The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume VI: An Anthology of 50 Short Stories

by Various

  "That's right," Charley said.

  "O.K., buddy," the driver said. "Just hang on." The cab started with a cough and a roar, and shot out of the terminal like a bazooka shell. Over the noise of travel, the cabbie said: "Going to get yourself fixed up? No offense, Mac."

  "No offense," Charley said. "I'm just going to talk to him."

  "Oh," the cabbie said. "Sure." There was silence for a second. Then the cabbie turned around. The machine shot ahead, down a wide avenue filled with cars. Charley took a deep breath and forgot to let it go. "You know," the cabbie said, "I seen something funny the other day."

  "Really?" Charley said, through clenched teeth.

  The cabbie turned back casually, flicked the wheel to avoid an oncoming truck, and continued: "Funny, yeah. Went to the Flea Museum ... you know, the sideshow here, on Forty-second?"

  "I know it," Charley said. He'd been offered winter work in the place several times, though he'd never accepted. Everyone in carny life knew of the place.

  "And, anyhow, I went down the other day, and there was this guy ... he was like you, Mac, I mean no arms. You don't mind me talking about it?"

  Apparently everybody thought he was sensitive on the subject, Charley reflected tiredly. "I don't mind," he said.

  "Sure," the cabbie said. A red light showed ahead and the cab screeched to a halt. "Anyhow, there he was, like a freak, you know? Hell, Mac, I was mad. I mean mad. The guy wants me to pay money to see him; he don't want to go get cured. He's like lazy, Mac. Lazy. Wants to sit around and let me pay money I work hard for, like some kind of a stuffed exhibit he thinks he is." The light changed; the cab shuddered and moved on. "And this doctor right here in the same city. Now, what do you think of that?"

  Charley shrugged. "I wouldn't know," he said cautiously. He took out a cigarette with his left foot, lit it with his right, and slid both feet back into his shoes. "Nearly there?" he asked.

  "No offense, Mac," the cabbie said, sounding obscurely troubled. "We're there in a minute." He turned and stared narrowly at Charley. The cab shot blindly on. "Say, listen. That with the cigarette. You belong to some kind of sideshow? I mean, no offense--"

  "No offense," Charley said. "That's right. I'm with a carnival."

  "We'll, you're doing the right thing," the cabbie said, turning back to the road again. Amazingly, there was no obstruction before them. "I mean, a guy has to be honest. With this doctor around, you can't be a no-arms guy any more; it's not fair. Right?"

  Charley licked his lips. The cab stopped.

  "Here we are," the driver announced.

  Charley indicated his grouch-bag, still heavy with dollar bills, hanging round his neck. With scrupulous care, the driver extracted one bill. "Keep the change," Charley said. "And thanks for the conversation."

  He stepped out, hooking the suitcase to his harness as he did so. And there, in front of him, was a small white-faced stone building. The cab roared away behind him, and Charley started across the sidewalk.

  Now, in New York, he had found out what he was going to ask Professor Lightning. And it was the one thing he hadn't thought possible.

  * * * * *

  One flight of stairs led straight up from the doorway, and Charley took it slowly. At the top was a great wooden door with a brass plate screwed to it, and on the brass plate a single name was incised: Dr. E. C. Schinsake. There was nothing else. Charley slipped the shoe off his right foot, and rang the bell.

  A voice inside said: "Who's there? Who is it, please?"

  "It's me, professor," Charley called. He slipped the sandal back on. "Charley de Milo. I came to see you."

  "Charley--" There was a second of silence. "Charley de Milo?" Professor Lightning's grating voice said. "From the show?" Footsteps came across a room, and the door swung open. Professor Lightning stood inside, just as tall and white-haired as ever, and Charley blinked, looking at him, and past him at the room.

  People didn't live in rooms like that, he thought. They were only for the movies, or maybe for millionaires, but not for people, real people that Charley himself knew to talk to.

  The furniture--a couch, a few chairs and tables, a phonograph--was glitteringly new and expensive-looking. The walls were freshly painted in soft, bright colors, and pictures hung on them, strange-looking pictures Charley couldn't make sense out of. But they looked right, somehow, in that room.

