The E. Hoffmann Price Fantasy & Science Fiction

by E. Hoffmann Price

  Finally, they remembered to phone the Thetis.

  Cromer was not yet ready to be rescued. He asked, “Is that music I hear?”

  “We’re at the Palmetto, having a grand time,” Diane answered.

  “Stay as long as you like.”

  They danced some more. At last Oscar called the yacht. “Don’t worry about me,” Cromer assured him. “Have a good time. Write it down as cultural activities. I’ll find you when I’m ready to leave—don’t wander too far from the Lodge.”

  By now Oscar had no need of Cromer’s urging.

  “I think,” he said to Diane, “that I won’t mind college, or meeting people, nearly as much as I thought I would. But one thing I know I won’t like.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Being so far away from you. Now that I look at that side of it, I don’t see much future in education.”

  “Oh, but it is important. It’s more than training your mind; it’s a matter of meeting people, making contacts.”

  “You’re more important than anyone I could possibly meet anywhere else. This is the first time I’ve really seen you. Until now, all I saw was the outer layer of advantages, education and the like. But the only meaning they have comes from you, yourself.”

  Her eyes went wide and misty. “That’s a beautiful way of putting it, Oscar. But your future—”

  “Would school or the lack of it make a big difference between you and me?” He got up, catching her hand. “Let’s get away from noise and people, so we can talk.”

  The amiable proprietor, thinking they were going to dance, came up. “Someone is asking for you—”

  “Thanks.”

  Diane took Oscar’s arm. “Been lots of fun, hasn’t it?”

  Just outside, they saw the man who was looking for them. Not Cromer, but Eric Logan. His mood was not sweetened by the glow which Diane and Oscar radiated, each to the other, and both to the moonlight and the muttering sea.

  “I’m sure you’ve as good as passed your examination,” Logan said, sarcastically, addressing Oscar, but intending the jab for Diane.

  Diane flared up, “Doctor Cromer called us from our work!”

  “He would!” Logan retorted, bitterly. “If you get such a glow from dancing with the first of Cromer’s reconverted apes, you’re very welcome!”

  “Eric—what do you mean?”

  “This—” Logan gestured, “is the master model. Take a good look and see how the infant chimpanzees will be when they grow up.”

  Oscar shed all his social training; he socked Logan with micrometer precision and sledge hammer force. The first punch froze Logan on his feet; the second, connecting before he could collapse, flung him half a dozen feet. The one-time athletic director landed like a bundle of rags. Oscar, functioning with the finest of coordination, was following through, to make a job of it, when Cromer came racing up.

  This was no time for dialectic; Cromer snatched a good-sized chunk of coral and clouted Oscar on the head. The blow knocked Oscar to his knees, but did not lay him out. Blinking, he hitched about.

  Cromer said, “Break it up, Oscar. I heard what he said. At least, you are custom built; the rest of us, including Diane, are helter-skelter mutations.” He spoke whimsically, with amiable irony. “Now, give me a lift with Eric. Nothing to worry about—take it easy, Diane—he’ll recover—”

  “That’s not—not—what I’m crying about,” she sobbed. “Is he—was he—”

  Cromer chuckled with fine amusement. “Oh, that nonsense! Can’t your feminine instinct tell the difference between a man and an ape? Well well! But most women can’t; never could.”

  Cromer’s manner was convincing. He went on, “You two lovebirds run along,” he said, cheerily. “I’ll take care of Eric. The poor chap’s overworked. Frightfully ambitious, you know. Under a terrific strain. And he’s the type that—” He lowered his voice, confidentially, and made a tapping gesture against his own head. “Well, susceptible to hallucinations, let’s put it. Under pressure, you know.”

  “Hallucinations?” Oscar echoed, and brightened, hopefully.

  “Oh, the poor fellow!” Diane exclaimed, catching Oscar’s arm. “You shouldn’t have hit him so hard!” Then, “Doctor Cromer, we could get a cab and leave the car for you.”

