by Various
He said, "This is the last will and testament of Samuel Chipfellow, deceased. As his lawyer, it becomes my duty to--"
An angry murmur went up from those assembled. Exclamations of impatience. "Come on! Get on with it. Quit making a speech and read the will, we can't wait all day!"
"Quiet, please, and give me your closest attention. I will read slowly so all may hear. This is Mr. Chipfellow's last testament:
"I, Samuel B. Chipfellow, have made a great deal of money during my active years. The time now comes when I must decide what will become of it after my death. I have made my decision, but I remain in the peculiar position of still not knowing what will become of it. Frankly, I'm of the opinion that no one will ever benefit from it--that it will remain in the place I have secreted it until the end of time."
A murmur went up from the crowd.
"A treasure hunt!" someone cried. "I wonder if they'll distribute maps!"
Carter Hagen raised his hand. "Please! Let's have a little more order or the reading will not continue."
The room quieted and Hagen's droning voice was again raised:
"This place consists of a vault I have had erected upon my grounds. This vault, I assure you, is burglar-proof, weather-proof, cyclone-proof, tornado-proof, bomb-proof. Time will have no effect upon its walls. It could conceivably be thrown free in some great volcanic upheaval but even then the contents would remain inaccessible.
"There is only one way the vault can be opened. Its lock is sensitized to respond to a thought. That's what I said--a thought. I have selected a single, definite, clear-cut thought to which the combination will respond.
"There is a stone bench in front of the vault door and I decree that any person who wishes, may sit down on this bench and direct his or her thought at the door. If it is the correct one, the door will open and the person causing this to happen shall then be the possessor of all my worldly wealth which lies inside.
"Because of the number of persons who will no doubt wish to try their luck, I decree further that each shall be given thirty seconds in which to project their thought. A force of six men shall be hired to supervise the operation and handle the crowds in the neighborhood of the vault. A trust fund has been already set up to pay this group. The balance of my wealth lies awaiting the lucky thinker in the vault--all save this estate itself, an item of trifling value in comparison to the rest, which I bequeath to the State with the stipulation that the other terms of the will are rigidly carried out.
"And so, good luck to everyone in the world. May one of you succeed in opening my vault--although I doubt it. Samuel B. Chipfellow. P.S. The thought-throwing shall begin one week after the reading of the will. I add this as a precaution to keep everyone from rushing to the vault after this will is read. You might kill each other in the stampede. S. B. C."
There was a rush regardless. Reporters knocked each other down getting to the battery of phones set up to carry the news around the world. And Sam Chipfellow's will pushed all else off the video screens and the front pages.
* * * * *
During the following weeks, millions were made through the sale of Chipfellow's thought to the gullible. Great commercial activity began in the area surrounding the estate as arrangements were made to accommodate the hundreds of thousands who were heading in that direction.
A line began forming immediately at the gate to Chipfellow's Folly and a brisk market got under way in positions therein. The going figure of the first hundred positions was in the neighborhood of ten thousand dollars. A man three thousand thoughts away was offered a thousand dollars two days before the week was up, and on the last day, the woman at the head of the line sold her position for eighteen thousand dollars.
There were many learned roundtables and discussions as to the nature of Chipfellow's thought. The majority leaned to the belief that it would be scientific in nature because Chipfellow was the world's greatest scientist.
This appeared to give scientifically trained brains the edge and those fortunate in this respect spent long hours learning what they could of Chipfellow's life, trying to divine his performance in the realm of thought.
So intense was the interest created that scarcely anyone paid attention to the activities of Chipfellow's closer relatives. They sued to break the will but met with defeat. The verdict was rendered speedily, after which the judge who made the ruling declared a recess and bought the eleven thousandth position in line for five hundred dollars.
On the morning of the appointed day, the gates were opened and the line moved toward the vault. The first man took his seat on the bench. A stopwatch clicked. A great silence settled over the watchers. This lasted for thirty seconds after which the watch clicked again. The man got up from the bench eighteen thousand dollars poorer.
The vault had not opened.
Nor did it open the next day, the next, nor the next. A week passed, a month, six months. And at the end of that time it was estimated that more than twenty-five thousand people had tried their luck and failed.
Each failure was greeted with a public sigh of relief--relief from both those who were waiting for a turn and those who were getting rich from the commercial enterprises abutting upon the Chipfellow estate.
There was a motel, a hotel, a few night clubs, a lot of restaurants, a hastily constructed bus terminal, an airport and several turned into parking lots at a dollar a head.
The line was a permanent thing and it was soon necessary to build a cement walk because the ever-present hopeful were standing in a ditch a foot deep.
There also continued to be an active business in positions, a group of professional standers having sprung up, each with an assistant to bring food and coffee and keep track of the ever fluctuating market in positions.
And still no one opened Chipfellow's vault.
