The First Science Fiction Megapack

by Reginald Bretnor

  Hmmmm—appeal to the FBI? Kennedy couldn’t have control over them—yet. However, if Fraser tried to tip off the FBI, they’d act cautiously, if they investigated at all. They’d have to go slow. And Kennedy would find out in time to do something about it.

  Martinez could help no further. Sworsky had closer contact with Washington. He’d been so thoroughly cleared that they’d be inclined to trust whatever he said. But Sworsky doubted the whole story; like many men who’d suffered through irresponsible Congressional charges, he was almost fanatic about having proof before accusing anyone of anything. Moreover, Kennedy knew that Sworsky was Fraser’s friend; he’d probably be keeping close tabs on the physicist and ready to block any attempts he might make to help. With the backing of a man like Snyder, Kennedy could hire as many detectives as he wanted.

  In fact, whatever the counter-attack, it was necessary to go warily. Kennedy’s threat to get rid of Fraser if the engineer kept working against him was not idle mouthing. He could do it—and, being a fanatic, would.

  But Kennedy, like the demon of legend, would grant one wish—just to salve his own conscience. Only what should the wish be? Another woman? Or merely to be reconciled, artificially, to an otherwise-intolerable situation?

  Judy, Judy, Judy!

  Fraser swore at himself. Damn it to hell, this was a problem in logic. No room for emotion. Of course, it might be a problem without a solution. There are plenty of those.

  He squinted, trying to visualize the office. He thought of burglary, stealing evidence—silly thought. But let’s see, now. What was the layout, exactly? Four suites on one floor of the skyscraper, three of them unimportant offices of unimportant men. And—

  Oh, Lord!

  Fraser sat for a long while, hardly moving. Then he uncoiled himself and ran, downstairs and into the street and to the nearest pay phone. His own line might be tapped—

  “Hello, hello, Juan?… Yes, I know I got you out of bed, and I’m not sorry. This is too bloody important.… Okay, okay.… Look, I want a complete report on the Messenger Advertising Service.… When? Immediately, if not sooner. And I mean complete.… That’s right, Messenger.… Okay, fine. I’ll buy you a drink sometime.”

  “Hello, Jim? Were you asleep too?… Sorry.… But look, would you make a list of all the important men you know fairly well? I need it bad.… No, don’t come over. I think I’d better not see you for a while. Just mail it to me.… All right, so I am paranoid.…”

  * * * *

  Jerome K. Ferris was a large man, with a sense of his own importance that was even larger. He sat hunched in the chair, his head dwarfed by the aluminum helmet, his breathing shallow. Around him danced and flickered a hundred meters, indicator lights, tubes. There was a low humming in the room, otherwise it was altogether silent, blocked and shielded against the outside world. The fluorescent lights were a muted glow.

  Fraser sat watching the greenish trace on the huge oscilloscope screen. It was an intricate set of convolutions, looking more like a plate of spaghetti than anything else. He wondered how many frequencies were involved. Several thousand, at the very least.

  “Fraser,” repeated Kennedy softly into the ear of the hypnotized man. “Colin Fraser. Colin Fraser.” He touched a dial with infinite care. “Colin Fraser. Colin Fraser.”

  The oscilloscope flickered as he readjusted, a new trace appeared. Kennedy waited for a while, then: “Robert Kennedy. Sentiment, Inc. Robert Kennedy. Sentiment, Inc. Robert Kennedy. Sentiment—”

  He turned off the machine, its murmur and glow died away. Facing Fraser with a tight little smile, he said: “All right. Your job is done. Are we even now?”

  “As even, as we’ll ever get, I suppose,” said Fraser.

  “I wish you’d trust me,” said Kennedy with a hint of wistfulness. “I’d have done the job honestly; you didn’t have to watch.”

  “Well, I was interested,” said Fraser.

  “Frankly, I still don’t see what you stand to gain by the doglike devotion of this Ferris. He’s rich, but he’s too weak and short-sighted to be a leader. I’d never planned on conditioning him for my purposes.”

  “I’ve explained that,” said Fraser patiently. “Ferris is a large stockholder in a number of corporations. His influence can swing a lot of business my way.”