  “Run along, run along, now! I’ll manage in my own way.”

  After watching them take off, Cromer went into the Palmetto to get a half-pint of brandy. In a few minutes, Logan was sitting up. When the man was reasonably coherent, Cromer gave him another sip. That did the trick.

  “Eric,” the scientist began, and hefted the chunk of coral with which he had tapped Oscar. “Do you see this?”

  “Er—yes. Is that what he hit me with?”

  “No, Eric. That is what I hit him with, to keep him from vivisecting you by hand. And this, or something larger, heavier, and harder, is what I’ll hit you with, if ever again you make any quips about Oscar’s simian origin. You damned fool, he is bound to have a few residual memories; you could completely nullify a revolutionary experiment. The psychological development of the subject is not as spectacular as the physical, but it is equally important.”

  “If you’d been in my place, doctor—”

  “If an ex-chimpanzee beat my time, Eric, I should regard it with scientific objectivity—and look to my own evolution. But the truth of the matter is, Diane was entirely innocent. I thought it would be constructive having Oscar meet Hardwick’s assistant, Waterford U graduate. The man wasn’t aboard, so I left Diane and Oscar ashore; you made rather an ape of yourself, spying.”

  Eric confessed, “Well, I did suspect a trick.”

  “Are you really serious about Diane?”

  “Yes. And to have my time beaten by an ape!”

  “It’s not quite what you take it to be, my boy. We over-evolved Oscar. Granted, he is crude, naive, and in many ways on a par with the cartoon-strip mountain-boys. But you’re a trained athlete and didn’t have a chance.”

  “He took me by surprise.”

  “Because his coordination is finer. He is a closer approach to the man of the future than either you or I. No reference at all to acquired skills and talents. I am pointing solely at the intrinsic substance.”

  “Are you suggesting,” Logan challenged, “that I advance my own evolution?”

  Cromer shrugged. “If the work to which I’ve assigned you suggests such a possibility, I’d not object. How’s your head?”

  “Clearing up, but aching.”

  Cromer offered the bottle. “Another nip?”

  “Ummm…thanks, no.”

  Cromer emptied the flask with a long gurgle, and flipped it seaward. “Walking will do us good. You’re a true scientist, proposing to experiment on yourself.” And as they tramped along, Cromer summed up, “Metabolism, reaction time, these are easy to test. So is intelligence, at least in a purely empirical sense. The essence of it all—since we are to have an accurately controlled and truly revealing experiment—is the matter of viewpoint. Weltanschauung to use the archaic phrase. I prefer cosmic outlook, myself. We must determine criteria for evaluating it; once we have defined the term with sufficient exactness.”

  “You handle the defining, Doctor. I’ll do the rest. No damned ape is going to beat my time.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Rumors of war, and then, the inevitability of war, gave Logan added incentive for stepping up his evolution. As a scientist, he had a good chance of draft-exemption. He could not, however, demand exemption since Oscar had no such advantage; the attempt would hurt his chances with Diane.

  Outwardly, there was entire cordiality at the installation. Cromer was happy about the romance. He liked to see Diane setting out to help Oscar feed the animals. Oscar reciprocated by assisting Diane with the infant chimpanzees. Oscar and Diane were too happy about each other, and with eac
h other, to brood about war.

  Meanwhile, Logan had reasons for gratification.

  Between the radiation-treatments he was taking, and the super-hormones, the man was changing. His presence had become stately. He no longer resented Oscar; instead, he had the enlightened view that if Diane responded to his, Logan’s, advancement, rather than to Oscar’s advances, there would be no problem at all. If on the other hand she were really too primitive to appreciate him, his loss would not be great.

  Finally, he could get her interested in evolving herself; this would leave Oscar in the dust! Cromer, satisfied with Oscar’s development, was letting well enough alone. “I have a large investment in that boy,” he would tell Logan. “There is the law of diminishing returns. We have a sound product.”

  “How is that, Doctor?”

  “The war is quite too near at hand for us to use our present abilities and techniques. The one after this one, however, will be the test.”

