by Jerry
I threatened to run away.
And lo and behold, but didn’t Mr. Bernard Polaisky pop out of the woodwork and ask for a moment of my time.
“Time is a man-made fabrication,” I said. I loved being pompous and obtuse, though pomposity in a sixteen-year-old is bound to be ludicrous. I know he thought so because he was about to lose his grip on his anonymity and slap me.
“Sit down,” he ordered.
I did. The grass was warm in August and I was spending most of my time outside in the backyard.
“Richard, were all pretty proud of you, you know.”
I knew it, of course, but I had a good, heated feeling in my cheeks and chest on hearing it.
“You’ve proven a number of things for us.”
“I’m ever so glad,” I said as caustically as I could.
He ignored me. “For, more than having merely a photographic memory—if you’ll pardon the layman’s term—you have also developed a power of reasoning, albeit a limited understanding, which has kept a remarkably even pace with your memory. The pills don’t work on everyone, you see.” This was the first confirmation I’d had that I wasn’t alone. But at the time it was no consolation. “In fact, Richard, you’re the only person with extraordinarily high intelligence that has benefited more than just a little from the experiment.”
I was grinning, even though I knew it was an immature way of covering my embarrassment. He didn’t seem to notice. He rambled along in the same vein for several minutes, floundering in a sea of platitudes and eventually running out of words. He smiled, and stared at me.
“Okay,” I said. “So?”
“So what? That’s it, Richard. You wanted to know what was going on, didn’t you? You were observed. You were tested. Though the pills will continue to increase your memory and ability to learn, the cumulative effects from now on will be so small as to be practically negligible. If you must have it crudely, Richard: you worked.”
I . . . worked. Like a rat that can run the maze and avoid the shocks and answer the bell and slap the lever. I worked. Worked, like a goddamn new machine.
Mr. Polaisky was distressed. He smiled as he patted me on the shoulder and tousled my hair. “You see,” he said—because obviously I didn’t—“several important people were concerned that those pills would make everyone in the country a genius and thus leave no one left for the actual manual labor so vital to any society’s viability. But you and the others have proved this worry to be without foundation. There is a limit, Richard. For everyone. Even you. Each person can go just so high, and no higher.
“Do you remember that saturated solution you told me about when we first met? Well, even with the pills, the analogy fits. A little bit frightening, I guess, isn’t it? But you’ll be allowed to stay here and work if you want. Remember, though, you’ll eventually reach the same problem you had before we came into the picture.
“So you see, son, you worked. You’re a hero. A bona fide hero, and your country is grateful.”
I remember screaming at Polaisky and even throwing a well-aimed, perfectly unexpected punch to his mid-section.
I dream of silver bells and cockle shells and Dante’s Hell and wishing wells.
To be truthful, I behaved like a fool. I even vowed eternal revenge until I realized how silly it was. Instead, I continued my work and this time, an active interest was exhibited toward my projects. I also consented to live in Princeton (what a lovely community; I think it’s in New Jersey), and when I grew tired of remembering it all I went on a trip across the country.
And came back.
Because I have a new experiment. Women.
Have you ever sat in a park or walked in a forest or waded in an ocean with a girl who, at that particular moment, is the most beautiful creature in the world, and found you could not keep from commenting sagely on the gold content of salt water, or the average life-span of conifers versus deciduous trees, or the advantages of sod over seed?
Have you ever tried to make friends with another lad who can’t understand a word you’re saying and ends up either laughing at you or beating you up?
When you’re seventeen, a man, a genius, you are—
I am—a bore.
You are lonely.
You can’t be scientific playing a scratch game of baseball. You can’t be wise at a Junior Prom.
Oh hell.
But in this cell . . .
It has dolls and cut-outs and comic books and bubble gum and trading cards; electric trains and television and a radio and college pennants and model cars and a baseball glove and a football. A record player. A tape recorder.
My favorite record was made especially for me. It’s Dad singing “Weep no more, old lady” over and over and over again. Once in a while I think I can catch Mom laughing in the background.
The Government pays me a pension. I built the room myself. I’m a genius, you see, and tend to act a bit weird sometimes. The new experiment is what I told them. I’m trying very hard to remember and forget.
But I’m seventeen. And that’s a very long time.
There are no mirrors (did I tell you how Dad tried to kid me about being a vampire and how it scared me?), and I keep telling myself that my hands are awfully rough from all my work, and that I don’t really have any wrinkles. Or gray hair.
I’m only seventeen.
Do you understand?
I’m only seventeen—I think.
A NICE MORNING DRIVE
Richard S. Foster
It was a fine morning in March 1982. The warm weather and clear sky gave promise of an early spring. Buzz had arisen early that morning, impatiently eaten breakfast and gone to the garage. Opening the door, he saw the sunshine bounce off the gleaming hood of his 15-year-old MGB roadster. After carefully checking the fluid levels, tire pressures and ignition wires, Buzz slid behind the wheel and cranked the engine, which immediately fired to life.
He thought happily of the next few hours he would spend with the car, but his happiness was clouded—it was not as easy as it used to be.
