CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 6

HOLLIS ALPERT • THE SIMIAN PROBLEM 10

ISAAC ASIMOV • STRIKEBREAKER 20

RAY BRADBURY • COME INTO MY CELLAR 35

HAL DRAPER • MS FND IN A LBRY 52

HOWARD FAST • CATO THE MARTIAN 59

HENRY GREGOR FELSEN • THE SPACEMAN COMETH 72

E. M. FORSTER • THE MACHINE STOPS 84

RICHARD GOGGIN • FRANCES HARKINS 118

HERBERT GOLD . THE DAY THEY GOT BOSTON 129

FRANK HERBERT • A-W-F, UNLIMITED 139

RUDYARD KIPLING • AS EASY AS A. B. C. 172 MacDonough's SONG 201

ALAN NELSON • SILENZIA 202

FREDERIK POHL • WHAT TO DO UNTIL THE ANALYST COMES IDRIS SEABRIGHT • SHORT IN THE CHEST 229 EVELYN SMITH • THE LAST OF THE SPODE 239 THEODORE STURGEON • NEVER UNDERESTIMATE 244 WILLIAM TENN • BROOKLYN PROJECT 263

THE SIMIAN PROBLEM

HOLLIS ALPERT

From the Editor's Introduction to Adam to Atom: The Revolution in Evolution, Harcourt-Harper-Harvard-Hawthorne-Holt-&-Houghton, Inc., Nueva Boston, 1985: "In preparing this collection of essential papers in the history of human mutation from (as Norbert Huxley has wryly put it) "Monkey to Monkey," it occurred to the editor that it might be worthwhile recalling to those with faulty memories or insufficient years, the horrifying (at the time) "thalidomide plague," a non-genetic but congenital catastrophe of the early 1960s. Thalidomide was a synthetic tranquillizer perfected in Germany in the late 1950s, which in the years 1961-1962 was found to cause gross malformations in most infants born to mothers who took the pills during the first months of pregnancy. Almost 6,000 babies, from Wales to New South Wales, were born with no limbs or useless limb stumps—an ironic inversion of our present calamitous situation, with our infants' and young people's "limb" sprouting as a result of uncontrolled atomic fallout. It is particularly ironic, indeed, that during the hysterical excitement over the shocking thalidomide births the United States and the Soviet Union each conducted one of their crucial series of nuclear weapons tests that now has ended by presenting this planet with the unalterable overbalance of mutation-producing isotopes in the atmosphere, leading to our present predicament. One thing mankind seems to learn always too late is that man never learns in time.

Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Third Annual Convocation of the Society of American Geneticists, October 4,

1973. Place: The Benjamin Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Speaker: Robert Crindall, B.S., MS., PhD., Visiting Professor, Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton University. Professor CrindalYs remarks follow.

Gentlemen:

Science, in the words of Huxley, has fulfilled her function when she has ascertained and enunciated truth. Were I not aware that a larger audience than the esteemed members of this body closely follows our proceedings, I would confine my report to a summation of present-day fact and theory concerning the Simian Problem, including relevant statistical information, and leave broader implications to the journalists and commentators who are here today in such extraordinary numbers. Under the circumstances, it has been thought wise by the officers of this society and, I should mention, by certain high officials of our government, that some one of us attempt a more generalized appraisal of the Problem than has been customary at these meetings. I hesitate to describe the contents of my remarks as a popularization. Let us say that I intend to be non-technical—which is not meant to imply that I mean to be scientific.

As many of you are aware, my connection with the Problem has been a relatively long one, and I am therefore in a position to adopt a somewhat more historical point of view than those pursuing strictly specialized lines of research. My own beginnings, so far as the Problem is concerned, were accidental (accident, too, has its place in science) and I cannot honestly wear the mantle of omniscience that has so often been attributed to me by the press. Nor, to say the least, can I take even the gloomiest satisfaction in the knowledge to which our researches have led.

As few as eight years ago, none of us in this society had the slightest inkling that our branch of learning would rise to its present high prominence. Dr. Crabwell's study, "Fallout: Early Phases," had appeared in our journal and attracted considerable international attention among scientists, but it was regarded mainly as a source work, one that indicated certain new directions of research on genes and radioactivity. None of us, myself included, was aware of the historic importance of the section devoted to "Evolutionary Possibilities, Strontium and Carbon 14 Variety." The oversight was undoubtedly due to the fact that the section was primarily speculative. One columnist, coming across the study, wrote that Dr. Crabwell had gone out on a limb. I daresay that the laughter generated by his pun would sound hollow today.

Nor, the following year, did anyone relate to that study my own inquiries into "Suicide Rates in the Eastern and Southern States, 1965 compared with 1955." A current misconception has it that Dr. Crabwell's study influenced the nature of my work at that time. Chronologically speaking, this is not true. I did refer to Dr. Crabwell's study in 1966, but when I began my statistical examination of suicide rates the figures were planned for use as an appendix in my contemplated broad work on "Suicide, Geographic and Economic Factors." That work had, of necessity, to be halted while the intriguing possibilities opened up by the comparison of suicide rates were explored.

To those of you without personal experience in the early period of the branch of genetic research that has dealt with the Simian Problem, there can be little awareness of the puzzling nature of the data phenomena we encountered at the time the shadow of the problem first emerged. We were,. putting it mildly, flabbergasted, when struck by the high incidence of double suicide in 1965 as compared with 1955. In New York State, for instance, the rate was approximately seven times that of the 1955 rate. This rate rose to thirteen times the norm in Arkansas (using 1955 for that figure) and eleven in Florida—a scattered pattern that was almost un-interpretable. A brilliant youag assistant of mine, Casper Smith (now Professor Smith, and a member of the President's committee on Simian Control), made correlations according to race, religion, and economic status, but found little to clear up the mystery. He did show that the rates were higher for the very low and the very high income groups.

The data grew more fascinating the more we correlated various factors. We studied New York; Boston; Little Rock, Arkansas, and Miami, Florida, and the first breakthrough came when we examined age groupings. The double suicide, until approximately 1965, was relatively rare. From 1965 onwards we had to contend not only with greatly increased frequency, but with the fact that the two self-killers were invariably husband and wife. This was a clue, of course, but what sort of clue? Imagine our further perplexity when we discovered that the ages of the suicides were rarely beyond forty-eight in the case of men, and forty in the case of women. Encountering data of this kind can be compared to discovering that a trusted compass at sea has suddenly become a wildly gyrating and quite useless indicator. Thus, in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1955, we found only two recorded cases of double suicide. In 1963 there were six such cases, and in 1965 a total of twenty-three. Casper Smith was unable to obtain a fund for investigation of the phenomenon from either the Ford or Rockefeller Foundations, but was able to arrange for a small grant from the Kinsey Institute, on condition that he also investigate sex factors in double suicide.

Yet it was in my own backyard, so to speak, that the lightning struck. I hope I will be pardoned for indulging in personal reminiscence, but it bears upon the historical picture I am attempting to give. My niece, whom I will call Mary Jones, visited me at my office at Columbia, where I was then associate professor. Mary had lost her child during delivery ten days before, but I was not prepared for her agitation when she appeared in my office, and insisted that the door be securely locked. A tall, blonde young woman of 22, healthy and normal in all respects until her experience in the maternity ward at Doctor's Hospital, she was now thin, haggard in feature, and had suddenly developed pronounced streaks of grey in her hair. Alarmed, I calmed her as best I could, and listened to what she had to tell me. In essence, it was as follows:

She had been informed by both doctor and nurse that her child had emerged still-born, but having arranged to have the child by the method then known as "natural" (and abandoned by law in 1971), she had not only been conscious during all stages of the birth, but had distinctly heard, immediately after the delivery, the normal sound of a baby crying. Her anxiety grew dining the following week, and she could not rid herself of the memory of the baby's cry. She called upon her doctor again and again, insisted (pleaded) for all possible details, until at last the doctor told her what had actually transpired. A male child, alive and well, had indeed been born. But it had been born with a pronounced cauda, a flexible appendage, simian in characteristic. Arms, legs, and chest of the newborn child were extraordinary hirsute. An operation was immediately performed to remove the cauda, and the baby died.

I can still remember, gentlemen, the harsh, near whisper of my niece sounding in my office. "Uncle Bob, my child was not human. My child, Uncle Bob, was a healthy monster."

I gave her a sedative, cautioned her against telling her husband what she had told me, and visited her daily until her strength and fortitude, if not her good spirits, were restored. She immediately ceased all marital relations with her husband. I relate this anecdote to stress the fact that we, as scientists, must be prepared to encounter the emotional element as we investigate. I must confess that the scientist in me came to the fore. I telephoned Casper Smith, who was then in New Orleans, to look into any possible relationship that might show up between double suicide and the incidence of deformed and monstrous births. It was a wild shot, but if you will pardon the metaphor, it landed on Mars. Within two weeks, Casper Smith had verified a strong correlation, even though he had to contend with stubborn silence on the part of many hospital authorities.

It was then that I re-examined Dr. Crabwell's Fallout studies, reread the section on Evolutionary Possibilities, Strontium and Carbon 14 Varieties. I wrote Dr. Crabwell a letter, communicating to him some of my suspicions, and asked if we could meet. He dictated a letter to his secretary, informing me that all material relevant to his studies had recently been placed in the hands of Dr. Randolph Sills, of New York City. I subsequently learned that Dr. Crabwell had developed cancer, was aware that his was a terminal case, and wished his researches to be carried forward.

I will always remember the last words in his letter to me. "See Dr. Sills," he wrote. "That limb we are out on is very solid."

Dr. Crabwell, it must be admitted now, saw through the glass only darkly, and at the time of his death he was not aware that the Simian Problem existed to the extent that it has lately emerged. His theory, in brief, was that mutations and variations in the human species as a result of Strontium 90 in the soil and the atmosphere were not only possible but must be expected at an accelerated rate. He failed to specify what forms these variations would take, and it is unfortunate that one of his speculations—that the human race of the year three thousand would undoubtedly bear little resemblance in physical appearance to the race as we now know it —was quoted so extensively and sensationally. Overlooked was another insight of his, to wit: if variations could be expected in the human species, variations could also be expected among lower mammalians. Thus one can say that the entire direction of present-day Neo-Simian research was laid out in advance by Dr. Crabwell.

The details of my visit to Dr. Sills have never been recorded in our Proceedings, and this, perhaps, is the proper moment to repair the oversight. The name of Dr. Sills has seldom appeared in references to the Simian Problem; yet, though not strictly speaking a geneticist, he must be considered a pioneer in our research. It may interest you to have a brief description of him, as he was in 1966. (His death occurred in 1969.) When I saw him he was on the staff of consulting surgeons at New York General Hospital, a specialist in the field of spinal correction. He was a small man, with sparse grey hair, and bright, lively, blue eyes. He smoked a pipe and, when I visited him at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut, was sixty-six years of age. The date of our consultation was September 14, 1966.

"I understand," I began, "that Dr. Crabwell has sent you certain of his papers."

"Correct," he said. "I have been in correspondence with Crabwell for the past year and a half, and have furnished him information he has asked for."

"May I ask what form this information takes?"

"Only if we are speaking in complete confidence."

"We are," I replied.

"In that case, I'll not only be glad but relieved to tell you. Dr. Crabwell asked for any information I possessed on unusual deformities in the newborn, and in children under the age of nine. He had made this same request of other surgeons, particularly those concerned with orthopedics and the spine, but had had remarkably little response."

"Can you be more specific?" I asked.

"I take it you wonder if we have been encountering anything unusual in our hospitals?"

"Exactly," I said.

Dr. Sills hesitated, relit his pipe and went to his desk, where he rummaged through some papers until he found the sheaf he wanted. "I've been keeping a young fellow at the hospital busy for the past months working with our electronic calculator," he said. "I provide him with sets of figures, unidentified, and ask him for probabilities: the year 1980, the year 2,000, and so on. When I look at this processed data in my hand I sometimes feel I might be losing my mind. Do you know, Crindall, that in the past week alone at New York General seventeen children were born with some type of caudal appendage? What do you do with a fact like that?"

"Before you go any further," I said, "let me tell you of my work, and that of my assistant, on double suicide rates." I also told him of the recent case of my niece.

"I haven't been aware of the double suicide angle," he said, thoughtfully. "We are very careful to protect the parents at New York General, tell them neither of the operation nor the results. Our policy is secrecy, but naturally we can't control individual doctors and nurses. We intend to keep the matter secret until we have more than limited success with our operations."

"Limited success?"

"We have a closely guarded room at New York General with six babies, ages one day to three weeks, who have survived operations. The parents have been told the children are critical and are in an incubator."

"Any other characteristics besides the cauda?" I asked.

"Hirsute bodies, elongated arms, shortened limbs, highly flexible spines, beetling brows in most cases. Damn it, Crindall, there are two- and three-year-old children tottering around today who will develop fantastic climbing ability, even without the use of their rudimentary tails."

"You mean you have examined children with appendages?"

"Unmistakable," Dr. Sills answered. "No need to tell you what this does to the parents."

"What do your calculations show?"

"Within ten years—it's an absolutely amazing figure, and I hope to God the damnable machine has gone haywire— roughly two out of five children will be born with tails of an anthropoid type. Even now we have a moral problem with those little hairy creatures in the hospital we've managed to keep alive. The cranial capacity, you see."

"What about it?"

"Somewhere between man and anthropoid, almost the missing link. I would say that these children will develop mentally about to the level of three years old."

"Do your figures show the rate for fifty years from now?"

Dr. Sills tapped his pipe on his desk for emphasis. "Every child born, according to that machine's calculations, will have a tail, fully developed and highly useful in the majority of cases. My assistant is working now on the figures relating to cranial capacity and mental development, and thank God he doesn't know what he's working on. You can make your own guess. I've made mine. Naturally I plan to have all the figures closely rechecked at M.I.T. before I make contact with government authorities."

I left Dr. Sills after we had spent several hours in further speculation, and we maintained a liaison until his death. As it happened it was Casper Smith who on his own, and with neither my participation nor approval (I must frankly say this) contacted the General Surgeon of the United States, and who then allowed himself to be interviewed by a Washington political columnist, with what world-wide reverberations we now all know about. The brave work of Dr. Sills has largely gone unrecognized, as a result, and at this point I would like to ask for a moment of silence in his memory.

(Editor's note: A minute of silence ensued at the meeting, after which Dr. Crindall resumed his remarks.)

Thank you, gentlemen.

Time forbids the listing of the varied contributions made by many distinguished members of this society since we literally stumbled on the Simian Problem. Nevertheless, I feel I must briefly remind you of Dr. Harvey Goldblatt's work on psychological factors of adjustment for parents of Neo-Simian offspring, and how richly he deserves the awarding of last year's Nobel Prize for science. Dr. Harrison's work, "Rearing the Neo-Simian," has been justly acclaimed by press, public, and medical authorities. Morton Gehman's "The Simian Problem in the Soviet Union" has lighted up that little-known area, and has led directly to the admission by Premier Gromyko that the problem exists in equal measure in his country. Richard Felker's lecture series at Harvard: "Can Reverse Evolution be Reversed?" has resulted in a grant by the General Motors Foundation for a large-scale crash program on the anti-Strontium frontier.

We must commend the government, led by the President's Commission, for its far-sighted construction programs, particularly for the Forest Play Areas recommended by the Secretary of the Interior. This year, for the first time, we can point to a plateau, instead of a rising incidence, on the curve of suicide rates, both single and double. While child homicide is, unfortunately, still on the increase, the work of the United Campaign for Simian Tolerance can be expected to bring results in the near future.

And what about that future? I know that this solemn question accounts for the large attendance at these meetings, and we must ask ourselves: is it our function to make assumptions until all the returns are in from those dark areas of uncompleted research? Facts can be faced, but assumptions can be highly dangerous. This much I can say: it is definitely not the position of the Society of American Geneticists that the human race will descend a notch on the evolutionary ladder during our lifetime or those of the next generation, despite the gloomy predictions of certain scientists. We believe that the descent of man can be checked. There is, first of all, much hope in anti-Strontium research. The ingenuity that created thermonuclear explosions can be applied in the opposite direction.

I, for one, believe in the possibility of anti-Strontium, regardless of whether or not a significant breakthrough has as yet occurred. Training of our anthropoidal children has developed to the point where it may be confidently assumed that they can handle the responsibilities of a six-year-old age level. Having gone this far, there is no reason why we cannot go farther. It hardly needs saying how urgently required are training centers for these children, and for the immense numbers yet to be born until sterilization procedures are stabilized. The bill pending in Congress for the construction and development of these training centers should be passed without further delay. Only forthright action can prevent time running out on us.

There is another encouraging development. As you know, our Society has sponsored an expedition, the most completely staffed and equipped ever to be organized, to investigate possibilities in animal mutation. The areas south of the Sahara, in the jungle regions closest to the site of the French thermonuclear explosions of 1967 (the so-called "dirty year"), have been under close surveillance for the past two years. Colonies of apes, chimpanzees, gorillas, and gibbons have been formed and ceaselessly observed. I can make public a hitherto secret staff report: recent offspring in one of our gorilla colonies have shown the following characteristics:

Reduction of hirsute areas, less flexible spines, higher brows, a slight enlargement of cranial capacity and . . . Gentlemen, gentlemen. . . .

(Editor's note: Dr. Crindall was forced to break off his remarks at this moment, due to an interruption and hubbub caused by reporters leaving their seats and rushing to the doors. Order was not restored, and the Convocation was therefore adjourned for the day.)

STRIKEBREAKER

ISAAC ASIMOV

This startling little nasty, which the original magazine publisher succeeded in making even nastier by adding one word to the title so that it read: "Male Strikebreaker," is enough to give one pause about the wisdom of the world effort at space exploration. Why bother, if this is the kind of flaccid society we may be exporting to the stars?

The author wrote to the editor, when he learned that the story had been selected for this book: "I am glad 'Strikebreaker' will be appearing in the Dell anthology. It's one of those stories that the author is very fond of because he thinks, 'Gad, what a clever idea this is and how well worked out,' and then is vaguely puzzled because it doesn't rouse the rousing response he felt it ought to."

Well, Mr. Asimov, let me enlighten you as to why. Quite simply: it makes people so uncomfortable about their own sanctimoniousnesses, their own guilts of avoidance, their own "scapegoating," that they simply keep mum about it. Metaphorically, they pass by on the other side of the road, faces averted, and act as if they'd never seen hide nor hair of the confounded thing. Exactly as the Elseverians of the story do to their own scapegoats 1

Elvis Blei rubbed his plump hands and said, "Self-containment is the word." He smiled uneasily as he helped Steven Lamorak of Earth to a light. There was uneasiness all over his smooth face with its small wide-set eyes.

Lamorak puffed smoke appreciatively and crossed his lanky legs. His hair was powdered with gray and he had a large and powerful jawbone. "Home grown?" he asked, staring critically at the cigarette. He tried to hide his own disturbance at the other's tension.

"Quite," said Blei.

"I wonder," said Lamorak, "that you have room on your small world for such luxuries."

(Lamorak thought of his first view of Elsevere from the spaceship visiplate. It was a jagged, airless planetoid, some hundred miles in diameter—just a dust-gray rough-hewn rock, glimmering dully in the light of its sun, 200,000,000 miles distant. It was the only object more than a mile in diameter that circled that sun, and now men had burrowed into that miniature world and constructed a society in it. And he himself, as a sociologist, had come to study the world and see how humanity had made itself fit into that queerly specialized niche.)

Blei's polite fixed smile expanded a hair. He said, "We are not a small world, Dr. Lamorak; you judge us by two-dimensional standards. The surface area of Elsevere is only t that of the State of New York, but that's irrelevant. Remember, we can occupy, if we wish, the entire interior of Elsevere. A sphere of 50 miles radius has a volume of well over half a million cubic miles. If all of Elsevere were occupied by levels 50 feet apart, the total surface area within the planetoid would be 56,000,000 square miles, and that is equal to the total land area of Earth. And none of these square miles, Doctor, would be unproductive."

Lamorak said, "Good Lord," and stared blankly for a moment. "Yes, of course you're right. Strange I never thought of it that way. But then, Elsevere is the only thoroughly exploited planetoid world in the Galaxy; the rest of ufcsimply can't get away from thinking of two-dimensional surfaces, as you pointed out. Well, I'm more than ever glad that your Council has been so cooperative as to give me a free hand in this investigation of mine."

Blei nodded convulsively at that.

Lamorak frowned slightly and thought: He acts for all the world as though he wished I had not come. Something's wrong.

Blei said, "Of course, you understand that we are actually much smaller than we could be; only minor portions of Elsevere have as yet been hollowed out and occupied. Nor are we particularly anxious to expand, except very Slowly. To a certain extent we are limited by the capacity of our pseudo-gravity engines and Solar energy converters."

"I understand. But tell me, Councillor Blei—as a matter of personal curiosity, and not because it is of prime importance to my project—could I view some of your farming and herding levels first? I am fascinated by the thought of fields of wheat and herds of cattle inside a planetoid."

"You'll find the cattle small by your standards, Doctor, and we don't have much wheat We grow yeast to a much greater extent. But there will be some wheat to show you. Some cotton and tobacco, too. Even fruit trees."

"Wonderful. As you say, setf-containment. You recirculate everything, I imagine."

Lamorak's sharp eyes did not miss the fact that this last remark twinged Blei. The Elseverian's eyes narrowed to slits that hid his expression.

He said, "We must recirculate, yes. Air, water, food, minerals—everything that is used up—must be restored to its original state; waste products are reconverted to raw materials. All that is needed is energy, and we have enough of that. We don't manage with one hundred percent efficiency, of course; there is a certain seepage. We import a small amount of water each year; and if our needs grow, we may have to import some coal and oxygen."

Lamorak said, "When can we start our tour, Councillor Blei?"

Blei's smile lost some of its negligible warmth. "As soon as we can, Doctor. There are some routine matters that must be arranged."

Lamorak nodded, and having finished his cigarette, stubbed it out

Routine matters? There was none of this hesitancy during the preliminary correspondence. Elsevere had seemed proud that its unique planetoid existence had attracted the attention of the Galaxy.

He said, "I realize I would be a disturbing influence in a tightly-knit society," and watched grimly as Blei leaped at the explanation and made it his own.

"Yes," said Blei, "we feel marked off from the rest of the Galaxy. We have our own customs. Each individual El-severian fits into a comfortable niche. The appearance of a stranger without fixed caste is unsettling."

"The caste system does involve a certain inflexibility."

"Granted," said Blei quickly; "but there is also a certain self-assurance. We have firm rules of intermarriage and rigid inheritance of occupation. Each man, woman and child knows his place, accepts it, and is accepted in it; we have virtually no neurosis or mental illness."

"And are there no misfits?" asked Lamorak.

Blei shaped his mouth as though to say no, then clamped it suddenly shut, biting the word into silence; a frown deepened on his forehead. He said, at length, "I will arrange for the tour, Doctor. Meanwhile, I imagine you would welcome a chance to freshen up and to sleep."

They rose together and left the room, Blei politely motioning the Earthman to precede him out the door.

Lamorak felt oppressed by the vague feeling of crisis that had prevaded his discussion with Blei.

The newspaper reinforced that feeling. He read it carefully before getting into bed, with what was at first merely a clinical interest. It was an eight-page tabloid of synthetic paper. One quarter of its items consisted of "personals": births, marriages, deaths, record quotas, expanding habitable volume (not area! three dimensions!). The remainder included scholarly essays, educational material, and fiction. Of news, in the sense to which Lamorak was accustomed, there was virtually nothing.

One item only could be so considered and that was chilling in its incompleteness.

It said, under a small headline: DEMANDS UNCHANGED: There has been no change in his attitude of yesterday. The Chief Councillor, after a second interview, announced that his demands remain completely unreasonable and cannot be met under any circumstances.

Then, in parenthesis, and in different type, there was the statement: The editors of this paper agree that Elsevere cannot and will not jump to his whistle, come what may.

Lamorak read it over three times. His attitude. His demands. His whistle.

Whose?

He slept uneasily, that night.

He had no time for newspapers in the days that followed; but spasmodically, the matter returned to his thoughts.

Blei, who remained his guide and companion for most of the tour, grew ever more withdrawn.

On the third day, (quite artificially clock-set in an Earthlike twenty-four hour pattern), Blei stopped at one point, and said, "Now this level is devoted entirely to chemical industries. That section is not important—"

But he turned away a shade too rapidly, and Lamorak seized his arm. "What are the products of that section?"

"Fertilizers. Certain organics," said Blei stiffly.

Lamorak held him back, looking for what sight Blei might be evading. His gaze swept over the close-by horizons of lined rock and the buildings squeezed and layered between the levels.

Lamorak said, "Isn't that a private residence there?"

Blei did not look in the indicated direction.

Lamorak said, "I think that's the largest one I've seen yet Why is it here on a factory level?" That alone made it noteworthy. He had already seen that the levels on Elsevere were divided rigidly among the residential, the agricultural and the industrial.

He looked back and called, "Councillor Blei!"

The councillor was walking away and Lamorak pursued him with hasty steps. "Is there something wrong, sir?"

Blei muttered, "I am rude, I know. I am sorry. There are

matters that prey on my mind—" He kept up his rapid pace. "Concerning his demands."

Blei came to a full halt "What do you know about that?" "No more than I've said. I read that much in the newspaper."

Blei muttered something to himself.

Lamorak said, "Ragusnik? What's that?"

Blei sighed heavily. "I suppose you ought to be told. It's humiliating, deeply embarrassing. The Council thought that matters would certainly be arranged shortly and that your visit need not be interfered with, that you need not know or be concerned. But it is almost a week now. I don't know what will happen and, appearances notwithstanding, it might be best for you to leave. No reason for an Outworlder to risk death."

The Earthman smiled incredulously. "Risk death? In this little world, so peaceful and busy. I can't believe it"

The Elseverian councillor said, "I can explain. I think it best I should." He turned his head away. "As I told you, eveiything on Elsevere must recirculate. You understand that."

"Yes."

"That includes—uh, human wastes." "I assumed so," said Lamorak.

"Water is reclaimed from it by distillation and absorption. What remains is converted into fertilizer for yeast use; some of it is used as a source of fine organics and other by-products. These factories you see are devoted to this."

"Well?" Lamorak had experienced a certain difficulty in the drinking of water when he first landed on Elsevere, because he had been realistic enough to know what it must be reclaimed from; but he had conquered the feeling easily enough. Even on Earth, water was reclaimed by natural processes from all sorts of unpalatable substances.

Blei, with increasing difficulty, said, "Igor Ragusnik is the man who is in charge of the industrial processes immediately involving the wastes. The position has been in his family since Elsevere was first colonized. One of the original settlers was Mikhail Ragusnik and he—he—"

"Was in charge of waste reclamation."

"Yes. Now that residence you singled out is the Ragusnik residence; it is the best and most elaborate on the planeioid. Ragusnik gets many privileges the rest of us do not have; but, after all—" Passion entered the Councillor's voice with great suddenness, "we cannot speak to him."

"What?"

"He demands full social equality. He wants his children to mingle with ours, and our wives to visit— Oh!" It was a groan of utter disgust.

Lamorak thought of the newspaper item that could not even bring itself to mention Ragusnik's name in print, or to say anything specific about his demands. He said, "I take it he's an outcast because of his job."

"Naturally. Human wastes and—" words failed Blei. After a pause, he said more quietly, "As an Earthman, I suppose you don't understand."

"As a sociologist, I think I do." Lamorak thought of the Untouchables in ancient India, the ones who handled corpses. He thought of the position of swineherds in ancient Judea.

He went on, "I gather Elsevere will not give in to those demands."

"Never," said Blei, energetically. "Never." "And so?"

"Ragusnik has threatened to cease operations."

"Go on strike, in other words."

"Yes."

"Would that be serious?"

"We have enough food and water to last quite a while; reclamation is not essential in that sense. But the wastes would accumulate; they would infect the planetoid. After generations of careful disease control, we have low natural resistance to germ diseases. Once an epidemic started—and one would—we would drop by the hundred."

"Is Ragusnik aware of this?"

"Yes, of course."

"Do you think he is likely to go through with his threat, then?"

"He is mad. He has already stopped working; there has been no waste reclamation since the day before you landed." Blei's bulbous nose sniffed at the air as though it already caught the whiff of excrement

Lamorak sniffed mechanically at that but smelled nothing.

Blei said, "So you see why it might be wise for you to leave. We are humiliated, of course, to have to suggest it."

But Lamorak said, "Wait; not just yet. Good Lord, this is a matter of great interest to me professionally. May I speak to the Ragusnik?"

"On no account" said Blei, alarmed.

"But I would like to understand the situation. The sociological conditions here are unique and not to be duplicated elsewhere. In the name of science—"

"How do you mean, speak? Would image-reception do?"

"Yes."

"I will ask the Council," muttered Blei.

They sat about Lamorak uneasily, their austere and dignified expressions badly marred with anxiety. Blei, seated in the midst of them, studiously avoided the Earthman's eyes.

The Chief Councillor, gray-haired, his face harshly wrinkled, his neck scrawny, said in a soft voice, "If in any way you can persuade him, sir, out of your own convictions, we will welcome that. In no case, however, are you to imply that we will, in any way, yield."

A gauzy curtain fell between the Council and Lamorak.
He could make out the individual councillors still, but now
he tinned sharply toward the receiver before him. It glowed
to life. *

A head appeared in it in natural color and with great realism. A strong dark head, with massive chin faintly stubbled, and thick, red lips set into a firm horizontal line

The image said, suspiciously, "Who are you?"

Lamorak said, "My name is Steven Lamorak; I am an Earthman."

"An Outworlder?"

"That's right. I am visiting Elsevere. You are Ragusnik?" "Igor Ragusnik, at your service," said the image, mockingly. "Except that there is no service and will be none until my family and I are treated like human beings."

Lamorak said, "Do you realize the danger that Elsevere is in? The possibility of epidemic disease?"

"In twenty-four hours, the situation can be made normal, if they allow me humanity. The situation is theirs to correct."

"You sound like an educated man, Ragusnik."

"So?"

"I am told you're denied of no material comforts. You are housed and clothed and fed better than anyone on Elsevere. Your children are the best educated."

"Granted. But all by servo-mechanism. And motherless girl-babies are sent us to care for until they grow to be our wives. And they die young for loneliness. Why?" There was sudden passion in his voice. "Why must we live in isolation as if we were all monsters, unfit for human beings to be near? Aren't we human beings like others, with the same needs and desires and feelings. Don't we perform an honorable and useful function—f

There was a rustling of sighs from behind Lamorak. Ragusnik heard it, and raised his voice. "I see you of the Council behind there. Answer me: Isn't it an honorable and useful function? It is your waste made into food for you. Is the man who purifies corruption worse than the man who produces it?—Listen, Councillors, I will not give in. Let all of Elsevere die of disease—including myself and my son, if necessary—but I will not give in. My family will be better dead of disease, than living as now."

Lamorak interrupted. "You've led this life since birth, haven't you?"

"And if I have?"

"Surely you're used to it"

"Never. Resigned, perhaps. My father was resigned, and I was resigned for a while; but I have watched my son, my only son, with no other little boy to play with. My brother and I had each other, but my son will never have anyone, and I am no longer resigned. I am through with Elsevere and through with talking."

The receiver went dead.

The Chief Councillor's face had paled to an aged yellow. He and Blei were the only ones of the group left with La-morak. The Chief Councillor said, "The man is deranged; I do not know how to force him."

He had a glass of wine at his side; as he lifted it to his lips, he spilled a few drops that stained his white trousers with purple splotches.

Lamorak said, "Are his demands so unreasonable? Why can't he be accepted into society?"

There was momentary rage in Blei's eyes. "A dealer in excrement." Then he shrugged. "You are from Earth."

Incongruously, Lamorak thought of another unacceptable, one of the numerous classic creations of the medieval cartoonist, Al Capp. The variously-named "inside man at the skonk works."

He said, "Does Ragusnik really deal with excrement? I mean, is there physical contact? Surely, it is all handled by automatic machinery."

"Of course," said the Chief Councillor.

"Then exactly what is Ragusnik's function?"

"He manually adjusts the various controls that assure the proper functioning of the machinery. He shifts units to allow repairs to be made; he alters functional rates with the time of day; he varies end production with demand." He added sadly, "If we had the space to make the machinery ten times as complex, all this could be done automatically; but that would be such needless waste."

"But even so," insisted Lamorak, "all Ragusnik does he does simply by pressing buttons or closing contacts or things like that."

"Yes."

"Then his work is no different from any Elseverian's."

Blei said, stiffly, "You don't understand."

"And for that you will risk the death of your children?"

"We have no other choice," said Blei. There was enough agony in his voice to assure Lamorak that the situation was torture for him, but that he had no other choice indeed.

Lamorak shrugged in disgust. "Then break the strike. Force him."

"How?" said the Chief Councillor. "Who would touch him to or go near him? And if we kill him by blasting from a distance, how will that help us?"

Lamorak said, thoughtfully, "Would you know how to run his machinery?"

The Chief Councillor came to his feet. "I?" he howled.

"I don't mean you," cried Lamorak at once. "I used the pronoun in its indefinite sense. Could someone learn how to handle Ragusnik's machinery?"

Slowly, the passion drained out of the Chief Councillor. "It is in the handbooks, I am certain—though I assure you I have never concerned myself with it."

"Then couldn't someone learn the procedure and substitute for Ragusnik until the man gives in?"

Blei said, "Who would agree to do such a thing? Not I, under any circumstances."

Lamorak thought fleetingly of Earthly taboos that might be almost as strong. He thought of cannibalism, incest, a pious man cursing God. He said, "But you must have made provision for vacancy in the Ragusnik job. Suppose he died."

"Then his son would automatically succeed to his job, or his nearest other relative," said Blei.

"What if he had no adult relatives? What if all his family died at once?"

"That has never happened; it will never happen."

The Chief Councillor added, "If there were danger of it, we might, perhaps, place a baby or two with the Ragusniks and have it raised to the profession."

"Ah. And how would you choose that baby?"

"From among children of mothers who died in childbirth, as we choose the future Ragusnik bride."

"Then choose a substitute Ragusnik now, by lot," said Lamorak.

The Chief Councillor said, "No! Impossible! How can you suggest that? If we select a baby, that baby is brought up to the life; it knows no other. At this point, it would be necessary to choose an adult and subject him to Ragusnik-hood. No, Dr. Lamorak, we are neither monsters nor abandoned brutes."

No use, thought Lamorak helplessly. No use, unless— He couldn't bring himself to face that unless just yet.

That night, Lamorak slept scarcely at all. Ragusnik asked for only the basic elements of humanity. But opposing that were thirty thousand Elseverians who faced death.

The welfare of thirty thousand on one side; the just demands of one family on the other. Could one say that thirty thousand who would support such injustice deserved to die? Injustice by what standards? Earth's? Elsevere's? And who was Lamorak that he should judge?

And Ragusnik? He was willing to let thirty thousand die, including men and women who merely accepted a situation they had been taught to accept and could not change if they wished to. And children who had nothing at all to do with it.

Thirty thousand on one side; a single family on the other.

Lamorak made his decision in something that was almost despair; in the morning he called the Chief Councillor.

He said, "Sir, if you can find a substitute, Ragusnik will see that he has lost all chance to force a decision in his favor and will return to work."

"There can be no substitute," sighed the Chief Councillor; "I have explained that"

"No substitute among the Elseverians, but I am not an Elseverian; it doesn't matter to me. ƒ will substitute."

They were excited, much more excited than Lamorak himself. A dozen times they asked him if he was serious.

Lamorak had not shaved, and he felt sick, "Certainly, I'm serious. And any time Ragusnik acts like this, you can always import a substitute. No other world has the taboo and there will always be plenty of temporary substitutes available if you pay enough."

(He was betraying a brutally exploited man, and he knew it. But he told liimself desperately: Except for ostracism, he's very well treated. Very well.)

They gave him the handbooks and he spent six hours, reading and re-reading. There was no use asking questions. None of the Elseverians knew anything about the job, except

for what was in the handbook; and all seemed uncomfortable * if the details were as much as mentioned.

"Maintain zero reading of galvanometer A-2 at all times during red signal of the Lunge-howler," read Lamorak. "Now what's a Lunge-howler?"

"There will be a sign," muttered Blei, and the Elseverians looked at each other hang-dog and bent their heads to stare at their finger-ends.

They left him long before he reached the small rooms that were the central headquarters of generations of working Ragusniks, serving their world. He had specific instructions concerning which turnings to take and what level to reach, but they hung back and let him proceed alone.

He went through the rooms painstakingly, identifying the instruments and controls, following the schematic diagrams in the handbook.

There's a Lunge-howler, he thought, with gloomy satisfaction. The sign did indeed say so. It had a semi-circular face bitten into holes that were obviously designed to glow in separate colors. Why a "howler" then?

He didn't know.

Somewhere, thought Lamorak, somewhere wastes are accumulating, pushing against gears and exits, pipelines and stills, waiting to be handled in half a hundred ways. Now they just accumulate.

Not without a tremor, he pulled the first switch as indicated by the handbook in its directions for "Initiation." A gentle murmur of life made itself felt through the floors and walls. He turned a knob and lights went on.

At each step, he consulted the handbook, though he knew it by heart; and with each step, the rooms brightened and the dial-indicators sprang into motion and a humming grew louder.

Somewhere deep in the factories, the accumulated wastes were being drawn into the proper channels.

A high-pitched signal sounded and startled Lamorak out of his painful concentration. It was the communications signal and Lamorak fumbled his receiver into action.

Ragusnik's head showed, startled; then slowly, the incredulity and outright shock faded from his eyes. "Thafs how it is, then."

"I'm not an Elseverian, Ragusnik; I don't mind doing this."

"But what business is it of yours? Why do you interfere?"

"I'm on your side, Ragusnik, but I must do this."

"Why, if you're on my side? Do they treat people on your world as they treat me here?"

"Not any longer. But even if you are right, there are thirty thousand people on Elsevere to be considered."

"They would have given in; you've ruined my only chance."

"They would not have given in. And in a way, you've won; they know now that you're dissatisfied. Until now, they never dreamed a Ragusnik could be unhappy, that he could make trouble."

"What if they know? Now all they need do is hire an Out-
worlder anytime." _f

Lamorak shook his head violently. He had thought this through in these last bitter hours. "The fact that they know means that the Elseverians will begin to think about you; some will begin to wonder if it's right to treat a human so. And if Outworlders are hired, they'll spread the word that this goes on upon Elsevere and Galactic public opinion will be in your favor."

"And?"

"Things will improve. In your son's time, things will be much better."

"In my son's time," said Ragusnik, his cheeks sagging. "I might have had it now. Well, I lose. I'll go back to the job."

Lamorak felt an overwhelming relief. "If you'll come here now, sir, you may have your job and I'll consider it an honor to shake your hand."

Ragusnik's head snapped up and filled with a gloomy pride. "You call me 'sir' and offer to shake my hand. Go about your business, Earthman, and leave me to my work, for I would not shake yours."

Lamorak returned the way he had come, relieved that the crisis was over, and profoundly depressed, too.

He stopped in surprise when he found a section of corridor cordoned off, so he could not pass. He looked about for alternate routes, then startled at a magnified voice above his head. "Dr. Lamorak, do you hear me? This is Councillor Blei."

Lamorak looked up. The voice came over some sort of public address system, but he saw no sign of an outlet. He called out, "Is anything wrong? Can you hear me?" "I hear you."

Instinctively, Lamorak was shouting. "Is anything wrong? There seems to be a block here. Are there complications with Ragusnik?"

"Ragusnik has gone to work," came Blei's voice. "The crisis is over, and you must make ready to leave." "Leave?"

"Leave Elsevere; a ship is being made ready for you now."

"But wait a bit." Lamorak was confused by this sudden leap of events. "I haven't completed my gathering of data."

Blei's voice said, "This cannot be helped. You will be directed to the ship and your belongings will be sent after you by servo-mechanisms. We trust—we trust—"

Something was becoming clear to Lamorak. "You trust what?"

"We trust you will make no attempt to see or speak direcdy to any Elseverian. And of course we hope you will avoid embarrassment by not attempting to return to Elsevere at any time in the future. A colleague of yours would be welcome if further data concerning us in needed."

"I understand," said Lamorak, tonelessly. Obviously, he had himself become a Ragusnik. He had handled the controls that in turn had handled the wastes; he was ostracized. He was a corpse-handler, a swineherd, an inside man at the skonk works.

He said, "Good-bye."

Blei's voice said, "Before we direct you, Dr. Lamorak—. On behalf of the Council of Elsevere, I thank you for your help in this crisis."

"You're welcome," said Lamorak, bitterly.

COME INTO MY CELLAR

RAY BRADBURY

Very little indeed needs to be said about this story. Perhaps the only important item worth bringing up is one you can check in a modern edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, or any other comprehensive reference work, by reading the entry on the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius, one of the founders of modern physical chemistry, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1903, and author of a strange book published in English translation in 1908 under the title Worlds in the Making. Here you can read about another, scientifically possible, spore theory.

Hugh Fortnum woke to Saturday's commotions, and lay eyes shut, savoring each in its turn.

Below, bacon in a skillet; Cynthia waking him with fine cooking instead of cries.

Across the hall, Tom actually taking a shower.

Far off in the bumble-bee dragon-fly light, whose voice was already damning the weather, the time, and the tides? Mrs. Goodbody? Yes. That Christian giantess, six-feet-tall with her shoes off, the gardener extraordinary, the octogenarian-dietitian and town philosopher.

He rose, unhooked the screen and leaned out to hear her cry:

"There! Take that! This'll fix you! Hah!"

"Happy Saturday, Mrs. Goodbody!"

The old woman froze in clouds of bug-spray pumped from an immense gun.

"Nonsense!" she shouted. "With these fiends and pests to watch for?"

"What kind this time?" called Fortnum.

"I don't want to shout it to the jaybirds, but—" she glanced suspiciously around—"what would you say if I told you I was the first line of defense concerning Flying Saucers?"

"Fine," replied Fortnum. "There'll be rockets between the worlds any year now."

"There already are!" She pumped, aiming the spray under the hedge. "There! Take that!"

He pulled his head back in from the fresh day, somehow not as high-spirited as his first response had indicated. Poor soul, Mrs. Goodbody. Always the very essence of reason. And now what? Old age?

The doorbell rang.

He grabbed his robe and was half down the stairs when he heard a voice say, "Special Delivery. Fortnum?" and saw Cynthia turn from the front door, a small packet in her hand.

He put his hand out, but she shook her head.

"Special Delivery Airmail for your son."

Tom was downstairs like a centipede.

"Wow! That must be from the Great Bayou Novelty Greenhouse!"

"I wish I were as excited about ordinary mail," observed Fortnum.

"Ordinary?!" Tom ripped the cord and paper wildly. "Don't you read the back pages of Popular Mechanics? Well, here they are!"

Everyone peered into the small open box.

"Here," said Fortnum, "what are?"

'The Sylvan Glade Jumbo-Giant Guaranteed Growth Raise-Them-in-Your-Cellar-for-Big-Profit Mushrooms!"

"Oh, of course," said Fortnum. "How silly of me."

Cynthia squinted. "Those little teeny bits—?"

"Fabulous growth in 24 hours," Tom quoted from memory. "Plant them in your own cellar—"

Fortnum and wife exchanged glances.

"Well," she admitted, "it's better than frogs and green-snakes."

"Sure is!" Tom ran.

"Oh, Tom," said Fortnum, lightly.

Tom paused at the cellar door.

'Tom," said his father. "Next time, fourth class mail would do fine."

"Heck," said Tom. "They must've made a mistake, thought I was some rich company. Airmail special, who can afford that?"

The cellar door slammed.

Fortnum, bemused, scanned the wrapper a moment, then dropped it into the wastebasket. On his way to the kitchen, he opened the cellar door.

Tom was already on his knees, digging with a hand rake in the dirt of the back part of the cellar.

He felt his wife beside him, breathing softly, looking down into the cool dimness.

"Those are mushrooms, I hope. Not . . . toadstools?"

Fortnum laughed. "Happy harvest, farmer!"

Tom glanced up and waved.

Fortnum shut the door, took his wife's arm, and walked her out to the kitchen, feeling fine.

Toward noon, Fortnum was driving toward the nearest market when he saw Roger Willis, a fellow Rotarian, and teacher of biology at the town high school, waving urgently from the sidewalk.

Fortnum pulled his car up and opened the door.

"Hi, Roger, give you a lift?"

Willis responded all too eagerly, jumping in and slamming the door.

"Just the man I want to see. I've put off calling for days. Could you play psychiatrist for five minutes, God help you?"

Fortnum examined his friend for a moment as he drove quietly on.

"God help you, yes. Shoot."

Willis sat back and studied his fingernails. "Let's just drive a moment There. Okay. Here's what I want to say: something's wrong with the world."

Fortnum laughed easily. "Hasn't there always been?"

"No, no, I mean . . . something strange—something unseen—is happening."

"Mrs. Goodbody," said Fortnum, half to himself, and stopped.

"Mrs. Goodbody?"

"This morning. Gave me a talk on flying saucers."

"No," Willis bit the knuckle of his forefinger nervously. "Nothing like saucers. At least I don't think. Tell me, what is intuition?"

"The conscious recognition of something that's been subconscious for a long time. But don't quote this amateur psychologist!" He laughed again.

"Good, good!" Willis turned, his face lighting. He readjusted himself in the seat. "That's it! Over a long period, tilings gather, right? All of a sudden, you have to spit, but you don't remember saliva collecting. Your hands are dirty, but you don't know how they got that way. Dust falls on you every day and you don't feel it. But when you get enough dust collected up, there it is, you see and name it. That's intuition, as far as I'm concerned. Well, what kind of dust has been falling on me? A few meteors in the sky at night? Funny weather just before dawn? I don't know. Certain colors, smells, the way the house creaks at three in the morning? Hair prickling on my arms? All I know is, the damn dust has collected. Quite suddenly I know."

"Yes," said Fortnum, disquieted. "But what is it you know?"

Willis looked at his hands in his lap.

"I'm afraid. I'm not afraid. Then I'm afraid again, in the middle of the day. Doctor's checked me. I'm A-l. No family problems. Joe's a fine boy, a good son. Dorothy? She's remarkable. With her, I'm not afraid of growing old or dying."

"Lucky man."

"But beyond my luck now. Scared stiff, really, for myself, my family; even, right now, for you." "Me?" said Fortnum.

They had stopped now by an empty lot near the market. There was a moment of great stillness, in which Fortnum turned to survey his friend. Willis' voice had suddenly made him cold.

"I'm afraid for everybody," said Willis. "Your friends, mine, and their friends, on out of sight. Pretty silly, eh?"

Willis opened the door, got out and peered in at Fortnum. Fortnum felt he had to speak.

"Well—what do we do about it?"

Willis looked up at the sun burning blind in the great, remote sky.

"Be aware," he said, slowly. "Watch eveiything for a few days."

"Everything?"

"We don't use half of what God gave us, ten per cent of the time. We ought to hear more, feel more, smell more, taste more. Maybe there's something wrong with the way the wind blows these weeds there in the lot. Maybe it's the sun up on those telephone wires or the cicadas singing in the elm trees. If only we could stop, look, listen, a few days, a few nights, and compare notes. Tell me to shut up then, and I will."

"Good enough," said Fortnum, playing it lighter than he felt. "I'll look around. But how do I know the thing I'm looking for when I see it?"

Willis peered in at him sincerely. "You'll know. You've got to know. Or we're done for, all of us," he said quietly.

Fortnum shut the door, and didn't know what to say. He felt a flush of embarrassment creeping up his face. Willis sensed this.

"Hugh, do you think I'm—off my rocker?"

"Nonsense!" said Fortnum, too quickly. "You're just nervous, is all. You should take a couple of weeks off."

Willis nodded. "See you Monday night?"

"Any time. Drop around."

"I hope I will, Hugh. I really hope I will."

Then Willis was gone, hurrying across the dry weed-grown lot, toward the side entrance of the market.

Watching him go, Fortnum suddenly did not want to move. He discovered that very slowly he was taking deep breaths, weighing the silence. He licked his lips, tasting the salt. He looked at his arm on the door-sill, the sunlight burning the golden hairs. In the empty lot the wind moved all alone to itself. He leaned out to look at the sun which stared back with one massive stunning blow of intense power that made him jerk his head in.

He exhaled. Then he laughed out loud. Then he drove away.

The lemonade glass was cool and deliciously sweaty. The ice made music inside the glass, and the lemonade was just sour enough, just sweet enough on his tongue. He sipped, he savored, he tilted back in the wicker rocking chair on the twilight front porch, his eyes closed. The crickets were chirping out on the lawn. Cynthia, knitting across from him on the porch, eyed him curiously. He could feel the pressure of her attention.

"What are you up to?" she said at last.

"Cynthia," he said, "is your intuition in running order? Is this earthquake weather? Is the land going to sink? Will war be declared? Or is it only that our delphinium will die of the blight?"

"Hold on. Let me feel my bones."

He opened his eyes and watched Cynthia in turn closing hers and sitting absolutely statue-still, her hands on her knees. Finally she shook her head and smiled.

"No. No war declared. No land sinking. Not even a blight. Why?"

"I've met a lot of Doom Talkers today. Well, two, anyway, and—"

The screen door burst wide. Fortnum's body jerked as if he had been struck. "What!"

Tom, a gardener's wooden flat in his arms, stepped out on the porch.

"Sorry," he said. "What's wrong, Dad?"

"Nothing." Fortnum stood up, glad to be moving. "Is that the crop?"

Tom moved forward, eagerly. "Part of it. Boy, they're doing great. In just seven hours, with lots of water, look how big the darn things are!" He set the flat on the table between his parents.

The crop was indeed plentiful. Hundreds of small grayish brown mushrooms were sprouting up in the damp soil.

"I'll be damned," said Fortnum, impressed.

Cynthia put out her hand to touch the flat, then took it away uneasily.

"I hate to be a spoilsport, but . . . there's no way for these to be anything else but mushrooms, is there?"

Tom looked as if he had been insulted. "What do you think I'm going to feed you? Poison fungoids?"

"That's just it," said Cynthia quickly. "How do you tell them apart?"

"Eat 'em," said Tom. "If you live, they're mushrooms. If you drop dead—well!"

He gave a great guffaw, which amused Fortnum, but only made his mother wince. She sat back in her chair.

"I—I don't like them," she said.

"Boy, oh, boy." Tom seized the flat angrily. "When are we going to have the next Wet Blanket Sale in this house!?" He shuffled morosely away. "Tom—" said Fortnum.

"Never mind," said Tom. "Everyone figures they'll be ruined by the boy entrepreneur. To heck with it!"

