The Fifth Science Fiction Megapack

by Gardner Dozois

  “Son,” he said harshly, “have you studied history in school? Good. Then you know how it was in the past. Wars. How would you like to get blown up in a war?”

  The boy didn’t answer.

  “Or how would you like to break your back for eight hours a day, doing work a machine should handle? Or be hungry all the time? Or cold, with the rain beating down on you, and no place to sleep?”

  He paused for a response, got none and went on. “You live in the most fortunate age mankind has ever known. You are surrounded by every wonder of art and science. The finest music, the greatest books and art, all at your fingertips. All you have to do is push a button.” He shifted to a kindlier tone. “Well, what are you thinking?”

  “I was just wondering how I could go to Mars,” the boy said. “With the debt, I mean. I don’t suppose I could get away from that.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Unless I stowed away on a rocket.”

  “But you wouldn’t do that.”

  “No, of course not,” the boy said, but his tone lacked conviction.

  “You’ll stay here and marry a very nice girl,” Leela told him.

  “Sure I will,” Billy said. “Sure.” He grinned suddenly. “I didn’t mean any of that stuff about going to Mars. I really didn’t.”

  “I’m glad of that,” Leela answered.

  “Just forget I mentioned it,” Billy said, smiling stiffly. He stood up and raced upstairs.

  “Probably gone to play with his rockets,” Leela said. “He’s such a little devil.”

  * * * *

  The Carrins ate a quiet supper, and then it was time for Mr. Carrin to go to work. He was on night shift this month. He kissed his wife good-by, climbed into his Jet-lash and roared to the factory. The automatic gates recognized him and opened. He parked and walked in.

  Automatic lathes, automatic presses—everything was automatic. The factory was huge and bright, and the machines hummed softly to themselves, doing their job and doing it well.

  Carrin walked to the end of the automatic washing machine assembly line, to relieve the man there.

  “Everything all right?” he asked.

  “Sure,” the man said. “Haven’t had a bad one all year. These new models here have built-in voices. They don’t light up like the old ones.”

  Carrin sat down where the man had sat and waited for the first washing machine to come through. His job was the soul of simplicity. He just sat there and the machines went by him. He pressed a button on them and found out if they were all right. They always were. After passing him, the washing machines went to the packaging section.

  The first one slid by on the long slide of rollers. He pressed the starting button on the side.

  “Ready for the wash,” the washing machine said.

  Carrin pressed the release and let it go by.

  That boy of his, Carrin thought. Would he grow up and face his responsibilities? Would he mature and take his place in society? Carrin doubted it. The boy was a born rebel. If anyone got to Mars, it would be his kid.

  But the thought didn’t especially disturb him.

  “Ready for the wash.” Another machine went by.

  Carrin remembered something about Miller. The jovial man had always been talking about the planets, always kidding about going off somewhere and roughing it. He hadn’t, though. He’d committed suicide.

  “Ready for the wash.”

  Carrin had eight hours in front of him, and he loosened his belt to prepare for it. Eight hours of pushing buttons and listening to a machine announce its readiness.

  “Ready for the wash.”

  He pressed the release.

  “Ready for the wash.”

  Carrin’s mind strayed from the job, which didn’t need much attention in any case. He wished he had done what he had longed to do as a youngster.

  It would have been great to be a rocket pilot, to push a button and go to Mars.

  THIS IS KLON CALLING, by Walter J. Sheldon

  You didn’t have to be a potential Einstein to take Professor Dane’s course. For one thing you got a few easy credits and for another you were entertained—without letup—by Professor Lyman Dane’s celebrated wit.

  Take the time he was illustrating terminal velocity. He jumped out of the open third story window, horrifying the class, until they learned he’d rigged a canvas life net on the floor below. Or the time he let a mouse loose among the female students to illustrate chain reaction. Or the afternoon he played boogie-woogie on the Huyler Memorial Carillon.

  “The absorption of knowledge,” he used to say, “increases in direct proportion to the sense of humor—the belly laugh, measured in decibels, being constant.”

