American Science Fiction

by Gary K. Wolfe

  “Another one of those?” I laughed.

  “Are you up to this one? You’re deeply involved with her. I can tell.”

  “Not all that deep.”

  “Have you told her about yourself?”

  “No.”

  Imperceptibly, I could see her relax. By keeping the secret about myself, I had somehow not committed myself to Fay completely. We both knew that, wonderful as she was, Fay would never understand.

  “I needed her,” I said, “and in a way she needed me, and living right across from each other, well it was just handy, that’s all. But I wouldn’t call it love—not the same thing that exists between us.”

  She looked down at her hands and frowned. “I’m not sure I know what does exist between us.”

  “Something so deep and significant that Charlie inside me is terrified whenever there seems to be any chance of my making love to you.”

  “And not with her?”

  I shrugged. “That’s how I know it’s not important with her. It doesn’t mean enough for Charlie to panic.”

  “Great!” she laughed. “And ironic as hell. When you talk about him that way, I hate him for coming between us. Do you think he’ll ever let you . . . let us . . .”

  “I don’t know. I hope so.”

  I left her at the door. We shook hands, and yet, strangely, it was much closer and more intimate than an embrace would have been.

  I went home and made love to Fay, but kept thinking of Alice.

  July 27—Working around the clock. Over Fay’s protests, I’ve had a cot moved into the lab. She’s become too possessive and resentful of my work. I think she could tolerate another woman, but not this complete absorption in something she can’t follow. I was afraid it would come to this, but I have no patience with her now. I’m jealous of every moment away from the work—impatient with anyone who tries to steal my time.

  Though most of my writing time is spent on notes which I keep in a separate folder, from time to time I have to put down my moods and thoughts out of sheer habit.

  The calculus of intelligence is a fascinating study. In a sense this is the problem I’ve been concerned with all my life. Here is the place for the application of all the knowledge I have acquired.

  Time assumes another dimension now—work and absorption in the search for an answer. The world around me and my past seem far away and distorted, as if time and space were taffy being stretched and looped and twisted out of shape. The only real things are the cages and the mice and the lab equipment here on the fourth floor of the main building.

  There is no night or day. I’ve got to cram a lifetime of research into a few weeks. I know I should rest, but I can’t until I know the truth about what is happening.

  Alice is a great help to me now. She brings me sandwiches and coffee, but she makes no demands.

  About my perception: everything is sharp and clear, each sensation heightened and illuminated so that reds and yellows and blues glow. Sleeping here has a strange effect. The odors of the laboratory animals, dogs, monkeys, mice, spin me back into memories, and it is difficult to know whether I am experiencing a new sensation or recalling the past. It is impossible to tell what proportion is memory and what exists here and now—so that a strange compound is formed of memory and reality; past and present; response to stimuli stored in my brain centers, and response to stimuli in this room. It’s as if all the things I’ve learned have fused into a crystal universe spinning before me so that I can see all the facets of it reflected in gorgeous bursts of light. . . .

  A monkey sitting in the center of his cage, staring at me out of sleepy eyes, rubbing his cheeks with little old-man shriveled hands . . . chee . . . cheee . . . cheeeee . . . and bouncing off the cage wire, up to the swing overhead where the other monkey sits staring dumbly into space. Urinating, defecating, passing wind, staring at me and laughing . . . cheeee . . . cheeeee . . . cheeeee. . . .

  And bouncing around, leap, hop, up around and down, he swings and tries to grab the other monkey’s tail, but the one on the bar keeps swishing it away, without fuss, out of his grasp. Nice monkey . . . pretty monkey . . . with big eyes and swishy tail. Can I feed him a peanut? . . . No, the man’ll holler. That sign says do not feed the animals. That’s a chimpanzee. Can I pet him? No. I want to pet the chip-a-zee. Never mind, come and look at the elephants.

  Outside, crowds of bright sunshiny people are dressed in spring.

