The 19th Golden Age of Science Fiction

by Charles V. De Vet

  Through the early years of his childhood his grandfather kept him from too much contact with the outside world. Only he had some understanding of the intellectual capacity this prodigy possessed.

  At the age of five his grandfather died and just as suddenly Arthur stopped speaking. The seven-day wonder was over and the world soon forgot.

  At irregular intervals it remembered again as some tabloid reporter revived its memory. When the hundredth year had come and gone, it wondered—idly and briefly—how long Gabriel would live. And if it was true, as the paper reported, that he had all the appearance of a lad of twenty.

  By the time Gabriel was one hundred and fifty he had become the subject of much scientific conjecture. What was the secret of his longevity? Was he sane? Just how brilliant was he? Was there any way in which he could be induced to talk; if he could talk?

  When he reached two hundred, and no contact of any endurance had ever been established, the attempts were given up as hopeless. By all except a few such as Robert Becklin. Becklin had developed the most successful method of curing dementia praecox and, though the accepted leader in the field, clearly understood how comparatively little was known.

  With his friend, Aimer Carlson, he sat in the study of the Institute’s director, Edward Gallun.

  “Have you ever been able to make mental contact with him?” Becklin asked.

  “Very infrequently,” Gallun answered. “The last time we did, we used the occasion to give him several mental tests. He didn’t seem to mind taking them, after we got his interest.”

  “What were the results of the tests?” asked Carlson.

  “Although they were the best tests obtainable, they were too inadequate to measure his intellect.”

  “How did you get his interest that particular time?” Becklin leaned forward intently.

  “That was the occasion of an outbreak of virulent influenza,” Gallun replied. “He wrote a prescription and gave it to me. I used it on the patients and it cured them immediately.”

  “I believe I remember the incident,” Becklin said. “Wasn’t a report of it written up in the AM A journal about twelve years ago?”

  “That’s correct,” Gallun smiled. “I believe his formula is still standard treatment for the ailment.”

  “Bob,” asked Aimer, “what would happen if we used duress, say in the form of steadily increasing pain, to force him to talk?”

  “If he has an introverted mind, which we assume that he has,” said Becklin, “when the pain became unbearable his mind would seek refuge in a cataleptic stupor and no pain, not even the stab of a needle, would reach him.”

  “Why not try a more radical treatment,” Carlson pressed, “such as electric shock or even prefrontal leuctomony?”

  “If I might interject a word here,” said the Director, “I believe that you are losing sight of the fact that this man is not insane. Perhaps unsane, yes. But no more unbalanced than you or I.”

  “That is true,” said Becklin, picking up a small package from the end table beside him. “May we see him now, Mr. Gallun? I have small hope of this experiment succeeding, but I’d like to try it, now that I have gone to the trouble of having it made.”

  The three men walked through a long corridor and into a small room at the end. This room was lined with books, written in various languages. At a compact mahogany desk sat a white faced, long headed man whose youthful features expressed a calm, impenetrable serenity. He neither turned nor acknowledged their presence as they entered, and they stood silently. What secrets were concealed in that brain? What depths of knowledge had it delved?

  After a moment Becklin spoke, “Mr. Gabriel, I know that our presence is immaterial to you and that our actions are probably irrational. But we would appreciate your attention while we talk. Perhaps we can interest you. Will you listen?”

  Gabriel continued to gaze out the window.

  “Your words are not reaching him,” said Gallun.

  “Perhaps this will,” Becklin replied. “This may seem a bit childish to you, but I have given it quite some consideration and, if I understand anything about his thought processes, it will at least get his attention.”

  He unwrapped his parcel and revealed a brown mechanical case that looked like a faceless clock. A dull irregular ticking fostered the resemblance. Gabriel’s head turned and he gazed down at the instrument.

  Suddenly the ticking stopped, and the recording of a voice was heard from within.

  “Gabriel,” the voice said, “I am a mechanical humpty-dumpty. In exactly one minute I will disintegrate into my five hundred and fifty-five component parts. A skilled clockmaker was able to put me together again in thirteen hours. Can you better that time? If you can, I will have a further message for you when your task is completed.”

  The voice stopped and the ticking began again. Suddenly one loud tick came from the machine and it flew apart. A small inner spring flung its components out to a maximum two foot radius.

  The suggestion of a tiny, pleased smile quirked Gabriel’s lips as he looked up at Becklin. There was interest and a flicker of admiration in the look.

  For a moment he surveyed the field of pieces. Then he reached over, picked up one of the parts, picked up another, and began assembling. The completion of the operation required twenty-four minutes and six seconds.

  The recorded voice began once more. “Congratulations. You must have finished in the allotted time or I would not be transcribing. I have given you an interesting little problem. Now in fairness, will you speak?”

  For a long moment, while the captivated men actually held their breath, Gabriel glanced at the clocklike instrument, then he looked up and spoke.

