by Earl
l Roy lowered the paper he had been staring at for an hour. He had seen something in its technicality that made his brain swim. He looked at the clock, then dashed from the room out into the corridor. At the nearby intersection, he stopped before a huge board which was a directory of the dwelling places of all people within a certain area. He found what he wanted and picked his way through the throngs (there were always people in the main corridor except in the late “night” hours).
Finally he swerved from the main avenue and traversed a less frequented one that penetrated into the residence section. At Number 42 he stopped and pressed the door button. He trembled a bit with excitement.
The door swung inward to reveal a young woman who gazed at him with surprise.
“Pardon me,” said Roy, recovering from a momentary shock at her beauty, “May I speak to Mr. Delahre?”
“Have you an appointment?” asked the girl, her voice bell-like.
“No. But, please, will you tell him it’s very important?”
The girl, she could not have been more than nineteen, hesitated as though in doubt what to do. “My father—I’m Vina Delahre, you see—usually dislikes . . . She broke off at the disappointment in Roy’s face. “But come in and FU tell him you’re here. Your name?”
He told her and she left the parlor, after offering him a seat, passing to the rear quarters of the residence. Mr. Delahre, sectional head of the entire Food Department, was abrupt.
“No appointment? Send him on his way.”
“But, father. . . .”
“You know the rules, and you know my dislike of evening interruptions, Vina. Tell him to get an authorized appointment from his superintendent.”
The girl hesitated, thinking of how disappointed the young stranger would be. “But, father, he seems to have something very important to say!”
Delahre looked at his daughter sharply. “Strange that you should pursue his case. Is he some friend of yours?”
Vina shook her head, blushing, but looked pleased as her father finally said, with a sigh of resignation, “Well, all right, I’ll see him.”
They strode to the parlor. “Well, young man,” said Delahre in his business-like voice, “what is it? You know, this is a poor time to trouble me with any little matter . . .
“But it’s not a little matter, sir!” broke in Roy. “If you will pardon my audacity. . . .”
“Go ahead,” said Delahre with a resigned air, tossing himself into a chair. Roy took a deep breath, looked at the girl to find friendly encouragement in her eyes, and began.
“I work in the Food Department, sir, testing fruits. I’ve been doing it since a year after maturity; the first year I worked in a surface machine. Naturally, I’ve seen a great deal of fruits and learned quite a bit about them.”
“And you are dissatisfied with the work, and want a change . . .” said Delahre, half arising as though the matter were too trivial for further discussion.
“Nothing of the kind, sir!” rang out Roy, flushing. Vina darted a disapproving look at her father. Mr. Delahre sank back in his chair and raised his eyebrows.
“I told that about myself so that you would see I’ve had considerable experience in my work,” continued Roy. “This is what I want to say. Yesterday, looking over my report sheet on a tray of fruit samples, I saw something significant in their analysis. And today I noticed the same thing. I speak of a certain progression of properties in the fruits that lead to a very important conclusion. In fact, my idea is that by the careful examination of a large variety of these fruits—which all have resulted from the cross-blending activity of freak fungi—we may be able to solve certain secrets about the mutation laws. . . .”
At the blank look in Delahre’s face, Roy broke off and eagerly pulled his report sheet from his pocket.
“Look at this, sir. It will help you to follow what I will say. You notice on that sheet a list of fruits, all numbered. Now notice: the report gives, along with vitamin degree and nutrition value, the so-called ‘fungi-degree.’ Now this fungi-degree may be likened to fecundity, or the power to reproduce. All plants possess it, but in different strengths. Thus, one type of plant will crowd out another in a given area of ground because of its higher fungi-degree, or ability to reproduce rapidly and invincibly.”
Roy stood over Delahre’s shoulder and pointed as he spoke:
“Now on this sheet, take the items in this order: No. 6, low fungi-degree; No. 17, a bit more; No. 11, more yet; etc., each but little greater than the other. But look at No. 3, fungi-degree ten times greater than any other!”
