by Various
"How long ago did you--"
"Three weeks ago I began heavy dosing with the vitamin. Today--just this last hour--I reached back into prenatal to the first instant of my cellular existence. And it was like ripping a curtain aside. I--I can't exactly tell you what it's like. Something like coming out of a black cellar into the noon-day sun. It's almost blinding."
He closed his eyes, squinting as though to shut out a glare. His blond hair had grown long, and it lay on the pillow like a woman's. He had lost some weight, and except for the heavy chest muscles and thick forearms, he had the appearance of a poet, a delicate soul dedicated to some ephemeral plane out of this world.
I figured I'd better provide a little ballast. "Congratulations and all that," I said, "but what about your work?"
"I'm done," he said quietly.
"Done? Are you forgetting that you bought a sanitarium?--some eight hundred grand worth? And it's only half paid for?"
"Oh, that. The royalties will take care of the payments."
"Hillary, you keep forgetting about taxes."
"Then let them take it back by default. I'm through with it."
"Dammit," I said, "I looked into this deal. People don't take back sanitariums like over-ripe bananas, especially when they got you on the hook for more than it's worth. They'll hold you to the contract. And you can't get your equity out if you don't protect it by keeping up your payments. You have a wonderful start, and if you just fill the contracts I have on file now you can pay it off and have plenty left to retire on. But right now you aren't so solvent, boy."
Well, he finally came out of his trance long enough to agree to fulfill the commitments I'd made for him, and I thought that once he got started there would be no holding him.
Just to make sure I did something on my own. I let his identity and whereabouts leak out.
It was a sneaky thing to do to him, but I figured that once he got a real taste of the fame that was waiting him he would never let go of it.
The papers splashed it: "Mystery Genius Is Lad of 19!"
They swamped him. They swarmed over him and plastered him with honorary literary degrees, domestic and foreign. They Oscared him and Nobelled him. They wined, dined and adored him into a godhead of the arts.
The acting, publishing, TV, radio and movie greats paid homage to his genius by the most hysterical bidding for his talents their check-books could support. I kept waiting for the Secretary of the Treasury to present him with the key to Fort Knox.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, I waited patiently--having no choice, since I started the publicity nightmare myself--for the earthquake to settle down. As his agent I was holding off all new commitments until he fulfilled the ones on hand.
Six months passed, and Hillary was still wallowing in glory, too busy sopping up plaudits to bother turning a hand.
Finally I sent a goon squad after him and dragged him to my office. He arrived in a four-hundred dollar suit and a fifty-dollar tie. Each cuff was decorated by a diamond link and a Hollywood starlet. I shooed out the excess and came to the point.
"Recess is over," I said gently. "Now we settle down for a few months of patty-cake with your secretaries. They're here in my offices now where I can keep an eye on things. Okay?"
He grinned his old happy smile, and some of the dewey glaze seemed to peel from his eyes. "You're right, George," he said much to my surprise. "I can't coast forever--and believe me, I never visualized what this would be like. It's wonderful. The world is at my feet, George. At my feet!"
I had pegged him right. But after all, who could resist the accolade he had received? For all his monomania on this business of mnemonics, he was a red-blooded boy with active glands and youthful corpuscles.
To my further delight he threw off his imported suit-coat and said, "I'm ready right now. Where do we start?"
* * * * *
I broached the file and studied my priority list. "First off, Oscar wants a play. That'll take a week or two, I suppose. Then I have an assignment for a serial--"
I outlined about three months work for him, or what would have been three months work last summer.
I moved him into my own penthouse apartment upstairs and herded him to work the next morning. My squad of strong-arms guarded all entrances, and Hec Blankenship finally convinced the public that we meant business in getting a little privacy for our tame genius so he could hatch some more immortal works.
I had lunch sent in to him in the next office and didn't see him until five that first evening. I went in without knocking. One secretary was filing her nails, and the other three were putting on their coats. The covers were still on the typewriters and Hillary was asleep or in a coma over in the corner.
I kicked his feet off his desk, and he rocked forward. "Come on upstairs, I'll buy you a steak," I said.
He smiled weakly, "I need one. It didn't go so good." In the elevator he added, "In fact, it didn't go at all."
"Take it easy," I assured him. "You're a little rusty, that's all. What about the total recall? Is it still working?"
He nodded, but he didn't say any more about it.
Next day I stuck my head in before I went to lunch, and I congratulated myself on not pushing him too hard the first day. Hillary was off in his corner again, but his mouth was moving and all four girls were doing the things that secretaries do when they are about two hours behind in their work.
Eight days later the thing dropped on my desk. I wet a finger with keen anticipation, but the spit wasn't dry before I was plowing into Hillary's office trailing loose sheets.
"Are you kidding?" I yelled.
He was out of his chair over by the window staring out. All he did was hunch up his shoulders. The girls were standing around trying to act invisible.
"Hillary," I said trying to laugh. "Don't be playing gags on old George. Where is it? Where's Oscar's play?"
"I--I'm afraid that's it," he said without turning his head.
"This--this fluff? This pablum?"
"Well--I thought I'd try something light to begin with."
