Selections

by Theodore Sturgeon

  “They are not new cycles,” said the doctor flatly. “They are as old as the development of warm-blooded animals. The lack of them is, in biological terms, a very recent development in an atypical mammal; so recent and so small that it is subject to adjustment. As to your hypothetical question”—he smiled—”I should judge that such an effect is perfectly possible. Within the extremes of temperature, pressure, and radiation which take place in a fusion reaction, many things are possible. A minute quantity of certain alloys, for example, introduced into the shell of the bomb itself, or perhaps in the structure of a supporting tower or even a nearby temporary shed, might key a number of phenomenal reaction chains. Such a chain might go through several phases and result in certain subtle isotopic alterations in one of the atmosphere’s otherwise inert gases, say xenon. And this isotope, acting upon the adrenal cortex and the parathyroid, which are instrumental in controlling certain cycles in the human body, might very readily bring about the effect we are discussing in an atypical species.”

  Lucinda threw up her hands and turned to Jenny. “Then that’s it,” she said wearily.

  “What’s ‘it’? What? I don’t understand,” whimpered Jenny. “What’s he done, Lucinda?”

  “In his nasty, cold-blooded hypothetical way,” said Lucinda, “he has put something in or near an H-bomb which was tested today, which is going to have some effect on the air we breathe, which is going to do what we were discussing at your house.”

  “Dr. Lefferts,” said Jenny piteously. She went to him, stood looking down at him as he sat primly in his big easy chair. “Why—why? Just to annoy us? Just to keep us from having a little, petty influence over you?”

  “By no means,” said the doctor. “I will admit that I might have turned my ambition to the matter for such reasons. But some concentrated thought brought up a number of extrapolations which are by no means petty.”

  He rose and stood by the mantel, pince-nez in hand, the perfect picture of the Pedant At Home. “Consider,” he said. “Homo sapiens, in terms of comparative anatomy, should mature physically at 35 and emotionally between 30 and 40. He should have a life expectancy of between 150 and 200 years. And he unquestionably should be able to live a life uncluttered by such insistent trifles as clothing conventions, unfunctional chivalries, psychic turmoils and dangerous mental and physical escapes into what the psychologists call romances. Women should phase their sexual cycles with those of the seasons, gestate their young longer, and eliminate the unpredictable nature of their psycho-sexual appetites—the very basis of all their insecurity and therefore that of most men. Women will not be chained to these cycles, Jenny, and become breeding machines, if that’s what you fear. You will begin to live in and with these cycles as you live with a well-made and serviced automatic machine. You will be liberated from the constant control and direction of your somatic existence as you have been liberated from shifting gears in your car.”

  “But…we’re not conditioned for such a change!” blazed Lucinda. “And what of the fashion industry…cosmetics…the entertainment world…what’s going to become of these and the millions of people employed by them, and the people dependent on all those people, if you do a thing like this?”

  “The thing is done. As for these people…” He paused, “Yes, there will be some disturbance. A considerable one. But in overall historical terms, it will be slight and it will be brief. I like to think that the television serviceman is one who was liberated by the cotton gin and the power loom.”

  “It’s…hard to think in historical terms just now,” said Lucinda. “Jenny, come on.”

  “Where are you going?”

  She faced him, her blued-steel eyes blazing. “Away from you. And I—I think I have a warning to give to the women.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” he said dryly. “They’ll find out in time. All you’ll succeed in doing is to alert many women to the fact that they will be unattractive to their husbands at times when other women may seem more desirable. Women will not unite with one another, my dear, even to unite against men.”

  There was a tense pause. Then Jenny quavered, “How long did you say this—this thing will take?”

  “I did not say. I would judge between thirty-six and forty-eight hours.”

  “I’ve got to get home.”

  “May I come with you?” asked Lucinda.

  Jenny looked at her, her full face, her ample, controlled body. A surprising series of emotions chased themselves across her young face. She said, “I don’t think…I mean…no, not tonight; I have to—to—goodnight, Lucinda.”