  He could say a thing like that and make it sound funnier than anybody else could. It was partly the way he looked—tall and mournful and sly, with wispy hair that had once been blond, drooping like a tired willow over his forehead.

  But for all his vaudeville tactics he was by no means a second-rate scientist. Which was why he had gained his position at Southwestern Tech in the first place. He refused to work directly for the government (no sense of humor, just initials, he said) but this way he could at least be called upon for consultation at the nearby Air Force Development Center, just at the foot of the mountains to the west.

  Now the AFDC, as it was called, didn’t advertise what sort of thing it was developing—but everybody knew that Lyman Dane was an expert on reactive propulsion of rocket motors. He could tell you—and frequently would without being asked—exactly what mass ratio, nozzle diameter and propulsive velocity would be needed for the first trip to the Moon. He knew how many hours a round trip would take, both for landing there or merely circling the body of the satellite.

  He had the courses to Mars and Venus thoroughly charted—but considered a trip to Jupiter somewhat impractical. So, what with Dane’s presence and the mysterious white streaks that so often shot up into the sky like fuzzy yarn from the AFDC base, it wasn’t hard to guess what was going on.

  Nevertheless Professor Dane was surprised and somewhat offended when the young man from the Federal Bureau of Investigation came to call on him one afternoon. And the worst part of it was that the young man didn’t have much sense of humor.

  “As you know, sir,” the young man said, “we’ve been sighting and tracking these unidentified objects in the sky. You must have read about those they chased near Atlanta yesterday.”

  “Ah,” said Professor Dane. “Martian through Georgia, no doubt.”

  The young man stared at him blankly. He seemed to Professor Dane one of the most nondescript young men his eyes had ever beheld. He had a clean-shaven, pleasant face without exactly being handsome and his eyes were sincere and mild. He wore a neat gray tropical worsted suit and an unobtrusive tie. He was about thirty. Professor Dane supposed that all this was an advantage in his profession.

  The young man went on—earnestly. “Without forming any theories about these things we’ve been asked to take certain precautions. I don’t know whether they suspect a hostile power, or what. That’s not my job. At any rate I’ve been given the responsibility of instituting certain security techniques. You do after all, sir, have access to and knowledge of considerable classified information.”

  This lad reminded him somewhat of his old friend and colleague, Dr. Fincher, out in California. Wally Fincher was a well-known physicist now, though how anyone ever managed to struggle through his dry ponderous books Dane didn’t know. Probably he had gained most of his fame through his part in those experiments where they bounced radar blips off the moon, Dane thought.

  Wally always talked in long unnecessary words. He never merely “went” when he could “proceed,” he never simply “used” when it was possible to “utilize,” he didn’t “get things done”—he “implemented” them. Professor Dane made a mental note to put in a long distance call to Wally that evening and tweak his nose a bit. Maybe Dane could pretend he was the FBI—disguise his voice and
interrogate Wally, as though he were investigating him. He chuckled a little at the idea. Then he realized that the young man had been talking and he hadn’t been listening.

  “…so among other things, sir, we thought it best to monitor your official mail and hope you won’t mind.”

  “What?” said Dane, raising his eyebrows.

  “And your phone. You’ll hear a couple of clicks whenever you use it. We’re recording what’s said over it—though I assure you all records obtained will be kept in strictest confidence.”

  * * * *

  Dane acquiesced. The young man finally managed to make it clear that all this surveillance would have to be with Dane’s permission and the professor, annoyed though he was, didn’t want to appear uncooperative. He couldn’t resist, however, giving the young man the wrong hat when he went out and being delighted when the young man came back for the right one five minutes later. He was glad to see that something could fluster him.

  But that wasn’t really enough. Professor Dane had been annoyed, and he needed to express himself further—by means of the joke, which was his art—in order to regain some measure of his equilibrium and self-respect.

  Inspiration visited him as he was climbing the stairs to his bedroom at ten-thirty that evening. He stopped short, thought a minute, then began to chuckle. He turned and went downstairs again, stepped to the phone. Professor Dane lived alone and no one else would be able to share his planned joke—but this didn’t matter.