  “Doubtless it will. They said the previous one was—would be, rather. Just as they are now saying that this one will destroy civilization. I am sure it will not. The next one, though—”

  “Pardon me, Eric, but I did not refer to the testing of the prophets. I contemplated the testing of our product. Thousands of Oscars, hundreds of thousands of them—a solution to the manpower problem. Every original human will be draft-exempt. With highly evolved chimpanzees to do the fighting, humans will not be required. Obviously, the chimpanzees must not be overly-advanced, or they would be unsuitable as soldiers.”

  Logan frowned. “Indeed, Doctor! The ideal soldier is a man of superior development.”

  Cromer made an impatient gesture. “Solely because men of superior caliber are so painfully scarce today. Imagine an entire army of superior men. There would be mutiny—anarchy—raging individualism, if each man were a Marlborough, a Genghis Khan, a MacArthur—all leaders, no followers. You’d not have an army all.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” the quasi-superman muttered. “I am quite too close to my work to have the perspective.”

  “Really, now?”

  “Yes. With my stepped-up evolution, I’d be foolish to claim a scientist’s or technician’s exemption. It would not only put me in wrong with Diane—it would deprive me of the chance of enlightening her. Entering the ranks as a private, I would in a very short while become a general. The superior man, as you aptly observed, a moment ago, is a rare specimen.”

  Cromer slapped him on the shoulder. “Splendid! When you return with three, four—or even with two stars, I doubt that Oscar will be a competitor. Now, shall we have our routine check of your development?”

  “Any time you are ready.”

  “What is the integral, between the limits of zero and infinity, of the square root of X times e to the minus ax power, differential x?”

  Logan closed his eyes for a moment. He opened them. “One over two-a times the square root of pi divided by a.”

  Cromer eyed him. “On the level, Eric, was that one you memorized, or did you really solve it?”

  “I solved it, this very moment. Give me a difficult one.”

  Cromer turned to his desk. He found a paper. “Here is one that I fed the electronic calculator; it blew a fuse. See what you can do with it.” Logan frowned at the paper. He got up and paced the floor. He sat down. He hunched over, squinting at the sheet. Of a sudden, he relaxed, jumped to his feet—and recited the answer!

  “Wait a minute! Good Lord, Eric! I forgot to take note of it. Let me have it again, and slowly.”

  He got it. Then he asked, “But how do I know it’s correct?”

  Logan grinned triumphantly. “Take my word for it. Or calculate it yourself to check up. Any other tests?”

  “In the laboratory, yes. Reaction time and other routine.” And then, as he followed Logan, Cromer added, “I think that adding another bank of tubes to the calculator will enable it to handle that problem I gave you. I am going to check your answer; don’t think I am not. If you did get the correct result, mentally, I am going to issue invitations to a demonstration.

  “With mathematicians to witness it. They will bring their pet problems for you to solve; thus there can be no talk of collusion.”

  Logan wagged his head. “I’d enjoy meeting those stuffed shirts and their problems!”

  As though in answer to Logan’s challenge to the world, its forces, and its intelligences came a cry of terror: high, but cut short as though the shock of entire realization had paralyzed the throat. It sounded from the tropical gardens. A low, mumbling snarl followed, not of wrath, but a promise of destruction.

  Cromer’s color changed. Understanding came to Logan.

  * * * *

  Out in the gardens, where foliage masked the stark fronts of steel cages, Oscar and Diane had been making their rounds. They had tended to the animals, paying all the while a good deal more attention to each other than to their task. Once it was done, seductive moonlight lured them to each other’s arms.

  Moonlight, reaching through palm fronds, made a dappled pattern; light and shadow camouflaged the two. Eye tricking, enveloping, screening patterns: and, lip to lip, the two made a small world, a heaven and earth of their own creation, a small eternity measured in kisses.

  It might have been sound that shattered their universe. Again there may have been direct perception of the force radiated by the creature which flowed out from its cage, scenting prey and moving to stalk it.

