Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  "Sure," the janitor replied. "He's the one I was telling you about, from room 112."

  The supervisor stood up unsteadily. "I don't feel very well," he said in a weak voice. "I think that I'd better talk this over with the Administrative Officer. It's a policy matter."

  "You come along, too," he said hastily to the janitor, who had turned to leave. "I'll need all the support I can get." He waddled out, followed by the janitor.

  "What should I tell my wife?" George shouted, but they didn't answer, so he went down and told his wife that they were discussing it with the Administrative Officer. And, as anyone could have guessed, a short time later he pushed his head out of the mousehole in the Administrative Office.

  * * * * *

  He was a bit late, just in time to see the door close on the supervisor and the janitor.

  So he shouted, "Hello!" as loud as he could.

  The Administrative Officer looked down and saw him right away. He was a thin pale man with tired eyes.

  "Go away," he said spiritlessly, "I've just told two people that you don't exist."

  "But my wife wants that trap removed--it's dangerous for the children," George complained.

  The Administrative Officer almost shouted to hell with George's children, but basically he was a decent man, even if an overworked one, and he caught himself in time.

  "I'm sorry," he said sincerely, picking up some letters that he had already read, "but we've got to leave the traps."

  "Then what will I tell my wife?" George demanded.

  That stopped the Administrative Officer, too. He buried his head in his hands and thought for a long moment. "Are you sure you really exist?" he asked, finally raising his head from his hands.

  "Sure," George said. "Do you want me to bite you to prove it?"

  "No, you needn't bother," the Administrative Officer said. And then he buried his head in his hands again.

  "Technically," he said, speaking through his fingers, "it's a security problem."

  With an air of relief, he picked up the phone and called the Security Officer. There was a bit of spirited conversation and then he hung up.

  "He'll be right down," the Administrative Officer told George.

  Shortly thereafter, the door violently swung open, and a tall man with piercing eyes entered. "Hello Bill," he said quickly. "How are you feeling?"

  "Hello, Mike," the Administrative Officer replied. "I feel like hell. This is George. I just called you about him."

  "Hello!" George shouted.

  "Hello!" the Security Officer shouted back. "I couldn't find any record of you in the files. Have you been cleared?" he added with a note of urgency in his voice. "Fingerprints, A.E.C., C.C.C., C.A.I., F.B.I.?"

  "No!" George shouted back. "My wife wants the trap by our front door removed. She thinks it's dangerous for the children."

  "Has she been cleared?" the Security Office countered in a loud voice.

  "Why is everybody shouting?" the Administrative Officer asked peevishly. "I've got a headache."

  "No," George answered.

  * * * * *

  The Security Officer's mouth tightened into a thin, grim line. "A major lapse of security," he snapped. "I'll check into this very thoroughly."

  "Will you remove the trap?" George asked.

  "I can't, until you're cleared," the Security Officer said, shaking his head. "I certainly won't authorize any action that could be later construed as aiding the entrance of spies or subversives into the plant."

  "How old are you?" the Administrative Officer asked George.

  "Fifty-six days," George replied without hesitation.

  "Under twelve years," the Administrative Officer pointed out to the Security Officer. "No clearance required."

  "I don't know," the Security Officer said, shaking his head. "There's no precedent for a case like this. I'll be damned if I'll stick my neck out and have that trap removed. I know, I'll send a request for an advisory opinion." He turned and walked toward the door.

  "What should I tell my wife?" George called after him.

  "Tell her that I'm asking the A.E.C. for an opinion, with carbon copies to the Defense Dept. and the F.B.I."

  "Don't forget Immigration & Naturalization," the Administrative Officer said. "There might be a question of citizenship."

  "The hell there is," George said. "Lex locis--I was born here."

  "Well," the Security Officer said as he walked out, "one can't be too careful."

  So, George went and told his wife and, the next morning, he was on the train for Washington. Being telepathic, as all this generation of mice were, he already had contacted some mice who had an 'in' in the government buildings.