  * * * *

  On the lone planet of a red sun, following in the tail of Earth’s galaxy through space, the Liieens accepted the fact that they had lost their struggle to remain on their world. Now their ship, built to receive the last few hundred of their race, was more than ample to hold all the survivors. They were ready to depart.

  One billion years before, at the height of their culture, they had discovered that each day their world crept infinitesimally closer to their giant sun. The mental resources of their entire race went toward solving their problem of salvation.

  For a hundred years they sought to find a method of reorbiting their planet. The impossibility of this, being proven beyond the slightest possibility of doubt, they turned to methods of counteracting the increasing heat that grew so very slightly greater each year.

  When all mechanical defenses they needed had been readied, they turned to a newer and more hopeful field of study—themselves. Each generation adapted itself well: Few individuals experienced any discomfort because of the increasing heat. Its growth was too gradual. Nature eliminated the unfit at birth, and it cut down that rate of birth, until only those with the best chance of survival would be born.

  Through the millenniums they studied their auto-subjects, aiding, urging, and anticipating nature wherever possible, and changing it from its natural course wherever necessary. The culmination of their transition was reached by such little steps through the generations, that it had been completed and they were working on the next phase of their problem before they even realized that they had succeeded in the first. Theirs was no abrupt discovery like the ancient earth chemists and men of enquiry had dreamed of in their search for the elixir of life.

  When they had passed the edges of their first success and had started toward their second goal, they had developed the ability to change their bodies at will: Not only the form of their bodies, but its very molecules and atoms. So gradual and so long had been their assimilation that not even the oldest of them, now for all practical purposes immortal, remembered what form or shape their distant ancestors had been when their quest began.

  The second step had taken them a relatively short time. Less than a thousand years after turning to the project of space flight, they had mastered it.

  Many of the last survivors had been aliv
e when the project started. So few had been born in the meantime that accidental and premediated death, the only kinds now, more than counterbalanced any gain in their numbers.

  They were ready for their flight to a new world, and a new existence. A world where they could stop fighting the forces of their environment and work with it to build up their strain once more.

  At the time Gabriel had been born they were finishing their last preparations for flight. The form of a liquid crystal had been decided upon as the ideal form for their Odyssey. Theirs was a fluid organism, instantly adaptable. They set their bodily mechanism to near stasis, to be reactivated when they reached their destination. Their vessel, entirely automatic, rose through the atmosphere of their planet and started its flight—clear out of their star group toward a tiny pinpoint of light that would not be visible to them for decades.

  * * * *

  “What do you wish to know?”asked Gabriel.

  The moment had come and they found themselves unprepared, almost afraid to voice their thoughts.

  “So many things, that we hardly know where to begin,” Becklin breathed softly.

  “How do you manage to live so long, and stay so young?” Carlson asked eagerly.

  “Quite simply explained,” Gabriel said. “I have succeeded in achieving almost perfect control of all my bodily functions, cellular as well as motor. Once that was done, it became very simple to renew infirm and worn out cells wherever and whenever needed.”

  “Does that make you immortal?” asked Carlson.

  “Immortal covers such a vast concept of time. But, as you mean it, yes.”

  “I’d like to go further into that later, if you don’t mind,” said Becklin, “Why have you shut yourself off from contact with other men?”

  “Before I answer that,” Gabriel replied thoughtfully, “I want you to keep in mind that we are discussing myself objectively. You will have to bear with me if I don’t measure up to the socially accepted standard of modesty. To adhere to it would hamper my answers.

  “In reply to your question. I soon reached the point where I had so few interests in common with other humans that I could best achieve contentment by as complete an isolation as possible.”

  “But you’re as human as we are,” said Carlson, “why should your interests differ so radically from ours?”

  “The difference is in degree rather than in radius,” Gabriel answered. “Imagine yourself living in a world ruled and populated by fellow humans with the intellect of three year old children. How much would you have in common with them?”

  “But,” Gallun spoke for the first time, “Why don’t you use your great intellect to aid them, instead of shutting yourself off from the world. Shouldn’t you help them, even against their will.”

  “If I may use another simile.” Gabriel said, “and I’m afraid that I must use them to make myself clear: If you were born a monkey, with the intellect of a human, what would you do to help your fellow monkeys? Would they be happier if you forced or coerced them into living in houses, wearing clothes, perhaps tilling fields and working in factories, when their natural inclinations were to play and assume as little responsibility as possible?”

  “Using your simile,” began Becklin, carefully searching for the correct phrasing, “despite the fact that you would be a very intelligent monkey> you would still be a monkey. Do you not feel any kinship with the rest of humanity?”

  “Decidedly,” answered Gabriel. “Like a mother for her children.”

  “Then why don’t you prevent wars,” Becklin continued, “or at least attempt to?”

  “Possibly I could prevent wars,” Gabriel said. “However, the attaining of that goal would have ramifications which would entirely upset the normal flow of progress. As I explained before, I believe the result would be subdititious.”

  “I’ve often wondered,” said Gallun, “why you never spoke to anyone, if only to escape boredom.”