It was conceded that the big endowment funds had the inside track because they had the money to hire the best brains in the world; men who were almost as able scientifically as had been Chipfellow himself but unfortunately hadn't made as much money. The monied interests also had access to the robot calculators that turned out far more plausible thoughts than there were positions in the line.
A year passed. The vault remained locked.
* * * * *
By that time the number of those who had tried and failed, and were naturally disgruntled, was large enough to be heard, so a rumor got about that the whole thing was a vast hoax--a mean joke perpetrated upon the helpless public by a lousy old crook who hadn't any money in the first place.
Vituperative editorials were written--by editors who had stood in line and thrown futile thoughts at the great door. These editorials were vigorously rebutted by editors and columnists who as yet had not had a chance to try for the jackpot.
One senator, who had tried and missed, introduced a law making it illegal to sit on a stone bench and hurl a thought at a door.
There were enough congressional failures to pass the law. It went to the Supreme Court, but was tossed out because they said you couldn't pass a law prohibiting a man from thinking.
And still the vault remained closed.
Until Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, farm people impoverished by reverses, spent their last ten dollars for two thoughts and waited out the hours and the days in line. Their daughter Susan, aged nine, waited with them, passing the time by telling her doll fairy tales and wondering what the world looked like to a bird flying high up over a tree top. Susan was glad when her mother and father reached the bench because then they all could go home and see how her pet rabbit was doing.
Mr. Wilson hurled his thought and moved on with drooping shoulders. Mrs. Wilson threw hers and was told to leave the bench. The guard looked at Susan. "Your turn," he said.
"But I haven't got any thought," Susan said. "I just want to go home."
This made no sense to the guard. The line was being held up. People were grumbling. The guard said, "All right, but that was silly. You could have sold your position for good money. Run along
with your mother and father."
Susan started away. Then she looked at the vault which certainly resembled a mausoleum and said, "Wait--I have too got a little thought," and she popped onto the bench.
The guard frowned and snapped his stop watch.
Susan screwed her eyes tight shut. She tried to see an angel with big white wings like she sometimes saw in her dreams and she also tried to visualize a white-haired, jolly-faced little man as she considered Mr. Chipfellow to be. Her lips moved soundlessly as she said,
Dear God and all the angels--please have pity on poor Mr. Chipfellow for dying and please make him happy in heaven.
Then Susan got off the bench quickly to run after her mother and father who had not waited.
There was the sound of metal grinding upon metal and the great door was swinging open.
THE END
* * *
Contents
THE GREEN BERET
By Tom Purdom
It's not so much the decisions a man does make that mark him as a Man--but the ones he refrains from making. Like the decision "I've had enough!"
Read locked the door and drew his pistol. Sergeant Rashid handed Premier Umluana the warrant.
"We're from the UN Inspector Corps," Sergeant Rashid said. "I'm very sorry, but we have to arrest you and bring you in for trial by the World Court."
If Umluana noticed Read's gun, he didn't show it. He read the warrant carefully. When he finished, he said something in Dutch.
"I don't know your language," Rashid said.
"Then I'll speak English." Umluana was a small man with wrinkled brow, glasses and a mustache. His skin was a shade lighter than Read's. "The Inspector General doesn't have the power to arrest a head of state--especially the Premier of Belderkan. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must return to my party."
In the other room people laughed and talked. Glasses clinked in the late afternoon. Read knew two armed men stood just outside the door. "If you leave, Premier, I'll have to shoot you."
"I don't think so," Umluana said. "No, if you kill me, all Africa will rise against the world. You don't want me dead. You want me in court."
Read clicked off the safety.
"Corporal Read is very young," Rashid said, "but he's a crack shot. That's why I brought him with me. I think he likes to shoot, too."
Umluana turned back to Rashid a second too soon. He saw the sergeant's upraised hand before it collided with his neck.
"Help! Kidnap."
Rashid judo chopped him and swung the inert body over his shoulders. Read pulled a flat grenade from his vest pocket. He dropped it and yellow psycho gas hissed from the valve.
"Let's be off," Rashid said.
The door lock snapped as they went out the window. Two men with rifles plunged into the gas; sighing, they fell to the floor in a catatonic trance.
A little car skimmed across the lawn. Bearing the Scourge of Africa, Rashid struggled toward it. Read walked backward, covering their retreat.
The car stopped, whirling blades holding it a few inches off the lawn. They climbed in.
"How did it go?" The driver and another inspector occupied the front seat.
"They'll be after us in half a minute."
The other inspector carried a light machine gun and a box of grenades. "I better cover," he said.
"Thanks," Rashid said.
The inspector slid out of the car and ran to a clump of bushes. The driver pushed in the accelerator. As they swerved toward the south, Read saw a dozen armed men run out of the house. A grenade arced from the bushes and the pursuers recoiled from the cloud that rose before them.
"Is he all right?" the driver asked.
"I don't think I hurt him." Rashid took a syrette from his vest pocket. "Well, Read, it looks like we're in for a fight. In a few minutes Miaka Station will know we're coming. And God knows what will happen at the Game Preserve."