A dozen years ago things had begun changing. First there were a few modest safety and emission improvements required on new cars; gradually these became more comprehensive.
The governmental requirements reached an adequate level, but they didn’t stop; they continued and became more and more stringent. Now there were very few of the older models left, through natural deterioration and . . . other reasons.
The MG was warmed up now and Buzz left the garage, hoping that this early in the morning there would be no trouble. He kept an eye on the instruments as he made his way down into the valley. The valley roads were no longer used very much: the small farms were all owned by doctors and the roads were somewhat narrow for the MSVs (Modern Safety Vehicles).
The safety crusade had been well done at first. The few harebrained schemes were quickly ruled out and a sense of rationality developed. But in the late Seventies, with no major wars, cancer cured and social welfare straightened out, the politicians needed a new cause and once again they turned toward the automobile. The regulations concerning safety became tougher. Cars became larger, heavier, less efficient. They consumed gasoline so voraciously that the United States had had to become a major ally with the Arabian countries. The new cars were hard to stop or maneuver quickly, but they would save your life (usually) in a 5O-mph crash. With 200 million cars on the road, however, few people ever drove that fast anymore.
Buzz zipped quickly to the valley floor, dodging the frequent potholes which had developed from neglect of the seldom-used roads. The engine sounded spot-on and the entire car had a tight, good feeling about it. He negotiated several quick S-curves and reached 6000 in third gear before backing off for the next turn. He didn’t worry about the police down here. No, not the cops . . .
Despite the extent of the safety program. it was essentially a good idea. But unforeseen complications had arisen. People became accustomed to cars which went undamaged in l0-mph collisions. They ga
ve even less thought than before to the possibility of being injured in a crash. As a result, they tended to worry less about clearances and rights-of-way, so that the accident rate went up a steady six percent every year. But the damages and injuries actually decreased, so the government was happy, the insurance industry was happy and most of the car owners were happy. Most of the car owners -the owners of the non-MSV cars were kept busy dodging the less careful MSV drivers, and the result of this mismatch left very few of the older cars in existence. If they weren’t crushed between two 6000-pound sleds on the highway they were quietly priced into the junkyard by the insurance peddlers. And worst of all, they became targets . . .
Buzz was well into his act now, speeding through the twisting valley roads with all the skill he could muster, to the extent that he had forgotten his earlier worries. Where the road was unbroken he would power around the turns in well controlled over-steer, and where the sections were potholed he saw them as devious chicanes to be mastered. He left the ground briefly going over one of the old wooden bridges and later ascertained that the MG would still hit 110 on the long stretch between the old Hanlin and Grove farms. He was just beginning to wind down when he saw it, there in his mirror, a late-model MSV with hand-painted designs covering most of its body (one of the few modifications allowed on post-1980 cars). Buzz hoped it was a tourist or a wayward driver who got lost looking for a gas station. But now the MSV driver had spotted the MG, and with a whoosh of a well muffled, well cleansed exhaust he started the chase . . .
It hadn’t taken long for the less responsible element among drivers to discover that their new MSVs could inflict great damage on an older car and go unscathed themselves. As a result some drivers would go looking for the older cars in secluded areas, bounce them off the road or into a bridge abutment, and then speed off undamaged, relieved of whatever frustrations cause this kind of behavior. Police seldom patrolled these out-of-the-way places, their attentions being required more urgently elsewhere, and so it became a great sport for some drivers.
Buzz wasn’t too worried yet. This had happened a few times before, and unless the MSV driver was an exceptionally good one, the MG could be called upon to elude the other driver without too much difficulty. Yet something bothered him about this gaudy MSV in his mirror, but what was it? Planning carefully, Buzz let the other driver catch up to within a dozen yards or so, and then suddenly shot off down a road to the right. The MSV driver stood on his brakes, skidding 400 feet down the road, made a lumbering U-turn and set off once again after the roadster. The MG had gained a quarter mile in this manner and Buzz was thankful for the radial tires and front and rear anti-roll bars he had put on the car a few years back. He was flying along the twisting road, downshifting, cornering, accelerating and all the while planning his route ahead. He was confident that if he couldn’t outrun the MSV then he could at least hold it off for another hour or more, at which time the MSV would be quite low on gas. But what was it that kept bothering him about the other car?
They reached a straight section of the road and Buzz opened it up all the way and held it.
The MSV was quite a way back but not so far that Buzz couldn’t distinguish the tall antenna standing up from the back bumper. Antenna! Not police, but perhaps a Citizen’s Band radio in the MSV? He quaked slightly and hoped it was not. The straight stretch was coming to an end now and Buzz put off braking to the last fraction of a second and then sped through a 75-mph right-hander, gaining ten more yards on the MSV. But less than a quarter mile ahead another huge MSV was slowly pulling across the road and to a stop. It was a CB set.
The other driver had a cohort in the chase. Now Buzz was in trouble. He stayed on the gas until within a few hundred feet when he banked hard and feinted passing to the left. The MSV crawled in that direction and Buzz slipped by on the right, bouncing heavily over a stone on the shoulder. The two MSVs set off in hot pursuit, almost colliding in the process.
