Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  “Obviously not. We’d have to allow—”

  “I’ll take them all, then, except the three I can’t afford.”

  “Thank you,” Ferguson said, but he didn’t mean it.

  “It’s perfectly obvious what he intends to do,” Ferguson said. “He’ll try to get us to pay off on one policy so he can continue to pay all the other premiums. And whenever his bank account runs low, he’ll cash in on another policy. Kick a policeman or something. What a low idea of humor.”

  Archer took a long time to answer. He closed his eyes, apparently considered the whole problem, opened them again, and inquired, “Do you staff officers in ILC have psychiatric checkups?”

  “Now I’m crazy. Is that it?”

  “It’s easier to believe that than to think one man could upset your whole organization so easily. Why jump to the unlikeliest conclusion before you’ve checked on the likelier ones? I know ILC has paid off on insurance before, but always in line with the law of averages.”

  They were in Ferguson’s office overseeing Lawson’s hypnosis, which, according to the visor, was progressing according to schedule. So far there had been no hitch. Lawson was a fair hypnotic subject, even without the drug. He had gone into test catalepsy, and reacted in a normal manner. He had gone through the usual routine of firing a blank cartridge at a psychiatrist, which might have meant that (a) he was homicidal, or (b) he unconsciously realized the gun was loaded with blanks, or (c) he abhorred psychiatrists. Rechecks indicated that the second was true. He had also been instructed to swipe a dollar from an attendant’s pocket, and that meant nothing either. Barter is the basic; currency i3 necessarily a symbol, and what a dollar meant to Lawson was difficult to discover.

  Psychiatry is as exact and inexact a science as mathematics. Once you realize that it’s possible to create a whole new system of mathematics at need, you realize that ordinary math is accurate only when the rules are followed. But if you use the rules of one system to solve the problems of another system, there may arise some difficulty. The psychiatrists working on Lawson were not bollixed, but Ferguson thought they might not know it if they were.

  And yet he had nothing to work on except a hunch.

  Hunches are exact sciences, though, once you get away from fairy tale concepts. So-called prescient dreams can be accurate. A wish-fulfillment dream may certainly be prescient; it’s at least a half and half gamble. Ferguson’s hunch came from his unconscious, which had the hopes and fears of all his years. He had achieved security against tremendous odds, for in the Twentieth Century he would have been a miserably unhappy specimen. To him ILC symbolized security, which he vitally needed. A threat to ILC was, very definitely, a threat to himself. And, like most other men, he had the buried nightmare psychosis of the ultimate chain reaction.

  ILC did mean status quo, in a way. The people in charge allowed for stress and strain and flux, of course; environment makes a vast amount of difference in precision measurements—of metal, for example. If you kept the human race in a vacuum under glass, status quo would be practicable. As it was—

  “He makes me nervous,” Ferguson said inadequately. “A hunch is no evidence, but—”

  “What’s the matter? Think he’s a superman?” Archer asked ironically.

  Ferguson considered his nails. “You’re not serious.”

  “Well—it’s unlikely.”

  “I’ve done a lot of research from time to time on just that subject,” Ferguson said. “Sometimes I’ve wondered . . . Why the devil are you checking up on Lawson if you’re so sure he’s harmless?”

  “I don’t take chances. A good Fixer is like an aneroid barometer. Sensitive. I’ve got certain specialized training and skills. When there’s the equivalent of a variation in atmospheric pressure, I notice it, and I like to find out what the cause was. I’ve been on a lot of wild-goose chases, but—I don’t take chances.”

  “It’s no coincidence that we’re working on the same problem,” Ferguson said. “You noticed the result and I guess I noticed the cause. We’ve each got a directional fix on Lawson—he’s the cross-bearing. Like a storm brewing in the Antarctic. It’s as though you noticed a falling barometer in Wisconsin while I noticed a thermal at the South Pole. Well—Lawson makes me feel funny, And Lawson asked your patron to back a bill, which is where you came in. Hiram Reeve must have had a lot of screwball bills proposed to him before this.”