  Algernon lies in his own dirt, unmoving, and the odors are stronger than ever before. And what about me?

  July 28—Fay has a new boy friend. I went home last night to be with her. I went to my room first to get a bottle and then headed over on the fire escape. But fortunately I looked before going in. They were together on the couch. Strange, I don’t really care. It’s almost a relief.

  I went back to the lab to work with Algernon. He has moments out of his lethargy. Periodically, he will run a shifting maze, but when he fails and finds himself in a dead-end, he reacts violently. When I got down to the lab, I looked in. He was alert and came up to me as if he knew me. He was eager to work, and when I set him down through the trap door in the wire mesh of the maze, he moved swiftly along the pathways to the reward box. Twice he ran the maze successfully. The third time, he got halfway through, paused at an intersection, and then with a twitching movement took the wrong turn. I could see what was going to happen, and I wanted to reach down and take him out before he ended up in a blind alley. But I restrained myself and watched.

  When he found himself moving along the unfamiliar path, he slowed down, and his actions became erratic: start, pause, double back, turn around and then forward again, until finally he was in the cul-de-sac that informed him with a mild shock that he had made a mistake. At this point, instead of turning back to find an alternate route, he began to move in circles, squeaking like a phonograph needle scratched across the grooves. He threw himself against the walls of the maze, again and again, leaping up, twisting over backwards and falling, and throwing himself again. Twice he caught his claws in the overhead wire mesh, screeching wildly, letting go, and trying hopelessly again. Then he stopped and curled himself up into a small, tight ball.

  When I picked him up, he made no attempt to uncurl, but remained in that state much like a catatonic stupor. When I moved his head or limbs, they stayed like wax. I put him back into his cage and watched him until the stupor wore off and he began to move around normally.

  What eludes me is the reason for his regression—is it a special case? An isolated reaction? Or is there some general principle of failure basic to the whole procedure? I’ve got to work out the rule.

  If I can find that out, and if it adds even one jot of information to whatever else has been discovered about mental retardation and the possibility of helping others like myself, I will be satisfied. Whatever happens to me, I will have lived a thousand normal lives by what I might add to others not yet born.

  That’s enough.

  July 31—I’m on the edge of it. I sense it. They all think I’m killing myself at this pace, but what they don’t understand is that I’m living at a peak of clarity and beauty I never knew existed. Every part of me is attuned to the work. I soak it up into my pores during the day, and at night—in the moments before I pass off into sleep—ideas explode into my head like fireworks. There is no greater joy than the burst of solution to a problem.

  Incredible that anything could happen to take away this bubbling energy, the zest that fills everything I do. It’s as if all the knowledge I’ve soaked in during the past months has coalesced and lifted me to a peak of light and understanding. This is beauty, love, and truth all rolled into one. This is joy. And now that I’ve found it, how can I give it up? Life and work are the most wonderful things a man can have. I am in love with what I am doing, because the answer to this problem is right here in my mind, and soon—very soon—it will burst into conscio
usness. Let me solve this one problem. I pray God it is the answer I want, but if not I will accept any answer at all and try to be grateful for what I had.

  Fay’s new boy friend is a dance instructor from the Stardust Ballroom. I can’t really blame her since I have so little time to be with her.

  August 11—Blind alley for the past two days. Nothing. I’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere, because I get answers to a lot of questions, but not to the most important question of all: How does Algernon’s regression affect the basic hypothesis of the experiment?

  Fortunately, I know enough about the processes of the mind not to let this block worry me too much. Instead of panicking and giving up (or what’s even worse, pushing hard for answers that won’t come) I’ve got to take my mind off the problem for a while and let it stew. I’ve gone as far as I can on a conscious level, and now it’s up to those mysterious operations below the level of awareness. It’s one of those inexplicable things, how everything I’ve learned and experienced is brought to bear on the problem. Pushing too hard will only make things freeze up. How many great problems have gone unsolved because men didn’t know enough, or have enough faith in the creative process and in themselves, to let go for the whole mind to work at it?

