Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  Dr. Lowell smiled genially and opened the door to the Ego Alter room. "I hate to disillusion you, Dr. Kalmar. That's exactly what I have in mind--the same thing I did to you."

  "That's absurd," Dr. Kalmar repeated, but with less conviction and more confusion than before.

  "It worked. Tell him to sit down."

  Dr. Kalmar did, and automatically fitted the wired plastic helmet to Dr. Hoyt's head.

  "You can't!" cried Miss Dupont as he reached for the dials on the control console. "It's not fair!"

  "Let's not get involved in a discussion on ethics," Dr. Lowell said. "Deneb can't afford to lose him; we need every doctor we have. If he goes back to Earth it may be years before we get a replacement."

  "But you can't do it without his consent!"

  "There's time for that later," the old man grinned. "Keep his eyes on you, Dr. Kalmar, while you build up his father image. Cut down on hostility, aggression and power drive. Boost social responsibility and adventurousness. But make sure he's looking at you constantly."

  "I won't allow it," said Mrs. Kalmar flatly. "You won't make my husband violate his oath."

  "I did it to him, didn't I?" Dr. Lowell replied jovially. "It got you a husband."

  Miss Dupont grabbed at Dr. Kalmar's hand, but he had already turned on the current.

  "Anything else?" he asked.

  "Well, he has to get married, of course," Dr. Lowell said. "Let him look at Miss Dupont--she's scheduled for this year, isn't she?--while you give him a shot of mating urge. Now, wipe out the memory of this incident and put him on a joy jag. We can validate that by liquoring him up afterward. When you're finished, bring him to."

  Dr. Hoyt came out of it almost with a whoop. He lurched out of the insulated seat, stared at Miss Dupont for a moment with eyes that almost glittered, and seized and kissed her.

  "My goodness!" she gasped.

  "Now, what were you saying about ethics?" Dr. Lowell asked.

  There was no answer. Both Miss Dupont and Mrs. Kalmar had frozen.

  "You drugged them, too?" Dr. Kalmar weakly wanted to know.

  "A bit slower-acting," admitted the old man. "All you have to do with them is wipe out the last half hour. Don't want any witnesses to an unethical act, you know. Oh, and put them on a jag also."

  Dr. Kalmar followed instructions.

  Finished, they left the three uproariously drunk in the waiting room and went to wash up. Dr. Kalmar went along bewilderedly. The old man was as unconcerned as if he did this sort of thing daily.

  "I was as arrogant and belligerent as this squirt was?"

  "Worse," Dr. Lowell said. "He was willing to finish out his internship. You weren't. Still worried about the ethics?"

  "Yes. Naturally."

  "All right, apply some logic, then. Are you happier on Deneb than you'd have been on Earth?"

  "Well, certainly. I'd have been lucky to get a job doctoring in a summer camp. I wouldn't trade a roomy planet like this for the jammed cubicles of Earth. And I like our methods better than terrestrial dogma. But those are my preferences. I can't inflict them on anybody else."

  "The hell they were your preferences. You bickered more about our methods and longed more loudly for the tenements of Earth than this lad ever did. All it took was a slight Ego Alter and you have a happier life than you would have had. Right?"

  Dr. Kalmar felt his tension ease. If the old man said it was right, it was. He became momentarily resentful when he realized that that reaction had been installed by Dr. Lowell, but then he smiled. It really was right. A bit arbitrary, perhaps, but for the good of Dr. Hoyt and Deneb in the long run, just as it had been for himself.

  "Look," he said, drying his arms. "I've been wanting my wife to go through a slight rephysical."

  "Why don't you ask her?"

  "The fact is that I'm afraid she'll think I'm dissatisfied and I don't want her to get resentful."

  "Maybe she'd like you to do some changing, too."

  "What for? I'm all right."

  "She probably feels the same way about herself."

  "But all I want are a few changes in her. She's as high as a space pilot now. It would be a cinch to--"

  Dr. Lowell flung down the towel and gave him an outraged glare. "There's such a thing as professional ethics, Dr. Kalmar!"