Fortnum got inside just as Tom heaved the mushrooms, flat and all, down the cellar stairs. He slammed the cellar door and ran angrily out the back door.

Fortnum turned back to his wife, who, stricken, glanced away.

"I'm sorry," she said "I don't know why. I just had to say that to Tom."

The phone rang. Fortnum brought the phone outside on its extension cord.

"Hugh?" It was Dorothy Willis' voice. She sounded suddenly very old and very frightened. "Hugh . . . Roger isn't there, is he?"

"Dorothy? No."

"He's gone!" said Dorothy. "All his clothes were taken from the closet." She began to cry softly.

"Dorothy, hold on, I'll be there in a minute."

"You must help, oh, you must. Something's happened to him, I know it," she wailed. "Unless you do something, we'll never see him alive again."

Very slowly, he put the receiver back on its hook, her voice weeping inside it. The night crickets, quite suddenly, were very loud. He felt the hairs, one by one, go up on the back of his neck.

Hair can't do that, he thought. Silly, silly. It can't do that, not in real life, it can't!

But, one by slow prickling one, his hair did.

The wire hangers were indeed empty. With a clatter, Fortnum shoved them aside and down along the rod, then turned and looked out of the closet at Dorothy Willis and her son

Joe.

"I was just walking by," said Joe, "and saw the closet empty, all Dad's clothes gone!"

"Everything was fine," said Dorothy. "We've had a wonderful life. I don't understand it, I don't, I don't!" She began to cry again, putting her hands to her face.

Fortnum stepped out of the closet.

"You didn't hear him leave the house?"

"We were playing catch out front," said Joe. "Dad said he had to go in for a minute. I went around back. Then—he was gone!"

"He must have packed quickly and walked wherever he was going, so we wouldn't hear a cab pull up in front of the house."

They were moving out through the hall now.

"I'll check the train depot and the airport." Fortnum hesitated. "Dorothy, is there anything in Roger's background—"

"It wasn't insanity took him." She hesitated. "I feel— somehow—he was kidnapped."

Fortnum shook his head. "It doesn't seem reasonable he would arrange to pack, walk out of the house and go meet his abductors."

Dorothy opened the door as if to let the night or the night wind move down the hall as she turned to stare back through the rooms, her voice wandering.

"No. Somehow they came into the house. Right in front of us, they stole him away."

And then:

"... a terrible thing has happened."

Fortnum stepped out into the night of crickets and rustling trees. The Doom Talkers, he thought, talking their Dooms. Mrs. Goodbody. Roger. And now Roger's wife. Something terrible has happened. But what, in God's name? And how?

He looked from Dorothy to her son. Joe, blinking the wetness from his eyes, took a long time to turn, walk along the hall and stop, fingering the knob of the cellar door.

Fortnum felt his eyelids twitch, his iris flex, as if he were snapping a picture of something he wanted to remember.

Joe pulled the cellar door wide, stepped down out of sight, gone. The door tapped shut.

Fortnum opened his mouth to speak, but Dorothy's hand was taking his now, he had to look at her.

"Please," she said. "Find him for me."

He kissed her cheek. "If it's humanly possible . . ."

If it's humanly possible. Good Lord, why had he picked those words?

He walked off into the summer night.

A gasp, an exhalation, a gasp, an exhalation, an asthmatic insuck, a vaporing sneeze. Someone dying in the dark? No.

Just Mrs. Goodbody, unseen beyond the hedge, working late, her hand-pump aimed, her bony elbow thrusting. The sick-sweet smell of bug-spray enveloped Fortnum heavily as he reached his house.

"Mrs. Goodbody? Still at it?!"

From the black hedge, her voice leapt:

"Damn it, yes! Aphids, waterbugs, woodworms and now the marasmius oreades. Lord, it grows fast!"

"What does?"

"The marasmius oreades, of course! It's me against them, and I intend to win. There! There! There!"

He left the hedge, the gasping pump, the wheezing voice, and found his wife waiting for him on the porch almost as if she were going to take up where Dorothy had left off at her door a few minutes ago.

Fortnum was about to speak, when a shadow moved inside. There was a creaking noise. A knob rattled.

Tom vanished into the basement.

Fortnum felt as if someone had set off an explosion in his face. He reeled. Everything had the numbed familiarity of those waking dreams where all motions are remembered before they occur, all dialogue known before it falls from the lips.

He found himself staring at the shut basement door. Cynthia took him inside, amused.

"What? Tom? Oh, I relented. The darn mushrooms meant so much to him. Besides, when he threw them into the cellar, they did nicely, just lying in the dirt."

"Did they?" Fortnum heard himself say.

Cynthia took his arm. "What about Roger?"

"He's gone, yes."

"Men, men, men," she said.

"No, you're wrong," he said. "I saw Roger every day for the last ten years. When you know a man that well, you can tell how things are at home, whether things are in the oven or the mixmaster. Death hadn't breathed down his neck yet. He wasn't running scared after his immortal youth, picking peaches in someone else's orchards. No, no, I swear it, I'd bet my last dollar on it, Roger—"

The doorbell rang behind him. The delivery boy had come up quietly onto the porch and was standing there with a telegram in his hand.

"Fortnum?"

Cynthia snapped on the hall light as he ripped the envelope open and smoothed it out for reading.

"traveling new orleans. this telegram possible off-guard moment. you must refuse, repeat refuse, all special delivery packages! roger."

Cynthia glanced up from the paper. "I don't understand. What does he mean?" But Fortnum was already at the telephone, dialing swiftly, once. "Operator? The police, and hurry!"

At ten-fifteen that night, the phone rang for the sixth time during the evening. Fortnum got it, and immediately gasped. "Roger! Where are you?!"

"Where am I, hell," said Roger lightly, almost amused. "You know very well where I am. You're responsible for this. I should be angry!"

Cynthia, at his nod, had hurried to take the extension phone in the kitchen. When he heard the soft click, he went on.

"Roger, I swear I don't know. I got that telegram from you—"

"What telegram?" said Roger, jovially. "I sent no telegram. Now, of a sudden, the police come pouring onto the southbound train, pull me off in some jerkwater, and I'm calling you to get them off my neck. Hugh, if this is some joke—"

"But, Roger, you just vanished!"

"On a business trip. If you can call that vanishing. I told

Dorothy about this, and Joe."

"This is all very confusing, Roger. You're in no danger? Nobody's blackmailing you, forcing you into this speech?"

"I'm fine, healthy, free and unafraid."

"But, Roger, your premonitions . . . ?"

"Poppycock! Now, look, I'm being very good about this, aren't I?"

"Sure, Roger."

"Then play the good father and give me permission to go. Call Dorothy and tell her I'll be back in five days. How could she have forgotten?"

"She did, Roger. See you in five days, then?"

"Five days, I swear."

The voice was indeed winning and warm, the old Roger again. Fortnum shook bis head, more bewildered than before.

"Roger," he said, "this is the craziest day I've ever spent. You're not running off from Dorothy? Good Lord, you can tell me."

"I love her with all my heart. Now, here's Lieutenant Parker of the Ridgetown police. Good-by, Hugh." "Good—"

But the lieutenant was on the line, talking angrily. What had Fortnum meant putting them to this trouble? What was going on? Who did he think he was? Did or didn't he want this so-called friend held or released?

"Released," Fortnum managed to say somewhere along the way, and hung up the phone and imagined he heard a voice call all aboard and the massive thunder of the train leaving the station two hundred miles south in the somehow increasingly dark night

Cynthia walked very slowly into the parlor. "I feel so foolish," she said. "How do you think I feel?" "Who could have sent that telegram? And why?" He poured himself some scotch and stood in the middle of the room looking at it

"I'm glad Roger is all right" his wife said, at last * "He isn't" said Fortnum. "But you just said—"

"I said nothing. After all, we couldn't very well drag him off that train and truss him up and send him home, could we, if he insisted he was okay? No. He sent that telegram, but he changed his mind after sending it. Why, why, why?" Fortnum paced the room, sipping the drink. "Why warn us against special delivery packages? The only package we've got this year which fits that description is the one Tom got this morning—" His voice trailed off.

Before he could move, Cynthia was at the wastepaper basket taking out the crumpled wrapping paper with the special delivery stamps on it.

The postmark read: new Orleans, la.

Cynthia looked up from it. "New- Orleans. Isn't that where Roger is heading right now?"

A doorknob rattled, a door opened and closed in Fort-num's mind. Another doorknob rattled, another door swung wide and then shut. There was a smell of damp earth.

He found his hand dialing the phone. After a long while, Dorothy Willis answered at the other end He could imagine her sitting alone in a house with too many lights on. He talked quietly with her awhile, then cleared his throat and said, "Dorothy, look. I know it sounds silly. Did any special delivery airmail packages arrive at your house the last few days?"

Her voice was faint. "No." Then: "No, wait. Three days ago. But I thought you knew! All the boys on the block are going in for it."

Fortnum measured his words carefully.

"Going in for what?"

"But why ask?" she said. "There's nothing wrong with raising mushrooms, is there?" Fortnum closed his eyes.

"Hugh? Are you still there?" asked Dorothy. "I said: there's nothing wrong with—"

"—raising mushrooms?" said Fortnum, at last. "No. Nothing wrong. Nothing wrong."

And slowly he put down the phone.

The curtains blew like veils of moonlight. The clock ticked. The after-midnight world flowed into and filled the bedroom. He heard Mrs. Goodbody's clear voice on this morning's air, a million years gone now. He heard Roger putting a cloud over the sun at noon. He heard the police damning him by phone from downstate. Then Roger's voice again, with the locomotive thunder hurrying him away and away, fading. And finally, Mrs. Goodbody's voice behind the hedge:

"Lord, it grows fast!"

"What does?"

"Marasmium oreades!"

He snapped his eyes open. He sat up.

Downstairs, a moment later, he flicked through the unabridged dictionary.

His forefinger underlined the words:

"Marasmius oreades: a mushroom commonly found on lawns in summer and early autumn."

He let the book fall shut

Outside, in the deep summer night, he lit a cigarette and smoked quietly.

A meteor fell across space, burning itself out quickly. The trees rustled softly.

The front door tapped shut.

Cynthia moved toward him in her robe.

"Can't sleep?"

"Too warm, I guess."

"It's not warm."

"No," he said, feeling his arms. "In fact, it's cold." He sucked on the cigarette twice, then, not looking at her, said, "Cynthia . . . What if . . . ?" He snorted and had to stop. "Well, what if Roger was right this morning? Mrs. Good-body, what if she's right too? Something terrible is happening. Like—well—" he nodded at the sky and the million stars —"Earth being invaded by things from other worlds, maybe."

"Hugh!"

"No, let me run wild."

"It's quite obvious we're not being invaded or we'd notice."

"Let's say we've only half-noticed, become uneasy about something. What? How could we be invaded? By what means would creatures invade?"

Cynthia looked at the sky and was about to try something when he interrupted.

"No, not meteors or flying saucers. Not things we can see. What about bacteria? That comes from outer space, too, doesn't it?"

"I read once, yes—"

"Spores, seeds, pollens, viruses probably bombard our atmosphere by the billions every second and have done so for millions of years. Right now we're sitting out under an invisible rain. It falls all over the country, the cities, the towns, and right now . . . our lawn."

"Our lawn?"

"And Mrs. Goodbody's. But people like her are always pulling weeds, spraying poison, kicking toadstools off their grass. It would be hard for any strange life form to survive in cities. Weather's a problem, too. Best climate might be South: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana. Back in the damp bayous, they could grow to a fine size."

But Cynthia was beginning to laugh now.

"Oh, really, you don't believe, do you, that this Great Bayou or Whatever Greenhouse Novelty Company that sent Tom his package is owned and operated by six-foot-tall mushrooms from another planet?"

"If you put it that way, it sounds funny," he admitted.

"Funny! It's hilarious!" She threw her head back deli-ciously.

"Good grief!" he cried, suddenly irritated. "Something's going on! Mrs. Goodbody is rooting out and killing maras-mium oreades. What is marasmium oreades? A certain kind of mushroom. Simultaneously, and I suppose you'll call it coincidence, by special delivery, what arrives the same day? Mushrooms for Tom! What else happens? Roger fears he may soon cease to be! Within hours, he vanishes, then telegraphs us, warning us not to accept what? The special delivery mushrooms for Tom! Has Roger's son got a similar package in the last few days? He has! Where do the packages come from? New Orleans! And where is Roger going when he vanishes? New Orleans! Do you see, Cynthia, do you see? I wouldn't be upset if all these separate things didn't lock together! Roger, Tom, Joe, mushrooms, Mrs. Goodbody, packages, destinations, everything in one pattern!"

She was watching his face now, quieter, but still amused. "Don't get angry."

"I'm not!" Fortnum almost shouted. And then he simply could not go on. He was afraid that if he did, he would find himself shouting with laughter, too, and somehow he did not want that. He stared at the surrounding houses up and down the block and thought of the dark cellars and the neighbor boys who read Popular Mechanics and sent their money in by the millions to raise the mushrooms hidden away. Just as he, when a boy, had mailed off for chemicals, seeds, turtles, numberless salves and sickish ointments. In how many million American homes tonight were billions of mushrooms

rousing up under the ministrations of the innocent?

"Hugh?" His wife was touching his arm now. "Mushrooms, even big ones, can't think. They can't move. They don't have arms and legs. How could they run a mail-order service and 'take over' the world? Come on, now. Let's look at your terrible fiends and monsters!"

She pulled him toward the door. Inside, she headed for the cellar, but he stopped, shaking his head, a foolish smile shaping itself somehow to his mouth. "No, no, I know what we'll find. You win. The whole thing's silly. Roger will be back next week and we'll all get drunk together. Go on up to bed now and I'll drink a glass of warm milk and be with you in a minute . . . well, a couple of minutes . . ."

"That's better!" She kissed him on both cheeks, squeezed him and went away up the stairs.

In the kitchen, he took out a glass, opened the refrigerator and was pouring the milk when he stopped suddenly.

Near the front of the top shelf was a small yellow dish. It was not the dish that held his attention, however. It was what lay in the dish.

The fresh-cut mushrooms.

He must have stood there for half a minute, his breath frosting the refrigerated air, before he reached out, took hold of the dish, sniffed it, felt the mushrooms, then at last, carrying the dish, went out into the hall. He looked up the stairs, hearing Cynthia moving about in the bedroom, and was about to call up to her, "Cynthia, did you put these in the refrigerator!?"

Then he stopped. He knew her answer. She had not.

He put the dish of mushrooms on the newel-upright at the bottom of the stairs and stood looking at them. He imagined himself, in bed later, looking at the walls, the open windows, watching the moonlight sift patterns on the ceiling. He heard himself saying, Cynthia? And her answering, yes? And him saying, there is a way for mushrooms to grow arms and legs . . . What? she would say, silly, silly man, what? And he would gather courage against her hilarious reaction and go on, what if a man wandered through the swamp picked the mushrooms, and ate them . . . ?

No response from Cynthia.

Once inside the man, would the mushrooms spread through his blood, take over every cell, and change the man from a man to a—Martian? Given this theory, would the mushroom need its own arms and legs? No, not when it could borrow people, live inside and become them. Roger ate mushrooms given him by his son. Roger became "something else." He kidnapped himself. And in one last flash of sanity, of being "himself' he telegraphed us, warning us not to accept the special delivery mushrooms. The "Roger" that telephoned later was no longer Roger but a captive of what he had eaten! Doesn't that figure, Cynthia? Doesn't it, doesn't it?

No, said the imagined Cynthia, no, it doesn't figure, no, no, no . . .

There was the faintest whisper, rustle, stir from the cellar. Taking his eyes from the bowl, Fortnum walked to the cellar door and put his ear to it.

"Tom?"

No answer.

"Tom, are you down there?"

No answer.

"Tom?"

After a long while, Tom's voice came up from below. "Yes, Dad?"

"It's after midnight," said Fortnum, fighting to keep his voice from going high. "What are you doing down there?" No answer.

"I said—"

"Tending to my crop," said the boy at last, his voice cold and faint.

"Well, get the hell out of there! You hear me!?" Silence.

"Tom? Listen! Did you put some mushrooms in the refrigerator tonight? If so, why?"

Ten seconds must have ticked by before the boy replied from below. "For you and Mom to eat, of course."

Fortnum heard his heart moving swiftly, and had to take three deep breaths before he could go on.

"Tom? You didn't . . . that is . . . you haven't by any chance eaten some of the mushrooms yourself, have you?"

"Funny you ask that," said Tom. "Yes. Tonight. On a sandwich after supper. Why?"

Fortnum held to the doorknob. Now it was his turn not to answer. He felt his knees beginning to melt and he fought the whole silly senseless fool thing. No reason, he tried to say, but his lips wouldn't move.

"Dad?" called Tom softly from the cellar. "Come on down." Another pause. "I want you to see the harvest."

Fortnum felt the knob slip in his sweaty hand. The knob rattled. He gasped.

"Dad?" called Tom softly.

Fortnum opened the door.

The cellar was completely black below.

He stretched his hand in toward the light switch. As if sensing this intrusion, from somewhere Tom said:

"Don't. Light's bad for the mushrooms."

Fortnum took his hand off the switch.

He swallowed. He looked back at the stair leading up to his wife. I should go say good-by to Cynthia. But why should I think that! Why should I think that at all? No reason, is there?

None.

"Tom?" he said, affecting a jaunty air. "Ready or not, here I come!"

And stepping down in darkness, he shut the door.

CATO THE MARTIAH 81

"I suppose some do. But he appears to reflect the prevailing sentiment."

"Yes? Well, it seems to me," said Mr. Erdig, "that he created a good deal of what you call the prevailing sentiment He rose to speak again yesterday, cleared his throat and cried out, 'Earth must be destroyed!' Just as he has every session these past thirty years. And this time—mind you, my dear—this time he had the gall to repeat it in Latin: 'Earth esse delendam.' Soon, he will believe that he is Cato."

"I think that is a great tribute to you," Mrs. Erdig told him calmly. "After all, you are the foremost Latin scholar on Mars. You were the first to call him Cato the Censor—and the name stuck. Now everyone calls him Cato. I shouldn't be surprised if they have all forgotten his real name. You can be proud of your influence."

"That isn't the point at all," Mr. Erdig sighed.

"I only meant to cheer you a bit."

"I know, my dear. I shouldn't be annoyed with you. But the point is that each day they smile less and listen to him even more intently. I can remember quite well when he first began his campaign against Earth, the amused smiles, the clucking and shaking of heads. A good many of us were of the opinion that he was out of his mind, that he needed medical treatment. Then, bit by bit the attitude changed. Now, they listen seriously—and they agree. Do you know that he plans to put it to a vote tomorrow?"

"Well, if he does, he does, and the council will do what is right. So the best thing for you to do is to get a good night's sleep. Come along with me."

Mr. Erdig rose to follow her. They were in bed, when she said, "I do wish you had chosen English, my dear. Why should righteous be so utterly confusing?"

Most of the Planetary Council of Mars were already present when Mr. Erdig arrived and took his place. As he made his way among the other representatives, he could not fail to notice a certain coolness, a certain restraint in the greetings that followed him. Mrs. Erdig would have held that he was being over-sensitive and that he always had been too sensitive for his own peace of mind; but Mr. Erdig himself labored under no illusions. He prided himself upon his psyetiological awareness of the Council's mood. All things considered, he was already certain that today was Cato's day.

As he took his place, his friend, Mr. Kyegg, nodded and confirmed his gloomy view of things. "I see you are thinking along the same lines, Erdig," Mr. Kyegg said.

"Yes."

"Well—que sera, sera," Mr. Kyegg sighed. "What will be, will be. French. Language spoken by only a handful of people on the European Continent, but very elegant"

"I know that France is on the European Continent" Mr. Erdig observed stiffly.

"Of course. Well, old Fllari persuaded me to take lessons with him. Poor chap needs the money."

Mr. Erdig realized that his irritation with Kyegg was increasing, and without cause. Kyegg was a very decent fellow whom Mr. Erdig had known for better than two hundred years. It would be childish to allow a general state of irritation to separate him from any one of the narrowing circle he could still call his friends.

At moments of stress, like this one, Mr. Erdig would lie back in his seat and gaze at the Council ceiling. It had a soothing effect. Like most Martians, Mr. Erdig had a keen and well-developed sense of aesthetics, and he never tired of the beauties of Martian buildings and landscapes. Indeed, the creation of beauty and the appreciation of beauty were preoccupations of Martian society. Even Mr. Erdig would not have denied the Martian superiority in that direction.

The ceiling of the Council Chamber reproduced the Martian skies at night. Deep, velvety blue-purple, it was as full of stars as a tree in bloom is of blossoms. The silver starlight lit the Council Chamber.

"How beautiful and wise are the things we create and live with!" Mr. Erdig reflected. "How good to be a Martian!" He could afford pity for the poor devils of the third planet. Why couldn't others?

He awoke out of his reverie to the chimes that called the session to order. Now the seats were all filled.

"This is it," said Mr. Erdig's friend, Mr. Kyegg. "Not an empty seat in the house."

The minutes of the previous meeting were read.

"He'll recognize Cato first," Mr. Kyegg nodded.

"That doesn't take much foresight," Mr. Erdig replied sourly, pointing to Cato. Already Cato's arm (or limb or tentacle, depending on your point of view) was up.

The chairman bowed and recognized him.

Cato the Censor had concluded his speeches in the Roman Senate with the injunction that Carthage must be destroyed. Cato the Martian did him one better; he began and finished with the injunction that Earth must be destroyed.

"Earth must be destroyed," Cato the Martian began, and then paused for the ripple of applause to die down.

"Why do I go on, year after year, with what once seemed to so many to be a heartless and blood-thirsty plea? I assure you that the first time my lips formed that phrase, my heart was sick and my bowels turned over in disgust. I am a Martian like all of you; like all of you, I view murder as the ultimate evil, force as the mark of the beast.

"Think—all of you, think of what it cost me to create that phrase and to speak it for the first time in this chamber, so many years ago! Think of how you would have felt! Was it easy then—or any time in all the years since then? Is the role of a patriot ever easy? Yes, I use a word Earth taught us —patriot. A word most meaningful to us now."

"Le patriotisme est le dernier refuge d'un gredin," Mr. Kyegg observed caustically. "French. A pithy language."

"English, as a matter of fact," Mr. Erdig corrected him. "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Samuel Johnson, I believe. Literary dean and wit in London, two centuries ago." Mr. Erdig felt unpleasant enough to put Mr. Kyegg in his place. "London," he went on, "largest city in England, which is an island a few miles from the European continent."

"Oh, yes," Mr. Kyegg nodded weakly.

"—not only because I love Mars," Cato was saying, "but because I love the entire essence and meaning of life. It is almost half a century since we picked up the first radio signals from the planet Earth. We on Mars had never known the meaning of war; it took Earth to teach us that. We had never known what it meant to kill, destroy, to torture. Indeed, when we first began to analyze and understand the various languages of Earth, we doubted our own senses, our own analytical abilities. We heard, but at first we refused to believe what we heard. We refused to believe that there could be an entire race of intelligent beings whose existence was dedicated to assault, to murder and thievery and brutaUty beyond the imagination of Martians—"

"Never changes a word," muttered Mr. Erdig. "Same speech, over and over."

"He's learned to deliver it very well, don't you think?" Mr. Kyegg said.

"—we would not believe!" Cato cried. "Who could believe such things? We were a race of love and mercy. We tried to rationalize, to explain, to excuse—but when our receivers picked up the first television signals, well, we could not longer rationalize, explain or excuse. What our ears might have doubted, our eyes proved. What our sensibilities refused, fact forced upon us. I don't have to remind you or review what we saw in the course of fifteen Earth years of television transmission. Murder—murder—murder and violence! Murder and violent death to a point where one could only conclude that this is the dream, the being and the vision of Earth! Man against man, nation against nation, mother against child—and always violence and death—"

"He said he wasn't going to review it," Mr. Erdig murmured.

"It's rather nice to know every word of a speech," said Mr. Kyegg. "Then you don't have to listen with any attention."

But the members of the council were hstening with attention as Cato cried.

"And war! The word itself did not exist in our language until we heard it from Earth. War without end—large wars and small wars, until half of their world is a graveyard and their very atmosphere is soaked with hatred!"

"That's a rather nice turn of phrase for Cato, don't you think?" Mr. Kyegg asked his associate. Mr. Erdig did not even deign to answer.

"And then," Cato continued, his voice low and ominous now, "we watched them explode their first atom bomb. On their television, we watched this monstrous weapon exploded again and again as they poisoned their atmosphere and girded themselves for a new war. Ah, well do I remember how calm the philosophers were when this happened. 'Leave them alone,' said our philosophers, "now they will destroy themselves.' Would they? By all that Mars means to every Martian, I will not put my faith in the philosophers!"

"He means you," said Mr. Kyegg to Mr. Erdig.

"Philosophers!" Cato repeated in contempt "I know one of them well indeed. In derision, he dubbed me Cato—flunking to parade his Latin scholarship before me. Well, I accept the name. As Cato, I say, Earth must be destroyed! Not because of what Earth has done and continues to do to itself—I agree that is their affair—but because of what, as every Martian now knows, Earth will inevitably do to US. We watched them send up their first satellites; we did nothing as they sent their missiles probing into space; and now—now— as our astronomers confirm—they have sent an unmanned rocket to the moon!"

"That seals it," Mr. Erdig sighed.

"How long must we wait?" Cato cried. "Must all that we have made of our lovely planet be an atomic wasteland before we act? Are we to do nothing until the first Earth invaders land on Mars? Or do we destroy this blight as firmly and surely as we would wipe out some new and dreadful disease?

"I say that Earth must be destroyed! Not next month or next year, but now! Earth must be destroyed!"

Cato sat down, not as formerly to a small ripple of applause or to disapproving silence, but now to a storm of assent and approval.

"Silly of me to think of myself as a philosopher," Mr. Erdig reflected as he rose to speak, "but I suppose I am, in a very small way." And then he told the assembled Council members that he would not take too much of their time.

"I am one of those individuals," Mr. Erdig said, "who, even when they cannot hope to win an argument, get some small satisfaction out of placing their thoughts upon the record. That I do not agree with Cato, you know. I have said so emphatically and on many occasions; but this is the conclusion of a long debate, not the beginning of one.

"I never believed that I should live to see the day when this Council would agree that Earth should be destroyed. But that you are in agreement with Cato seems obvious. Let me only remind you of some of the things you propose to destroy.

"We Martians never paused to consider how fortunate we are in our longevity until we began to listen, as one might say, to Earth—and to watch Earth. We are all old enough to recall the years before the people of Earth discovered the secret of radio and television transmission. Were our lives as rich then as they are now?

"How much has changed in the mere two-score of Earth years that we have listened to them and watched them. Our ancient and beautiful Martian language has become all the richer for the inclusion of hundreds of Earth words. The languages of Earth have become the pastime and delight of millions of Martians. The games of Earth divert us and amuse us—to a point where baseball and tennis and golf seem native and proper among us. You all recall how dead and stagnant our art had become; the art of Earth brought it to life and gave us new forms, ideas and directions. Our libraries are filled with thousands of books on the subject of Earth, manners and customs and history, and due to their habit on Earth of reading books and verse over the radio, we now have available to us the literary treasures of Earth.

"Where in our lives is the influence of Earth not felt? Our architects have incorporated Earth styles and developments in their buildings. Our doctors have found techniques and methods on Earth that have saved lives here. The symphonies of Earth are heard in our concert halls and the songs of Earth fill the Martian air.

"I have suggested only some of an almost endless fist of treasures Earth has given us. And this Earth you propose to destroy. Oh, I cannot refute Cato. He speaks the truth. Earth is still a mystery to us. We have never breathed the air of Earth or trod on the soil of Earth, or seen her mighty cities and green forests at first hand. We see only a shadow of the reality, and this shadow confuses us and frightens us. By Martian terms, Earth people are short-lived. From birth to death is only a moment. How have they done so much in such fragile moments of existence? We really don't know— we don't understand. We see them divided and filled with hate and fear and resentment; we watch them murder and destroy; and we are puzzled and confused. How can the same people who create so splendidly destroy so casually?

"But is destruction the answer to this problem? There are two and a half thousand million people on Earth, three times the number who inhabit Mars. Can we ever again sleep in peace, dream in peace, if we destroy them?"

Cato's answer to Mr. Erdig was very brief. "Can we ever again sleep in peace, dream in peace if we don't?"

Then Mr. Erdig sat down and knew that it was over.

"It's not as if we were actually doing it ourselves," Mrs. Erdig said to her husband at home that evening. "The same thing, my dear."

"But as you explain it, here are these two countries, as they call them, the Soviet Union and the United States of America—the two most powerful countries on Earth, armed to the teeth with heaven knows how many atom bombs and just waiting to leap at each other's throats. I know enough Earth history to realize that sooner or later they're bound to touch off a war—even if only through some accident."

"Perhaps."

"And all we will do," Mrs. Erdig said soothingly, "is to hasten that inevitable accident."

"Yes, we have come to that," Mr. Erdig nodded somberly. "War and cruelty and injustice are Earth words that we have learned—foreign words, nasty words. It would be utterly immoral for us to arm ourselves for war or even to contemplate war. But an accident is something else indeed. We will build a rocket and arm it with an atomic warhead and put it into space so that it will orbit Earth over their poles and come down and explode in the Arizona desert of the United States. At the worst, we destroy a few snakes and cows, so our hands are clean. Minutes after that atom bomb explodes, Earth will begin to destroy itself. Yet we have absolved ourselves—"

"I don't like to hear you talk like that, my dear," Mrs. Erdig protested. "I never heard any other Martian talk like that."

"I am not proud of being a Martian." "Really!"

"It turns my stomach," said Mr. Erdig.

There was a trace of asperity in Mrs. Erdig's voice. "I don't see how you can be so sure that you are right and everyone else is wrong. Sometimes I feel that you disagree just for the pleasure of disagreeing—or of being disagreeable, if I must say it. It seems to me that every Martian should treasure our security and way of life above all else. And I can't see what is so terribly wrong about hastening something that is bound to happen sooner or later in any case. If Earth folk were deserving, it would be another matter entirely—"

Mr. Erdig was not listening. Long years of association had taught him that when his wife began this kind of tidal wave of argument and proof, it could go on for a very long time indeed. He closed off her sound and his thoughts ranged, as they did so often, across the green meadows and the white-capped blue seas of Earth. How often he had dreamed of that wilderness of tossing and restless water! How wonderful and terrible it must be! There were no seas on Mars, so even to visualize the oceans of Earth was not easy. But he could not think about the oceans of Earth and not think of the people of Earth, the mighty cities of Earth.

Suddenly, his heart constricted with a pang of knife-like grief. In the old, unspoken language of Earth, which he had come to cherish so much, he whispered,

"Magna civitas, magna solitudo—"

The rocket was built and fitted with an atomic warhead— no difficult task for the technology of Mars. In the churches (their equivalent, that is) of Mars, a prayer was said for the souls of the people of Earth, and then the rocket was launched.

The astronomers watched it and the mathematicians tracked it. In spite of its somber purpose and awful destiny, the Martians could not refrain from a flush of pride in the skill and efficiency of their scientists, for the rocket crossed over the North Pole of Earth and landed smack in the Arizona desert, not more than five miles away from the chosen target spot.

The air of Mars is thin and clear and millions of Martians have fine telescopes. Millions of them watched the atomic warhead burst and nullioris of them kept their telescopes trained to Earth, waiting to witness the holocaust of radiation and flame that would signal atomic war among the nations of Earth.

They waited, but what they expected did not come. They were civilized beings, not at all blood-thirsty, but by now they were very much afraid; so some of them waited and watched until the Martian morning made the Martian skies blaze with burning red and violet.

Yet there was no war on Earth.

"I do wonder what could have gone wrnne?" Mrs. FrHig said, looking up from the copy of Vanity Fair, which she was reading for the second time. She did not actually expect an answer, for her husband had become less and less communicative of late. She was rather surprised when he answered,

"Can't you guess?"

"I don't see why you should sound so superior. No one else can guess. Can you?"

Instead of answering her, he said, "I envy you your knowledge of English—if only to read novelists like Thackeray."

"It is amusing," Mrs. Erdig admitted, "but I never can quite get used to the mghtmare of life on Earth."

"I didn't know you regarded it as a mghtmare."

"How else could one regard it?"

"I suppose so," Mr. Erdig sighed. "Still—I would have liked to read Caesar's Conquest of Gaul. They have never broadcast it"

"Perhaps they will."

"No. No, they never will. No more broadcasts from Earth. No more television."

"Oh, well—if they don't start that war and wipe themselves out, they're bound to be broadcasting again."

"I wonder," Mr. Erdig said.

The second rocket from Mars exploded its warhead in the wastelands of Siberia. Once again, Martians watched for hours through their telescopes and waited. But Mr. Erdig did not watch. He seemed to have lost interest in the current obsession of Mars, and he devoted most of his time to the study of English, burying himself in his wife's novels and dictionaries and thesaurus. His progress, as his wife told her neighbors, was absolutely amazing. He already knew the language well enough to carry on a passable conversation.

When the Planetary Council of Mars met and took the decision to aim a rocket at London, Mr. Erdig was not even present He remained at home and read a book—one of his wife's English transcripts.

As with so many of her husband's recent habits, his truancy was shocking to Mrs. Erdig, and she took it upon herself to lecture him concerning bis duties to Mars and Martians—and in particular, his deplorable lack of patriotism. The word was very much in use upon Mars these days.

"I have more important things to do," Mr. Erdig finally replied to her insistence.

"Such as?"

"Reading this book, for instance." "What book are you reading?"

"It's called Huckleberry Finn. Written by an American— Mark Twain."

"It's a silly book. I couldn't make head or tale of it" "Well—"

"And I don't see why it's important."

Mr. Erdig shook his head and went on reading.

And that night, when she turned on the Intertator, the Er-digs learned, along with the rest of Mars, that a rocket had been launched against the City of London. . . .

After that a whole month passed before the first atomic warhead, launched from the Earth, exploded upon the surface of Mars. Other warheads followed. And still, there was no war on the Planet Earth.

The Erdigs were fortunate, for they lived in a part of Mars that had still not felt the monstrous, searing impact of a hydrogen bomb. Thus, they were able to maintain at least a semblance of normal life, and within this, Mr. Erdig clung to his habit of reading for an hour or so before bedtime. As

Mrs. Erdig had the Intertator on almost constantly these days, he had retreated to the Martian equivalent of a man's den. He was sitting there on this particular evening when Mrs. Erdig burst in and informed him that the first fleet of manned space-rockets from Earth had just landed on Mars —the soldiers from Earth were proceeding to conquer Mars, and that there was no opposition possible.

"Very interesting," Mr. Erdig agreed.

"Didn't you hear me?"

"I heard you, my dear," Mr. Erdig said.

"Soldiers—armed soldiers from Earth!"

"Yes, my dear." He went back to his book, and when Mrs. Erdig saw that for the third time he was reading the nonsense called Huckleberry Finn, she turned uut ul llic room in despair. She was preparing to slam the door behind her, when Mr. Erdig said,

"Oh, my dear."

She turned back into the room. "Well—"

"You remember," Mr. Erdig said, just as if soldiers from Earth were not landing on Mars that very moment, "that a while back you were complaining that you couldn't make any sense out of an English word—righteous?"

"For heaven's sake!"

"Well, it seemed to puzzle you so—"

"Did you hear a word I said?"

"About the ships from Earth? Oh, yes—yes, of course. But here I was reading this book for the third time—it is a most remarkable book—and I came across that word, and it's not obscure at all. Not in the least. A righteous man is pure and wise and good and holy and just—above all, just. And equitable, you might say. Cato the Censor was such a man. Yes—and Cato the Martian, I do believe. Poor Cato— he was fried by one of those hydrogen bombs, wasn't he? A very righteous man—"

Sobbing hysterically, Mrs. Erdig fled from the room. Mr. Erdig sighed and returned to his novel.

THE SPACEMAN COMETH

HENRY GREGOR FELSEN

How curious, the coincidence that Mr. Felsen's story should, by accident of alphabet, follow immediately on the heels of Mr. Fast's! Witness this sentence from the Felsen story: "For it has always been the Adnaxian custom, when a new planet is discovered, to destroy the planet before it can commit an act of aggression." At least, though, the Adnaxians used no phony moral alibis to excuse their foreign policy. . . . But read on, and see what Mr. Felsen does with his brand of beings from another world!

Perhaps it should be admitted that in this particular tale, tomorrow really isn't so different. There's just more of it: and that is exactly why it's here, because it is just as disturbing to our complacency to read how we seem to others from a different world system, as are some of the more unusual imaginations about the future that make up the balance of this book.

I was trying to compose the speech I was to make at our town assembly, and like most writers I was gazing out of the window looking for inspiration in the sky. I was looking at a small white cloud when an Adnaxian flying saucer sailed across my line of vision and disappeared in the direction of Razza's Woods.

Although I now live in Center Valley, Iowa, with my earthborn wife and two children, and I have assumed the disguise of a middle-aged male human, I was born on the planet Adnaxas and lived there for several hundred earth-years. When I was forced to flee my home planet several earth-years ago, I escaped in a space ship that I stole from the

Adnaxian Air Force. That's why I know what it was I saw.

It was no accident that the Adnaxian pilot was heading for Razza's Woods. I had parked my old flying saucer out there at treetop level, and although I had rendered it invisible to human eyes, I knew the saucerman must have spotted it and was coming down to investigate.

I had a great and terrible feeling of despair.

Until this moment I had been certain that I was the only Adnaxian who knew about earth. I had first come here to scout earth for destruction, but to use an old Adnaxian expression, I had goofed. I happened to fall in love with a girl I met in a drugstore.

Because of that and certain difficulties I encountered when I returned to Adnaxas to make my report, I had fled back to earth, married the girl, and settled down to a quiet life in a small town.

But now the earth had been discovered by another Adnaxian, and I knew too well what that meant. The pilot would return to Adnaxas with his report. Within hours there would be a fleet of bombers on their way through space. For it has always been the Adnaxian custom, when a new planet is discovered to destroy the planet before it can commit an act of aggression. After that a team of scientists is put to work examining the planet fragments to determine whether it would have been a hostile or a friendly planet.

My duty was clear. Somehow I had to prevent the saucer-man from returning to Adnaxas, so that the existence and location of earth would remain unknown to my ruthless home planet.

But how?

. My minds, conscious, subconscious and Adnaxian, refused to function. The only plan that came to me was to surrender myself, start back toward Adnaxas with the saucer-man, and somehow destroy him and myself before we reached that planet. The thought of leaving my wife and children forever made me so unhappy I groaned aloud.

"Is something wrong, dear? Are you ill?"

I turned. My wife was standing in the doorway, a look of concern on her face and a dustcloth in her hand.

"I'm all right," I said mournfully. "It's this speech I have to make." I seized this lie and went on bravely, "I can't think of any ideas. I think I'll take a little walk. I might get an idea that way."

"I'm sure you'll think of something,'' my wife said. "A good long walk will clear your head. Sitting in here and smoking so much, no wonder you can't think."

I went to her and took her in my arms. "Goodby, darling," I said, trying to keep my voice under control. I gave her a last, long, loving kiss.

"Where are the children?" I asked quietly. "I'd like to say goodby to them too."

"What's the matter with you?" my wife asked. "You're only going for a little walk. The way you act, one would think you were taking a trip to the moon."

The moon—when I reached that satellite my trip would just have started. But my wife thought I was an earthman, and this was no time to explain that for the last ten years she had been married to a being from outer space, and that I was leaving her in order to save the world. I mean, you just can't come out and tell your wife something like that after ten years. Chances are she wouldn't believe half of it.

I sighed and said the last earthwords that would ever pass my lips: "Yes, dear." Then I left the house and began my tragic journey out of this world.

"Take your hat!" my wife shouted after me. "If you go walking around bareheaded, I'm the one who has to listen to your complaining about your sinus trouble!"

I pretended not to hear her and went off thinking bitter thoughts. What an inglorious beginning to a mission whose goal was the salvation of earth. I was willing to make the sacrifice, but how awful that I could tell no one, not even my wife. I had to walk away from my loved ones as though for a little while, and never return. They would wait, wonder, worry, and finally decide I had deserted them. In time I would be declared dead, my children would be grown and my wife married to someone else. When I was thought of, it would be unkindly. Take my hat? It was a new hat, and expensive. Better to leave it. Perhaps it would fit the head of her next husband. It was the least I could do.

When I reached Razza's Woods, I took one last human look around, then reverted to my Adnaxian shape, which made me invisible to earthmen's eyes. As I did so I was seized by the most terrible pains, and I was terrified by a tearing sound that seemed to come from my body. And then, suddenly, I felt better. I looked down at myself and understood. Ten years of good earth home cooking had taken their toll, and I had outgrown my old Adnaxian Air Force uniform. The sudden change had popped my buttons and split my trousers. I sighed, and lost another button.

I had little time to mourn that which had once been my dashing figure. I heard blasts from a couple of shotguns— they couldn't have been more than a few hundred yards away—and at almost the same moment the Adnaxian saucer skimmed over my head and came to rest in the clearing where I stood The moment it touched earth the pilot rendered it invisible to human eyes.

I heard excited voices and the sound of men crashing through the brush. In a moment Dave Nichols and Jack Wilson burst into the clearing carrying their guns and looking eagerly from side to side.

"He fell right in here," Dave shouted. "I got him with both barrels. Biggest damn' Canada goose you ever saw!"

"Canada goose my foot," Jack said "I hit him after you missed, and it was a big canvasback duck. I saw those markings as clear as anything."

"Well, he ain't here," David said. "And we'd better keep looking. He won't go far with my lead in him."

"Your lead!" Jack yelled "You mean my lead."

Arguing violently, my two neighbors moved on. The hatch on the saucer opened slowly and the saucerman looked around cautiously. Then he stepped out, clutching an Adnaxian molecule pistol in one hand and a thick briefcase in the other.

Knowing that one burst from the pistol could destroy the whole county, I hurried forward. "Don't shoot!" I cried in Adnaxian.

The saucerman aimed his pistol at me. "Don't shoot," I repeated "I am one of you."

The saucerman lowered the pistol which, I now saw, he was holding by the wrong end "Eureka!" he exclaimed. "I

have found you! Squadron Leader Ex-my-ex, I presume?" "Yes," I said. "I am Ex-my-ex."

The saucerman looked at my tattered uniform and potbelly. "You've changed," he said a little sadly, putting away his pistol. "But then, I suppose it's a wonder you're alive at all, exiled here millions of light years away from civilization. Don't you know me?"

I looked at him closely. "The pseudopodia are familiar, but I can't remember the name," I said lamely.

"My-ex-ex," he said. "University of Adnaxas. You were a student of mine in cosmichemistry."

"Of course," I said. "Now I remember. But what are you doing here, sir?"

"Looking for you, by order of the Presidex," he said. "He's quite anxious to get you back."

I shuddered. I had seen what happened to Adnaxians who had displeased the Presidex.

"When you fled," My-ex-ex went on, "popular opinion held that you were lost forever in space. But a few of us felt that you actually had a remote planet tucked up your sleeve. After the military gave up the search, some of us scientists were given the job of finding you. Since I knew you personally, I was chosen to make the first search-flight. And I seem to have found you. Stroke of luck, that, what?"

"For you," I said resignedly. "I'll return with you, sir. I suppose we might as well start back now." I was ready. The sooner we started, the sooner I could destroy us both in space.

"That's not possible," Professor My-ex-ex said, parting his brief case. "My orders were, if I found you on a new planet, to investigate the planet and bring back a complete report for the Presidex—so he'll know how to deal with the new planet, you know."

I knew. Hadn't I "dealt" with other planets myself? I'd destroyed fourteen singlehanded before fleeing Adnaxas. And now, earth was next

But there was a ray of hope. Professor My-ex-ex had always been a good sort, a little vague at times, but kind. If I could show him what a fine place earth was, and how nice the people were, and let him see the peaceful charm of my family life, perhaps he would be moved to pity and spare us. Perhaps he would allow me to remain on earth, and not even report earth's existence to Adnaxas. It was worth a try. If I failed, there was always the violent ending in mid-space.

"Now," Professor My-ex-ex said briskly, "I trust you will assist me in my mission, which was communicated to me orally by the Secretary of Space. I can put in a good word for you when we return to Adnaxas, you know."

"I am yours to command sir," I said beginning my campaign to make him think kindly of earth.

"Good. Now, since you have managed to survive on this planet for some time, I take it you have had some contact with the natives."

"Oh, yes," I said. "I not only assumed their form, but I married a local girl, and—"

"You went native?" Professor My-ex-ex looked at me disapprovingly.

"Yes, sir," I admitted, blushing. "I married a native girl and we have a family. After all, sir, I thought I would be here for Life."

"Don't apologize, lad," Professor My-ex-ex said archly. "I'm not surprised. I know you Air Force chaps. Who else could dash off blindly into space, travel a million light years, and wind up on a planet with girls? You rascal! I'd like to study your family. Could it be arranged without their knowing who I am?"

"Oh, sure," I said. "Change yourself into human form and I'll introduce you as an old friend from Brooklyn. Then, no matter what you say, no one will think you strange. I'll change into human form first, to show you what earth-people look like."

I changed back to my usual human form. The professor watched me closely, chuckling to himself and making notes for future lectures—and scolding himself because he had forgotten to bring along a camera. "I think I have it," he said, stepping back. "Join you in a moment, my boy."

A moment later he stood before me in human form. It was a fairly normal example of a human, vaguely familiar.

I took a second, closer, look. The professor had changed himself to look exactly like me.

"Begging your pardon, sir," I said, "but you look exactly like me."

"Yes. Good job of copying, what?"

"But, sir," I said patiently, "it's awkward. It would be better if you changed to look like some other human."

Professor My-ex-ex stared. "What do you mean, Ex-my-ex?" he asked. "Don't all humans look alike?"

"No, sir," I said. "Except for twins and such, no two humans look alike."

"By Presidex, man!" the professor exclaimed. "If they all look different, how do they recognize one another?"

"You have to remember each face, and whose it is," I said.

"I've never heard of such chaos," the professor sputtered. "Now up on Adnaxas, where everyone looks exactly alike, you look at a fellow and you know him. But when no two look alike that's nothing but reproductive anarchy. Very sloppy ethnogeny in my book, young man."

"Just give us time, sir," I said. "We're a young planet here, and not too polished as yet, but we're making progress. Why, only yesterday I saw two women wearing identical hats and they had identical looks on their faces."

The professor said something under his breath and changed again. This time he appeared as the human equivalent of what he was in Adnaxian form. He turned out to be a hesitant, elderly gentleman with thick glasses, a small, ragged mustache, an impressed tweed suit and a black Homburg. The briefcase remained unchanged. We decided to call him George Hoskins.

"Tell me, Henry," Professor Hoskins said as we set out for town, "just what sort of place is this planet?"

"Earth's a great little planet, sir," I said. "Plenty of schools, churches, shopping and transportation, and growing by leaps and bounds. It's been a real home away from home for me, sir, and I've grown to love the place."

"What is the temper of the natives?"

"Friendly as all outdoors," I said. "That's the very hallmark of an earthman, sir. The desire for friendship and peace."

"Well," the professor said, frowning, "just before I landed I heard several explosions, and a number of pellets came through the hull of my saucer, narrowly missing my Kopf. Is that the usual greeting your earth-guards give a visitor from another planet?"

I laughed. "That wasn't the military firing at you, sir," I said. "A couple of my neighbors thought you were a wild fowl."

"One of the enemies of the human?"

"Oh, no," I said. "Wild fowl are plump, harmless birds about the size of your briefcase. They couldn't hurt a human."

"Why do humans shoot them?"

"For sport and fun," I began. "It's quite a thrUl to—" Tkg

look on the professor's face stopped me. What a way I had chosen to impress him with the peacefulness of the human! "It's not all sport," I said quickly. "The hunters eat the birds they kiU."

"How revolting," the professor said. "So earthmen are friendly and peaceful, are they?"

"Well," I said, "yes, they are. You'll see. We're not a hostile people, sir." We had arrived in town now. "Earthmen are just plain folks, who believe we ought to live and let—look out, sir!"

The professor had stepped off a curb without looking once in either direction. I grabbed him by the arm just in time to pull him from the path of a hot rod that was tearing past us.

"My word!" the professor cried, fumbling for his molecule pistol. "We are being attacked!"

"Please calm yourself, sir," I said. "There's nothing to be alarmed about. That was just one of the high school boys on his way home in his car."

Professor My-ex-ex looked at me strangely. "You mean there was a child in control of that machine? Is it normal on earth to allow children to destroy others at will?"

"Oh, no," I said, "they don't try to kill anyone. If they do, it goes hard with the parents. It's the children's way of having a little fun."

, "I am beginning to dread the sound of that word," Professor My-ex-ex said. "Tell me, if human men shoot everything that moves, and human children ran over everything that doesn't, how is it there are any humans left alive?"

I'm sure there's an answer, but I couldn't think of it

Professor My-ex-ex looked quite unhappy by now and I was worried. I decided to stop off at the Town Club and show him how friendly men really are. I explained that the club was a place where men of good will and similar tastes gathered to enjoy one another's company and conversation.

The moment we entered, we ran into Big Bud Taplinger, one of our heartiest members. When I introduced George Hoskins to Big Bud, my large neighbor was delighted to meet my old friend.

"It's a real pleasure to meet you, George!" Big Bud roared, squeezing the professor's hand until the bones cracked. "Put 'er there!" Big Bud pumped the professor's arm with violent good will and clapped him on the back so hard that he knocked the poor old saucerman against the bar.

"Big Bud likes you," I whispered to My-ex-ex as I handed him back his glasses. "You'll like him too. He's the kindest-hearted, friendliest man you'll find on earth."

"He is?" My-ex-ex gasped. "Presidex help me!"

I wanted My-ex-ex to stay and have a drink, but he insisted we leave at once. Perhaps it was better that way.

As we approached my house we heard a series of shrill cries and several small figures in space helmets dashed toward us, firing their weapons wildly and dropping dead only to bounce up again and continue the battle.

"The Moogislanders!" My-ex-ex cried, reaching frantically for his molecule pistol. "Run for your life!"

"It's all right, sir," I said soothingly. "It's just the children playing war."

"Children? Playing war?"

"It's their favorite game," I said. "As long as they get a lot of fun—"

"That word," My-ex-ex groaned. "I must make a note of this custom. Children, playing war!"

"They don't really kill anyone," I said. "It's a harmless way of letting off steam, and the psychologists say that children who play out their fears—"

We were interrupted by two of the children, who got into a fist fight over possession of a gun. Both ran off crying, and the scratches I got from separating them hardly bled at all.

