(3/15) The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume III: An Anthology of 50 Short Stories

by Various

  Otherwise: projects. Projects to beat boredom, and never mind how much sense they made in themselves. None of them did. But after the first month or two he had so much going that there was no question any more of not having something to do. Two hours allotted to work out on the typewriter a critical evaluation of a chapter from one of McAllen's abstruse technical texts. If Barney's mood was sufficiently sour, the evaluation would be unprintable; but it wasn't being printed, and two hours had been disposed of. A day and a half--Earth Standard Time--to construct an operating dam across the stream. He was turning into an experienced landscape architect; the swimming pool in the floor of the valley beneath the cabin might not have been approved by Carstairs of California, but it was the one project out of which he had even drawn some realistic benefit.

  Then:

  Half an hour to improve his knife-throwing technique.

  Fifteen minutes to get the blade of the kitchen knife straightened out afterwards.

  Two hours to design a box trap for the capture of one of the fat gray squirrels that always hung about the cabin.

  Fifty minutes on a new chess problem. Chess, Barney had discovered, wasn't as hairy as it looked.

  Five hours to devise one more completely foolproof method of bringing about the eventual ruin of the association. That made no more practical sense than anything else he was doing--and couldn't, until he knew a great deal more about McAllen's friends than he did now.

  But it was considerably more absorbing, say, than even chess.

  Brother Chard could beat boredom. He could probably beat another three years of boredom.

  He hadn't forgiven anyone for making him do it.

  THE END OF YEAR FIVE

  For some hours, the association's Altiplano station had been dark and almost deserted. Only the IMT transit lock beneath one of the sprawling ranch houses showed in the vague light spreading out of the big scanning plate in an upper wall section. The plate framed an unimpressive section of the galaxy, a blurred scattering of stars condensing toward the right, and, somewhat left of center, a large misty red globe.

  John Emanuel Fredericks, seated by himself in one of the two Tube operator chairs, ignored the plate. He was stooped slightly forwards, peering absorbedly through the eyepieces of the operator scanner before him.

  Melvin Simms, Psychologist, strolled in presently through the transit lock's door, stopped behind Fredericks, remarked mildly, "Good evening, doctor."

  Fredericks started and looked around. "Never heard you arrive, Mel. Where's Ollie?"

  "He and Spalding dropped in at Spalding's place in Vermont. They should be along in a few minutes."

  "Spalding?" Fredericks repeated inquiringly. "Our revered president intends to observe the results of Ollie's experiment in person?"

  "He'll represent the board here," Simms said. "Whereas I, as you may have guessed, represent the outraged psychology department." He nodded at the plate. "That the place?"

  "That's it. ET Base Eighteen."

  "Not very sharp in the Tube, is it?"

  "No. Still plenty of interfering radiation. But it's thinned out enough for contact. Reading 0.19, as of thirty minutes ago." Fredericks indicated the chair beside him. "Sit down if you want a better look."

  "Thanks." The psychologist settled himself in the chair, leaned forward and peered into the scanner. After a few seconds he remarked, "Not the most hospitable-looking place--"

  Fredericks grunted. "Any of the ecologists will tell you Eighteen's an unspoiled beauty. No problems there--except the ones we bring along ourselves."

  Simms grinned faintly. "Well, we're good at doing that, aren't we? Have you looked around for uh ... for McAllen's subject yet?"

  "No. Felt Ollie should be present when we find out what's happened. Incidentally, how did the meeting go?"

  "You weren't tuned in?" Simms asked, surprised.

  "No. Too busy setting things up for contact."

  "Well"--Simms sat back in his chair--"I may say it was a regular bear garden for a while, doctor. Psychology expressed itself as being astounded, indignant, offended. In a word, they were hopping mad. I kept out of it, though I admit I was startled when McAllen informed me privately this morning of the five-year project he's been conducting on the quiet. He was accused of crimes ranging ... oh, from the clandestine to the inhumane. And, of course, Ollie was giving it back as good as he got."