Read wanted to jump out of the car. He could die any minute. But he had set his life on a well-oiled track and he couldn't get off until they reached Geneva.
"They don't know who's coming," he said. "They don't make them tough enough to stop this boy."
Staring straight ahead, he didn't see the sergeant smile.
* * * * *
Two types of recruits are accepted by the UN Inspector Corps: those with a fanatic loyalty to the ideals of peace and world order, and those who are loyal to nothing but themselves. Read was the second type.
A tall, lanky Negro he had spent his school days in one of the drab suburbs that ring every prosperous American city. It was the home of factory workers, clerks, semiskilled technicians, all who do the drudge work of civilization and know they will never do more. The adults spent their days with television, alcohol and drugs; the young spent their days with gangs, sex, television and alcohol. What else was there? Those who could have told him neither studied nor taught at his schools. What he saw on the concrete fields between the tall apartment houses marked the limits of life's possibilities.
He had belonged to a gang called The Golden Spacemen. "Nobody fools with me," he bragged. "When Harry Read's out, there's a tiger running loose." No one knew how many times he nearly ran from other clubs, how carefully he picked the safest spot on the battle line.
"A man ought to be a man," he once told a girl. "He ought to do a man's work. Did you ever notice how our fathers look, how they sleep so much? I don't want to be like that. I want to be something proud."
He joined the UN Inspector Corps at eighteen, in 1978. The international cops wore green berets, high buttonless boots, bush jackets. They were very special men.
For the first time in his life, his father said something about his ambitions.
"Don't you like America, Harry? Do you want to be without a country? This is the best country in the world. All my life I've made a good living. Haven't you had everything you ever wanted? I've been a king compared to people overseas. Why, you stay here and go to trade school and in two years you'll be living just like me."
"I don't want that," Read said.
"What do you mean, you don't want that?"
"You could join the American Army," his mother said. "That's as good as a trade school. If you have to be a soldier."
"I want to be a UN man. I've already enlisted. I'm in! What do you care what I do?"
The UN Inspector Corps had been founded to enforce the Nuclear Disarmament Treaty of 1966. Through the years it had acquired other jobs. UN men no longer went unarmed. Trained to use small arms and gas weapons, they guarded certain borders, bodyguarded diplomats and UN officials, even put down riots that threatened international peace. As the UN evolved into a strong world government, the UN Inspector Corps steadily acquired new powers.
Read went through six months training on Madagascar.
Twice he nearly got expelled for picking fights with smaller men. Rather than resign, he accepted punishment which assigned him to weeks of dull, filthy extra labor. He hated the restrictions and the iron fence of regulations. He hated boredom, loneliness and isolation.
And yet he responded with enthusiasm. They had given him a job. A job many people considered important.
He took his turn guarding the still disputed borders of Korea. He served on the rescue teams that patrol the busy Polar routes. He mounted guard at the 1980 World's Fair in Rangoon.
"I liked Rangoon," he even told a friend. "I even liked Korea. But I think I liked the Pole job best. You sit around playing cards and shooting the bull and then there's a plane crash or something and you go out and win a medal. That's great for me. I'm lazy and I like excitement."
* * * * *
One power implied in the UN Charter no Secretary General or Inspector General had ever tried to use. The power to arrest any head of state whose country violated international law. Could the World Court try and imprison a politician who had conspired to attack another nation?
For years Africa had been called "The South America of the Old World." Revolution followed rev
olution. Colonies became democracies. Democracies became dictatorships or dissolved in civil war. Men planted bases on the moon and in four years, 1978-82, ringed the world with matter transmitters; but the black population of Africa still struggled toward political equality.
Umluana took control of Belderkan in 1979. The tiny, former Dutch colony, had been a tottering democracy for ten years. The very day he took control the new dictator and his African party began to build up the Belderkan Army. For years he had preached a new Africa, united, free of white masters, the home of a vigorous and perfect Negro society. His critics called him a hypocritical racist, an opportunist using the desires of the African people to build himself an empire.
He began a propaganda war against neighboring South Africa, promising the liberation of that strife-torn land. Most Negro leaders, having just won representation in the South African Parliament, told him to liberate his own country. They believed they could use their first small voice in the government to win true freedom for their people.
But the radio assault and the arms buildup continued. Early in 1982, South Africa claimed the Belderkan Army exceeded the size agreed to in the Disarmament Treaty. The European countries and some African nations joined in the accusation. China called the uproar a vicious slur on a new African nation. The United States and Russia, trying not to get entangled, asked for more investigation by the UN.
But the evidence was clear. Umluana was defying world law. If he got away with it, some larger and more dangerous nation might follow his precedent. And the arms race would begin again.
The Inspector General decided. They would enter Belderkan, arrest Umluana and try him by due process before the World Court. If the plan succeeded, mankind would be a long step farther from nuclear war.