  On the floor there was a rug deeper and softer-looking than any Charley had ever seen. And, away to the right, two floor-length windows sparkled, hung with great drapes and shining in the daylight. There were flowers growing outside the sills, just visible above the window frames. Charley gulped and took a breath.

  "Come in," Professor Lightning said. "Come in." In the midst of the riot of wealth, the professor didn't seem to have changed at all. He was still wearing the same ratty robe he'd worn in the carnival, his hair was still as uncombed. It was only on second glance that Charley saw the look in his eyes. Professor Lightning was Dr. Schinsake now; the eyes said that, and were proud of it. And the world agreed with Dr. Schinsake.

  Charley came into the bright room and stood quietly until Dr. Schinsake asked him to sit down.

  "Well, now, my boy," he said. "You haven't given me a word since you rang the bell, and I would like to know why you're here. Frankly, you're lucky to catch me in; but we were up late last night, working in the labs. I'm afraid I overslept a little." His eyes shone with the mention of his laboratories. It was a far cry from the back of the science tent, Charley supposed.

  But he'd come for a definite purpose. He licked his lips, waited a second, and said: "Professor, it's about my arms. What you said you could do."

  "Your arms?" The old man frowned. "Now? You've come to me ... Charley, my boy, tell me why. Tell me why you have changed your mind now."

  Charley nodded. "I ... I didn't start out here to ask you about my arms," he said. "But on the way I started putting things together. Professor, why do people come to side-shows?"

  The old man shrugged. "Entertainment," he said.

  "Sure, but there are all kinds of entertainment," Charley said. "Like strong men. There used to be a lot of strong men in carnivals, but there aren't any more. And now I know why. Ed Baylis started to tell me, but I ... well, never mind."

  "Charley," the old man said. "What do strong men have to do with--"

  "Let me tell you, professor," Charley said. "People don't care about strong men any more; there are too many gadgets around. Nobody has to be a strong man; nobody wants to watch one. They're useless. See?"

  "Everyone can be his own strong man," the old man said.

  "Right," Charley said. "The chain hoist--machines like that--they killed off the whole act. Years ago. And you've killed off the Armless Wonders and the Legless Wonders, professor. You've done it, all at once."

  Professor Lightning shook his head. "I don't see--" he began.

  "Anybody can grow new arms," Charley said. "So the man without arms--he's not an object of pity any more. He's just some guy who doesn't want to work. Nobody wants to go and see him; let him grow arms, if he doesn't want to be called a lazy bum. See?"

  There was a little silence.

  "I see," Professor Lightning said slowly. "Without pity, without a strong sense of identification, there is no audience."

  "For me there isn't," Charley said. "Or for anybody like me."

  Professor Lightning nodded. "Well," he said. "I hardly meant to ... well, Charley, you came for something else." His face seemed to lengthen. "And I must tell you ... Charley, I have been doing a lot of work. I am hardly a professional scientist; I have been away too long."

  "But--"

  "It is true," Professor Lightning said sadly. "Never mind; I've had my one discovery--how much an accident, no one may ever know. But I neglected to widen the scope of what I had done; I generalized too rapidly, my boy." He took a deep breath. "The method, the technique, is very complex," he said. "But imagine it this way: a man comes to New York. He explores it. Later, whe
n he goes home, he is asked to draw a map of it--and he can do so, because he has the experience. He has the memory of New York, locked in his mind."

  Charley nodded. "What does that have to do with me?" he said.

  "The cells ... the cells of the body seem to have such a memory," the professor said. "It is the basis of my technique."

  Charley nodded. "O.K.," he said "I don't care how it works, so long as it-- It does work, doesn't it?"

  The professor shook his head. Very slowly, he said: "Not for you, my boy. Not for you." He paused. "You see, you were born without arms. In such a case the cellular memory does not seem to exist--like a man who has never been to New York. He cannot draw the map. He has no memory to begin with."

  The silence this time was a long one.

  At last Charley said: "But somebody could tell him. I mean about New York, so he could draw the map."

