Baldy

by Henry Kuttner

  Barton moved in, his eyes calculatingly alert, as he might watch the swaying hood of a cobra. He kept his thumb on the hilt of the dagger and held it at thigh-level. The fat man stepped forward from the wall, balancing on his toes, waiting.

  It was, after all, too easy. Telepathy wasn't necessary to forestall the stroke of that clumsy arm. With surgical neatness Barton put his knife in the right place, and made certain that Faxe did not communicate with his colleagues before he died. Then, satisfied, he let himself out of the house by the front door and walked quietly toward the nearest surface-car door.

  That was done. He sent his thought probing in search of Melissa. Somewhere, far away in the hidden dark, she heard and answered.

  Did they receive Faxe's call?

  No. No, you were too fast, and they didn't expect him to touch them.

  Good. Vargan and Smith now, then.

  Tonight?

  Yes.

  Good. I don't think you can reach me tomorrow.

  Why not!

  Evasion. Vargan--at Rye.

  Listen. This is important. If there are only three of them, fine. But if they try to communicate with others, be sure to let me know!

  Yes. That was all, but the personality of Melissa lingered with Barton as he drove his helicopter northwest through the night. He was not at all affected by the fact that he had committed murder. He did not regard the act as such; there was, undoubtedly, a touch of fanaticism in the way Baldies regarded betrayal from within. Nor was this ordinary betrayal. The means of communication Faxe and the others had discovered was the deadliest menace to the race that had ever existed-more serious than the lynchings a few decades after the Blowup.

  Barton had fallen into a mental pattern that always was dominant when he hunted. Now his quarry was human, but far more predatory than any jungle carnivore. Animals killed for food. That was simple Darwinism, and a basic law of nature. But the three paranoids had violated another basic entirely: preservation of the species. They menaced it.

  In any new culture there must be conflict, Barton thought, watching dim lights flicker past below, the innumerable torches of the towns that dotted America. And certainly the Baldies had a new culture. It was almost embryonic as yet, a mutation heading for an ultimate end that was so far inconceivable. But it was the first true forward step that mankind had made in a million years. Always before mutations had been very slight, or they had been failures. Now, with hard radiations providing the booster charge, a true mutation had opened a thousand possible doors. And before each door lay blind pitfalls.

  For there are dominant and secondary, submerged characteristics. Hairlessness was secondary to Baldies, but there might be other, submerged ones that would emerge, in the third or fourth generation. This extraordinary method of subtelepathic communication-was that natural? In Melissa's case it seemed to be so, though Faxe and the rest might have developed the trick themselves. If so, the latent potential lay, perhaps, in every Baldy. And that meant danger indeed. It was in the true meaning of the term a focus of infection. Healthy cells could be contaminated. The secret might be passed on, and Barton visualized a perfectly hidden, underground network of paranoids, communicating in utter secrecy, planning-anything. It wasn't a pleasant idea.

  He wondered how many social-type Baldies could fight such a menace. Not many; they were not qualified for war. War, because of the atomic bombs, was impossible, but this was a new sort of battle. The thing that made the bombs successful through fear-propaganda-the necessity of centralization before any group could be organized-was inapplicable. There need be no unification, if paranoids could communicate instantly and secretly. Blind luck had stepped in through Melissa, but one could not depend on luck.

  Melissa's thought touched him.

  Vargan has signaled Smith; Smith is flying to Rye.

  What do they know?

  Vargan told Smith to come immediately. No more.

  To Rye?

  It must be a new rendezvous. He gave directions. She relayed them to Barton.

  O.K. Keep listening.