  When she had gone, the doctor uttered one of his rare chuckles. “She has absorbed perhaps a tenth of this whole concept,” he said, “but until she’s sure of herself she’s not going to let you or any woman near her husband.”

  “You…you complacent pig!” said Lucinda whitely. She stormed upstairs.

  “Hello…hello—Jenny?”

  “Lucinda! I’m—glad you called.”

  Something cold and tense deep inside Lucinda relaxed. She sat down slowly on the couch, leaned back comfortably with the telephone cradled between her cheek and her wide soft shoulder. “I’m glad you’re glad, Jenny darling. It’s been six weeks…how are you?”

  “I’m…all right now. It was pretty awful for a while, not knowing how it would be, waiting for it to happen. And when it did happen, it was hard to get used to. But it hasn’t changed things too much. How about you?”

  “Oh, I’m fine,” said Lucinda. She smiled slowly, touched her tongue to her full lower lip. “Jenny, have you told anyone?”

  “Not a soul. Not even Bob. I think he’s a little bewildered. He thinks I’m being very…understanding. Lucinda, is it wrong for me to let him think that?”

  “It’s never wrong for a woman to keep her knowledge to herself if it makes her more attractive,” said Lucinda, and smiled again.

  “How’s Dr. Lefferts?”

  “He’s bewildered too. I suppose I’ve been a little…understanding too.” She chuckled.

  Over the phone she heard Jenny’s answering laughter. “The poor things,” she said. “The poor, poor things. Lucinda—”

  “Yes, honey?”

  “I know how to handle this, now. But I don’t really understand it. Do you?”

  “Yes, I think I do.”

  “How can it be, then? How can this change in us affect men that way? I thought we would be the ones who would be turned off and on like a neon sign.”

  “What? Now wait a minute, Jenny! You mean you don’t realize what’s happened?”

  “That’s just what I said. How could such a change in women do such a thing to the men?”

  “Jenny, I think you’re wonderful, wonderful, wonderful,” breathed Lucinda. “As a matter of fact, I think women are wonderful. I suddenly realized that you haven’t the foggiest notion of what’s happened, yet you’ve taken it in stride and used it exactly right!”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Jenny, do you feel any difference in yourself?”

  “Why, no. All the difference is in Bob. That’s what I—”

  “Honey, there isn’t any difference in you, nor in me, nor in any other woman. For the very first time in his scientific life, the great man made an error in his calculations.”

  There was a silence for a time, and then the telephone uttered a soft, delighted, long-drawn-out “Oh-h-h-h-h…”

  Lucinda said, “He’s sure that in the long run it will have all the benefits he described—the longer life expectancy, the subduing of insecurities, the streamlining of our manners and customs.”

  “You mean that all men from now on will…”

  “I mean that for about twelve days in every two weeks, men can’t do anything with us, which is restful. And for forty-eight hours they can’t do anything without us, which is”—she laughed—”useful. It would seem that homo sapiens is still an atypical mammal.”

  Jenny’s voice was awed. “And I thought we were goin
g to lose the battle of the sexes. Bob brings me little presents every single day, Lucinda!”

  “He’d better. Jenny, put down that phone and come over here. I want to hug you. And”—she glanced over at the hall closet, where hung the symbol of her triumph—”I want to show you my new fur coat.”

  EXCALIBUR AND THE ATOM

  Originally published in Fantastic Adventures, August 1951

  In a face that was a statement of strength, two deep lines formed parentheses. They enclosed a mouth that was a big gentleness. Into the mouth he thrust the soggy end of the pretzel stick he had been dunking in his coffee. He grunted. The classified ad read:

  Lose something? Or maybe you want something found. Or maybe you just want something. Convince me it exists, pay my expenses, and I’ll charge you a fee for finding it. Hadley Guinn, HE 6-2420.

  “A hell of a way to get business,” he said to the coffee container. It had two flyspecks and a brown stain that together looked like a grinning rat. “Go ahead,” he growled. “Laugh.”