“And the deduction?” urged Delahre, slightly interested.
“This—that now and then the haphazard interbreeding that goes on outside on the surface produces a plant with a high fungi-degree. And I think that systematic research should finally discover a fruit plant with a fecundity so high, that, sown widely, would be able to successfully compete with and crowd out the freak fungus that sucks oxygen from the atmosphere!”
l Delahre sprang to his feet with a sharp exclamation. “Preposterous! Unbelievable! Do you think our trained botanists have been idle? Don’t you know—surely you must—that they have long hoped to conquer that same fungus, and have never succeeded? How then can you, a mere youth, know of a way?”
“Yes, I do know that the botanists tried the same thing. But their methods, to my mind, are basically wrong! They wish to destroy the plant by chemical means—an impossibly gigantic project. My idea, as you can readily see, fights fire with fire. Once we can formulate the mutation laws . . . .”
Delahre waved a deprecating hand. “You speak of impossibilities!”
Roy became white of face. Vina ran to her father to calm his violent opposition. Then Roy spoke. “I can’t promise results, Mr. Delahre, but if you will authorize my release from fruit testing and give me a botanical laboratory to work in, I will report in a month’s time whether it is impossible or not!”
Delahre opened his mouth for an emphatic “No,” but Vina spoke ahead of him. “Father, you must give him a chance! Don’t you see what it will mean if he succeeds? It will mean the release of our bondage—the human race will once again live on the surface!”
Roy darted her a look of deep gratitude. The girl went on, seeing her father hesitate, “At least, it’s worth a trial. Its success means everything; its failure would cause no harm!”
Delahre stroked his chin reflectively. It was not his habit to grant “whims” to young people who thought they were geniuses. But even his methodical, unimaginative mind could see the truth in his daughter’s words.
“All right,” he said finally, relieving the tenseness of the situation. “Go through your work tomorrow as usual. But day after report to me at my headquarters in the botanical building. I’ll give you a month’s release, no more, from routine duty, and assign you a laboratory to work in. Don’t ask for more.”
With that, the sectional head left the room. Roy, his forehead beaded with the sweat of excitement, turned to the girl. “I don’t know how to thank you, Miss Delahre, for your help. . . . I. . . .”
“Don’t thank me,” breathed the girl. “Just. . . . just succeed, that’s all.”
Their eyes met. Something, like a little current, seemed to leap between them.
“I’ll succeed, then, if only because you want me to.” And with that, Roy made for the door. He swung it open and dashed out, to bump full tilt into a man who had been in the act of ringing the bell. Staggering back, the newcomer’s face clouded in anger as he looked at Roy.
“You blundering fool! One would think you would come out less blindly!”
Roy’s words of pardon choked in his throat. Fist clenched, he took a step forward to avenge the stranger’s insulting words, despite his impressive size and weight, but a soft hand held him back.
“Oh—it’s you, Max!” Vina stood between them, perfectly aware of their hostility. “Oh, Mr. Cantwell, meet Mr. Spardo . . .
Roy dropped his anger and exten
ded his hand, but the other man walked past him into the parlor, muttering under his breath. Vina breathed a farewell to Roy, threw him an enigmatic smile, and slipped back into the room. Roy stared at the closed door a moment, then walked rapidly toward his home.
CHAPTER III
The Search for the “Grand Law”
l “Who is that fellow?” asked Max Spardo of the girl as she stood before him. “And what was he here for?” The green of jealousy fairly radiated from him. He had been a constant caller at the Delahre home for some years.
Vina looked at his frowning face coldly. “He is Roy Cantwell, if you want to know. As for the reason he’s here, I don’t feel free to discuss his affairs.”
Max Spardo frowned still more. “Is he perhaps some new friend of yours that you picked up in the corridor?”
The girl flushed at the insinuating words. “That’s an insult, Max Spardo, and . . .