  “Yes, I know. I didn’t grant your wish blindly, you realize. I had Ferris studied; he’s unable to harm me.” Kennedy regarded Fraser with hard eyes. “And just in case you still have foolish notions, please remember that I gave him the father-conditioning with respect to myself. He’ll do a lot for you, but not if it’s going to hurt me in any way.”

  “I know when I’m licked,” said Fraser bleakly; “I’m getting out of town as soon as I finish those courses I’m signed up for.”

  Kennedy snapped his fingers. “All right, Ferris, wake up now.”

  Ferris blinked. “What’s been happening?” he asked.

  “Nothing much,” said Kennedy, unbuckling the electrodes. “I’ve taken my readings. Thank you very much for the help, sir. I’ll see that you get due credit when my research is published.”

  “Ah—yes. Yes.” Ferris puffed himself out. Then he put an arm around Fraser’s shoulder. “If you aren’t busy,” he said, “maybe we could go have lunch.”

  “Thanks,” said Fraser. “I’d like to talk to you about a few things.”

  He lingered for a moment after Ferris had left the room. “I imagine this is goodbye for us,” he said.

  “Well, so long, at least. We’ll probably hear from each other again.” Kennedy shook Fraser’s hand. “No hard feelings? I did go to a lot of trouble for you—wangling your introduction to Ferris when you’d named him, and having one of my men persuade him to come here. And right when I’m so infernally busy, too.”

  “Sure,” said Fraser. “It’s all right. I can’t pretend to love you for what you’ve done, but you aren’t a bad sort.”

  “No worse than you,” said Kennedy with a short laugh. “You’ve used the machine for your own ends, now.”

  “Yeah,” said Fraser. “I guess I have.”

  * * * *

  Sworsky asked, “Why do you insist on calling me from drugstores? And why at my office? I’ve got a home phone, you know.”

  “I’m not sure but that our own lines are tapped,” said Fraser. “Kennedy’s a smart cookie, and don’t you forget it. I think he’s about ready to dismiss me as a danger, but you’re certainly being watched; you’re on his list.”

  “You’re getting a persecution-complex. Honest, Colin, I’m worried.”

  “Well, bear with me for a while. Now, have you had any information on Kennedy since I called last?”

  “Hm, no. I did mention to Thomson, as you asked me to, that I’d heard rumors of some revolutionary encephalographic techniques and would be interested in seeing the work. Why did you want me to do that?”

  “Thomson,” said Fraser, “is one of Kennedy’s men. Now look, Jim, before long you’re going to be invited to visit Kennedy. He’ll give you a spiel about his research and ask to measure your brain waves. I want you to say yes. Then I want to know the exact times of the three appointments he’ll give you—the first two, at least.”

  “Hmmm—if Kennedy’s doing what you claim—”

  “Jim, it’s a necessary risk, but I’m the one who’s taking it. You’ll be okay, I promise you; though perhaps later you’ll read of me being found in the river. You see, I got Kennedy to influence a big stockowner for me. One of the lesser companies in which he has a loud voice is Messenger. I don’t suppose Kennedy knows that. I hope not!”

  * * * *

  Sworsky looked as if he’d been sandbagged. He was white, and the hand that poured a drink shook.

  “Lord,” he muttered. “Lord, Colin, you were right.”

 
Fraser’s teeth drew back from his lips. “You went through with it, eh?”

  “Yes. I let the son hypnotize me, and afterward I walked off with a dreamy expression, as you told me to. Just three hours ago, he dropped around here in person. He gave me a long rigmarole about the stupidity of military secrecy, and how the Soviet Union stands for peace and justice. I hope I acted impressed; I’m not much of an actor.”

  “You don’t have to be. Just so you didn’t overdo it. To one of Kennedy’s victims, obeying his advice is so natural that it doesn’t call for any awe-struck wonderment.”

  “And he wanted data from me! Bombardment cross-sections. Critical values. Resonance levels. My Lord, if the Russians found that out through spies it’d save them three years of research. This is an FBI case, all right.”

  “No, not yet.” Fraser laid an urgent hand on Sworsky’s arm. “You’ve stuck by me so far, Jim. Go along a little further.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Why—” Fraser’s laugh jarred out. “Give him what he wants, of course.”