  "Perhaps," the professor said. "We are working on it. Some day--"

  "But not today," Charley said. "Is that it?"

  "I ... I'm afraid so," the professor said.

  Charley sat for a long time, thinking. He pictured the carnival, and the shrinking audiences. Could he explain to them why he couldn't get arms? Would any audience stop to listen and digest the truth? Charley thought of the armless man in the Flea Museum, and decided slowly that no explanation would be good enough. People didn't stop to make small distinctions. Not in a sideshow. Not in a carnival.

  No.

  There was only one thing he could do; he saw that clearly. But it took him a long time to find the right words. At last he had them.

  "Professor," he said, "suppose I go right back to being a sideshow exhibit--but with a limited audience."

  Professor Lightning looked puzzled. "What do you mean?" he said.

  "Well," Charley said, carefully and with a sudden, surprising feeling of hope, "you don't happen to need a new guinea pig, do you?"

  THE END

  * * *

  Contents

  THE FIRST ONE

  By HERBERT D. KASTLE

  The first man to return from beyond the Great Frontier may be welcomed ... but will it be as a curiosity, rather than as a hero...?

  There was the usual welcoming crowd for a celebrity, and the usual speeches by the usual politicians who met him at the airport which had once been twenty miles outside of Croton, but which the growing city had since engulfed and placed well within its boundaries. But everything wasn't usual. The crowd was quiet, and the mayor didn't seem quite as at-ease as he'd been on his last big welcoming--for Corporal Berringer, one of the crew of the spaceship Washington, first to set Americans upon Mars. His Honor's handclasp was somewhat moist and cold. His Honor's eyes held a trace of remoteness.

  Still, he was the honored home-comer, the successful returnee, the hometown boy who had made good in a big way, and they took the triumphal tour up Main Street to the new square and the grandstand. There he sat between the mayor and a nervous young coed chosen as homecoming queen, and looked out at the police and fire department bands, the National Guard, the boy scouts and girl scouts, the Elks and Masons. Several of the churches in town had shown indecision as to how to instruct their parishioners to treat him. But they had all come around. The tremendous national interest, the fact that he was the First One, had made them come around. It was obvious by now that they would have to adjust as they'd adjusted to all the other firsts taking place in these--as the newspapers had dubbed the start of the Twenty-first Century--the Galloping Twenties.

  He was glad when the official greeting was over. He was a very tired man and he had come farther, traveled longer and over darker country, than any man who'd ever lived before. He wanted a meal at his own table, a kiss from his wife, a word from his son, and later to see some old friends and a relative or two. He didn't want to talk about the journey. He wanted to forget the immediacy, the urgency, the terror; then perhaps he would talk.

  Or would he? For he had very little to tell. He had traveled and he had returned and his voyage was very much like the voyages of the great mariners, from Columbus onward--long, dull periods of time passing, passing, and then the arrival.

  The house had changed. He saw that as soon as the official car let him off at 45 Roosevelt Street. The change was, he knew, for the better. They had put a porch in front. They had rehabilitated, spruced up, almost rebuilt the entire outside and grounds. But he was sorry. He had wanted it to be as before.

  The head of the American Legion and the chief of police, who had escorted him on this trip from the square, didn't ask to go in with him. He was glad. He'd had enough of strangers. Not that he was through with strangers. There were dozens of them up and down the street, standing beside parked cars, looking at him. But when he looked back at them, their eyes dropped, they turned away, they began moving off. He was still too much the First One to have his gaze met.

  He walked up what had once been a concrete path and was now an ornate flagstone path. He climbed the new porch and raised the ornamental knocker on the new door and heard the soft music sound within. He was surprised that he'd had to do this. He'd thought Edith would be watching at a window.

  And perhaps she had been watching ... but she hadn't opened the door.

  The door opened; he looked at her. It hadn't been too long and she hadn't changed at all. She was still the small, slender girl he'd loved in high school, the small, slender woman he'd married twelve years ago. Ralphie was with her. They held onto each other as if seeking mutual support, the thirty-three-year old woman and ten-year-old boy. They looked at him, and then both moved forward, still together. He said, "It's good to be home!"