“Oh, now, don’t take me seriously,” retracted the man, seeing he had said too much. He smiled. “Come, forget about it. You know, you promised to have a dance or two with me at the Plaza. Let’s go.”
Vina shook her head. “If you will excuse me. . . .”
“Then there is something between you and that fellow!” cried Max, suddenly angry again.
“You’re mistaken!”
“Then why do you refuse to come with me?”
“Because I choose to.”
The man, who might be thirty in years, grasped her by the shoulders, looking into her unwilling eyes. “What has come over you, Vina? Till tonight you were only too glad to enjoy my company. Now. . . .”
The girl broke from his hands and ran from the room into the rear chambers. The deserted suitor drew up his lips in fury. “This will bear investigation. . . .”
l It was the second day of Roy’s establishment as experimenter in the botanical laboratories of the Food Department, when the door to the room opened and Vina walked in.
“Close that door behind you, because. . . .”
Roy, speaking before looking around, suddenly spied who it was.
“Because what?” said the girl, laughing at his confusion.
“Because I have dangerous fungi spores here, and if they ever got out of this room into the gardens, it would be disastrous.” He referred to the extensive gardens outside the building where certain vegetables were grown whose vitamins were very important to human life. These vitamins could not always be found in the products scavenged from the surface.
“But how is it you’re here?” asked Roy. “Do you. . . .?”
“Yes, I work in this building, too,” finished the girl. “At the sorting tables.”
Roy’s face lit up. “Then you can drop in for a visit every day!”
“If you care to be bothered,” teased the girl.
“Bother me all you want,” countered Roy in the spirit of fun.
But this time, Vina was confused. She became serious. “Are you getting any results?”
Roy wrinkled his brow. “No. . . . nothing as yet, but I’m not losing hope. I know, I positively feel it, that there’s a great secret behind that maze of freak fruits from the surface. And I’m going to solve it,” he ended with stubborn finality, as though someone had scorned his efforts.
“I hope you do,” almost whispered the girl. She retreated to the door. “Got to go back to work. Our superintendent, although he isn’t as strict as some I’ve heard about, has a sharp eye. I’ll try to drop in every day, as long as you invited me to.
But if you still remember the number of our home. . . .”
The door closed and Roy turned back to his work humming. Hardly had he glanced at the array of dozens of report sheets of fruit analysis spread on a table before him—he had been going through hundreds of the reports both that day and the day before—than the door opened again.
Max Spardo, a smile on his lips, approached Roy.
“Mr. Cantwell, I come to tender my apologies for my hasty anger that time we first met. You will pardon me, and shake my hand as a friend?”
Roy gripped his hand, but saw through Spardo’s affectation. “Quite all right, Mr. Spardo.”
“You are doing research?”
“Of a sort,” answered Roy, feeling suddenly unwilling to confide in the man. His manner was too ingratiating, his eyes too beady and inquisitive. He seemed to have Spanish blood in him, by his dark complexion.
“You expect to develop a higher-vitamin vegetable, perhaps?” asked Spardo, again flashing a teeth-revealing smile.
“No, entirely different line than that,” returned Roy tersely. Then he pressed his lips together, determined to reveal no more.
“Ah, a secret research!” said the other with veiled sarcasm. He saw the glass jar of spores at the corner of the table. “Fungus spores! How interesting!”
l Roy observed a stony silence, hoping that the other would take the hint and remove himself from the room. But Spardo seemed unconscious of hostility.
“Dangerous things, these spores. I’ve had experience with them. Their marvelous fecundity is like a blast of atomic power. Are those of the oxygen-consuming variety?”
Roy turned slowly around and faced the man. “We shook hands but a moment ago in friendship. I’d advise you not to endanger that agreement by too much pointless curiosity.”
Spardo lost his grin. “Let me tell you something, Cantwell,” said he, dropping his cloak of geniality. “You might remember henceforth that it will be to your advantage not to cultivate your acquaintance with a certain young lady . . .