  “But never altruistically.”

  “What—never?”

  “I meant never. Sometimes you have to dig deep to find the payoff, but it’s always there. There’s compensation involved, always, psychologically anyway. You’ll find that disinterested reformers aren’t as disinterested as they appear—if you check up on their personal warps. People who want to save the world, Mr. Ferguson, generally have a plush-seated throne picked out for themselves in the brave new one. But Lawson’s proposition was apparently altruistic, and I want to make sure he had a selfish motive for proposing his immaturity pension idea. Then I can relax.”

  “It’s just a job to you, then?”

  “I like to do my job. That’s why I’m working for Reeve—he’s the most competent politico around. If there were a better one, I’d change allegiance. But right now—apparently I’m looking for normality in Lawson and you’re looking for abnormality.”

  “He’s normal,” Ferguson said. “Notice that reaction chart.”

  They examined the televisor. Lawson was being conditioned against kicking a policeman.

  “Will it work?” Archer asked.

  “Impossible to tell. We depend a great deal on implanting fear of consequences. But we insure against consequences. In lab conditions, Lawson might very well refrain from kicking a policeman, because he unconsciously knows he wouldn’t get his policy if he did. But once he’s insured—the policy guarantees against consequences. There’s always a margin for error.”

  Across the screen moved a jiggling green line that meant Lawson refrained from kicking the equivalent of a policeman.

  Three days later Lawson threw phenylthiourea into the reservoir, he did it within range of one of the watchdog telephoto lenses, set up in a ring around the water supply, and first he held up the labeled bottle so there would be no mistake. Thereafter he laughed hilariously and went away.

  “I want protection against a homicidal impulse,” Ferguson said to the ILC psychiatrist. “Probably it’s got a paranoid base. There’s a client out to git me.”

  “Out to git you, is he?” the psychiatrist said. “What’s he been up to?”

  Ferguson told him. “There’s nothing yet,” he ended. “Not even a neurosis, as far as I know. But I worry about the guy. He’s taken out twenty-two policies, and—I’m afraid of how I may start to feel later.”

  “Identification with ILC. I expect we can get rid of that feeling. Sublimate it or something. Remove the cause. Oh, well. One swallow doesn’t make a dipsomaniac. We’ll put you through the routine, Ferguson.

  “I keep thinking of_ mature gorillas. A nice therapy would be for me to take a hunting trip and shoot male gorillas. I don’t know. This could lead to claustrophobia and agoraphobia. Fear of open spaces, I mean, not fear of crowds. Then I’d have to spend my time like those figures in one of those little houses that foretell weather. Keep dashing in and out. What about a nice padded cell with walls that expand and contract?”

  “What about a sedative?” the psychiatrist countered. “The trouble with you staff boys, as a matter of fact, is that the minute you get a hangnail you think it’s a major psychosis. These minor things generally adjust themselves automatically. We keep complete, up-to-date charts of all the staff, and we know a great deal more about you than you think. You’re all right. Just to keep you happy, we’ll go through the routine and make sure you’re not a lycanthrope—though you wouldn’t he holding down the job you do if you hadn’t achieved integration.”

  “But what about Lawson?” Ferguson inquired plaintively.

  That was, of course,
already taken care of. Naturally ILC called Lawson in for re-examination. He came willingly enough, apparently suppressing a mild amusement at the whole proceeding. Ferguson had a deep-rooted conviction that the psychiatrists would discover nothing. All his old qualms and fears combined to tell him that whatever Lawson had was beyond the range of ILC’s precision instruments to discover. The only real way to detect his variation from the norm would be to correlate the effect he had on other bodies—the way Pluto’s existence was suspected before it was actually discovered.

  But Lawson’s psychological pattern came safely within the extreme range of normality.

  He hid a high resistance-quotient; so had many other people. Repeated treatments of sodium pentothal failed to break down all his barriers—that wasn’t a wholly unfamiliar phenomenon. He lay on the couch, doped with the hypnotic drug, and answered questions in a way that entirely failed to satisfy Ferguson.

