Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume One

by Short Story Anthology

  "Right up to the front door," Tracy growled to the operative driving the first hover-car of their two-vehicle expedition. "The quicker we move, the better." He turned his head to the men in the rear seat. "We five will go in together. I don't expect trouble, they'll have had no advance warning. I made sure of that. Jerry has equipment in his car to blanket any radio sending. We'll take care of phones in the house. No rough stuff, we want to talk to these people."

  One of the men growled, "Suppose they start shooting?"

  Tracy snorted. "Then shoot back, of course. But just don't you start it. I shouldn't have to tell you these things."

  "Got it," one of the others said. He shifted his shoulders to loosen the .38 Recoilless in its holster.

  At the ornate doorway, the cars, which had been moving fast, a foot or so off the ground, came to a quick halt, settled, and the men disgorged, guns in hand.

  Tracy called to the occupants of the other vehicle, "On the double. Surround the house. Don't let anybody leave. Come on, boys."

  They scurried down the flagstone walk, banged on the door. It was opened by a houseman who stared at them uncomprehendingly.

  "The occupants of this establishment are under arrest," Tracy snapped. He flashed a gold badge. "Take me to Adam Moncure." He turned to his men and gestured with his head. "Take over, boys. Jerry, you come with me."

  The houseman was terrified, but not to the point of being unable to lead them to a gigantic former living room, now converted to offices.

  There was an older man, and four assistants. All in shirt sleeves in concession to the mid-western summer, none armed from all Tracy could see. They looked up in surprise, rather than dismay. The older man snapped, "What is the meaning of this intrusion?"

  Jerry chuckled sourly.

  Frank Tracy said, "You're all under arrest. Jerry, herd these clerks, or whatever they are, into some other room. Get any other occupants of the house together, too. And watch them carefully, confound it. Don't underestimate these people. And make a search for secret rooms, cellars, that sort of thing."

  "Right," Jerry growled.

  The older of the five Freer Enterprises men was on his feet now. He was a thin, angry faced type, gray of hair and somewhere in his sixties. "I want to know the meaning of this!" he roared.

  "Adam Moncure?" Tracy said crisply.

  "That is correct. And to what do I owe this cavalier intrusion into my home and place of business?"

  Jerry, at pistol point, was herding the four assistants from the room, taking the houseman along with them.

  Tracy looked at Moncure, speculatively, then dipped into his pockets for pipe and tobacco. He gestured to a chair with his head. "Sit down, Mr. Moncure. The jig is up."

  "The jig?" the other blurted in a fine rage. "I insist—"

  "O.K., O.K., you'll get your explanation." Tracy sat down on a couch himself and sized up the older man, even as he lit his pipe.

  Moncure, still breathing heavily in his indignation, took control of himself well enough to be seated. "Well, sir?" he bit out.

  Tracy said curtly, "Frank Tracy, Bureau of Economic Subversion."

  "Bureau of Economic Subversion!" Moncure said indignantly. "What in the name of all that's holy is the Bureau of Economic Subversion?"

  Tracy pointed at him with the pipe stem. "I'll ask a few questions first, please. How many branches of your nefarious outfit are presently under operation?"

  The other glared at him, but Tracy merely returned the pipe to his mouth and glowered back.

  Finally Moncure snapped, "There is no purpose in hiding any of our affairs. We have opened preliminary offices only in Chicago and New York. Freer Enterprises is but in its infancy."

  "Praise Allah for that," Tracy muttered sarcastically.

  "And thus far we have dealt only in soap. However, as our organization gets under way we plan to branch out into a score, and ultimately hundreds of products."

  Tracy said, "You can forget about that, Moncure. Freer Enterprises comes to a halt as of today. Do you realize that your business tactics would lead to a complete collapse of gainful employment and eventually to a depression such as this nation has never seen before?"

  "Exactly!" Moncure snapped in return.

  ***

  It was Tracy's turn to react. His eyes widened, then narrowed. "Do you mean that you are deliberately attempting to undermine the economy of the United States of the Americas? Remember, Mr. Moncure, you are under arrest and anything you say may be held against you."