He was gone then and Roy resumed his work with a shrug of his shoulders. For two days, he had sat slumped over the table examining stacks of analysis, making notes of the results. He knew that he would first need a comprehensive knowledge of the fungi-degrees of many fruits before he could attempt to grow any new varieties. He had put in a request for an experienced horticulturist who would carry out his plans as he made them. The superintendent had promised the assistant the next day. Then the real work would begin.
Next day Vina again visited him for a few minutes, and every day succeeding. And before many days had passed, Roy became an occasional visitor at the Delahre residence. One evening, as he left Vina after a pleasant chat, a figure separated itself from the crowd and touched his arm.
It was Spardo. “Come over to that side corridor,” he barked.
Roy followed, determined to once and for all settle matters between them. The fellow seemed to think he had a priority over Villa’s affections, and it would be best to teach him otherwise.
“Now, Cantwell, you disregarded my warning . . .
“Warning?” burst in Roy with a short laugh. “You are humorous.”
Spardo’s eyes flashed fire. “Yes, warning. And I give you another: I consider your attentions to Vina obnoxious, and if you persist in them, you will regret it to the end of your days!”
“Is that all you have to say?”
“I’m not a man to trifle with,” added Spardo with an ugly laugh.
Roy snapped his fingers and left without another word. But a cold rage smoldered in his breast that the man could be so audacious. “Next time that fellow stops me, I’ll smash his face, and take the punishment for street fighting!”
But for several weeks, Spardo made no further attempts to intimidate the younger man. In that time, Roy, with the help of his assistants, produced various new freaks of plant life, speeding up the mutations with artificial conditions. But the type he wanted seemed to elude his efforts with malign spite. And the Grand Law, as he called it, that regulated the crossbreedings like an unseen spirit, seemed to dance just beyond reach of his probing mind. It was a law that, once known, would guide his future efforts and enable him to produce the type he wanted. And the type he wanted was a blend between a harmless fruit plant and a high fungi-degree freak.
CHAPTER IV
Escape in a Tripod-Car
l “You look worried,” Vina told Roy as he entered the parlor.
�
��I am,” admitted Roy. “Vina, I need an extension of time. It’s only three days till the month is up, and I see that I can’t finish in that time.”
It was an unvoiced plea for the girl’s help in getting an extension of time from her father. She turned serious eyes on him and they were troubled.
“Father is a stern man. He said that he wouldn’t give you more than a month. But I’ll try, Roy, not just for your sake, but for the sake of all humanity. Oh, what am I saying!—I must not merely try, I must do it! I believe in you and your work, Roy, and it must go on!”
“You’re just. . . . just wonderful!” murmured Roy. For a moment they swayed toward each other. Then the girl broke from the spell.
“Go now, Roy. Father’s in his study. I’ll fix it up. I’ll be in your laboratory early tomorrow and tell you about it.”
Roy left, but not for bed. Instead, he went back to his work. He had done it many times before—worked half and sometimes all night long, or what goes for night in a constantly lit underground city.
He was not there many hours before the door opened stormily and three police entered. “Sorry, Mr. Cantwell. You are under arrest!”
“Good God! What for?”
“One of the gardens is impregnated with fungi.”
Roy could do nothing. The police, acting under orders, conducted him to the detention building. Not an hour later, he was called to court. Here it was explained to him that an acre of garden, just outside the building nearest his laboratory, had suddenly become infested with the fungus of which he alone had the spores.
The judge was firm and unsympathetic. “The garden is ruined. It will mean a shortage of vitamins till the fungus is eradicated. They are from the spores in your laboratory. Therefore you are guilty—whether it was accidental or not—of crime. The sentence will be announced within three days. The lightest it can be will be an eighteen-hour working day for the next ten years of your life. If, however, we find that some of those spores have impregnated other sections of garden, your sentence will be death!”