The Mack Reynolds Megapack

by Mack Reynolds

  * * * *

  It took them half an hour or so to sort out those materials each needed in his own contribution to the end product.

  Their captor looked at his watch impatiently. “Let’s get a move on, here. I thought this was going to take a few minutes.”

  Patricia said testily, “What’s the hurry, Don?”

  He grinned at her. “Tonight’s the big night. This evening, just before closing, I walk into.… Well, you don’t have to know the name. Like I said, it’ll make the Brinks job look like peanuts. They lock up the place and leave, see? O.K., about two o’clock in the morning, when the city’s dead, Larry and the boys drive up into an alley, behind. I go around, one by one, and sock the four guards on the back of the head. Then I open up for Larry and they take their time and clear the place out. From then on, we got all the dough we need to start pyramiding it up on the Stock Exchange and like that.”

  Patricia had drawn on rubber gloves, pulled a lab apron around her. She began reaching for test tubes, measuring devices. She murmured softly, “What keeps you from telling yourself you’re nothing but a crook, Don? When we first met you—it seems a terribly long time ago, back there in Far Cry—you didn’t seem to be such a bad egg.”

  “We didn’t know, then, he was a cracked egg,” Ross muttered. He looked to where Crowley slouched, his eyes narrow as though considering his chances of rushing the other. Crowley grinned and shook his head. “Don’t try it, Buster.”

  Crowley looked at Patricia. “You don’t get it, sister. It’s like somebody or other said. The ends, uh, justify the means. That means.…”

  “I know what it means,” Patricia said impatiently.

  Dr. Braun, who rather hopelessly was also beginning to work at the equipment their captor had provided, said reasonably, “Don, the greater number of the thinkers of the world have rejected that maxim. If you will, umah, analyze it, you will find that the end and the means are one.”

  “Yeah, yeah, a lot of complicated egghead gas. What I’m saying, Pat, is that what I’m eventually heading for is good for everybody. At least it’s good for all real hundred per cent Americans. Everybody’s going to go to college and guaranteed to come out with what you three got, a doctor’s degree. Everybody’s going to get a guaranteed annual wage, like, whether or not they can do any work. It’s not a guy’s fault if he gets sick or unemployed or something. Everybody.…”

  “Shades of all the social-reformers who ever lived,” Ross muttered.

  “By Caesar,” Braun said in despair, “I have an idea you’ll get the vote of every halfwit in the country.”

  Crowley came to his feet. “I don’t like that kind of talk, Doc. Maybe I’m just a country boy, but I know what the common man wants and what I’m going to do is give it to him.”

  Patricia looked up from her work long enough to frown at him. “What special are you going to get out of this, Don?”

  That took him back for a moment and he scowled at her.

  “Come, come,” she said. “You’ve already admitted to we three just what you think and are going to do. Now, how do you picture yourself, after all this has been accomplished?”

  His face suddenly broke into its grin, a somewhat sly element in it now. “You know, when I get this all worked out, the folks are going to be pretty thankful.”

  “I’ll bet,” Ross muttered. He, too, was working at his element of compounding the serum.

  “Yeah, they will, Buster,” Crowley said truculently. “And they’re going to want to show it. You ever seen one of those movies like ‘Ben Hur’ back in Roman days? Can you imagine everybody in the whole country thinking you were the best guy ever lived? You know, like an Emperor.”

  “Like Caligula,” Dr. Braun said softly.

  “I don’t know any of their names, but they really had it made. Snap your fingers and there’s a big banquet with the best floor show in the world. Snap your fingers and here comes the sexiest dames in Hollywood. Snap your fingers and some big entertainment like a chariot race, or something. Once I put this over, the Common Man Party, that’s the way people are going to feel about me and want to treat me.”

  “And if they don’t, you’ll make them?” Ross said sarcastically.

  “You’re too smart for your own britches, egghead,” Crowley snarled. He looked at his watch. “Let’s get this rolling. I got to get on down to the city and start this caper going.”