  * * * *

  Kennedy looked up from his desk, scowling. “All right, Fraser,” he said. “You’ve been a damned nuisance, and it’s pretty patient of me to see you again. But this is the last time. Wha’d’you want?”

  “It’s the last time I’ll need to see you, perhaps.” Fraser didn’t sit down. He stood facing Kennedy. “You’ve had it, friend; straight up.”

  “What do you mean?” Kennedy’s hand moved toward his buzzer.

  “Listen before you do anything,” said Fraser harshly. “I know you tried to bring Jim Sworsky under the influence. You asked him for top-secret data. A few hours ago, you handed the file he brought you on to Bryce, who’s no doubt at the Amtorg offices this minute. That’s high treason, Kennedy; they execute people for doing that.”

  The psychologist slumped back.

  “Don’t try to have your bully boys get rid of me,” said Fraser. “Sworsky is sitting by the phone, waiting to call the FBI. I’m the only guy who can stop him.”

  “But—” Kennedy’s tongue ran around his lips. “But he committed treason himself. He gave me the papers!”

  Fraser grinned. “You don’t think those were authentic, do you? I doubt if you’ll be very popular in the Soviet Union either, once they’ve tried to build machines using your data.”

  Kennedy looked down at the floor. “How did you do it?” he whispered.

  “Remember Ferris? The guy you fixed up for me? He owns a share of your next-door neighbor, the Messenger Advertising Service. I fed him a song and dance about needing an office to do some important work, only my very whereabouts had to be secret. The Messenger people were moved out without anybody’s knowing. I installed myself there one night, also a simple little electric oscillator.

  “Encephalography is damn delicate work; it involves amplifications up to several million. The apparatus misbehaves if you give it a hard look. Naturally, your lab and the machine were heavily shielded, but even so, a radio emitter next door would be bound to throw you off. My main trouble was in lousing you up just a little bit, not enough to make you suspect anything.

  “I only worked at that during your calibrating sessions with Sworsky. I didn’t have to be there when you turned the beam on him, because it would be calculated from false data and be so far from his pattern as to have no effect. You told me yourself how precise an adjustment was needed. Sworsky played along, then. Now we’ve got proof—not that you meddled with human lives, but that you are a spy.”

  Kennedy sat without moving. His voice was a broken mumble. “I was going to change the world. I had hopes for all humankind. And you, for the sake of one woman—”

  “I never trusted anybody with a messiah complex. The world is too big to change single-handed; you’d just have bungled it up worse than it already is. A lot of dictators started out as reformers and ended up as mass-executioners; you’d have done the same.”

  Fraser leaned over his desk. “I’m willing to make a deal, though,” he went on. “Your teeth are pulled; there’s no point in turning you in. Sworsky and Martinez and I are willing just to report on Bryce, and let you go, if you’ll change back all your subjects. We’re going to read your files, and watch and see that you do it. Every one.”

  Kennedy bit his lip. “And the machine—?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll settle that later. Okay, God, here’s the phone number of Judy Harkness. Ask her to come over for a special treatment. At once.”

  * * * *

  A month later, the papers had a story about a plausible maniac who had talked his way into the Columbia University laboratories, where Gavotti’s puzzling machine was being studied, and pulled out a hammer and smashed it into ruin before he could be stopped. Taken to jail, he committed suicide in his cell. The name was Kennedy.

  Fraser felt vague regret, but it didn’t take him long to forget it; he was too busy making plans for his wedding.

  THE ISSAHAR ARTIFACTS, by J. F. Bone

  The following manuscript was discovered during the excavation of a lateral connecting link between the North-South streamways in Narhil Province near Issahar on Kwashior. The excavator, while passing through a small valley about 20 yursts south of the city, was jammed by a mass of oxidized and partially oxidized metallic fragments. On most worlds this would not be unusual, but Kwashior has no recorded history of metallic artifacts. The terrestrial operator, with unusual presence of mind, reported the stoppage immediately. Assasul, the District Engineering monitor, realized instantly that no metallic debris should exist in that area, and in consequence ordered a most careful excavation in the event that the artifacts might have cultural significance.