  Puzzled and a little worried, Barton advanced the copter's speed. He was swinging northward now, toward Lake Erie, by-passing Conestoga. It wouldn't take long to reach Rye. But had Faxe got through, after all? A telepathic message takes only an instant. Perhaps Vargan had received the fat man's S.O.S. And if Faxe had passed on to his accomplices the knowledge that a Baldy had killed him, and why-Barton shrugged. They would be waiting for him, anyhow. They would know Faxe was dead. If he had no more than called to them in formless appeal and made contact with their minds, they would know. No mistaking that-shapelessness-as life slips inexorably from the body. When they reached out for him now, they would encounter plain nothingness, a curious sort of hiatus in the ether, as if the void had not yet quite closed over the place where a man had been an hour ago. It was unmistakable; no telepath willingly reached out into that quivering blank. But it would impinge upon any receptive mind near it, and soundlessly through the Baldy population of the town the knowledge would spread. One of Us has died. Yes, Vargan and Smith knew by now. But they did not yet know, in all probability, how he had died. It might have been accident, it might have been organic. It might have been-murder. They would act upon the assumption that it was. They would be waiting.

  The nearest Rye airfield to his destination was deserted, only the automatic landing lights flicking on as he dropped to earth. Melissa's directions had been clear. He walked half a mile up a road, turned into a narrow lane where moonlight made eerie patterns between flickering leaves, and stopped before an unlighted cottage. As he waited, a thought touched him.

  Come in. That was Vargan, the size-difference realization a submerged matrix in his mind, a pattern under moving water. Come in. But Vargan did not know Barton; he was radiating blind, conscious only that a Baldy was waiting in the lane outside the cottage.

  A light came on. The door opened. A small man, scarcely more than five feet tall, with an abnormally large head, stood on the threshold, a black silhouette.

  No traps?

  There was a trap, but it was merely the advantage of numbers. Barton felt that his question was answered. Vargan fell back as the taller man advanced, and then Barton was in the room, eyeing his opponent.

  Vargan had a pinched, worried face, and protuberant eyes. His mouse-brown wig was untidy. He wore eye lenses that reflected the light with a reptilian glitter, and for a moment his gaze took stock of Barton. Then he smiled.

  "All right," he said audibly. "Come in and sit down." The thought of contempt was there. Speaking audibly to another Baldy when caution was unnecessary was insultingly patronizing, but Barton was, not surprised. Paranoid, he thought, and Vargan's mind responded: Which means super!

  The kitchen valve opened and Bertram Smith came in, a handsome, blond giant, with pale-blue eyes and an expressionless face. Smith carried a tray with bottles, glasses, and ice. He nodded at Barton.

  "Vargan wanted to talk to you," he said. "I see no reason, but--"

  "What happened to Faxe?" Vargan asked. "Never mind. Have a drink first"

  Poison?

  Sincere denial. We are stronger than you--

  Barton accepted a glass and sat down in an uncomfortable table chair; he did not want to be too relaxed. His mind was wary, though he knew the uselessness of putting up guards. Vargan hunched his dwarfish form into a relaxer and gulped the liquor. His eyes were steady.

  "Now what about Faxe?"

  "I killed him," Barton said.

  "He was the weakest of us all--"

  All?

  Three of us--

  Good. Only two left now.

  Vargan grinned. "You're convinced you can kill us, and we're convinced we can kill you. And since our secret weapons are intangible--self-confidence that can't be measured arbitrarily--we can talk on equal ground. How did you know about our means of communication?"

  He could not hide the thought of Melissa. The mind has too much free will at times.

/>   Smith said, "We'll have to kill her too. And that other woman--Sue Connaught, that he was thinking of."

  No point in keeping up useless concealment. Barton touched Melissa's mind. They know. Listen. If they use their secret wave length, tell me instantly.

  "Immediately is pretty fast," Vargan said.

  "Thoughts are fast."

  "All right. You're underestimating us. Faxe was the newest of our band; he wasn't fast-minded, and he was a push-over for you. Our brains are highly trained and faster than yours." That was a guess; he couldn't know, really. Egotism influenced him.

  "Do you think," Barton said, "that you can get away with whatever you're trying to do?"

  "Yes," Smith said, in his mind a blazing, fanatical conviction that glared like a shining light. "We must."

  "All right. What are you trying to do?"

  "Preserve the race," Vargan said. "But actively, not passively. We non-Baldies." He still used the term, though he wore a wig--"aren't willing to bow down before an inferior race, homo sapiens."

  "The old quibble. Who says Baldies are homo superior? They simply have an additional sense."