  Ross handed a test tube to Dr. Braun and began stripping the gloves from his hands. “That’s my contribution,” he said.

  Patricia had already delivered hers. Dr. Braun combined them, then heated the compound, adding a distillate of his own. He said, “When this cools.…”

  Crowley crossed the room to the door and said something to the guard there. He returned in a moment with an anthropoid ape in a cage. He sat it on the table and looked at them.

  “O.K.,” he said to Braun, his voice dangerous. “Let’s see you inject the monk with this new batch of serum.”

  Braun raised his eyebrows.

  The other watched him narrowly, saying nothing further.

  Dr. Braun shrugged, located a hypodermic needle and prepared it. In a matter of moments, the animal was injected.

  Ross Wooley said sourly, “Don’t you trust your fellow man, Don?”

  “No, I don’t, and stop calling me Don. It’s Dan. Daniel Crowley.”

  The three of them looked at him in bewilderment.

  The ape was beginning to shimmer as though he was being seen through a window wet with driving rain.

  “Don’s my goody-goody brother. Used to live in the same house with me, but ever since we were kids and I got picked up on a juvenile delinquent rap for swiping a car, he’s been snotty. Anyway, now he’s moved out to Frisco.”

  Patricia blurted, “But…but you let us believe you were Donald.…”

  He brushed it off with a flick of his hand. “You said you had some deal where I could make me some money. O.K., I was between jobs.”

  The ape was invisible now. Crowley peered in at him. “Seems to work, all right.”

  Dr. Braun sighed. “I am not a Borgia, Daniel Crowley.”

  “You’re not a what?”

  “Never mind. I wouldn’t poison even you, if that is what you feared.”

  Daniel Crowley took up the new container of serum and put a lid on it. He said, “I got to get going. The guy out in front will get you back to your rooms. No tricks with him, Buster”—he was talking directly to Ross—“he’s already beat a couple of homicide raps.”

  * * * *

  Back in their cell-rooms, they found that there was but one guard. Evidently, the all-out robbery attempt to be held this night involved practically all of Larry Morazzoni’s forces. Beyond that, this guard did not seem particularly interested in keeping them from talking back and forth to each other through the peepholes that centered their doors.

  After a couple of hours during which time they largely held silence, immersed in their own thoughts, Dr. Braun called out, “Patricia, Ross, I should tender my apologies. It was my less than brilliant idea to find the average man and use him as a guinea pig.”

  “No apology necessary,” Patricia said impatiently. “We all went into it with open eyes.”

  “But you were correct, Pat,” the doctor said unhappily. “Our common man turned out to be a Frankenstein monster.”

  Ross growled, “That’s the trouble. It turned out he wasn’t our common man but his brother, whose petty criminal record evidently goes back to juvenile days.”

  “Even that doesn’t matter,” Patricia said testily. “I’ve about come to the conclusion that it wouldn’t have made any difference who we’d put in Don’s…I mean Daniel Crowley’s position. Man is too near the animal, as yet at least, to be trusted with such power. Any man.”

  “Why, Pat,” Dr. Braun said doggedly, “I don’t quite believe you correct. For instance, do you feel the same about me? Would I have reacted like our friend Dan?” He chuckled in deprecat
ion.

  “That’s my point,” she said. “I think you would…ultimately. Once again look at the Caesars, they held godlike power.”

  “You’re thinking of such as Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Commodus.…”

  “I’m also thinking of such as Claudius, the scholar who was practically forced to take the Imperial mantle. And Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher who although bound up in learning himself allowed his family free rein in their vices and finally turned the Empire over to his son Commodus, one of the most vicious men of all time. But take Caligula and Nero if you will. Both of them stepped into power comparatively clean and with the best of prospects. Well approved, well loved. What happened to them when given power without restraint?”

  Ross grumbled, “I admit I missed the boat, but not for the reasons Pat presents. In a sane society, our serum would be a valuable contribution. But in a dog eat dog world, where it’s each man for himself, then it becomes a criminal tool.”