"Light? This is no play. This is Pollyanna. It's been done. Where's your conflict? Your problem? Your suspense? Dammit, where's your characters?"
"I'll get warmed up tomorrow," Hilliary said, but he didn't have much conviction in his voice.
He tried. He really did. I heard him thrashing around for a whole hour the next morning. By afternoon he was on his way to the hospital in an ambulance with two men holding him down.
All I could get out of the doctors was, "complete nervous breakdown." I finally found a hard-up intern and bribed him to spy for me. He reported that Hillary had the whole staff stumped. He was acting more like a dope addict with withdrawal symptoms or a drunk with the D.T.'s.
I got in touch with Hillary's sanitarium. The head psychiatrist was in Europe, so I cabled him and flew him back. He took over, and pretty soon I had the word I dreaded.
"Your wonder boy will recover," he told me, "but that's a wonder in itself. I presume he told you of his experiments to achieve total recall?"
I said yes.
"What he probably failed to tell you was that we all tried to dissuade him."
"That he didn't mention, but I worried about it."
"Yes, well you might have. When Hillary Hardy succeeded in stripping away the last remnant of protective insulation in his memory he exposed himself not only to its full factual content, but also he lay naked every past emotional upset, every pain, fear, dread and sorrow he had ever experienced. It is no longer possible for him to recall an experience and ponder it objectively. He relives it."
"Yes, I get that," I said, "but what's so--"
"Did you ever hit your thumb with a hammer?" the doctor with the traditional, gray goatee interrupted.
"Sure, a couple of times."
"Ever lose a sweetheart or have a loved one die?"
I nodded.
"Suppose that to even think about such experiences you had to endure all the
actual physical or emotional pain of the original incident? The crushing blow of the hammer? The heartache and tears of your loss? And suppose further, that you were trying to write a play, and in order to bring genuine emotion to it you forced yourself to endure these pains and emotional stresses, minute after minute--"
"God!" I said. "But you said he'd recover?"
"In a few weeks, yes. Gradually we will reduce sedation until he can control his memories again, but never ask him to write another dramatic work. Another attack like this one could drive him irretrievably insane."
It wasn't too hard to understand. After all, what is creative writing but setting down little bits of yourself? And the demands of literature are for human problems, conflicts, struggles.
Young as he was, Hillary was no different from the rest of us. Sure, he was full of reading and second hand bits of business, but he dug deeply into his own private pot of pain for his genuine dramatic effects. And where others dig with a long-handled ladle, Hillary dipped with his bare soul--and he got scalded.
Getting him well and keeping him that way was a matter of putting the lid back on the pot, so to speak. Nobody ever invited him to write another word. I saw to that. He's still with me, because after he went bankrupt on the sanitarium deal he had nowhere to turn. After taxes and the rooking the real estate boys gave him, his royalties were tied up for years to come.
He did get better, though. And he even works a little. Turns out scripts for mild little comic books, the Honey-Bunney type that are approved by parent-teacher censors. They don't sell very well. No conflict. No guts.
* * *
Contents
THE TEST COLONY
By Winston Marks
Benson did his best to keep his colony from going native, but what can you do when the Natives have a rare human intelligence and know all about the facts of life?
It was the afternoon of our arrival. Our fellow members of the "test colony" were back in the clearing at the edge of the lake, getting their ground-legs and drinking in the sweet, clean air of Sirius XXII. I was strolling along the strip of sandy beach with Phillip Benson, leader of our group, sniffing the spicy perfume of the forest that crowded within twenty feet of the water's edge.
Half a billion miles overhead, Sirius shone with an artificially white glow. Somewhere on the horizon, Earth lay, an invisible, remote speck of dust we had forsaken 24 dreary, claustrophobic months ago.
The trip had taken its toll from all of us, even tough-minded Phil Benson. We both found it difficult to relax and enjoy the invigorating, oxygen-rich air and the balmy climate. As official recorder, I was trying to think of words suitable to capture the magnificence, the sheer loveliness of the planet which would be our home for at least four years, perhaps forever.
Each absorbed in his own thoughts, Benson and I were some 500 yards from the clearing when he stopped me with a hand on my arm. "Who is that?" he demanded.
Up the beach where he pointed, two naked forms emerged from the calm waters. They skipped across the sand and began rolling together playfully in the soft grasses at the forest's edge. Even at this distance they were visibly male and female.
"I can't make them out," I said. My only thought was that one of the young couples had swum down ahead of us and was enjoying the first privacy attainable in two years.
Benson's eyes were sharper. "Sam, they--they look like--"
Our voices must have reached them, for they sprang apart and rose to their feet facing us.
"Like youngsters," I supplied.
"We have no kids with us," Benson reminded me. He began to move forward, slowly, as though stalking a wild animal.
"Wait, Phil," I said. "The planet is uninhabited. They can't be--"
He continued shuffling ahead, and I followed. Within 20 paces I knew he was right. Whoever they were they hadn't come with us!
Benson stopped so quickly I bumped into him. "Look, Sam! Their hands and feet! Four digits and--no thumbs!"