We went inside and I introduced My-ex-ex to my wife, telling her he was staying for dinner.

My wife gave My-ex-ex the big welcome, assured him he would be no trouble at all, kissed me while he beamed at us, and bit me the moment he looked away. If I hadn't screamed in pain, he might never have noticed.

"Affectionate little woman," I said, laughing painfully as I led My-ex-ex into the living room.

"Yes, indeed," he said warily. "Hope she doesn't take too much of a liking to me. I bruise easily."

We sat down in the living room and turned on the TV set.

"This is the way the earthman likes to live," I said to My-ex-ex. "Snug in his little home; with his wife and children, quietly watching the programs of entertainment and education that are on television. The children's programs are on now, but later you'll be able to get a better idea of our cultural values."

The kids came in and sat down to watch with us, and for the next two hours we were treated to a succession of cowboy adventures that filled the room with the thunder of hoofs, the roar of guns, and the thud of fists on flesh. We saw men shot, stabbed, trampled by wild horses. By the time the children's programs had ended, our little ones had gone to sleep and My-ex-ex was a nervous wreck.

We had dinner in front of the television set, and watched as the cowboys and space thrillers gave way to the crime stories. We were treated to the more refined forms of violence, sadism and mayhem.

All during these programs My-ex-ex kept making notes and shaking his head. I had the idea that he, being a stranger, failed to appreciate the cozy warmth and peaceful affection of family life—especially when I had to spank the children so they would go to bed.

My-ex-ex's dour expression didn't change until my mother-in-law arrived after dinner. My mother-in-law is a handsome, silver-haired woman and two minutes after she arrived, My-ex-ex was scurrying around getting her an ash tray, lighting her cigarette and making little jokes. When I saw how well the two of them were getting along, I felt the first real ray of hope for the future of earth. Might it not turn out that the mother would save earth as once the daughter had?

Eveiything went along beautifully for a while. My-ex-ex was discoursing learnedly on a theory of cosmichemical philology, and Mother-in-law was nodding her head, sipping tea as she listened. The fire on the hearth crackled, and there was an air of good cheer, comfort and love in our house. My-ex-ex had put away his notebook and was flirting with my mother-in-law.

Then came wrestling.

My-ex-ex stared in hurt disbelief as my mother-in-law turned her back on him and leaned toward the television screen. He was about to continue his discussion when the Gorilla Kid got the anaconda hold on Elegant Eddie.

'Tear his arm off!" my mother-in-law screamed. "Break his back!"

My-ex-ex watched as the wrestlers gouged, kicked and twisted. His eyes were as big as teacups. "Wrestling," I whispered to him. "The women love to watch it, even if it isn't more than a farce."

"Beat his head against the post!" my mother-in-law screamed.

Professor My-ex-ex stood up. "I think I'll lie down for a while," he said weakly. Avoiding my mother-in-law's flailing fists, My-ex-ex went into the guest room and closed the door.

I waited a while, and when I heard no sound I went into the guest room to investigate. The room was empty, and the window was open. My heart stood still. My-ex-ex had fled. He was on his way to Adnaxas, and it was too late to stop him. We were doomed!

A piece of paper on the dresser caught my eye, and I read the message on it, written in a scholarly hand:

Dear Ex-my-ex,

I am returning to Adnaxas. I have been horrified by the violence of humans, and terrified by their idea of fun. I offer you this promise. I will never mention earth on Adnaxas if you will never let Earth know there is such a planet as Adnaxas. Since you fled we have a new Presidex and live peaceful, quiet lives. 1 shudder to think what our dear planet would be like if earthmen ever found it and moved in. Goodby forever. Regards to your family.

My-ex-ex

I read the message over and over. We were safe! Safe!

I went back into the living room. My wife and my mother-in-law were sitting quietly, now that the wrestling was over. They were talking about the price of yard goods.

"Where is your friend Professor Hoskins?" my mother-in-law asked me.

"He had to leave during the wrestling," I said. "He asked me to say goodby to you."

"He was a nice little man," my mother-in-law said. "But • he must have had his nose in a book all his life. I don't think that man ever went anywhere or did anything."

"By the way," my wife said to me. "Do you have your speech ready for the town assembly?"

I shook my head. "Can't think of an idea," I said helplessly.

"Well," my wife said, "the kids are all so crazy about science fiction, and you read it all the time yourself, why not give a talk telling why it is impossible to travel between planets?"

"Darling," I said, "that's a wonderful suggestion. It's time we talked about space travel in terms of cold facts instead of fiction. I'm just the man to prove it can't be done."

THE MACHINE STOPS

E. M. FORSTER

This story was written in 1909—the year that the Wright brothers formed their first corporation to manufacture "airships," and the year that the first radio "S-O-S" was ever sent—by Jack Binns, when his ship, the S.S. Republic, collided with the SJS. Florida. There were no hints of modern television, cybernetics, pushbutton living, intercommunication systems or fallout shelters. None of these bits of paraphernalia of the modern Machine that Forster imagines were in existence in those verdant days. Remember all this as you read this vision of the future by a thoughtful philosopher and one of the greatest prose stylists of our time.

Mr. Forster wrote the editor on February 10, 1962, concerning the origins of the story: "I have not the least recollection of what set it going, but it was a protest against one of the earlier heavens of H. G. Wells. It was variously judged and on the whole unfavourably. I remember reading it to a few friends, and the sole comment was Too long.'" The story was first published, according to Mr. Forster, "in a long-defunct and brief-lived periodical, The Oxford and Cambridge Review."

It must give the author a grimly ironic feeling, now, almost fifty-five years later, to read of plans for building underground cities against atomic attack. That was one invention he did not predict: the nuclear bomb.

I. the air-ship

Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee. It is lighted neither by window nor by lamp, yet it is filled with a soft radiance. There are no apertures for ventilation, yet the air is fresh. There are no musical instruments, and yet, at the moment that my meditation opens, this room is throbbing with melodious sounds. An arm-chair is in the centre, by its side a reading-desk—that is all the furniture. And in the arm-chair there sits a swaddled lump of flesh—a woman, about five feet high, with a face as white as a fungus. It is to her that the little room belongs. An electric bell rang.

The woman touched a switch and the music was silent.

"I suppose I must see who it is," she thought, and set her chair in motion. The chair, like the music, was worked by machinery, and it rolled her to the other side of the room, where the bell still rang importunately.

"Who is it?" she called Her voice was irritable, for she had been interrupted often since the music began. She knew several thousand people; in certain directions human intercourse had advanced enormously.

But when she listened into the receiver, her white face wrinkled into smiles, and she said:

"Very well. Let us talk. I will isolate myself. I do not expect anything important will happen for the next five minutes —for I can give you fully five minutes, Kuno. Then I must deliver my lecture on 'Music during the Australian Period.' "

She touched the isolation knob, so that no one else could speak to her. Then she touched the lighting apparatus, and the little room was plunged into darkness.

"Be quick!" she called her irritation returning. "Be quick, Kuno; here I am in the dark wasting my time."

But it was fully fifteen seconds before the round plate that she held in her hands began to glow. A faint blue light shot across it, darkening to purple, and presendy she could see the image of her son, who lived on the other side of the earth, and he could see her.

"Kuno, how slow you are."

He smiled gravely.

"I really believe you enjoy dawdling." "I have called you before, mother, but you were always busy or isolated. I have something particular to say."

"What is it, dearest boy? Be quick. Why could you not send it by pneumatic post?"

"Because I prefer saying such a thing. I want—" "Well?"

"I want you to come and see me." Vashti watched his face in the blue plate. "But I can see you!" she exclaimed. "What more do you want?"

"I want to see you not through the Machine," said Kuno. "I want to speak to you not through the wearisome Machine."

"Oh, hush!" said his mother, vaguely shocked. "You mustn't say anything against the Machine."

"Why not?"

"One mustn't."

"You talk as if a god had made the Machine," cried the other. "I believe that you pray to it when you are unhappy. Men made it, do not forget that. Great men, but men. The Machine is much, but it is hot everything. I see something like you in this plate, but I do not see you. I hear something like you through this telephone, but I do not hear you. That is why I want you to come. Come and stop with me. Pay me a visit, so that we can meet face to face, and talk about the hopes that are in my mind."

She replied that she could scarcely spare the time for a visit.

"The air-ship barely takes two days to fly between me and you."

"I dislike air-ships." "Why?"

"I dislike seeing the horrible brown earth, and the sea, and the stars when it is dark. I get no ideas in an air-ship." "I do not get them anywhere else." "What kind of ideas can the air give you?" He paused for an instant.

"Do you not know four big stars that form an oblong, and three stars close together in the middle of the oblong, and hanging from these stars, three other stars?"

"No, I do not. I dislike the stars. But did they give you an idea? How interesting; tell me."

"I had an idea that they were like a man." "I do not understand."

"The four big ones are the man's shoulders and his knees. The three stars in the middle are like the belts that men wore once, and the three stars hanging are like a sword."

"A swordr

"Men carried swords about with them, to kill animals and other men."

"It does not strike me as a very good idea, but it is certainly original. When did it come to you first?"

"In the air-ship—" He broke off and she fancied that he looked sad. She could not be sure, for the Machine did not transmit nuances of expression. It only gave a general idea of people—an idea that was good enough for all practical purposes, Vashti thought. The imponderable bloom, declared by a discredited philosophy to be the actual essence of intercourse, was rightly ignored by the Machine, just as the imponderable bloom of the grape was ignored by the manufacturers of artificial fruit. Something "good enough" had long since been accepted by our race.

"The truth is," he continued, "that I want to see these stars again. They are curious stars. I want to see them not from the air-ship, but from the surface of the earth, as our ancestors did, thousands of years ago. I want to visit the surface of the earth."

She was shocked again.

"Mother, you must come, if only to explain to me what is the harm of visiting the surface of the earth."

"No harm," she replied controlling herself. "But no advantage. The surface of the earth is only dust and mud, no life remains on it, and you would need a respirator, or the cold of the outer air would kill you. One dies immediately in the outer air."

"I know; of course I shall take all precautions."

"And besides—"

"Well?"

She considered, and chose her words with care. Her son had a queer temper, and she wished to dissuade him from the expedition.

"It is contrary to the spirit of the age," she asserted

"Do you mean by that, contrary to the Machine?"

"In a sense, but—"

His image in the blue plate faded.

"Kuno!"

He had isolated himself.

For a moment Vashti felt lonely.

Then she generated the light, and the sight of her room, flooded with radiance and studded with electric buttons, revived her. There were buttons and switches everywhere— buttons to call for food, for music, for clothing. There was the hot-bath button, by pressure of which a basin of (imitation) marble rose out of the floor, filled to the brim with a warm deodorized liquid. There was the cold-bath button. There was the button that produced literature. And there were of course the buttons by which she communicated with her friends. The room, though it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world.

Vashti's next move was to turn off the isolation-switch, and all the accumulations of the last three minutes burst upon her. The room was filled with the noise of bells, and speaking-tubes. What was the new food like? Could she recommend it? Had she had any ideas lately? Might one tell her one's own ideas? Would she make an engagement to visit the public nurseries at an early date?—say this day month.

To most of these questions she replied with irritation—a growing quality in that accelerated age. She said that the new food was horrible. That she could not visit the public nurseries through press of engagements. That she had no ideas of her own but had just been told one—that four stars and three in the middle were like a man: she doubted there was much in it. Then she switched off her correspondents, for it was time to deliver her lecture on Australian music.

The clumsy system of public gatherings had been long since abandoned; neither Vashti nor her audience stirred from their rooms. Seated in her arm-chair she spoke, while they in their arm-chairs heard her, fairly well, and saw her, fairly well. She opened with a humorous account of music in the pre-Mongolian epoch, and went on to describe the great outburst of song that followed the Chinese conquest.

Remote and primeval as were the methods of I-San-So and the Brisbane school, she yet felt (she said) that study of them might repay the musician of today: they had freshness; they had, above all, ideas.

Her lecture, which lasted ten minutes, was well received, and at its conclusion she and many of her audience listened to a lecture on the sea; there were ideas to be got from the sea; the speaker had donned a respirator and visited it lately. Then she fed, talked to many friends, had a bath, talked again, and summoned her bed.

The bed was not to her liking. It was too large, and she had a feeling for a small bed. Complaint was useless, for beds were of the same dimension all over the world, and to have had an alternative size would have involved vast alterations in the Machine. Vashti isolated herself—it was necessary, for neither day nor night existed under the ground—and reviewed all that had happened since she had summoned the bed last. Ideas? Scarcely any. Events—was Kuno's invitation an event?

By her side, on the little reading-desk, was a survival from the ages of litter—one book. This was the Book of the Machine. In it were instructions against every possible contingency. If she was hot or cold or dyspeptic or at a loss for a word, she went to the book, and it told her which button to press. The Central Committee published it. In accordance with a growing habit, it was richly bound.

Sitting up in bed, she took it reverentiy in her hands. She glanced round the glowing room as if someone might be watching her. Then, half ashamed, half joyful, she murmured "O Machine! O Machine!" and raised the volume to her hps. Thrice she kissed it, thrice mclined her head thrice she felt the delirium of acquiescence. Her ritual performed, she turned to page 1367, which gave the times of the departure of the air-ships from the island in the southern hemisphere, under whose soil she lived, to the island in the northern hemisphere, whereunder lived her son.

She thought, "I have not the time."

She made the room dark and slept; she awoke and made the room light; she ate and exchanged ideas with her friends, and listened to music and attended lectures; she made the room dark and slept. Above her, beneath her, and around her, the Machine hummed eternally; she did not notice the noise, for she had been born with it in her ears. The earth, carrying her, hummed as it sped through silence, turning her now to the invisible sun, now to the invisible stars. She awoke and made the room light. "Kuno!"

"I will not talk to you," he answered, "until you come." "Have you been on the surface of the earth since we spoke last?"

His image faded.

Again she consulted the book. She became very nervous and lay back in her chair palpitating. Think of her as without teeth or hair. Presently she directed the chair to the wall, and pressed an unfamiliar button. The wall swung apart slowly. Through the opening she saw a tunnel that curved slightly, so that its goal was not visible. Should she go to see her son, here was the beginning of the journey.

Of course she knew all about the communication-system. There was nothing mysterious in it. She would summon a car and it would fly with her down the tunnel until it reached the lift that communicated with the air-ship station: the system had been in use for many, many years, long before the universal establishment of the Machine. And of course she had studied the civilization that had immediately preceded her own—the civilization that had mistaken the functions of the system, and had used it for bringing people to things, instead of for bringing things to people. Those funny old days, when men went for change of air instead of changing the air in their rooms! And yet—she was frightened of the tunnel: she had not seen it since her last child was born. It curved—but not quite as she remembered; it was brilliant— but not quite as brilliant as a lecturer had suggested. Vashti was seized with the terrors of direct experience. She shrank back into the room, and the wall closed up again.

"riuno," she said, "I cannot come to see you. I am not well."

Immediately an enormous apparatus fell on to her out of the ceiling, a thermometer was automatically inserted between her lips, a stethoscope was automatically laid upon her heart. She lay powerless. Cool pads soothed her forehead. Kuno had telegraphed to her doctor.

So the human passions still blundered up and down in the Machine. Vashti drank the medicine that the doctor projected into her mouth, and the machinery retired into the ceiling. The voice of Kuno was heard asking how she felt

"Better." Then with irritation: "But why do you not come to me instead?"

"Because I cannot leave this place."

"Why?"

"Because, any moment something tremendous may happen."

"Have you been on the surface of the earth yet?" "Not yet." "Then what is it?"

"I will not tell you through the Machine." She resumed her life.

But she thought of Kuno as a baby, his birth, his removal to the public nurseries, her one visit to him there, his visits to her —visits which stopped when the Machine had assigned him a room on the other side of the earth. "Parents, duties of," said the book of the Machine, "cease at the moment of birth. P. 422327483." True, but there was something special about Kuno—indeed there had been something special about all her children—and, after all, she must brave the journey if he desired it And "something tremendous might happen." What did that mean? The nonsense of a youthful man, no doubt but she must go. Again she pressed the unfamiliar button, again the wall swung back, and she saw the tunnel that curved out of sight. Clasping the Book, she rose, tottered onto the platform, and summoned the car. Her room closed behind her: the journey to the northern hemisphere had begun.

Of course it was perfectly easy. The car approached and in it she found arm-chairs exactly like her own. When she signalled, it stopped, and she tottered into the lift. One other passenger was in the lift, the first fellow creature she had seen face to face for months. Few travelled in these days, for, thanks to the advance of science, the earth was exactly alike all over. Rapid intercourse, from which the previous civilization had hoped so much, had ended by defeating itself. What was the good of going to Pekin when it was just like Shrewsbury? Why return to Shrewsbury when it would be just like Pekin? Men seldom moved their bodies; all unrest was concentrated in the soul.

The air-ship service was a relic from the former age. It was kept up, because it was easier to keep it up than to stop it or to diminish it, but it now far exceeded the wants of the population. Vessel after vessel would rise from the vomitories of Rye or of Christchurch (I use the antique names), would sail into the crowded sky, and would draw up at the wharves of the south—empty. So nicely adjusted was the system, so independent of meteorology, that the sky, whether calm or cloudy, resembled a vast kaleidoscope whereon the same patterns periodically recurred. The ship on which Vashti sailed started now at sunset, now at dawn. But always, as it passed above Rheims, it would neighbour the ship that served between Helsingfors and the Brazils, and, every third time it surmounted the Alps, the fleet of Palermo would cross its track behind. Night and day, wind and storm, tide and earthquake, impeded man no longer. He had harnessed Leviathan. All the old literature, with its praise of Nature, and its fear of Nature, rang false as the prattle of a child.

Yet as Vashti saw the vast flank of the ship, stained with exposure to the outer air, her horror of direct experience returned. It was not quite like the air-ship in the cinemato-phote. For one thing it smelled—not strongly or unpleasantly, but it did smell, and with her eyes shut she should have known that a new thing was close to her. Then she had to walk to it from the lift, had to submit to glances from the other passengers. The man in front dropped his Book—no great matter, but it disquieted them all. In the rooms, if the Book was dropped, the floor raised it mechanically, but the gangway to the air-ship was not so prepared, and the sacred volume lay motionless. They stopped—the thing was unfor-seen—and the man, instead of picking up his property, felt the muscles of his arm to see how they had failed him. Then some one actually said with direct utterance: "We shall be late"—and they trooped on board, Vashti treading on the pages as she did so.

Inside, her anxiety increased. The arrangements were oldfashioned and rough. There was even a female attendant, to whom she would have to announce her wants during the voyage. Of course a revolving platform ran the length of the boat, but she was expected to walk from it to her cabin. Some cabins were better than others, and she did not get the best. She thought the attendant had been unfair, and spasms of rage shook her. The glass valves had closed, she could not go back. She saw, at the end of the vestibule, the lift in which she had ascended going quietly up and down, empty. Beneath those corridors of sinning tiles were rooms, tier below tier, reaching far into the earth, and in each room there sat a human being, eating, or sleeping, or producing ideas. And buried deep in the hive was her own room. Vashti was afraid.

"O Machine! O Machine!" she murmured, and caressed her Book, and was comforted.

Then the sides of the vestibule seemed to melt together, as do the passages that we see in dreams, the lift vanished, the Book that had been dropped slid to the left and vanished, polished tiles rushed by like a stream of water, there was a slight jar, and the air-ship, issuing from its tunnel, soared above the waters of a tropical ocean.

It was night. For a moment she saw the coast of Sumatra edged by the phosphorescence of waves, and crowned by lighthouses, still sending forth their disregarded beams. These also vanished, and only the stars distracted her. They were not motionless, but swayed to and fro above her head, thronging out of one skylight into another, as if the universe and not the air-ship was careening. And, as often happens on clear nights, they seemed now to be in perspective, now on a plane; now piled tier beyond tier into the infinite heavens, now concealing infinity, a roof limiting forever the visions of men. In either case they seemed intolerable. "Are we to travel in the dark?" called the passengers angrily, and the attendant, who had been careless, generated the light, and pulled down the blinds of pliable metal. When the air-ships had been built, the desire to look direct at things still lingered in the world. Hence the extraordinary number of skylights and windows, and the proportionate discomfort to those who were civilized and refined. Even in Vashti's cabin one star peeped through a flaw in the blind and after a few hours' uneasy slumber, she was disturbed by an unfamiliar glow, which was the dawn.

Quick as the ship had sped westwards, the earth had rolled eastwards quicker still, and had dragged back Vashti and her companions towards the sun. Science could prolong the night, but only for a little, and those high hopes of neutralizing the earth's diurnal revolution had passed, together with hopes that were possibly higher. To "keep pace with the sun," or even to outstrip it, had been the aim of the civilization preceding this. Racing aeroplanes had been built for the purpose, capable of enormous speed, and steered by the greatest intellects of the epoch. Round the globe they went, round and round, westward, westward, round and round, amidst humanity's applause. In vain. The globe went eastward quicker still, horrible accidents occurred, and the Committee of the Machine, at the time rising into prominence, declared the pursuit illegal, unmechanical, and punishable by Homelessness.

Of Homelessness more will be said later.

Doubtless the Committee was right. Yet the attempt to "defeat the sun" aroused the last common interest that our race experienced about the heavenly bodies, or indeed about anything. It was the last time that men were compacted by thinking of a power outside the world. The sun had conquered, yet it was the end of his spiritual dominion. Dawn, midday, twilight, the zodiacal path, touched neither men's lives nor their hearts, and science retreated into the ground, to concentrate herself upon problems that she was certain of solving.

So when Vashti found her cabin invaded by a rosy finger of light, she was annoyed, and tried to adjust the blind. But the blind flew up altogether, and she saw through the skylight small pink clouds, swaying against a background of blue, and as the sun crept higher, its radiance entered direct, brimming down the wall, like a golden sea. It rose and fell with the air-ship's motion, just as waves rise and fall, but it advanced steadily, as a tide advances. Unless she was careful, it would strike her face. A spasm of horror shook her and she rang for the attendant. The attendant too was horrified, but she could do nothing; it was not her place to mend the blind. She could only suggest that the lady should change her cabin, which she accordingly prepared to do.

People were almost exactly alike all over the world, but the attendant of the air-ship, perhaps owing to her exceptional duties, had grown a little out of the common. She had often to address passengers with direct speech, and this had given her a certain roughness and originality of manner. When Vashti swerved away from the sunbeams with a cry, she behaved barbarically—she put out her hand to steady her.

"How dare you!" exclaimed the passenger. "You forget yourself!"

The woman was confused, and apologized for not having let her fall. People never touched one another. The custom had become obsolete, owing to the Machine.

"Where are we now?" asked Vashti haughtily.

"We are over Asia," said the attendant, anxious to be polite.

"Asia?"

"You must excuse my common way of speaking. I have got into the habit of calling places over which I pass by their unmechanical names."

"Oh, I remember Asia. The Mongols came from it."

"Beneath us, in the open air, stood a city that was once called Simla."

"Have you ever heard of the Mongols and of the Brisbane school?" "No."

"Brisbane also stood in the open air."

"Those mountains to the right—let me show you them" She pushed back a metal blind. The main chain of the Himalayas was revealed. "They were once called the Roof of the World, those mountains."

"What a foolish name!"

"You must remember that, before the dawn of civilization, they seemed to be an impenetrable wall that touched the stars. It was supposed that no one but the gods could exist above their summits. How we have advanced, thanks to the Machine!"

"How we have advanced, thanks to the Machine!" said Vashti.

"How we have advanced, thanks to the Machine!" echoed the passenger who had dropped his Book the night before, and who was standing in the passage.

"And that white stuff in the cracks?—what is it?"

"I have forgotten its name."

"Cover the window, please. These mountains give me no ideas."

The northern aspect of the Himalayas was in deep shadow: on the Indian slope the sun had just prevailed. The forests had been destroyed during the literature epoch for the purpose of making newspaper-pulp, but the snows were awakening to their morning glory, and clouds still hung on the breasts of Kmchinjunga. In the plain were seen the ruins of cities, with diminished rivers creeping by their walls, and by the sides of these were sometimes the signs of vomitories, marking the cities of today. Over the whole prospect air-ships rushed, crossing and intercrossing with incredible aplomb, and rising nonchalantly when they desired to escape the perturbations of the lower atmosphere and to traverse the Roof of the World.

"We have indeed advanced, thanks to the Machine," repeated the attendant, and hid the Himalayas behind a metal blind.

The day dragged wearily forward. The passengers sat each in his cabin, avoiding one another with an almost physical repulsion and longing to be once more under the surface of the earth. There were eight or ten of them, mostly young males, sent out from the public nurseries to inhabit the rooms of those who had died in various parts of the earth. The man who had dropped his Book was on the homeward journey. He had been sent to Sumatra for the purpose of propagating the race. Vashti alone was travelling by her private will.

At midday she took a second glance at the earth. The airship was crossing another range of mountains, but she could see little, owing to clouds. Masses of black rock hovered below her, and merged indistinctly into gray. Their shapes were fantastic; one of them resembled a prostrate man.

"No ideas here," murmured Vashti, and hid the Caucasus behind a metal blind.

In the evening she looked again. They were crossing a golden sea, in which lay many small islands and one peninsula.

She repeated, "No ideas here," and hid Greece behind a metal blind.

ii. the mending apparatus

By a vestibule, by a lift, by a tubular railway, by a platform, by a sliding door—by reversing all the steps of her departure did Vashti arrive at her son's room, which exactly resembled her own. She might well declare that the visit was superfluous. The buttons, the knobs, the reading-desk with the Book, the temperature, the atmosphere, the illumination —all were exactly the same. And if Kuno himself, flesh of her flesh, stood close beside her at last, what profit was there in that? She was too well-bred to shake him by the hand.

Averting her eyes, she spoke as follows:

"Here I am. I have had the most terrible journey and greatly retarded the development of my soul. It is not worth it, Kuno, it is not worth it. My time is too precious. The sunlight almost touched me, and I have met the rudest people. I can only stop for a few minutes. Say what you want to say, and then I must return."

"I have been threatened with Homelessness," said Kuno.

She looked at him now.

"I have been threatened with Homelessness, and I could not tell you such a thing through the Machine."

Homelessness means death. The victim is exposed to the air, which kills him.

"I have been outside since I spoke to you last. The tremendous thing has happened, and they have discovered me."

"But why shouldn't you go outside!" she exclaimed. "It is perfectly legal, perfectly mechanical, to visit the surface of the earth. I have lately been to a lecture on the sea; there is no objection to that; one simply summons a respirator and gets an Egression-permit It is not the kind of thing that spiritually-minded people do, and I begged you not to do it, but there is no legal objection to it."

"I did not get an Egression-permit."

"Then how did you get out?"

"I found out a way of my own."

The phrase conveyed no meaning to her, and he had to repeat it.

"A way of your own?" she whispered. "But that would be wrong." "Why?"

The question shocked her beyond measure.

"You are beginning to worship the Machine," he said coldly. "You think it irreligious of me to have found out a way of my own. It was just what the Committee thought, when they threatened me with Homelessness."

At this she grew angry. "I worship nothing!" she cried. "I am most advanced. I don't think you irreligious, for there is no such thing as religion left. All the fear and the superstition that existed once have been destroyed by the Machine. I only meant that to find out a way of your own was— Besides, there is no new way out."

"So it is always supposed."

"Except through the vomitories, for which one must have an Egression-permit, it is impossible to get out. The Book says so."

"Well, the Book's wrong, for I have been out on my feet."

For Kuno was possessed of a certain physical strength.

By these days it was a demerit to be muscular. Each infant was examined at birth, and all who promised undue strength were destroyed. Humanitarians may protest, but it would have been no true kindness to let an athlete live; he would never have been happy in that state of life to which the Machine had called him; he would have yearned for trees to climb, rivers to bathe in, meadows and hills against which he might measure his body. Man must be adapted to his surroundings, must he not? In the dawn of the world our weakly must be exposed on Mount Taygetus, in its twilight our strong will suffer euthanasia, that the Machine may progress, that the Machine may progress, that the Machine may progress eternally.

"You know that we have lost the sense of space. We say 'space is annihilated,' but we have annihilated not space, but the sense thereof. We have lost a part of ourselves. I determined to recover it, and I began by walking up and down the platform of the railway outside my room. Up and down, until I was tired, and so did recapture the meaning of 'Near' and 'Far.' 'Near' is a place to which I can get quickly on my feet, not a place to which the train or the air-ship will take me quickly. 'Far' is a place to which I cannot get quickly on my feet; the vomitory is 'far,' though I could be there in thirty-eight seconds by summoning the train. Man is the measure. That was my first lesson. Man's feet are the measure for distance, his hands are the measure for ownership, his body is

the measure for all that is lovable and desirable and strong. Then I went further: it was then that I called to you for the first time, and you would not come.

"This city, as you know, is built deep beneath the surface of the earth, with only the vomitories protruding. Having paced the platform outside my own room, I took the lift to the next platform and paced that also, and so with each in turn, until I came to the topmost, above which begins the earth. All the platforms were exactly alike, and all that I gained by visiting them was to develop my sense of space and my muscles. I think I should have been content with this—it is not a little thing—but as I walked and brooded, it occurred to me that our cities had been built in the days when men still breathed the outer air, and that there had been ventilation shafts for the workmen. I could think of nothing but these ventilation shafts. Had they been destroyed by all the food-tubes and medicine-tubes and music-tubes that the Machine has evolved lately? Or did traces of them remain? One thing was certain. If I came upon them anywhere, it would be in the railway-tunnels of the topmost story. Everywhere else, all space was accounted for.

"I am telling my story quickly, but don't think that I was not a coward or that your answers never depressed me. It is not the proper thing, it is not mechanical, it is not decent to walk along a railway-tunnel. I did not fear that I might tread upon a live rail and be killed. I feared something far more tangible—doing what was not contemplated by the Machine.

Then I said to myself, 'Man is the measure,' and I went, and after many visits I found an opening.

"The tunnels, of course, were lighted. Everything is light, artificial light; darkness is the exception. So when I saw a black gap in the tiles, I knew that it was an exception, and rejoiced. I put in my arm—I could put in no more at first— and waved it round and round in ecstasy. I loosened another tile, and put in my head, and shouted into the darkness: 'I am coming, I shall do it yet,' and my voice reverberated down endless passages. I seemed to hear the spirits of those dead workmen who had returned each evening to the starlight and to their wives, and all the generations who had lived in the open air called back to me, 'You will do it yet, you are coming.'"

He paused, and, absurd as he was, his last words moved her. For Kuno had lately asked to be a father, and his request had been refused by the Committee. His was not a type that the Machine desired to hand on.

"Then a train passed. It brushed by me, but I thrust my head and arms into the hole. I had done enough for one day, so I crawled back to the platform, went down in the lift, and summoned my bed. Ah, what dreams! And again I called you, and again you refused."

She shook her head and said:

"Don't. Don't talk of these terrible things. You make me miserable. You are throwing civilization away."

"But I had got back the sense of space and a man cannot rest then. I determined to get in at the hole and climb the shaft. And so I exercised my arms. Day after day I went through ridiculous movements, until my flesh ached, and I could hang by my hands and hold the pillow of my bed outstretched for many minutes. Then I summoned a respirator, and started.

"It was easy at first. The mortar had somehow rotted, and I soon pushed some more tiles in, and clambered after them into the darkness, and the spirits of the dead comforted me. I don't know what I mean by that. I just say what I felt. I felt, for the first time, that a protest had been lodged against corruption, and that even as the dead were comforting me, so I was comforting the unborn. I felt that humanity existed, and that it existed without clothes. How can I possibly explain this? It was naked, humanity seemed naked, and all these tubes and buttons and machineries neither came into the world with us, nor will they follow us out, nor do they matter supremely while we are here. Had I been strong, I would have torn off every garment I had, and gone out into the outer air unswaddled. But this is not for me, nor perhaps for my generation. I climbed with my respirator and my hygienic clothes and my dietetic tabloids! Better thus than not at all.

"There was a ladder, made of some primeval metal. The light from the railway fell upon its lowest rungs, and I saw that it led straight upwards out of the rubble at the bottom of the shaft. Perhaps our ancestors ran up and down it a dozen times daily, in their building. As I climbed, the rough edges cut through my gloves so that my hands bled. The light helped me for a little, and then came darkness and, worse still, silence which pierced my ears like a sword. The Machine hums! Did you know that? Its hum penetrates our blood, and may even guide our thoughts. Who knows! I was getting beyond its power. Then I thought: 'This silence means that I am doing wrong.' But I heard voices in the silence, and again they strengthened me." He laughed. "I had need of them. The next moment I cracked my head against something."

She sighed.

"I had reached one of those pneumatic stoppers that defend us from the outer air. You may have noticed them on the air-ship. Pitch dark, my feet on the rungs of an invisible ladder, my hands cut; I cannot explain how I lived through this part, but the voices still comforted me, and I felt for fastenings. The stopper, I suppose, was about eight feet across. I passed my hand over it as far as I could reach. It was perfectly smooth. I felt it almost to the centre. Not quite to the centre, for my arm was too short. Then the voice said: 'Jump. It is worth it. There may be a handle in the centre, and you may catch hold of it and so come to us your own way. And if there is no handle, so that you may fall and are dashed to pieces—it is still worth it: you will come to us your own way.' So I jumped. There was a handle, and—"

He paused. Tears gathered in his mother's eyes. She knew that he was fated. If he did not die today he would die tomorrow. There was not room for such a person in the world. And with her pity disgust mingled. She was ashamed at having borne such a son, she who had always been so respectable and so full of ideas. Was he really the little boy to whom she had taught the use of his stops and buttons, and to whom she had given his first lessons in the Book? The very hair that disfigured his lip showed that he was reverting to some savage type. On atavism the Machine can have no mercy.

"There was a handle, and I did catch it. I hung tranced over the darkness and heard the hum of these workings as the last whisper in a dying dream. All the things I had cared about and all the people I had spoken to through the tubes appeared infinitely little. Meanwhile the handle revolved. My weight had set something in motion and I span slowly, and then—

"I cannot describe it. I was lying with my face to the sunshine. Blood poured from my nose and ears and I heard a tremendous roaring. The stopper, with me clinging to it, had simply been blown out of the earth, and the air that we make down here was escaping through the vent into the air above. It burst up like a fountain. I crawled back to it—for the upper air hurts—and, as it were, I took great sips from the edge. My respirator had flown goodness knows where, my clothes were torn. I just lay with my lips close to the hole, and I sipped until the bleeding stopped. You can imagine nothing so curious. This hollow in the grass—I will speak of it in a minute,—the sun shining into it, not brilliantly but through marbled clouds,—the peace, the nonchalance, the sense of space, and, brushing my cheek, the roaring fountain of our artificial air! Soon I spied my respirator, bobbing up and down in the current high above my head, and higher still were many air-ships. But no one ever looks out of air-ships, and in my case they could not have picked me up. There I was, stranded. The sun shone a little way down the shaft, and revealed the topmost rung of the ladder, but it was hopeless trying to reach it. I should either have been tossed up again by the escape, or else have fallen in, and died. I could only lie on the grass, sipping and sipping, and from time to time glancing around me.

"I knew that I was in Wessex, for I had taken care to go to a lecture on the subject before starting. Wessex lies above the room in which we are talking now. It was once an important state. Its kings held all the southern coast from the An-dredswald to Cornwall, while the Wansdyke protected them on the north, running over the high ground. The lecturer was only concerned with the rise of Wessex, so I do not know how long it remained an international power, nor would the knowledge have assisted me. To tell the truth I could do nothing but laugh during this part. There was I, with a pneumatic stopper by my side and a respirator bobbing over my head, imprisoned, all three of us, in a grass-grown hollow that was edged with fern." Then he grew grave again.

"Lucky for me that it was a hollow. For the air began to fall back into it and to fill it as water fills a bowl. I could crawl about. Presently I stood. I breathed a mixture, in which the air that hurts predominated whenever I tried to climb the sides. This was not so bad. I had not lost my tabloids and remained ridiculously cheerful, and as for the Machine, I forgot about it altogether. My one aim now was to get to the top, where the ferns were, and to view whatever objects lay beyond.

"I rushed the slope. The new air was still too bitter for me and I came rolling back, after a momentary vision of something gray. The sun grew very feeble, and I remembered that he was in Scorpio—I had been to a lecture on that too. If the sun is in Scorpio and you are in Wessex, it means that you must be as quick as you can, or it will get too dark. (This is the first bit of useful information I have ever got from a lecture, and I expect it will be the last.) It made me try frantically to breathe the new air, and to advance as far as I dared out of my pond. The hollow filled so slowly. At tinies I thought that the fountain played with less vigour. My respirator seemed to dance nearer the earth; the roar was decreasing."

He broke off.

"I don't think this is interesting you. The rest will interest you even less. There are no ideas in it, and I wish that I had not troubled you to come. We are too different, mother."

She told him to continue.

"It was evening before I climbed the bank. The sun had very nearly slipped out of the sky by this time, and I could not get a good view. You, who have just crossed the Roof of the World, will not want to hear an account of the little hills that I saw—low colourless hills. But to me they were living and the turf that covered them was a skin, under which their .muscles rippled, and I felt that those hills had called with incalculable force to men in the past, and that men had loved them. Now they sleep—perhaps for ever. They commune with humanity in dreams. Happy the man, happy the woman, who awakes the hills of Wessex. For though they sleep, they will never die."

His voice rose passionately.

"Cannot you see, cannot all your lecturers see, that it is we who are dying, and that down here the only thing that really lives is the Machine? We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act, it has paralyzed our bodies and our wills, and now it compels us to worship it. The Machine develops—but not on our lines. The Machine proceeds—but not to our goal. We only exist as the blood corpuscles that course through its arteries, and if it could work without us, it would let us die. Oh, I have no remedy—or, at least, only one—to tell men again and again that I have seen the hills of Wessex as Aelfrid saw them when he overthrew the Danes.

"So the sun set. I forgot to mention that a belt of mist lay between my hill and other hills, and that it was the colour of pearl."

He broke off for the second time. "Go on," said his mother wearily. He shook his head.

"Go on. Nothing that you say can distress me now. I am hardened."

"I had meant to tell you the rest, but I cannot: I know that I cannot: good-bye."

Vashti stood irresolute. All her nerves were tingling with his blasphemies. But she was also inquisitive.

'This is unfair," she complained. "You have called me across the world to hear your story, and hear it I will. Tell me—as briefly as possible, for this is a disastrous waste of time—tell me how you returned to civilization."

"Oh—that!" he said, starting. "You would like to hear about civilization. Certainly. Had I got to where my respirator fell down?"

"No—but I understand everything now. You put on your respirator, and managed to walk along the surface of the earth to a vomitory, and there your conduct was reported to the Central Committee."

"By no means."

He passed his hand over his forehead, as if dispelling some strong impression. Then, resuming his narrative, he warmed to it again.

"My respirator fell about sunset. I had mentioned that the fountain seemed feebler, had I not?" "Yes."

"About sunset, it let the respirator fall. As I said, I had entirely forgotten about the Machine, and I paid no great attention at the time, being occupied with other things. I had my pool of air, into which I could dip when the outer keenness became intolerable, and which would possibly remain for days, provided that no wind sprang up to disperse it. Not until it was too late, did I realize what the stoppage of the escape implied. You see—the gap in the tunnel had been mended; the Mending Apparatus; the Mending Apparatus, was after me.

"One other warning I had, but I neglected it. The sky at night was clearer than it had been in the day, and the moon, which was about half the sky behind the sun, shone into the dell at moments quite brightly. I was in my usual place—on the boundary between the two atmospheres—when I thought I saw something dark move across the bottom of the dell, and vanish into the shaft. In my folly, I ran down. I bent over and listened, and I thought I heard a faint scraping noise in the depths.

"At this—but it was too late—I took alarm. I determined to put on my respirator and to walk right out of the dell. But my respirator had gone. I knew exactly where it had fallen—between the stopper and the aperture—and I could even feel the mark that it had made in the turf. It had gone, and I realized that something evil was at work, and I had better escape to the other air, and, if I must die, die running towards the cloud that had been the colour of a pearl. I never started. Out of the shaft—it is too horrible. A worm, a long white worm, had crawled out of the shaft and was gliding over the moonlit grass.

"I screamed. I did everything that I should not have done, I stamped upon the creature instead of flying from it, and it at once curled round the ankle. Then we fought. The worm let me run all over the dell, but edged up my leg as I ran. 'Help!' I cried. (That part is too awful. It belongs to the part that you will never know.) 'Help!' I cried. (Why cannot we suffer in silence?) 'Help!' I cried. Then my feet were wound together, I fell, I was dragged away from the dear ferns and the living hills, and past the great metal stopper (I can tell you this part), and I thought it might save me again if I caught hold of the handle. It also was enwrapped, it also. Oh, the whole dell was full of the things. They were searching it in all directions, they were denuding it, and the white snouts of others peeped out of the hole, ready if needed. Everything that could be moved they brought—brushwood, bundles of fern, everything, and down we all went intertwined into hell. The last things that I saw, ere the stopper closed after us, were certain stars, and I felt that a man of my sort lived in the sky. For I did fight, I fought till the very end, and it was only my head hitting against the ladder that quieted me. I woke up in this room. The worms had vanished. I was surrounded by artificial air, artificial light, artificial peace, and my friends were calling to me down speaking-tubes to know whether I had come across any new ideas lately."

Here his story ended. Discussion of it was impossible, and Vashti turned to go.

"It will end in Homelessness," she said quietly. "I wish it would," retorted Kuno. "The Machine has been most merciful." "I prefer the mercy of God."

"By that superstitious phrase, do you mean that you could live in the outer air?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever seen, round the vomitories, the bones of those who were extruded after the Great Rebellion?" "Yes."

"They were left where they perished for our edification. A few crawled away, but they perished, too—who can doubt it? And so with the Homeless of our own day. The surface of the earth supports life no longer."

"Indeed."

"Ferns and a little grass may survive, but all higher forms have perished. Has any air-ship detected them?" "No."

"Has any lecturer dealt with them?" "No."

"Then why this obstinacy?"

"Because I have seen them," he exploded.

"Seen what?"

"Because I have seen her in the twilight—because she came to my help when I called—because she, too, was entangled by the worms, and, luckier than I, was killed by one of them piercing her throat."

He was mad. Vashti departed, nor, in the troubles that followed, did she ever see his face again.

iii. the homeless

During the years that followed Kuno's escapade, two important developments took place in the Machine. On the surface they were revolutionary, but in either case men's minds had been prepared beforehand, and they did not express tendencies that were latent already.

The first of these was the abolition of respirators.

Advanced thinkers, like Vashti, had always held it foolish to visit the surface of the earth. Air-ships might be necessary, but what was the good of going out for mere curiosity and crawling along for a mile or two in a terrestrial motor? The habit was vulgar and perhaps faintly improper: it was unproductive of ideas, and had no connection with the habits that really mattered. So respirators were abolished, and with them, of course, the terrestrial motors, and except for a few lecturers, who complained that they were debarred access to their subject-matter, the development was accepted quietly. Those who still wanted to know what the earth was like had after all only to listen to some gramophone, or to look into some cinematophote. And even the lecturers acquiesced when they found that a lecture on the sea was none the less stimulating when compiled out of other lectures that had already been delivered on the same subject. "Beware of firsthand ideas!" exclaimed one of the most advanced of them. "First-hand ideas do not really exist. They are but the physical impressions produced by love and fear, and on this gross foundation who could erect a philosophy? Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from the disturbing element—direct observation. Do not learn anything about this subject of mine— the French Revolution. Learn instead what I think that Enicharmon thought Urizen thought Gutch thought Ho-Yung thought Chi-Bo-Sing thought Lafcadio Hearn thought Carlyle thought Mirabeau said about the French Revolution. Through the medium of these eight great minds, the blood that was shed at Paris and the windows that were broken at Versailles will be clarified to an idea which you may employ most profitably in your daily lives. But be sure that the intermediates are many and varied, for in history one authority exists to counteract another. Urizen must • counteract the scepticism of Ho-Yung and Enicharmon, I must myself counteract the impetuosity of Gutch. You who listen to me are in a better position to judge about the French Revolution than I am. Your descendants will be even in a better position than you, for they will learn what you think I think, and yet another intermediate will be added to the chain. And in time" —his voice rose—"there will come a generation that has got beyond facts, beyond impressions, a generation absolutely colourless, a generation

'seraphically free From taint of personality,'

which will see the French Revolution not as it happened, nor as they would like it to have happened, but as it would have happened, had it taken place in the days of the Machine."

Tremendous applause greeted this lecture, which did but voice a feeling already latent in the minds of men—a feeling that terrestrial facts must be ignored, and that the abolition of respirators was a positive gain. It was even suggested that air-ships should be abolished too. This was not done, because air-ships had somehow worked themselves into the Machine's system. But year by year they were used less, and mentioned less by thoughtful men.

The second great development was the re-establishment of religion.

This, too, had been voiced in the celebrated lecture. No one could mistake the reverent tone in which the peroration had concluded, and it awakened a responsive echo in the heart of each. Those who had long worshipped silently, now began to talk. They described the strange feeling of peace that came over them when they handled the Book of the Machine, the pleasure that it was to repeat certain numerals out of it, however little meaning those numerals conveyed to the outward ear, the ecstasy of touching a button, however unimportant, or of ringing an electric bell, however superfluously.

"The Machine," they exclaimed, "feeds us and clothes us and houses us; through it we speak to one another, through it we see one another, in it we have our being. The Machine is the friend of ideas and the enemy of superstition; the

Machine is omnipotent, eternal; blessed is the Machine." And before long this allocution was printed on the first page of the Book, and in subsequent editions the ritual swelled into a complicated system of praise and prayer. The word "religion" was sedulously avoided, and in theory the Machine was still the creation and the implement of man. But in practice all, save a few retrogrades, worshipped it as divine. Nor was it worshipped in unity. One believer would be chiefly impressed by the blue optic plates, through which he saw other believers; another by the mending apparatus, which sinful Kuno had compared to worms; another by the lifts, another by the Book. And each would pray to this or to that, and ask it to intercede for him with the Machine as a whole. Persecution—that also was present. It did not break out, for reasons that will be set forward shortly. But it was latent, and all who did not accept the minimum known as "undenominational Mechanism" lived in danger of Homelessness, which means death, as we know.

To attribute these two great developments to the Central Committee, is to take a very narrow view of civilization. The Central Committee announced the developments, it is true, but they were no more the cause of them than were the kings of the imperialistic period the cause of war. Rather did they yield to some invincible pressure, which came no one knew whither, and which, when gratified, was succeeded by some new pressure equally invincible. To such a state of affairs it is convenient to give the name of progress. No one confessed the Machine was out of hand. Year by year it was served with increased efficiency and decreased intelligence. The better a man knew his own duties upon it, the less he understood the duties of his neighbour, and in all the world there was not one who understood the monster as a whole. Those master brains had perished. They had left full directions, it is true, and their successors had each of them mastered a portion of those directions. But Humanity, in its desire for comfort, had overreached itself. It had exploited the riches of nature too far. Quietly and complacently, it was sinking into decadence, and progress had come to mean the progress of the Machine.

As for Vashti, her life went peacefully forward until the final disaster. She made her own room dark and slept; she awoke and made the room light. She lectured and attended lectures. She exchanged ideas with her innumerable friends and believed she was growing more spiritual. At times a friend was granted Euthanasia, and left his or her room for the homelessness that is beyond all human conception. Vashti did not much mind. After an unsuccessful lecture, she would sometimes ask for Euthanasia herself. But the death-rate was not permitted to exceed the birth-rate, and the Machine had hitherto refused it to her.

The troubles began quietly, long before she was conscious of them.

One day she was astonished at receiving a message from her son. They never communicated, having nothing in common, and she had only heard indirectly that he was still alive, and had been transferred from the northern hemisphere, where he had behaved so mischievously, to the southern— indeed, to a room not far from her own.

"Does he want me to visit him?" she thought. "Never again, never. And I have not the time."

No, it was madness of another kind.

He refused to visualize his face upon the blue plate, and speaking out of the darkness with solemnity said:

"The Machine stops."

"What do you say?"

"The Machine is stopping, I know it, I know the signs."

She burst into a peal of laughter. He heard her and was angry, and they spoke no more.

"Can you imagine anything more absurd?" she cried to a friend. "A man who was my son believes that the Machine is stopping. It would be impious if it was not mad."

"The Machine is stopping?" her friend replied. "What does that mean? The phrase conveys nothing to me."

"Nor to me."

"He does not refer, I suppose, to the trouble there has been lately with the music?"

"Oh no, of course not. let us talk about mmic."

"Have you complained to the authorities?"

"Yes, and they say it wants mending, and referred me to the Committee of the Mending Apparatus. I complained of those curious gasping sighs that disfigure the symphonies of the Brisbane school. They sound like someone in pain. The Committee of the Mending Apparatus say that it shall be remedied shortly."

Obscurely worried, she resumed her life. For one thing, the defect in the music irritated her. For another thing, she could not forget Kuno's speech. If he had known that the music was out of repair—he could not know it, for he detested music—if he had known that it was wrong, "the Machine stops" was exactly the venomous sort of remark he would have made. Of course he had made it at a venture, but the coincidence annoyed her, and she spoke with some petulance to the Committee of the Mending Apparatus.

They replied, as before, that the defect would be set right shortly.

"Shortly! At once!" she retorted. "Why should I be worried by imperfect music? Things are always put right at once. If you do not mend it at once, I shall complain to the Central Committee."

"No personal complaints are received by the Central Committee," the Committee of the Mending Appartus replied.

"Through whom am I to make my complaint then?"

"Through us."

"I complain then."

"Your complaint shall be forwarded in its turn." "Have others complained?"

This question was unmechanical, and the Committee of the Mending Apparatus refused to answer it.

"It is too bad!" she exclaimed to another of her friends. "There never was such an unfortunate woman as myself. I can never be sure of my music now. It gets worse and worse each time I summon it."

"I too have my troubles," the friend replied. "Sometimes my ideas are interrupted by a slight jarring noise."

"What is it?"

"I do not know whether it is inside my head, or inside the wall."

"Complain, in either case."

"I have complained, and my complaint will be forwarded in its turn to the Central Committee."

Time passed, and they resented the defects no longer. The defects had not been remedied, but the human tissues in that latter day had become so subservient, that they readily adapted themselves to every caprice of the Machine. The sigh at the crisis of the Brisbane symphony no longer irritated Vashti; she accepted it as part of the melody. The jarring noise, whether in the head or in the wall, was no longer resented by her friend. And so with the mouldy artificial fruit, so with the bath water that began to stink, so with the defective rhymes that the poetry machine had taken to emit. All were bitterly complained of at first, and then acquiesced in and forgotten. Things went from bad to worse unchallenged.