  He had been privately enjoying his pranks ever since, as a frail boy with an unreasonable and dominating male parent, he had discovered that they were one way in which he could compete with hardier souls, at times even surpass them. Never mind the audience, he thought. The jest was the thing!

  It was an hour earlier in Los Angeles and Dr. Wallace Fincher was at home. Dane disguised his voice—he did a lot of University Theater work and this kind of thing came to him easily. He listened first to Dr. Fincher’s arid, humorless, “Hello. Dr. Fincher speaking.” Then he heard the preliminary clicking, just as the FBI man had predicted.

  “Thandor,” said Professor Dane, “this is Klon calling.”

  “I beg your pardon?” said Doctor Fincher.

  “The jig’s up,” said Professor Dane. “Captain Ixl in propul-cruiser nine-nine-seven-three will never be able to break through. The Earthlings have set up a close watch—they’re suspicious.”

  “Who is this?” Doctor Fincher sounded startled. “Who the devil is this calling?”

  Dane could barely keep his laughter from breaking into his voice. “Thandor, we can come to no conclusion but that the Terrestrials are definitely hostile. We should have expected that from their primitive stage of development. They have orders to shoot any of our propul-cruisers they can catch. I suggest that we withdraw all ships of the Franistan class immediately from their free orbits and send them on a standard Keplerian course to the home planet for further consultation.”

  “Is this some kind of joke?” Fincher sounded as if he were almost panicky.

  “Furthermore,” said Dane, “I recommend that we withdraw all agents from Earth. We can’t conceal our superior mental development and advanced technology much longer. Someone’s bound to catch on pretty soon. I was against this plan in the Galactic Council in the first place, you’ll remember. Well, farewell, Thandor! I’ll be seeing you soon in space!”

  And Professor Dane hung up before he exploded with laughter.

  * * * *

  He laughed until the tears came to his eyes. He held his stomach with both hands. He was weak. He supported himself on the stair railing and for minutes was unable to take the first tread. With his lively scientist’s imagination he could picture the completely bewildered look on the young FBI man’s face when he listened to this conversation on the tape recorder or whatever it was they used.

  He was certainly going to have to try to get that recording from them. Play it back for Fincher some time—Lordy, Fincher would have apoplexy every time he heard it!

  He finally gained enough strength to climb the stairs. He went into his bedroom, still chuckling weakly, still wiping the tears from his eyes, stomach muscles still aching.

  Dr. Wallace Fincher stood there by his bed. It was Fincher—the same stocky round-faced man with the steel-rimmed glasses he had always known. It was either Fincher or the darndest hallucination he had ever…

  “I’m sorry, Lyman,” said Dr. Fincher in a kindly but impersonal voice. “You were getting a trifle too close. I’m afraid you have left me no choice.”

  He pointed a little silvery tube at Professor Dane and there was a soft buzzing and the smell of ozone and Professor Dane was no longer in the room—or anywhere else.

  Dr. Fincher sighed, adjusted his glasses and faded into the dimension that would take him back to Los Angeles and his interrupted work.

  THE BIG BOUNCE, by Walter S. Tevis

  “Let me show you something,” Farnsworth said. He set his near-empty drink—a Bacardi martini—on the mantel and waddled out of the room toward the basement.

  I sat in my big leather chair, feeling very peaceful with the world, watching the fire. Whatever Farnsworth would have to show to-night would be far more entertaining than watching T.V.—my custom on other evenings. Farnsworth, with his four labs in the house and his very tricky mind, never failed to provide my best night of the week.

  When he returned, after a moment, he had with him a small box, about three inches square. He held this carefully in one hand and stood by the fireplace dramatically—or as dramatically as a very small, very fat man with pink cheeks can stand by a fireplace of the sort that seems to demand a big man with tweeds, pipe and, perhaps, a saber wound.