  "Undermine it!" Moncure said heatedly. "Bring it crashing to the ground is the better term. There has never been such an abortion developed in the history of political economy."

  He came to his feet again and began storming up and down the room. "A full three quarters of our employed working at nothing jobs, gobbledygook jobs, non-producing jobs, make-work jobs, red-tape bureaucracy jobs. At a time when the nation is supposedly in a breakneck economic competition with the Soviet Complex, we put our best brains into advertising, entertainment and sales, while they put theirs into science and industry."

  He stopped long enough to shake an indignant finger at the surprised Tracy. "But that isn't the worst of it. Have you ever heard of planned obsolescence?"

  Tracy acted as though on the defensive. "Well ... sure ..."

  "In the Soviet Complex, and, for that matter, in Common Europe and other economic competitors of ours, they simply don't believe in planned obsolescence and all its related nonsense. Razor blades, everywhere except in this country, don't go dull after two or three shaves. Cars don't fall apart after two or three years, or even become so out of style that the owner feels that he's losing status by being seen in it, the owners expect to keep them half a lifetime. Automobile batteries don't go to pieces after eighteen months, they last for a decade. And on and on!"

  The old boy was really unwinding now. "Nor is even that the nadir of this socio-economic hodge-podge we've allowed to develop, this economy of production for sale, rather than production for use." He stabbed with his finger. "I think one of the best examples of what was to come was to be witnessed way back at the end of the Second War. The idea of the ball-bearing pen was in the air. The first one to hurry into production gave his pen a tremendous build-up. It had ink enough to last three years, it would make many carbon copies, you could use it under water. And so on and so forth. It cost fifteen dollars, and there was only one difficulty with it. It wouldn't write. Not that that made any difference because it sold like hotcakes what with all the promotion. He wasn't interested in whether or not it would write, but only in whether or not it would sell." Moncure threw up his hands dramatically. "I ask you, can such an economic system be taken seriously?"

  "What's your point?" Tracy growled dangerously. He'd never met one this far out, before.

  "Isn't it obvious? Continue this ridiculous economy and we'll lose the battle for men's minds. You can't have an economic system that allows such nonsense as large scale unemployment of trained employees, planned obsolescence, union featherbedding, and an overwhelming majority of those who are employed wasting their labor on unproductive employment."

  Tracy said, "Then if I understand you correctly, Freer Enterprises was deliberately organized for the purpose of undermining the economy so that it will collapse and have to be reorganized on a different basis."

  "That is exactly correct," Moncure said defiantly. "I am devoting my whole fortune to this cause. And there is nothing in American law that prevents me from following through with my plans."

  "You're right there," Tracy said wryly. "There's nothing in American law that prevents you. However, you see, I have no connection whatsoever with the American government." He slipped the gun from its holster.

  ***

  Frank Tracy made his way wearily into LaVerne's domain. She looked up from the desk. "Everything go all right, Mr. Tracy?"

  "I suppose so. Tell Comrade Zotov that I'm back from Chicago, please."

  She clicked switches, said so
mething into an inner-office communicator, then looked up again. "He'll see you immediately, Mr. Tracy."

  Pavel Zotov looked up from his endless paperwork and wheezed the sigh of a fat man. He correctly interpreted the expression of his field operative. "Pour us a couple of drinks, Frank, or would you rather have it Frol, today?"

  His best field man grunted as he walked over to the bar. "Vodka, eh? Chort vesmiot how tired one can become of this everlasting bourbon." He reached into the refrigerator compartment and brought forth a bottle of iced Stolichnaya. He poured two three-ounce charges and brought them back to his bureau chief's desk.

  They toasted silently, knocked back the colorless spirit. Pavel Zotov said, "Well, Frol?"

  The man usually called Frank Tracy said, "The worst case yet. This one had quite a clear picture of the true situation. He saw the necessity—given their viewpoint, of course—of getting out of the fantastic rut their economy has fallen into." He ran his hand over his mouth in a gesture of weariness. "Chief, do you have any idea of how long it would take us to catch up to them, if we ever did, if they really turned this economy on full blast, as an alternative to their present foul-up?"