  Patricia said sarcastically, “And can you point out a sane society?”

  Ross grunted. “No,” he said. After a moment he added, “You know, in a way Crowley was right. We three eggheads didn’t do so well up against what he called his common sense. I tried to slug him, with negative results. Dr. Braun, you tried sweet reason on him. Forgive me if I laugh. Pat, you tried your womanly wiles, but he saw through that, too.”

  “The chickens have not all come home to roost,” Patricia said mysteriously. “What time is it?”

  Ross told her.

  She called to the guard, “See here, you.”

  “Shut up. You ain’t supposed to be talking at all. Go to sleep.”

  “I want to speak to Mr. Morazzoni. It’s very important and you are going to be dreadfully sorry if you don’t bring him.”

  “Larry can’t be bothered. He’s getting ready to go on down to the city.”

  “I know what he’s doing, but if he doesn’t listen to me, he’s going to be very unhappy and probably full of bullet holes.”

  The guard came over to her door and stared at her for a long moment. He checked the lock on her door and then those of Dr. Braun and Ross Wooley. “We’ll see who’s going to be sorry,” he grunted. He turned and left.

  * * * *

  When he returned it was with both Larry Morazzoni and Paul Teeter, Dan Crowley’s political adviser. Morazzoni growled, “What goes on? You squares looking for trouble?”

  Patricia said testily, “I suggest you let us out of here, Mr. Morazzoni. If you do, we pledge not to press kidnaping charges against you. I believe you are aware of the penalty in this State.”

  “You trying to be funny?”

  “Definitely not, Mr. Morazzoni,” Patricia said icily. “Daniel Crowley bragged to us of your plans for tonight.”

  The hoodlum muttered a contemptuous obscenity under his breath.

  Paul Teeter, the heavy-set southerner said jovially, “But what has this to do with releasing you, Miss O’Gara? Admittedly Dan is a bit indiscreet but.…” He let the sentence fade away.

  “Yes,” Patricia said. “I realize that he is a nonprofessional in your ranks, and have little doubt that eventually you would have surmounted whatever precautions he has taken to keep you in underling positions. That’s beside the point. The point is that by this time Daniel Crowley has, ah, infiltrated the institution you expected to burglarize tonight. He is inside, and you are still outside. There are four guards also inside, whom he is expected to eliminate before you can join him.”

  “He told you everything all right, the jerk,” Larry said coldly. “But so what?”

  “So Dan Crowley had us make up a new amount of serum tonight and tested it on a chimpanzee in the lab. If you’ll go and check, you’ll undoubtedly find the chimp is again visible.”

  The gunman looked at Paul Teeter blankly.

  The other’s reactions were quicker. “The serum lasts for twelve hours,” Teeter barked.

  “This batch lasts for three hours,” Patricia said definitely. “Your friend Crowley is suddenly going to become visible right before the eyes of those four guards—and long before he had expected to eliminate them.”

  Teeter barked, “Larry, check that monkey.”

  Doc Braun spoke up for the first time since the appearance of the two. He said dryly, “You’ll also notice that the animal is sound asleep. It seems that I added a slow-acting but rather potent sleeping compound to the serum.”

  The gunman started from the room in a rush.

  Ross called after him, “If you’ll look closely, you’ll also note the chimp’s skin has turned a brilliant red. There have been some basic changes in the pigment.”

  “Holy smokes,” Paul Teeter protested, moping his face with a handkerchief. “Didn’t he take any precautions against you people at all?”

  Ross said, “He was too busy telling us how smart a country boy he happened to be.”

  Larry returned in moments, biting his lip in the first nervous manifestation any of them had ever seen in him. He took Teeter to one side.

  Patricia called to them impatiently. “You have no time and no one to contact Crowley now. Don’t be fools. Mend your bridges while you can. Let us out of here, and we’ll prefer no charges.”