I could now make out the details. The two forms were not quite human. The toes were long and prehensile. The fingers, too, were exceptionally long, appearing to have an extra joint, but as Benson mentioned, there was no opposing thumb.
They stood well apart now, the female seeking no protection from the male. Curiosity was written in their faces, and when we stopped advancing they began edging forward until they were only five yards away.
Their outlines, instead of becoming clearer, had fuzzed up more as they approached. Now it was evident that their bodies were lightly covered with a silky hair, some two or three inches long. It had already dried out in the warm sun and was standing out away from their skins like golden haloes.
They stood well under five feet tall, and in every detail, except the body hair and digits, appeared to be miniature adults, complete with navels.
Even in the midst of the shock of surprise, I was taken by their remarkable beauty. "They're true mammals!" I exclaimed.
"Without a doubt," Benson said, eyeing the full contours of the lithe little female. Her pink flesh tones were a full shade lighter than those of the male. Both had well-spaced eyes under broad foreheads. Their fine features were drawn into fearless, half-quizzical, half-good-natured expressions of deep interest. They stood relaxed as if waiting for a parley to begin.
"This," said Benson, "is one hell of a note!"
They cocked their heads at the sound like robins. I said, "Why? They don't appear very vicious to me."
"Neither does man," Benson replied. "It's his brain that makes him deadly. Look at those skulls, the ear placement, the eyes and forehead. If I know my skull formations, I think man has met his intellectual equal at last--maybe, even, his superior."
"What makes you think they may have superior minds?" As a psychologist I felt Benson was jumping to a pretty quick conclusion.
"The atmosphere. Forty percent oxygen. Invariably, on other planets, that has meant higher metabolisms in the fauna. In a humanoid animal that strongly implies high mental as well as physical activity."
As if to prove his point, the two little creatures tired of the one-sided interview, bent slightly at the knees and leaped at a forty-five degree angle high into the tree branches. The female caught the first limb with her long fingers and swung out of sight into the foliage. The male hung by his long toes for a moment, regarding us with an inverted impish expression, then he, too, vanished.
I grunted with disappointment. Benson said, "Don't worry, they'll be back. Soon enough."
* * * * *
As we returned to the clearing Jane Benson and Susan, my wife, came to meet us. Although both brunettes rated high in feminine charms among the forty women of our group, somehow they appeared a little ungainly and uncommonly tall against my mental image of the little people we had just left. Their faces were pale from the long interment in the ship, and bright spots of sunburn on cheekbones and forehead gave them a clownish, made-up appearance.
"We've sorted and identified the fruits," Sue called to us. "The handbook is right. They're delicious! We've got a feast spread. Just wait until you--" She caught our expressions. "What's wrong?"
Benson shrugged. "You girls go on ahead and get the crowd together. I have an important announcement to make." Jane pouted a little and hesitated, but Benson insisted. "Run along now, please. I want to gather my thoughts."
We trailed after them slowly. I didn't like Benson's moody reaction to our discovery of an intelligent life-form. To me it was exciting. What fabulous news I would have to send back with the first liaison ship to contact us four years hence! And it would be entirely unexpected, because the original exploration party had failed to make the discovery. That in itself was an intriguing mystery. How could twenty-two scientists, bent on a minute examination of a planet's flora and fauna, overlook the most fabulous creation of all--an animal virtually in men's image? The only guess I could make was that they must belong to a nomadic tribe small enough to escape discovery.
Benson broke silence as the n
arrow beach strip began to widen into the grassy plain where our ship squatted like a hemispherical cathedral. "This poses so many problems," he said shaking his head.
I said, "Phil, I think you're taking your job too seriously. You just can't plan every detail of organizing our community down to the rationing of tooth-powder."
"Planning never hurt any project," Benson said.
"I disagree," I told him. "You've had too long to dwell on your plans. Now the first unpredictable incident throws you into an uproar. Relax, Phil. Take your problems one at a time. We don't even know that we'll ever see the little creatures again. Maybe they're shy."
He scarcely heard me. He was a large, well-muscled man of 46 years, an ex-college president and an able administrator. He and Jane, his wife, were the only two of our party older than the 35-year age limit. His background as a sociologist and anthropologist and his greater maturity were important factors in stabilizing a new colony, but his point of view had grown excessively conservative, it seemed to me.
A crew of craftsmen with their busy little power saws had constructed a sloping ship's ramp of rough planks sawed from the nearest trees. We stepped through and over the assembled people who were lying around in the grass at the base of the ramp, and Benson mounted twenty feet above us at the entrance to the ship.
Everyone was in high spirits, and a light cheer rippled through the assembly. Benson, however, ignored it and bent a thoroughly serious gaze out over his "flock".
"Please give me your closest attention," he began and waited until everyone was quiet. "Until further notice, we must proceed under a yellow alert during daylight hours and a red alert at night. All work parties leaving the ship will check with the scribe every hour on the hour. We will resume sleeping in the ship. Women are restricted to within 100 yards of the ship at all times. Men will go armed and will please inform themselves of their position on the security watch list which will be posted tonight." He squinted in the bright sunlight. "For the moment, you men with sidearms, post yourselves around the ship. Sound off loud if you sight anything larger than a rabbit."