Buzz turned right at the first crossroad and then made a quick left, hoping to be out of sight of his pursuers, and in fact he traveled several minutes before spotting one of them on the main road parallel to his lane. At the same time the other appeared in the mirror from around the last corner. By now they were beginning to climb the hills on the far side of the valley and Buzz pressed on for all he was worth, praying that the straining engine would stand up.
He lost track of one MSV when the main road turned away, but could see the other one behind him on occasion. Climbing the old Monument Road, Buzz hoped to have time to get over the top and down the old dirt road to the right, which would be too narrow for his pursuers. Climbing, straining, the water temperature rising, using the entire road, flailing the shift lever back and forth from 3rd to 4th, not touching the brakes but scrubbing off the necessary speed in the corners, reaching the peak of the mountain where the lane to the old fire tower went off to the left . . . but coming up the other side of the hill was the second MSV he had lost track of! No time to get to his dirt road. He made a panicked turn left onto the fire tower road but spun on some loose gravel and struck a tree a glancing blow with his right fender. He came to a stop on the opposite side of the road. the engine stalled. Hurriedly he pushed the starter while the overheated engine slowly came back into life. He engaged 1st gear and sped off up the road, just as the first MSV turned the corner. Dazed though he was, Buzz had the advantage of a very narrow road lined on both sides with trees, and he made the most of it. The road twisted constantly and he stayed in 2nd with the engine between 5000 and 5500. The crash hadn’t seemed to hurt anything and he was pulling away from the MSV. But to where? It hit him suddenly that the road dead-ended at the fire tower, no place to go but back . . .
Still he pushed on and at the top of the hill drove quickly to the far end of the clearing, turned the MG around and waited. The first MSV came flying into the clearing and aimed itself at the sitting MG. Buzz grabbed reverse gear, backed up slightly to feint, stopped, and then backed up at full speed. The MSV, expecting the MG to change direction, veered the wrong way and slid to a stop up against a tree. Buzz was off again, down the fire tower road, and the undamaged MSV set off in pursuit. Buzz’s predicament was unenviable. He was going full tilt down the twisting blacktop with a solid MSV coming up at him. and an equally solid MSV coming down after him. On he went, however, braking hard before each turn and then accelerating back up to 45 in between. Coming down to a particularly tight turn, he saw the MSV coming around it from the other direction and stood on the brakes.
The sudden extreme pressure in the brake lines was too much for the rear brake line which had been twisted somewhat in his spin, and it broke, robbing Buzz of his brakes. In sheer desperation he pulled the handbrake as tightly as it would go and rammed the gear lever into 1st, popping the clutch as he did so. The back end locked solid and broke away, spinning him off the side of the road and miraculously into some bushes, which brought the car to a halt. As he was collecting his senses, Buzz saw the two MSVs, unable to stop in time, ram each other head on at over 40 mph.
It was a long time before Buzz had the MG rebuilt to its original pristine condition of before the chase. It was an even longer time before he went back into the valley for a drive.
Now it was only in the very early hours of the day when most people were still sleeping off the effects of the good life. And when he saw in the papers that the government would soon be requiring cars to be capable of withstanding 75-mph head-on collisions, he stopped driving the MG altogether.
1974
THE GIFT
Chad Oliver
The swollen white sun drifted slowly down toward the horizon, more than eleven light-years from earth. Long black shadows striped the land. The shadows seemed alive, shifting with the strong winds that blew through the undulating grasses and stunted trees of the fifth planet of the Procyon system.
On that vast windswept plain that stretched away to encircling mountains of naked rock, creatures moved. There were squat and heavy-footed grass-
eaters, walking slowly in dense defensive clusters. There were sleek, catlike carnivores, drinkers of the wind, prowling in pairs waiting for the night.
And there were manlike things that could not have been mistaken for men. Hairy they were, with long and powerful arms. They crouched around tiny fires in crude pithouses: round holes dug into the ground and roofed with branches and mud. They worked on their hunting spears and nursed their babies and told lengthy and intricate stories. Sometimes, they laughed. They were waiting for the winds to die.
There was a structure on that plain, a shining alien thing that did not belong. It had been there for half a century, but it was an intrusion. It stood apart and alone, a giant gleaming hemisphere of unyielding glassite.
Around that arching dome, the land was sterile. Nothing grew there and no animals ever came.
Sealed inside the great dome, faintly visible through the thick glassite, there was a small city.
People lived there: isolated, abandoned, forgotten.
There were soft shadows in the city now, indistinct patches of fugitive shade thrown by the lowering sunlight that filtered weakly through the treated glassite dome. Soon, the shadows would be gone and the illumination would be even again.
There was no wind, of course.
The winds never blew in the city.
Lee Melner ran through the pale Colony streets, his heart pounding. The evening shadows had dissolved under the steady thrust of the overhead lights. There was no cover. He simply had to run through the empty lanes, run as fast as he could, and trust to luck.