It was otherwise with the failure of the sleeping apparatus. That was a more serious stoppage. There came a day when over the whole world—in Sumatra, in Wessex, in the innumerable cities of Courland and Brazil—the beds, when summoned by their tired owners, failed to appear. It may seem a ludicrous matter, but from it we may date the collapse of humanity. The Committee responsible for the failure was assailed by complainants, whom it referred, as usual, to the Committee of the Mending Apparatus, who in its turn assured them that their complaints would be forwarded to the Central Committee. But the discontent grew, for mankind was not yet sufficiently adaptable to do without sleeping.

"Some one is meddling with the Machine—" they began.

"Some one is trying to make himself king, to re-introduce the personal element."

"Punish that man with Homelessness."

"To the rescue! Avenge the Machine! Avenge the Machine!"

"War! Kill the man!"

But the Committee of the Mending Apparatus now came forward, and allayed the panic with well-chosen words. It confessed that the Mending Apparatus was itself in need of repair.

The effect of this frank confession was admirable.

"Of course," said a famous lecturer—he of the French Revolution, who gilded each new decay with splendour— "of course we shall not press our complaints now The Mending Apparatus has treated us so well in the past that we all sympathize with it, and will wait patiently for its recovery. In its own good time it will resume its duties. Meanwhile let us do without our beds, our tabloids, our other little wants. Such, I feel sure, would be the wish of the Machine."

Thousands of miles away his audience applauded. The Machine still linked them. Under the seas, beneath the roots of the mountains, ran the wires through which they saw and heard, the enormous eyes and ears that were their heritage, and the hum of many workings clothed their thoughts in one garment of subserviency. Only the old and the sick remained ungrateful, for it was rumoured that Euthanasia, too, was out of order, and that pain had reappeared among men.

It became difficult to read. A blight entered the atmosphere and dulled its luminosity. At times Vashti could scarcely see across her room. The air, too, was foul. Loud were the complaints, impotent the remedies, heroic the tone of the lecturer as he cried: "Courage, courage! What matter so long as the Machine goes on? To it the darkness and the light are one." And though things improved again after a time, the old brilliancy was never recaptured, and humanity never recovered from its entrance into twilight. There was an hysterical talk of "measures," of "provisional dictatorship," and the inhabitants of Sumatra were asked to familiarize themselves with the workings of the central power station, the said power station being situated in France. But for the most part panic reigned, and men spent their strength praying to their Books, tangible proofs of the Machine's omnipotence. There were gradations of terror—at times came rumours of hope—the Mending Apparatus was almost mended—the enemies of the Machine had been got under—new "nerve-centres" were evolving which would do the work even more magnificently than before. But there came a day when, without the slightest warning, without any previous hint of feebleness, the entire communication-system broke down, all over the world, and the world, as they understood it, ended.

Vashti was lecturing at the time and her earlier remarks had been punctuated with applause. As she proceeded the audience became silent, and at the conclusion there was no sound. Somewhat displeased, she called to a friend who was a specialist in sympathy. No sound: doubtless the friend was sleeping. And so with the next friend whom she tried to summon, and so with the next, until she remembered Kuno's cryptic remark, "The Machine stops."

The phrase still conveyed nothing. If Eternity was stopping it would of course be set going shortly.

For example, there was still a little light and air—the atmosphere had improved a few hours previously. There was still the Book, and while there was the Book there was security.

Then she broke down, for with the cessation of activity came an unexpected terror—silence.

She had never known silence, and the coming of it nearly killed her—it did kill many thousands of people outright. Ever since her birth she had been surrounded by the steady hum. It was to the ear what artificial air was to the lungs, and agonizing pains shot across her head. And scarcely knowing what she did, she stumbled forward and pressed the unfamiliar button, the one that opened the door of her cell.

Now the door of the cell worked on a simple hinge of its own. It was not connected with the central power station, dying far away in France. It opened, rousing immoderate hopes in Vashti, for she thought that the Machine had been mended. It opened, and she saw the dim tunnel that curved far away towards freedom. One look, and then she shrank back. For the tunnel was full of people—she was almost the last in that city to have taken alarm.

People at any time repelled her, and these were nightmares from her worst dreams. People were crawling about, people were screaming, whimpering, gasping for breath, touching each other, vanishing in the dark, and ever and anon being pushed off the platform onto the live rail. Some were fighting round the electric bells, trying to summon trains which could not be summoned. Others were yelling for Euthanasia or for respirators, or blaspheming the Machine. Others stood at the doors of their cells fearing, like herself, either to stop in them or to leave them. And behind all the upiuai was silence—llic silence which is the voice of the earth and of the generations who have gone.

No—it was worse than solitude. She closed the door again and sat down to wait for the end. The disintegration went on, accompanied by horrible cracks and rumbling. The valves that restrained the Medical Apparatus must have been weakened, for it ruptured and hung hideously from the ceiling. The floor heaved and fell and flung her from her chair. A tube oozed towards her serpent fashion. And at last the final horror approached—light began to ebb, and she knew that civilization's long day was closing.

She whirled round, praying to be saved from this, at any rate, kissing the Book, pressing button after button. The uproar outside was increasing, and even penetrated the wall. Slowly the brilliancy of her cell was dimmed, the reflections faded from her metal switches. Now she could not see the reading-stand, now not the Book, though she held it in her hand. Light followed the flight of sound, air was following light, and the original void returned to the cavern from which it had been so long excluded. Vashti continued to whirl, like the devotees of an earlier religion, screaming, praying, striking at the buttons with bleeding hands.

It was thus that she opened her prison and escaped— escaped in the spirit: at least so it seems to me, ere my meditation closes. That she escapes in the body—I cannot perceive that. She struck, by chance, the switch that released the door, and the rush of foul air on her skin, the loud throbbing whispers in her ears, told her that she was facing the tunnel again, and that tremendous platform on which she had seen men fighting. They were not fighting now. Only the whispers remained, and the little whimpering groans. They were dying by hundreds out in the dark.

She burst into tears.

Tears answered her.

They wept for humanity, those two, not for themselves. They could not bear that this should be the end. Ere silence was completed their hearts were open, and they knew what had been important on the earth. Man, the flower of all flesh, the noblest of all creatures visible, man who had once made god in his image, and had mirrored his strength on the constellations, beautiful naked man was dying, strangled in the garments that he had woven. Century after century had he toiled, and here was his reward. Truly the garment had seemed heavenly at first, shot with the colour of culture, sewn with the threads of self-denial. And heavenly it had been so long as it was a garment and no more, so long as man could shed it at will and live by the essence that is his soul, and the essence, equally divine, that is his body. The sin against the body—it was for that they wept in chief; the centuries of wrong against the muscles and the nerves, and those five portals by which we can alone apprehend—glozing it over with talk of evolution, until the body was white pap, the home of ideas as colourless, last sloshy stirrings of a spirit that had grasped the stars.

"Where are you?" she sobbed.

His voice in the darkness said, "Here."

"Is there any hope, Kuno?"

"None for us." ' -

"Where are you?"

She crawled towards him over the bodies of the dead. His blood spurted over her hands.

"Quicker," he gasped, "I am dying—but we touch, we talk, not through the Machine."

He kissed her.

"We have come back to our own. We die, but we have recaptured life, as it was in Wessex, when Aelfrid overthrew the Danes. We know what they know outside, they who dwelt in the cloud that is the colour of a pearl."

"But, Kuno, is it true? Are there still men on the surface of the earth? Is this—this tunnel, this poisoned darkness—really not the end?"

He replied:

"I have seen them, spoken to them, loved them. They are hiding in the mist and the ferns until our civilization stops. Today they are the Homeless—tomorrow—"

"Oh, tomorrow—some fool will start the Machine again, tomorrow."

"Never," said Kuno, "never. Humanity has learned its lesson."

As he spoke, the whole city was broken like a honeycomb. An air-ship had sailed in through the vomitory into a ruined wharf. It crashed downwards, exploding as it went, lending

gallery after gallery with its wings of steel. For a moment they saw the nations of the dead, and, before they joined them, scraps of the untainted sky.

the morning (our regular 11 a.m. program is in commemoration of that first show), and there were the monsters surrendering. It was a good clear picture even coming all the way from Yalta.

It seems funny to me now how anybody could have thought that no one could rule the world. As if the world didn't need ruling. As if we all aren't just children looking up to Old Mother Columbia. Good night nurse, it was that simple. They just kept the war factories going for two more years, and the army took care of passing them around. In two years to the day they had a television set in every home on the face of the earth. And then we all just listened. My, it was exciting!

But I was going to tell you about Frances. I might as well admit it: I always had my suspicions about that woman. Not that she wasn't all right in some ways. Everybody has some good in them, they say. But I'd seen her take eleven and sometimes twelve minutes on the coffee break in the morning. And one of the bosses who'd studied medicine told me no one, absolutely no one, had to go to the ladies' room as often as Frances went. Well, you know, where there's smoke, there's fire.

I can remember the day just as well. And I can remember Frances too. She wasn't any bigger than a minute. But spry, you know? Pert. And she did have the clearest, steadiest blue eyes I've ever seen on a human being.

I remember a long, long time ago when I was a young woman; and Frances and I had just gone to work in the Traffic Fines Bureau. That was the first time they ever asked u3 to sign anything about loyalty. It seems so silly now. As if there could be any question. Anyway I remember Frances questioning even that first one. I remember she went up to George Peters, our section head, and said, "Do you mean to say, Mr. Peters, that if I don't sign this thing, I'll be fired?"

Well ... the rest of us just laughed. And Mr. Peters said, "I want all these in by 12 o'clock, you understand me, Miss Harkins?" You should have seen her. Both her cheeks got red as a beet. But she didn't say anything. Why should she? It was only ten to 12 then. Did it take her ten minutes to sign her name? Good night, I kind of pitied her in a way.

She signed it all right. By 12 o'clock too. And she signed all the rest of them too. That woman wasn't fooling me. She knew which side her bread was buttered on.

Well ... the Russians surrendered in June, '82. My, it was nice to have it over. After living in terror so many years. A body could really think about relaxing. It was after that they declared this . . . what the dickens do you call the darn thing . . . Pex? Pax? Pax, that's it, Pax Americana. I don't know what it means but it sounds elegant, doesn't it? It was funny though. You'd expect people to be pleased and grateful that the war was over. But it wasn't like that. Everyone's temper seemed to get worse. It was the strangest thing. I actually remember one time I nearly snapped back at Mr. Peters himself.

Anyway, Frances came into the office one day and she looked real happy. I must say my heart warmed to her. She was that nice when she had her good days. She hadn't been sitting at her desk more than two minutes when Mr. Peters came down the aisle.

"Miss Harkins," he said, "if you can spare the time from your other numerous duties, we want you to do some work for us tonight." The people in authority used "we" all the time by '82. It really is very comfortable, like reading the editorial page.

"My dear Mr. Peters," says little Miss Harkins, "in case you haven't heard, the war is over."

Everybody just dropped what they were doing and stared at her. Like I said, we all were kind of jumpy those days, not jumpy exactly, but strange. After all, fifteen years is a long time. You won't believe it but every once in a while I caught myself wishing the war was going on again.

At first Mr. Peters acted as if he hadn't heard her. Then his voice got real low and horrible. "Exactly what difference do you think this makes, Miss Harkins?"

"If I weren't a lady," she says, "I'd tell you what to do with your night work."

We all expected Mr. Peters to lose his temper. At least I did. He just stood there looking at her for nearly a minute. Then he backed off a bit and straightened up. It was real dramatic. "I see," he said. "This makes it all much clearer.

We're up against a really tough proposition this time." He looked around the office at all of us and then said, "Exactly how long have you worked for us, Miss Harkins, or whatever you call yourself?"

Frances stepped back from him. "Have you gone batty?" she said. "I've been here since '62, three years before the war started."

He nodded to himself. "It's the incredible patience and ingenuity that terrify you. Go into the next room," he told her. "I have something I wish to tell our people."

She looked frightened but I didn't know what of. We all wanted to hear what Mr. Peters was going to tell us. She looked all around the office at each one of us and then she turned and walked into the next room.

Mr. Peters went over to the door, waited a second, and then pulled it suddenly open. Frances was sitting at the other end of the room, looking out the window. Mr. Peters slammed the door and walked back to the center of the room.

"I have an official communique," he said. "A public announcement will be made tomorrow. But the scene you have just witnessed impels me to read it to you now." He took a Western Union message from his pocket, unfolded it, and read it to us:

greetings to the long suffering and victorious american people. you have gallantly borne a hero's burden through the dark, terrible years. however, it is our grim duty to pass on information of the most urgent nature to you. we have been reliably informed that the planet saturn has only been waiting for the war to end before it attacks us. we of the free world must meet this unreasoning hatred AND aggresion FACE to face and look it squarely in the eye. with hope in our hearts and a firm belief in the righteousness of our cause, we must once again turn to god for assistance in destroying this new threat to mankind. night is falling all over our world. we call upon you in the name of truth

and justice to gird your loins in our common danger.

Well ... I guess you know everybody was horrified. But in a way it was kind of a relief. It seemed so natural to see Mr. Peters standing up there so stiff and military looking and everybody else frightened and staring at each other.

"The rest of the communique is top secret," Mr. Peters said. "I can only tell you that our best information points to the fact that Saturnian spies have been living right amongst us." He paused. "For years," he said. He paused again. "They may have been born here."

Everybody just stood there. Finally old Mr. Johnson, who was pretty deaf anyway, piped up from the rear corner by the multigraph machines. "I didn't know they had proven any other planets had people on them."

Mr. Peters didn't even reprimand him. "After all," he said simply, "this is a communique." At least one or two of the rest of us snickered at Mr. Johnson but not Mr. Peters. It's so good to know a man who's really kind to old people.

"I don't want any of you," he said, and now he did glance sternly at Mr. Johnson, "to mention this matter to the woman in the next room. I will take care of that myself—at the proper time and with the proper authorities."

I was nearly scared out of my wits. And I understood what he meant about Frances all right. Little things about her came back to me. Like the night we were going to the America Plus rally and that dirty, shabby little man in the trench-coat leered at us from the alley, winked, and said, "You ladies wanna buy some dirty stories about the truth?" I nearly died but Frances kind of giggled and she bought a couple. She offered to show them to me but after all there are some things a lady just doesn't do. It all began making sense to me and you know, I was kind of sorry, because underneath everything, you just couldn't help yourself liking her now and then.

The next day of course she was gone; and what a difference it made in the office, having Mr. Peters smiling and everything.

It was only a couple of nights after that I was watching the

8 p.m. City show when they interrupted it to introduce someone important.

"The City of San Francisco is happy to bring you Dr. Ortho Graham, the distinguished State of California psychiatrist who has just completed the mental examination of the first inter-planetary spy apprehended in this area."

Dr. Graham just scared you stiff to look at him. He looked as if he knew anything, simply anything. He coughed apologetically like they all do and said, "Ah, now really, really, Bob [Bob was the announcer's first name, I guess], it wasn't much of anything. This ... ab, tning, 1 ratner imagine you'd call it, claims to be a woman named Frances Hark-ins. . . ."

I nearly dropped my post-victory knitting. I knew it, I said to myself, I knew it all the time. Would you ever?

". . . now, Bob, I don't want to baffle our good people with the scientific names of the various complexes and neuroses—upper-, lower-, and interplanetary—that I discovered in this thing." He laughed a little and Bob laughed with him. "But I'm just going to tell them that it professed not to know one single solitary thing about Alfred Adler's power speculations."

Well ... I thought Bob would split his sides. It was funny all right ... I guess. All the State and Federal psychiatrists say that this Dr. Adler was the only smart psychiatrist. But it's like Dr. Graham said, what I don't know about psychiatry would fill a book.

"Thank you, Dr. Ortho Graham," said Bob. "Folks," he said, "that was Dr. Ortho Graham who just completed the first mental examination of an inter-planetary spy. I guess I don't have to tell you people to watch your neighbor, do I? Remember. It's when they don't do anything that they are doing the most. And now ... on with the show!"

He began playing the record to re-introduce us to the City of San Francisco show and I leaned back slowly and watched the exact center of the screen until I heard Bob's voice saying, "There we are. All comfortable and listening? We're all ready, aren't we?" And then we were in the middle of the City of San Francisco show again and was it ever good!

It couldn't have been more than two or three nights after that when I was sitting in my apartment and the doorbell rang. I nearly jumped out of my skin. It's bad enough in the daytime but at night it's just awful. And when I opened the door, there she was.

"Well, don't stare at me," she said. "I'm no ghost. It's me, Frances."

I let her in. It was just that underneath everything and in spite of everything, I ... I wanted to. "But you can't stay here, Frances," I told her. "You can't. I heard about you on the television. Oh, Frances, why did you have to pick me? Good night, I know you're my friend and everything but. . . ."

"Look," she said, "just say the word and I'll get right out of here."

"No, no," I whispered, "sit down. Sit down, Frances. I'll fix some tea."

"Thanks. They've been hunting me all over the City. I simply had to get someplace to think a moment."

"Did you escape, Frances?" This made me more suspicious than ever because you just don't escape. Everybody knows that.

"I escaped," she said. "About two hours ago. I think they expect me to make for one of the bridges."

"Frances. Are you really from Saturn?"

"For pete's sake, you've known me for years. Do I look like I came from another planet?"

"No," I said cautiously. But then I remembered. "How can I be sure? How do we know what Saturnians look like? All we know is that they're after us. How can I be sure? How do we know what Saturnians look like? All we know . . ."

She didn't say anything until I stopped. Then she said, "Thanks, thanks for letting me in. The tea tasted good."

"What are you going to do, Frances? You'll never get out of town. Why don't you go back and give yourself up?"

She looked at me a long time I remember before she answered me. Then she seemed to make up her mind about something. "I'm going out on the beach," she said, "and work my way down the coast. It shouldn't be too hard if I take my time about it."

I'm going to write this down quickly before I forget the word again. She'd trusted me. Trusted. There, after all these years. Why, it just seems like yesterday that I used it all the time. Excuse me a moment while I start a little fire for this page.

I remember waiting after she'd left for the impulses toward the police to come. I screamed and tossed all night but in the morning they were less strong and I decided to take a chance on myself outside the house. And in a few days I got so I could walk past a police station without even jerking. I still remember that feeling. We used to call it something that began with a p. Prow? No. Principle? No. Whatever' was that? Proud. That's it. That's the good one. Proud. But of what? Of whom? I get confused. I'm a very old lady and I hate remembering unpleasant things, I just remembered. You'll have to excuse me tonight. I feel sick . . . real sick . . . and lonely.

Well . . . here I am, back again and fresh as a daisy. What was I writing? Oh, yes, about Frances. She didn't get away, of course. They caught her on the beach and brought her back for the investigations. Nobody knew what went on. The investigations had been secret for years. Naturally none of us was allowed inside the Hall of Justice Building.

It only took two weeks and then the announcement of the television trial came out in all the papers. They don't use the newspapers except for things like public announcements. Stuff you can't copy down from the television. It's funny about the newspapers. You'd think you'd miss them. But you don't. What you miss are the voices talking to you and the pictures moving.

They gave us the whole day off for it. This was the first time they actually declared a public holiday for a trial like this and everybody was just as excited as anything. We all hustled home and got in a good night's sleep. You couldn't have kept us away from our television sets with a team of wild horses.

I can see it just like it was yesterday. And besides I took down real verbatim notes of the whole thing. Naturally it was all military. Oh, they looked so fine in their uniforms.

The Opera House was just littered with flags, our flags. And such a spirit of unanimity. I'll never forget it.

Frances wore some kind of simple black dress and she'd drawn her long, blonde hair straight back. The Opera House is so big; and the cameras make everything look so big; and the crowd was cheering so much. She looked very tiny standing there in the witness box.

The Defense Attorney was a scream. We all knew he was pretending of course but they know it makes life more exciting if they let us pretend. Well . . . this Defense Attorney must have come straight out of a TV workshop. He was that good. Gestures, tears, everything. I'm telling you, if anybody was on the street, they could have heard the audience all the way out to the beach. What a character! Even the judge laughed a couple of times.

I remember her standing up straight, gripping the rail of the box with both hands while the Prosecuting Attorney from the Judge Advocate General's Office made his charges. She kept looking straight into his eyes and I guess the lighting in the Opera House must have been bothering him or something because he turned away quite frequently. I'll never forget one part of the questioning, the one where she was supposed to break down and confess. Wait a minute, I've got it here among my notes somewhere. Where the dickens? Oh, here it is!

Prosecuting Attorney: . . . now, come, you mean to
stand there and tell us you don't owe your allegiance to an-
other planet? *

Frances: Of course not.

Prosecuting Attorney: I suppose the next thing you're going to tell us is that you love this World?

Frances: I don't love you. I'll tell you that.

Judge: The defendant will refrain from injecting personal opinion into the testimony.

Prosecuting Attorney: Do you deny repeatedly provoking a certain Mr. Peters, your immediate and lawful superior?

Frances: No. That is . . .

Prosecuting Attorney: That's enough. Thank you. An excellent example of what our good Dr. Adler would have called a true slip of the tongue.

Frances: I was just going to say that isn't all I wanted to do to him.

Prosecuting Attorney: Ladies and Gentlemen of the TV audience, you have just heard from the prisoner's own lips an expression of the arrogant brutality for which Saturn is infamous.

Frances: Is this your idea of justice?

Prosecuting Attorney: I wish to call the Court's attention to the sly, twisted fashion in which the defendant attempts to slander this Court.

Judge: Thank you, counsel. It will be in the defendant's interest to remember that she is on trial for her life.

Frances: I . . .

Prosecuting Attorney: I do not think I have any further questions for the defendant. I feel confident that the prosecution has established beyond any reasonable doubt the existence of a foreign mentality, alien and hateful to any standards of justice and truth in our USA World.

Frances: I . . .

Judge: Are you or are you not guilty of the charges brought against you?

Frances: I confess. . . . [There was a tremendous hubbub in the Opera House, flashlight bulbs popping, people shouting, with the brightest spotlights and direct air currents playing on our Flags.]

Prosecuting Attorney: Kindly move the last four cameras in closer. That's it. Thank you.

Frances: I disagree with you.

Prosecuting Attorney: Really? Please proceed with your confession. Frances: That's it.

Prosecuting Attorney: Your Honor, never in 30 years of legal practice have I listened to more contemptuous treatment of a Court than that of this prisoner. I call upon you to preserve this Court's dignity.

Judge: I agree with counsel completely. In the light of the evidence and in a sincere conviction of my duty as a human being and citizen of this USA World, I do sentence the defendant to death for . . .

You could have heard a pin drop. The cameras swept all around the Opera House slowly and every single person was on the edge of their seats. And then he did it . . .

Everybody else can say all they want to, and I've talked this over with a lot of people. None of them will admit he did it but I was listening and looking just as hard as I could and I heard him. And I saw the grimace he made when he covered it up. I may be an old lady and a little crazy to be sitting here writing stuff like this down on paper but I heard him. They can call on their old Dr. Adler or whoever they want to.

He was speaking right directly into the middle microphone on the Opera House stage and he said, ". . . for disagree—" Well ... it seemed as if everybody in the Opera House just caught their breath. But he recovered right away, and said, "for seeking the violent overthrow of this USA World."

I suppose I should be scared out of my wits looking at that awful word after all these years. Disagree, he said. Right out. And him a judge and all.

I heard him, I tell you. With my own ears. My own ears! What am I saying? My own ... my own . . . well, I did. They are my own ears. I don't care if I'm crazy or not. Because I remember two things. I did let her in and I didn't go to the police. And I'm old now and it doesn't seem to matter so much so I'm just going to write it all down again and hide the papers in the apartment; and I'm not going to burn them; and maybe someone . . . sometime. . . .

under the progressive anti-fascist Soviet penal reform policy, has joined him for rehabilitation therapy in the salt mines. All the rubber bands in the entire Anti-Fascist Workers for Peace and Democracy Missile Control Network are being screened for loyalty. I feel terribly humble and sincere this evening. It's the triumph of brute accident over Man's will, which aft gang agley, as our poet Mayakovsky once put it. We're sorry, friends across the mighty sea! Nothing like this must ever happen again."

Our reprisal system had not gone into action at once for two reasons: (a) A first wild rumor that Cuba had at last declared war on us, and, (b) Man, we just, like, hesitated. (Who can tell if those blips on the radar screen really mean anything? I mean, like, you make a mistake and POW, I mean. . . . And then the hometown newspaper really gets after you.) This fear of the hometown paper, this hesitation may have saved the universe from an immediate holocaust. Castro made no promises, but said that his barbados were ready and waiting in front of their teevees.

The U.S. of A. lay in a state of shock. A powerful faction of skilled psychiatric observers argued that this instance of national catatonic neurosis was justified more by external event than by internal oedipal conflict. Many people had close relatives in Boston—not everybody, but enough to justify the virus of gloom which seemed to be making the rounds. The American League would have to replace a team just as the season began. The roads from New York to Maine were in bad shape.

Their Leader shrieked, "Don't retaliate, my friends. My dear friends. Don't Retaliate. We will send reparations, delegations of workers, peasants, and,intellectuals, petitions of condolence; the Kharkov soccer team will play out the Red Sox schedule. But don't retaliate, or we will be led to destroy each other utterly, dialectically! It was a mistake! Could happen to anyone! His pals gave a Utile birthday party for this here lieutenant, see, you know how it is, they drank it up a little, and then these rubber bands tend to become crispy with age. ..."

Harvard gone. Boston beans homeless. A churning hole in American history.

The mayor of Boston, Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic, sent a telegram to the mayor of Boston, Tennessee:

extend heartfelt regrets and sympathy to the peace-lovtng workers of the united states on occasion of tragic disappearance of one of its oldest cities. as american poet w. whitman said, baa baa black sheep let nothing you dismay." azonovttch, mayor, now largest boston in world.

By a miracle, both Radcliffe and Wellesley were spared. However, there were no men for the coming Spring Weekend. By another miracle, due to the influence of radioactive —er—the scientists had been attending a conference at Boston University—the Radcliffe students were now physically entitled to console the Wellesley girls in their deep mourning at Spring Weekend.

"A miracle!" cried Norman Vincent Peale, joining with Their Leader in an appeal to forgive and forget. "We are being tested from on high. What happened at Radcliffe on that turbulent occasion is proof positive that there is a power in the universe making for righteousness, and also for inter-group balance with special reference to sexual harmony."

"do not retaliate," cried out llieir Leader, and be was joined in this appeal by their foremost ballet dancers, film directors, and violinists. They also made proud reference to their other rubber bands, punched cards, and lieutenants with a bead on New York, Washington, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Denver, Los Angeles, and every American city down to the size of Rifle City, Colorado. "If you retaliate, we are all doomed to become epiphenomena floating in a Marxist-leninist Anti-Fascist Outer Space." (Were they threatening us again?)

Senator Morris Russell, D., of Colorado, was one of the first to recover his senses. "Of course it was an accident," he said. "Lieutenants will be lieutenants and accidents will happen, ha ha. But we can't allow this sort of accident. How will it look in the eyes of the rest of the world? Those yellow hordes to the East are very conscious of Face, y'know. America has lost enough face already, what with the corruption in television quiz shows and the disorganization of our youth in those coffee-drinking espresso parlors. We must strike a blow for peace by wiping out Moscow!"

we couldn't agree more, with our boy morrie, declared a banner held up by all the residents of Rifle City, Colorado. It happened that none of them had relatives in Boston and so they could speak uncorrupted by grief or other private interest. Their sheriff had divested himself of his stock in the Boston & Maine Railroad. Their rage and sense of national dignity was expressed with typical, folk-loristic Western dignity. They called each other "Slim" and "Buster" at meetings, sang Yippee-Yi-yo-cow-yay, and urged immediate decimation of the entire European continent. (They were a little weak on geography and wanted to make sure that the Roosians got theirs.)

Our Side hesitated.

Their Side went on the air with round-the-clock telethons. Mothers in Dnieprpotrovsk sent quilts with quaint illustrations from Baba-Yaga and other classical Russian tales to the few survivors in Waltham and Weldon. The Chief of Staff of their anti-fascist atomic service announced that he was going into a retreat on the Caucasus for two weeks of contemplation. A publicity release from their Embassy in Washington announced that his favorite hobbies were Reading, Tennis, and the Beat Generation, in that order, and that his wife, who was retreating with him, liked American musicals and collected Capezio shoes. One of theñ-composers was preparing a memorial symphony, entitled, "The Lowells Speak Only to God"; one of their critics was already preparing his attack on the symphony as formalistic, abstract, and unrooted in Russian folk themes.

We waited. Their Leader wept openly, live on tape, and the tape was broadcast every hour.

The clamor for revenge and forgiveness, forgiveness and revenge, wracked the nation, indeed, the entire world. The citizens of Avignon, France, sent an elementary geography textbook as a civic contribution to the public library of Rifle City, Colorado.

Only the drunken lieutenant in Siberia failed to appear in public. He persisted in telling his colleagues in the First Disciplinary and Re-Education Unit (Iodized Division): "Ya glad. Ya ochen pleased with myself. Sure it was a mistake (oshibka), but it was one of those slips which reveal one's unconscious thoughts (Rus., micl; Fr., pensees). My analyst tells me that deep within my semi-Tartar soul I hate Boston (BocmoH), I have always hated Boston (BocmoH), I even hate the memory of Boston (BocmoH), ever since I failed my Regents on the question where was the tea party at which the proletarian masses refused to serve the colonial imperialists. Now I am free, free, free!"*

He was given occupational therapy, mcluding modern dance, during the rest periods from his duties in the salt mine. It was not actually a "salt mine"; it now produced, as part of the five-year plan to upgrade consumer products, an all-purpose seasoning called Tangh! (TaHkl).

The first crisis passed. Our advanced missile bases, our round-the-clock air fleets, our ICBM installations held back their Sunday punch. It was Tuesday, and they waited. "Halt! Stop! Whoa there fellas!" went out the order. Their Leader's emotional display reached us in time and made contact with the true, big-hearted America, which loves person-to-person contact. The Buffalo Red Sox were hastily but reverently appointed to play out the American League schedule. Surrounding areas in Massachusetts were quarantined. The moral question about whether the former RauvliHe giils, miraculously spared but radically altered, could be permitted to carry out their new impulses—this was debated in every surviving pulpit of New England Some claimed the transmogrification as an instance of divine punishment, others thought it a logical triumph of feminism, still others felt that we should live and let live, of whatever sex might develop. . . . Under the pressure of world events, a decision was postponed about the appropriateness of the Spring Dance at Wellesley. As its contribution to rehabilitation therapy, the Aqua-Velva company sent a tank car of after shave to the Radcliffe dormitories.

Meanwhile, back in Washington and Moscow, the lights burned late. High level negotiations proceeded with delib-

•"Cbo8gHo, cbo8gHo, cbo8gHo!"

erate haste. "Who's practicing brinkmanship now?" jeered our Secretary of State.

Their Man hung his head. He was genuinely abashed. He declared that he was "sorry" and "ashamed," but what he really meant in American was "humble" and "sincere." As a matter of fact, his son had been visiting at Harvard on the night of the Regrettable Incident, catching a revival of "Alexander Nevsky" at an art movie in Cambridge, and this happenstance, of great personal significance to the Ambassador, was often recalled at difficult moments in the continuing negotiations.

It was clear that neither our national pride, nor the opinion of the rest of the world, nor—and this new factor surprised all commentators—the swelling sense of guilt within the Soviet Union, would allow the disaster to pass without some grave consequences. To an astonishing degree, a wave of fellowship spread between the two nations. In Kamenetz-Podolsk it was recalled that a Russian had fought by the side of our General Vashinktohn. In Palo Alto it was recalled that Herbert Hoover had personally fed millions of starving mou-jiks in 1919, and had returned to America with badly nibbled fingers.

"All right," said their Ambassador, in secret session, "since you feel that way, we'll give you Kharkov. We have a major university there, too."

"No," said our people, "not big enough. Harvard was recognized as tops here. We want Moscow. We need Moscow. There was a beautiful modern library, entirely air conditioned, at Harvard. Moscow it must be."

"Impossible," said their man. "That would be like doing Washington, D.C. Justice is one thing, but that's our capital and it's got to come out even, give or take a rnillion. My son, my son (sob)." He pulled himself together and continued, "Don't forget, our Asiatic, subhuman, totalitarian population is got feelings of national pride, too. How about Kharkov plus this list of small towns in Biro-Bidjan, pick any one of three?"

Our Men shook their head. (By dint of prolonged fret and collaboration, plus the prevailing wind out of Massachusetts, our team had only one head. Radcliffe-like changes were being worked as far south as Daytona, Florida. The Radcliffe situation was causing riots in girls' schools of the mid-south. They also wanted some.)

At any rate, Kharkov was definitely out It meant too Utile to the irate citizens of Rifle City, and the small towns of Biro-Bidjan meant too much to certain minority groups important in electing the Republican senator from New York.

Vladivostok?

"No," we said. (Nyet) A mere provincial center. Stalingrad?

"No." Big enough, but the university could only be said to equal Michigan State. And what are Stalingrad Baked Beans to the Russian national cuisine?

"Ah," said their man, kissing his joined fingertips, "mais le kasha de Stalingrad!"

No. They were mere buckwheat groats to us.

"Leningrad?" they finally offered in desperation. "We understand how you feel. It is our second city, and it was founded by Peter the Great in a thrilling moment well described by Eisenstein in a movie of the same name. We want to do anything we can. . . ."

Wires hummed, diplomatic pouches were stuffed, the matter was settled with extraordinary unanimity and good feeling. Our people and theirs celebrated by drinking a toast to the memory of Boston, another to the memory of Leningrad—

—although their bereaved Ambassador, who also, as luck would have it happened to have a son studying Fine Arts at the University of Leningrad, stealthily emptied his glass in a potted palm. . . .

And at that moment according to agreement and plan, the City of Leningrad disappeared from this earth. We used a type of hydrogen engine previously only tested in the south Pacific. It exploded as brilliantly in the frozen north as it did under the soft flowered breezes of the southern trade routes. (Our Air Force was careful to avoid the mistake which had caused so many unsuccessful launchings in the past They put Winter Weight Lube in the rocket motors.)

The wails of Russian mothers could be heard the world round, also live on tape.

Abruptly the citizens of Rifle City, Col., began to have solemn afterthoughts. The Sheriff made a speech, declaring, "No manne is an islande, entire of theirselfe. Everie manne is a part of the maine, including Slim over there. Them Russ-kies got feelings of sibling affection, too." Dozens of quilts thrown together by the mothers of Rifle City were air-lifted to the environs of Leningrad. Gallant little Finland, which had been destroyed by mistake, also received our apologies and a couple of quilts. (In honor of Sibelius, Finland would be accorded diplomatic representation equal with that given nationalist China, Most of the surviving Finns were already in their ministries scattered about the world.)

Our President went on the air to plead through his tears, "Don't Re . . . Don't Re . . ." The teleprompter was eventually cranked by hand. "Taliate," he sobbed.

Their Leader also went on the air to explain to the grief-stricken mass that this act of national propitiation had been fully discussed by proper authority in both nations. Calm, he urged. Pax Vobiscum, pronounced a puppet head of the Russian Orthodox Church. "Thank you for that comment," said their Leader.

Murmurings of nepotism made his position insecure for a time. His nephew had been recalled from duty in Leningrad only a scant twenty-four hours before the American missile struck (exactly on target, by the way). However, he pointed out that both his aged mother and his sister had been residents of the departed Flower of the North, and Freudian science was so poorly developed that this explanation silenced the rabble.

For a time, peace and world fellowship. A new cooperation, decontamination, courtesy. Parades, requiem masses, memorial elegies. Historians, poets, and painters, both objective and non-objective, were kept busy assimilating the new subject matter. "Potlatch for the Millions" was the title of a popular exposition of the theoretical bases of the new method of handling international disputes. In schools of International Relations, this science began to earn course credit as Potlatch 101 (The Interlinked Destruction of Cities) and Potlatch 405 (Destruction of Civilizations, open only to graduate students).

President DeGaulle warned that France could not consent to being left out of any solution aiming to resolve international tension. The gothic (or romanesque, as the case might be) cities of France the Immortel, united in purpose, were ready to be weighed by Justice on her scale of the future as they had been hefted in her hands in the marketplace of history. From the right came a concrete proposal: "Wow, let 'em take Algeria, Mon Cher."

The state of beatitude was of brief duration, for hard is the way of Man on earth.

A Russian malcontent wrote a letter to the editor of Pravda, signed "Honored Artist of the Republic," and soon the word had passed all the way to their highest authority. Certainly, the intention on both sides had been honorable, with the highest consideration for basic human values.

Both Boston and Leningrad had been major ports. Fine.

Both Boston and Leningrad had housed major universities. Excellent.

Both Boston and Leningrad, metropoli of the north, gave summer arts festivals on the green. Beautiful.

With relation to historical memories, real estate values, and cultural expectations, they were perhaps as similar in importance as could be found. However. . . .

And a full delegation from their Presidium of Trade Unions urged that negotiations be reopened on this question. Leningrad had also been, unlike Boston, a center of the Soviet cinema industry.

"Perhaps," they suggested, timidly at first, "you could give us South California, too?"

Of course, soon they would begin to insist

A-W-F, UNLIMITED

FRANK HERBERT

Don't ever let the Jererniasters (from "Jeremiads," itself steniming from that crier in the wilderness, that gloom-glamorizer, the prophet Jeremiah), tell you that hilarity is dead in this Social-Conscience-Type world, and irreverence for Very Important People is obsolete. While Mr. Herbert can be accused of vulgarity, God be praised, he has, in the process, untied the last tie-string that concealed the kapok-filled "chest" that puffs up the arrogance of the Military, and especially the Feminist Military—all in one fell swoop. One of the delights of this story is its gleeful deflation of the Maiden-Aunt Symbol, the Irate Schoolmarm Nightmare, the Pompous Bureaucrat (Male or Female) Balloon. (Most women do not like this tale.) It is all dissolved in one glorious spooju—including, be it added, the whole ridiculous advertising business, which Mr. Herbert wraps up so garishly and disposes of so gaily in this gaudy, giddy gallimaufry!

The morning the space armor problem fell into the agency's lap, Gwen Everest had breakfast at her regular restuarant, an automated single-niche place catering to bachelor girls. Her order popped out of the slot onto her table, and immediately the tabletop projecta-menu switched to selling Interdorma's newest Interpretive Telelog.

"Your own private dream translator! The secret companion to every neurosis!"

Gwen stared at the inch-high words doing a skitter dance above her fried eggs. She had written that copy. Her food beneath the ad looked suddenly tasteless. She pushed the plate away.

Along the speedwalk into Manhattan a you-seeker, its roboflier senses programmed to her susceptibilities, flew beside her ear. It was selling a year's supply of Geramyl— "the breakfast drink that helps you live longer!"

The selling hook this morning was a Gwen Everest idea: a life insurance policy with the first year's premiums paid—

"absolutely free if you accept this offer now!"

In sudden anger, she turned on the robofiier, whispered a code phrase she had wheedled from an engineer who serviced the things. The robofiier darted upward in sudden erratic flight, crashed into the side of a building.

A small break in her control. A beginning.

Waiting for Gwen along the private corridor to the Single-master, Hucksting and Battlemont executive offices were displays from the recent Religion of the Month Club campaign. She ran a gamut of adecals, layouts, slogans, projos, quarter-sheets, skinnies. The works.

"Subscribe now and get these religions absolutely free!

Complete text of the Black Mass plus Abridged Mysticism!"

She was forced to walk through an adecal announcing: "Don't be Half Safe! Believe in Everything! Are you sure that African Bantu Witchcraft is nnt the True Way?"

At the turn of the corridor stood a male-female graphic with flesh-stimulant skinnies and supered voices, "Find peace through Tantrism."

The skinnies made her flesh crawl.

Gwen fled into her office, slumped into her desk chair. With mounting horror, she realized that she had either written or supervised the writing of every word, produced every selling idea along that corridor.

The interphon on her desk emitted its fluted "Good morning." She slapped the blackout switch to keep the instrument from producing an image. The last thing she wanted now was to see one of her co-workers.

"Who is it?" she barked.

"Gwen?" No mistaking that voice: Andre Battlemont, bottom name on the agency totem.

"What do you want?" she demanded.

"Our Gwenny is feeling nasty this morning, isn't she?"

"Oh, Freud!" She slapped the disconnect, leaned forward with elbows on the desk, put her face in her hands. Let's face it, she thought. I'm 48, unmarried, and a prime mover in an industry thafs strangling the universe. I'm a professional strangler.

"Good morning," fluted the interphon. She ignored it.

"A strangler," she said.

Gwen recognized the basic problem here. She had known it since childhood. Her universe was a continual replaying of "The Emperor's New Suit." She saw the nakedness.

"Good morning," fluted the interphon.

She dropped her right hand away from her face, flicked the switch. "Now what?"

"Did you cut me off, Gwen?"

"What if I did?"

"Gwen, please! We have a problem." "We always have problems."

Battlemont's voice dropped one octave. "Gwen. This is a Big problem."

Uncanny the way he can speak capital letters, she thought She said: "Go away."

"You've been leaving your Interdorma turned off!" accused Battlemont "You mustn't. Neurosis can creep up on you."

"Is that why you called me?" she asked. "Of course not" "Then go away."

Battlemont did a thing then that everyone from Singlemas-ter on down knew was dangerous to try with Gwen Everest He pushed the override to send his image dancing above her interphon.

After the momentary flash of anger, Gwen correctly interpreted the act as one of desperation. She found herself intrigued. She stared at the round face, the pale eyes (definitely too small, those eyes), the pug nose and wide gash of mouth above almost no chin at all.

Plus the hairline in full retreat.

"Andre, you are a mess," she said.

He ignored the insult. Still speaking in the urgency octave, he said: "1 have called a full staff meeting. You must attend at once."

"Why?"

"There are two military people in there, Gwen." He gulped. "It's desperate. Either we solve their problem or they will ruin us. They will draft every man in the agency!"

"Even you?"

"Yes!"

She moved her right hand toward the interphon's emergency disconnect. "Good-by, Andre."

"Gwen! My God! You can't let me down at a time like this!"

"Why not?"

He spoke in breathless haste. "We'll raise your salary. A bonus. A bigger office. More help."

"You can't afford me now," she said.

"I'm begging you, Gwen. Must you abuse me?"

She closed her eyes, thought: The insects! The damned little insects with their crummy emotions! Why can't I tell them all to go to composite hell? She opened her eyes, said: "What's the military's flap?"

Battlemont mopped his forehead with a pastel blue handkerchief. "It's the Space Service," he said. 'The female branch. The WOMS. Enlistments have fallen to almost nothing."

She was interested in spite of herself. "What's happened?" "Something to do with the space armor. I don't know. I'm so upset."

"Why have they tossed it into our laps like this? The ultimatum, I mean."

Battlemont glanced left and right, leaned forward. "The grapevine has it they're testing a new theory that creative people work better under extreme stress."

"The Psychological Branch again," she said. "Those jackasses!"

"But what can we dor

"Hoist 'em," she said. "You run along to the conference." "And you'll be there, Gwen?" "In a few minutes."

"Don't delay too long, Gwen." Again he mopped his forehead with the blue handkerchief. "Gwen, I'm frightened."

"And with good reason." She squinted at him. "I can see you now: Nothing on but a lead loincloth, dumping fuel into a radio-active furnace. Freud, what a picture!"

"This is no joke, Gwen!"

"I know."

"You are going to help?"

"In my own peculiar way, Andre." She hit the emergency disconnect.

Andre Battlemont turned away from his interphon, crossed his office to a genuine Moslem prayer rug. He sat down on it facing the flcK>r-to-ceiling windows that looked eastward across midtown Manhattan. This was the 1479th floor of the Stars of Space bunding, and it was quite a view out there whenever the clouds lifted. But the city remained hidden beneath a low ceiling this morning.

Up here it was sunny, though—except in Battlemonfs mood. A fear-cycle ululated along his nerves.

What he was doing on the prayer rug was practicing Yoga breathing to calm those nerves. The mihtary could wait They had to wait. The fact that he faced the general direction of Mecca was left over from two months before. Yoga was a month old. There was always some carry-over.

Battlemont had joined the Religion of the Month Club almost a year ago—seduced by his own agency's deep motivation campaign plus the Brotherhood Council's seal of approval.

This month it was the Reinspired Neo-Cult of St Freud.

A test adecal superimposed itself on the cloud-floor view beneath him. It began playing the latest Gwen-Everest-inspired pitch of the IBMausoleum. Giant rainbow letters danced across the fleecy background.

"Make your advice immortal! Let us store your voice and thought patterns in everlasting electronic memory circuits! When you are gone, your loved ones may listen to your voice as you answer their questions exactly the way you would most likely have answered them in Life!"

Battlemont shook his head. The agency, fearful of its dependence on the live Gwen Everest, had secretly recorded her at a staff conference once. Very illegal. The unions were death on it. But the IBMausoleum had broken down with the first question put to Gwen's ghost-voice.

"Some people have thought patterns that are too complex to permit accurate psyche-record," the engineer explained.

Battlemont did not delude himself. The sole genius of the agency's three owners lay in recognizing the genius of Gwen

Everest. She was the agency.

It was like riding the tiger to have such an employee. Singlemaster, Hucksting and Battlemont had ridden this tiger for 22 years. Battlemont closed his eyes, pitched her in his mind: a tall, lean woman, but with a certain grace. Her face was long, dominated by cold blue eyes, framed in waves of auburn hair. She had a wit that could slash you to ribbons, and that priceless commodity: the genius to pull selling sense out of utter confusion.

Battlemont sighed.

He was in love with Gwen Everest. Had been for 22 years. It was the reason he had never married. His Interdorma explained that it was because he wanted to be dominated by a strong woman.

But that only explained. It didn't help.

For a moment, he thought wistfully of Singlemaster and Hucksting, both taking their annual three-month vacation at the geriatrics center on Oahu. Battlemont wondered if he dared ask Gwen to take her vacation with him. Just once.

No. 1

He realized what a pitiful figure he made on the prayer rug. Pudgy little man in a rather unattractive blue suit.

Tailors did things for him that they called "improving your good points." But except when he viewed himself in a Vesta-Mirror to see the sample clothes projected back onto his own idealized image, he could never pin down what those "good points" were.

Gwen would certainly turn him down.

He feared that more than anything. As long as there remained the possibility. . . .

Memory of the waiting Space Service deputation intruded. Battlemont trembled, broke the Yoga breathing pattern. The exercise was having its usual effect: a feeling of vertigo. He heaved himself to his feet

"One cannot run away from fate," he muttered.

That was a carry-over from the Karma month.

According to Gwen, the agency's conference room had been copied from a Florentine bordello's Emperor Room. It was a gigantic space. The corners were all flossy curlicues in heavy güding, an effect carried over into deep carvings on the wall panels. The ceiling was a mating of Cellini cupids with Dali landscapes. Period stuff. Antique.

Into this baroque setting had been forced a one-piece table 6 feet wide and 42 feet long. It was an enlarged bit of Twentieth Century Wallstreetiana fenced in by heavy wooden chairs. Beanbag paperweights and golden wheel ashtrays graced every place.

The air of the room was blue with the smoke of mood-cigs. ("It rhymes with Good Bigs!") The staff seated around the table was fighting off the depressant effect of the two Space Service generals, one male and one female, seated in flanking positions beside Battlemont's empty chair. There was a surprising lack of small talk and paper rustling.

All staff members had learned of the ultimatum via the office grapevine.

Battlemont slipped in his side door, crossed to his chair at the end of the table, dropped into it before bis knees gave out. He stared from one frowning military face to the other.

No response. ,

He cleared his throat. "Sorry I'm . . . ah . . . Pressing business. Unavoidable." He cast a frantic glance around the table. No sign of Gwen. He smiled at one officer, the other.

No response.

On his right sat Brigadier General Sonnet Finnister of the WOMS (Women of Space). Battlemont had been appalled to see her walk. Drill-sergeant stride. No nonsense. She wore a self-designed uniform: straight pleated skirt to conceal bony hips, a loose blouse to camouflage lack of upper development, and a long cape to confuse the whole issue. Atop her head sat a duck-billed, flat-fronted cap that had been fashioned for the single purpose of hiding the Sonnet Finnister forehead, which went too high and too wide.

She seldom removed her hat.

(This particular hat, Battlemont's hurried private investigations had revealed, looked hideous on every other member of the WOMS. To a woman, they called it "the Sonnet Bonnet." There had been the additional information that the general herself was referred to by underlings as "Sinister Finnister"—partly because of the swirling cape.)

On Battlemont's left sat General Nathan Owling of the Space Engineers. Better known as "Howling Owling" because of a characteristic evidenced when he became angry. He appeared to have been shaped in the officer caste's current mold of lean, blond athlete. The blue eyes reminded Battlemont of Gwen's eyes, except that the man's appeared colder.

If that were possible.

Beyond Owling sat Leo Prim, the agency's art director. He was a thin young man, thin to a point that vibrated across the edge of emaciation. His black hair, worn long, held a natural wave. He had a narrow Roman nose, soulful brown eyes, strong cleft in the chin, generous mouth with large lips. A mood-cig dangled from the lips.

If Battlemont could have chosen his own appearance, he would have liked to look like Leo Prim. Romantic. Battlemont caught Prim's attention, ventured a smile of camaraderie.

No response.

General Sonnet Finnister tapped a thin finger on the tabletop. It sounded to Battlemont like the slack drum of a death march.

"Hadn't we better get started?" demanded Finnister.

"Are we all here—finally?" asked Owling.

Battlemont swallowed past a lump in his throat. "Well ... ah'... no ... ah ..

Owling opened a briefcase in his lap, glanced at an intelligence report, looked around the table. "Miss Everest is missing," he announced.

Finnister said: "Couldn't we go ahead without her?"

"We'll wait," said Owling. He was enjoying himself. Damned parasites need a touch of the whip now and then! he thought. Shows 'em where they stand.

Finnister glared at Owling, a hawk stare that had reduced full colonels (male) to trembling. The stare rolled off Owling without effect. Trust the high command to pair me with a male supremacy type like Owling! she thought.

"Is this place safe from snooping?" asked Owling.

Battlemont turned his own low-wattage glare on the staff seated in the mood smoke haze around the table. No glance met his. "That's all anybody ever does around here!" he snapped.

"What?" Owling started to rise.

"Busybodies!" blared Battlemont. "My whole staff!"

"Ohhh." Owling sank back into his chair. "I meant a different kind of snooping."