  "Of course."

  "His arguments," Simms went on, pursing his lips reflectively, "were not without merit. That was recognized. Nobody enjoys the idea of euthanasia as a security device. Many of us feel--I do--that it's still preferable to the degree of brain-washing required to produce significant alterations in a personality type of Chard's class."

  "Ollie feels that, too," Fredericks said. "The upshot of the original situation, as he saw it, was that Barney Chard had been a dead man from the moment he got on the association's trail. Or a permanently deformed personality."

  Simms shook his head. "Not the last. We wouldn't have considered attempting personality alteration in his case."

  "Euthanasia then," Fredericks said. "Chard was too intelligent to be thrown off the track, much too unscrupulous to be trusted under any circumstances. So Ollie reported him dead."

  * * * * *

  The psychologist was silent for some seconds. "The point might be this," he said suddenly. "After my talk with McAllen this morning, I ran an extrapolation on the personality pattern defined for Chard five years ago on the basis of his background. Results indicate he went insane and suicided within a year."

  "How reliable are those results?" Fredericks inquired absently.

  "No more so than any other indication in individual psychology. But they present a reasonable probability ... and not a very pleasant one."

  Fredericks said, "Oliver wasn't unaware of that as a possible outcome. One reason he selected Base Eighteen for the experiment was to make sure he couldn't interfere with the process, once it had begun.

  "His feeling, after talking with Chard for some hours, was that Chard was an overcondensed man. That is Oliver's own term, you understand. Chard obviously was intelligent, had a very strong survival drive. He had selected a good personal survival line to follow--good but very narrow. Actually, of course, he was a frightened man. He had been running scared all his life. He couldn't stop."

  Simms nodded.

  "Base Eighteen stopped him. The things he'd been running from simply no longer existed. Ollie believed Chard would go into a panic when he realized it. The question was what he'd do then. Survival now had a very different aspect. The only dangers threatening him were the ones inherent in the rigid personality structure he had maintained throughout his adult existence. Would he be intelligent enough to understand that? And would his survival urge--with every alternative absolutely barred to him for five years--be strong enough to overcome those dangers?"

  "And there," Simms said dryly, "we have two rather large questions." He cleared his throat. "The fact remains, however, that Oliver B. McAllen is a good practical psychologist--as he demonstrated at the meeting."

  "I expected Ollie would score on the motions," Fredericks said. "How did that part of it come off?"

  "Not too badly. The first motion was passed unanimously. A vote of censure against Dr. McAllen."

  Fredericks looked thoughtful. "His seventeenth--I believe?"

  "Yes. The fact was mentioned. McAllen admitted he could do no less than vote for this one himself. However, the next motion to receive a majority was, in effect, a generalized agreement that men with such ... ah ... highly specialized skills as Barney Chard's and with comparable intelligence actually would be of great value as members of the association, if it turned out that they could be sufficiently relieved of their more flagrant antisocial tendencies. Considering the qualification, the psychology department could hardly avoid backing that motion. The same with the third one--in effect again that Psychology is to make an unprejudiced study of the results of Dr. McAllen's experime
nt on Base Eighteen, and report on the desirability of similar experiments when the personality of future subjects appears to warrant them."

  "Well," Fredericks said, after a pause, "as far as the association goes, Ollie got what he wanted. As usual." He hesitated. "The other matter--"

  "We'll know that shortly." Simms turned his head to listen, added in a lowered voice, "They're coming now."

  * * * * *

  Dr. Stephen Spalding said to Simms and Fredericks: "Dr. McAllen agrees with me that the man we shall be looking for on Base Eighteen may be dead. If this is indicated, we'll attempt to find some evidence of his death before normal ecological operations on Eighteen are resumed.

  "Next, we may find him alive but no longer sane. Dr. Simms and I are both equipped with drug-guns which will then be used to render him insensible. The charge is sufficient to insure he will not wake up again. In this circumstance, caution will be required since he was left on the Base with a loaded gun.

