The Playboy Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy

by Edited by The Playboy Editors

“He chartered a plane this afternoon, all by himself, and took it up over the city. He’s been spraying the town with that gas of his,” Hanson sighed. “I don’t know anything about science. I’m just a poor University Dean, and my job is to get money out of rich alumni. But the way I hear it, Lowenquist was monkeying around with chemical anesthetics. He mixed up a new combination—like pentothal sodium, sodium amytal —only a lot stronger and more concentrated.”

  “Aren’t those used in psychotherapy, for narcohypnosis?” Satterlee asked. “What they call truth serums?”

  “This isn’t a serum. It’s a gas.”

  “You can say that again,” Satterlee agreed. “So he waited for a clear, windless day and went up in a plane to dust the city with a concentrated truth gas. Is that a fact?”

  “Of course it is,” Hanson replied. “You know I can’t lie to you.” He sighed again. “Nobody can lie any more. Apparently the stuff is so powerful that one sniff does the trick. Psychiatry department gives me a lot of flap about inhibitory release and bypassing the superego and if a man answers, hang up. But what it all boils down to is the gas works. Everybody who was outside, everybody with an open window or an air-conditioning unit, was affected. Almost the entire city. They can’t lie any more. They don’t even want to lie.”

  “Wonderful!” Satterlee exclaimed, glancing up at the gathering storm clouds.

  “‘Is it? I’m not so sure. When the story hits the papers, it’ll give the whole school a bad name. I shouldn’t even have told you, but I can’t help myself. I just feel the need to be frank about everything. That’s what I was telling my secretary, before she slapped my face--”

  Satterlee wheeled into the airport. “That your boy up there?” He pointed upward, at a small plane careening between the clouds in the sudden gale.

  “Yes,” Hanson shouted. “He’s trying to come in for a landing, I think. But the wind’s too strong-”

  A sudden lance of lightning pierced the sky. The plane wobbled and began to spin.

  Satterlee gunned the motor and turned off onto the field. In the distance a siren wailed, and through the rushing rain he could see the plane spiraling down in a crazy dive . . .

  ~ * ~

  Wally Tibbets leaned back and pushed his chair away from the desk.

  “That’s how it happened,” Satterlee told him. “The poor guy was dead before they pulled him out of the wreckage. But they found the tanks and equipment. He had the papers on him, and I persuaded Hanson to turn the stuff over to me; he was in such a daze he didn’t even think to object. So now we can back up the story with proof. I’ve got copies of the formula he discovered. I suppose we’ll feed the dope in to the wire services, too.”

  Tibbets shook his head. “Nope, I’m going to answer all inquiries with a flat denial.”

  “But the story-”

  “Isn’t going to be any story. All over now, anyway. Didn’t you notice how people changed after that storm hit? Wind must have blown the gas away. Everyone’s back to normal. Most of them have already convinced themselves that nothing ever happened.”

  “But we know it did! What about all those story leads you got this afternoon?”

  “Killed. Ever since the storm, we’ve been getting denials and retractions. Turns out the Senator isn’t resigning after all —he’s running for Governor. The labor boy’s shooting himself was an accident. The police can’t get anyone to sign their confessions. The advertisers are placing new copy again. Mark my words, by tomorrow morning this whole town will have forgotten—they’ll will themselves to forget. Nobody can face the truth and remain sane.”

  “That’s a terrible way to think,” Satterlee said. “Doctor Lowenquist was a great man. He knew his discovery could work—not just here, but everywhere. After this trial run he meant to take a plane up over Washington, fly over Moscow, all the capitals of the world. Because this truth gas could change the world. Don’t you see that?”

  “Of course I see it. But the world shouldn’t be changed.”

  “Why not?” Satterlee squared his shoulders. “Look here, I’ve been thinking. I have the formula. I could carry on where Lowenquist left off. I’ve saved some money. I could hire pilots and planes. Don’t you think the world needs a dose of truth?”

  “No. You saw what happened here today, on just a small scale.”

  “Yes. Criminals confessed, crooks reformed, people stopped lying to one another. Is that so bad?”

  “About the criminals, no. But for ordinary human beings this could be a terrible thing. You don’t see what happens when the doctor tells his patient that he’s dying of cancer, when the wife tells her husband he’s not actually the father of their son. Everybody has secrets, or almost everybody. It’s better not to know the whole truth—about others, or about yourself.”

  “But look at what goes on in the world today.”

  “I am looking. That’s my job—to sit at this desk and watch the world go round. Sometimes it’s a dizzy spin, but at least it keeps going. Because people keep going. And they need lies to help them. Lies about abstract justice, and romantic love everlasting. The belief that right always triumphs. Even our concept of democracy may be a lie. Yet we cherish these lies and do our best to live by them. And maybe, little by little, our belief helps make these things come true. It’s a slow process, but in the long run it seems to work. Animals don’t lie, you know. Only human beings know how to pretend, how to make believe, how to deceive themselves and others. But that’s why they’re human beings.”