"Oh, that." Battlemont shrugged, suppressed an urge to glance up at the conference room's concealed recorder lenses. "We cannot have our ideas pirated by other agencies, you know. Absolutely safe here."

Gwen Everest chose this moment for her entrance. All eyes followed her as she came through the end door, strode down the length of the room.

Battlemont admired her grace. Such a feminine woman in spite of her strength. So different from the female general.

Gwen found a spare chair against the side wall, crowded it in between Battlemont and Finnister.

The commander of the WOMS glared at the intruder. "Who are you?"

Battlemont leaned forward. "This is Miss Everest, our ... ah ..." He hesitated, confused. Gwen had never had an official title with the agency. Never needed it. Everyone in the place knew she was the boss. "Ahh . . . Miss Everest is our . . . ah . . . director of coordination," said Battlemont.

"Why! That's a wonderful title!" said Gwen. "I must get it printed on my stationery." She patted Battlemont's hand, faced him and, in her best undercover-agent-going-into-action voice, said: "Let's have it, Chief. Who are these people? What's going on?"

General Owling nodded to Gwen. "I'm Owling, General, Space Engineers." He gestured to the rocket splash insignia on his shoulder. "My companion is General Finnister, WOMS."

Gwen had recognized the famous Finnister face. She smiled brightly, said: "General Woms!"

"Finnister!" snapped the female general.

"Yes, of course," said Gwen. "General Finnister Woms. Must not go too informal, you know."

Finnister spoke in slow cadence: "I . . . am . . . General . . . Sonnet . . . Finnister . . . of . . . the . . . Women . . . of . . . Space! The WOMS!"

"Oh, how stupid of me," said Gwen. "Of course you are." She patted the general's hand, smiled at Battlemont.

Battlemont, who well knew the falsity of this mood in Gwen Everest, was trying to scrunch down out of sight in his chair.

In that moment, Gwen realized with a twinge of fear that she had reached a psychic point of no return. Something slipped a cog in her mind. She glanced around the table. Familiar faces leaped at her with unreal clarity. Staring eyes. (The best part of a conference was to watch Gwen in action.) I can't take any more of this, thought Gwen. I have to declare myself.

She focused on the military. The rest of the people in this room owned little pieces of her, but not these two. Owl-ing and Finnister. Space generals. Symbols. Targets!

Let the chips fall where they may! Fire when ready, Gridley. Shoot if you must this old gray head . . . Wait until you see the whites of their eyes.

Gwen nodded to herself.

One misstep and the agency was ruined.

Who cares?

It all passed in a split second, but the decision was made. Rebellion!

Gwen turned her attention on Owling. "Would you be kind enough to end this stalling around and get the meeting under way?"

"Stall . . ." Owling broke it off. The intelligence report had said Gwen Everest was fond of shock tactics. He gave her a curt nod, passed the nod to Finnister.

The female general addressed Battlemont. "Your agency, as we explained to you earlier, has been chosen for a vital task, Mr. Battlefield."

"Battlemont," said Gwen.

Finnister stopped short. "What?"

"His name is Battlemonr, not Battlefield," said Gwen.

"What of it?"

"Names are important," said Gwen. "I'm sure you appreciate this."

The Finnister cheeks flushed. "Quite!"

Owling stepped into the breach. "We are authorized to pay this agency double the usual fee for performance," he said. "However, if you fail us we'll draft every male employee here into the Space Service!"

"What an asinine idea!" said Gwen. "Our people would destroy the Space Service. From within." Again she smiled at Battlemont. "Andre here could do it all by himself. Couldn't you, ducky?" She patted Battlemont's cheek.

Battlemont tried to crouch farther down into the chair. He avoided the eyes of the space brass, said: "Gwen . . . please. . . ."

"What do you mean, destroy the Space Service?" demanded Finnister.

Gwen ignored her, addressed Owling.. "This is another one of the Psych Branch's brainstorms," she said. "I can smell the stench of 'em in every word."

Owling frowned. As a matter of fact, he had the practical builder's suspicion of everything subjective. This Everest woman made a good point there. But the military had to stand shoulder to shoulder against outsiders. He said: "I don't believe you are properly equipped to fathom military tactics. Let's get on to the problem we . . . ."

"Military tactics yet!" Gwen rapped the table. "Deploy your forces, men. This is it! Synchronize your watches. Over the top!"

"Gwen!" said Battlemont.

"Of course," said Gwen. She faced Finnister. "Would you mind awfully outlining your problem in simple terms that our unmilitarized minds could understand?"

A pause, a glare. Finnister spewed her words through stiff lips. "Enlistments in the WOMS have fallen to an alarming degree. You are going to correct this."

Behind Gwen, Battlemont nodded vigorously.

"Women can release men for the more strenuous tasks," said Owling.

"And there are many things women can do that men cannot do," said Finnister.

"Absolutely essential," said Owling.

"Absolutely," agreed Finnister. "Can't draft women, I suppose," said Gwen. "Tried to get a bill through," said Owling. "Damned committee's headed by an anti-military woman." "Good for her," said Gwen.

"You do not sound like the person for this job," said Owling. "Perhaps. . . ."

"Oh, simmer down," said Gwen.

"Miss Everest is the best in the business," said Battlemont

Gwen said: "Why are enlistments down? You've run the usual surveys, I suppose."

"It's the space armor," said Finnister. "Women don't like it."

"Too mechanical," said Owling. 'Too practical."

"We need . . . ah . . . glamor," said Finnister. She adjusted the brim of her cap.

Gwen frowned at the cap, cast a glance up and down the Finnister uniform. "I've seen the usual news pictures of the armor," she said. "What do they wear underneath it? Something like your uniform?"

Finnister suppressed a surge of anger. "No. They wear special fatigues."

"The armor cannot be removed while they are in space," said Owling.

"Oh?" said Gwen. "What about physical functions, that sort of thing?"

"Armor takes care of everything," said Owling.

"Apparently not quite everything," murmured Gwen. She nodded to herself, mulling tactics.

Battlemont straightened, sniffed the atmosphere of the conference room. Staff all alert, quiet, attentive. Mood had lightened somewhat. Gwen appeared to be taking over. Good old Gwen. Wonderful Gwen. No telling what she was up to. As usual. She'd solve this thing, though. Always did. Unless . . .

He blinked. Could she be toying with them? He tried to imagine Gwen's thought patterns. Impossible. IBMausoleum couldn't even do it. Unpredictable. All Battlemont could be certain of was that Gwen would get a gigantic belly laugh from the picture of the agency's male staff members drafted, slaving away on space freighters. Battlemont trembled.

General Finnister was saying: "The problem is not one of getting women to enlist for Earthbased service. We need them in the ships, the asteroid stations, the. . ."

"Let's get this straight," said Gwen. "My great-great-grandmother was in some kind of armed service. I read her diary once. She called it the 'whackies' or something like that."

"WACS," said Finnister.

"Yes," said Gwen. "It was during the war with Spain." "Japan," said Owling.

"What I'm driving at is, why all the sudden interest in women? My great-great-grandmother had one merry old time running away from some colonel who wanted. . . . Well, you know. Is this some kind of a dodge to provide women for your space colonels?"

Finnister scowled her blackest

Quickly suppressed chuckles sounded around the table.

Owling decided to try a new tack. "My dear lady, our motives are of the highest. We need the abilities of women so that mankind can march side by side to the stars."

Gwen stared at him in open admiration. "Go-wan!" she said.

"I mean it," said Owling.

"You're a poet!" said Gwen. "Oh . . . and I've wronged you. Here I was—dirty-minded me—thinking you wanted women for base purposes. And all the time you wanted companions. Someone to share this glorious new adventure."

Again, Battlemont recognized the danger signals. He tried to squeeze himself into as small a target as possible. Most of the staff around the table saw the same signals, but they were intent, fascinated.

"Exactly!" boomed Finnister.

Gwen's voice erupted in an angry snarl: "And we name all the little bastards after the stars in Virgo, ehhh?"

It took a long moment for Finnister and Owling to see that they had been gulled. Finnister started to rise.

"Siddown!" barked Gwen. She grinned. She was having a

magnificent time. Rebellion carried a sense of euphoria. Owling opened his mouth, closed it without a howl. Finnister sank back into her chair.

"Shall we get down to business?" snapped Gwen. "Let's look at this glorified hunk of tin you want us to glamorize."

Finnister found something she could focus her shocked attention on. "Space armor is mostly plastic, not tin."

"Plastic-schmastic," said Gwen. "I want to see your Iron Gertie."

General Owling took two deep breaths to calm his nerves, snapped open the briefcase, extracted a folder of design sketches. He pushed them toward Gwen—a hesitant motion as though he feared she might take his hand with them. He now recognized that the incredible intelligence report was correct: this astonishing female was the actual head of the agency.

"Here's—Iron Gertie," he said, and forced a chuckle.

Gwen leafed through the folder while the others watched.

Battlemont stared at her. He realized something the rest of the staff did not: Gwen Everest was not being the usual Gwen Everest. There was a subtle difference. An abandon. Something was very wrong!

Without looking up from the drawings, Gwen addressed herself to Finnister. "That uniform you're wearing, General Finnister. You design that yourself?"

"What? Oh, yes. I did."

Battlemont trembled.

Gwen reached out, rapped one of Finnister's hips. "Bony," she said. She turned a page in the folder, shook her head.

"Well!" exploded Finnister.

Still without looking up, Gwen said: "Simmer down. How about the hat? You design that, too?"

"Yesss!" It was a sibilant explosion.

Gwen lifted her attention to the hat, spoke in a reasonable tone: "Possibly the most hideous thing I've ever seen."

"Well of all the—"

"Are you a fashion designer?" asked Gwen politely. Finnister shook her head as though to clear it of cobwebs. "You are not a fashion designer?" pressed Gwen.

Finnister bit the words off. "I have had some experience in choosing—"

"The answer is no, then," said Gwen. 'Thought so," She brought her attention back to the folder, turned a page.

Finnister glared at her in open-mouthed rage.

Gwen glanced up at Owling. "Why'd you put the finger on ' this agency?"

Owling appeared to have trouble focusing his attention on Gwen's question. Presently, he said: "You were ... it was pointed out that this agency was one of the most successful in ... if not the most successful. . . ."

"We were classified as expert, eh?"

"Yes. If you want to put it that way."

"I want to put it that way." She glanced at Finnister. "So we let the experts do the designing, is that clear? You people keep your greasy fingers off. Understood?" She shot a hard stare at Owling, back to Finnister.

"I don't know about you!" Finnister snapped at Owling, "but I've had all—"

"If you value your military career you'll just sit down and listen," said Gwen. Again, she glared at Owling. "Do you understand?"

Owling shook his head from side to side. Amazement dominated him. Abruptly, he realized that his head shaking could be interpreted as negative. He bobbed his head up and down, decided in mid-motion that this was undignified. He stopped, cleared his throat.

What an astonishing female! he thought.

Gwen pushed the folder of design sketches uptable to Leo Prim, the art director. "Tell me, General Owling," she said, "why is the armor so bulky?"

Leo Prim, who had opened the folder, began to chuckle.

"Marvelous, isn't it?" said Gwen.

Someone farther uptable asked: "What is?"

Gwen kept her attention on Owling. "Some jassack engineer in the Space Service designed a test model suit of armor like a gigantic woman—breasts and all." She glanced at Finnister. "You ran a survey on the stupid thing, of course?"

Finnister nodded. She was shocked speechless.

"I could've saved you the trouble," said Gwen. "One of the reasons you'd better listen carefully to what expert me has to say. No woman in her right mind would get into that thing. She'd feel big—and she'd feel naked." Gwen shook her head. "Freud! What a combination!"

Owling wet his lips with his tongue. "Ah, the armor has to provide sufficient shielding against radiation, and it must remain articulate under extremes of pressure and temperature," he said. "It can't be made any smaller and still permit a human being to fit into it."

"Okay," said Gwen. "I have the beginnings of an idea."

She closed her eyes, thought: These military jerks are a couple of sitting ducks. Almost a shame to pot them. She opened her eyes, glanced at Battlemont. His eyes were closed. He appeared to be praying. Could be the ruination of poor Andre and his lovely people, too, she thought. What a marvelous collection of professional stranglers! Well, can't be helped. When G.wen Everest goes out, she goes out in a blaze of glory! All flags flying! Full speed ahead! Damn the torpedoes!

"Well?" said Owling.

Fire one! thought Gwen. She said: "Presumably, you have specialists, experts who can advise us on technical details."

"At your beck and call whenever you say the word," said Owling.

Battlemont opened his eyes, stared at the back of Gwen's neck. A ray of hope stabbed through his panic. Was it possible that Gwen was really taking over?

"I'll also want all the dope on which psychological types make the best WOMS," said Gwen. "If there is such a thing as a best WOM."

Battlemont closed his eyes, shuddered.

"I don't believe I've ever been treated this high-handedly in my entire career!" blurted Finnister. "I'm not entirely sure that—"

"Just a moment, please," said Owling. He studied Gwen, who was smiling at him. The intelligence report said this woman was "probable genius" and should be handled delicately.

"I'm only sorry the law doesn't give us the right to draft women, too!" barked Finnister.

"Then you wouldn't really have this problem, would you?" asked Gwen. She turned her smile on Finnister. It was full of beatitudes.

Owling said: "I know we have full authority to handle this at our own discretion, General Finnister, and I agree that we've been subjected to some abuse but . . ."

"Abuse!" Finnister said.

"And high time, too," said Gwen.

A violent shudder passed through Battlemont. He thought: We are doomed!

"However," said Owling, "we mustn't let our personal feelings cloud a decision for the good of the service."

"I hear the bugles blowing," murmured Gwen.

"This agency was chosen as the one most likely to solve the problem," said Owling.

"There could have been a mistake!" said Finnister.

"Not likely."

"You are determined to turn this thing over to ... to . . ." Finnister broke off, tapped her palms on the table top.

"It's advisable," said Owling. He thought: This Gwen Everest will solve our problem. No problem could resist her. No problem would dare!

General Owling had become a Gwenophile.

"Very well, then," snarled Finnister. "I will reserve my judgment."

General Finnister had become a Gwenophobe.

Which was part of Gwen Everest's program.

"I presume you two will be available for technical consultations from time to time," said Gwen.

"Our subordinates take care of details," said Owling. "All General Finnister and I are interested in is the big picture, the key to the puzzle."

"Big picture, key to puzzle," mused Gwen. "Wonderful idea."

"What?" Owling stared at her, puzzled. "Nothing," said Gwen. "Just thinking out loud." Owling stood up, looked at Finnister. "Shall we be going?"

Finnister also stood up, turned toward the door at the end of the room. "Yesss!"

Together, one on each side of the table, they marched the length of the room: tump-a-mump-a-tump-a-mump-a-tump. . . . Just as they reached the door and Owling opened it, Gwen jumped to her feet. "Charrrrge!" she shouted.

The two officers froze, almost turned, thought better of it They left, slamming the door.

Battlemont spoke plaintively into the silence. "Gwen, why do you destroy us?"

"Destroy you? Don't be silly!"

"But, Gwen . . ."

"Please be quiet, Andre; you're interrupting my train of thought." She turned to Leo Prim. "Leo, take those sketches

and things of that big-hreasted Rprrha thpy Hpsignprl I want

adecal workups on them, full projos, the entire campaign outlay."

"Big Bertha adecals, projos, the outlay," said Prim. "Right!"

"Gwen, what are you doing?" asked Battlemont "You said yourself that—"

"You're babbling, Andre," said Gwen. She glanced up at the ceiling. An eye in one of the Cellini cupids winked at her. "We got the usual solid recordings of this conference, I presume?"

"Of course," said Battlemont

'Take those recordings, Leo," said Gwen. "Do a sequence out of them featuring only General Sinister Sonnet Bonnet Finnister."

"What'd you call her?" asked Prim.

Gwen explained about the Finnister nicknames. "The fashion trade knows all about her," she finished. "A living horror."

"Yeah, okay," said Prim. "A solid sequence of nothing but Finnister. What do you want it to show?"

"Every angle of that uniform," said Gwen. "And the hat Freud! Don't forget that hat!"

Battlemont spoke plaintively. "I don't understand."

"Good," said Gwen. "Leo, send me Restivo and Jim

Spark ... a couple more of your best design people. Include yourself. We'll . . ."

"And, lo! Ben Adam's name led all the rest," said Battle-mont.

Gwen turned, stared down at him. For one of the rare times in their association, Battlemont had surprised her with something he said.

/ wonder if our dear Andre could be human? she mused. No! I must be going soft in the head. She said: "Andre, go take a meditation break until time to call our next conference. Eh? There's a good fellow."

Always before when she abused me it was like a joke between us, thought Battlemont dolefully. But now she is trying to hurt. His concern now was for Gwen, not for the agency. My Gwen needs help. And I don't know what to do.

"Meditation break time," said Gwen. "Or you could go to a mood bar. Why don't you try the new Interdorma medi-niche? A niche in time saves the mind!"

"I prefer to remain awake for our last hours together," said Battlemont. A sob clutched at his throat. He stood up to cover the moment, drew himself to attention, fixed Gwen with a despairing glare. "I feel the future crouching over us like a great beast!" He turned his back on her, strode out through his private door.

"I wonder what the devil he meant by that?" mused Gwen.

Prim said: "This is the month of St. Freud. They go for prescience, extrasensory perception, that sort of thing."

"Oh, certainly," she said. "I wrote the brochure." But she found herself disturbed by Battlemont's departure. He looked so pitiful, she thought. What if this little caper backfires and he gets drafted? It could happen. Leo and the rest of these stranglers could take it. But Andre. . . . She gave a mental shrug. Too late to turn back now.

Department heads began pressing toward Gwen along the table. "Say, Gwen, what about the production on . . ." "If I'm going to meet any deadlines I'll need more . . ." Will we have to drop our other . . ."

"Shaddup!" bellowed Gwen.

She smiled sweetly into the shocked silence. "I will meet with each of you privately, just as soon as I get in a fresh stock of crying towels. First things first, though. Number one problem: we get the monkey off our backs. Eh?"

And she thought: You poor oafs! You aren't even aware how close you are to disaster. You think Gwen is taking over as usual. But Gwen doesn't care. Gwen doesn't give a damn any more. Gwen is resigning in a blaze of glory! Into the valley of death rode the 600! Or was it 400? No matter. War is hell! I only regret that I have but one life to give for my agency. Give me liberty or give me to the WOMS.

Leo Prim said: "You're going for the throat on these two military types, is that it?"

"Military tactics," said Gwen. "No survivors! Take no prisoners! Death to the White Eyes!"

"Huh?" said Prim.

"Get right on that assignment I gave you," she said.

"Uhh . . ." Prim looked down at the folder Owling had

left. "Workups on this Big Bertha thing ... a solido on Finnister. Okay." He shook his head. "You know, this business could shape up into a Complete Flap."

"It could be worse than that," Gwen cautioned.

Someone else said: "It's absolutely the worst I've ever seen. Drafted!"

And Gwen thought: Ooooh! Someone has trepidations! Abruptly, she said: "Absolutely worst flap.** She brightened. "That's wonderful! One moment, all you lovely people."

There was sudden stillness in the preparations for departure.

"It has been moved that we label this business the Absolutely Worst Flap," she said. Chuckles from the staff.

"You will note," said Gwen, "that the initials A-W-F are the first three letters in the word awful." Laughter.

"Up to now," said Gwen, "we've only had to contend with Minor, Medium and Complete Flaps. Now I give you the AWF! It rhymes with the grunt of someone being slugged in the stomach!"

Into the laughter that filled the room, Prim said: "How about the U and L in awful? Can't let them go to waste."

"UnLimited!" snapped Gwen. "Absolutely Worst Flap UnLimited!" She began to laugh, had to choke it off as the laughter edged into hysteria. Whatinell's wrong with me? she wondered. She glared at Prim. "Let's get cracking, men! Isn't a damn one of you would look good in uniform."

The laughter shaded down into nervous gutterings. "That Gwen!"

Gwen had to get out of there. It was like a feeling of nausea. She pushed her way down the side of the room. The sparkle had gone out of her rebellion. She felt that all of these people were pulling at her, taking bits of herself that she could never recapture. It made her angry. She wanted to kick, bite, claw. Instead, she smiled fixedly. "Excuse me. May I get through here? Sorry. Thank you. Excuse me."

And an image of Andre Battlemont kept intruding on her consciousness. Such a pitiful little fellow. So . . . well . . . sweet. Dammit! Sweet! In a despicable sort of way.

Twenty-five days slipped off the calendar. Twenty-five days of splashing in a pool of confusion. Gwen's element. She hurled herself into the problem. This one had to be just right. A taglirie for her exit. A Gwen Everest signature at the bottom of the page.

Technical experts from the military swarmed all through the agency. Experts on suit articulation. Experts on shielding. Pressure coefficients. Artificial atmosphere. Waste reclamation. Subminiature power elements. A locksmith. An expert on the new mutable plastics. (He had to be flown in from the West Coast.)

Plus the fashion experts seen only by Gwen.

It was quite a job making sure that each military expert saw only what his small technical world required.

Came the day of the Big Picture. The very morning.

Adjacent to her office Gwen maintained a special room abut 20 feet square. She called it "my intimidation room." It was almost Louis XV: insubstantial chairs, teetery little tables, glass gimcracks on the light fixtures, pastel cherubs on the wall panels.

The chairs looked as though they might smash flat under the weight of a medium-sized man. Each (with the exception of a padded throne chair that slid from behind a wall panel for Gwen) had a seat that canted forward. The sitters kept sliding off, gently, imperceptibly.

None of the tables had a top large enough for a note pad and an ashtray. One of these items had to be balanced in the lap or placed underfoot. That forced an occasional look at the carpet

The carpet had been produced with alarming psychological triggers. The uninitiated felt that they were standing upside down in a fishbowl.

General Owling occupied one of the trick chairs. He tried to keep from staring at the cherub centered in a wall panel directly across from him, slightly to the right of the seated figure of Andre Battlemont. Battlemont looked ill. Owling pushed himself backward in the chair. His knees felt exposed. He glanced at General rinnistcr. She sot to his right beyond a spindly table. She pulled her skirt down as he watched. He wondered why she sat so far forward on the chair.

Damned uncomfortable little chairs!

He noted that Battlemont had brought in one of the big conference room chairs for himself. Owling wondered why they all couldn't have those big, square, solid, secure chairs. For that matter, why wasn't this meeting being held in the big conference room? Full Staff. The Dig Picture! He glanced up at the wall panel opposite. Stupid damned cherub! He looked down at the rug, grimaced, tore his gaze away.

Finnister had looked at the rug when she came into the room, had almost lost her balance. Now, she tried to keep her attention off it. Her mind seethed with disquieting rumors. Individual reports from the technical experts failed to reveal a total image. It was like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces from separate puzzles all thrown together. She pushed herself backward in the chair. What an uncomfortable room. Intuition told her the place was subtly deliberate. Her latent anger at Gwen Everest flared. Where is that woman?

Battlemont cleared his throat, glanced at the door to his right through which Gwen was expected momentarily. Must she always be late? Gwen had avoided him for weeks. Too busy. Suddenly this morning she had to have Andre Battle-mont front and center. A figurehead. A prop for her little show. He knew pretty much what she was doing, too. In the outward, physical sense. She might be able to keep things from some of the people around here, but Andre Battlemont ran his own intelligence system. As to what was going on in her mind, though, he couldn't be sure. All he knew was that it didn't fit. Not even for Gwen.

Finnister said: "Our technical people inform us that you've been pretty interested—" she pushed herself back in the chair—"in the characteristics of some of the newer mutable plastics."

"That is true," said Battlemont.

"Why?" asked Owling.

"Ahhh, perhaps we'd better wait for Miss Everest," said Battlemont. "She is bringing a solido projector." "You have mockups already?" asked Owling. "Yes."

"Good! How many models?"

"One. Our receptionist. Beautiful girl."

"What?" Finnister and Owling in unison.

"Oh! You mean . . . that is, we have the one to show you. It is really two . . . but only one of . . ." He shrugged, suppressed a shudder.

Finnister and Owling looked at each other.

Battlemont closed his eyes. Gwen, please hurry. He thought about her solution to the military problem, began to tremble. Her basic idea was sound, of course. Good psychological roots. But the military would never go for it. Especially that female general who walked like a sergeant. Bat-tlemont's eyes snapped open as he heard a door open.

Gwen came in pushing a portable display projector. A glance of mutual dislike passed between Gwen and Finnister, was masked by mutual bright smiles immediately.

"Good morning, everybody," chirped Gwen.

Danger signal! thought Battlemont. She's mad! She's . . . He stopped the thought, focused on it. Maybe she is. We work her so hard.

"Anxious to see what you have there," said Owling. "Just getting ready to ask for a progress report when you called this meeting."

"We wanted to have something first that you could appreciate as an engineer," said Gwen. Owling nodded.

Finnister said: "Our people report that you've been very secretive about your work. Why?"

"The very walls have ears. Loose lips lose the Peace! Don't be half safe!" Gwen positioned the projector in the center of the room, took the remote control, crossed to a panel which swung out to disgorge her chair. She sat down facing Finnister and Owling.

Seconds dragged past while she stared in fascination at Finnister's knees.

"Gwen?" said Battlemont.

Finnister tugged down on the hem of her skirt.

"What do you have to show us?" demanded Owling. He pushed himself back in the chair.

"First," said Gwen, "let us examine the perimeters of the problem. You must ask yourself: What do young women want when they enter the service?"

"Sounds sensible," said Owling.

Finnister nodded, her dislike of Gwen submerged in attention to the words.

"They want several things," said Gwen. "They want travel . . . adventure ... the knight errant sort of thing. Tally-ho!"

Battlemont, Finnister and Owling snapped to shocked attention.

"Gives you pause when you think about it," murmured Gwen. "All those women looking for something. Looking for the free ride. The brass ring. The pot at the-end of the rainbow."

She had them nodding again, Gwen noted. She raised her voice: "The old carrousel! The jingle-dingle joy journey!"

Battlemont looked at her sadly. Mad. Ohhh, my poor, poor Gwenny.

Owling said: "I . . . uh . . ."

"But they all want one commodity!" snapped Gwen.

"And what's that? Romance! That's what's that. And in the unconscious mind what's that romance? That romance is sex!"

"I believe I've heard enough," said Finnister.

"No," said Owling. "Let's ... uh ... this is all, I'm sure, preliminary. I want to know where . . . after all, the model . . . models they've developed . . ."

"What's with sex when you get all the folderol off it?" demanded Gwen. "The psychological roots. What's down there?"

Owling scratched his throat, stared at her. He had a basic distrust of subjective ideas, but he always came smack up against the fear that maybe (just maybe now) they were correct. Some of them appeared (and it could be appearance only) to work.

"I'll tell you what's down there," muttered Gwen. "Motherhood. Home. Security with a man. The flag."

Owling thought: all sounds so sensible . . . except. . .

"And what does your armor do?" asked Gwen. "Armor equals no amour! They're locked up in desexed chunks of metal and plastic where no men can get at them. Great Freud! Men can't even see them in there!"

"Women don't really want men to get at them!" barked Finnister. "Of all the disgusting ideas I've ever—"

"Just a minute!" said Gwen. "A normal woman always wants the possibility. That's what she wants. And she wants it under her control. You've eliminated the possibility. You've taken all control out of their hands, put your women at the mercy of the elements, separated from cold, masculine, angular abrupt and final death! by only a thin layer of plastic and metal."

Battlemont stared at her helplessly. Poor Gwen. Doomed. And she won't even sell this idea. We're all doomed with her.

Finnister glared at Gwen, still smarting under the implied dig of the word normal.

"How do you propose to get around these, ah, objections?" asked Owling.

"You'll see," said Gwen. "Let's go in from the perimeter now. Remember, the basic female idea is to be able to run away with the assurance that she will be caught. She wants a certain amount of exposure as a female without being too bare-ahhh-faced about it."

"Mmmmph!" said Finnister.

Gwen smiled at her.

Gwen is deliberately destroying herself and us with her, thought Battlemont.

"Do you see what is lacking?" asked Gwen.

"Hmmmm-ahhhhh-hmmmmm," said Owling.

"A universal symbol," said Gwen. "A bold symbol. A symbol!"

"What do you propose?" asked Owling.

"That's it!" said Gwen. "A proposal! Plus—" she hesitated—"the symbol! The key is very simple." She sat up, perky, grinning at them. "In fact, it's a key!"

Finnister and Owling spoke in unison. "A key?"

"Yes. Two keys, actually. Symbolism's obvious." She produced two keys from her jacket pocket, held them up. "As you can see, one key is hard, angular ... a masculine key. The other has fancy curves. It's daintier, more the . . ."

"Do you mean to tell me," howled Owling, "that you people have spent all these weeks, all those consultations with our experts, and come up with . . . with . . . with . . ." He pointed, unable to continue.

Gwen shook her head from side to side. "Oh, no. Remember, these are just symbols. They're important, of course. One might even say they were vital. Each key will be inscribed with the name of the person who gets it."

"What are they keys to?" asked Finnister. She was fascinated in spite of herself.

"To the space armor, naturally," said Gwen. "These keys lock your people in their armor—both men and women."

"Lock them?" protested Finnister. "But you said . . ."

"I know," said Gwen. "But, you see, a key that will lock people into something will also let them out. As a matter of fact, any one of these keys will open any suit. That's for the safety factor."

"But they can't get out of their suits when they're in space!" howled Owling. "Of all the . . ."

"That's right!" said Gwen. "They can't really get out. So we give them the symbol of getting out. For exchanging." "Exchanging?" asked Finnister.

"Certainly. A male astronaut sees a girl astronaut he likes. He asks her to trade keys. Very romantic. Symbolic of things that may happen when they return to Earth or get to a base where they can get out of the suits."

"Miss Everest," said Finnister, "as you so aptly pointed out earlier, no astronaut can see one of our women in this armor. And even if he could, I don't believe that I'd . . ."

She froze, staring, shocked speechless.

Gwen had pushed a stud on the solido projector's remote control. A suit of space armor appeared to be hanging in the center of the room. In the suit, wearing a form-fitting jacket, stood the agency's busty receptionist. The suit of armor around her was transparent from the waist up.

"The bottom half remains opaque at all times," said Gwen. "For reasons of modesty ... the connections. However, the top half . . ."

Gwen pushed another stud. The transparent upper half faded through gray to black until it concealed the model.

"For privacy when desired," said Gwen. "That's how we've used the new mutable plastic. Gives the girl some control over her environment."

Again, Gwen pushed the first stud. The upper half of the model reappeared.

Finnister gaped at the form-fitting uniform.

Gwen stood up, took a pointer, gestured in through the projection. "This uniform was designed by a leading couturier. It is made to reveal while concealing. A woman with only a fair figure will appear to good advantage in it. A woman with an excellent figure appears stunning, as you can see. Poor figures—" Gwen shrugged—"there are exercises for developing them. Or so I am told."

Finnister interrupted in a cold voice. "And what do you propose to do with that . . . that uni . . . clothing?"

"This will be the regulation uniform for the WOMS," said Gwen. "There's a cute little hat goes with it. Very sexy."

Battlemont said: "Perhaps the changeover could be made slowly so as to . . ."

"What changeover?" demanded Finnister. She leaped to her feet. "General Owling!"

Owling tore his attention from the model. "Yes?"

"Completely impractical! I will put up with no more!" barked Finnister.

Battlemont thought: 1 knew it. Oh, my poor Gwenny! They will destroy her, too. I knew it.

"We can't waste any more time with this agency," said Finnister. "Come, General."

"Wait!" yelped Battlemont. He leaped to his feet. "Gwen, I told you . . ."

Finnister said: "It's regrettable, but . . ."

"Perhaps we're being a little hasty," said Owling. "There may be something to salvage from this . . ."

"Yes!" said Battlemont. "Just a little more time is all we need to get a fresh . . ."

"I think not," said Finnister.

Gwen smiled from one to the other, thought: What a prize lot of gooney birds! She felt a little drunk, as euphoric as if she had just come from a mood bar. Rebellion, it's wonderful! Up the Irish! Or something.

Owling shrugged, thought: We have to stand together against civilians. General Finnister is right. Too bad, though. He got to his feet.

"Just a little more time," pleaded Battlemont.

Too bad about Andre, thought Gwen. She had an inspiration, said: "One moment, please."

Three pairs of eyes focused on her.

Finnister said: "If you think you can stop me from going through with our threat, dissuade yourself. I'm perfectly aware that you had that uni . . . that clothing designed to make me look hideous!"

"Why not?" asked Gwen. "I was only doing to you what you did to virtually every other woman in the WOMS."

"Gwen!" pleaded Battlemont in horror.

"Be still, Andre," said Gwen. "It's just a matter of timing, anyway. Today. Tomorrow. Next week. Not really important."

"Oh, my poor Gwenny," sobbed Battlemont.

"I was going to wait," said Gwen. "Possibly a week. At least until I'd turned in my resignation."

"What're you talking about?" asked Owling.

"Resignation!" gasped Battlemont

"I just can't toss poor Andre here to the wolves," said Gwen. "The rest of our men, yes. Once they get inside they'll chew your guts out, anyway."

"What are you talking about?" asked Finnister.

"The rest of the men in this agency can take care of themselves . . . and you, too," said Gwen. "Wolves among wolves. But Andre here is helpless. All he has is his position . . . money. He's an accident. Put him someplace where money and position are less important, it'll kill him."

"Regrettable," said Finnister. "Shall we be going, General Owling?"

"I was going to ruin both of you," said Gwen. "But I'll tell you what. You leave Andre alone and I'll just give one of you the business."

"Gwen, what are you saying?" whispered Battlemont

"Yesss!" hissed Finnister. "Explain yourself!"

"I just want to know the pecking order here," said Gwen. "Which one of you ranks the other?"

"What does that have to do with it?" asked Finnister.

"Just a minute," said Owling. 'That intelligence report." He glared at Gwen. "I'm told you've prepared an adecal on the test model we made before coming to you."

"Big Bertha," said Gwen. "And it's not just an adecal. I have everything needed for a full national campaign. Look!"

A solido of the breast-bearing test model replaced the transparent suit hanging in the center of the room.

"The idea for Big Bertha here originated with General Owling," said Gwen. "My campaign establishes that fact, then goes on to feature an animated model of Big Bertha. She is a living panic. Funniest thing you ever saw. General ¹ Owling, you will be the laughing stock of the nation by nightfall of the day I start this campaign."

Owling took a step forward.

Battlemont said: "Gwen! They will destroy you!"

Owling pointed at the projection. "You . . . you wouldn't!"

"But I would," said Gwen. She smiled at him.

Battlemont tugged at Gwen's arm. She shook him off.

"It would ruin me," whispered Owling.

"Presumably, you are capable of going through with this threat," said Finnister. "Regrettable."

Owling whirled on Finnister. "We must stand together!" he said desperately.

"You bet," said Gwen. She pushed another stud on the remote control.

A projection of General Finnister in her famous uniform replaced Big Bertha.

"You may as well know the whole story," said Gwen. "I'm all set with another campaign on the designing of this uniform, right from the Sonnet Bonnet on down through the Sinister Finnister cape and those sneaky walking shoes. I start with a dummy model of the general clad in basic foundation garments. Then I go on to show how each element of the present WOMS uniform was designed for the ... ah . . . Finnister . . t ah . . . figure."

"I'll sue!" barked Finnister.

"Go ahead. Go ahead." Gwen waved a sinuous arm.

She acts drunk! thought Battlemont. But she never drinks.

"I'm all set to go black market with these campaigns," said Gwen. "You can't stop me. I'll prove every contention I make about that uniform. I'll expose you. I'll show why your enlistment drives flopped."

Red suffused the Finnister face. "All right!" she snapped. "If you're going to ruin us, I guess there's nothing we can do about it. But mark this, Miss Everest. We'll have the men of this agency in the service. You'll have that on your conscience! And the men we draft will serve under friends of ours. I hope you know what that means!"

"You don't have any friends," said Gwen, but her voice lacked conviction. It's backfiring, she thought. Oh, hell. I didn't think they'd defy me.

'There may even be something we can do about you!" said Finnister. "A presidential order putting you in the service for reasons of national emergency. Or an emergency clause on some bill. And when we get our hands on you,

Miss Everest . . ."

"Andre!" wailed Gwen. It was all getting out of hand. 1 didn't want to hurt anybody, she thought. / just . . . She realized that she didn't know what she had wanted.

Battlemont was electrified. In 22 years, Gwen Everest had never appealed to anyone for help. And now, for the first time, her appeal was to him! He stepped between Gwen and Finnister. "Andre is right here," he said. He felt inspired. His Gwen had appealed to him! "You assassin!" he said, shaking a finger under the Finnister nose.

"Now, see here!" snapped Owling. "I won't stand for any more of—"

"And you!" barked Battlemont, whirling. "We have recordings of every conference here, from the first, and including this one! They show what happened! Don't you know what is wrong with this poor girl? You! You've driven her out of her mind!"

Gwen joined in the chorus: "What?"

"Be still, Gwen," said Battlemont. "I will handle this."

Gwen couldn't take her attention off him. Battlemont was magnificent. "Yes, Andre."

"I will prove it," said Battlemont. "With Interdorma psychiatrists. With all the experts money can buy. You think you have seen something in those campaigns our Gwen set up? Hah! I will show you something." He stabbed a finger at Owling. "Can the military drive you insane?"

"Oh, now see here," said Owling. "This has gone—"

"Yes! It can drive you insane!" said Battlemont. "And we will show, step by step, how you drove our poor Gwen out of her mind with fear for her friends. Fear for me!" He slapped himself on the chest, glared at Finnister. "And you know what we will do next? We will say to the public: This could happen to you! Who is next? You? Or you? Or you? Then what happens to your money from Congress? What happens to your enlistment quotas?"

"Now see here," said Owling, "We didn't . . ."

"Didn't you?" snarled Battlemont. "You think this poor girl is in her right mind?"

"Well, but we didn't . . ."

"Wait until you see our campaign," said Battlemont. He took Gwen's hand, patted it. "There, there, Gwenny. Andre will fix."

"Yes, Andre," she said. They were the only words she could find. She felt stupefied. He's in love with me, she thought Never before had she known anyone to be in love with her. Not even her parents, who had always been repelled by the intellect they had spawned. Gwen felt warmth seeping through her. A cog slipped into motion in her mind. It creaked somewhat from long idleness. She thought: He's in love with me! She wanted to hug him.

"We seem to be at a stalemate," muttered Owling.

Finnister said: "But we can't just—"

"Shut up!" ordered Owling. "He'll do it! Can't you see that?"

"But if we draft—"

"He'll do it for sure, then! Buy some other agency to run the campaign."

"But we could turn around and draft—"

"You can't draft everybody who disagrees with you, woman! Not in this country! You'd start a revolution!"

"I . . ." Finnister said helplessly.

"And it's not just us he'd ruin," said Owling. "The whole service. He'd strike right at the money. I know his type. He wasn't bluffing. It'd be catastrophic!"

Owling shook his head, seeing a parade of crumbling military projects pass before bis mind's eye, all falling into an abyss labeled "NSF."

"You are an intelligent man, General Owling," said Bat-tlemont.

"That Psych Branch!" snarled Owling. "Them and then-bright ideas!"

"I told you they were fuzzy-heads," said Gwen. "You be still, Gwen," said Battlemont. "Yes, Andre."

"Well, what're we going to do?" demanded Owling. "I tell you what" said Battlemont. "You leave us alone, we leave you alone."

"But what about my enlistments?' wailed Finnister. "You think our Gwen, sick or well, can't solve your problems?" asked Battlemont. "For your enlistments you use the program as outlined." "I won't!"

"You will," said Owling.

"General Owling, I refuse to have. . . ."

"What happens if I have to dump this problem on the General Staff?" asked Owling. "Where will the head-chopping start? In the Psych Branch? Certainly. Who'll be next? The people who could've solved it in the field, that's who!"

Finnister said: "But—"

"For that matter," said Owling, "Miss Everest's ideas sounded pretty sensible . . . with some modifications, of course."

"No modifications," said Battlemont.

He's a veritable Napoleon! thought Gwen.

"Only in minor, unimportant details," soothed Owling. "For engineering reasons."

"Perhaps," agreed Battlemont. "Provided we pass on the modifications before they are made."

"I'm sure we can work it out," said Owling.

Finnister gave up, turned her back on them.

"One little detail," murmured Battlemont. "When you make out the double-fee check to the agency, make a substantial addition—bonus for Miss Everest."

"Naturally," said Owling.

"Naturally," said Battlemont.

When the space brass had departed, Battlemont faced Gwen, stamped his foot. "You have been very bad, Gwen!" "But, Andre—"

"Resignation!" barked Battlemont. "But—"

"Oh, I understand, Gwen. It's my fault. I worked you much too hard. But that is past." "Andre, you don't—"

"Yes, I do! I understand. You were going to sink the ship and go down with it. My poor, dear Gwen. A death wish! If you'd only paid attention to your Interdorma telelog."

"I didn't want to hurt anyone here, Andre. Only those two—"

"Yes, yes. I know. You're all mixed up."

"That's true." She felt like crying. She hadn't cried . . . since . . . she couldn't remember when. "You know," she said, "I can't remember ever crying."

"That's it!" said Battlemont. "I cry all the time. You need a stabilizing influence. You need someone to teach you how to cry."

"Would you teach me, Andre?"

"Would I . . ." He wiped the tears from his eyes. "You are going on a vacation. Iinmediately! I am going with you." "Yes, Andre." "And when we return—"

"I don't want to come back to the agency, Andre. I . . . can't."

"So that's it!" said Battlemont. "The advertising business! It bugs you!"

She shrugged. "I'm ... I just can't face another campaign. I . . . just . . . can't."

"You will write a book," announced Battlemont. "What?"

"Best therapy known," said Battlemont. "Did it myself once. You will write about the-advertising business. You will expose all the dirty tricks: the hypno-jingles, the subvisual flicker images, the advertisers who finance textbooks to get their sell into them, the womb rooms where the youseekers are programmed. Everything."

"I could do it," she said.

"You will tell all," said Battlemont.

"Will I!"

"And you will do it under a pseudonym," said Battlemont. "Safer."

"When do we start the vacation, Andre?"

"Tomorrow." He experienced a moment of his old panic. "You don't mind that I'm . . . ugly as a pig?"

"You're just beautiful," she said. She smoothed the hair across his bald spot. "You don't mind that I'm smarter than you?"

"Ah, hah!" Battlemont drew himself to attention. "You may be smarter in the head, my darling, but you are not smarter in the heart!"

AS EASY AS A.B.C.

RUDYARD KIPLING

Of all the futures envisioned in this book, the one in the story that follows is probably the most curious and, in a way, the most desirable—at least from the point of view of those of us who are oppressed by the excesses of modern society. It is not only in its technological innovations that it is extraordinary, although they alone are startling enough, considering that the story dates from 1912. What is even more startling is its sociological daring. Here was a man who was willing to attack, not the excesses of democracy, but the very methods of democracy itself, and to conceive of a civilization in which "Crowd-Making" was one of the greatest of all crimes! Independence, respect for privacy, limited anarchy: these are the desiderata of Kipling's Good Society. The symbol of 'The Negro in Flames" is surely one of the most unforgettable in literature, and as shamefully true today, though we hope less pragmatically, as it was fifty years ago. (And ignore Kipling's use of the word "nigger"—for in England in those days it did not have the derogatory meaning it does to us today.)

Incidentally, consider how easily the initials in the title can be brought "up to date" by changing the word the "A" stands for from "Aerial" to "Atomic!" . . . And it is, furthermore, possibly a coincidence that Kipling used the name "De Forest" for one of his lead characters—though, of course, we shall never really know. Lee De Forest was already well known in "wireless telegraphy" circles by 1912.

The A .B.C., that semi-elected, semi-nominated body of a few score persons, controls the Planet. Transportation is Civilisa-

Hon, our motto runs. Theoretically we do what we please, so long as we do not interfere with the traffic and all it implies. Practically, the A.B.C. confirms or annuls all international arrangements, and, to judge from its last report, finds our tolerant, humorous, lazy little Planet only too ready to shift the whole burden of public administration on its shoulders.

"With the Night Mail."*

Isn't it almost time that our Planet took some interest in the proceedings of the Aerial Board of Control? One knows that easy communications nowadays, and lack of privacy in the past, have killed all curiosity among mankind, but as the Board's Official Reporter I am bound to tell my tale.

At 9:30 a.m., August 26, a.d. 2065, the Board, sitting in London, was informed by De Forest that the District of Northern Illinois had riotously cut itself out of all systems and would remain disconnected till the Board should take over and administer it direct.

Every Northern Illinois freight and passenger tower was, he reported, out of action; all District main, local, and guiding lights had been extinguished; all General Communications were dumb, and through traffic had been diverted. No reason had been given, but he gathered unofficially from the Mayor of Chicago that the District complained of "crowd-making and invasion of privacy."

As a matter of fact, it is of no importance whether Northern Illinois stay in or out of planetary circuit; as a matter of policy, any complaint of invasion of privacy needs immediate investigation, lest worse follow.

By 9:45 a.m. De Forest, Dragomiroff (Russia), Takahira (Japan), and Pirolo (Italy) were empowered to visit Illinois and "to take such steps as might be necessary for the resumption of traffic and all that that implies." By 10 a. m. the Hall was empty, and the four Members and I were aboard what Pirolo insisted on calling "my leetle godchild"—that is to say, the new Victor Pirolo. Our Planet prefers to know Victor Pirolo as a gentle, grey-haired enthusiast who spends his time near Foggia, inventing or creating new breeds of Spanish-Italian olive-trees; but there is another side to his

*In Actions and Reactions, by Rudyard Kipling.

nature—the manufacture of quaint inventions, of which the Victor Pirolo is, perhaps, not the least surprising. She and a few score sister-craft of the same type embody his latest ideas. But she is not comfortable. An A.B.C. boat does not take the air with the level-keeled lift of a liner, but shoots up rocket-fashion like the "aeroplane" of our ancestors, and makes her height at top-speed from the first. That is why I found myself sitting suddenly on the large lap of Eustace Arnott, who commands the A.B.C. Fleet. One knows vaguely that there is such a thing as a Fleet somewhere on the Planet, and that, theoretically, it exists for the purposes of what used to be known as "war." Only a week before, while visiting a glacier sanatorium behind Gothaven, I had seen some squadrons making false auroras far to the north while they manoeuvred round the Pole; but, naturally, it had never occurred to me that the things could be used in earnest.

Said Arnott to De Forest as I staggered to a seat on the chart-room divan: "We're tremendously grateful to 'em in Illinois. We've never had a chance of exercising all the Fleet together. I've turned in a General Call, and I expect we'll have at least two hundred keels aloft this evening."

"Well aloft?" De Forest asked.

"Of course, sir. Out of sight till they're called for."

Arnott laughed as he lolled over the transparent chart-table where the map of the summer-blue Atlantic slid along, degree by degree, in exact answer to our progress. Our dial already showed 320 m.p.h. and we were two thousand feet above the uppermost traffic lines.

"Now, where is this Illinois District of yours?" said Dragomiroff. "One travels so much, one sees so little. Oh, I remember! It is in North America."

De Forest, whose business it is to know the out districts, told us that it lay at the foot of Lake Michigan, on a road to nowhere in particular, was about half an hour's run from end to end, and, except in one corner, as flat as the sea. Like most flat countries nowadays, it was heavily guarded against invasion of privacy by forced timber—fifty-foot spruce and tamarack, grown in five years. The population was close on two millions, largely migratory between Florida and California, with a backbone of small farms (they call a thousand acres a farm in Illinois) whose owners come into Chicago for amusements and society during the winter. They were, he said, noticeably kind, quiet folk, but a little exacting, as all flat countries must be, in their notions of privacy. There had, for instance, been no printed news-sheet in Illinois for twenty-seven years. Chicago argued that engines for printed news sooner or later developed into engines for invasion of privacy, which in turn might bring the old terror of Crowds and blackmail back to the Planet. So news-sheets were not.

"And that's Illinois," De Forest concluded. "You see, in the Old Days, she was in the forefront of what they used to call 'progress,' and Chicago—"

"Chicago?" said Takahira. "That's the little place where there is Salati's Statue of the Nigger in Flames? A fine bit of old work."

"When did you see it?" asked De Forest quickly. "They only unveil it once a year."

"I know. At Thanksgiving. It was then," said Takahira, with a shudder. "And they sang MacDonough's Song, too."

"Whew!" De Forest whistled. "I did not know that! I wish you'd told me before. MacDonough's Song may have had its uses when it was composed, but it was an infernal legacy for any man to leave behind."

"It's protective instinct, my dear fellows," said Pirolo, rolling a cigarette. "The Planet, she has had her dose of popular government. She suffers from inherited agoraphobia. She has no—ah—use for Crowds."

Dragomiroff leaned forward to give him a light. "Certainly," said the white-bearded Russian, "the Planet has taken all precautions against Crowds for the past hundred years. What is our total population today? Six hundred million, we hope; five hundred, we think; but—but if next year's census shows more than four hundred and fifty, I myself will eat all the extra little babies. We have cut the birth-rate out—right out! For a long time we have said to Almighty God, 'Thank You, Sir, but we do not much like Your game of life, so we will not play.'"

"Anyhow," said Arnott defiantly, "men five a century apiece on the average now."

"Oh, that is quite well! I am rich—you are rich—we are all rich and happy because we are so few and we live so long. Only I think Almighty God He will remember what the Planet was like in the time of Crowds and the Plague. Perhaps He will send us nerves. Eh, Pirolo?"

The Italian blinked into space. "Perhaps," he said, "He has sent them already. Anyhow, you cannot argue with the Planet. She does not forget the Old Days, and—what can you do?"

"For sure we can't remake the world." De Forest glanced at the map flowing smoothly across the table from west to east. "We ought to be over our ground by nine tonight. There won't be much sleep afterwards."

On which hint we dispersed, and I slept till Takahira waked me for dinner. Our ancestors thought nine hours' sleep ample for their little lives. We, living thirty years longer, feel ourselves defrauded with less than eleven out of the twenty-four.

By ten o'clock we were over Lake Michigan. The west shore was lightless, except for a dull ground-glare at Chicago, and a single traffic-directing light—its leading beam pointing north—at Waukegan on our starboard bow. None of the Lake villages gave any sign of life; and inland, westward, so far as we could see, blackness lay unbroken on the level earth. We swooped down and skimmed low across the dark, throwing calls county by county. Now and again we picked up the faint glimmer of a house-light, or heard the rasp and rend of a cultivator being played across the fields, but Northern Illinois as a whole was one inky, apparently uninhabited, waste of high, forced woods. Only our illuminated map, with its little pointer switching from county to county as we wheeled and twisted, gave us any idea of our position. Our calls, urgent, pleading, coaxing or commanding, through the General Communicator brought no answer. Illinois strictly maintained her own privacy in the timber which she grew for that purpose.