  She came in then, straight through the waiting room into his office. “Hadley Guinn?” She had a voice to go with olive skin, the kind with a glow under it.

  “You read signs on doors?”

  “I still have to ask questions. You forgot to wear your dog-tag.” She came forward and sat down. She moved across the floor as if she were on tracks. She sat down as if she were folding wings.

  “Have a wet pretzel?”

  “Thanks, no. I just threw one away.” She regarded him evenly. She had not smiled, she had not raised a brow or arched a nostril. She was everything in the world that was completely composed. She was about twenty, with blue-black hair. Her blue eyes didn’t belong with that complexion at all. They didn’t belong with her age either. They were wise eyes. They were ten thousand years old. She wore a black dress with a built-on cape around her shoulders and a neckline down to here. She used a brown-red lipstick that went with the skin but not at all with the eyes or the dress. On her it looked fine.

  “Reckon it’ll rain tomorrow?” he asked eventually.

  She took the remark at face value. “Not in Barenton.”

  “Where’s Barenton?”

  “Sorry” she said. “Classical reference. There’s a Hawthorne bush there.”

  “Would that be the one you’re beating around?” The thick lashes did not bat. “You can find anything?”

  “I’m near enough to being legal to be able to handle the language,” he said. He quoted: ” ‘Convince me it exists…’”

  “I see. If it’s too much trouble, you’re not convinced.”

  He quoted: ” ‘…pay my expenses…’”

  “Mmm. And then the fee comes automatically.”

  “When I find it. You examine more clauses than the guy who manicures for Clyde Beatty.”

  She said, deadpan, “That job really gives one pause.”

  His appreciation was in his eyes and in the parentheses. He left it there. “It was nice of you to drop in, Miss Jones.”

  “Morgan,” she said.

  He drained the container, crushed it, filed it in the wastebasket. He swept the remaining pretzel sticks into the drawer. “Lunch time’s over,” he explained. “Shall we dance?”

  “Not while we have to watch our steps…What’s your special signal that means you’re about to go to work?”

  “I answer a businesslike question.”

  She nodded. “Want to find something for me?”

  He waited.

  She said, coolly, “Want to find something for me if I convince you that it is, and pay your expenses?”

  He said nothing.

  “In advance?”

  “Certainly,” he said.

  “Very well. I’m looking for a stone. It’s a big one—seven or eight karats. Not a diamond. A diamond looks like a piece of putty beside it. It glows in the dark.”

  “Where is it?”

  She shrugged.

  “Well, is it loose, or in a ring, or what?”

  “It’s on a cup. It looks like gold, but it isn’t. The cup holds about a quart, and it has a five-sided pedestal and a five-sided foot.”

  He closed his eyes, looked at the mental picture her words drew, and said, “Got a lead?”

  “There’s a man in town who almost had it once. His name’s Percival.”

  Guinn reached under the desk and scratched his lower shinbone. “You mean the Caveman?”

  “That’s the man.”

  “Hell. He doesn’t have any use for baubles. He doesn’t even believe in money.”

  “You meet all kinds of people,” she said gently.

  “All right. I’ll go see him. What else do you know about this cup?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Where did it come from? Where was it last seen? Why do you want it?”

  “No one knows where it came from. The stone is supposed to have come from the sky. The cup was made in the Middle East more than two thousand years ago. It’s been seen only twice, and that was too long ago to bother about. I do know it’s been seen near here. As for why I want it…” The wise eyes looked deep into his. “I want it very badly,” she whispered.

  The intensity of her gaze, of her voice, gave him a genuine shock. It was the first break in her incredible composure and he hadn’t been ready for it.

  “I’ll look for it,” he said.

  She stood up. “Here’s five to start with.”

  He watched her open her purse. “Five? Don’t knock yourself out, Miss Morgan.”

  “There’ll be more when you need it,” she said. She put five bills down on the desk. They were C-notes.

  “It’s that important?” he asked.