  “Maybe so,” Satterlee said. “Yet think of the opportunity I have. I could even stop war.”

  “Perhaps. Military and political leaders might face up to the truth about their motives and change—temporarily.”

  “We could keep on spraying,” Satterlee broke in, eagerly. “There are other honest men. We’d raise funds, make this a long-term project. And who knows? Perhaps after a few doses, the change would become permanent. Don’t you understand? We could end war!”

  “I understand,” Tibbets told him. “You could end war between nations. And start hundreds of millions of individual wars instead. Wars waged in human minds and human hearts. There’d be a wave of insanity, a wave of suicides, a wave of murders. There’d be a tidal inundation of truth that would drown the home, the family, the whole social structure.”

  “I realize it’s a risk. But think of what we all might gain.”

  Tibbets put his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “I want you to forget this whole business,” he said, soberly. “Don’t plan to manufacture this gas and spray it over the Capitol or the Kremlin. Don’t do it, for all our sakes.”

  Satterlee was silent, staring out into the night. Far in the distance a jet plane screamed.

  “You’re an honest man,” Tibbets said. “One of the few. I dig that, and I admire you for it. But you’ve got to be realistic and see things my way. All I want is for you to tell me now that you won’t try anything foolish. Leave the world the way it is.” He paused. “Will you give me your word of honor?”

  Satterlee hesitated. He was an honest man, he realized, and so his answer was a long time coming. Then, “I promise.” Satterlee lied.

  <>

  ~ * ~

  JOHN GRANT’S LITTLE ANGEL

  BY WALT GROVE

  Walt Grove’s “tremendous vitality” has been commended by no less a colleague than Nobel Prize-winner John Steinbeck. He was born in Dallas, and during World War Two saw service in the Arctic, the setting of his famous first novel, “Down” which The Atlantic called a “tense, irresistible adventure.” Grove is the author of numerous playboy stories. Of them, one of the most appealing is this modern fantasy about an ad exec who has a guardian angel. In the hands of television’s situation-whimsy hacks, such a theme could be unbearably coy and cloying. But in the hands of Walt Grove, it is a bright and bittersweet cautionary tale.

  ~ * ~

  WHEN GRANT got off the 10:05 from Stamford, at Grand Central, he walked out the L
exington exit, but instead of going to his office, he went to a bar on Third Avenue. He had a bad hangover and felt guilty as hell. All the way in town, on the train, he had kept thinking, What in God’s name am I going to do? The night before, in one impetuous, passionate moment, he had thrown away his entire future.

  “Black and White, and soda,” he said to the bartender, and his fingers trembled as he took out his wallet. He drank down the Scotch and said, “Make it a double this time, in a tall glass with lots of ice.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Grant picked up a dime from the change lying on the bar and walked back to the telephone booth. He called his office and asked for his secretary. “Ruby, don’t let on who this is, don’t say my name, but has Fred been in yet this morning?”

  “Yes, sir,” Ruby said. She was quite a bit older than the other girls and, possibly because of that, intensely loyal to Grant. “He’s out now, though, with a client. Then he’s got a lunch date. He’ll be back around three.”

  Grant licked his dry lips. “Well, has Jack Regal called me this morning?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, has he called Fred? This is very important to me, dear. I’ve got to know if Jack Regal has tried to get in touch with Fred, in any way, this morning.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Grant was sweating, and it wasn’t only because he was in a phone booth. “Listen, try to find out. But be discreet. I don’t want Fred, or anyone, to know I’m trying to find out. And, Ruby, would you mind sticking around until I come in? You can go out to lunch at one o’clock or so.”

  “Oh, of course.”

  Grant went back to the bar. Fred would never have done anything so foolish, he was thinking; Fred would never do what I did with a prospective client’s wife. He told himself he would not be surprised if Fred wanted to dissolve the partnership. They owned, jointly, what Grant called “the world’s smallest advertising agency.” It was really not that small, but if the agency did not survive and prosper, there would be only two mourners at the deathbed: Fred and himself—and, of course, their wives and children. And if they didn’t survive, Grant knew it would be his fault.

  For six months he had been trying to get the account of Regal Frocks. They created, manufactured and distributed clothing for girls ten years old and younger. (“A Regal Frock belongs on your little princess.”) The corporation was run by Jack Regal, a young, muscular, aggressive man who was rapidly growing bald. The Regal account was a big account, a national account, and Grant and Fred had nothing like it. For six months Grant had slaved to get it, and then the night before had thrown it all away.

  Jack Regal and his wife Jackie—her name was Judith, but everyone called her Jackie—had invited Grant and his wife Edith to dinner at their home in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. It was on nearly an acre of ground, a big, comfortable house. As soon as Grant and Edith had arrived, Jack had taken them down to the playroom where he had his electric trains. There was a bar, comfortable chairs and sofas, and everything was monogrammed J & J. Jack made martinis in a pitcher only slightly smaller than an umbrella stand and they had several before Jackie, who had been with the children, came down.