  “How did you feel when you threw phenylthiourea into the reservoir?” they asked him.

  “I felt good,” Lawson said.

  “Did you remember that we had agreed you couldn’t throw phenylthiourea into the reservoir?” Silence.

  They repeated the query.

  “No,” Lawson said.

  “Could you kick a policeman?”

  “No.”

  There wasn’t much they could do about it that hadn’t already been done. They gave him supplementary hypnotic treatments, reinforcing the conditioning even more thoroughly than before. But he was written down under Margin for Error. He was a rare type, yet he came within the limits of normality. If he had extensions beyond that norm—the psychiatrists couldn’t detect them. Ferguson thought he had. Convincing other people was another matter. ILC had quite as much evidence on its side as he had on his—if you could call it evidence. Apparently it wasn’t. And the points that really convinced Ferguson himself were intangibles, on which he could produce no evidence at all. Sometimes he himself felt doubt, but in the end he always swung back to the blind, illogical conviction that was part of his mind by now. Hypersensitivity? Was that the answer? He had for many years been interested in the subject of the theoretical superman, and there had been times when, looking askance at someone or other, he had wondered—

  But never before had he felt conviction. With a part of his brain that seemed to be as specialized and infallible as radar—a sensitivity apparently only he possessed, he knew. He had always, deep within him, expected that some day the theoretical would become the practical. Now he thought that it had happened. But how could he convince anyone who did not already have this same conviction springing from an inner perception to which even he could give no name? He might as well announce the second coming of the Messiah. People would dismiss him as a crank, at best. Public disbelief would in effect invalidate the truth—if it were true. There had never been but one man who could safely have claimed to be Napoleon—and even he, without sufficient evidence, might expect to be certified. Before the time of Galileo, Ferguson told himself, there must have been a number of lunatics who, among their other delusions, were convinced that the Earth went round the Sun.

  Margin for Error would not exist if a good many people did not fall into that particular classification. To choose one case arbitrarily looked like simple eccentricity on Ferguson’s part. He had no arguments anyone could understand. He was a pre-Galilean convinced of the Earth’s orbit. And he had no telescopic apparatus an ordinary human could use.

  What could he do about it?

  Only what he had already done.

  The psychiatrists could help up to a certain point—the limit of visibility on-their figurative telescopes.

  But he dared not tell them all he suspected, for fear of being tagged as a psychotic himself. In effect he had to psychoanalyze himself, a notoriously difficult task—and try to segregate and analyze the nameless, certain sense that told him what Lawson was.

  Meanwhile Benjamin Lawson went placidly about his business.

  Having latched on to a good deal of money from ILC, as the result of his escapade at the reservoir, he deposited it with an investment broker and rented a small cottage fully equipped by Services. He seemed to want to avoid responsibility. There was an odd air of playing to his life. Food, prepared and hot, arrived, a week’s supply at a time, and Lawson had only to push a button, make his selection, and eat. Then he pushed another button and the service disappeared for automatic cleansing. Since the house was functional, there were no dust-catchers, and air-conditioning and electronic gadgets took care of the inevitable filth that occurs everywhere except in a hard vacuum. There was a playground-resort a few hundred miles away, and Lawson often flew there to ski, play tennis, have a vigorous game of skatch, or swim. He bought thousands of books and book-reels and read omnivorously. He had a chemical laboratory and other laboratories, all purely amateur. He had a great deal of fun making soap, and only the chlorophyl-deodorizer-units saved the bungalow from becoming a stench and an abomination.

  He didn’t do any work.

  A year later he kicked a policeman. His money was running low.

  Ferguson was doing pretty well. A hitherto-unrealized psychosis had been uncovered, involving a forgotten infancy-wish for the moon; and by a remarkable series of associations, involving green cheese, butter, and bread, it had resolved itself into the father-image, which was familiar enough to be handled by even the stupidest psychiatrist. Ferguson called on his father, an ancient and unregenerate, oldster who spent most of his time collecting dirty limericks, and was conscious of no particular reaction, except a feeling of mild boredom when his antique sire insisted on repeating every limerick he knew at least three times. He was left with a conviction that his father needed psychoanalysis, and he went back to work mentally cleansed and integrated, he felt.

