Only waiting was left.
He opened his mind. All around him, stretching across the earth, the linked thoughts of the Baldies made a vast, intricate webwork, perhaps the last and mightiest structure man would ever build. They drew him into their midst and made him one with them. There were no barriers at all. They did not judge. They understood, all of them, and he was part of them all in a warm, ultimate unity that was source of enough strength and courage to face whatever decision mankind might make. This might be the last time man would ever bind itself together in this way. The pogrom might go on until the last Baldy died. But until then, no Baldy would live or die alone.
So they waited, together, for the answer that man must give.
Six
The helicopter has landed. Men run toward me. They're strangers. I can't read their thoughts. I can't see them clearly; everything is dim, fading into wavering, shadowy ripples.
Something is being slipped around my neck. Something presses against the back of my head.
An Inductor.
A man kneels beside me. A doctor. He has a hypodermic.
The hypodermic comes second. The Inductor first of all. For none of us should die alone. None of us live alone any more. Either we are Baldies, or else we wear the Inductor that has made all men telepaths.
The Inductor begins to operate.
I meant to ask the doctor if I would live, but now I know that this is not the important thing. I know that, as warmth and life come back into the universe, and I am no longer alone. What is important is that my mind, myself, is no longer cut off and incomplete, it is expanding, joining with my people, with all life, as I rise from this lonely grave in which I have lain and I am—
We are one. We are man. The long, long war is ended, and the answer has been given. The dream has been cleansed, and the fire on the hearth is guarded. It will not burn out, now, until the last man dies.
Glossary-
Pogrom-an organized massacre of helpless people
Misericordia-a thin bladed dagger used in the middle ages to give the death wound or mercy stroke to a fallen adversary.
About the Author
Henry Kuttner (1915-1958) was an American author who was known for his literary prose and worked in close collaboration with his wife, C. L. Moore. Their work together spanned the 1940s and 1950s and most of the work was credited to pseudonyms, mainly Lewis Padgett and Lawrence O'Donnell. It has been stated that their collaboration was so intensive that, after a story was completed, it was often impossible for either Kuttner or Moore to recall who had written which portions. Among Kuttner's most popular work were the Gallegher stories, published under the Padgett name, about a man who invented hi-tech solutions to client problems (including an insufferably egomaniacal robot) when he was stinking drunk, only to be completely unable to remember exactly what he had built or why after sobering up.
In 2007, New Line Cinema released a feature film loosely based on the Lewis Padgett short story "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" under the title The Last Mimzy.
Catherine Lucille Moore (January 24, 1911 – April 4, 1987) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer, as C. L. Moore. She was one of the first women to write in the genre, and paved the way for many other female writers in speculative fiction. Moore met Henry Kuttner, also a science fiction writer, in 1936 when he wrote her a fan letter (mistakenly thinking that "C. L. Moore" was a man), and they married in 1940. Afterwards, almost all of their stories were written in collaboration under various pseudonyms, most commonly “Lewis Padgett”. (Another pseudonym, one Moore often employed for works that involved little or no collaboration, was "Lawrence O’Donnell". After Kuttner's death in 1958, Moore wrote almost no fiction and taught his writing course at the University of Southern California. She did write for a few television shows under her married name, but upon marrying Thomas Reggie (who was not a writer) in 1963, she ceased writing entirely. C. L. Moore died on April 4, 1987 at her home in Hollywood, California after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. C.L. Moores pseudonyms included: Lawrence O'Donnell , C. H. Liddell , Lewis Padgett , Catherine L. Moore
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Table of Contents
Editors note:
The Piper's Son
Three Blind Mice
The Lion and the Unicorn
Beggars in Velvet
Humpty Dumpty
Mutant One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Glossary-
About the Author
eStar Books
Baldy Page 44