  "Third, he may be alive and technically sane, but openly or covertly hostile to us." Spalding glanced briefly at each of the others, then went on, "It is because of this particular possibility that our contact group here has been very carefully selected. If such has been the result of Dr. McAllen's experiment, it will be our disagreeable duty to act as Chard's executioners. To add lifelong confinement or further psychological manipulation to the five solitary years Chard already has spent would be inexcusable.

  "Dr. McAllen has told us he did not inform Chard of the actual reason he was being marooned--"

  "On the very good grounds," McAllen interrupted, "that if Chard had been told at the outset what the purpose was, he would have preferred killing himself to allowing the purpose to be achieved. Any other human being was Chard's antagonist. It would have been impossible for him to comply with another man's announced intentions."

  Simms nodded. "I'll go along on that point, doctor."

  Spalding resumed, "It might be a rather immaterial point by now. In any event, Chard's information was that an important 'five-year-plan' of the association made it necessary to restrict him for that length of time. We shall observe him closely. If the indications are that he would act against the association whenever he is given the opportunity, our line will be that the five-year-plan has been concluded, and that he is, therefore, now to be released and will receive adequate compensation for his enforced seclusion. As soon as he is asleep, he will, of course, receive euthanasia. But up to that time, everything must be done to reassure him."

  He paused again, concluded, "There is the final possibility that Dr. McAllen's action has had the results he was attempting to bring about.... Ollie, you might speak on that yourself."

  McAllen shrugged. "I've already presented my views. Essentially, it's a question of whether Barney Chard was capable of learning that he could live without competing destructively with other human beings. If he has grasped that, he should also be aware by now that Base Eighteen is presently one of the most interesting spots in the known universe."

  Simms asked: "Do you expect he'll be grateful for what has occurred?"

  "We-e-ll," McAllen said judiciously, turning a little pale, "that, of course, depends on whether he is still alive and sane: But if he has survived the five years, I do believe that he will not be dissatisfied with what has happened to him. However"--he shrugged again--"let's get ahead with it. Five years has been a long time to find out whether or not I've murdered a man."

  In the momentary silence that followed, he setted himself in the chair Fredericks had vacated, and glanced over at Simms. "You stay seated, Mel," he said. "You represent Psychology here. Use your chair scanner. The plate's still showing no indications of clearing, John?"

  "No," said Fredericks. "In another two hours we might have a good picture there. Hardly before."

  McAllen said, "We won't wait for it. Simms and I can determine through the scanners approximately what has been going on." He was silent a few seconds; then the blurred red globe in the plate expanded swiftly, filled two thirds of the view space, checked for a moment, then grew once more; finally stopped.

  McAllen said irritably, "John, I'm afraid you'll have to take over. My hands don't seem steady enough to handle this properly."

  * * * * *

  A minute or two passed. The big plate grew increasingly indistinct, all details lost in a muddy wash of orange-brown shades. Green intruded suddenly; then McAllen muttered, "Picking up the cabin now."

  There was a moment of silence, then Fredericks cleared his throat. "So far so good, Oliver. We're looking into the cabin. Can't see your man yet--but someone's living here. Eh, Simms?"

  "Obviously," the psychologist acknowledged. He hesitated. "And at a guess it's no maniac. The place is in reasonably good order."

  "You say Chard isn't in the cabin?" Spalding demanded.

  Fredericks said, "Not unless he's deliberately concealing himself. The exit door is open. Hm-m-m. Well, the place isn't entirely deserted, after all."

  "What do you mean?" asked Spalding.

  "Couple of squirrels sitting in the window," Simms explained.

  "In the window? Inside the cabin?"

  "Yes," said Fredericks. "Either they strayed in while he was gone, or he's keeping them as pets. Now, should we start looking around outside for Chard?"

  "No," Spalding decided. "The Base is too big to attempt to cover at pin-point focus. If he's living in the cabin and has simply gone out, he'll return within a few hours at the most. We'll wait and see what we can deduce from the way he behaves when he shows up." He turned to McAllen. "Ollie," he said, "I think you might allow yourself to relax just a little. This doesn't seem at all bad!"