  One of those impossible things had happened; the cloudy tiger had escaped. The animal was well on its way, in reversed evolution, to the macherodus, the sabre-toothed slayer who had vanished millennia ago.

  Oscar, chilled by sudden awareness, thrust Diane aside as she screamed needless warning. Rustling leaves screened her. Whatever else might have happened, the tiger responded to the note of panic.

  Oscar snatched the empty pail he had set down by the bench, and straight-armed it, catching the tiger squarely between the eyes.

  “Get going!” he yelled, as he vaulted the flimsy barricade.

  He was too busy moving to have any thought for the futility either of flight or fight. The beast gathered itself for the lunge; long fangs gleamed like lanceheads; the eyes were phosphorescent, then red, from the changing play of moonlight. Oscar’s tree lore had been submerged by evolution. There was no tree near enough, even had he had time to get Diane to any such vantage point.

  Seize the bench as a weapon a little better than empty hands—or, use it as a barricade?

  He did neither.

  The man who pounced into the full moonlight came as though to intervene. The tiger’s lashing tail became motionless; the head shifted. The animal sensed danger.

  Eric Logan had speed and coordination to match his over-evolved mind. He had a hatchet; he leaped and struck. Tawny fur mirrored moonlight. Logan was clear, untouched, perfectly balanced. He chopped again. The tiger lay kicking and twitching. The first stroke had severed the spinal column.

  This was done as Doctor Cromer hove into view.

  Oscar dropped the bench. White-faced, moving like a zombie, Diane came from cover. Logan said, “Doctor, I think we may as well dispense with the coordination checkup you proposed.”

  He retraced his steps. To wait for words from the others would have spoiled the scene.

  For a long time after Cromer left them, Oscar sat with Diane in the garden. He sat apart from her, looking at the moon-drenched ground, the spilled blood, the splendid carcass. His posture was somewhat of a crouch. Finally Diane came near enough to lay a tentative hand on his arm. Her touch was diffident; she knew that she was intruding.

  He took her hand, laid his other hand over it, caging it. He got up. “Help me pack my things. Not that I need help, or need to take anything with me.”

  “Pack?” she echoed, bewilderedly.

  “I am not going to co
llege; I am going to enlist at once.”

  “Oh, darling, but why?”

  “I fumbled, somehow, or that cage could not have come open.”

  “Good Lord, you can’t think that I blame you! You don’t know; no one will ever know who or what caused it.”

  “Honey, it isn’t that. I am living on borrowed time. The tiger would not have got you; I was nearest. The only way I can get my life out of hock is to gamble it intentionally—and win it back.”

  Comprehension widened her eyes. She regarded Oscar now with wonder, instead of merely affection. “You’re too proud to owe your life to Eric?”

  “It would not be worth it.”

  She could not say. “Eric made that move for me,” however much she knew that to be the truth. All she could say was, “Must you, really?”

  “There is no way out of it. I cannot kill the man, and I cannot owe him my life. Simple, isn’t it?”

  Eyes brimming with tears, she looked up. “Too terribly simple. And right now, after—after we finally found each other.”

  “I’ll be back,” he declared, confidently. “There’ll be the bombing and the usual show. Maybe this time, not enough of them will survive to try again. Some of us will. And all debts will be paid. The tiger got out of his cage, and I am getting out of mine.” And then, later, when she went to the gate with him, “Tell Doctor Cromer why I left; he’ll understand.”

  With a ground-eating stride, Oscar set out. He had Diane’s small suitcase, lacking one of his own. He did not look back until he came to the angle of the road. He caught the whiteness of her arm as she waved in answer. He saw her turn against the gateway, face buried in the crook of her arm. He paused, then resolutely resumed his stride.

  “One thing the superman cannot do,” he said, aloud, as he tramped toward the bus stop. “He cannot trade on having saved her life; he saved mine, whether he wanted to or not.” Oscar grinned contentedly. “The gigantic mind slipped; he should have waited another second.”

  CHAPTER 5