we decided you were being wasted on the blood and guts show. You need more scope for your talents. So we’re moving you over to Kiddie Time. We think you’ll really blossom there. You and Sam Kline and Ed Bragan ought to make a terrific team.”