  "But you--"

  "That's different. It was a social decision, not a selfish one. If you ask her and she agrees, that's up to her. But you can't take advantage of her in an egocentric, arbitrary way. You just try it and I'll have you sent back to Earth."

  Dr. Kalmar felt his knees grow weak in alarm. "No, no. It's not that important. Just an insignificant kind of wish."

  And it was, he discovered when they went out to the waiting room. Unused to jags, Mrs. Kalmar was more affectionate than she'd been since they were first married; he'd have to remember to go on them periodically with her. Miss Dupont, unwilling to budge out of Dr. Hoyt's tight arms, had glassily joyous eyes. Dr. Hoyt didn't let her go until he caught sight of Dr. Kalmar.

  "Greatest doctor I ever met," he said enthusiastically. "Won'ful planet, Deneb. Just wanna marry Miss Dupont, stay here and learn at your feet. Okay?"

  Dr. Kalmar's glance at the old man was no less worshipful. "It couldn't be okayer," he said.

  * * *

  Contents

  THE ENORMOUS ROOM

  By H. L. Gold & Robert Krepps

  The roller coaster's string of cars, looking shopworn in their flaky blue and orange paint, crept toward the top of the incline, the ratcheted lift chain clanking with weary patience. In the front seat, a young couple held hands and prepared to scream. Two cars back, a heavy, round-shouldered, black-mustached man with a swarthy skin clenched his hands on the rail before him. A thin blond fellow with a briefcase on his lap glanced back and down at the receding platform, as though trying to spot a friend he had left behind. Behind him was a Negro youth, sitting relaxed with one lean foot on the seat; he looked as bored as someone who'd taken a thousand coaster rides in a summer and expected to take ten thousand more.

  In the last car, a tall broad man put his elbows on the backboard and stared at the sky without any particular expression on his lined face.

  The chain carried its load to the peak and relinquished it to the force of gravity. The riders had a glimpse of the sprawling amusement park spread out below them like a collection of gaudy toys on the floor of a playroom; then the coaster was roaring and thundering down into the hollow of the first big dip.

  Everyone but the Negro boy and the tall man yelled. These two looked detached--without emotion--as though they wouldn't have cared if the train of cars went off the tracks.

  The cars didn't go off the tracks. The people did.

  The orange-blue rolling stock hit the bottom, slammed around a turn and shot upward again, the wind of its passage whistling boisterously. But by then there were none to hear the wind, to feel the gust of it in watered eyes or open shouting mouths. The cars were empty.

  * * * * *

  "Is this what happens to everybody who takes a ride on the coaster?" asked a bewildered voice with a slight Mexican accent. "Santos," it continued, "to think I have waited so many years for this!"

  "What is it?" said a woman. "Was there an accident? Where are we?"

  "I don't know, dear. Maybe we jumped the tracks. But it certainly doesn't look like a hospital."

  John Summersby opened his eyes. The last voice had told the truth: the room didn't look like a hospital. It didn't look like anything that he could think of offhand.

  It was about living-room size, with flat yellow walls and a gray ceiling. There was a quantity of musty-smelling straw on the floor. Four tree trunks from which the branches had been lopped were planted solidly in that floor, which felt hard and a little warm on Summersby's back. Near the roof was a round silver rod, running from wall to wall; over in a corner was a large shallow box filled with something, he saw as he slowly stood up, that might have been sand. An old automobile tire
lay in the straw nearby, and a green bird-bath sort of thing held water that splashed from a tiny fountain in its center. Five other people, four men and a woman, were standing or sitting on the floor.

  "If it was a hospital, we'd be hurt," said a thin yellow-haired man with a briefcase under one arm. "I'm all right. Feel as good as I ever did."

  Several men prodded themselves experimentally, and one began to take his own pulse. Summersby stretched and blinked his eyes; they felt gummy, as though he'd been asleep a long time, but his mouth wasn't cottony, so he figured the blacked-out interval must have been fairly short.

  "Where's the door?" asked the woman.

  Everyone stared around the room except Summersby, who went to the fountain, scooped up a palmful of water, and drank it. It was rather warm, with no chemical taste.