  When Grant looked at her he experienced a sudden burst of sexual feeling, of a sort he couldn’t remember having had since college days. He was surprised, because she was not unusual in appearance: too short to be beautiful, too rounded to be chic. But when they were introduced, and Grant took her hand, he felt her fingers tremble in his. For a second she looked into his eyes, and he saw the same desire that he was feeling.

  Grant had not had an affair since he had been married; when he’d had chances he hadn’t wanted to take time from work. He hadn’t cared that much. If someone had asked his opinion about it, he would have said casually, “Oh, I imagine it’s the rare couple who spend their adult lives together without something of that sort happening.” But when he looked at Jackie Regal, what he felt was far from casual.

  If it hadn’t been for the damn martinis. Three times the maid came downstairs to ask if she should serve. And each time Jack had said no, they’d have a couple more. And they all four had got drunk.

  Grant remembered getting up, with the honest intention of finding a bathroom. He could not remember if Jackie had left the playroom before he had or not. But he did remember encountering her in a butler’s pantry, a small room with swinging doors. He had held out his arms, and she had come into them, and they had glued themselves together. Then the door behind him had swung open, and someone had said, “Oh, sorry,” and the door had closed.

  Jackie had jumped away, but too late. “I don’t think he saw,” she said huskily, looking at him and licking her lips as if he would be delicious to eat. “You go wash your face.”

  But Grant had known that only a blind man would not have seen. And, standing in the butler’s pantry, he had known, too, that he had lost what he had worked for so hard. “All right, I’ll wash my face,” he had said mournfully, and he had.

  When Grant returned to the playroom he saw the stiffness, felt the silence, of the three of them sitting there. Jack had seen and, obviously, had told Edith. Grant’s memory of dinner was of drinking as much wine as he could, to blot out horror. He could not remember saying good night, nor driving back to Stamford. Edith had driven in to New York to meet him; perhaps she had driven them home. She had been asleep when he left that morning, but she would certainly be awake when he got home that night.

  Oh, God, Grant thought, what am I going to do?

  “Don’t worry,” someone said in a soft voice. “Things will work out much better than you imagine.”

  Grant turned. A girl was sitting on a bar stool next to him; he hadn’t seen her come in, he’d been so sunk in himself. She could not be older than 21, he knew, and she was wearing the feminine version of the classic Chesterfield and carrying an ebony stick with a plain ivory head. Grant had never seen so young a girl carry a stick, and he thought for a moment she had a disability, perhaps a twisted ankle from a skiing weekend, but no, her legs appeared to be in excellent condition. She wore no hat and her hair was golden, not blonde, but a gold that glowed in the darkness of the bar.

  What she said had startled Grant—and then angered him; he felt it an invasion of privacy for someone to read his mind. “I beg your pardon?” he said, sounding cool.

  “I said, the first one of the day,” the girl said, smiling. “There’s nothing like the first drink of the day.” Without taking off her glove she lifted her glass.

  “Are you sure that’s what you said?” Grant asked.

  “Of course,” she said. “What did you think?”

  Grant shook his head. If he was having auditory hallucinations he wasn’t going to talk about it in bars, he was going to a doctor.

  “Well, happy days,” the girl said, and she drank, then sighed with pleasure. Quite abruptly, she blushed. “Oh, I don’t ordinarily drink at this time of day, but, you see, for me it’s really five o’clock.” She pushed back the right sleeve of her coat and glanced at a large, practical-looking wrist watch. “Eight minutes past, to be exact.”

  Grant stared at her. “You don’t wear two wrist watches, do you?”

  “Why, how did you know?” she said. “Yes, one on my left wrist, with local time”—she showed him. “And this other one, with-”

  “Greenwich mean time,” Grant finished for her.

  She hesitated. “Well, no. It has the time where I came from. But the idea is the same. How did you know?”

  “I knew a pilot,” Grant said. “He made that long flight to Australia and back. He got in the habit of wearing two watches. You aren’t a pilot?”

  “Well, I fly.”

  “But, I mean, not a transport pilot.”

  “No, they don’t let me transport groups of people,” she said, and she sounded rather sad.

  “Well, that’s not unusual,” Grant said. “I’d be very surprised if an airline did hire you.”

  “Oh, you say that only
because I’m female,” she said, her lovely little chin rising. “If you had read history, you’d know that both males and females were involved in transporting people by air—frequently large groups of people—from the earliest days.”

  It seemed to Grant he had read a newspaper item about a woman back in the Twenties who’d flown copilot for a New England airline. “You’re involved with flying, then?”

  “Oh, yes. I fly all over the world, all the time. But I fly alone.”

  “You mean you pilot a plane-”

  “Oh, no,” she said quickly. “I simply meant I fly alone, by myself. But someday,” she added softly, “someday I’m going to transport groups of people. Someday they’ll let me.”

  “The people you work for? How do you know?”

  “The higher-ups,” she said, nodding and looking into the distance. “Oh, I know they will. You see, that’s what I was made for, really.”