  McAllen grunted. "I don't know," he said. "You're overlooking one thing."

  "What's that?"

  "I told Chard when to expect us. Unless he's smashed the clock, he knows we're due today. If nothing's wrong--wouldn't he be waiting in the cabin for us?"

  Spalding hesitated. "That is a point. He seems to be hiding out. May have prepared an ambush, for that matter. John--"

  "Yes?" Fredericks said.

  "Step the tubescope down as fine as it will go, and scan that cabin as if you were vacuuming it. There may be some indication--"

  "He's already doing that," Simms interrupted.

  There was silence again for almost two minutes. Forefinger and thumb of Fredericks' right hand moved with infinite care on a set of dials on the side of the scanner; otherwise neither he nor Simms stirred.

  "Oh-hoo-hoo-HAW!" Dr. John Fredericks cried suddenly. "Oh-hoo-hoo-HAW! A message, Ollie! Your Mr. Chard has left you a ... hoo-hoo ... message."

  For a moment McAllen couldn't see clearly through the scanner. Fredericks was still laughing; Simms was saying in a rapid voice, "It's quite all right, doctor! Quite all right. Your man's sane, quite sane. In fact you've made, one might guess, a one hundred per cent convert to the McAllen approach to life. Can't you see it?"

  "No," gasped McAllen. He had a vague impression of the top of the desk in the main room of the cabin, of something white--a white card--taped to it, of blurred printing on the card. "Nothing's getting that boy unduly excited any more," Simms' voice went on beside him. "Not even the prospect of seeing visitors from Earth for the first time in five years. But he's letting you know it's perfectly all right to make yourself at home in his cabin until he gets back. Here, let me--"

  He reached past McAllen, adjusted the scanner. The printing on the card swam suddenly into focus before McAllen's eyes.

  The message was terse, self-explanatory, to the point:

  GONE FISHING,

  Regards,

  B. Chard.

  THE END

  * * *

  Contents

  ALIEN OFFER

  By AL SEVCIK

  "You are General James Rothwell?"

  Rothwell sighed. "Yes, Commander Aku. We have met several times."

  "Ah, yes. I recognize your insignia. Humans are so alike." The alien strode importantl
y across the office, the resilient pads of his broad feet making little plopping sounds on the rug, and seated himself abruptly in the visitor's chair beside Rothwell's desk. He gave a sharp cry, and another alien, shorter, but sporting similar, golden fur, stepped into the office and closed the door. Both wore simple, brown uniforms, without ornamentation.

  "I am here," Aku said, "to tell you something." He stared impassively at Rothwell for a minute, his fur-covered, almost human face completely expressionless, then his gaze shifted to the window, to the hot runways of New York International Airport and to the immense gray spaceship that, even from the center of the field, loomed above the hangars and passenger buildings. For an instant, a quick, unguessable emotion clouded the wide black eyes and tightened the thin lips, then it was gone.

  Rothwell waited.

  "General, Earth's children must all be aboard my ships within one week. We will start to load on the sixth day, next Thursday." He stood.

  Rothwell locked eyes with the alien, and leaned forward, grinding his knuckles into the desk top. "You know that's impossible. We can't select 100,000 children from every country and assemble them in only six days."

  "You will do it." The alien turned to leave.

  "Commander Aku! Let me remind you ..."

  Aku spun around, eyes flashing. "General Rothwell! Let me remind you that two weeks ago I didn't even know Earth existed, and since accidentally happening across your sun system and learning of your trouble I have had my entire trading fleet of a hundred ships in orbit about this planet while all your multitudinous political subdivisions have filled the air with talk and wrangle.

  "I am sorry for Earth, but my allegiance is to my fleet and I cannot remain longer than seven more days and risk being caught up in your destruction. Now, either you accept my offer to evacuate as many humans as my ships will carry, or you don't." He paused. "You are the planet's evacuation coordinator; you will give me an answer."