  "That's why we're here," the Chief said heavily. "What did you do?"

  The man sometimes called Tracy told him.

  Zotov winced. "I thought I ordered you—"

  "You did," the man called Tracy told him curtly, "but what alternative was there? The fire will completely destroy the records. I have the names and addresses of all the others connected with Freer Enterprises. We'll have to arrange car accidents, that sort of thing."

  The fat man's lips worked. "We can't get by with this indefinitely, Frol. With such blatant tactics, sooner or later their C.I.A. or F.B.I. is going to get wind of us."

  Tracy came to his feet angrily. "What alternative have we? We've been sent over here to do a job. We're doing it. If we're caught, who knows better than we that we're expendable? If you don't mind, I'm going on home."

  As he left the office, through the secret door that led through the innocuous looking garage, the man they called Frank Tracy was inwardly thinking, "Zotov might be my superior, and a top man in the party, but he's too soft for this job. Perhaps I'd better send a report back to Moscow on him."

  The Common Man, by Mack Reynolds

  It would, of course, take a trio of Ivory Tower scientists to conceive of tracking down that statistical entity, the Common Man, and testing out an idea on him. And only the Ivory Tower type would predict that egregiously wrongly!

  Frederick Braun, M.D., Ph.D., various other Ds, pushed his slightly crooked horn-rims back on his nose and looked up at the two-story wooden house. There was a small lawn before it, moderately cared for, and one tree. There was the usual porch furniture, and the house was going to need painting in another six months or so, but not quite yet. There was a three-year-old hover car parked at the curb of a make that anywhere else in the world but America would have been thought ostentatious in view of the seeming economic status of the householder.

  Frederick Braun looked down at the paper in his hand, then up at the house again. He said to his two companions, "By Caesar, I will admit it is the most average-looking dwelling I have ever seen."

  Patricia O'Gara said impatiently, "Well, do we or don't we?" Her hair should have been in a pony tail, or bouncing on her shoulders, or at least in the new Etruscan revival style, not drawn back in its efficient bun.

  Ross Wooley was unhappy. He scratched his fingers back through his reddish crew cut. "This is going to sound silly."

  Patricia said testily, "We've been through all that, Rossie, good heavens."

  "Nothing ventured, nothing ..." Braun let the sentence dribble away as he stuffed the paper into a coat pocket, which had obviously been used as a waste receptacle for many a year, and led the way up the cement walk, his younger companions immediately behind.

  He put his finger on the doorbell and cocked his head to one side. There was no sound from the depths of the house. Dr. Braun muttered, "Bell out of order."

  "It would be," Ross chuckled sourly. "Remember? Average. Here, let me." He rapped briskly on the wooden door jamb. They stood for a moment then he knocked again, louder, saying almost as though hopefully, "Maybe there's nobody home."

  "All right, all right, take it easy," a voice growled even as the door opened.

  He was somewhere in his thirties, easygoing of face, brownish of hair, bluish of eye and moderately good-looking. His posture wasn't the best and he had a slight tummy but he was a goodish masculine specimen by Mid-Western standards. He stared out at them, defensive now that it was obvious they were strangers. Were they selling something, or in what other manner were they attempting to intrude on his well being? His eyes went from the older man's thin face, to the football hero heft of the younger, then to Patricia O'Gara. His eyes went up and down her figure and became approving in spite of the straight business suit she affected.

  He said, "What could I do for you?"

  "Mr. Crowley?" Ross said.

  "That's right."

  "I'm Ross Wooley and my friends are Patricia O'Gara and Dr. Frederick Braun. We'd like to talk to you."

  "There's nobody sick here."

  Patricia said impatiently, "Of course not. Dr. Braun isn't a practicing medical doctor. We are research biochemists."

  "We're scientists," Ross told him, putting it on what he assumed was the man's level. "There's something on which you could help us."

