Astounding Science Fiction Stories: An Anthology of 350 Scifi Stories Volume 2 (Halcyon Classics)

by Various

  For the word "We" must never be spoken, save by one's choice and as a second thought. This word must never be placed first within man's soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all the evils on earth, the root of man's torture by men, and an unspeakable lie.

  The word "We" is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages.

  What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree, and to obey?

  But I am done with this creed of corruption.

  I am done with the monster of "We," the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame.

  And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride.

  This god, this one word:

  "I."

  Chapter Twelve

  It was when I read the first of the books I found in my house that I saw the word "I." And when I understood this word, the book fell from my hands, and I wept, I who had never known tears. I wept in deliverance and in pity for all mankind.

  I understood the blessed thing which I had called my curse. I understood why the best in me had been my sins and my transgressions; and why I had never felt guilt in my sins. I understood that centuries of chains and lashes will not kill the spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him.

  I read many books for many days. Then I called the Golden One, and I told her what I had read and what I had learned. She looked at me and the first words she spoke were:

  "I love you."

  Then I said:

  "My dearest one, it is not proper for men to be without names. There was a time when each man had a name of his own to distinguish him from all other men. So let us choose our names. I have read of a man who lived many thousands of years ago, and of all the names in these books, his is the one I wish to bear. He took the light of the gods and brought it to men, and he taught men to be gods. And he suffered for his deed as all bearers of light must suffer. His name was Prometheus."

  "It shall be your name," said the Golden One.

  "And I have read of a goddess," I said, "who was the mother of the earth and of all the gods. Her name was Gaea. Let this be your name, my Golden One, for you are to be the mother of a new kind of gods."

  "It shall be my name," said the Golden One.

  Now I look ahead. My future is clear before me. The Saint of the pyre had seen the future when he chose me as his heir, as the heir of all the saints and all the martyrs who came before him and who died for the same cause, for the same word, no matter what name they gave to their cause and their truth.

  I shall live here, in my own house. I shall take my food from the earth by the toil of my own hands. I shall learn many secrets from my books. Through the years ahead, I shall rebuild the achievements of the past, and open the way to carry them further, the achievements which are open to me, but closed forever to my brothers, for their minds are shackled to the weakest and dullest among them.

  I have learned that the power of the sky was known to men long ago; they called it Electricity. It was the power that moved their greatest inventions. It lit this house with light that came from those globes of glass on the walls. I have found the engine which produced this light. I shall learn how to repair it and how to make it work again. I shall learn how to use the wires which carry this power. Then I shall build a barrier of wires around my home, and across the paths which lead to my home; a barrier light as a cobweb, more impassable than a wall of granite; a barrier my brothers will never be able to cross. For they have nothing to fight me with, save the brute force of their numbers. I have my mind.

  Then here, on this mountaintop, with the world below me and nothing above me but the sun, I shall live my own truth. Gaea is pregnant with my child. He will be taught to say "I" and to bear the pride of it. He will be taught to walk straight on his own feet. He will be taught reverence for his own spirit.

  When I shall have read all the books and learned my new way, when my home will be ready and my earth tilled, I shall steal one day, for the last time, into the cursed City of my birth. I shall call to me my friend who has no name save International 4-8818, and all those like him, Fraternity 2-5503, who cries without reason, and Solidarity 9-6347 who calls for help in the night, and a few others. I shall call to me all the men and the women whose spirit has not been killed within them and who suffer under the yoke of their brothers. They will follow me and I shall lead them to my fortress. And here, in this uncharted wilderness, I and they, my chosen friends, my fellow-builders, shall write the first chapter in the new history of man.

  These are the last things before me. And as I stand here at the door of glory, I look behind me for the last time. I look upon the history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it was the spirit of man's freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. That and nothing else.

  At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he stood on the threshold of freedom for which the blood of the centuries behind him had been spilled.

  But then he gave up all he had won, and fell lower than his savage beginning.

  What brought it to pass? What disaster took their reason away from men? What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and submission? The worship of the word "We."

  When men accepted that worship, the structure of centuries collapsed about them, the structure whose every beam had come from the thought of some one man, each in his day down the ages, from the depth of some one spirit, such as spirit existed but for its own sake. Those men who survived—those eager to obey, eager to live for one another, since they had nothing else to vindicate them—those men could neither carry on, nor preserve what they had received. Thus did all thought, all science, all wisdom perish on earth. Thus did men—men with nothing to offer save their great numbers—lose the steel towers, the flying ships, the power wires, all the things they had not created and could never keep. Perhaps, later, some men had been born with the mind and the courage to recover these things which were lost; perhaps these men came before the Councils of Scholars. They answered as I have been answered—and for the same reasons.

