ENGLISH FOR SCIENCE 1

Sci-fi short stories

1

Catch That Rabbit

Isaac Asimov THE VACATION WAS LONGER THAN TWO WEEKS, that, Mike Donovan had to admit. It had been six months, with pay. He admitted that, too. But that, as he explained furiously, was fortuitous. U. S. Robots had to get the bugs out of the multiple robots, and there were plenty of bugs, and there are always at least half a dozen bugs left for the field-testing. So they waited and relaxed until the drawing-board men and the slide-rule boys had said “OK!” And now he and Powell were out on the asteroid and it was not OK. He repeated that a dozen times, with a face that had gone beety, “For the love of Pete, Greg, get realistic. What’s the use of adhering to the letter of the specifications and watching the test go to pot? It’s about time you got the red tape out of your pants and went to work.” “I’m only saying,” said Gregory Powell, patiently, as one explaining electronics to an idiot child, “that according to spec, those robots are equipped for asteroid mining without supervision. We’re not supposed to watch them.” “All right. Look — logic!” He lifted his hairy fingers and pointed. “One: That new robot passed every test in the home laboratories. Two: United States Robots guaranteed their passing the test of actual performance on an asteroid. Three: The robots are not passing said tests. Four: If they don’t pass, United States Robots loses ten million credits in cash and about one hundred million in reputation. Five: If they don’t pass and we can’t explain why they don’t pass, it is just possible two good jobs may have to be bidden a fond farewell.” Powell groaned heavy behind a noticeably insincere smile. The unwritten motto of United States Robot and Mechanical Men Corp. was well known: “No employee makes the same mistake twice. He is fired the first time.” Aloud he said, “You’re as lucid as Euclid with everything except the facts. You’ve watched that robot group for three shifts, you redhead, and they did their work perfectly. You said so yourself. What else can we do?” “Find out what’s wrong, that’s what we can do. So they did work perfectly when I watched them. But on three different occasions when I didn’t watch them, they didn’t bring in any ore. They didn’t even come back on schedule. I had to go after them.” “And was anything wrong?” “Not a thing. Not a thing. Everything was perfect. Smooth and perfect as the luminiferous ether. Only one little insignificant detail disturbed me — there was no ore.” Powell scowled at the ceiling and pulled at his brown mustache. “I’ll tell you what, Mike. We’ve been stuck with pretty lousy jobs in our time, but this takes the iridium asteroid. The whole business is complicated past endurance. Look, that robot, DV-5, has six robots under it. And not just under it — they’re part of it.” “I know that–” “Shut up!” said Powell, savagely, “I know you know it, but I’m just describing the hell of it. Those six subsidiaries are part of DV-5 like your fingers are part of you and it gives

2

them their orders neither by voice nor radio, but directly through positronic fields. Now — there isn’t a roboticist back at United States Robots that knows what a positronic field is or how it works. And neither do I. Neither do you.” “The last,” agreed Donovan, philosophically, “I know.” “Then look at our position. If everything works — fine! If anything goes wrong — we’re out of our depth and there probably isn’t a thing we can do, or anybody else. But the job belongs to us and not to anyone else so we’re on the spot, Mike.” He blazed away for a moment in silence. Then, “All right, have you got him outside?” “Yes.” “Is everything normal now?” “Well he hasn’t got religious mania, and he isn’t running around in a circle spouting Gilbert and Sullivan, so I suppose he’s normal.” Donovan passed out the door, shaking his head viciously. Powell reached for the “Handbook of Robotics” that weighed down one side of his desk to a nearfounder and opened it reverently. He had once jumped out of the window of a burning house dressed only in shorts and the “Handbook.” In a pinch, he would have skipped the shorts. The “Handbook” was propped up before him, when Robot DV-5 entered, with Donovan kicking the door shut behind him. Powell said somberly, “Hi, Dave. How do you feel?” “Fine,” said the robot. “Mind if I sit down?” He dragged up the specially reinforced chair that was his, and folded gently into it. Powell regarded Dave — laymen might think of robots by their serial numbers; roboticists never — with approval. It was not over-massive by any means, in spite of its construction as thinking-unit of an integrated seven-unit robot team. It was seven feet tall, and a half-ton of metal and electricity. A lot? Not when that half-ton has to be a mass of condensers, circuits, relays, and vacuum cells that can handle practically any psychological reaction known to humans. And a positronic brain, which with ten pounds of matter and a few quintillions of positrons runs the whole show. Powell groped in his shirt pocket for a loose cigarette. “Dave,” he said, “you’re a good fellow. There’s nothing flighty or prima donnaish about you. You’re a stable, rockbottom mining robot, except that you’re equipped to handle six subsidiaries in direct coordination. As far as I know, that has not introduced any unstable paths in your brain-path map.” The robot nodded, “That makes me feel swell, but what are you getting at, boss?” He was equipped with an excellent diaphragm, and the presence of overtones in the sound unit robbed him of much of that metallic flatness that marks the usual robot voice. “I’m going to tell you. With all that in your favor, what’s going wrong with your job? For instance, today’s B-shift?” Dave hesitated, “As far as I know, nothing.” “You didn’t produce any ore.” “I know.”