  All the way down on the train, he worried about chasing all those carbons in the bureaucratic maze of Washington, but he needn't have.

  As soon as the Security Officer's report was received, the A.E.C. sent a battery of psychiatrists to the plant. After the psychiatrists reported, they, in turn, were sent to another battery of psychiatrists. After that, the A.E.C. called a top-level conference of the Defense Dept., F.B.I. (Dept. Just.), Fish & Wildlife (Dept. Int.), Public Health (Dept. Welf.), Immigration & Naturalization and Alaskan Affairs. The latter turned out to be a mistake.

  * * * * *

  This had taken two weeks, and George had lingered in the walls, impatiently waiting for his chance to testify. Of course, he was in telepathic communication with Clara. He knew that his family were all well, that Clara had made friends with the janitor, also that the trap was still there.

  The janitor no longer put cheese in it, and he didn't set the spring any more, but he still followed his orders and so, every morning, moved it back by the door of the little mousehouse.

  A fat Washington mouse guided George to the mousehole in the conference room. George looked inside and sniffed the smoky air distastefully.

  There were seven men seated at a long table, with a glass of water in front of each. This was a liquid that even George knew was hardly designed to lubricate the way to a quick agreement.

  "Bomb them, I say," the General cried, smashing his fist down on the table. "Hit them hard with atomic weapons. Hit them now, before they have a chance to strike first."

  "But that's one of our best plants," a civilian from the A.E.C. protested. "We don't want to blow it up, not for a few paltry mice."

  "Couldn't we send them to Alaska?" the man from Alaskan Affairs asked timidly, wondering what he was doing there.

  "How about traps?" the man from Fish and Wildlife said. "We have some honeys."

  "But that's just it!" George said in a loud voice, and they all turned to look at him. "My wife would like that trap by our front door removed. She's afraid that it might hurt the children."

  "Who are you?" the man from Immigration & Naturalization demanded sharply.

  "I'm George," George said. "It's my house that has the trap in front of it."

  "What are you doing here?" the man from the F.B.I. demanded. "Spying on a closed meeting!"

  "I'm not spying!" George exclaimed. "I just came to ask you to please remove the trap."

  * * * * *

  The man from the F.B.I. looked at him with something close to pity. "It's not that simple any more," he said. "Don't you realize what a threat you comprise?"

  "No," George said, scampering up the leg of the table and walking to its center. "We're not a threat to anybody. We're just mice. It's not our nature to be a threat to anybody."

  Then, as he looked around the table at the seven huge faces that surrounded him, he immediately saw that they were all scared half to death because he was a mouse, and he had a sudden premonition that he would not come out of the meeting alive. So he opened his mind to let his family and all the other telepathic mice hear everything that was happening.

  "Don't tell me you don't fully realize," the Fish and Wildlife man demanded sarcastically, trying to hide his terror beneath a blustering tone, "that from one mouse, your great-great-grandfather Michael, there
must be now at least twelve billion descendants--or six times the human population of Earth!"

  "No, I didn't know," George said, interested despite himself.

  "Don't tell me it never occurred to you," the man from the F.B.I. said, shaking a finger at him, while George could see that he kept the other hand on the revolver in his pocket, "that you mice have access to and could destroy every secret file we have!"

  "No, it didn't," George said, shrinking from that huge, shaking finger. "We mice would never destroy anything uselessly."

  "Or that you could cut the wires on any plane, tank, vehicle, train or ship, rendering it completely inoperable!" the General broke in, slamming a meaty palm down on the table so hard that George was thrown over on his back.

  "Of course it never occurred to me!" George said, climbing rockily back on his feet. "We mice wouldn't think of such a thing. Don't be afraid," he pleaded, but it was no use. He could feel the panic in their breasts.