  So I decided yesterday afternoon to put the work aside for a while and go to Mrs. Nemur’s cocktail party. It was in honor of the two men on the board of the Welberg Foundation who had been instrumental in getting her husband the grant. I planned to take Fay, but she said she had a date and she’d rather go dancing.

  I started out the evening with every intention of being pleasant and making friends. But these days I have trouble getting through to people. I don’t know if it’s me or them, but any attempt at conversation usually fades away in a minute or two, and the barriers go up. Is it because they are afraid of me? Or is it that deep down they don’t care and I feel the same about them?

  I took a drink and wandered around the big room. There were little knots of people sitting in conversation groups, the kind I find it impossible to join. Finally, Mrs. Nemur cornered me and introduced me to Hyram Harvey, one of the board members. Mrs. Nemur is an attractive woman, early forties, blonde hair, lots of make-up and long red nails. She had her arm through Harvey’s. “How is the research coming?” she wanted to know.

  “As well as can be expected. I’m trying to solve a tough problem right now.”

  She lit a cigarette and smiled at me. “I know that everyone on the project is grateful that you’ve decided to pitch in and help out. But I imagine you’d much rather be working on something of your own. It must be rather dull taking up someone else’s work rather than something you’ve conceived and created yourself.”

  She was sharp, all right. She didn’t want Hyram Harvey to forget that her husband had the credit coming. I couldn’t resist tossing it back at her. “No one really starts anything new, Mrs. Nemur. Everyone builds on other men’s failures. There is nothing really original in science. What each man contributes to the sum of knowledge is what counts.”

  “Of course,” she said, talking to her elderly guest rather than to me. “It’s a shame Mr. Gordon wasn’t around earlier to help solve these little final problems.” She laughed. “But then—oh, I forgot, you weren’t in any position to do psychological experimentation.”

  Harvey laughed, and I thought I’d better keep quiet. Bertha Nemur was not going to let me get the last word in, and if things went any further it would really get nasty.

  I saw Dr. Strauss and Burt talking to the other man from the Welberg Foundation—George Raynor. Strauss was saying: “The problem, Mr. Raynor, is getting sufficient funds to work on projects like these, without having strings tied to the money. When amounts are earmarked for specific purposes, we can’t really operate.”

  Raynor shook his head and waved a big cigar at the small group around him. “The real problem is convincing the board that this kind of research has practical value.”

  Strauss shook his head. “The point I’ve been trying to make is that this money is intended for research. No one can ever know in advance if a project is going to result in something useful. Results are often negative. We learn what something is not—and that is as important as a positive discovery to the man who is going to pick up from there. At least he knows what not to do.”

  As I approached the group, I noticed Raynor’s wife, to whom I had been introduced earlier. She was a beautiful, dark-haired woman of thirty or so. She was staring at me, or rather at the top of my head—as if she expected something to sprout. I stared back, and she got uncomfortable and turned back to Dr. Strauss. “But what about the present project? Do you anticipate being able to use these techniques on other retardates? Is this something the world will be able to use?”

  Strauss shrugged and nodded towards me. “Still too early to tell. Your husband helped us put Charlie to work on the project, and a great deal depends on what he comes up with.”

  “Of course,” Mr. Raynor put in, “we all understand the necessity for pure research in fields like yours. But it would be such a boon to our image if we could produce a really workable method for achieving permanent results outside the laboratory, if we could show the world that there is some tangible good coming out of it.”

  I started to speak, but Strauss, who must have sensed what I was going to say, stood up and put his arm on my shoulder. “All of us at Beekman feel that the work Charlie is doing is of the utmost importance. His job now is to find the truth wherever it leads. We leave it to your foundations to handle the public, to educate society.”

  He smiled at the Raynors and steered me away from them.

  “That,” I said, “is not at all what I was going to say.”