  "There isn't any door," said a Negro boy. "Hey, there isn't a door at all!"

  "There must be a door," said the heavy man with the accent.

  Several of them ran to the walls. "Here's something," said the blond man, pushing with his fingertips. "Looks like a sliding panel, but it won't budge. We never came in through anything that small, anyway." He looked over at Summersby. "You didn't, at least. I guess they could have slid me through it."

  "They?" said the woman in a piercing voice. "Who are they?"

  "Yes," said the heavy man, looking at the blond man accusingly, "who put us here?"

  "Don't ask me," said the blond man. He looked at a watch, held it to his ear, and Summersby saw him actually go pale, as at a terrible shock. "My God," he gasped, "what day is this?"

  "Tuesday," said the Negro.

  "That's right. We got on the coaster about eleven Tuesday morning. It's three o'clock Thursday!" His voice was flat and astonished as he held up the watch. "Two days," he said, winding it. "This thing's almost run down."

  "How do you know it's Thursday?" asked Summersby.

  "This is a chronograph, High-pockets," said the blond man.

  "Calvin, we've been kidnapped!" the woman said shrilly, clutching at a man who must be her husband or boy friend.

  "No, no, dear. How could they do it on a roller coaster?"

  "Maria y José!" said the Mexican. "Then for two days that idiot relief man has had charge of my chili stand! It'll go to hell!"

  "Our things at the hotel," the woman said, "all my new clothes and the marriage license."

  "They'll be all right, dear."

  "And where's my bag?"

  The blond man stooped and picked up a leather handbag from the straw. "This it?" She took it and rummaged inside before she said, "Thank you."

  "I don't like all this," said the Negro boy. "Where are we? I got to get back to my job. Where's the door?"

  * * * * *

  "Come on," said the man with the briefcase shortly, "let's get out of here and find out what's what." He was going along the wall, pushing and rapping it. "How did they cop us, that's what I'd like to know. All I remember is hitting the bottom of that big dip, and then I was waking up in here." He stopped, then said sharply, "I hear something moving. My God! It sounds as big as an elephant."

  Then the wall began to glide noiselessly and smoothly to the left, and he scuttled back to the knot of them, looking over his shoulder.

  The entire wall slid sideways and vanished, leaving an open end to the room through which Summersby could see a number of large structures that seemed to be machinery, painted various colors. There was no sign of movement. He wondered, in a quiet, detached way, what sort of people might be out there.

  "It sounded big," said the blond man again, and looked up at Summersby.

  "I am six feet five," said Summersby bleakly. "Whoever it is will have to go some to top me."

  * * * * *

  An unknown thing moved beyond the room with a brief shuffling sound and then a hand came in through the open end. It was on an arm with a wrist the thickness of Summersby's biceps, an arm two yards long with no indication that it might not be even longer. The hand itself was a foot and a half broad, with a prehensile thumb at either side. Summersby did not notice how many fingers it had. The backs of the fingers and the whole great arm were covered with a thick gray-black thatch of coarse hair, and the naked palm was gun-metal gray. Between one thumb and finger it held a long green rod that was tipped by an ivory-colored ball.

  There was no sign of anyone looking in, only the incredible arm and hand.

  The others cried out and drew together. Summersby stood still, watching the hand. It poked the stick forward in short jabs, once just missing his head. Then it made a wide sweep and the stick collided with the fat Mexican. He squealed, and at once the hand shot forward, exposing still more of the thick arm, and prodded him away from the group. He skipped toward a far corner, but the stick had him now and was tapping him relentlessly toward the open end.

  "Amigos!" he yelled, his voice full of anguish. "Por favor, save me!"

  "Go along with it peaceably," advised the Negro youth frightenedly. "Don't get it annoyed." He was shaking and his glasses kept sliding down his sweaty nose so that he had to push them up continually.

  "What is it?" the woman was asking, over and over.

  The Mexican was driven to the edge of the room. The place beyond seemed to be much larger than their prison. He waved his hands despairingly.

  "Now, quick, you have only a momentito to save me! Don't stand there!"