  "Didn't you ever consider that you could cut every cable, telephone line, power line, and telegraph line from the States to Alaska?" the man from Alaskan Affairs said, just for the sake of saying something. Then, to show his bravery and defiance, he took his glass of water and emptied it on George. It was ice water, and poor George, dripping wet, began to tremble uncontrollably.

  "I suppose you never considered that you could sabotage and blow up every atomic plant we have," the man from the A.E.C. said, before George even had a chance to answer Alaskan Affairs. And, working himself into a rage to overcome his fear, he emptied his glass of ice water on the trembling mouse.

  * * * * *

  George began to weep. "It never occurred to me," he sobbed. "We mice aren't like that."

  "Nonsense!" the General said. "It's the unchanging law of nature. We must kill you or you will kill us. And we'll start by killing you!" The General roared louder than all the rest because he was the most frightened.

  His hand, huge and terrible, swept swiftly down on poor, wet, weeping George. But the General really didn't know mouse tactics very well, because George was down the leg of the table and halfway to the mousehole before the huge hand struck the table with a noisy bang.

  And poor George, frightened half out of his wits, scooted into the mousehole and ran and ran without stopping, through the mouseways as fast as he could, until he reached the train. But, of course, the train was no longer moving. All the telepathic mice had cut every cable, telephone line, power line and telegraph line, had also cut the wires on every plane, tank, vehicle, train and ship. They also had destroyed every file in the world.

  So George had no alternative but to walk back to the plant, which had been preserved as a memorial to great-great-grandfather Michael.

  * * * * *

  It took him three weary weeks to make it, and the first thing he noticed when he got there was the trap in front of the door. Naturally, there was no bait in it and the spring wasn't set, but the trap was still there.

  "George," Clara said to him the moment after she kissed him, "you must speak to the janitor about the trap."

  So George went outside right away, since he could hear the janitor swish-swashing the dust around.

  "Hello!" he shouted.

  "Hello yourself," the janitor said. "So you're home again."

  "My wife wants the trap moved," George said. "She's afraid the children might get hurt."

  "Sorry," the janitor replied. "My orders were to put a mousetrap by each mousehole."

  "How come you didn't go away with all the other people?" George shouted up at him.

  "Stop shouting," the janitor said. Then, "I'm too old to change," he added. "Besides, I have a farm down the road."

  "But haven't they stopped paying you?" George demanded.

  "What's the difference," the janitor countered, "money can't buy anything any more."

  "Well, what will I tell my wife about the trap?" George asked.

  The janitor scratched his head. "You might tell her that I'll take it up with the supervisor, if he ever comes back."

  So George went inside and told Clara.

  "George," she said, stamping her foot, "I can't go on with that trap out there! You know that supervisor won't come back, so you've got to go out and find him."

  George, who knew that there weren't many people around anywhere any more, walked over to his favorite easy chair and sat down. "Clara," he said, as he picked up a book, "you can leave or stay as you wish, but there is nothing more that I can do. I've wasted a full month over that trap without accomplishing a single thing, and I'm not going to start that business all over again."

  * * *

  Contents

  MR. PRESIDENT

  By Stephen Arr

  He had been overwhelmingly elected. Messages of sympathy poured in, but they couldn't help ... nothing could.

  George Wong stood pale and silent by the video screen, listening to the election returns, a long-stemmed glass of champagne clutched forgotten in his trembling right hand.

  The announcer droned on: "--latest returns from Venus, with half of the election districts reporting, give three billion four hundred and ninety-six million votes for Wong, against one billion, four hundred million for Thompson, one billion one hundred million for Miccio, and nine hundred million for Kau. These results, added to the almost complete returns from Earth and the first fragmentary reports from Mars, clearly indicate a landslide vote for Wong as the next President of the Solar Union. The two billion votes from Ganymede and Callisto, which will be received early tomorrow morning, cannot appreciably affect the results. The battle for the twenty-five Vice-Presidents is less clear. It is certain that Thompson, Miccio, Kau, Singh, and DuLavier will all be among those elected, but in what order is not yet...."