  Larry was a man of quick decisions. He snapped to the blank-faced guard who had assimilated only a fraction of all this, “Go on back to the boys and tell them to start packing to get out of here. Tell them the fix has chilled. It’s all off. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  “O.K., chief.” The other had the philosophical outlook of those who were meant to take orders and knew it. He left.

  Larry and Teeter opened the cell doors.

  Teeter said, “How do we know we can trust you?”

  Ross looked at him.

  Larry said, “It’s a deal. Give us an hour to get out of here. Then use the phone if you want to call a taxi, or whatever. I ain’t stupid, this thing was too complicated to begin with.”

  When Teeter and Morazzoni were gone, the three stood alone in the corridor, looking at each other.

  The doctor pushed his glasses back onto his nose with a thumb and forefinger. “By Caesar,” he said.

  Ross ran a hefty paw back through his red crew cut and twisted his face into a mock grimace. “Well,” he said, “I have to revise my former statement. I used brute strength against Crowley, the doctor used sweet reason, and Pat her womanly wiles. And all failed. But as biochemists, each working without the knowledge of the others, we used science—and it paid off. I suppose the thing to do now is buy three jet tickets for California.”

  Braun and Patricia looked at him blankly.

  Ross explained. “Didn’t you hear what Crowley said? His brother, Donald, has moved out to San Francisco. He’s our real Common Man, we’ll have to start the experiment all over again.”

  Dr. Braun snorted.

  Patricia O’Gara, hands on hips, snapped, “Ross Wooley, our engagement is off!”

  COMBAT

  Henry Kuran answered a nod here and there, a called out greeting from a desk an aisle removed from the one along which he was progressing, finally made the far end of the room. He knocked at the door and pushed his way through before waiting a response.

  There were three desks here. He didn’t recognize two of the girls who looked up at his entry. One of them began to say something, but then Betty, whose desk dominated the entry to the inner sanctum, grinned a welcome at him and said, “Hank! How was Peru? We’ve been expecting you.”

  “Full of Incas,” he grinned back. “Incas, Russkies and Chinks. A poor capitalist conquistador doesn’t have a chance. Is the boss inside?”

  “He’s waiting for you, Hank. See you later.”

  Hank said, “Um-m-m,” and when the door clicked in response to the button Betty touched, pushed his way into the inner office.

  Morton Twombly, chief of the department, came to his feet, shook hands abruptly and motioned the other to a chair.

  “How’re things in Peru, Henry
?” His voice didn’t express too much real interest.

  Hank said, “We were on the phone just a week ago, Mr. Twombly. It’s about the same. No, the devil it is. The Chinese have just run in their new People’s Car. They look something like our jeep station-wagons did fifteen years ago.”

  Twombly stirred in irritation. “I’ve heard about them.”

  Hank took his handkerchief from his breast pocket and polished his rimless glasses. He said evenly, “They sell for just under two hundred dollars.”

  “Two hundred dollars?” Twombly twisted his face. “They can’t transport them from China for that.”

  “Here we go again,” Hank sighed. “They also can’t sell pressure cookers for a dollar apiece, nor cameras with f.2 lenses for five bucks. Not to speak of the fact that the Czechs can’t sell shoes for fifty cents a pair and, of course, the Russkies can’t sell premium gasoline for five cents a gallon.”

  Twombly muttered, “They undercut our prices faster than we can vote through new subsidies. Where’s it going to end Henry?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps we should have thought a lot more about it ten or fifteen years ago when the best men our universities could turn out went into advertising, show business and sales—while the best men the Russkies and Chinese could turn out were going into science and industry.” As a man who worked in the field Hank Kuran occasionally got bitter about these things, and didn’t mind this opportunity of sounding off at the chief.

  Hank added, “The height of achievement over there is to be elected to the Academy of Sciences. Our young people call scientists egg-heads, and their height of achievement is to become a TV singer or a movie star.”

  Morton Twombly shot his best field man a quick glance. “You sound as though you need a vacation, Henry.”

  Henry Kuran laughed. “Don’t mind me, chief. I got into a hassle with the Hungarians last week and I’m in a bad frame of mind.”