  Then Lawson kicked the policeman.

  “But that was over two years ago,” Archer said into the televisor. “I remember you were all steamed up about it then. Still, it’s been two years! Lawson hasn’t collected on any more policies, has he?”

  “That’s not the point,” Ferguson said, a muscle in his cheek twitching. “Everyone but me has forgotten about Lawson—he’s down in the files as just another case. I called to see if you’d lost interest, too.”

  Archer made a noncommittal sound.

  Ferguson looked at him across the miles. “I’d be willing to bet,” he said, “that you’ve got Lawson’s name on your calendar for a future checkup.”

  Archer hesitated. “All right,” he said. “You win. But it’s simply i routine; I’ve checked on him every six months. I do that with a good many people—I told you once I don’t take chances. Luckily I’ve got a competent staff, so I can afford the time. But it’s just routine.”

  “It may be routine with your other cases,” Ferguson said, “but don’t tell me it’s only that with Lawson.”

  Archer smiled. “I know you’ve got a phobia about him. Is there anything new?”

  Ferguson looked thoughtfully at Archer, wondering how much of his motive he should reveal at this time. He decided to stick to the facts.

  “You know what I believe, Archer. I haven’t any proof. He has been careful never to do anything that would give him away. Neither has he shown any indication of what he intends to do when he does use his—powers. I think I’ve found out why.”

  “Could it be simply because he’s a normal man without any special powers?” Archer asked gently.

  “No, it couldn’t! I’ll tell you what it really is. He’s still a child.”

  “At twenty-three?”

  Ferguson smiled. “Do you know the ages of all your routine cases that well?”

  “Well, go on,” Archer said, shrugging.

  “I’ve been studying his case very thoroughly. I’ve made charts and graphs from the information I’ve gathered, and I’ve showed them to specialists. I’ve got opinions and I’ve made comparisons. Lawson’s activity-patterns are those of a twelve-year-old child—with variations. Intelle
ctually he’s not twelve years old, but his recreations—his periods of relaxation, when the intellectual centers of the brain aren’t exclusively in control—that’s when the important factors begin to show. He thinks like an adult, but he plays like a child. It’s delayed maturation; it must be.”

  “So you believe he’ll turn into a superman when he grows up?”

  “That’s why he went-to your patron Reeve when he graduated from his crêche. It’s the immaturity pension angle. He wasn’t as altruistic as he seemed; by his own standards he was immature at the time. He still is. He’s simply waiting until he grows up.”

  “Then what? He’ll conquer the world?”

  “I think he could if he wanted to.” Ferguson considered Archer’s face on the screen. “Well?” he said.

  “What do you expect me to say to that?”

  “I’m waiting for you to cross Archer’s name off your list. If your only interest in him has been curiosity about the altruism angle, you can check him off as of now. Are you going to?”

  Archer paused a fraction of a second too long before he said, “Sure.”

  “That means you’re not going to. You’re too accurate a barometer to dismiss me as a crackpot entirely.”

  “You keep leaving me with nothing to say except go on.”

  Ferguson said, “I’ve got a phobia, I’ll admit that. I’ve been living with it for a long time now. I don’t like it. It’s like living with one leg and no prosthetic device—I can get used to it, but my own adjustment won’t help the rest of the world. I’m going to make Lawson furnish proof that will convince you and everybody else that he’s—what he is. I’ll need your help. He’s made some good investments. That’s why he hasn’t yet needed to collect on any of those other policies he got originally. I’m beginning to think he took out so many just to disarm suspicion, so he could remain within the margin for error if he had to break two or three. He’s broken two. He’s been investigated. If he broke a third, I think other people besides me might begin to worry and wonder. I want him to break another. It’s time people did begin to worry. This is where you come in. If Lawson’s investments went wrong, he’d need more dough. I want them to go wrong. That’s more your line than mine. What do you say?”