  “I didn’t think you were,” he whispered, holding onto my elbow. “But I could see by that gleam in your eye you were ready to cut them to pieces. And I couldn’t allow that, could I?”

  “Guess not,” I agreed, helping myself to another martini.

  “Is it wise of you to drink so heavily?”

  “No, but I’m trying to relax and I seem to have come to the wrong place.”

  “Well, take it easy,” he said, “and keep out of trouble tonight. These people are not fools. They know the way you feel about them, and even if you don’t need them, we do.”

  I waved a salute at him. “I’ll try, but you’d better keep Mrs. Raynor away from me. I’m going to goose her if she wiggles her fanny at me again.”

  “Shhhh!” he hissed. “She’ll hear you.”

  “Shhhh!” I echoed. “Sorry. I’ll just sit here in the corner and keep out of everyone’s way.”

  The haze was coming over me, but through it I could see people staring at me. I guess I was muttering to myself—too audibly. I don’t remember what I said. A little while later I had the feeling that people were leaving unusually early, but I didn’t pay much attention until Nemur came up and stood in front of me.

  “Just who the hell do you think you are, that you can behave that way? I have never seen such insufferable rudeness in my life.”

  I struggled to my feet. “Now, what makes you say that?”

  Strauss tried to restrain him, but he spluttered and gasped out: “I say it, because you have no gratitude or understanding of the situation. After all, you are indebted to these people if not to us—in more ways than one.”

  “Since when is a guinea pig supposed to be grateful?” I shouted. “I’ve served your purposes, and now I’m trying to work out your mistakes, so how the hell does that make me indebted to anyone?”

  Strauss started to move in to break it up, but Nemur stopped him. “Just a minute. I want to hear this. I think it’s time we had this out.”

  “He’s had too much to drink,” said his wife.

  “Not that much,” snorted Nemur. “He’s speaking pretty clearly. I’ve put up with a lot from him. He’s endangered—if not actually destroyed�
��our work, and now I want to hear from his own mouth what he thinks his justification is.”

  “Oh, forget it,” I said. “You don’t really want to hear the truth.”

  “But I do, Charlie. At least your version of the truth. I want to know if you feel any gratitude for all the things that have been done for you—the abilities you’ve developed, the things you’ve learned, the experiences you’ve had. Or do you think possibly you were better off before?”

  “In some ways, yes.”

  That shocked them.

  “I’ve learned a lot in the past few months,” I said. “Not only about Charlie Gordon, but about life and people, and I’ve discovered that nobody really cares about Charlie Gordon, whether he’s a moron or a genius. So what difference does it make?”

  “Oh,” laughed Nemur. “You’re feeling sorry for yourself. What did you expect? This experiment was calculated to raise your intelligence, not to make you popular. We had no control over what happened to your personality, and you’ve developed from a likeable, retarded young man into an arrogant, self-centered, antisocial bastard.”

  “The problem, dear professor, is that you wanted someone who could be made intelligent but still be kept in a cage and displayed when necessary to reap the honors you seek. The hitch is that I’m a person.”

  He was angry, and I could see he was torn between ending the fight and trying once more to beat me down. “You’re being unfair, as usual. You know we’ve always treated you well—done everything we could for you.”

  “Everything but treat me as a human being. You’ve boasted time and again that I was nothing before the experiment, and I know why. Because if I was nothing, then you were responsible for creating me, and that makes you my lord and master. You resent the fact that I don’t show my gratitude every hour of the day. Well, believe it or not, I am grateful. But what you did for me—wonderful as it is—doesn’t give you the right to treat me like an experimental animal. I’m an individual now, and so was Charlie before he ever walked into that lab. You look shocked! Yes, suddenly we discover that I was always a person—even before—and that challenges your belief that someone with an I.Q. of less than 100 doesn’t deserve consideration. Professor Nemur, I think when you look at me your conscience bothers you.”