  "That's all that keeps man from being a beast. An additional sense. Intelligence. Now there's a new race. It's telepathic. Eventually the next race may have-prescience. I don't know. But I do know that Baldies are the future of the world. God wouldn't have given us our power if He hadn't intended us to use it."

  This was merely dueling, but it was something more as well. Barton was intensely curious, for more than one reason. "You're trying to convince me?"

  "Certainly. The more who join us, the faster we'll grow. If you say no, we'll kill you." Only on these intangibles was there the possibility of mental secrecy. Semantics could never alter the divergence of absolute opinions.

  "What's your plan?"

  "Expansion," Vargan ruffled his untidy brown wig. "And complete secrecy, of course. The sabotage angle--we're just beginning that. Eventually it'll be a big thing. Right now we're concentrating on what we can do--"

  "Sabotage--and what can you offer in exchange?"

  A wave of tremendous self-confidence thrust out at Barton. "Ourselves. We are homo superior. When our race is free, no longer enslaved by mere humans, we can go to the stars if we want!"

  "Enslaved. I don't see it that way."

  "You don't. You've been conditioned to accept the pap cowards feed you. It's isn't logical. It isn't just or natural. When a new race appears, it's destined to rule."

  Barton said, "Remember the lynchings in the old days?"

  "Certainly," Vargan nodded. "Humans have one thing we haven't: numerical superiority. And they're organized. The trick is to destroy that organization. How is it maintained?"

  "By communication."

  "Which goes back to technology. The world's a smoothly running machine, with humanity in the driver's seat. If the machine cracks up--"

  Barton laughed. "Are you that good?"

  Again the fanatical self-belief flamed in Smith's mind. A hundred--a thousand mere humans--cannot equal one of us!

  "Well," Vargan said more sanely, "ten men could still lynch a Baldy, provided they weren't disorganized and in social chaos. That, of course, is what we're after. Ultimate social chaos. We're aiming at a bust-up. Then we can take over-after humans go to pot."

  "How long will that take? A million years?"

  "Perhaps," Vargan said, "if we weren't telepaths, and if we didn't have the secret wave length. That, by the way, takes time to learn, but almost any Baldy can learn it. But we're careful; there'll be no traitors among us. How can there be?"

  There couldn't. A thought of hesitancy, of betrayal, could be read. It would be a foolproof organization.

  Vargan nodded. "You see? Thousands of Baldies, working secretly for a bust-up, sabotaging, killing where necessary-- and always, always avoiding even a hint of suspicion."

  "You've sense enough for that, anyway," Barton said. "Even that hint would be fatal."

  "I know it." Anger. "Humans tolerate us, and we let them. We let them. It's time we took our rightful place."

  "We're getting it anyway, slowly. After all, we're intruders in a non-Baldy world. Humans have come to accept us. Eventually we'll get their complete trust and tolerance."

  "And-forever-live on tolerance, a helpless minority? Eating the crumbs our lessers are willing to throw us--if we lick then--boots?"

  "How many Baldies are maladjusted?"

  "Plenty."

  "All right. They'd be maladjusted in Heaven. The vast majority adjust. I've got the job I want-"

  "Have you? You never feel even a little irritated when people know you're a Baldy, and-look at you?"

  "Nobody's ever completely happy. Certainly a Baldy world would be rather more pleasant, but that'll come. There are plenty of worlds that will be available eventually. Venus, for one."

  "So we sit and wait for interplanetary travel," Vargan mocked. "And what then? There'll be slogans. Earth for humans. No Baldies on Venus. You're a fool. Has it never occurred to you that Baldies are the new race?" He looked at Barton. "I see it has. Every one of us has thought the same thing. But we've been conditioned to submerge the thought. Listen. What's the test of a dominant new race? It must be able to dominate. And we can; we've a power that no non-Baldy can ever hope to match. We're like gods pretending to be human because it'll please humans."

  "We aren't gods."