"Oh, this is absurd!" said De Forest. "We're like an owl trying to work a wheat-field. Is this Bureau Creek? Let's land, Arnott, and get hold of someone."

We brushed over a belt of forced woodland—fifteen-year-old maple sixty feet high—grounded on a private meadowdock, none too big, where we moored to our own grapnels, and hurried out through the warm dark night towards a light in a verandah. As we neared the garden gate I could have sworn we had stepped knee-deep in quicksand, for we could scarcely drag our feet against the prickling currents that clogged them. After five paces we stopped, wiping our foreheads, as hopelessly struck on dry smooth turf as so many cows in a bog.

"Pest!" cried Pirolo angrily. "We are ground-circuited. And it is my own system of ground-circuits too! I know the pull."

"Good evening," said a girl's voice from the verandah. "Oh, I'm sorry! We've locked up. Wait a minute."

We heard the click of a switch, and almost fell forward as the currents round our knees were withdrawn.

The girl laughed, and laid aside her knitting. An old-fashioned Controller stood at her elbow, which she reversed from time to time, and we could hear the snort and clank of the obedient cultivator half a mile away, behind the guardian woods.

"Come in and sit down," she said. "I'm only playing a plough. Dad's gone to Chicago to—Ah! Then it was your call I heard just now!"

She had caught sight of Arnott's Board vmiform, leaped to the switch, and turned it full on.

We were checked, gasping, waist-deep in current this time, three yards from the verandah.

"We only want to know what's the matter with Illinois,'' said De Forest placidly.

"Then hadn't you better go to Chicago and find out?" she answered. "There's nothing wrong here. We own ourselves."

"How can we go anywhere if you won't loose us?" De Forest went on, while Arnott scowled. Admirals of Fleets are still quite human when their dignity is touched.

"Stop a minute—you don't know how funny you look!" She put her hands on her hips and laughed mercilessly.

"Don't worry about that," said Arnott, and whistled. A voice answered from the Victor Pirolo in the meadow.

"Only a single-fuse ground-circuit!" Arnott called. "Sort it out gently, please."

We heard the ping of a breaking lamp; a fuse blew out somewhere in the verandah roof, frightening a nestful of birds. The ground-circuit was open. We stooped and rubbed our tingling ankles'.

"How rude—how very rude of you!" the maiden cried.

"Sorry, but we haven't time to look funny," said Arnott "We've got to go to Chicago; and if I were you, young lady, I'd go into the cellars for the next two hours, and take mother with me."

Off he strode, with us at his heels, muttering indignantly, till the humour of the thing struck and doubled him up with laughter at the foot of the gangway ladder.

"The Board hasn't shown what you might call a fat spark on this occasion," said De Forest, wiping his eyes. "I hope I didn't look as big a fool as you did, Arnott! Hullo! What on earth is that? Dad coming home from Chicago?"

There was a rattle and a rush, and a five-plough cultivator, blades in air like so many teeth, trundled itself at us round the edge of the timber, fuming and sparking furiously .

"Jump!" said Arnott, as we bundled ourselves through the none-too-wide door. "Never mind about shutting it. Up!"

The Victor Pirolo lifted like a bubble, and the vicious machine shot just underneath us, clawing high as it passed.

"There's a nice little spit-kitten for you!" said Arnott, dusting his knees. "We ask her a civil question. First she circuits us and then she plays a cultivator at us!"

"And then we fly," said I^agomiroff. "If I were forty years more young, I would go back and kiss her. Ho! Ho!"

"I," said Pirolo, "would smack her! My pet ship has been chased by a dirty plough; a—how do you say?—agricultural implement."

"Oh, that is Illinois all over," said De Forest. "They don't content themselves with talking about privacy. They arrange to have it. And now, where's your alleged fleet Arnott? We must assert ourselves against this wench."

Arnott pointed to the black heavens.

"Waiting on—up there," said he. "Shall I give them the whole installation, sir?"

"Oh, I don't tliink the young lady is quite worth that," said

De Forest "Get over Chicago, and perhaps we'll see something."

In a few minutes we were hanging at two thousand feet over an oblong block of incandescence in the centre of the little town.

"That looks like the old City Hall. Yes, there's Salati's Statute in front of it" said Takahira. "But what on earth are they doing to the place? I thought they used it for a market nowadays! Drop a little, please."

We could hear the sputter and crackle of road-surfacing machines—the cheap Western type which fuse stone and rubbish into lava-like ribbed glass for their rough country roads. Three or four surfacers worked on each side of a square of ruins. The brick and stone wreckage crumbled, slid forward, and presently spread out into white-hot pools of sticky slag, which the levelling-rods smoothed more or less flat. Already a third of the big block had been so treated, and was cooling to dull red before our astonished eyes.

"It is the Old Market" said De Forest "Well there's nothing to prevent Illinois from making a road through a market. It doesn't interfere with traffic, that I can see."

"Hshl" said Amort, gripping me by the shoulder. "Listen! They're singing. Why on earth are they singing?"

We dropped again till we could see the block fringe of people at the edge of that glowing square.

At first they only roared against the roar of the surfacers and levellers. Then the words came up clearly—the words of the Forbidden Song that all men knew, and none let pass their lips—poor Pat MacDonough's Song, made in the days of the Crowds and the Plague—every silly word of it loaded to sparking-point with the Planet's inherited memories of horror, panic, fear and cruelty. And Chicago—innocent, contented little Chicago—was singing it aloud to the infernal tune that carried riot, pestilence and lunacy round our Planet a few generations ago!

"Once there was The People—Terror gave it birth; Once there was The People, and it made a hell of earth!"

(Then the stamp and pause):

"Earth arose and crushed it. Listen, oh, ye slain! Once there was The People—it shall never be again!"

The levellers thrust in savagely against the ruins as the song renewed itself again, again and again, louder than the crash of the melting walls.

De Forest frowned.

"I don't like that," he said. "They've broken back to the Old Days! They'll be killing somebody soon. I think we'd better divert 'em, Arnott."

"Ay, ay, sir." Arnott's hand went to his cap, and we heard the hull of the Victor Pirolo ring to the command: "Lamps! Both watches stand by! Lamps! Lamps! Lamps!"

"Keep still!" Takahira whispered to me. "Blinkers, please, quartermaster."

"It's all right—all right!" said Pirolo from behind, and to my horror slipped over my head some sort of rubber helmet that locked with a snap. I could feel thick colloid bosses before my eyes, but I stood in absolute darkness.

"To save the sight," he explained, and pushed me on to the chart-room divan. "You will see in a minute."

As he spoke I became aware of a thin thread of almost intolerable light, let down from heaven at an immense distance—one vertical hairsbreadth of frozen hghtning.

"Those are our flanking ships," said Arnott at my elbow. "That one is over Galena. Look south—that other one's over Keithburg. Vincennes is behind us, arid north yonder is Winthrop Woods. The Fleet's in position, sir"—this to De Forest. "As soon as you give the word."

"Ah no! No!" cried Dragomiroff at my side. I could feel
the old man tremble. "I do not know all that you can do, but
be kind! I ask you to be a little kind to them below! This is
horrible—horrible!" ♦

"When a Woman kills a Chicken, Dynasties and Empires sicken,"

Takahira quoted. "It is too late to be gentle now."

"Then take off my helmet! Take off my helmet!" Dragomiroff began hysterically.

Pirolo must have put his arm round him. "Hush," he said, "I am here. It is all right, Ivan, my dear fellow."

"I'll just send our little girl in Bureau County a warning," said Arnott. "She don't deserve it, but we'll allow her a minute or two to take mamma to the cellar."

In the utter hush that followed the growling spark after Arnott had linked up his Service Communicator with the invisible Fleet, we heard MacDonough's Song from the city beneath us grow fainter as we rose to position. Then I clapped my hand before my mask lenses, for it was as though the floor of heaven had been riddled and all the inconceivable blaze of suns in the making was poured through the manholes.

"You needn't count," said Arnott I had had no thought of such a thing. "There are two hundred and fifty keels up there, five miles apart. Full power, please, for another twelve seconds."

The firmament as far as eye could reach, stood on pillars of white fire. One fell on the glowing square at Chicago, and turned it black.

"Oh! Oh! Oh! Can men be allowed to do such things?" Dragomiroff cried, and fell across our knees.

"Glass of water, please," said Takahira to a helmeted shape that leaped forward. "He is a little faint."

The lights switched off, and the darkness stunned like an avalanche. We could hear DragomirofFs teeth on the glass edge.

Pirolo was comforting him.

"All right, all ra-ight," he repeated. "Come and lie down. Come below and take off your mask. I give you my word, old friend, it is all right They are my siege-lights. Little Victor Pirolo's leetle lights. You know me! I do not hurt people,"

"Pardon!" Dragomiroff moaned. "I have never seen Death. I have never seen the Board take action. Shall we go down and burn them alive, or is that already done?"

"Oh, hush," said Pirolo, and I think he rocked him in his arms.

"Do we repeat, sir?" Arnott asked De Forest

"Give 'em a minute's break," De Forest replied. "They may need it"

We waited a minute, and then MacDonough's Song, broken but defiant rose from undefeated Chicago.

"They seem fond of that tune," said De Forest "I should let 'em have it Arnott"

"Very good, sir," said Arnott, and felt his way to the Communicator keys.

No lights broke forth, but the hollow of the skies made herself the mouth for one note that touched the raw fibre of the brain. Men hear such sounds in delirium, advancing like tides from horizons beyond the ruled foreshores of space.

"That's our pitch-pipe," said Arnott "We may be a bit ragged. I've never conducted two hundred and fifty performers before." He pulled out the couplers, and struck a full chord on the Service Communicators.

The beams of light leaped down again, and danced, solemnly and awfully, a stilt-dance, sweeping thirty or forty miles left and right at each stiff-legged kick, while the darkness delivered itself—there is no scale to measure against that utterance—of the tune to which they kept time. Certain notes —one learned to expect them with terror—cut through one's marrow, but, after three minutes, thought and emotion passed in indescribable agony.

We saw, we heard but I think we were in some sort swooning. The two hundred and fifty beams shifted, re-formed, straddled and split narrowed, widened, rippled in ribbons, broke into a thousand white-hot parallel lines, melted and revolved in interwoven rings like old-fashioned engine-turning, flung up to the zenith, made as if to descend and renew the torment, halted at the last instant, twizzled insanely round the horizon, and vanished, to bring back for the hundredth time darkness more shattering than their instantiy renewed light over all Illinois. Then the tune and lights ceased together, and we heard one single devastating wail that shook all the horizon as a rubbed wet finger shakes the rim of a bowl.

"Ah, that is my new siren," said Pirolo. "You can break an iceberg in half, if you find the proper pitch. They will whistle by squadrons now. It is the wind through pierced shutters in the bows."

I had collapsed beside Dragomiroff, broken and snivelling feebly, because I had been delivered before my time to all the terrors of Judgment Day, and the Archangels of the Resurrection were hailing me naked across the Universe to the sound of the music of the spheres.

Then I saw De Forest smacking Arnott's helmet with his open hand. The wailing died down in a long shriek as a black shadow swooped past us, and returned to her place above the lower clouds.

T hate to interrupt a specialist when he's enjoying himself," said De Forest. "But, as a matter of fact, all Illinois has been asking us to stop for these last fifteen seconds."

"What a pity." Arnott slipped off his mask. "I wanted you to hear us really hum. Our lower C can lift street-paving."

"It is Hell—Hell!" cried Dragomiroff, and sobbed aloud.

Arnott looked away as he answered:

"It's a few thousand volts ahead of the old shoot-'em-and sink-'em game, but I should scarcely call it that. What shall I tell the Fleet, sir?"

'Tell 'em we're very pleased and impressed. I don't think

they need wait any longer. There isn't a »p<nk left duv»u

there." De Forest pointed. "They'll be deaf and blind."

"Oh, I think not, sir. The demonstration lasted less than ten minutes."

"Marvellous!" Takahira sighed. "I should have said it was half a night. Now, shall we go down and pick up the pieces?"

"But first a small drink," said Pirolo. "The Board must not arrive weeping at its own works."

"I am an old fool—an old fool!" Dragomiroff began pite-ously. "I did not know what would happen. It is all new to me. We reason with them in Little Russia."

Chicago North landing-tower was unlighted, and Arnott worked his ship into the clips by her own lights. As soon as these broke out we heard groanings of horror and appeal from many people below.

"All right," shouted Arnott into the darkness. "We aren't beginning again!" We descended by the stairs, to find ourselves knee-deep in a grovelling crowd, some crying that they were blind, others beseeching us not to make any more noises, but the greater part writhing face downward, their hands or their caps before their eyes.

It was Pirolo who came to our rescue. He climbed the side of a surfacmg-machine, and there, gesticulating as though they could see, made oration to those afflicted people of Illinois.

"You stchewpids!" he began. "There is nothing to fuss for. Of course, your eyes will smart and be red tomorrow. You will look as if you and your wives had drunk too much, but in a little while you will see again as well as before. I tell you this, and I—I am Pirolo. Victor Pirolo!"

The crowd with one accord shuddered for many legends attach to Victor Pirolo of Foggia, deep in the secrets of God.

"Pirolo?" An unsteady voice lifted itself. "Then tell us was there anything except light in those lights of yours just now?"

The question was repeated from every corner of the darkness.

Pirolo laughed.

"No!" he thundered. (Why have small men such large voices?) "I give you my word and the Broad's word that there was nothing except light—just light! You stchewpids! Your birth-rate is too low already as it is. Some day I must invent something to send it up, but send it down—never!"

"Is that true?—We thought—somebody said—"

One could feel the tension relax all round.

"You too big fools," Pirolo cried. "You could have sent us a call and we would have told you."

"Send you a call!" a deep voice shouted. "I wish you had been at our end of the wire."

"I'm glad I wasn't," said De Forest. "It was bad enough from behind the lamps. Never mind! It's over now. Is there any one here I can talk business with? I'm De Forest—for the Board."

"You might begin with me, for one—I'm Mayor," the bass voice replied.

A big man rose unsteadily from the street, and staggered towards us where we sat on the broad turf-edging, in front of the garden fences.

"I ought to be the first on my feet. Am I?" said he.

"Yes," said De Forest, and steadied him as he dropped down beside us.

"Hello, Andy. Is that you?" a voice called.

"Excuse me," said the Mayor; "that sounds like my Chief of Police, Bluthner!"

"Bluthner it is; and here's Mulligan and Keefe—on their feet."

"Bring 'em up please, Blut. We're supposed to be the Four in charge of this hamlet What we say, goes. And, De Forest, what do you say?"

"Nothing—yet" De Forest answered, as we made room for the panting, reeling men. "You've cut out of system. "Well?"

"Tell the steward to send down drinks, please," AiuoU whispered to an orderly at his side.

"Good!" said the Mayor, smacking his dry lips. "Now I suppose we can take it De Forest, that henceforward the Board will administer us direct?"

"Not if the Board can avoid it," De Forest laughed. "The A.B.C. is responsible for the planetary traffic only."

"And all that that implies." The big Four who ran Chicago chanted their Magna Charta like children at school.

"Well, get on," said De Forest wcarny. "What is yuui suly trouble anyway?"

'Too much dam' Democracy," said the Mayor, laying his hand on De Forest's knee.

"So? I thought Illinois had had her dose of that,"

"She has. That's why. Blut what did you do with our prisoners last night?"

"Locked 'em in the water-tower to prevent the women killing 'em," the Chief of Police replied. "I'm too blind to move just yet but—"

"Arnott, send some of your people, please, and fetch 'em along," said De Forest.

"They're triple-circuited," the Mayor called. "You'll have to blow out three fuses." He turned to De Forest, his large outline just visible in the paling darkness. "I hate to throw any more work on the Board. I'm an administrator myself, but we've had a little fuss with our Serviles. What?

In a big city there's bound to be a few men and women who can't live without listening to themselves, and who prefer drinking out of pipes they don't own both ends of. They inhabit flats and hotels all the year round. They say it saves 'em trouble. Anyway, it gives 'em more time to make trouble for their neighbours. We call 'em Serviles locally. And they are apt to be tuberculous."

"Just so!" said the man called Mulligan. "Transportation is Civilisation. Democracy is Disease. I've proved it by the blood-test, every time."

"Mulligan's our Health Officer, and a one-idea man," said the Mayor, laughing. "But it's true that most Serviles haven't much control. They will talk; and when people take to talking as a business, anything may arrive—mayn't it, De Forestr

"MytJiiug—-except the facts of the case," said De Forest, laughing.

"I'll give you those in a minute," said the Mayor. "Our Serviles got to talking—first in their houses and then on the streets, telling men and women how to manage their own affairs. (You can't teach a Servile not to finger his neighbour's soul.) That's invasion of privacy, of course, but in Chicago well suffer anything sooner than make Crowds. Nobody took much notice, and so I let 'em alone. My fault! I was warned there would be trouble, but there hasn't been a Crowd or murder in Illinois for nineteen years."

'Twenty-two," said his Chief of Police.

"Likely. Anyway, we'd forgot such things. So, from talking in the houses and on the streets, our Serviles go to calling a meeting at the Old Market yonder." He nodded across the square where the wrecked buildings heaved up grey in the dawn-glimmer behind the square-cased statue of The Negro in Flames. "There's nothing to prevent any one calling meetings except that it's against human nature to stand in a Crowd, besides being bad for the health. I ought to have known by the way our men and women attended that first meeting that trouble was brewing. There were as many as a thousand in the market-place, touching each other. Touching! Then the Serviles turned in all tongue-switches and talked, and we—"

"What did they talk about?" said Takahira.

"First, how badly things were managed in the city. That pleased us Four—we were on the platform—because we hoped to catch one or two good men for City work. You know how rare executive capacity is. Even if we didn't it's— it's refreshing to find anyone interested enough in our job to damn our eyes. You don't know what it means to work, year in, year out, without a spark of difference with a living soul."

"Oh, don't we!" said De Forest "There are times on the Board when we'd give our positions if any one would kick us out and take hold of things themselves."

"But they won't" said the Mayor ruefully. "I assure you, sir, we Four have done things in Chicago, in the hope of rousing people, that would have discredited Nero. But what do they say? 'Very good, Andy. Have it your own way. Any-tbing's better than a Crowd. I'll go back to my land.' You can't do anything with folk who can go where they please, and don't want anything on God's earth except their own way. There isn't a kick or a kicker left on the Planet."

"Then I suppose that little shed yonder fell down by itself?" said De Forest We could see the bare and still smoking ruins, and hear the slag-pools crackle as they hardened and set.

"Oh, that's only amusement. Tell you later. As I was saying, our Serviles held the meeting, and pretty soon we had to ground-circuit the platform to save 'em from being killed. And that didn't make our people any more pacific."

"How d'you mean?" I ventured to ask.

"If you've ever been ground-circuited," said the Mayor, "you'll know it don't improve any man's temper to be held up straining against nothing. No, sir! Eight or nine hundred folk kept pawing and buzzing like flies in treacle for two hours, while a pack of perfectly safe Serviles invades tneir mental and spiritual privacy, may be amusing to watch, but they are not pleasant to handle afterwards."

Pirolo chuckled.

"Our folk own themselves. They were of opinion things were going too far and too fiery. I warned the Serviles; but they're born house-dwellers. Unless a fact hits 'em on the head they cannot see it. Would you believe me, they went on to talk of what they called 'popular government'? They did! They wanted us to go back to the old Voodoo-business of voting with papers and wooden boxes, and word-drunk people and printed formulas, and news-sheets! They said they practised it among themselves about what they'd have to eat in their flats and hotels. Yes, sir! They stood up behind Bluth-ner's doubled ground-circuits, and they said that, in this present year of grace, to self-owning men and women, on that very spot! Then they finished"—he lowered his voice cautiously—"by talking about The People.' And then Bluthner he had to sit up all night in charge of the circuits because he couldn't trust his men to keep 'em shut"

"It was trying 'em too high," the Chief of Police broke in. "But we couldn't hold the Crowd ground-circuited for ever. I gathered in all the Serviles on charge of Crowd-making, and put 'em in the water-tower, and then I let things cut loose. I had to! The District lit like a sparked gas-tank!"

"The news was out over seven degrees of country," the Mayor continued; "and when once it's a question of invasion of privacy, good-bye to right and reason in Illinois! They began turning out traffic-lights and locking up landing-towers on Thursday night. Friday, they stopped all traffic and asked for the Board to take over. Then they wanted to clean Chicago off the side of the Lake and rebuild elsewhere— just for a souvenir of The People' that the Serviles talked about. I suggested that they should slag the Old Market where the meeting was held, while I turned in a call to you all on the Board. That kept 'em quiet till you came along. And—and now you can take hold of the situation."

" 'Any chance of their quieting down?" De Forest asked.

"You can try," said the Mayor.

De Forest raised his voice in the face of the reviving Crowd that had edged in towards us. Day was come.

"Don't you think this business can be arranged?" he began. But there was a roar of angry voices:

"We've finished with Crowds! We aren't going back to the Old Days! Take us over! Take the Serviles away! Administer direct or we'll kill 'em! Down with The People!"

An attempt was made to begin MacDonough's Song. It got no further than the first line, for the Victor Pirolo sent down a warning drone on one stopped horn. A wrecked side-wall of the Old Market tottered and fell inwards on the slag-pools. None spoke or moved till the last of the dust had settled down again, turning the steel case of Salati's Statue ashy grey.

"You see you'll just have to take us over," the Mayor whispered.

De Forest shrugged his shoulders.

"You talk as if executive capacity could be snatched out of the air like so much horse-power. Can't you manage yourselves on any terms?" he said.

"We can, if you say so. It will only cost those few lives to begin with."

The Mayor pointed across the square, where Arnott's men guided a stumbling group of ten or twelve men and women to the lake front and halted them under the Statue.

"Now I think," said Takahira under his breath, "there will be trouble."

The mass in front of us growled like beasts.

At that moment the sun rose clear, and revealed the blinking assembly to itself. As soon as it realized that it was a crowd we saw the shiver of horror and mutual repulsion shoot across it precisely as the steely flaws shot across the lake outside. Nothing was said, and, being half blind, of course it moved slowly. Yet in less than fifteen minutes most of that vast midtitude—three thousand at the lowest count —melted away like frost on south eaves. The remnant stretched themselves on the grass, where a crowd feels and looks less like a crowd.

"These mean business," the Mayor whispered to Takahira. "There are a goodish few women there who've borne children. I don't like it"

The morning draught off the lake stirred the trees round us with promise of a hot day; the sun reflected itself dazzling-ly on the canister-shaped covering of Salati's Statue; cocks crew in the gardens, and we could hear gate-latches clicking in the distance as people stumblingly resought their homes.

"I'm afraid there won't be any morning deliveries," said De Forest. "We rather upset things in the country last night."

"That makes no odds," the Mayor returned. "We're all provisioned for six months. We take no chances."

Nor, when you come to think of it, does any one else. It must be three-quarters of a generation since any house or city faced a food shortage. Yet is there house or city on the Planet today that has not half a year's provisions laid in? We are like the shipwrecked seamen in the old books, who, having once nearly starved to death, ever afterwards hide away bits of food and biscuit. Truly we trust no Crowds, nor system based on Crowds!

De Forest waited till the last footstep had died away. Meantime the prisoners at the base of the Statue shuffled, posed, and fidgeted, with the shamelessness of quite little children. None of them were more than six feet high, and many of them were as grey-haired as the ravaged, harassed heads of old pictures. They huddled together in actual touch, while the crowd, spaced at large intervals, looked at them with congested eyes.

Suddenly a man among them began to talk. The Mayor had not in the least exaggerated. It appeared that our Planet lay sunk in slavery beneath the heel of the Aerial Board of Control. The orator urged us to arise in our might, burst our prison doors and break our fetters (all his metaphors, by the way, were of the most mediaeval). Next he demanded that every matter of daily life, including most of the physical functions, should be submitted for decision at any time of the week, month, or year to, I gathered, anybody who happened to be passing by or residing within a' certain radius, and that everybody should forthwith abandon his concerns to settle the matter, first by crowd-making, next by talking to the crowds made, and lastly by describing crosses on pieces of paper, which rubbish should later be counted with certain mystic ceremonies and oaths. Out of this amazing play, he assured us, would automatically arise a higher, nobler, and kinder world, based—he demonstrated this with the awful lucidity of the insane—based on the sanctity of the Crowd and the villainy of the single person. In conclusion, he called loudly upon God to testify to his personal merits and integrity. When the flow ceased, I turned bewildered to Taka-hira, who was nodding solemnly.

"Quite correct," said he. "It is all in the old books. He has left nothing out, not even the war-talk."

"But I don't see how this stuff can upset a child, much less a district," I replied.

"Ah, you are too young," said Dragomiroff. "For another thing, you are not a mama. Please look at the mamas."

Ten or fifteen women who remained had separated themselves from the silent men, and were drawing in towards the prisoners. It reminded one of the stealthy enchcling, before the rush in at the quarry, of wolves round musk-oxen in the North. The prisoners saw, and drew together more closely. The Mayor covered his face with his hands for an instant. De Forest, bareheaded, stepped forward between the prisoners and the slowly, stiffly moving line.

"That's all very interesting," he said to the dry-lipped orator. "But the point seems that you've been making crowds and invading privacy."

A woman stepped forward, and would have spoken, but there was a quick assenting murmur from the men, who realised that De Forest was trying to pull the situation down to ground-line.

"Yes! Yes!" they cried. "We cut out because they made crowds and invaded privacy! Stick to that! Keep on that switch! Lift the Serviles out of this! The Board's in charge! Hsh!"

"Yes, the Board's in charge," said De Forest "I'll take formal evidence of crowd-making if you like, but the Members of the Board can testify to it Will that do?"

The women had closed in another pace, with hands that clenched and unclenched at their sides.

"Good! Good enough!" the men cried. "We're content Only take them away quickly."

"Come along up!" said De Forest to the captives. "Breakfast is quite ready."

It appeared, however, that they did not wish to go. They intended to remain in Chicago and make crowds. They pointed out that De Forest's proposal was gross invasion of privacy.

"My dear fellow," said Pirolo to the most voluble of the leaders, "you hurry, or your crowd that can't be wrong will kiU you!"

"But that would be murder," answered the believer in crowds; and there was a roar of laughter from all sides that seemed to show the crisis had broken.

A woman stepped forward from the line of women, laughing, I protest, as merrily as any of the company. One hand, of course, shaded her eyes, the other was at her throat.

"Oh, they needn't be afraid of being lolled!" she called.

"Not in the least," said De Forest. "But don't you think that, now the Board's in charge, you might go home while we get these people away?"

"I shall be home long before that It—it has been rather a trying day."

She stood up to her full height, dwarfing even De Forest's six-foot-eight and smiled, with eyes closed against the fierce light.

"Yes, rather," said DeForest. "I'm afraid you feel the glare a little. We'll have the ship down."

He motioned to the Pirolo to drop between us and the sun, and at the same time to loop-circuit the prisoners, who were a trifle unsteady. We saw them stiffen to the current where they stood. The woman's voice went on, sweet and deep and unshaken:

"I don't suppose you men realise how much this—this sort of thing means to a woman. I've borne three. We women don't want our children given to Crowds. It must be an inherited instinct. Crowds make trouble. They bring back the Old Days. Hate, fear, blackmail, publicity, The People'— That! That! That!" She pointed to the Statue, and the crowd growled once more.

"Yes, if they are allowed to go on," said De Forest. "But this little affair—"

"It means so much to us women that this—this little affair should never happen again. Of course, never's a big word, but one feels so strongly that it is important to stop crowds at the very beginning. Those creatures"—she pointed with her left hand at the prisoners swaying like seaweed in a tideway as the circuit pulled them—"those people have friends and wives and children in the city and elsewhere. One doesn't want anything done to them, you know. It's terrible to force a human being out of fifty or sixty years of good life. I'm only forty myself. / know. But, at the same time, one feels that an example should be made, because no price is too heavy to pay if—if these people and all that they imply can be put an end to. Do you quite understand, or would you be kind enough to tell your men to take the casing off the Statue? It's worth looking at."

"I understand perfectly. But I don't think anybody here wants to see the Statue on an empty stomach. Excuse me one moment." De Forest called up to the ship, "A flying loop ready on the port side, if you please." Then to the woman he said with some crispness, "You rnight leave us a little discretion in the matter."

"Oh, of course. Thank you for being so patient. I know my arguments are silly, but—" She half turned away and went on in a changed voice, "Perhaps this will help you to decide."

She threw out her right arm with a knife in it. Before the blade could be returned to her throat or her bosom it was twitched from her grip, sparked as it flew out of the shadow of the ship above, and fell flashing in the sunshine at the foot of the Statue fifty yards away. The outflung arm was arrested, rigid as a bar for an instant, tUl the releasing circuit permitted her to bring it slowly to her side. The other women shrank back silent among the men.

Pirolo rubbed his hands, and Takahira nodded.

"That was clever of you, De Forest," said he.

"What a glorious pose!" Dragomiroff murmured, for the frightened woman was on the edge of tears.

"Why did you stop me? T would have Hone it!" she cried.

"I have no doubt you would," said De Forest. "But we can't waste a life like yours on these people. I hope the arrest didn't sprain your wrist; it's so hard to regulate a flying loop. But I think you are quite right about those persons' women and children. We'll take them all away with us if you promise not to do anything stupid to yourself."

"I promise—I promise." She controlled herself with an effort. "But it is so important to us women. We know what it means; and I thought if you saw I was in earnest—"

"I saw you were, and you've gained your point. I shall take all your Serviles away with me at once. The Mayor will make lists of their friends and families in the city and the district, and he'll ship them after us this afternoon."

"Sure," said the Mayor, rising to his feet. "Keefe, if you can see, hadn't you better finish levelling off the Old Market? It don't look sightly the way it is now, and we shan't use it for crowds any more."

"I think you had better wipe out that Statue as well, Mr. Mayor," said De Forest. "I don't question its merits as a work of art, but I believe it's a shade morbid."

"Certainly, sir. Oh, Keefe! Slag the Nigger before you go on to fuse the Market. I'll get to the Communicators and tell the District that the Board is in charge. Are you making any special appointments, sir?"

"None. We haven't men to waste on these backwoods. Carry on as before, but under the Board Arnott, run your Serviles aboard, please. Ground ship and pass them through the bilge-doors. We'll wait till we've finished with this work of art"

The prisoners trailed past him, talking fluently, but unable to gesticulate in the drag of the current. Then the surfacers rolled up, two on each side of the Statue. With one accord the spectators looked elsewhere, but there was no need. Keefe turned on full power, and the thing simply melted within its case. All I saw was a surge of white-hot metal pouring over the plinth, a glimpse of Salati's inscription, 'To the Eternal Memory of the Justice of the People," ere the stone base itself cracked and powdered into finest lime. The crowd cheered.

"Thank you," said De Forest; "but we want our breakfasts, and I expect you do too. Good-bye, Mr. Mayor! Delighted to see you at any time, but I hope I shan't have to, officially, for the next thirty years. Good-bye, madam. Yes. We're all given to nerves nowadays. I suffer from them myself. Good-bye, gentlemen all! You're under the tyrannous heel of the Board from this moment, but if ever you feel like breaking your fetters you've only to let us know. This is no treat to us. Good luck!"

We embarked amid shouts, and did not check our lift till they had dwindled into whispers. Then De Forest flung himself on the chart-room divan and mopped his forehead.

"I don't mind men," he panted, "but women are the devil!"

"Still the devil," said Pirolo cheerfully. 'That one would have suicided."

"I know it. That was why I signalled for the flying loop to be clapped on her. I owe you an opology for that, Arnott. I hadn't time to catch your eye, and you were busy with our caitiffs. By the way, who actually answered my signal? It was a smart piece of work."

"Ilroy," said Arnott; "but he overloaded the wave. It may be pretty gallery-work to knock a knife out of a lady's hand, but didn't you notice how she rubbed 'em? He scorched her fingers. Slovenly, I call it."

"Far be it from me to interfere with Fleet discipline, but don't be too hard on the boy. If that woman had killed herself they would have Killed every ServUe and everything related to a Servile throughout the district by nightfall."

"That was what she was playing for," Takahira said. "And with our Fleet gone we could have done nothing to hold them."

"I may be ass enough to walk into a ground-circuit," said Arnott, "but I don't dismiss my Fleet till I'm reasonably sure that trouble is over. They're in position stUl, and I intend to

keep 'em there till the Serviles are shipped out of the district. That last little crowd meant murder, my friends."

"Nerves! All nerves!" said Pirolo. "You cannot argue with agoraphobia."

"And it is not as if they had seen much dead—or is it?" said Takahira.

"In all my ninety years I have never seen Death." Dra-gomiroff spoke as one who would excuse himself. "Perhaps that was why—last night—"

Then it came out as we sat over breakfast, that, with the exception of Arnott and Pirolo, none of us had ever seen a corpse, or knew in what manner the spirit passes.

"We're a nice lot to flap about governing the Planet," De Forest laughed. "I confess, now it's all over, that my main fear was I mightn't be able to pull it off without losing a life."

"I thought of that too," said Arnott; "but there's no death reported, and Fve inquired everywhere. What are we supposed to do with our passengers? I've fed 'em."

"We're between two switches," De Forest drawled. "If we drop them in any place that isn't under the Board the natives will make their presence an excuse for cutting out, same as Illinois did, and forcing the Board to take over. If we drop them in any place under the Board's control they'll be killed as soon as our backs are turned."

"If you say so," said Pirolo thoughtfully, "I can guarantee that they will become extinct in process of time, quite happily. What is their birth-rate now?"

"Go down and ask 'em," said De Forest

"I think they might become nervous and tear me to bits," the philosopher of Foggia replied

"Not really! Well?"

"Open the bilge-doors," said Takahira with a downward jerk of the thumb.

"Scarcely—after all the trouble we've taken to save 'em," said De Forest

'Try London," Arnott suggested. "You could turn Satan himself loose there, and they'd only ask him to dinner."

"Good man! You've given me an idea. Vincent! Oh, Vincent!" He threw the General Communicator open so that we could all hear, and in a few minutes the chart-room filled with the rich, fruity voice of Leopold Vincent who has purveyed all London her choicest amusements for the last thirty years. We answered with expectant grins, as though we were actually in the stalls of, say, the Combination on a first night

"We've picked up something in your line," De Forest began.

"That's good, dear man. If it's old enough. There's nothing to beat the old things for business purposes. Have you seen London, Chatham, and Dover at Earl's Court? No? I thought I missed you there. Immense! I've had the real steam locomotive engines built from the old designs and the iron rails cast specially by hand. Cloth cushions in the carriages, too! Immense! And paper railway tickets. And Polly Milton."

"Polly Milton back again!" said Arnott rapturously.

"Book me two stalls for tomorrow night. What's she singing now, bless her?"

"The old songs. Nothing comes up to the old touch. Listen to this, dear men." Vincent carolled with flourishes:

Oh, cruel lamps of London, If tears your light could drown, Your victims' eyes would weep them, Oh, lights of London Town!

"Then they weep."

"You see?" Pirolo waved his hands at us. "The old world always weeped when it saw crowds together. It did not know why, but it weeped. We know why, but we do not weep, except when we pay to be made to by lat, wicked old Vlncenu"

"Old, yourself!" Vincent laughed. "I'm a public benefactor, I keep the world soft and united."

"And I'm De Forest of the Board," said De Forest acidly, "trying to get a httle business done. As I was saying, I've picked up a few people in Chicago."

"I cut out. Chicago is—"

"Do listen! They're perfectly unique."

"Do they build houses of baked mudblocks while you wait—eh? That's an old contact"

"They're an untouched primitive community, with all the old ideas."

"Sewing-machines and maypole-dances? Cooking on coal-gas stoves, lighting pipes with matches, and driving horses? Gerolstein tried that last year. An absolute blow-out!"

De Forest plugged him wrathfully, and poured out the story of our doings for the last twenty-four hours on the top-note.

"And they do it all in public," he concluded. "You can't stop 'em. The more public, the better they are pleased. They'll talk for hours—like you! Now you can come in again!"

"Do you really mean they know how to vote?" said Vincent. "Can they act it?"

"Act? It's their life to 'em! And you never saw such faces! Scarred like volcanoes. Envy, hatred, and malice in plain

sight. Wonderfully flexible voices. They weep, too." "Aloud? In public?"

"I guarantee. Not a spark of shame or reticence in the entire installation. It's the chance of your career."

"D'you say you've brought their voting props along— those papers and ballot-box things?''

"No, confound you! I'm not a luggage-lifter. Apply direct to the Mayor of Chicago. He'll forward you everything. Well?"

"Wait a minute. Did Chicago want to kill 'em? That 'ud look well on the Communicators."

"Yes! They were only rescued with difficulty from a howling mob—if you know what that is."

"But I don't," answered the Great Vincent simply.

"Well then, they'll tell you themselves. They can make speeches hours long."

"How many are there?"

"By the time we ship 'em all over they'll be perhaps a hundred, counting children. An old world in miniature. Can't you see it?"

"M-yes; but I've got to pay for it if it's a blow-out, dear man."

"They can sing the old war songs in the streets. They can get word-drunk, and make crowds, and invade privacy in the genuine old-fashioned way; and they'll do the voting trick as often as you ask 'em a question."

"Too good!" said Vincent

"You unbelieving Jew! I've got a dozen head aboard here. I'll put you through direct. Sample 'em yourself."

He lifted the switch and we listened. Our passengers on the lower deck at once, but not less than five at a time, explained themselves to Vincent. They had been taken from the bosom of their families, stripped of their possessions, given food without finger-bowls, and cast into captivity in a noisome dungeon.

"But look here," said Arnott aghast; "they're saying what isn't true. My lower deck isn't noisome, and I saw to the finger-bowls myself."

"My people talk like that sometimes in Little Russia," said Dragomiroff. "We reason with them. We never kill. No!"

"But it's not true," Arnott insisted. "What can you do with people who don't tell facts? They're mad!"

"Hsh!" said Pirolo, his hand to his ear. "It is such a little time since all the Planet told lies."

We heard Vincent silkily sympathetic. Would they, he asked, repeat their assertions in public—before a vast pub-he? Only let Vincent give them a chance, and the Planet, they vowed, should ring with their wrongs. Their aim in life —two women and a man explained it together—was to reform the world. Oddly enough, this also had been Vincent's life-dream. He offered them an arena in which to explain, and by their Living example to raise the Planet to loftier levels. He was eloquent on the moral uplift of a simple, old-world life presented in its entirety to a deboshed civilisation.

Could they—would they—for three months certain, devote themselves under his auspices, as missionaries, to the elevation of mankind at a place called Earl's Court, which he said, with some truth, was one of the intellectual centres of the Planet? They thanked him, and demanded (we could hear his chuckle of delight) time to discuss and to vote on the matter. The vote, solemnly managed by counting heads— one head, one vote—was favourable. His offer, therefore, was accepted, and they moved a vote of thanks to him in two speeches—one by what they called the "proposer" and the other by the "seconder."

Vincent threw over to us, his voice shaking with gratitude:

"I've got 'em! Did you hear those speeches? That's Nature, dear men. Art can't teach that. And they voted as easily as lying. I've never had a troupe of natural liars before. Bless you, dear men! Remember, you're on my free lists for ever, anywhere—all of you. Oh, Gerolsteln will be sick—sick!"

"Then you think they'll do?" said De Forest.

"Do? The Little Village 11 go crazy! I'll knock up a series of old-world plays for 'em. Their voices will make you laugh and cry. My God, dear men, where do you suppose they picked up all their misery from, on this sweet earth? I'll have a pageant of the world's beginnings, and Mosenthal shall do the music. I'll—"

"Go and knock up a village for 'em by tonight. We'll meet you at No. 15 West Landing Tower," said De Forest. "Remember the rest will be coming along tomorrow."

"Let 'em all come!" said Vincent. "You don't know how hard it is nowadays even for me, to find something that really gets under the public's damned iridium-plated hide. But I've got it at last Good-bye!"

"Well," said De Forest when we had finished laughing, "if anyone understood corruption in London I might have played off Vincent against Gerolstein, and sold my captives at enormous prices. As it is, I shall have to be their legal adviser tonight when the contracts are signed. And they won't exactly press any commission on me, either."

"Meantime," said Takahira, "we cannot, of course, confine members of Leopold Vincent's last-engaged company. Chairs for the ladies, please, Arnott."

"Then I go to bed," said De Forest. "I can't face any more women!" And he vanished.

When our passengers were released and given another meal (finger-bowls came first this time) they told us what they thought of us and the Board; and, like Vincent, we all marvelled how they had contrived to extract and secrete so much bitter poison and unrest out of the good life God gives us. They raged, they stormed, they palpitated, flushed and exhausted their poor, torn nerves, panted themselves into silence, and renewed the senseless, shameless attacks.

"But can't you understand," said Pirolo pathetically to a shrieking woman, "that if we'd left you in Chicago you'd have been killed?"

"No, we shouldn't. You were bound to save us from being murdered."

"Then we should have had to kill a lot of other people."

"That doesn't matter. We were preaching the Truth. You can't stop us. We shall go on preaching in London; and then you'll see!"

"You can see now," said Pirolo, and opened a lower shutter.

We were closing on the Little Village, with her three million people spread out at ease inside her ring of girdling Main-Traffic lights—those eight fixed beams at Chatham,

Tonbridge, Redhill, lurking, Woking, St. Albans, Chipping Ongar, and Southend.

Leopold Vincent's new company looked, with small pale faces, at the silence, the size, and the separated houses.

Then some began to weep aloud, shamelessly—always without shame.

MacDonough's song

Whether the State can loose and bind

In Heaven as well as on Earth: If it be wiser to kill mankind

Before or after the birth— These are matters of high concern

Where State-kept schoolmen are; But Holy State (we have lived to learn)

Endeth in Holy War.

Whether The People be led by the Lord,

Or lured by the loudest throat: If it be quicker to die by the sword

Or cheaper to die by vote— These are the things we have dealt with once,

(And they will not rise from their grave) For Holy People, however it runs,

Endeth in wholly Slave.

Whatsoever, for any cause,

Seeketh to take or give. Power above or beyond the Laws,

Suffer it not to live! Holy State or Holy King—

Or Holy People's Will-Have no truck with the senseless thing.

Order the guns and kill! Saying—after—me:—

Once there was The People—Terror gave it birth; Once there was The People and it made a Hell of Earth. Earth arose and crushed it. Listen, O ye slain! Once there was The People—it shall never be again!

SILENZIA

ALAN NELSON

Silence is a wonderful thing. There are exactly 159 quotations in the Index of my 1937 edition of Morley's and Everett's Bartlett's Quotations that include in some part of them the words silence, silences, silenced, silent, or silently. They range from "Silence, a time to keep" (from Ecclesiastes) to "Silently wrapping all, light,"— which, in its full and proper order, reads: "Love like the light silently wrapping all" (Walt Whitman, and a very beautiful line, too).

Indeed, silence would seem to be a matter of considerable verbalization, discussion, argument, shouting, and whatnot among us yapping Hominidae. Alan Nelson is a strong believer in silence; and although he at first ran hog-wild with his Wonderful Find, and almost lost it, he finally calmed down and now uses his exclusive invention very genteelly indeed. As he had better, of course.

At first, I wasn't permitted to relate the story of Silenzia at all, in any form, to any person. Now, however, I have convinced the Society that no harm will come of it. People eventually will hear about Silenzia; certainly the authorized version, with names and places disguised, is better than wild stories. . . .

It started the day I decided to leave Edith. She didn't know it, of course—didn't even suspect it. But I was through.

She was a good wife, I guess, but the sounds she made! I just couldn't stand them: the harangues about my being nothing more than a shorthand teacher in a business school; the shrill laugh which was a noise like someone with long fingernails slipping off a tin roof; the constant piano playing, grim and vigorous, as though she were hacking her way through a jungle with a dull knife; the hollow scru-r-unch-scrunch as she scratched her haunches just before getting into bed at night

There was a little cabin in the Siskiyou mountains, a job in a service station nearby, chipmunks for companions.

Then I found Silenzia—beautiful, wonderful Silenzia. It was in the back room at Ziggert's, a little pawn shop off Third Street, while I was looking at trunks. I reached into the bottom of an old iron-bound model and came up with an Air Wick bottle lying under some old rags. An Air Wick bottle, yes, but filled with something very special indeed—a milky, opalescent fluid boiling ever so gently around some coiled copper wires.

I unscrewed the lid, lifted the wick. Immediately I was surrounded with a glorious silence. The street noises, the twang of Ziggert's sales talk up front the plink-plink of a customer testing a banjo—these sounds all disappeared completely. I pushed the wick back into the botdc. The noises returned.

Bliriking, I looked at the label on the bottle. In red pencil someone had scrawled Silenzia over the Air Wick label. Could it possibly be, I wondered, that someone has invented a Sound Wick, and that it does to unpleasant noises what an Air Wick does to unpleasant odors?

Excitedly, I screwed the lid on, put the bottle in my vest pocket, paid Ziggert for the trunk and left.

I walked all the way home through the 5 o'clock traffic with Silenzia's wick extended and I was covered with a glorious tent of silence. Epileptic juke boxes, sirens, clanging signal lights, froggy howls of news vendors—Silenzia blotted them all out for me completely.

It was as I fumbled with my front door key that I first encountered the squat man with the anxious face and the gray homburg. He'd been puffing up the hill behind me, and now he tipped his hat and said breathlessly, "I beg your pardon, sir. My name is Emmett Dugong. It is important that I talk with you."

I was too excited to bother with peddlers and I brushed by him and went inside.

We lived in a three-story Telegraph Hill flat—a wooden "soundbox—chosen by Edith for its Bohemian atmosphere which, unfortunately, crowded us closely from all sides. On

our left was a xylophone player with strong wrists and a perfectionist complex who had been learning "Anitra's Dance" for seven months; on the other side, a retired cabinet maker had for three years been constructing something that required sledge hammers and an electric sanding machine; above, an insecure teen-ager was well along with a correspondence course in weight lifting; and directly below was a Mr. Snitling, forever trying to hush them all up by pounding on his ceiling with a broomstick.

My long fight with them had been a losing one. Maybe now things would be different; for today, with Silenzia, I didn't hear a thing.

I could hardly wait to try it on Edith and for fifteen minutes sat impatiently in the kitchen playing with the noises, tuning them in and out at whatever volume I fancied by pulling the wick in and out.

Finally over my shoulder I saw she'd arrived and was standing in the doorway taking off her hat. In silence I watched her hps bouncing off each other, arms gesticulating in seven directions, tiny facial muscles twitching—Edith was talking.

A powerful instinct warned me it would never do to let Edith know about Silenzia; unobtrusively I folded my coat over the vest pocket where the Sound Wick rested and pretended to understand what she was saying.

Ever watch someone speak without hearing what's being said? It's like Ustening through a plate glass window and can be a very pleasant sensation indeed. How well I could imagine the gist of her monologue: the detailed description of her afternoon ceramics class; what she told the grocery man when he tried to overcharge her; the 2,000-word exposition on how I was wasting my life at Modern Business College. As if I enjoyed working for the bald and lipless Amos C. Schmuckbinder and his pimply-faced student body!

When Edith's lips fmally slowed down I wondered suddenly if my voice would reach out through the cushion of silence—whether Silenzia was unidirectional.

"Why don't you play the piano for me?" I asked.

She looked at me suspiciously, led me into the front room and began playing, attacking the keys like a clever welterweight warming up on a punching bag. Stretched out in an arm chair, I watched the performance with complete enjoyment.

"I don't think you're putting enough into your left," I said at the end of her first selection. She looked disconcerted and on the second opus almost sprained her wrist. I requested—I insisted on!—another selection, then two more, and finally after still another she was too exhausted to continue.

Dinner that night was a charming little affair; I didn't tune Edith completely out, just down low enough to catch the general drift of the conversation. How pleasant to sit there like that in the cool spring silence! How enchanting to make up my own words to fit those tireless hps moving with such fierce energy across the table from me!

I think the weeks that followed were the most sails tying of my life. Sometimes at night I'd wander through the city— the brilliant, mute city—gazing at the swarms of people and cars moving through hushed streets in soundless, swirling patterns, a fantastic ballet without music, and I'd wonder how I'd ever done without Silenzia. Sweet Silenzia. . . .

Why, you may ask, if I was so sensitive to noise, didn't I puncture my ear drums long ago and be done with it? The answer is simple, of course. There were still a few thing3 in the world very much worth Interring to: the sound of oars in the water, the pop of sparkling burgundy corks, the Beethoven concertos, the sound of bacon sizzling. . . .

Sometimes I wondered vaguely if all the world's troubles were not simply noises, and that all the bloody explosions which forever rocked the world—the blasts of field artillery and atom bombs—were they not simply the accumulated sounds of a thousand petty bickerings, snotty words, and ponderous speeches from balconies, all gathered throughout the years, compressed into a single instant and detonated with a thunder that never quite died out?

Even Edith seemed different to me now. At times, sitting across the table from her, when I had her turned down low, I'd gaze at her as I did in the days long ago—at the soft brown hair, at the smile that used to make my heart jump so, and I'd tell myself possibly I wouldn't have to retreat to the mountain cabin after all.

I guess it was inevitable. I guess it happens to anyone who has too much of any one thing: power, money, silence. I became cocky, arrogant I was like a man with a new rifle who cannot rest until he has used it—proved it on tin cans, rabbits, even human beings. I started gunning for noises, and the act of blotting them up, of unhearing them, as it were, gave me a glorious feeling of triumph.

I took to standing my ground as Buick convertibles tried to blast me off the pavement with prolonged explosions of their triple-tone horns.

At school I took to such petty practices as baiting my boss, Schmuckbinder, a man who loved to make speeches more than he liked to eat I was the tortured soul upon whom he rehearsed these evil recitations.

"Hilkey, I'm guest speaker at the Rotary Friday night" he'd say, trapping me in his office. "You don't mind checking me on this for time, do you?"

Then without waiting for an answer, he'd strike out, and his words were sad and soggy, like an endless string of sour dumplings slogging down a rusty kitchen drain.

Now it was different. Now I egged him on, found ways to make him repeat each speech four times, five times, even more, until his voice croaked, until the saliva turned to glue in his mouth, while I, cozy in an arm chair, focused my eyes on the YWCA across the street where there were always a number of interesting sun-bathers lolling on the roof top.