  Anyway, he held the box dramatically and he said, “Last week, I was playing around in the chem lab, trying to make a new kind of rubber eraser. Did quite well with the other drafting equipment, you know, especially the dimensional curve and the photosensitive ink. Well, I approached the job by trying for a material that would absorb graphite without abrading paper.”

  I was a little disappointed with this; it sounded pretty tame. But I said, “How did it come out?”

  He screwed his pudgy face up thoughtfully. “Synthesized the material, all right, and it seems to work, but the interesting thing is that it has a certain—ah—secondary property that would make it quite awkward to use. Interesting property, though. Unique, I am inclined to believe.”

  This began to sound more like it. “And what property is that?” I poured myself a shot of straight rum from the bottle sitting on the table beside me. I did not like straight rum, but I preferred it to Farnsworth’s rather imaginative cocktails.

  “I’ll show you, John,” he said. He opened the box and I could see that it was packed with some kind of batting. He fished in this and withdrew a gray ball about the size of a golfball and set the box on the mantel.

  “And that’s the—eraser?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. Then he squatted down, held the ball about a half-inch from the floor, dropped it.

  It bounced, naturally enough. Then it bounced again. And again. Only this was not natural, for on the second bounce the ball went higher in the air than on the first, and on the third bounce higher still. After a half minute, my eyes were bugging out and the little ball was bouncing four feet in the air and going higher each time.

  I grabbed my glass. “What the hell!” I said.

  Farnsworth caught the ball in a pudgy hand and held it. He was smiling a little sheepishly. “Interesting effect, isn’t it?”

  “Now wait a minute,” I said, beginning to think about it. “What’s the gimmick? What kind of motor do you have in that thing?”

  His eyes were wide and a little hurt. “No gimmick, John. None at all. Just a very peculiar molecular structure.”

  “Structure!” I said. “Bouncing balls just don’t pick up energy out of nowhere, I don’t care how their molecules are put together. And you don’t get energy out without putting ener
gy in.”

  “Oh,” he said, “that’s the really interesting thing. Of course you’re right; energy does go into the ball. Here, I’ll show you.”

  He let the ball drop again and it began bouncing, higher and higher, until it was hitting the ceiling. Farnsworth reached out to catch it, but he fumbled and the thing glanced off his hand, hit the mantelpiece and zipped across the room. It banged into the far wall, richocheted, banked off three other walls, picking up speed all the time.

  When it whizzed by me like a rifle bullet, I began to get worried, but it hit against one of the heavy draperies by the window and this damped its motion enough so that it fell to the floor.

  IT started bouncing again immediately, but Farnsworth scrambled across the room and grabbed it. He was perspiring a little and he began instantly to transfer the ball from one hand to another and back again as if it were hot.

  “Here,” he said, and handed it to me.

  I almost dropped it.

  “It’s like a ball of ice!” I said. “Have you been keeping it in the refrigerator?”

  “No. As a matter of fact, it was at room temperature a few minutes ago.”

  “Now wait a minute,” I said. “I only teach physics in high school, but I know better than that. Moving around in warm air doesn’t make anything cold except by evaporation.”

  “Well, there’s your input and output, John,” he said. “The ball lost heat and took on motion. Simple conversion.”

  My jaw must have dropped to my waist. “Do you mean that that little thing is converting heat to kinetic energy?”

  “Apparently.”

  “But that’s impossible!”

  He was beginning to smile thoughtfully. The ball was not as cold now as it had been and I was holding it in my lap.

  “A steam engine does it,” he said, “and a steam turbine. Of course, they’re not very efficient.”

  “They work mechanically, too, and only because water expands when it turns to steam.”

  “This seems to do it differently,” he said, sipping thoughtfully at his dark-brown martini. “I don’t know exactly how—maybe something piezo-electric about the way its molecules slide about. I ran some tests—measured its impact energy in foot pounds and compared that with the heat loss in BTUs. Seemed to be about 98 per cent efficient, as close as I could tell. Apparently it converts heat into bounce very well. Interesting, isn’t it?”