  Edith nodded and, still holding to Ralphie with one hand, put the other arm around him. He kissed her--her neck, her cheek--and all the old jokes came to mind, the jokes of travel-weary, battle-weary men, the and-then-I'll-put-my-pack-aside jokes that spoke of terrible hunger. She was trembling, and even as her lips came up to touch his he felt the difference, and because of this difference he turned with urgency to Ralphie and picked him up and hugged him and said, because he could think of nothing else to say, "What a big fella, what a big fella."

  Ralphie stood in his arms as if his feet were still planted on the floor, and he didn't look at his father but somewhere beyond him. "I didn't grow much while you were gone, Dad, Mom says I don't eat enough."

  So he put him down and told himself that it would all change, that everything would loosen up just as his commanding officer, General Carlisle, had said it would early this morning before he left Washington.

  "Give it some time," Carlisle had said. "You need the time; they need the time. And for the love of heaven, don't be sensitive."

  * * * * *

  Edith was leading him into the living room, her hand lying still in his, a cool, dead bird lying still in his. He sat down on the couch, she sat down beside him--but she had hesitated. He wasn't being sensitive; she had hesitated. His wife had hesitated before sitting down beside him.

  Carlisle had said his position was analogous to Columbus', to Vasco De Gama's, to Preshoff's when the Russian returned from the Moon--but more so. Carlisle had said lots of things, but even Carlisle who had worked with him all the way, who had engineered the entire fantastic journey--even Carlisle the Nobel prize winner, the multi-degreed genius in uniform, had not actually spoken to him as one man to another.

  The eyes. It always showed in their eyes.

  He looked across the room at Ralphie, standing in the doorway, a boy already tall, already widening in the shoulders, already large of feature. It was like looking into the mirror and seeing himself twenty-five years ago. But Ralphie's face was drawn, was worried in a way that few ten-year-old faces are.

  "How's it going in school?" he asked.

  "Gee, Dad, it's the second month of summer vacation."

  "Well, then, before summer vacation?"

  "Pretty good."

  Edith said, "He made top forum the six-month period before vacation, and he made top for
um the six-month period you went away, Hank."

  He nodded, remembering that, remembering everything, remembering the warmth of her farewell, the warmth of Ralphie's farewell, their tears as he left for the experimental flight station in the Aleutians. They had feared for him, having read of the many launchings gone wrong even in continent-to-continent experimental flight.

  They had been right to worry. He had suffered much after that blow-up. But now they should be rejoicing, because he had survived and made the long journey. Ralphie suddenly said, "I got to go, Dad. I promised Walt and the others I'd pitch. It's Inter-Town Little League, you know. It's Harmon, you know. I got to keep my word." Without waiting for an answer, he waved his hand--it shook; a ten-year-old boy's hand that shook--and ran from the room and from the house.

  He and Edith sat beside each other, and he wanted badly to take her in his arms, and yet he didn't want to oppress her. He stood up. "I'm very tired. I'd like to lie down a while." Which wasn't true, because he'd been lying down all the months of the way back.

  She said, "Of course. How stupid of me, expecting you to sit around and make small talk and pick up just where you left off."

  He nodded. But that was exactly what he wanted to do--make small talk and pick up just where he'd left off. But they didn't expect it of him; they wouldn't let him; they felt he had changed too much.

  * * * * *

  She led him upstairs and along the foyer past Ralphie's room and past the small guest room to their bedroom. This, too, had changed. It was newly painted and it had new furniture. He saw twin beds separated by an ornate little table with an ornate little lamp, and this looked more ominous a barrier to him than the twelve-foot concrete-and-barbed-wire fence around the experimental station.

  "Which one is mine," he asked, and tried to smile.

  She also tried to smile. "The one near the window. You always liked the fresh air, the sunshine in the morning. You always said it helped you to get up on time when you were stationed at the base outside of town. You always said it reminded you--being able to see the sky--that you were going to go up in it, and that you were going to come down from it to this bed again."