I even took to using Silenzia on Miss McKenzie, a student in my Intermediate Stenography class, a depressingly competent girl, robust and eager, with heavy glasses and loose guitar strings for vocal chords, a girl who was forever twanging away at me over some technicality or other, raising impossible questions, starting arguments I could never hope to win because of my short temper.

"I don't know why I shouldn't have a higher grade on this," she whined one day handing me the previous day's shorthand speed test Fd just returned.

"I'll tell you why," I answered, glancing at the page of dashes, curlicues and looping symbols. "Allow me to read what you have written here, Miss McKenzie. According to your shorthand symbols the following is a literal translation:

"Dear Sirs:

Your letter of the 25th has been regloofered and in simping we wish to stoot that all our preefgers and boxes of bim sergles have been exhorted. However, may we steet that notwinching, the clergs and shermgaroo-fles, eeble crates and zimpuggle oorflumit if bill of lading.

Sincerely,"

Then I turned the Sound Wick up high and let her talk. Finally when I saw her hps stop I said, "You're absolutely reemsly."

Then I placed the paper back into her limp hand and went out humming.

That's the way it started and from then on, there wao no holding me back. Edith loved loud, gay things—by God I'd give them to her! Eagerly I attended all the screwy social functions she was so fond of, dug up a few of my own. We spent a great deal of time at civic improvement lectures, benefit teas for indigent young poets, the Schmuckbinder Optimist Club lecture series. I dragged her to bowling alleys, high school commencement exercises, political rallies, amateur string quartet groups.

No longer was I the mild, soft-spoken man shrinking in the corner. Wherever there was noise, I was in the middle of it, adding to it with wild abandon, sopping it all up with Silenzia.

It was at one of these many affairs—a cocktail party, I think—that I encountered the man in the gray homburg once more. Vaguely I remembered seeing him at some of the other affairs too.

"My name is Emmett Dugong," he began. "It is important that I talk with you."

The wick was only partially extended; I could just barely hear him. I was half drunk. He looked like a bore. I didn't feel like talking about anything important. Unobtrusively, I pulled the wick out all the way, waited patiently for him to finish—raising my eyebrows every now and then to show I was Ustening—then drained my glass and left him.

Then one afternoon I came home to find Edith packing.

"Where are you going?" I asked, pushing Silenzia's wick in so I could hear.

"I'm leaving you, Matt," she replied, grimly.

Well, that gave me a start. I'd grown used to Edith these past few weeks of silence; as long as I kept her turned off, I figured we might even make a go of it

"But why, Edith?"

She had a great deal to say on that. Briefly, it was a matter of sound: the noises I made, my loud voice, my shrill laugh. I'd changed these past weeks, and all that There was a little cabin in the mountains somewhere, a job in a restaurant nearby. She was getting out.

I decided the time had come to tell her about Silenzia. Reluctantly I launched into it but instead of placating her, my words of explanation only enraged her.

"You mean you haven't heard a word I've said this past month?" she shrilled.

Edith's words scraped unpleasantly against my nerve endings—I'd almost forgotten how much her voice reminded me of someone chewing on steel wool. Any tenderness I had been building up toward her began to evaporate.

"If you promise to get rid of that obscene little gadget," Edith was saying, "I may change my mind about leaving. But it's either that . . . that bottle, or me. Youll just have to make your choice."

Well, after Edith moved out, I went to work on the neighbors. I brought home a set of drums, a couple of tuba players. I learned to accompany the xylophone player in "Anitra's Dance" with a ship's siren.

Then after they moved out I began thinking of bigger things. The idea of manufacturing Sound Wicks for general distribution had occurred to me before, of course—the demand from baby sitters and music lovers alone would be \ tremendous. But until now, I had always revolted against commercializing. Silenzia was essentially a secret instrument. Mass production would be fatal for Sound Wicks. Radio advertisers, speechmakers, horn manufacturers and every other noisemonger in the world would soon find a way to counteract Silenzia's effectiveness; somehow they'd break through and lovers of quiet would have at best only a few months' respite before Sound Wicks were as dated as sachet bags.

The first man to put it on the market would, of course, make a million dollars. But why hadn't it been put on the market? Suppose someone were to beat me to it?

That decided me. I might be selling Silenzia down the river, but I could certainly buy a lot of peace and quiet with a million dollars.

I held Silenzia up and gazed at the bottle affectionately. Suddenly I frowned and examined it closer. Was it my imagination or had the bottle been getting warmer these past few days? And the milky fluid, was it boiling just a trifle harder? I shrugged—possibly I'd been overworking her a bit. Well, if I were going to be a Sound Wick tycoon, I'd better get started. The man to see was Charlie Monk, prpsiHpnt of Engineers Associates—he'd get the contents of the bottle analyzed for me.

I put my hat on and started out the door, then stopped short. Across the street, waiting patiently, was the squat man with the gray homburg. Damned little guy was beginning to get on my nerves. I didn't have time to talk to him now. I came inside, left through the rear door.

C. J. Mook was a tall, thin man who seldom spoke and then without moving a muscle in his face. His trousers bagged at the knees so badly that whenever he stood, he appeared always on the verge of a tremendous leap.

I told him my story and allowed him to examine Silenzia. He sat there a few minutes playing with the noises and getting very excited over it; one corner of his mouth twitched and a single bead of perspiration appeared on his left eyebrow. He didn't want to analyze it; he wanted to buy it.

"Give you $100,000 for it. As is," he said, drawing out a check book. "$200,000 then¹."

I laughed at him.

"Look, man!" he cried. "I want it for myself. I've got four kids age two to eleven. They have toys. They listen to radio programs. They have friends who play at my house. Besides, there's an Irish tenor right across the hah. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

I laughed it off again.

Well, it finally turned out I couldn't have it analyzed right then; their head research engineer was away for a week and Mook begged me to leave the Sound Wick until he got back. He'd take such excellent care of it! Once more I laughed at him. I'd return in a week; meantime I had factory sites to look for.

I sauntered home that afternoon with my feet scarcely touching the pavement. What a wonderful world! What a wonderful Sound Wick! Nothing could happen now to spoil my happiness. Nothing!

But something did happen. It was a shot, and the slug bit into the brick building beside me, kicking up a small spray of red dust just six inches from my head. I ducked, looked around wildly—just in time to see a squat figure in a gray homburg scuttle around the far corner.

When I reached home my nerves were thoroughly unstrung. Who was the little man who'd been following me around and why should he want to kill me now? If only I'd listened to him before. For almost an hour I paced the floor trying to figure it out

Then I felt a warmth against my chest I removed Silenzia, looked at her and was seized by a new fear. Something was very definitely wrong with Silenzia. She was badly overheated, there was a perceptible buzzing, and when I unscrewed the cap a slight hiss leaked out as though some kind of internal pressure were building up.

I had never stopped to consider what happened to all the noises Silenzia swallowed—could it be there was a saturation point?

The next two days were completely miserable ones. First I was still edgy about the shot, and second I was really concerned about Silenzia's condition. Now she seemed better, now worse. Thinking perhaps rest was what she needed I left her at home all day now, wrapped in cold cloths in a dark and silent closet.

Even aside from these worries, I was completely lost without the little bottle; for Silenzia was like alcohol or opium: you used it all the time or not at all, and now my nerve endings felt raw and peeled back and the slightest sound made me jump.

It was at dusk on the third evening that another attempt was made on my life. I had just stepped off the curb at Stockton and Greenwich when a large black sedan swerved out of nowhere, bore down on me with tires screaming. The fender just grazed my trousers as I lunged for safety. From the pavement where I lay I caught sight of the driver as he careened around the corner—he wore a gray homburg.

I was still shaking when I climbed the two flights of stairs. My mind was made up: I'd sell Silenzia to Charlie Mook for $200,000, and get out of the city for a while.

I reached into the closet and brought the Sound Wick into the kitchen. Now I was really alarmed. The bubbling and sizzling were louder, more ominous, a slimy froth dribbled out from the edges of the cap and the bottle was almost too hot to hold. I scurried for ice cubes, got blankets to protect her from stray street noises, loosened the cap to allow pressure to escape. An ugly rumble erupted as I unscrewed it. Tiny jets of fluid spat upward.

It was at this point the accordionist started. He was a new neighbor and he went from "Over the Waves" to "La Paloma" and back again with a piercing whine that raised the hackles on my neck. With each squeaky blast, Silenzia sputtered more desperately.

I guess I lost my head. I rushed across the hall, pounded on the man's door, demanded he stop playing instantly. We had a terrible argument—shouts, threats—and by the time I got him hushed up and had returned to my apartment, I heard something that chilled me to the bone.

". . . why can't you make something of yourself!" Edith's voice coasted out of the kitchen at me, tinny and distorted like an old phonograph record. "You're just wasting yourself working for Amos Schmuckbinder. . . ."

I rushed into the room. There was no one there. No one.

"Scru-r-unch-scrunch." I looked at the Sound Wick on the table. Could it possibly be?

"Get off the street you damned jay walker!" the bottle shrieked at me. There was a screech of brakes, a claxon horn, the ping of signal lights, a clashing of gears. Another voice faded in—Schmuckbinder's:

". . . it is a signal honor to be with this distinguished group this evening, paying tribute to the ideals, the dreams and hopes of. . . ."

"Scru-r-unch-scrunch. . . ."

"You take the whites of two eggs, mix them with. . . ."

Horrified I seized the cap and tried to screw it back on the stricken bottle. Some of the hot liquid spurted out and landed on my coat An ugly burble of sound oozed out of the spot on my sleeve.

". . . and in simping we wish to stoot that all our preef-gers and. . . ."

With brute strength I forced the cap back on. The noise was muffled but still leaked out. But I couldn't keep the cap on; the whole interior of the bottle churned more violently than ever, and the wick swelled and thrashed like a strangulated tongue. Once more I removed the cap.

The tinny notes of "Anitra's Dance" roared out, along with the sound of billing machines and typewriters which buzzed and clacked like a closet full of insane geese. Most revolting of all was the intermittent blare of my own voice—a silly, high-pitched sound, squeaky and insistent

I simply couldn't stand another minute of it I looked around wildly for my hat

". . . you mean you haven't heard a word I've said this past month?" Edith's voice leapt out at me as I closed the front door.

On the first landing I pulled up short. Directly across the street, in the shadows of a deserted alley glowed a single cigarette. Gray Homburg again! Waiting for me. I returned to the bedlam inside, grabbed the phone and dialed Charlie Mook's number.

"Where in thunder are you calling from?" he demanded. "Sounds like the middle of Times Square."

"It's Silenzia," I shouted. "She's vomiting up every noise she ever swallowed."

Charlie listened to the racket a moment.

"You've evidently overworked it" he finally stuttered. "Just keep cool."

"Cool!" I screamed. "This could keep up another month or so. And when I try to put the cap on, it looks like it's about to explode. I'm going to throw it out the window."

"Don't do that!" he implored. "Well, do something then!" He thought a moment

"Look," he said, "get your car. Pick me up in ten minutes. Bring the Sound Wick. We'll take it down to the lab. Maybe we can figure something out."

He hung up. I hesitated a moment thinking about Gray Homburg. Maybe I could sneak out the back again.

". . . you get rid of that obscene little gadget immediately. . . ." Edith's voice shrieked as I crept down the back stairs in utter blackness.

"Scru-r-unch-scrunch. . . ." as I pushed open the rear door.

"Mr. Chairman, Mr. Principal, members of the graduating class, parents, teachers, friends, and fellow students. . . ." an adolescent voice whined as I crept across the backyard.

"VLLLLL taaaaake yeeeou HOME again, Kaaaaath-leeeeen. . . ." came an Irish tenor as I climbed the back fence.

In the car I just had to force the cap back on Silenzia—a cocktail party was coming on the air and Gray Homburg would be able to follow that sound three blocks. Then I laid the bottle on the seat beside me, stepped on the starter and roared away.

I looked in the rear view mirror. Another car, large and black, pulled out from the curb. I turned the corner at Grant. The car turned. After two more blocks, there was no doubt of it—I was being followed.

How long I dodged and turned through the night streets, I'll never know. I remember that at last I found myself on a lonely mountain road which bordered the ocean. I remember only my deep despair which grew deeper with every passing second. I was frightened, yes. Frightened of the man relentlessly following me. Frightened of the bottle which verged on explosion at any moment. But above all was the terrifying prospect of life without Silenzia.

I wouldn't have her much longer. There was no doubt about that. Charlie couldn't help her. No one could. She was too far gone. Bitterly I heaped curses on myself for squandering Silenzia the way I had, frittering her life away on xylophones and cocktail parties.

I glanced down. Silenzia was so hot the seat cover was beginning to smolder. An evil phosphorescent glow flickered inside. The metal cap bulged with the ever-increasing internal pressure. A low ominous growl fairly shook the whole bottle.

It was only a matter of seconds now, I knew, before the whole thing went up. Quickly I pulled to the side of the road, removed my coat, wrapped Silenzia in it, gingerly carried it across the road to the cliff's edge which dropped away a hundred feet to the ocean below. From within the throbbing bottle, a muffled, distorted voice oozed out. I held it closer to my ear:

". . . my name is Emmett Dugong . . . important that I talk to you . . ."

It was the voice of the man in the gray homburg. A convulsive shudder passed through the bottle. Unless I tossed the thing off the cliff this very moment, I would be blown to bits—yet I had to listen.

". . . must return the Sound Wick to me, sir. . . . No other way, sir. You'll never be able to retain it, sir. Never . . . We will go to any lengths to keep it from. . . ."

A hideous gurgling drowned out his voice a moment. The heat from the bottle singed my hair as I drew closer. The voice returned:

". . . actually belongs to the Society . . . have commissioned me to track the lost instrument ... ƒ had traced it to the pawn shop before you stumbled on it . . . must be returned. . . ."

I couldn't hold on to the thing any longer. My coat was beginning to smolder. Once more I leaned over the guard rail to drop it. Once more I hesitated.

". . . simply cannot allow a single Sound Wick to fall into the hands of anyone outside the Society . . . danger of misuse . . . danger of commercialization . . . danger of . . . danger. . . ."

The bottle gave a convulsive jerk. My smouldering coat leapt into flames. I dropped the bottle. There was a moment of dead silence as it plunged downward.

Then came the explosion.

Is it possible to imagine a blast which rips the air apart with whistles, barking dogs, taxi horns, clinking glasses, sirens, alarm clocks and the roar of a thousand laughing, shouting, mumbling voices? That is what it was. And even after the echo of it died away, I leaned numbly at the rail, staring down into blackness, weary and sick at heart.

Finally I tore myself away and turned. A short, squat man blocked my path—a man in a gray homburg.

"My name is Emmett Dugong," he said. "It is important that I talk with you."

There is little more I am permitted to say about Sound Wicks at the moment, except that my anguish at losing Silenzia has been tempered with the knowledge it was not the only one in existence—there are one thousand eight hundred and seventy-six to be exact, all issued and controlled by the International Silence Lovers Society.

But I must not say more; my probationary membership is on shaky enough basis as it is. In another three years, after the complete indoctrination and instruction period, if things go well, I should be a full-fledged member with a registered Sound Wick assigned to my exclusive use.

How can you too obtain membership? Unfortunately I am not permitted to answer that either. No society was ever more exclusive, more dedicated to the protection of silence. No society ever culled its prospective members more carefully, guarded its device more fanatically. I, of course, was forced upon them—they had to take me. I am still watched, naturally, by a man with a gray homburg and anxious face and I should be killed in cold blood were I again to attempt the commercialization of Sound Wicks.

No, I cannot tell you how to joui. If you'ic lucky, juu yyiU be approached. Watch for a happy-looking man, a man with a slight bulge in his vest pocket, a man who sometimes hears what you say and sometimes doesn't. Watch for a silent man. . . .

WHAT TO DO UNTIL THE ANALYST COMES

FREDERIK POHL

Here is our second frontal attack on the Madison Avenue Boys; compare it with Frank Herbert's hilarious piece of burlicue earlier in this book. In the present story, the co-author of the classic The Space Merchants reveals himself to have a peculiarly piercing eye for the do-it-yourself auto-da-fe that the advertising boys seem constantly to be perpetrating on themselves, as well as on the general public. . . . Incidentally, don't think that the product Mr. Pohl envisages is unlikely. Knowing the black arts of the pharmaceutical laboratories, I am willing to bet that it may even actually exist, but that Wiser Heads have (thus far, so goes my bet) kept it off the market. What might happen if the cancer-and-cigarette scare gets really rough, only time and the Food and Drug Adnunistration can tell. . . . I just sent my secretary out for a container of coffee and she brought me back a lemon Coke.

I can't really blame her. Who in all the world do I have to blame, except myself? Hazel was a good secretary to me for fifteen years, fine at typing, terrific at brushing off people I didn't want to see, and the queen of them all at pumping office gossip out of the ladies' lounge. She's a little fuzzy-brained most of the time now, sure. But after all!

I can say this for myself, I didn't exactly know what I was getting into. No doubt you remember the—Well, let me start that sentence over again, because naturally there is a certain doubt. Perhaps, let's say, perhaps you remember the two doctors and their headline report about cigarettes and lung cancer. It hit us pretty hard at VandenBlumer & Silk, because we've been eating off the Mason-Dixon Tobacco account for twenty years. Just figure what our fifteen per cent amounted to on better than ten million dollars net billing a year, and you'll see that for yourself. What happened first was all to the good, because naturally the first thing that the client did was scream and reach for his checkbook and pour another couple million dollars into special promotions to counteract the bad press, but that couldn't last. And we knew it. VB. & S. is noted in the trade as an advertising agency that takes the long view; we saw at once that if the client was in danger, no temporary spurt of advertising was going to pull him out of it, and it was time for us to climb up on top of the old mountain and take a good look at the countryside ahead.

The Chief called a special Plans meeting that morning and laid it on the line for us. "There goes the old fire bell, boys," he said, "and it's up to us to put the fire out. I'm listening, so start talking."

Baggott cleared his throat and said glumly, "It may only be the paper, Chief. Maybe if they make them without paper. . . ." He's the a.e. for Mason-Dixon, so you couldn't really blame him for taking the client's view.

The Chief twinkled: "If they make them without paper they aren't cigarettes any more, are they? Let's not wander off into side issues, boys. I'm still listening."

None of us wanted to wander off into side issues, so we

all looked patronizingly at Baggott for a minute. Finally, Ellen Silk held up her hand. "I don't want you to think," she said, "that just because Daddy left me a little stock I'm going to push my way into things, Mr. VandenBlumer, but—well, did you have in mind finding some, uh, angle to play on that would take the public's mind off the report?"

You have to admire the Chief. "Is that your recommendation, my dear?" he inquired fondly, bouncing the t>all right back to her.

She said weakly, "I don't know. I'm confused."

"Naturally, my dear," he beamed. "So are we all. Let's see if Charley here can straighten us out a little. Eh, Charley?"

He was looking at me. I said at once, "I'm glad you asked me for an opinion, Chief. I've been doing a little thinking, and here's what I've come up with." I ticked ufl" the points uu my fingers. "One, tobacco makes you cough. Two, liquor gives you a hangover. Three, reefers and the other stuff— well, let's just say they're against the law." I slapped the three fingers against the palm of my other hand. "So what's left for us, Chief? That's my question. Can we come up with something new, something different, something that, one, is not injurious to the health, two, does not give you a hangover, three, is not habit-forming and therefore against the law?"

Mr. VandenBlumer said approvingly, "That's good thinking, Charley. When you hear that fire bell, you really jump, boy."

Baggott's hand was up. He said, "Let me get this straight, Chief. Is it Charley's idea that we recommend to Mason-Dixon that they go out of the tobacco business and start making something else?"

The old man looked at him blandly for a moment. "Why should it be Mason-Dixon?" he asked softly, and left it at that while we all thought of the very good reasons why it shouldn't be Mason-Dixon. After all, loyalty to a client is one thing, but you've got an obligation to your own people too.

The old man let it sink in, then he turned back to me. "Well, Charley?" he asked. "We've heard you pinpoint what we need. Got any specific suggestions?"

They were all looking at me to see if I had anything concrete to offer.

Unfortunately, I had.

I just asked Hazel to get me the folder on Leslie Clary Cloud, and she came in with a copy of my memo putting him on the payroll two years back. "That's all there was in the file," she said dreamily, her jaw muscles moving rhythmically. There wasn't any use arguing with her, so I handed her the container of lemon Coke and told her to ditch it and bring me back some coffee, C-O-F-F-E-E, coffee. I tried going through the files myself when she was gone, but that was a waste of time.

So I'll have to tell you about Leslie Clary Cloud from memory. He came into the office without an appointment and why Hazel ever let him in to see me I'll never know. But she did. He told me right away, "I've been fired, Mr. McGory. Canned. After eleven years with the Wyoming Bureau of Standards as a senior chemist."

"That's too bad, Dr. Cloud," I said, shuffling the papers on my desk. "I'm afraid, though, that our organization doesn't—"

"No, no," he said hastily, "I don't know anything about advertising. Organic chemistry's my field. I have a, well, a suggestion for a process that might interest you. You have the Mason-Dixon Tobacco account, don't you? Well, in my work for my doctorate I—" He drifted off into a fog of long-chain molecules and short-chain molecules and pentose sugars and common garden herbs. It took me a little while, but I listened patiently and I began to see what he was driving at. There was, he was saying, a substance in a common plant which, by cauliflamming the whingdrop and di-tricolat-ing the residual glom, or words something like that, you could convert into another substance which appeared to have many features in common with what is sometimes called hop, snow or joy-dust. In other words, dope.

I stared at him aghast. "Dr. Cloud," I demanded, "do you know what you're suggesting? If we added this stuff to our client's cigarettes we'd be flagrantly violating tne law. that s the most unheard-of thing I ever heard of! Besides, we've already looked into this matter, and the cost estimates are—"

"No, no!" he said again. "You don't understand, Mr. McGory. This isn't any of the drugs currently available, it's something new and different."

"Different?"

"Non-habit-forming, for instance." "Non-habit-forming?"

"Totally. Chemically it is entirely unrelated to any narcotic in the pharmacopeia. Legally—well, I'm no lawyer, but I swear, Mr. McGory, this isn't covered by any regulation. No reason it should be. It doesn't hurt the user, it doesn't form a habit, it's cheap to manufacture, it—"

"Hold it," I said, getting to my feet. "Don't go away—I want to catch the boss before he goes to lunch."

So I caught the boss, and he twinkled thoughtfully at me. No, he didn't want me to discuss it with Mason-Dixon just yet, and yes, it did seem to have some possibilities, and certainly, put this man on the payroll and see if he turns up with something.

So we did; and he did.

Auditing raised the roof when the vouchers began to come through, but I bucked them up to the Chief and he calmed them down. It took a lot of money, though, and it took nearly six months. But then Leslie Clary Cloud called up one morning and said, "Come on down, Mr. McGory. We're in."

The place we'd fixed up for him was on the lower East Side and it reeked of rotten vegetables. I made a mental note to double-check all our added-chlorophyll copy and climbed up the two flights of stairs to Cloud's private room. He was sitting at a lab bench, beaming at a row of test tubes in front of him.

"This is it?" I asked, gleaming at the test tubes.

"This is it." He smiled dreamily at me and yawned. "Excuse me," he blinked amiably. "I've been sampling the little old product"

I looked him over very carefully. He had been sampling something or other, that was clear enough. But no whisky breath; no dilated pupils; no shakes; no nothing. He was relaxed and cheerful, and that was all you could say.

'Try a little old bit," he invited, gesturing at the test tubes.

Well, there are times when you have to pay your dues in the club. VB. & S. had been mighty good to me, and if I had to swallow something unfamiliar to justify the confidence the Chief had in me, why I just had to go ahead and do it. Still, I hesitated for a moment.

"Aw," said Leslie Clary Cloud, "don't be scared. Look, I just had a shot but I'll take another one." He fumbled one of the test tubes out of the rack and, humming to himself, slopped a little of the colorless stuff into a beaker of some other colorless stuff—water, I suppose. He drank it down and smacked his lips. "Tastes awful," he observed cheerfully, "but we'll fix that. Whee!"

I looked him over again, and he looked back at me, giggling. "Too strong," he said happily. "Got it too strong. We'll fix that too." He rattled beakers and test tubes aimlessly while I took a deep breath and nerved myself up to it.

"All right," I said, and took the fresh beaker out of his hand. I swallowed it down almost in one gulp. It tasted terrible, just as he said, tasted like the lower floors had smelled, but that was all I noticed right away. Nothing happened for a moment except that Cloud looked at me thoughtfully and frowned.

"Say," he said, "I guess I should have diluted that"

I guess he should have. Wham.

But a couple of hours later I was all right again.

Cloud was plenty apologetic. "Still," he said consolingly, standing over me as I lay on the lab bench, "it proves one thing. You had a dose about the equivalent of ten thousand normal shots, and you have to admit it hasn't hurt you."

"I do?" I asked, and looked at the doctor. He swung his stethoscope by the earpieces and shrugged.

"Nothing organically wrong with you, Mr. McGory—not that I can find, anyway. Euphoria, yes. Temporarily high pulse, yes. Delirium there for a little while, yes—though it was pretty mild. But I don't think you even have a headache now."

"I don't," I admitted. I swung my feet down and sat up,

apprehensively. But no hainmeis stalled in my head. I had

to confess it: I felt wonderful.

Well, between us we tinkered it into what Cloud decided would be a "normal" dosage—just enough to make you feel good—and he saturated some sort of powder and rolled it into pellets and clamped them in a press and came out with what looked as much like aspirins as anything else. "They'd probably work that way too," he said. "A psychogenic headache would melt away in five minutes with one of those."

"We'll bear that in mind," I said.

What with one thing and another, I couldn't get to the old man that day before he left, and the next day was the weekend and you don't disturb the Chiefs weekends, and it was Monday evening before I could get him alone for long enough to give him the whole pitch. He was delighted.

"Dear, dear," he twinkled. "So much out of so little. Why, they hardly look like anything at all."

"Try one, Chief," I suggested.

"Perhaps I will. You checked the legal angle?"

"On the quiet. It's absolutely clean."

He nodded and poked at the little pills with his finger. I scratched the back of my neck, trying to be politely inconspicuous, but the Chief doesn't miss much. He looked at me inquiringly.

"Hives," I explained, embarrassed. "I, uh, got an overdose the first time, like I said. I don't know much about these things, but what they told me at the clinic was I set up an allergy."

"Allergy?" Mr. VandenBlumer looked at me thoughtfully. "We don't want to spread allergies with this stuff, do we?"

"Oh, no danger of that, Chief. It's Cloud's fault, in a way; he handed me an undiluted dose of the stuff, and I drank it down. The clinic was very positive about that: Even twenty or thirty times the normal dose won't do you any harm."

"Um." He rolled one of the pills in his finger and thumb and sniffed it thoughtfully. "How long are you going to have your hives?"

"They'll go away. I just have to keep away from the stuff. I wouldn't have them now, but—well, I liked it so much I tried another shot yesterday." I coughed, and added, "It works out pretty well, though. You see the advantages, of course, Chief. I have to give it up, and I can swear that there's no craving, no shakes, no kick-off symptoms, no nothing. I, well, I wish I could enjoy it like anyone else, sure. But I'm here to testify that Cloud told the simple truth: It isn't habit-forming."

"Um," he said again; and that was the end of the discussion.

Oh, the Chief is a cagey man. He gave me my orders: Keep my mouth shut about it. I have an idea that he was waiting to see what happened to my hives, and whether any craving would develop, and what the test series on animals and Cloud's Bowery-derelict volunteers would show. But even more, I think he was waiting until the time was exactly, climactically right.

Like at the Plans meeting, the day after the doctors' report and the panic at Mason-Dixon.

And that's how Cheery-Gum was born.

Hazel just came in with the cardboard container from the drug store, and I could tell by looking at it—no steam coming out from under the lid, beads of moisture clinging to the sides—that it wasn't the coffee I ordered. "Hey!" I yelled after her as she was dreamily waltzing through the door. "Come back here!"

"Sure 'nough, Massa," she said cheerfully, and two-stepped back, "S'matter?"

I took a grip on my temper. "Open that up," I ordered. "Take a look at what's in it."

She smiled at me and plopped the lid off the container. Half the contents spilled across my desk. "Oh, dear," said Hazel, "excuse me while I get a cloth."

"Never mind the cloth," I said, mopping at the mess with my handkerchief. "What's in there?"

She gazed wonderingly into the container for a moment; then she said, "Oh, honestly, boss! I see what you mean. These idiots in the drug store, they're gummed up higher than a kite, morning, noon and night. I always say, if you can't handle it, you shouldn't touch it during working hours. I'm sorry about this, boss. No lemon! How can they call it a lemon Coke when they forget the;—"

"Hazel," I said, "what I wanted was coffee. Coffee."

She looked at me. "You mean I got it wrong? Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. McGory. I'll go right down and get it now." She smiled repentantly and hummed her way toward the door. With her hand on the knob, she stopped and turned to look at me. "All the same, boss," she said, "that's a funny com. bination. Coffee and Coke. But I'll see what I can do."

And she was gone, to bring me heaven knows what incredible concoction. But what are you going to do?

No, that's no answer. I know it's what you would do. But it makes me break out in hives.

The first week we were delighted, the second week we were triumphant, the third week we were millionaires.

The sixth week I skulked along the sidewalks all the way across town and down, to see Leslie Clary Cloud. Even so I almost got it when a truckdriver dreamily piled into the glass front of a saloon a yard or two behind me.

When I saw Cloud sitting at his workbench, feet propped up, hands clasped behind his head, eyes half-closed, I could almost have kissed him. For his jaws were not moving. Alone in New York, except for me, he wasn't chewing Cheery-Gum.

"Thank heaven!" I said sincerely.

He blinked and smiled at me. "Mr. McGory," he said in a pleasant drawl. "Nice of you."

His manner disturbed me, and I looked more closely. "You're not—you're not gummed up, are you?"

He said gently, "Do I looked gummed up? I never chew the stuff."

"Good!" I unfolded the newspaper I had carried all the way from Madison Avenue and showed him the inside pages—the ones that were not a mere smear of ink. "See here, Cloud. Planes crashing into Radio City. Buses driving off the George Washington Bridge. Ships going aground at the Battery. We did it, Cloud, you and I!"

"Oh, I wouldn't get upset about it, old man," he said comfortably. "All local, isn't it?"

"Isn't that bad enough? And it isn't local—it can't be. It's just that there isn't any communication outside the city any more—outside of any city, I guess. The shipments of Cheery-Gum, that's all that ever gets delivered anywhere. Because that's all anybody cares about any more, and we did it, you and I!"

He said sympathetically, "That's too bad, McGory."

"Curse you!" I shrieked at him. "You said it wasn't a drug! You said it wasn't habit-forming! You said—"

"Now, now," he said with gentle firmness. "Why not chew a stick yourself?"

"Because I can't! It gives me hives!"

"Oh, that's right." He looked self-reproachful. "Well," he said dreamily at last, "I guess that's about the size of it, McGory." He was staring at the ceiling again.

"What is?"

"What is what?"

"What's about the— Oh, the devil with it. Cloud, you got us into this, you have to get us out of it. There must be some way of curing this habit."

"But there isn't any habit to cure, McGory," he pointed out.

"But there is!"

"Tem-per," he said waggishly, and took a corked test tube out of his workbench. He drank it down, every drop, and tossed the tube in a wastebasket. "You see?" he demanded severely. "1 don't chew Cheery-Gum."

So I appealed to a Higher Authority.

In the eighteenth century I would have gone to the Church, in the nineteenth, to the State. I went to an office fronting on Central Park where the name on the bronze plaque was Theodor Yust, Analyst.

It wasn't easy. I almost walked out on him when I saw that his jaws were chewing as rhythmically as his secretary's. But Cloud's concoction is not, as he kept saying, a drug, and though it makes you relax and makes you happy and, if you take enough of it, makes you drunk, it doesn't make you unfit to talk to. So I look a giip un niy Icinuci, llic uuly bad

temper left, and told him what I wanted.

He laughed at me—in the friendliest way. "Put a stop to Cheery-Gum? Mr. McGory!"

"But the plane crashes—"

"No more suicides, Mr. McGory!"

"The train wrecks—"

"Not a murder or a mugging in the whole city in a month."

I said hopelessly, "But it's wrong!"

"Ah," he said in the tone of a discoverer, "now we come down to it. Why is it wrong, Mr. McGory?"

That was the second time I almost walked out. But I said, "Let's get one thing straight: I don't want you digging into my problems. That's not why I'm here. Cheery-Gum is wrong, and I am not biased against it. You can take a detached view of collisions and sudden death if you want to, but what about slow death? All over the city, all over the country, people are lousing up their jobs. Nobody cares. Nobody does anything but go through the motions. They're happy. What happens when they get hungry because the farmers are feeling too good to put in their crops?"

He sighed patiently. He took the wad of gum out of his mouth, rolled it neatly into a Kleenex and dropped it in the wastebasket. He took a fresh stick out of a drawer and unwrapped it, but stopped when he saw me looking at him. He chuckled. "Rather I didn't, Mr. McGory? Well, why not oblige you? It's not habit-forming, after all." He dropped the gum back into the drawer and said: "Answering your questions, they won't starve. The farmers are farming, the workers are working, the policemen are policing, and I'm analyzing. And you're worrying. Why? Work's getting done." "But my secretary—"

"Forget about your secretary, Mr. McGory. Sure, she's a little fuzzy-brained, a little absent-minded. Who isn't? But she comes to work, because why shouldn't she?"

"Sure she does, but—"

"But she's happy. Let her be happy, Mr. McGory!"

I looked scandalized at him. "You, a doctor! How can you say that? Suppose you were fuzzy-brained and so on when a patient desperately needed—"

He stopped me. "In the past three weeks," he said gently, "you're the first to come in that door."

I changed tack: "All right, you're an analyst. What about a G.P. or a surgeon?"

He shrugged. "Perhaps," he conceded, "perhaps in one case out of a thousand—somebody hurt in an accident, say —he'd get to the hospital too late, or the surgeon would make some little mistake. Perhaps. Not even one in a thousand—one in a million, maybe. But Cheery-Gum isn't a drug. A quarter-grain of sodium amytol, and your surgeon's as good as new." Absent-mindedly he reached into the drawer for the stick of gum.

"And you say," I said accusingly, "that it's not habit-forming!"

He stopped with his hand halfway to his mouth. "Well," he said wryly, "it is a habit Don't confuse semantics, Mr. McGory. It is not a narcotic addiction. If my supply were cut off this minute, I would feel bad—as bad as if I couldn't play bridge any more for some reason, and no worse." He put the stick of gum away again and rummaged through the bottom drawers of his desk until he found a dusty pack of cigarettes. "Used to smoke three packs a day," he wheezed, choking on the first drag.

He wiped his streaming eyes. "You know, Mr. McGory," he said sharply, "you're a bit of a prig. You don't want people to be happy."

He stopped me before I could work up a full explosion. "Wait! Don't think that you're the only person who thinks about what's good for the world. When I first heard of Cheery-Gum, I worried." He stubbed the cigarette out distastefully, still talking. "Euphoria is well and good, I said, but what about emergencies? And I looked around, and there weren't any. Things were getting done, maybe slowly and erratically, but they were getting done. And then I said, on a high moral plane, that's well and good, but what about the ultimate destiny of man? Should the world be populated by cheerful near-morons? And that worried me, until I began looking at my patients." He smiled reflectively. "I had 'em all, Mr. McGory. You name it, I had it coming in to see me twice a week. The worst wrecks of psyches you ever heard of, twisted and warped and destroying themselves; and they stopped. They stopped catiug themselves up with huhy and fear and tension, and then they weren't my patients any more. And what's more, they weren't morons. Give them a stimulus, they respond. Interest them, they react. I played bridge the other night with a woman who was catatonic last month; we had to put the first stick of gum in her mouth. She beat the hell out of me, Mr. McGory. I had a mathematician coming here who—well, never mind. It was bad. He's happy as a clam, and the last time I saw him he had finished a paper he began ten years ago, and couldn't touch. Stimulate them —they respond. When things are dull—Cheery-Gum. What could be better?"

I looked at him dully, and said, "So you can't help me."

"I didn't say that. Do you want me to help you?"

"Certainly!"

'Then answer my question: Why don't you chew a stick yourself?"

"Because I can't!" It all tumbled out, the Plans meeting and Leslie Clary Cloud and the beaker that hadn't been diluted and the hives. "A terrific allergy," I emphasized. "Even antihistamines don't help. They said at the clinic that the antibodies formed after a massive initial—"

He said comfortably, "Soma over psyche, eh? Well, what would you expect? But believe me, Mr. McGory, allergies are psychogenic. Now, if you'll just—"

Well, if you can't lick 'em, join 'em, that's what the old man used to say.

But I can't join them. Theodor Yust offered me an invitation, but I guess I was pretty rude to him. And when, at last, I went back, ready to crawl and apologize, there was a scrawled piece of cardboard over the bronze nameplate; it said: Gone fishing.

I tried to lay it on the line with the Chief. I opened the door of the Plans room, and there he was with Baggott and Wayber, from Mason-Dixon. They were sitting there whittling out model ships, and so intent on what they were doing that they hardly noticed me. After a while the Chief said idly, "Bankrupt yet?" And moments passed, and Wayber finally replied, in an absent-minded tone:

"Guess so. Have to file some papers or something.'' And they went on with their whittling.

So I spoke sharply to them, and the minute they looked up and saw me, it was like the Rockettes: The hands into the pockets, the paper being unwrapped, the gum into the mouth. And naturally I couldn't make any sense with them after that. So what are you going to do?

No! I can't!

Hazel hardly comes in to see me any more, even. I bawled her out for it—what would happen, I demanded, if I suddenly had to answer a letter. But she only smiled dreamily at me. "There hasn't been a letter in a month," she pointed out amiably. "Don't worry, though. If anything comes up, I'll be with you in a flash. This stuff isn't a habit with me, I can stop it any time, you just say the word and oF Hazel'll be there. . . ."

And she's right because, when you get right down to it, there's the trouble. It isn't a habit. So how can you break it?

You can stop Cheery-Gum any time. You can stop it this second, or five minutes from now, or tomorrow. So why worry about it?

It's completely voluntary, entirely under your control; it won't hurt you, it won't make you sick.

I wish Theodor Yust would come back. Or maybe I'll just
cut my throat, ,

SHORT IN THE CHEST

IDRIS SEABRIGHT

I am absurdly fond of this cracked pot of a story—the cracked pot being its electromechanical "deus IN machina" hero. When you grasp the nature of the civilization the tale portends, it may be hard to understand why I find it so delightful. But maybe that's it: things have reached such a pass in the real world of today that Miss Seabright's unlikely (we hope) world of tomorrow arouses only helpless laughter, since fear, indignation, and all that, about The Way Things Are Going seems to be so ridiculously useless. So read, and enjoy, this grim, macabre, etc., view of the "boy-girl romance" of the future.

The girl in the marine-green uniform turned up her hearing aid a trifle—they were all a little deaf, from the cold-war bombing—and with an earnest frown regarded the huxley that was seated across the desk from her.

"You're the queerest huxley I ever heard of," she said flatly. "The others aren't at all like you."

The huxley did not seem displeased at this remark. It took off its window-pane glasses, blew on them, polished them on a handkerchief, and returned them to its nose. Sonya's turning up the hearing aid had activated the short in its chest again; it folded its hands protectively over the top buttons of its dove-gray brocaded waistcoat.

"And in what way, my dear young lady, am I different from other huxleys?" it asked.

"Well—you tell me to speak to you frankly, to tell you exactly what is in my mind. I've only been to a huxley once before, but it kept talking about giving me the big, over-all picture, and about using dighting* to transcend myself. It

* In the past, I have been accused of making up some of the_ unusual words
that appear in my stories. Sometimes this accusation has been justified; some-
times, as in "Vulcan's Dolls," (see Plant Life of the Pacific World) it has not.
For the record, therefore, be it observed that "dight" is a middle English word
meaning, among other things, "to have intercourse with." (See Poets of the
English Language, Auden and Pearson, Vol. 1_% p. 173.) [See also Webster's
New International Dictionary, unabridged version.—G.C.J "Dight" was, re-
introduced by a late twentieth century philologist who disliked the "sleep with"
euphemism, and who saw that the language desperately needed a transitive
verb that would be "good usage." —I.S.

spoke about in-group love, and inter-group harmony, and it said our basic loyalty must be given to Defense, which in the cold war emergency is the country itself.

"You're not like that at all, not at all philosophic. I suppose that's why they're called huxleys—because they're philosophic rob—I beg your pardon."

"Go ahead and say it," the huxley encouraged. "I'm not shy. I don't mind being called a robot."

"I might have known. I guess that's why you're so popular. I never saw a huxley with so many people in its waiting room."

"I am a rather unusual robot," the huxley said, with a touch of smugness. "I'm a new model, just past the experimental stage, with unusually complicated relays. But that's beside the point. You haven't told me yet what's troubling you."

The girl fiddled nervously with the control of her hearing aid. After a moment she turned it down; the almost audible sputtering in the huxley's chest died away.

"It's about the pigs," she said.

"The pigs!" The huxley was jarred out of its mechanical calm. "You know, I thought it would be something about dighting," it said after a second. It smiled winningly. "It usually is."

"Well . . . it's about that too. But the pigs were what started me worrying. I don't know whether you're clear about my rank. I'm Major Sonya Briggs, in charge of the Zone 13 piggery."

"Oh," said the huxley.

"Yes. . . . Like the other armed services, we Marines produce all our own food. My piggery is a pretty important unit in the job of keeping up the supply of pork chops. Naturally, I was disturbed when the new-born pigs refused to nurse.

"If you're a new robot, you won't have much on your memory coils about pigs. As soon as the pigs are born, we take them away from the sow—we use an aseptic scoop— and put them in an enclosure of their own with a big nursing tank. We have a recording of a sow grunting, and when they hear that they're supposed to nurse. The sow gets an oestric, and after a few days she's ready to breed again. The system is supposed to produce a lot more pork than letting the baby pigs stay with the sow in the old-fashioned way. But as I say, lately they've been refusing to nurse.

"No matter how much we step up the grunting record, they won't take the bottle. We've had to slaughter several litters rather than let them starve to death. And at that the flesh hasn't been much good—too mushy and soft. As you can easily see, the situation is getting serious."

"Um," the huxley said.

"Naturally, I made full reports. Nobody has known what to do. But when I got my dighting slip a couple of times ago, in the space marked 'Purpose,' besides the usual rubber-stamped 'To reduce inter-service tension' somebody had written in: 'To find out from Air their solution of the neonatal pig nutrition problem.'

"So I knew my dighting opposite number in Air was not only supposed to reduce inter-group tension, but also I was supposed to find out from him how Air got its new-born pigs to eat." She looked down, fidgeting with the clasp of her musette bag.

"Go on," said the huxley with a touch of severity. "I can't help you unless you give me your full confidence."

"Is it true that the dighting system was set up by a group of psychologists after they'd made a survey of inter-service tension? After they'd found that Marine was feuding with Air, and Air with Infantry, and Infantry with Navy, to such an extent that it was cutting down over-all Defense efficiency? They thought that sex relations would be the best of all ways of cutting down hostility and replacing it with friendly feelings, so they started the dighting plan?"

"You know the answers to those questions as well as I do," the huxley replied frostily. "The tone of your voice when you asked them shows that they are to be answered with 'Yes.' You're stalling, Major Briggs."

"It's so unpleasant. . . . What do you want me to tell you?"

"Go on in detail with what happened after you got your blue dighting slip."

She shot a glance at him, flushed, looked away again, and began talking rapidly. 'The slip was for next Tuesday. I hate Air for dighting, but I thought it would be all right. You know how it is—there's a particular sort of kick in feeling oneself change from a cold sort of loathing into being eager and excited and in love with it. After one's had one's Watson, I mean.

"I went to the neutral area Tuesday afternoon. He was in the room when I got there, sitting in a chair with his big feet spread out in front of him, wearing one of those loathsome leather jackets. He stood up politely when he saw me, but I knew he'd just about as soon cut my throat as look at me, since I was Marine. We were both armed, naturally."

"What did he look like?" the huxley broke in.

"I really didn't notice. Just that he was Air. Well, anyway, we had a drink together. I've heard they put cannabis in the drinks they serve you in the neutral areas, and it might be true. I didn't feel nearly so hostile to him after I'd finished my drink. I even managed to smile, and he managed to smile back. He said. 'We might as well get started, don't you think?' So I went in the head.

"I took off my things and left my gun on the bench beside the wash basin. I gave myself my Watson in the thigh."

"The usual Watson?" the huxley asked as she halted. "Oestric and anti-concipient injected sub-cutaneously from a sterile ampoule?"

"Yes. He'd had his Watson too, the priapic, because when I got back. . . ." She began to cry.

"What happened after you got back?" the huxley queried after she had cried for a while.

"I just wasn't any good. No good at all. The Watson might have been so much water for all the effect it had. Finally he got sore. He said, 'What's the matter with you? I might have known anything Marine was in would get loused up.'

'That made me angry, but I was too upset to defend myself. Tension reduction!' he said. 'This is a fine way to promote inter-service harmony. I'm not only not going to sign the checking out sheet, I'm going to file a complaint against you to your group.'"

"Oh, my," said huxley.

"Yes, wasn't it terrible? I said, 'If you file a complaint, I'll file a counter-charge. You didn't reduce my tension, either.'

"We argued about it for a while. He said that if I filed counter-charges there'd be a trial and I'd have to take pen-tathol and then the truth would come out. He said it wasn't his fault! he'd been ready.

"I knew that was true, so I began to plead with him. I reminded him of the cold war, and how the enemy were about to take Venus, when all we had was Mars. I talked to him about loyalty to Defense, and I asked him how he'd feel if he was kicked out of Air. And finally, after what seemed like hours, he said he wouldn't file charges. I guess he felt sorry for me. He even agreed to sign the checking out sheet.

"That was that. I went back to the head and put on my clothes and we both went out. We left the room at difforont times, though, because we were too angry to smile at each other and look happy. Even as it was, I think some of the neutral area personnel suspected us."

"Is that what's been worrying you?" the huxley asked when she seemed to have finished.

"Well . . . I can trust you, can't I? You really won't tell?"

"Certainly I won't Anything told to a huxley is a privileged communication. The first amendment applies to us, if to no other profession."

"Yes. I remember there was a supreme court decision about freedom of speech. . . ." She swallowed, choked, and swallowed again. "When I got my next dighting slip," she said bravely, "I was so upset I applied for a gyn. I hoped the doctor would say there was something physically wrong with me, but he said I was in swell shape. He said, 'A girl like you ought to be mighty good at keeping inter-service tension down.' So there wasn't any help there.

"Then I went to a huxley, the huxley I was telling you about. It talked philosophy to me. That wasn't any help either. So—finally—well, I stole an extra Watson from the lab."

There was a silence. When she saw that the huxley seemed to have digested her revelation without undue strain, she went on, "I mean, an extra Watson beyond the one I was issued. I couldn't endure the thought of going through another dight like the one before. There was quite a fuss about the ampoule's being missing. The dighting drugs are under strict control. But they never did find out who'd taken it."

"And did it help you? The double portion of oestric?" the huxley asked. It was prodding at the top buttons of its waistcoat with one forefinger, rather in the manner of one who is not quite certain he feels an itch.

"Yes, it did. Everything went off well. He—the man— said I was a nice girl, and Marine was a good service, next to Infantry, of course. He was Infantry. I had a fine time myself, and last week when I got a request sheet from Infantry asking for some pig pedigrees, I went ahead and initialled it. That tension reduction does work. I've been feeling awfully jittery, though. And yesterday I got another blue dighting slip.

"What am I to do? I can't steal another Watson. They've tightened up the controls. And even if I could, I don't think one extra would be enough. This time I think it would take two."

She put her head down on the arm of her chair, gulping desperately.

"You don't think you'd be all right with just one Watson?" the huxley asked after an interval. "After all, people used to dight habitually without any Watsons at all."

'That wasn't inter-service dighting. No, I don't think I'd be all right. You see, this time it's with Air again. I'm supposed to try to find out about porcine nutrition. And I've always particularly hated Air."

She twisted nervously at the control of her hearing aid. The huxley gave a slight jump. "Ah—well, of course you might resign," it said in a barely audible voice.

Sonya—in the course of a long-continued struggle there is always a good deal of cultural contamination, and if there were girls named Sonya, Olga, and Tatiana in Defense, there were girls named Shirley and Mary Beth to be found on the enemy's side—Sonya gave him an incredulous glance. "You must be joking. I think it's in very poor taste. I didn't tell you my difficulties for you to make fun of me."

The huxley appeared to realize that it had gone too far.

"Not at all, my dear young lady," it said placatingly. It pressed its hands to its bosom. "Just a suggestion. As you say, it was in poor taste. I should have realized that you'd rather die than not be Marine." "Yes, I would."

She turned the hearing aid down again. The huxley relaxed. "You may not be aware of it, but difficulties like yours are not entirely unknown," it said. "Perhaps, after a long course of oestrics, antibodies are built up. Given a state of initial physiological reluctance, a forced sexual response might. . . . But you're not interested in all that. You want help. How about taking your troubles to somebody higher? Taking them all the way up?"

"You mean—the CO?"

The huxley nodded.

Major Briggs' face flushed scarlet. "I can't do that! I just can't! No nice girl would. I'd be too ashamed." She beat on her musette bag with one hand, and began to sob.

Finally she sat up. The huxley was regarding her patiently. She opened her bag, got out cosmetics and mirror, and began to repair emotion's ravages. Then she extracted an electronically-powered vibro-needle from the depths of her bag and began crafting away on some mdeterminate white garment.

"I don't know what I'd do without my crafting," she said in explanation. "These last few days, it's all that's kept me sane. Thank goodness it's fashionable to do crafting now. Well. I've told you all about my troubles. Have you any ideas?"

The huxley regarded her with faintly-protruding eyes. The vibro-needle clicked away steadily, so steadily that Sonya was quite unaware of the augmented popping in the huxley's chest. Besides, the noise was of a frequency that her hearing aid didn't pick up any too well.

The huxley cleared its throat. "Are you sure your dighting difficulties are really your fault?" it asked in an oddly altered voice.

"Why—I suppose so. After all, there's been nothing wrong with the men either time." Major Briggs did not look up from her work.

"Yes, physiologically. But let's put it this way. And I want you to remember, my dear young lady, that we're both mature, sophisticated individuals, and that I'm a huxley, after all. Supposing your dighting date had been with . . . somebody in . . . Marine. Would you have had any difficulty with it?"

Sonya Briggs put down her crafting, her cheeks flaming. "With a group brother? You have no right to talk to me like that!"

"Now, now. You must be calm."