  But I still wonder how it was possible, in those graceless years of transition, long ago, that men did not see whither they were going, and went on, in blindness and cowardice, to their fate. I wonder, for it is hard for me to conceive how men who knew the word "I," could give it up and not know what they had lost. But such has been the story, for I have lived in the City of the damned, and I know what horror men permitted to be brought upon them.

  Perhaps, in those days, there were a few among men, a few of clear sight and clean soul, who refused to surrender that word. What agony must have been theirs before that which they saw coming and could not stop! Perhaps they cried out in protest and in warning. But men paid no heed to their warning. And they, those few, fought a hopeless battle, and they perished with their banners smeared by their own blood. And they chose to perish, for they knew. To them, I send my salute across the centuries, and my pity.

  Thei
rs is the banner in my hand. And I wish I had the power to tell them that the despair of their hearts was not to be final, and their night was not without hope. For the battle they lost can never be lost. For that which they died to save can never perish. Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through. And man will go on. Man, not men.

  Here, on this mountain, I and my sons and my chosen friends shall build our new land and our fort. And it will become as the heart of the earth, lost and hidden at first, but beating, beating louder each day. And word of it will reach every corner of the earth. And the roads of the world will become as veins which will carry the best of the world's blood to my threshold. And all my brothers, and the Councils of my brothers, will hear of it, but they will be impotent against me. And the day will come when I shall break the chains of the earth, and raze the cities of the enslaved, and my home will become the capital of a world where each man will be free to exist for his own sake.

  For the coming of that day I shall fight, I and my sons and my chosen friends. For the freedom of Man. For his rights. For his life. For his honor.

  And here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which will not die, should we all perish in battle. The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory.

  The sacred word:

  EGO

  * * *

  Contents

  A FILBERT IS A NUT

  By Rick Raphael

  That the gentleman in question was a nut was beyond question. He was an institutionalized psychotic. He was nutty enough to think he could make an atom bomb out of modeling clay!

  Miss Abercrombie, the manual therapist patted the old man on the shoulder. "You're doing just fine, Mr. Lieberman. Show it to me when you have finished."

  The oldster in the stained convalescent suit gave her a quick, shy smile and went back to his aimless smearing in the finger paints.

  Miss Abercrombie smoothed her smock down over trim hips and surveyed the other patients working at the long tables in the hospital's arts and crafts shop. Two muscular and bored attendants in spotless whites, lounged beside the locked door and chatted idly about the Dodgers' prospects for the pennant.

  Through the barred windows of the workshop, rolling green hills were seen, their tree-studded flanks making a pleasant setting for the mental institution. The crafts building was a good mile away from the main buildings of the hospital and the hills blocked the view of the austere complex of buildings that housed the main wards.

  The therapist strolled down the line of tables, pausing to give a word of advice here, and a suggestion there.

  She stopped behind a frowning, intense patient, rapidly shaping blobs of clay into odd-sized strips and forms. As he finished each piece, he carefully placed it into a hollow shell hemisphere of clay.

  "And what are we making today, Mr. Funston?" Miss Abercrombie asked.

  The flying fingers continued to whip out the bits of shaped clay as the patient ignored the question. He hunched closer to his table as if to draw away from the woman.

  "We mustn't be antisocial, Mr. Funston," Miss Abercrombie said lightly, but firmly. "You've been coming along famously and you must remember to answer when someone talks to you. Now what are you making? It looks very complicated." She stared professionally at the maze of clay parts.

  Thaddeus Funston continued to mold the clay bits and put them in place.

  Without looking up from his bench he muttered a reply.

  "Atom bomb."

  A puzzled look crossed the therapist's face. "Pardon me, Mr. Funston. I thought you said an 'atom bomb.'"

  "Did," Funston murmured.

  Safely behind the patient's back, Miss Abercrombie smiled ever so slightly. "Why that's very good, Mr. Funston. That shows real creative thought. I'm very pleased."

  She patted him on the shoulder and moved down the line of patients.

  A few minutes later, one of the attendants glanced at his watch, stood up and stretched.

  "All right, fellows," he called out, "time to go back. Put up your things."

  There was a rustle of paint boxes and papers being shuffled and chairs being moved back. A tall, blond patient with a flowing mustache, put one more dab of paint on his canvas and stood back to survey the meaningless smears. He sighed happily and laid down his palette.