  “I am never bored,” Gabriel answered. “The brain is a wonderful organ. To illustrate: I have my mind divided into seven semi-autonomous units, six of them lightly controlled by the seventh unit, which I think of as my ego residence. These seven units carry on separate researches, discuss lines of thought, and have enough interests to keep me occupied and happy indefinitely.”

  “Do you believe in God?” asked Becklin.

  “I am as positive that there is a supreme being, which you know of as God, as I am of any fact. I am surer that there is a God than I am that I exist. I have found some slightest hint of evidence that I do not exist, but none whatsoever that there is not a supreme being. To my own satisfaction it is proven logically, mathematically, and in any form the question may be studied.”

  “Do you understand anything more about God than we do?” asked Gallun.

  “Nothing. That may be surprising at first thought,” answered Gabriel, “but I believe I can explain it with another simile. How much do you think the common black ant, in your back yard, understands about you? Do you think he knows anything about how you live, your sociological make-up, your sex life, or even what form you are? He probably knows of you only as a large object that crushes the grass about him, if he is even aware of you at all.

  “This much I understand. God’s magnitude is so much infinitely greater, compared to us, than ours is to the ant, that there is no slightest hope of our ever understanding Him. All attempted explanations are futile.”

  “Do you have no curiosity about what is happening on the outside?” asked Gallun. “The world may be dying for all you would know about it.”

  “Not at all,” Gabriel smiled slightly. “You see, one of my faculties is telepathy.”

  There was a short, startled silence. “I suspected as much,” Becklin murmured.

  “I regret to say that our interview must soon close,” said Gabriel. “Now if you will permit me, I would like to assume the role of prompter as well as expostulator.

  “Clever as your little contrivance was, Mr. Becklin, it was merely the incidental reason for my breaking my silence.

  “I see by your mental reactions, that you men are intelligent, and conditioned properly to share in a secret which must be shared if we are to save the world.

  “My telepathy is sufficiently developed to enable me to read thoughts originating at some distance, if they are powerful enough. Last night at four minutes past two, I intercepted the thoughts of alien beings who had just landed on our planet!”

  “Holy God, man,” exclaimed Carlson, “can you be serious?”

  “Not only am I serious,” answered Gabriel, “but they have the ability, and the intent, to kill every man on earth. I am not certain of their reason. Mostly their thought patterns were foreign to my mind.”

  “I believe you,” Becklin said, after a moment’s thought. “Can we do anything to prevent it?”

  ‘Nothing positive,” Gabriel spoke purposefully. “We have only one small chance, as I see it. In approximately five hours they will obtain a specimen of the dominant life on this planet, to study, in order to determine the simplest means of exterminating the race. I must be that specimen!”

  Gabriel walked for five minutes along the mountain road before he came to the party waiting for him. He had known their exact whereabouts and even their thoughts as he walked.

  They had known of his movements also, but only because of the sounds made by his progress. On the scale weighing his chances he added that fact.

  Tenseness galvanized his intricate nervous system as he came in sight of the five very ordinary men standing in the middle of the road, waiting for him. He focused the various sections of his mind in tune with the ultra-mundane aliens. Suddenly a pang of alarm smote his consciousness. They, too, could read minds and were reading his as he walked toward them. Quickly he locked a wall of will about the seventh portion of his mind. If he had not underestimated them, they would not be aware that it even existed.

  He experienced a warm thrill of satisfaction when he perceived that at last h
e was meeting his intellectual equals. His next sensation was one of fear. Would they prove too formidable opponents in the coming battle of intellect? Would he survive it?

  He was surprised to see that they readily accepted the fact that he could read their minds: They would have been unprepared if he had not been able to do so. So long had this been their means of communication, and so universal among themselves, that his ability was accepted as natural.

  At first glance they had all the appearance of common enough earth-men, though he was aware of something odd about them. Finally he determined what the oddness was. They were not only dressed exactly alike, but their very features were identical.

  Some feeling of outlandishness still persisted until he discerned that not only were they identical but were exact replicas of himself.

  He read in their minds that they had assumed his appearance, because they could take any shape and form they wished. They had adopted this transformation as the simplest means of preventing any alarm on his part. Even their clothes, which matched his to the very wrinkle, were part of their bodies. He knew a moment of uncertainty, of wonder and doubt of himself. Could he cope with such beings as this?

  So lightning fast had been these observations and exchanges of ideas that they had occurred on the instance; in the first half step he had taken toward them. From these small fragments of fact his logically reasoning mind with its split second reflexes constructed its picture of these aliens that it needed.

  “You may call me Marie,” she said, breathing long and slowly on the white oval of her cigarette, Her red hair was cut short, to expose her beautiful neck, which curved gently into her bare, rounded shoulders and down into the dress line held up by the softly rising breasts.

  The name, Marie, and the mannerism of letting the creamy, white smoke billow around in her mouth before she drew it down into her lungs, instantly brought to Gabriel’s mind the memory of the nurse he had loved deeply more than a hundred years before. He had appreciated their incompatibility and she had stayed at the Institute three years, never knowing of his affection.