The sputtering in the huxley's chest was by now so loud that only Sonya's emotion could have made her deaf to it. It was also so well-established that even her laying down the vibro-needle had had no effect on it.

"Don't be offended," the huxley went on in its unnatural voice. "I was only putting a completely hypothetical case."

"Then . . . supposing it's understood that it's completely hypothetical and I would never, never dream of doing a thing like that . . . then, I don't suppose I'd have had any trouble with it." She picked up the needle once more.

"In other words, it's not your fault. Look at it this way. You're Marine."

"Yes." The girl's head went up proudly. "I'm Marine."

"Yes. And that means you're a hundred times—a thousand times—better than any of these twerps you've been having to dight with. Isn't that true? Just in the nature of things. Because you're Marine."

"Why—I guess it is. I never thought of it before like that."

"But you can see it's true now, when you think of it. Take that date you had with the man from Air. How could it be your fault that you couldn't respond to him, somebody from Air? Why, it was his fault—it's as plain as the nose on your face—his fault for being from a repulsive service like Air!"

Sonya was looking at the huxley with parted lips and shining eyes. "I never thought of it before," she breathed. "But it's true. You're right. You're wonderfully, wonderfully right!"

"Of course I am," said the huxley smugly. "I was built to be right. Now, let's consider this matter of your next date." "Yes, let's."

"You'll go to the neutral area, as usual. You'll be wearing your miniBAR won't you?"

"Yes, of course. We always go in armed."

"Good. You'll go to the head and undress. You'll give yourself your Watson. If it works—"

"It won't I'm almost sure of that"

"Hear me out. As I was saying, if it works, youll dight If it doesn't you'll be carrying your miniBAR."

"Where?" asked Sonya, frowning.

"Behind your back. You want to give him a chance. But not too good a chance. If the Watson doesn't work—" the huxley paused for dramatic effect—"get out your gun and shoot him. Shoot him through the heart. Leave him lying up against a bulkhead. Why should you go through a painful scene like the one you just described for the sake of a yuk from Air?"

"Yes—but—" Sonya had the manner of one who, while striving to be reasonable, is none too sure that reasonableness can be justified. "That wouldn't reduce inter-service tension effectively."

"My dear young lady, why should inter-service tension be reduced at the expense of Marine? Besides, you've got to take the big, over-all view. Whatever benefits Marine, benefits Defense."

"Yes. . . . That's true. ... I think you've given me good advice."

"Of course I have! One thing more. After you shoot him, leave a note with your name, sector, and identity number on it. You're not ashamed of it."

"No. . . . No. . . . But I just remembered. How can he give me the pig formula when he's dead?"

"He's just as likely to give it to you dead as he was when he was alive. Besides, think of the humiliation of it. You, Marine, having to lower yourself to wheedle a thing like that out of Air! Why, he ought to be proud, honored, to give the formula to you."

"Yes, he ought." Sonya's lips tightened. "I won't take any nonsense from him," she said. "Even if the Watson works and I dight him, I'll shoot him afterwards. Wouldn't you?"

"Of course. Any girl with spirit would."

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE

THEODORE STURGEON

Next time we throw up a "nuclear device" over Christmas Island, or somewhere, men, just watch your wives or girl friends for the following few weeks. Maybe the Professor has corrected his mistake, and. . . . Oh, well, let's just hope not.

If the event prognosticated in this story ever happened, it would make for more chaos and catastrophe than any communization of the United States ever could achieve. And from such a "small" difference, it would seem! Also, it would create just as much consternation in the communist Soviet Union and its satellites as in the "Free World." It would truly be a world-wide revolution of unprecedented scope.

"She was brazen, of course," said Lucinda, passing the marmalade, "but the brass was beautifully polished. The whole thing made me quite angry, though at the same time I was delighted."

Meticulously Dr. Lefferts closed the newly-arrived Journal of the Microbiological Institute, placed it on the copy of Strength of Materials in Various Radiosotopic Alloys which lay beside his plate, and carefully removed his pince-nez. "You begin in mid-sequence," he said, picking up a butter-knife. "Your thought is a predicate without a stated subject. Finally, your description of your reactions contains parts which appear mutually exclusive." He attacked the marmalade. "Will you elucidate?"

Lucinda laughed good-naturedly. "Of course, darling. Where would you like me to begin?"

"Oh. . . ." Dr. Lefferts made a vague gesture. "Practically anywhere. Anywhere at all. Simply supply more relative data in order that I may extrapolate the entire episode and thereby dispose of it. Otherwise I shall certainly keep returning to it all day long. Lucinda, why do you continually do this to me?"

"Do what, dear?"

"Present me with colourful trivialities in just such amounts as will make me demand to hear you out. I have a trained mind, Lucinda; a fine-honed, logical mind. It must think things through. You know that. Why do you continually do this to me?"

"Because," said Lucinda placidly, "if I started at the be-' ginning and went right through to the end, you wouldn't listen."

"I most certainly ... eh. Perhaps you're right." He laid marmalade onto an English muffin in three parallel bands, and began smoothing them together at right-angles to their original lay. "You are right, my dear. That must be rather difficult for you from time to time . . . yes?"

"No indeed," said Lucinda, and smiled. "Not as long as I can get your full attention when I want it. And I can."

Dr. Lefferts chewed her statement with his muffin. At last he said, "I admit that in your inimitable—uh—I think one calls it female way, you cam At least in regard to small issues. Now do me the kindness to explain to me what stimuli could cause you to"—his voice supplied the punctuation—"feel 'quite angry' and 'delighted' simultaneously."

Lucinda leaned forward to pour fresh coffee into his cooling cup. She was an ample woman, with an almost tailored combination of sveltness and relaxation. Her voice was like sofa-pillows and her eyes like blued steel. "It was on the Boulevard," she said. "I was waiting to cross when this girl drove through a red light under the nose of a policeman. It was like watching a magazine illustration come to life—the bright-yellow convertible and the blazing blonde in the bright-yellow dress . . . darling, I do think you should call this year's bra manufacturers for consultation in your Anti-Gravity Research division. They achieve the most baffling effects . . . anyway, there she was and there by the car was the traffic-cop, as red-faced and Hibernian a piece of typecasting as you could wish. He came blustering over to her demanding to know begorry—I think he actually did say be-gorry—was she colour-blind, now, or did she perhaps not give a care this marnin'?"

"In albinos," said Dr. Lefferts, "colour perception is—" Lucinda raised her smooth voice just sufficiently to override him without a break in continuity. "Now, here was an errant violation of the law, flagrantly committed under the eyes of an enforcement officer. I don't have to tell you what should have happened. What did happen was that the girl kept her head turned away from him until his hands were on the car door. In the sun that hair of hers was positively dazzling. When he was close enough—within range, that is— she tossed her hair back and was face to face with him. You could see that great lump of bog-peat turn to putty. And she said to him (and if I'd had a musical notebook with me I could have jotted down her voice in sharps and flats)—she said, 'Why, officer, I did it on purpose just so I could see you up close.'"

Dr. Lefferts made a slight, disgusted sound. "He arrested her."

"He did not," said Lucinda. "He shook a big thick finger at her as if^; she were a naughty but beloved child, and the push-button blarney that oozed out of him was as easy to see as the wink he gave her. That's what made me mad."

"And well it should." He folded his napkin. "Violations of the law should be immediately pun—"

"The law had little to do with it," Lucinda said warmly. "I was angry because I know what would have happened to you or to me in that same situation. We're just not equipped."

"I begin to see." He put his pince-nez back on and peered at her. "And what was it that delighted you?"

She stretched easily and half-closed her eyes. 'The— what you have called the femaieness of it. It's good to be a woman, darling, and to watch another woman be female skilfully."

"I quarrel with your use of the term 'skillfully,'" he said, folding his napkin. "Her 'skill' is analogous to an odor of musk or other such exudation in the lower animals."

"It is not," she said flatiy. "With the lower animals, bait of that kind means one thing and one thing only, complete and final. With a woman, it means nothing of the kind. Never mind what it might mean; consider what it does mean. Do you think for a moment that the blonde in the convertible was making herself available to the policeman?"

"She was hypothesizing a situation in which—"

"She was hypothesizing nothing of the kind. She was blatantly and brazenly getting out of paying a traffic fine, and that was absolutely all. And you can carry it one step further; do you think that for one split second the policeman actually believed that she was inviting him? Of course he didn't! And yet that situation is one that has obtained through the ages. Women have always been able to get what they wanted from men by pretending to promise a thing which they know men want but will not or cannot take. Mind you, I'm not talking about situations where this yielding is the main issue. I'm talking about the infinitely greater number of occasions where yielding has nothing to do with it. Like weaseling out of traffic tickets."

"Or skilfully gaining your husband's reluctant attention over the breakfast-tahle."

Her sudden laughter was like a shower of sparks. "You'd better get down to the Institute," she said. "You'll be late."

He arose, picked up his book and pamphlet, and walked

slowly to the door. Lucinda came with him, hooting her arm

through his. Suddenly he stopped, and without looking at her, asked quietly, "That policeman was a manipulated, undignified fool, wasn't he?"

"Of course he was, darling, and it made a man of him "

He nodded as if accepting a statistic, and, kissing her, walked out of the house.

Darling, she thought, dear sweet chrome-plated, finedrawn, high-polished blue-print ... ƒ think I've found where you keep your vanity. She watched him walk with his even, efficient, unhurried stride to the gate. There he paused and looked back.

"This has been going on too long," he called. "I shall alter it"

Lucinda stopped smiling.

"May I come in?"

"Jenny, of course." Lucinda went to the kitchen door and unhooked it. "Come in, come in. My, you're prettier than ever this morning."

"I brought you violets," said Jenny breathlessly. "Just scads of 'em in the woods behind my place. You took your red curtains down. Is that a new apron? My! You had Canadian bacon for breakfast."

She darted in past Lucinda, a small, wiry, vibrant girl with sunlit hair and moonlight eyes. "Can I help with the dishes?"

"Thank you, you doll." Lucinda took down a shallow glass bowl for the violets.

Jenny busily ran hot water into the sink. "I couldn't help seeing," she said. "Your big picture window. . . . Lucinda, you never leave the breakfast dishes. I keep telling Bob, some day I'll have the routines you have, everything always so neat, never running out of anything, never in a hurry, never surprised , , , anyway, all the way over I could see you just sitting by the table there, and the dishes not done and all . . . is everything all right? I mean, don't tell me if I shouldn't ask, but I couldn't help. . . ." Her voice trailed off into an ardent and respectful mumble.

"You're such a sweetheart," Lucinda said mistily. She came over to the sink carrying clean dishtowels and stood holding them, staring out past Jenny's head to the level lawns of the village. "Actually, I did have something on my mind . . . sometliing. . . ."

She related the whole conversation over breakfast that morning, from her abrupt and partial mentioning of the anecdote about the blonde and the policeman, to her husband's extraordinary and unequivocal statement about women's power over men: This has been going on too long. I shall alter it.

"Is that all?" Jenny asked when she had finished. "Mm. It's all that was said."

"Oh, I don't think you should worry about that." She crinkled up her eyes, and Lucinda understood that she was putting herself and her young husband in the place of Lucinda and Dr. Lefferts, and trying to empathize a solution. "I think you might have hurt his feelings a little, maybe," Jenny said at length. T mean, you admitted that you handled him in much the same way as that blonde handled the policeman, and then you said the policeman was a fool."

Lucinda smiled. "Very shrewd. And what's your guess about that parting shot?"

Jenny turned to face her. "You're not teasing me, asking my opinion, Lucinda? I never thought I'd see the day! Not you—you're so wise!"

Lucinda patted her shoulder. "The older I get, the more I feel that amopg women there is a lowest common denominator of wisdom, and that the chief difference between them is a random scattering of blind spots. No, honey, I'm nut teasing you. You may be able to see just where I can't. Now tell me: what do you think he meant by that?"

" 7 shall alter it,' " Jenny quoted thoughtfully. "Oh, I don't think he meant anything much. You showed him how you could make him do things, and he didn't like It. He's decided not to let you do it any more, but—but. . . ."

"But what?"

"Well, it's like with Bob. When he gets masterful and lays down the law I just agree with him. He forgets about it soon enough. If you agree with men all the time they can't get stubborn about anything."

Lucinda laughed aloud. "There's the wisdom!" she cried. Sobering, she shook her head. "You don't know the doctor the way I do. He's a great man—a truly great one, with a great mind. It's great in a way no other mind has ever been. He's—different. lenny, I know how people talk, and what a lot of them say. People wonder why I married him, why I've stayed with him all these years. They say he's stuffy and didactic and that he has no sense of humour. Well, to them he may be; but to me he is a continual challenge. The rules-of-thumb that keep most men in line don't apply to him.

"And if he says he can do something, he can. If he says he will do something, he will."

Jenny dried her hands and sat down slowly. "He meant," she said positively, "that he would alter your ability to make him do things. Because the only other thing he could have meant was that he was going to alter the thing that makes it possible for any woman to handle any man. And that just couldn't be. How could he change human nature?"

"How? How? He's the scientist. I'm not. I simply eliminate that 'how' from my thinking. The worrisome thing about it is that he doesn't think in small ways about small issues. I'm afraid that's just what he meant—that he was going to change some factor in humanity that is responsible for this power we have over men."

"Oh . . . really," said Jenny. She looked up at Lucinda, moved her hands uneasily. "Lucinda, I know how great the doctor is, and how much you think of him, but—no one man could do such a thing! Not outside of his own home." She grinned fleetingly. "Probably not inside of it, for very long. ... I never understood just what sort of a scientist he is. Can you tell me, I mean, aside from any secret projects he might be on? Like Bob, now; Bob's a high-temperature metallurgist. What is the doctor, exactiy?"

'That's the right question to ask," Lucinda said, and her voice was shadowed. "Dr. Lefferts is a—well, the closest you could get to it would be to call him a specializing non-specialist. You see, science has reached the point where each branch of it continually branches into specialties, and each specialty has its own crop of experts. Most experts live in the confines of their own work. The doctor was saying just the other day that he'd discovered a fluorine-boron step-reaction in mineralogy that had been known for so long that the mineralogists had forgotten about it—yet it was unknown to metallurgy. Just as I said a moment ago, his mind is great, and—different. His job is to draw together the chemists and the biologists, the pure mathematicians and the practical physicists, the clinical psychologists and the engineers and all the other -ists and -ologies. His speciality is scientific thought as applied to all the sciences. He has no assignments except to survey all the fields and transfer needed information from one to the other. There has never been such a position in the Institute before, nor a man to fill it. And there is no other institute like this one on earth.

"He has entrée into every shop and lab and library in this Institute. He can do anything or get anything done in any of them.

"And when he said 'I shall alter it' he meant what he said!" "I never knew that's what he did," breathed Jenny. "I never knew that's what . . . who hek." "That's who he is."

"But what can he change?" Jenny burst out. "What can he change in us, in all men, in all women? What is the power he's talking about, and where does it come from, and what would . . . will . . . happen if it's changed?"

"I don't know," Lucinda said thoughtfully, "I—do—not —know. The blonde in the convertible . . . that sort of thing is just one of the things a woman naturally does, because she is a woman, without thinking of it."

Unexpectedly, Jenny giggled. "You don't plan tnoee things.

You just do them. It's nice when it works. A better roast from the butcher. A reminder from one of the men at the bank that a cheque's overdrawn, in time to cover it."

"I know," smiled Lucinda, "I know. It's easy and inaccurate to say that all those men are on the prowl—or all those women either. A few are, but most are not. The willingness of men to do things for women has survived even equal opportunities and equal pay for women. The ability of women to get what they want from men lies completely in their knowledge of that willingness. So the thing my husband wants to alter—will alter—lies in that department"

"Lucinda, why don't you just ask him?"

"I shall. But I don't know if I'll get an answer. If he regards it as a security matter, nothing will get it out of him."

"You'll tell me, won't you?"

"Jenny, my sweet, if he tells me nothing, I can't tell you. If he tells me and asks me to keep his confidence, I won't tell you. If he tells me and puts no restrictions on it, I'll tell you everything."

"But—"

"I know, dear. You're thinking that it's a bigger thing than just what it might mean to the two of us. Well, you're right But down deep I'm confident I'd pit few women against most men and expect them to win out. But anytime all womankind is against all mankind, the men don't stand a chance. Think hard about it, anyway. At least we should be able to figure out where the attack is coming from."

"At least you admit it's an attack."

"You bet your sweet life it's an attack. There's been a woman behind most thrones all through history. The few times that hasn't been true, it's taken a woman to clean up the mess afterward. We won't give up easily, darling!"

" 'The north wind doth blow, and we shall have snow,' and so on," said Lucinda as she lit the fire. "I'm going to need a new coat."

"Very well," said Dr. Lefferts.

"A fur coat this time."

"Fur coats," pronounced the doctor, "are impractical. Get one with the fur inside. You'll keep warmer with less to carry."

"I want a fur coat with the fur outside, where it shows."

"I understand and at times admire the decorative compulsions," said the doctor, rising from the adjusted cube he used for an easy chair, "but not when they are unhealthy, uneconomical, and inefficient. My dear, vanity does not become you."

"A thing that has always fascinated me," said Lucinda in a dangerously quiet voice, "in rabbits, weasels, skunks, pumas, pandas, and mink, and all other known mammals and marsupials, is their huge vanity. They all wear their fur outside."

He put on his pince-nez to stare at her. "Your logic limits its factors. I find such sequences remarkable because of the end results one may obtain. However, I shall not follow this one."

"If you're so preoccupied with efficiency and function," she snapped, "why do you insist on wearing those pince-nez instead of getting corneal lenses?"

"Functional living is a pattern which includes all predictable phenomena," he said reasonably. "One of these is habit. I recognize that I shall continue to like pince-nez as much as I shall continue to dislike rice pudding. My functionalism therefore includes these glasses and excludes that particular comestible. If you had the fur-coat habit, the possibility of a fur coat would be calculable. Since you have never had such a coat, we can consider the matter disposed of."

"I think some factors were selected for that sequence," said Lucinda between her teeth, "but I can't seem to put my finger on the missing ones." "I beg your pardon?"

"I said," appended Lucinda distinctly, "that speaking of factors, I wonder how you're coming with your adjustments of human nature to eliminate the deadliness of the female."

"Oh, that. I expect results momentarily."

"Why bother?" she said bitterly. "My powers don't seem to be good enough for a fur coat as it is."

"Oh," he said mildly, "were you using them?"

Because she was Lucinda, she laughed. "No, darling, I wasn't." She went to him and pressed him back into the big cubicle chair and sat on the arm. "I was demanding, cynical, and unpleasant. These things in a woman represent the scorched earth retreat rather than the looting advance."

"An excellent analogy," lie said. "EaccUcuL It lias been a long and bitter war, hasn't it? And now it's coming to an end. It is an extraordinary thing that in our difficult progress toward the elimination of wars, we have until now ignored the greatest and most pernicious conflict of all—the one between the sexes."

"Why so pernicious?" she chuckled. "There are times when it's rather fun."

He said solemnly, "There are moments of exhilaration, even of glory, in every great conflict. But such conflicts tear down so much more than they build."

"What's been so damaging about the war between the sexes?"

"Though it has been the women who made men, it has been largely men who have made the world as we know it. However, they have had to do so against a truly terrible obstacle: the emotional climate created by women. Only by becoming an ascetic can a man avoid the oscillations between intoxication and distrust mstilled into him by women. And ascetics usually are already insane or rapidly become so."

"I think you're overstating a natural state of affairs."

"I am overstating," he admitted, "for clarity's sake, and off the record. However, this great war is by no means natural. On the contrary, it is a most unnatural state of affairs.

You see, homo sapiens is, in one small but important respect, an atypical mammal." "Do tell."

He raised his eyebrows, but continued. "In virtually all species but ours, the female has a rigidly fixed cycle of conjugal acceptibility."

"But the human female has a—"

"I am not referring to that lunar cycle, unmentionable everywhere except in blatant magazine advertisements," he said shortly, "but a cycle of desire. Of rut."

"A pretty word." Her eyes began to glitter.

"Mahomet taught that it occurred every eight days, Zoroaster nine days, Socrates and Solomon agreed on ten. Everyone else, as far as I can discover, seems to disagree with these pundits, or to ignore the matter. Actually there are such cycles, but they are subtle at best, and differ in the individual from time to time, with age, physical experience, geography, and even emotional state. These cycles are vestigial; the original, natural cycle disappeared early in the history of the species, and has been trembling on the verge ever since. It will be a simple matter to bring it back."

"May I ask how?"

"You may not. It is a security matter." "May I then ask what effect you expect this development to have?"

"Obvious, isn't it? The source of woman's persistent and effective control over man, the thing that makes him subject to all her intolerances, whims, and bewildering coyness, is the simple fact of her perennial availability. She has no regular and predictable cycle of desire. The lower animals have. During the brief time that a female mouse, a marten, or a mare is approachable, every male of her species in the vicinity will know of it and seek her out; will, in effect, drop everything to answer a basic call. But unless and until that call occurs, the male is free to think of other things. With the human female, on the other hand, the call is mildly present at all times, and the male is never completely free to think of other things. It is natural for this drive to be strong. It is unnatural indeed for it to be constant. In this respect Freud was quite correct; nearly every neurosis has a sexual basis. We are a race of neurotics, and the great wonder is that we have retained any of the elements of sanity at all. I shall liberate humanity from this curse. I shall restore the natural alternations of drive and rest. I shall free men to think and women to take their rightful places as thinking individuals beside them, rather than be the forced-draught furnaces of sexual heat they have become."

"Are you telling me," said Lucinda in a small, shocked voice, "that you have found a way to—to neuterize women except for a few hours a month?"

"I am and I have," said Dr. Lefferts. "And incidentally, I must say I am grateful to you for having turned me to this problem." He looked up sharply. "Where are you going, my dear?"

"I've got to m-mlnk," said Lucinda, and ran rrom me room. If she had stayed there for another fifteen seconds, she knew she would have crushed his skull in with the poker.

"Who—oh, Lucinda? How nice. Come in . . . why, what's the matter?"

"Jenny, I've got to talk to you. Is Bob home?"

"No. He's got night duty at the high-temperature lab this week. Whatever is wrong?"

"It's the end of the world," said Lucinda in real anguish. She sank down on the sofa and looked up at the younger woman. "My husband is putting a—a chastity belt on every woman on earth."

"A what?"

"A chastity belt." She began to laugh hysterically. "With a timelock on it."

Jenny sat beside her. "Don't," she said. "Don't laugh like that. You're frightening me."

Lucinda lay back, gasping. "You should be frightened. . . . Listen to me, Jenny. Listen carefully, because this is the biggest thing that has happened since the deluge." She began to talk.

Five minutes later Jenny asked dazedly, "You mean—if this crazy thing happens Bob won't . . . won't want me most of the time?"

"It's you who won't do any wanting. And when you don't, he won't either. ... It isn't that that bothers me so much, Jenny, now that I've had a chance to think about it. I'm worried about the revolution." "What revolution?"

"Why, this is going to cause the greatest upheaval of all time! Once these cycles become recognized for what they are, there will be fireworks. Look at the way we dress, the way we use cosmetics. Why do we do it? Basically, to appear to be available to men. Practically all perfumes have a musk or musk-like base for that very reason. But how long do you think women will keep up the hypocrisy of lipstick and plunging necklines when men know better—know that they couldn't possibly be approachable all the time? How many men will let their women appear in public looking as if they were?"

"They'll tie us up in the house the way I do Mitzi-poodle," said Jenny in an awed tone.

"They'll leave us smugly alone with easy minds for three weeks out of four," said Lucinda, "and stand guard over us like bull elks the rest of the time, to keep other men away."

"Lucinda!" Jenny squeaked and covered her face in horror. "What about other women? How can we compete with another woman when she's—she's—and we're not?"

"Especially when men are conditioned the way they are. Woman will want to stick to one man, more likely than not. But men—men, building up pressures for weeks on end . . . ."

"There'll be harems again," said Jenny.

"This is the absolute, final, bitter end of any power we ever had over the beasts, Jenny—do you see that? All the old tricks—the arch half-promise, the come-on, the manipulations of jealousy—they'll be utterly meaningless! The whole arsenal of womankind is based on her ability to yield or not to yield. And my husband is going to take the choice away from us. He's going to make it absolutely certain that at one time we can't yield, and at another time we must!"

"And they'll never have to be nice to us at either time," added Jenny miserably.

"Women," said Lucinda bitterly, "are going to have to work for a living."

"But we do!"

"Oh, you know what I mean, Jenny! The lit-tul wife in the lit-tul home . . . that whole concept is based on women's perpetual availability. We're not going to be able to be home-makers, in that sense, at monthly intervals."

Jenny jumped up. Her face was chalky. "He hasn't stopped any war," she ground out. Lucinda had never seen her like this. "He's started one, and it's a beaut. Lucinda, he's got to be stopped, even if you—we have to . . . ."

"Come on."

They started for Dr. Lefferts' house, striding along like a couple of avenging angels.

"Ah," said Dr. Lefferts, rising politely. "You brought Jenny. Good evening, Jenny."

Lucinda planted herself in front of him and put her hands

on her hips. "You listen to me," she growled. "You've got to stop that nonsense about changing women."

"It is not nonsense and I shall do nothing of the kind."

"Dr. Lefferts," said Jenny in a quaking vpice, "can you really do this—this awful thing?"

"Of course," said the doctor. "It was quite simple, once the principles were worked out."

"It was quite simple? You mean you've already—"

Dr. Lefferts looked at his watch. "At two o'clock this afternoon. Seven hours ago."

"I think," said Lucinda quietly, "that you had better tell us just exactly what you did, and what we can expect."

"I told you it is a security matter."

"What has my libido to do with national defence?"

"That," said the doctor, in a tone which referred to that as the merest trifle, "is a side issue. I coincided it with a much more serious project."

"What could be more serious than. . . ."

"There's only one thing that serious, from a security standpoint," said Lucinda. She turned to the doctor. "I know better than to ask you any direct questions. But if I assume that this horrible thing was done in conjunction with a superbomb test—just a guess, you understand—is there any way for an H-blast to bring about a change in women such as you describe?"

He clasped both hands around one knee and looked up at her in genuine admiration. "Brilliant," he said. "And most skillfully phrased. Speaking hypothetically—hypothetically, you understand," he interjected, waving a warning finger, "a hydrogen bomb has an immense power of diffusion. A jet of energy of that size, at that temperature, for even three or four microseconds, is capable of penetrating the upper reaches of stratosphere. But the effect does not end there. The upward displacement causes great volumes of air to rush in toward the rushing column from all sides. This in turn is carried upward and replaced, a process which continues for a considerable time. One of the results must be the imbalance of any distinct high or low pressure areas within several thousand miles, and for a day or two freak weather developments can be observed. In other words, these primary and secondary effects are capable of diffusing a—ah—substance placed in the bomb throughout the upper atmosphere, where, in a matter of days, it will be diffused throughout the entire envelope."

Lucinda clasped her hands in a slow, controlled way, as if one of them planned to immobilize the other and thereby keep both occupied.

"And is there any substance . . . I'm still asking hypothetical questions, you understand—is there anything which could be added to the hydrogen fusion reaction which might bring about these—these new cycles in women?"

'They are not new cycles," said the doctor flatly. 'They are as old as the development of warm-blooded animals. The lack of them is, in biological terms, a very recent development in an atypical mammal; so recent and so small that it is subject to adjustment. As to your hypothetical question"— he smiled—"I should judge that such an effect is perfectly possible. Within the extremes of temperature, pressure, and radiation which takes place in a fusion reaction, many things are possible. A minute quantity of certain alloys, for example, introduced into the shell of the bomb itself, or perhaps in the structure of a supporting tower or even a nearby temporary shed, might key a number of phenomenal reaction chains. Such a chain might go through several phases and result in certain subtle isotopic alterations in one of the atmosphere's otherwise inert gases, say xenon. And this isotope, acting upon the adrenal cortex and the parathyroid, which are instrumental in controlling certain cycles in the human body, might very readily bring about the effect we are discussing in an atypical species."

Lucinda threw up her hands and turned to Jenny. "Then that's it," she said wearily.

"What's 'it'? What? I don't understand," whimpered Jenny. "What's he done, Lucinda?"

"In his nasty, cold-blooded hypothetical way," said Lucinda, "he has put something in or near an H-bomb which was tested today, which is going to have some effect on the air we breathe, which is going to do what we were discussing at your house."

"Dr. Lefferts," said Jenny piteously. She went to him, stood looking down at him as he sat primly in his big easy chair. "Why—why? Just to annoy us? Just to keep us from having a little, petty influence over you?"

"By no means," said the doctor. "I will admit that I might have turned my ambition to the matter for such reasons. But some concentrated thought brought up a number of extrapolations which are by no means petty."

He rose and stood by the mantel, pince-nez in hand, the perfect pitcure of the Pedant At Home. "Consider," he said. "Homo sapiens, in terms of comparative anatomy, should mature physically at 35 and emotionally between 30 and 40. He should have a life expectancy of between 150 and 200 years. And he unquestionably should be able.to live a life uncluttered by such insistent trifles as clothing conventions, unfunctional chivalries, psychic turmoils and dangerous mental and physical escapes into what the psychologists call romances. Women should phase their sexual cycles with those of the seasons, gestate their young longer, and eliminate the unpredictable nature of their psycho-sexual appetites —the very basis of all their insecurity and therefore that of most men. Women will not be chained to these cycles, Jenny, and become breeding machines, if that's what you fear. You will begin to live in and with these cycles as you live with a well-made and serviced automatic machine. You will be liberated from the constant control and direction of your somatic existence as you have been liberated from shifting gears in your car."

"But . . . we're not conditioned for such a change!" blazed Lucinda. "And what of the fashion industry . . . cosmetics ... the entertainment world . . . what's going to become of these and the millions of people employed by them, and the people dependent on all those people, if you do a thing like this?"

"The thing is done. As for these people. . . ." He paused, "Yes, there will be some disturbance. A considerable one. But in over-all historical terms, it will be slight and it will be brief. I like to think that the television service man is one who was liberated by the cotton gin and the power loom."

"It's . . . hard to think in historical terms just now," said Lucinda. "Jenny, come on."

"Where are you going?"

She faced him, her blued-steel eyes blazing. "Away from you. And I—I think I have a warning to give to the women."

"I wouldn't do that," he said dryly. "They'll find out in time. All you'll succeed in doing is to alert many women to the fact that they will be unattractive to their husbands at times when other women may seem more desirable. Women will not unite with one another, my dear, even to unite against men."

There was a tense pause. Then Jenny quavered, "How long did you say this—this thing will take?"

"I did not say. I would judge between thirty-six and forty-eight hours."

"I've got to get home."

"May I come with you?" asked Lucinda.

Jenny looked at her, her full face, her ample, controlled body. A surprising series of emotions chased themselves across her young face. She said, "I don't think ... I mean ... no, not tonight; I have to—to—good night, Lucinda."

When she had gone, the doctor uttered one of his rare chuckles. "She has absorbed perhaps a tenth of this whole concept," he said, "but until she's sure of herself she's not going to let you or any woman near her husband."

"You . . . you complacent pig!" said Lucinda whitely. She stormed upstairs.

"Hello . . . hello—Jenny?" "Lucinda! I'm—glad you called."

Something cold and tense deep inside Lucinda relaxed. She sat down slowly on the couch, leaned back comfortably with the telephone cradled between her cheek and her wide soft shoulder. "I'm glad you're glad, Jenny darling. It's been six weeks . . . how are you?"

"I'm ... all right now. It was pretty awful, for a while, not knowing how it would be, waiting for it to happen. And when it did happen, it was hard to get used to. But it hasn't changed things too much. How about you?"

"Oh, I'm fine," said Lucinda. She smiled slowly, touched her tongue to her full lower lip. "Jenny, have you told anyone?"

"Not a soul. Not even Bob. I think he's a little bewildered. He thinks I'm being very . . . understanding. Lucinda, is it wrong for me to let him think that?"

"It's never wrong for a woman to keep her knowledge to herself if it makes her more attractive," said Lucinda, and smiled again.

"How's Dr. Lefferts?"

"He's bewildered too. I suppose I've been a little . . . understanding too." She chuckled.

Over the phone she heard Jenny's answering laughter. "The poor things," she said. "The poor, poor things. Lucinda—"

"Yes, honey?"

"I know how to handle this, now. But I don't really understand it. Do you?" "Yes, I think I do."

"How can it be, then? How can this change in us affect men that way? I thought we would be the ones who would be turned off and on like a neon sign."

"What? Now wait a minute, Jenny! You mean you don't realize what's happened?"

"That's just what I said. How could such a change in women do such a thing to the men?"

"Jenny, I think you're wonderful, wonderful, wonderful," breathed Lucinda. "As a matter of fact, I mink women are wonderful. I suddenly realized that you haven't the foggiest notion of what's happened, yet you've taken it in stride and used it exactly right!"

"Whatever do you mean?"

"Jenny, do you feel any difference in yourself?"

"Why, no. All the difference is in Bob. That's what I—"

"Honey, there isn't any difference in you, nor in me, nor in any other woman. For the very first time in his scientific life, the great man made an error in his calculations."

There was a silence for a time, and then the telephone uttered a soft, delighted, long-drawn-out "Oh-h-h-h-h . . ."

Lucinda said, "He's sure that in the long run it will have all the benefits he described—the longer life expectancy, the subduing of insecurities, the streamlining of our manners and customs."

"You mean that all men from now on will . . ."

"I mean that for about twelve days in every two weeks, men can't do anything with us, which is restful. And for forty-eight hours they can't do anything without us, which is"—she laughed—"useful. It would seem that homo sapiens is still an atypical mammal."

Jenny's voice was awed. "And I thought we were going to lose the battle of the sexes. Bob brings me little presents every single day, Lucinda!"

"He'd better. Jenny, put down that phone and come over here. I want to hug you. And"—she glanced over at the hall closet, where hung the symbol of her triumph—"I want to show you my new fur coat"

BROOKLYN PROJECT

WILLIAM TENN

It is a fair commentary on the times that this final story in our collection, a shuddery bit about a possible sequel to the Manhattan Project, with all its gruesome idiocies in the form of "security precautions," should concern itself with the same general area, the effects of the unleashed powers of Nature when interfered with by shortsighted and arrogant Man, as was Mr. Alpert's tale of genetic mayhem that opened the volume. I suppose that everyone possessed of the least understanding spends more and more of his waking time in a state of ill-suppressed anxiety over the dangerous ways that affairs are being permitted to move, and that only those blinded

by self-interest or overweening chauvinism can complacently accept our "progress' along the highway to annihilation.

The gleaming bowls of light set in the creamy ceiling dulled when the huge, circular door at the back of the booth opened. They returned to white brilliance as the chubby man in the severe black jumper swung the door shut behind him and dogged it down again.

Twelve reporters of both sexes exhaled very loudly as he sauntered to the front of the booth and turned his back to the semi-opaque screen stretching across it. Then they all rose in deference to the cheerful custom uf standing whenever a security official of the government was in the room.

He smiled pleasantly, waved at them and scratched his nose with a wad of mimeographed papers. His nose was large and it seemed to give added presence to his person. "Sit down, ladies and gentlemen, do sit down. We have no official fol-de-rol in the Brooklyn Project. I am your guide, as you might say, for the duration of this experiment: the acting secretary to the executive assistant on press relations. My name is not important. Please pass these among you."

They each took one of the mimeographed sheets and passed the rest on. Leaning back in the metal bucket-seats, they tried to make themselves comfortable. Their host squinted through the heavy screen and up at the Wall clock which had one slowly revolving hand. He patted his black garment jovially where it was tight around the middle.

'To business. In a few moments, man's first large-scale excursion into time will begin. Not by humans, but with the aid of a photographic and recording device which will bring us incalculably rich data on the past. With this experiment, the Brooklyn Project justifies ten billion dollars and over eight years of scientific development; it shows the validity not merely of a new method of investigation, but of a weapon which will make our glorious country even more secure, a weapon which our enemies may justifiably dread.

"Let me caution you, first, not to attempt the taking of notes even if you have been able to smuggle pens and pencils through Security. Your stories will be written entirely from memory. You all have a copy of the Security Code with the latest additions as well as a pamphlet referring specifically to Brooklyn Project regulations. The sheets you have just received provide you with the required lead for your story; they also contain suggestions as to treatment and coloring. Beyond that—so long as you stay within the framework of the documents mentioned—you are entirely free to write your stories in your own variously original ways. The press, ladies and gentlemen, must remain untouched and uncon-taminated by government control. Now, any questions?"

The twelve reporters looked at the floor. Five of them began reading from their sheets. The paper rustled noisily.

"What, no questions? Surely there must be more interest than this in a project which has broken the last possible frontier—the fourth dimension, Time. Come now, you are the representatives of the nation's curiosity—you must have questions. Bradley, you look doubtful. What's bothering you? I assure you, Bradley, that I don't bite."

They all laughed and grinned at each other.

Bradley half-rose and pointed at the screen. "Why does it have to be so thick? I'm not the slightest bit interested in finding out how chronar works, but all we can see from here is a greyed and blurry picture of men dragging apparatus around on the floor. And why does the clock only have one hand?"

"A good question," the acting secretary said. His large nose seemed to glow. "A very good question. First, the clock has but one hand, because, after all, Bradley, this is an experiment in Time, and Security feels that the time of the experiment itself may, through some unfortunate combination of information leakage and foreign correlation—in short, a clue might be needlessly exposed. It is sufficient to know that when the hand points to the red dot, the experiment will begin. The screen is translucent and the scene below somewhat blurry for the same reason: camouflage of detail and adjustment. I am empowered to inform you that the details of the apparatus are—uh, very significant. Any other questions? Culpepper? Culpepper of Consolidated, isn't it?"

"Yes sir. Consolidated News Service. Our readers are very curious about that incident of the Federation of Chronar Scientists. Of course, they have no respect or pity for them—the way they acted and all—but just what did they mean by saying that this experiment was dangerous because of insufficient data? And that fellow, E>i. Shayauu, their president, do you know if he'll be shot?"

The man in black pulled at his nose and paraded before them thoughtfully. "I must confess that I find the views of the Federation of Chronar Scientists—or the federation of chronic sighers, as we at Pike's Peak prefer to call them—are a trifle too exotic for my tastes; I rarely bother with weighing the opinions of a traitor in any case. Shayson himself may or may not have incurred the death penalty for revealing the nature of the work with which he was entrusted. On the other hand, he—uh, may not or may have. That is all I can say about him for reasons of security."

Reasons of security. At mention of the dread phrase, every reporter had straightened against the hard back of his chair. Culpepper's face had lost its pinkness in favor of a glossy white. They can't consider the part about Shayson a leading question, he thought desperately. But I shouldn't have cracked about that damned federation!

Culpepper lowered his eyes and tried to looked as ashamed of the vicious idiots as he possibly could. He hoped the acting secretary to the executive assistant on press relations would notice his horror.

The clock began ticking very loudly. Its hand was now only one-fourth of an arc from the red dot at the top. Down on the floor of the immense laboratory, activity had stopped.

All of the seemingly tiny men were clustered around two great spheres of shining metal resting against each other. Most of them were watching dials and switchboards intently; a few, their tasks completed, chatted with the circle of black-jumpered Security guards.

"We are almost ready to begin Operation Periscope. Operation Periscope, of course, because we are, in a sense, extending a periscope into the past—a periscope which will take pictures and record events of various periods ranging from fifteen thousand years to four billion years ago. We felt that in view of the various critical circumstances attending this experiment—international, scientific—a more fitting title would be Operation Crossroads. Unfortunately, that title has been—uh, preempted."

Everyone tried to look as innocent of the nature of that other experiment as years of staring at locked library shelves would permit.

"No matter. I will now give you a brief background in chronar practice as cleared by Brooklyn Project Security. Yes, Bradley?"

Bradley again got partly out of his seat. "I was wondering—we know there has been a Manhattan Project, a Long Island Project, a Westchester Project and now a Brooklyn Project. Has there ever been a Bronx Project? I come from the Bronx; you know, civic pride."

"Quite. Very understandable. However, if there is a Bronx Project you may be assured that until its work has been successfully completed, the only individuals outside of it who will know of its existence are the President and the Secretary of Security. If—if, I say—there is such an institution, the world will learn of it with the same shattering suddenness that it learned of the Westchester Project. I don't think that the world will soon forget that."

He chuckled in recollection and Culpepper echoed him a bit louder than the rest. The clock's hand was close to the red mark.

"Yes, the Westchester Project and now this; our nation shall yet be secure! Do you realize what a magnificent weapon chronar places in our democratic hands? To examine only one aspect—consider what happened to the Coney Island and Flatbush Sub-projects (the events are mentioned in those sheets you've received) before the uses of chronar were fully appreciated.

"It was not yet known in those first experiments that Newton's third law of motion—action equalling reaction— held for time as well as it did for the other three dimensions of space. When the first chronar was excited backwards into time for the length of a ninth of a second, the entire laboratory was propelled into the future for a like period and returned in an—uh, unrecognizable condition. That fact, by the by, has prevented excursions into the future: the equipment seems to suffer amazing alterations and no human could survive them. But do you realize what we could do to an enemy by virtue of that property alone? Sending an adequate mass of chronar into the past while it is adjacent to a hostile nation would force that nation into the future— all of it simultaneously—a future from which it would return populated only with corpses!"

He glanced down, placed his hands behind his back and teetered on his heels. 'That is why you see two spheres on the floor. Only one of them, the ball on the right, is equipped with chronar. The other is a dummy, matching the other's mass perfectly and serving as a counterbalance. When the chronar is excited, it will plunge four billion years into our past and take photographs of an earth that was still a half-liquid, partly gaseous mass solidifying rapidly in a somewhat inchoate solar system.

"At the same time, the dummy will be propelled four billion years into the future, from whence it will return much changed but for reasons we don't completely understand. They will strike each other at what is to us now and bounce off again to approximately half the chronological distance of the first trip, where our chronar apparatus will record data of an almost solid planet, plagued by earthquakes and possibly holding forms of sub-life in the manner of certain complex molecules.

"After each collision, the chronar will return roughly half the number of years covered before, automatically gathering information each time. The geological and historical periods we expect it to touch are listed from I to XXV in your sheets;

there will be more than twenty-five, naturally, before both balls come to rest, but scientists feel that all periods after that number will be touched for such a short while as to be unproductive of photographs and other material. Remember, at the end, the balls will be doing little more than throbbing in place before coming to rest, so that even though they still ricochet centuries on either side of the present, it will be almost unnoticeable. A question, I see."

The thin woman in grey tweeds beside Culpepper got to her feet. "I—I know this is irrelevant," she began, "but I haven't been able to introduce my question into the discussion at any pertinent moment. Mr. Secretary—"

"Acting secretary," the chubby little man in the black suit told her genially. "I'm only the acting secretary. Go on."

"Well, I want to say—Mr. Secretary, is there any way at all that our post-experimental examination time may be reduced? Two years is a very long time to spend inside Pike's Peak simply out of fear that one of us may have seen enough and be unpatriotic enough to be dangerous to the nation. Once our stories have passed the censors, it seems to me that we could be allowed to return to our homes after a safety period of say, three months. I have two small children and there are others here—"

"Speak for yourself, Mrs. Bryant!" the man from Security roared. "It is Mrs. Bryant, isn't it? Mrs. Bryant of the Women's Magazine Syndicate? Mrs. Alexis Bryant." He seemed to be making minute pencil notes across his brain.

Mrs. Bryant sat down beside Culpepper again, clutching her copy of the amended Security Code, the special pamphlet on the Brooklyn Project and the thin mimeographed sheet of paper very close to her breast. Culpepper moved hard against the opposite arm of his chair. Why did everything have to happen to him? Then, to make matters worse, the crazy woman looked tearfully at him as if expecting sympathy. Culpepper stared across the booth and crossed his legs.

"You must remain within the jurisdiction of the Brooklyn Project because that is the only way that Security can be certain that no important information leakage will occur before the apparatus has changed beyond your present recognition of it. You didn't have to come, Mrs. Bryant—you volunteered. You all volunteered. After your editors had designated you as their choices for covering this experiment, you all had the peculiarly democratic privilege of refusing. None of you did. You recognized that to refuse this unusual honor would have shown you incapable of minking in terms of National Security, would have, in fact, implied a criticism of the Security Code itself from the standpoint of the usual two-year examination time. And now this! For someone who had hitherto been thought as able and trustworthy as yourself, Mrs. Bryant, to emerge at this late hour with such a request makes me, why it," the little man's voice dropped to a whisper, "—it almost makes me doubt the effectiveness of our security screening methods."

Culpepper nodded angry affirmation at Mrs. Bryant who was biting her lips and trying to show a tremendous interest in the activities on the laboratory floor.

"The question was irrelevant. Highly irrelevant. It took up time which I had intended to devote to a more detailed discussion of the popular aspects of chronar and its possible uses in industry. But Mrs. Bryant must have her little feminine outburst: it makes no difference to Mrs. Bryant that our nation is daily surrounded by more and more hostility, more and more danger. These things matter not in the slightest to Mrs. Bryant. All she is concerned with are the two years of her life that her country asks her to surrender so that the future of her own children may be more secure."

The acting secretary smoothed his black jumper and became calmer. Tension in the booth decreased.

"Activation will occur at any moment now, so I will briefly touch upon those most interesting periods which the chronar will record for us and from which we expect the most useful data. I and II, of course, since they are the periods at which the earth was forming into its present shape. Then III, the Pre-Cambrian Period of the Proterozoic, one billion years ago, the first era in which we find distinct records of life— crustaceans and algae for the most part. VI, a hundred twenty-five million years in the past, covers the Middle Jurassic of the Mesozoic. This excursion into the so-called "Age of Reptiles" may provide us with photographs of dinosaurs and solve the old riddle of their coloring, as well as photographs, if we are fortunate, of the first appearance of mammals and birds. Finally, VIII and LX, the Oligocene and Miocene Epochs of the Tertiary Period, mark the emergence of man's earliest ancestors. Unfortunately, the chronar will be oscillating back and forth so rapidly by that time that the chance of any decent recording—"

A gong sounded. The hand of the clock touched the red mark. Five of the technicians below pulled switches and, almost before the journalists could lean forward, the two spheres were no longer visible through the heavy plastic screen. Their places were empty.

"The chronar has begun its journey to four billion years in the past! Ladies and gentlemen, an historic moment—a profoundly historic moment! It will not return for a little while; I shall use the time in pointing up and exposing the fallacies of the—ah, federation of chronic sighers!"

Nervous laughter rippled at the acting secretary to the executive assistant on press relations. The twelve journalists settled down to hearing the ridiculous ideas torn apart.

"As you know, one of the fears entertained about travel to the past was that the most innocent-seeming acts would cause cataclysmic changes in the present. You are probably familiar with the fantasy in its most currently popular form; if Hitler had been killed in 1930, he would not have forced scientists in Germany and later occupied countries to emigrate, this nation might not have had the atomic bomb, thus no third atomic war, and Australia would still be above the Pacific.

"The traitorous Shayson and his illegal federation extended this hypothesis to include much more detailed and minor acts such as shifting a molecule of hydrogen that in our past really was never shifted.

"At the time of the first experiment at the Coney Island Sub-project, when the chronar was sent back for one-ninth of a second, a dozen different laboratories checked through every device imaginable, searched carefully for any conceivable change. There were none! Government officials concluded that the time stream was a rigid affair, past, present and future, and nothing in it could be altered. But Shayson and his cohorts were not satisfied, they—"

/. Four billion years ago. The chronar floated in a cloudlet of silicon dioxide above the boiling earth and languidly collected its data with automatically operating instruments. The vapor it had displaced condensed and fell in great, shining drops. "—insisted that we should do no further experimenting until we had checked the mathematical aspects of the problem yet again. They went so far as to state that it was possible that if changes occurred we would not notice them, that no instruments imaginable could detect them. They said that we would accept these changes as things that had always existed. Well! This at a time when our country—and theirs, ladies and gentlemen of the press, theirs, too—was in greater danger than ever. Can you—"

Words failed him. He walked up and down the booth, shaking his head. All the reporters on the long, wooden bench shook their heads with him in sympathy.

There was another gong. The two dull spheres appeared briefly, clanged against each other and ricocheted off into opposite chronological directions.

"There you are," the government official waved his arms at the transparent laboratory floor above them. "The first oscillation has been completed; has anything changed? Isn't everything the same? But the dissidents would maintain that alterations have occurred and we haven't noticed them. With such faith-based, unscientific viewpoints, there can be no argument. People like these—"

II. Two billion years ago. The great ball clicked its photographs of the fiery, erupting ground below. Some red-hot crusts rattled off its sides. Five or six thousand complex molecules lost their basic structure as they impinged against it. A hundred didn't. "—will labor thirty hours a day out of thirty-three to convince you that black isn't white, that we have seven moons instead of two. They are especially dangerous—"

A long, muted note as the apparatus collided with itself. The warm orange of the corner lights brightened as it started out again.

"—because of their learning, because they are looked to for guidance in better ways of vegetation." The government official was slithering up and down rapidly now, gesturing with all of his pseudopods. "We are faced with a very difficult problem, at present—"

III. One billion years ago. The primitive triple irilobite
the machine had destroyed when it materialized began
drifting down wetly.

"—a yery difficult problem. The question before us: should we shllk or shouldn't we shllk?" He was hardly speaking English now; in fact, for some time, he hadn't been speaking at all. He had been stating his thoughts by slapping one pseudopod against the other—as he always had. . . .

IV. A half-billion years ago. Many different kinds of
bacteria died as the water changed temperature slightly.

"This, then, is no time for half-measures. If we can reproduce well enough—"

V. Two hundred fifty million years ago. VI. One hun-
dred twenty-five million years ago.

"to satisfy the Five Who Spiral, we have—"

VII. Sixty-two million years. VIII. Thirty-one million.

IX. Fifteen million. X. Seven and a half million. "—spared all attainable virtue. Then—"

XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX.

Bong—bong—bong bongbongbongongongngngng . . .

"—we are indeed ready for refraction. And that, I tell you is good enough for those who billow and those who snap. But those who billow will be proven wrong as always, for in the snapping is the rolling and in the rolling- is only truth. There need be no change merely because of a sodden cilia. The apparatus has rested at last in the fractional conveyance; shall we view it subtly?"

They all agreed, and their bloated purpled bodies dissolved into liquid and flowed up and around to the apparatus. When they reached its four square blocks, now no longer shrilling mechanically, they rose, solidified and regained their slime-washed forms.

"See," cried the thing that had been the acting secretary to the executive assistant on press relations. "See, no matter how subtly! Those who billow were wrong: we haven't changed." He extended fifteen purple blobs triumphantly. "Nothing has changed!"