  At the clay table, Funston feverishly fabricated the last odd-shaped bit of clay and slapped it into place. With a furtive glance around him, he clapped the other half of the clay sphere over the filled hemisphere and then stood up. The patients lined up at the door, waiting for the walk back across the green hills to the main hospital. The attendants made a quick count and then unlocked the door. The group shuffled out into the warm, afternoon sunlight and the door closed behind them.

  Miss Abercrombie gazed around the cluttered room and picked up her chart book of patient progress. Moving slowly down the line of benches, she made short, precise notes on the day's work accomplished by each patient.

  At the clay table, she carefully lifted the top half of the clay ball and stared thoughtfully at the jumbled maze of clay strips laced through the lower hemisphere. She placed the lid back in place and jotted lengthily in her chart book.

  When she had completed her rounds, she slipped out of the smock, tucked the chart book under her arm and left the crafts building for the day.

  The late afternoon sun felt warm and comfortable as she walked the mile to the main administration building where her car was parked.

  As she drove out of the hospital grounds, Thaddeus Funston stood at the barred window of his locked ward and stared vacantly over the hills towards the craft shop. He stood there unmoving until a ward attendant came and took his arm an hour later to lead him off to the patients' mess hall.

  * * * * *

  The sun set, darkness fell over the stilled hospital grounds and the ward lights winked out at nine o'clock, leaving just a single light burning in each ward office. A quiet wind sighed over the still-warm hills.

  At 3:01 a.m., Thaddeus Funston stirred in his sleep and awakened. He sat up in bed and looked around the dark ward. The quiet breathing and occasional snores of thirty other sleeping patients filled the room. Funston turned to the window and stared out across the black hills that sheltered the deserted crafts building.

  He gave a quick cry, shut his eyes and clapped his hands over his face.

  The brilliance of a hundred suns glared in the night and threw stark shadows on the walls of the suddenly-illuminated ward.

  An instant later, the shattering roar and blast of the explosion struck the hospital buildings in a wave of force and the bursting crash of a thousand windows was lost in the fury of the explosion and the wild screams of the frightened and demented patients.

  It was over in an instant, and a stunned moment later, recessed ceiling lights began flashing on throughout the big institution.

  Beyond the again-silent hills, a great pillar of smoke, topped by a small mushroom-shaped cloud, rose above the gaping hole that had been the arts and crafts building.

  Thaddeus Funston took his hands from his face and lay back in his bed with a small, secret smile on his lips. Attendants and nurses scurried through the hospital, seeing how many had been injured in the explosion.

  None had. The hills had absorbed most of the shock and apart from a welter of broken glass, the damage had been surprisingly slight.

  The roar and flash of the explosion had lighted and rocked the surrounding countryside. Soon firemen and civil defense disaster units from a half-dozen neighboring communities had gathered at the still-smoking hole that marked the site of the vanished crafts building.

  Within fifteen minutes, the disaster-trained crews had detected heavy radiation emanating from the crater and there was a scurry of
men and equipment back to a safe distance, a few hundred yards away.

  At 5:30 a.m., a plane landed at a nearby airfield and a platoon of Atomic Energy Commission experts, military intelligence men, four FBI agents and an Army full colonel disembarked.

  At 5:45 a.m. a cordon was thrown around both the hospital and the blast crater.

  In Ward 4-C, Thaddeus Funston slept peacefully and happily.

  "It's impossible and unbelievable," Colonel Thomas Thurgood said for the fifteenth time, later that morning, as he looked around the group of experts gathered in the tent erected on the hill overlooking the crater. "How can an atom bomb go off in a nut house?"

  "It apparently was a very small bomb, colonel," one of the haggard AEC men offered timidly. "Not over three kilotons."

  "I don't care if it was the size of a peanut," Thurgood screamed. "How did it get here?"

  A military intelligence agent spoke up. "If we knew, sir, we wouldn't be standing around here. We don't know, but the fact remains that it WAS an atomic explosion."

  Thurgood turned wearily to the small, white-haired man at his side.

  "Let's go over it once more, Dr. Crane. Are you sure you knew everything that was in that building?" Thurgood swept his hand in the general direction of the blast crater.

  "Colonel, I've told you a dozen times," the hospital administrator said with exasperation, "this was our manual therapy room. We gave our patients art work. It was a means of getting out of their systems, through the use of their hands, some of the frustrations and problems that led them to this hospital. They worked with oil and water paints and clay. If you can make an atomic bomb from vermillion pigments, then Madame Curie was a misguided scrubwoman."