  The debris proved to be the remnants of an ancient spaceship similar to those described in Sector Chronicles IV through VII, but of much smaller size and cruder design—obviously a relic of pre-expansion days. Within the remnants of the ship was found a small box of metal covered with several thicknesses of tar and wax impregnated fabric which had been mostly destroyed. The metal itself was badly oxidized, but served to protect an inner wooden box that contained a number of thin sheets of a fragile substance composed mainly of cellulose which were brown and crumbling with age. The sheets were covered with runes of lingua antiqua arranged in regular rows, inscribed by hand with a carbon-based ink which has persisted remarkably well despite the degenerative processes of time. Although much of the manuscript is illegible, sufficient remains to settle for all time the Dannar-Marraket Controversy and lend important corroborating evidence to the Cassaheb Thesis of Terrestrial migrations.

  The genuineness of this fragment has been established beyond doubt. Radiocarbon dating places its age at ten thousand plus or minus one hundred cycles, which would place it at the very beginning of the Intellectual Emergence. Its importance is beyond question. Its implications are shocking despite the fact that they conform to many of the early legends and form a solid foundation for Dannar’s Thesis which has heretofore been regarded as implausible. In the light of this material, the whole question of racial origins may well have to be reevaluated. Without further comment, the translated text is presented herewith. You may draw your own conclusions. Go with enlightenment.

  —BARRAGON

  Monitor of Cultural Origins and Relics

  Kwashior Central Repository

  * * * *

  I have decided after some thought, to write this journal. It is, I suppose, a form of egotism—for I do not expect that it shall ever be read in the event that I am unable to leave this place. Yet it affords me a certain satisfaction to think that a part of me will remain long after I have returned to dust. In any event, I feel that one is not truly dead if a part of his personality remains. Many of the ancients such as Homer, Phidias, Confucius, Christ, da Vinci, Lincoln, Einstein, Churchill—and many others—live on throug
h their works when otherwise they would long since have been forgotten and thus be truly dead. Earth’s history is full of such examples. And while I have no expectation of an immortality such as theirs, it flatters my ego to think that there will be some part of me which also will survive…

  (Note: There are several lines following this which are obliterated, defaced or unreadable. There are more to follow. In the future such gaps in the content will be indicated thus:…)

  …I expect that it is a basic trait of character, for spacemen must be gregarious, and although I am not truly a spaceman I have been in space and, in consequence, my character is no different from my ex-crewmates—at least in that respect. I think as time passes I shall miss the comfort of companionship, the sense of belonging to a group, the card games, the bull sessions, the endless speculation on what comes next, or what we will do when the voyage is over and we are again on Earth…

  …I particularly recall Gregory. Odd, but I never knew his surname, or maybe it was his given name, for Gregory could function as well in one respect as the other. He would boast continually of what he would do to wine, women, and song once we returned to Earth. Poor Gregory. The meteor that hulled our ship struck squarely through the engine room where he was on duty. Probably he never knew that he had died. At least his fate had the mercy of being brief. Certainly it is not like mine. It was…given…

  There was plenty of time for the survivors to reach the lifeboats, and in our decimated condition there were plenty of boats—which increased our chances of living by a factor of four…I suppose that it was foolish to give way to the feeling of every man for himself but I am not a spaceman trained to react automatically to emergencies. Neither am I a navigator or a pilot, although I can fly in an emergency. I am a biologist, a specialist member of the scientific staff—essentially an individualist. I knew enough to seal myself in, push the eject button and energize the drive. However, I did not know that a lifeboat had no acceleration compensators, and by the time the drive lever returned to neutral, I was far out in space and thoroughly lost. I could detect no lifeboats in the vicinity nor could I raise any on the radio. I later found that a transistor malfunctioned, but by then I was well out of range, stranded between the stars in the black emptiness of space. After reading the manual on lifeboat operation there was but one course open. I selected the nearest G-type star, set the controls on automatic, and went into cold sleep. There was nothing else to do. If I remained awake I would be dead of oxygen starvation long before I reached a habitable world. The only alternative was the half-death of frozen sleep and the long wait until the boat came within range of the sun I had selected.