  “At least that important,” she said soberly.

  “Guys get killed over things that important.”

  “Lots of guys have gotten killed over this.” She looked at him for a moment. “Shall I pick up those bills now?”

  “Allow me,” he said graciously. He scooped them, stacked them, fingered his smooth brown wallet out of his hip pocket and slipped the money into it. “Now tell me more.”

  She looked him straight in the eye and shook her head very slowly, twice. Her eyes, her wise eyes, slid in their long sockets as her head moved. “It’s your cooky, Guinn.”

  He shrugged. “You’re just going to make me use up more of your expense money. What’s your first name?”

  “Morgan.”

  “All right, if you don’t want to tell me. Where can I get in touch with you?”

  “For the time being,” she said coolly, “I’ll worry about that.” She stood up. “Be careful.”

  “Should I really be careful?”

  “I keep telling you,” she said, “this job isn’t just difficult.” She turned and walked out.

  When she got to the outer door, he called her: “Miss Morgan!”

  “Yes?”

  “Goodbye.”

  She set the shoulder strap of her bag and passed the doorknob from one hand to the other as she sidled through it. “You’re so formal,” she said, and was gone.

  Guinn sat staring at the door. His face was completely impassive; he was suddenly conscious of it, that he was imitating hers. He grunted loudly, spread one big hand and drummed the desk top, once.

  He saw the girl called Morgan crossing the sidewalk. He knew how women walked. He’d never seen one move like this. He wondered some things about her and then felt his wallet without taking it out. He bent it; his sensitive fingers could feel it crackle. They were nice new bills.

  He shook his head and went back to the desk. From the second drawer he took a shoulder harness and strapped it on. In the middle drawer were two guns. He took the dull-gray .32 and slipped the magazine out. He ejected the shell that was in the breech, pressed it into the magazine and, holding the cocking-piece back, twisted the breech-block and broke the gun. He sighted the bore to the window, nodded, and deftly put the gun together again, returning the top cartridge to the
breech. He dropped it into the holster, picked up the other gun, thought for a moment and then put it back. It clinked. He bent, peered, palmed out a four-fifths of rye. He sighted it exactly and as carefully as he had the gun-bore, then put it back in the drawer.

  He went to the door, felt for his keys, thumbed the spring catch. The bolt shot out with a disapproving tsk! He pulled at his square chin, returned to the desk, opened the middle drawer again and found an unpaid telephone bill in a well-thumbed envelope. He took out his wallet, put three of the C-notes in with the bill, and dropped the envelope back in the drawer. He felt the bottle staring at him, muttered, “If that’s the way you feel,” and resentfully drank from it. There were only a couple of fingers left. Then he went out and slammed the door behind him.

  It wasn’t quite two o’clock.

  There was a two-year-old station wagon on the street that looked as if it had run two hundred thousand miles and rolled sidewise the last four. A lean youth sat on the front fender with his feet on a fireplug. On the pavement by the plug were four dog-eared cheesecake magazines.

  Guinn asked him, “What goes, Garry? You take the pledge?”

  The youth looked down at the magazines. “Those I don’t need,” he said, and flashed a sudden, loose-lipped grin. He had clumped hair that looked like the oozings at the top of a cotton-bale, and steel-gray eyes that were very pale pink all around the edges. “I just seen a chick, hey. She has hair like this, see,” and he made a motion as if he were saluting with both hands at once, “and it’s so black it’s blue. She’s stacked like wheatcakes, but with honey. Mostly, she’s got a face like a pyramid.”

  “You mean a sphinx.”

  “Same thing. So why should I look at pictures? Hey—you know her, hey?”

  Guinn reached in through the window of the station wagon and opened the door. “A client.” He got in.

  Garry trotted around the street side, grasped the window frame, and pulled. The door opened and sagged. He got in, lifted the door and pulled it until it latched, and tramped on the starter. The motor responded instantly and quietly. “Yeah, huh,” said Garry enthusiastically. “What’s she want?”