  Crowley took his eyes from the girl and scowled at Ross. "Me? Scientists? I'm just a country boy, I don't know anything about science." There was a grudging self-deprecation in his tone.

  Patricia took over, a miracle smile overwhelming her air of briskness. "We'd appreciate the opportunity to discuss it with you."

  Dr. Braun added the clincher. "And it might be remunerative."

  Crowley opened the door wider. "Well, just so it don't cost me nothing." He stepped back for them. "Don't mind the place. Kind of mussed up. Fact is, the wife left me about a week ago and I haven't got around to getting somebody to come in and kind of clean things up."

  He wasn't exaggerating. Patricia O'Gara had no pretensions to the housewife's art herself, but she sniffed when she saw the condition of the living room. There was a dirty shirt drooped over the sofa back and beside the chair which faced the TV set were half a dozen empty beer cans. The ashtrays hadn't been emptied for at least days and the floor had obviously not been swept since the domestic tragedy which had sent Mrs. Crowley packing.

  Now that the three strangers were within his castle, Crowley's instincts for hospitality asserted themselves. He said, "Make yourself comfortable. Here, wait'll I get these things out of the way. Anybody like a drink? I got some beer in the box, or," he smirked at Patricia, "I got some port wine you might like, not this bellywash you buy by the gallon."

  They declined the refreshments, it wasn't quite noon.

  Crowley wrestled the chair which had been before the TV set around so that he could sit facing them, and then sat himself down. He didn't get this and his face showed it.

  Frederick Braun came to the point. "Mr. Crowley," he said, "did it ever occur to you that somewhere amidst our nearly one hundred million American males there is the average man?"

  Crowley looked at him.

  Braun cleared his throat and with his thumb and forefinger pushed his glasses more firmly on the bridge of his nose. "I suppose that isn't exactly the technical way in which to put it."

  Ross Wooley shifted his football shoulders and leaned forward earnestly. "No, Doctor, that's exactly the way to put it." He said to Crowley, very seriously, "We've done this most efficiently. We've gone through absolute piles of statistics. We've...."

  "Done what?" Crowley all but wailed. "Take it easy, will you? What are you all talking about?"

  Patricia said impatiently, "Mr. Crowley, you are the average American. The man on the street. The Common Man."

  He frowned at her. "What'd'ya mean, commo
n? I'm as good as anybody else."

  "That's exactly what we mean," Ross said placatingly. "You are exactly as good as anybody else, Mr. Crowley. You're the average man."

  "I don't know what the devil you're talking about. Pardon my language, Miss."

  "Not at all," Patricia sighed. "Dr. Braun, why don't you take over? We seem to all be speaking at once."

  ***

  The little doctor began to enumerate on his fingers. "The center of population has shifted to this vicinity, so the average American lives here in the Middle West. Population is also shifting from rural to urban, so the average man lives in a city of approximately this size. Determining average age, height, weight is simple with government data as complete as they are. Also racial background. You, Mr. Crowley, are predominately English, German and Irish, but have traces of two or three other nationalities."

  Crowley was staring at him. "How in the devil did you know that?"

  Ross said wearily, "We've gone to a lot of trouble."

  Dr. Braun hustled on. "You've had the average amount of education, didn't quite finish high school. You make average wages working in a factory as a clerk. You spent some time in the army but never saw combat. You drink moderately, are married and have one child, which is average for your age. Your I.Q. is exactly average and you vote Democrat except occasionally when you switch over to Republican."

  "Now wait a minute," Crowley protested. "You mean I'm the only man in this whole country that's like me? I mean, you mean I'm the average guy, right in the middle?"

  Patricia O'Gara said impatiently. "You are the nearest thing to it, Mr. Crowley. Actually, possibly one of a hundred persons would have served our purpose."

  "O.K.," Crowley interrupted, holding up a hand. "That gets us to the point. What's this here purpose? What's the big idea prying, like, into my affairs till you learned all this about me? And what's this stuff about me getting something out of it? Right now I'm between jobs."