  "Compared to humans--we are gods. Do you feel pleased at the thought of rearing your children in fear, training them never to offend their inferiors, forcing them to wear-wigs?" Vargan's hand went up to his head, fingers clawed. "This is the stigma of our cowardice. The day when we can walk hairless in a hairless world-then we'll have come into our heritage. All right. Ask yourself-can you say that I'm wrong?"

  "No," Barton said. "You may be right. But we're a small minority; the risk's too great. Since you speak of children, you can add a postscript about lynchings. That isn't pretty. Maybe you could get away with this, but you're certain you won't fail. And that's just crazy. You're refusing to admit arguments that might weaken your plan. If even a whisper of this ever got out, every Baldy in the world, wigless or not, would be destroyed. The-humans-could do nothing less, for their own protection. And I couldn't blame them. I admit you're logical-to some extent. And you're dangerous, because you've got the secret telepathic band. But you're paranoid, and that means you're blind. We are getting what we want, on the whole, and because a few paranoid Baldies are malcontent, you set yourselves up as saviors for the whole race. If your idea should spread--"

  "That would mean fertile ground, wouldn't it?"

  "There are other maladjusted Baldies," Barton admitted. "I might have been one myself, maybe, if I hadn't found my pattern for living." He wondered for a moment. His jungle work was fascinating, but what would it be like to return from it to a completely Baldy culture? A world in which he belonged, as no telepath could belong, really, in this day and age.

  Barton turned from the mirage. And simultaneously Melissa's warning thought struck violently into his mind, faster than a shouted word could be; and with equal speed Barton reacted, spinning to his feet and heaving up his chair as a shield. He had not caught Vargan's command; it had been on the secret wave length, but Smith's thrown knife clattered against the plastic chair seat and bounced off against one of the walls.

  Vargan will attack while Smith recovers his weapon. Melissa was afraid; she shrank from the idea of violence, and the emotions surging unchecked in the room, but her thought struck unwaveringly into Barton's mind. He sprang toward the fallen dagger as Vargan ran at him. Then the two were back on the ordinary telepathic wave length, but with a difference.

  One man Barton could have guarded against. Or two men acting together. But this had been prearranged. Smith was fighting independently, and so was Vargan. Two thought-patterns struck into Barton's mind. Vargan was concentrating on the duello, left right, feint, and feint again. Barton was skilled enough to be a m
atch for his single opponent, but now Smith had picked up the fallen chair and was coming in with it. His mind was confused, too. Drive the chair forward low-no, high-no--

  In a feint, there are two mental patterns; dominant and recessive. One has the ring of truth. But Vargan and Smith were attempting to act completely on impulse, purposely confusing their minds in order to confuse Barton. They were succeeding. And more than once they flashed up to the secret band, so Melissa's thought-warning was added to the confusion.

  Smith had his dagger back now. A table went crashing over. Barton had taken it fatally for granted that his enemies would act together, and so a sharp point ripped his sleeve and brought blood from a deep cut. In the jungle, where emotion, tropism, instinct, are stronger than intelligence, Barton had been confused in much the same way, but then his own mental power had been the turning factor. Here his opponents were not mindless beasts; they were highly intelligent predators.

  The heavy, choking smell of blood was nauseating in the back of his throat. Cat-footed, wary, Barton kept retreating, not daring to be pinned between his enemies. Abruptly Melissa warned: A rush! and both Smith and Vargan came at him, blades gleaming where they were not crimson.

  Heart-clavicle-up-stroke-feint--

  Confused and chaotic, the furious thoughts caught him in a whirlwind. He spun to face Smith, knew his mistake, and ducked not quite in time. Vargan's dagger ripped his left biceps. And with that blow Barton knew that he had failed; he was no match for the two paranoids.

  He ran for the chair, thinking of it as a shield, but at the last moment, before his mind could be read, he sent it hurtling toward the fluorescent. With a tinkle of glass the tube broke. In the dark, Barton dived for the door. They knew what he intended and anticipated him; they knew he would depend on impetus to carry him through. But they could not stop him. He got a knee hard on the point of his jaw, and, dazed, slashed right and left half-mindlessly. Perhaps that saved him.

  He broke through, thinking of his copter. Escape and help now. He felt Vargan's thought: the short cut.