  The stick touched him and he jumped as if he had been shocked. The wall began to slide into place again.

  "Let's rush it," said the man with the briefcase suddenly.

  "Why?" asked Summersby. The wall closed and they were alone, staring at one another.

  * * * * *

  "There wasn't anything we could do," the Negro said. "It happened too quick. But if it comes in again we better fight it." He looked around, plainly expecting to be contradicted. "We can't get split up like this."

  "Possibly one of us can suggest something," said the husband. He was a sober-looking man of about twenty-eight or thirty, with a face veneered by stubborn patience. "We should make a real try at escape."

  "We know where the door is, at least," said the blond man. He went to the sliding wall and threw his weight obliquely against it. "Give me a hand here, will you, big fellow?"

  "You won't move it that way," said Summersby. He sat down on the automobile tire, which seemed to have been chewed on by some large animal. "It's probably electrically operated."

  "We can try, can't we?"

  Summersby did not answer. In one corner, six feet off the floor, was a thing he had not noticed before, a network of silver strands like an enormous spider's web or a cat's cradle. He stared at it, but after the first moment he did not actually see it. He was thinking of the forest, and wishing dully that he might have died there.

  The woman spoke sharply, intruding on his detachment; he hoped someone would sit on her. "Will you please do something, Calvin! We must get out of this place."

  "Where are we, anyway?" asked the Negro boy, who looked about nineteen, a tall, well-built youth with beautiful hands. "How'd they get us here? And what was that thing that took the Mex?"

  "It doesn't matter where we are," snapped the woman.

  "Yes, it does, ma'am," said the youth. "We got to know how they brought us here before we can escape."

  "The hell we do," said the blond man. "We can't guess our location until we get out. I think you're right about the door," he told Summersby. "There isn't any lock to it you could reach from inside. The mechanism for sliding and locking must be inside the wall itself. Nothing short of a torch will get through to it." He came over to Summersby. "We'll have to gimmick it next time it opens."

  "With what?" asked the woman's husband.

  "Something small, so it won't be noticed."

  "Your briefcase?" suggested the husband, who had a hard New England twang.

  "No, chum," said the blond man, "not my briefcase."

  "Hey, look," said the Negro. "What happened, anyway?
I remember the coaster hitting the dip and then nothing, no wind or motion, until I woke up here. And it's two days later."

  "I lost consciousness at the same place," said the New Englander.

  "Something was done to knock us out," said the blond man. "Then we must have been taken off the cars at the end of the ride, and brought here." He rubbed his chin, which was stubbled with almost invisible whiskers. "That's impossible, on the face of it," he went on, "but it must be the truth." He grinned; it was the first time Summersby had seen any of them smile. "Unless I'm in a hatch," he said.

  "Are we in South America? Or Africa?" asked the Negro.

  "Why?"

  "That hand!"

  "Yeah," said the blond man, "that never grew on anything American." The colored boy looked at him, ready to take offence. "Could it be a freak gorilla?"

  "That size and with two thumbs?" asked the boy. "And what would it be doing roaming around loose?"

  "Could it be a machine?" asked the husband. "A robot?" His wife screamed, and Summersby got up and went over to the door, getting as far as possible from them. His stomach was a hard ball of hunger, and he wished he were a thousand miles away. Anywhere.

  "That hand was alive," said the Negro. "I never saw anything like it in biology, but I'd sure love to dissect it. Did you see those two thumbs? I don't know any animal that has two thumbs."

  "Would you come over, sir?" called the New Englander. Summersby realized he was talking to him. "We must plan a course of action." Reluctantly Summersby joined them. "My name is Calvin Full, sir, and this is Mrs. Full."

  Summersby took his hand; it was dry and had a preciseness about its grip that irritated him. "John Summersby."

  "I'm a milk inspector. My wife and I were on our honeymoon," said Full. "I work through the southern portions of Vermont; that's in the New York milk shed, you know."

  "I didn't know. I'm a forest ranger," said Summersby. Retired, he thought bitterly, pensioned off to die with a rotten heart. They couldn't even let a man die on the job, in the woods.