  Wong leaned over and snapped the video off. His shoulders sagged. He leaned against the console as though too tired to move, a slight, narrow-shouldered man with a very high forehead and thin receding black hair. His large, sad, almond-shaped eyes and yellow-tinted skin indicated that there was a good deal of Asiatic in the mixed blood that flowed through his veins.

  "I'm sorry, truly sorry," Michael Thompson said sympathetically, placing a friendly arm across the narrow shoulders of the successful candidate. They were alone in the living room of the hotel suite in New Geneva, which they had shared for the campaign. "The people chose well. After the wonderful job you did in organizing the colonization of Io and Europa, you were the logical man. And then you do have the fantastic Responsibility Quotient of 9.6 out of 10. Anyway," he added with a weary shrug, "don't feel too bad--it looks as though I'll be First Vice-President."

  A brief ghost of a smile crossed George Wong's face. "We who are about to die salute you," he said, lifting his glass in a bitter toast to the blank video screen.

  Thompson, the man who was to be First Vice-President, silently joined him.

  "At least," Wong sighed, putting his empty glass down on the video, "I don't have a family. Look at poor Kau. At Miccio. With wives and children, how they must have suffered when they learned they had been drafted by the conventions.... Well, I guess there's nothing else to do but to go to bed and wait until they come for me in the morning. Good night, Michael."

  "Good night, George," Michael Thompson said. He turned toward his own room. "I am sorry," he said again.

  * * * * *

  Wong had already eaten breakfast and was dressed in an inconspicuous tweed suit for the inauguration when the chimes sounded, telling him that they were at the door. Slowly, he walked to the door and opened it.

  "Good morning, Mr. President," the man outside said cheerily, flashing his famous grin. George Wong immediately recognized Al Grimm, the man who had been personal secretary to sixty-three Presidents. He was one of the vast army of civil servants who kept the wheels of government turning smoothly until Presidents were able to make the decisions that would create policy.

  "Good morning, Al," George Wong said. "I am afraid I'll have to place myself completely in your hands f
or these first few days. Do we go to the Executive Mansion for the inauguration now?"

  "Yes, sir. Then, after your inauguration, to the office. Messages of condolence have been pouring in all night, but I don't think you want to bother with them. However, I am afraid we will have to bring up some of the problems that have arisen in the two weeks since President Reynolds left office."

  "How is he?" Wong asked. "I knew him, you know. He taught at Venus University at the same time I did. He was a fine man."

  "I'm afraid he's no better," Al said, shaking his head. "We're doing all we can for him, but he won't even speak to his wife. You know how difficult it is."

  "Yes, I know," Wong said.

  They rode downstairs in silence and walked to the Presidential Copter parked in the street in front of the house. A few guards loitered in the vicinity, but there were no crowds. They entered the plush copter, which rose smoothly under its whirling blades and carried them over the city, landing finally on the lawn of the Executive Mansion.

  Chief Justice Herz met them, dressed in a blue business suit, and after they shook hands he administered the oath.

  "Do you, George Wong," he asked, "swear to make every decision you are asked to make as President of the Solar Union for the benefit of the people of the Union and in accord with what you believe to be fair and just, fully cognizant of the fact that the welfare of seventy-five billion citizens of the Union is dependent on you?"

  "I do," George Wong said, through a painfully dry throat that would barely permit the words to come out.

  * * * * *

  They all shook hands again. Then Al Grimm led the President across the grassy lawn, into the mansion, and up to the office that had served over a thousand Presidents. Wong entered it nervously. It was a large plain room, severely decorated. Tentatively, he slid into the chair behind the huge steel desk, and began opening the drawers. He found them fully stocked with tapes, a recorder, all the other necessities. The desk and everything else in the room was brand new. There was no trace anywhere of his predecessors, and he was relieved to find it so. The Psychology Department at work, he thought.