3

“Well, then–”

Dave was having trouble, “I can’t explain that, boss. It’s been giving me a case of nerves, or it would if I let it — my subsidiaries worked smoothly. I know I did.” He considered, his photoelectric eyes glowing intensely. Then, “I don’t remember. The day ended and there was Mike and there were the ore cars, mostly empty.” Donovan broke in, “You didn’t report at shift-end those days, Dave. You know that?” “I know. But as to why–” He shook his head slowly and ponderously. Powell had the queasy feeling that if the robot’s face were capable of expression, it would be one of pain and mortification. A robot, by its very nature, cannot bear to fail its function. Donovan dragged his chair up to Powell’s desk and leaned over, “Amnesia, do you think?” “Can’t say. But there’s no use in trying to pin disease names on this. Human disorders apply to robots only as romantic analogies. They’re no help to robotic engineering.” He scratched his neck; “I hate to put him through the elementary brain-reaction tests. It won’t help his self-respect any.” He looked at Dave thoughtfully and then at the Field-Test outline given in the “Handbook.” He said, “See here, Dave, what about sitting through a test? It would be the wise thing to do.” The robot rose, “If you say so, boss.” There was pain in his voice. It started simply enough. Robot DV-5 multiplied five-place figures to the heartless ticking of a stopwatch. He recited the prime numbers between a thousand and ten thousand. He extracted cube roots and integrated functions of varying complexity. He went through mechanical reactions in order of increasing difficulty. And, finally, worked his precise mechanical mind over the highest function of the robot world — the solutions of problems in judgment and ethics. At the end of two hours, Powell was copiously besweated. Donovan had enjoyed a none-too nutritious diet of fingernail and the robot said, “How does it look, boss?” Powell said, “I’ve got to think it over, Dave. Snap judgments won’t help much. Suppose you go back to the C-shift. Take it easy. Don’t press too hard for quota just for a while — and we’ll fix things up.” The robot left. Donovan looked at Powell. “Well–” Powell seemed determined to push up his mustache by the roots. He said, “There is nothing wrong with the currents of his positronic brain.” “I’d hate to be that certain.” “Oh, Jupiter, Mike! The brain is the surest part of a robot. It’s quintuple-checked back on Earth. If they pass the field test perfectly, the way Dave did, there just isn’t a chance of brain misfunction. That test covered every key path in the brain.” “So where are we?”

4

“Don’t rush me. Let me work this out. There’s still the possibility of a mechanical breakdown in the body. That leaves about fifteen hundred condensers, twenty thousand individual electric circuits, five hundred vacuum cells, a thousand relays, and upty-ump thousand other individual pieces of complexity that can be wrong. And these mysterious positron is fields no one knows anything about.” “Listen, Greg,” Donovan grew desperately urgent. “I’ve got an idea. That robot may be lying. He never–” “Robots can’t knowingly lie, you fool. Now if we had the McCormack-Wesley tester, we could check each individual item in his body within twenty-four to forty-eight hours, but the only two MW testers existing are on Earth, and they weigh ten tons, are on concrete foundations and can’t be moved. Isn’t that peachy?” Donovan pounded the desk, “But, Greg, he only goes wrong when we’re not around. There’s something — sinister — about — that.” He punctuated the sentence with slams of fist against desk. “You,” said Powell, slowly, “make me sick. You’ve been reading adventure novels.” “What I want to know,” shouted Donovan, “is what we’re going to do about it.” “I’ll tell you. I’m going to install a visiplate right over my desk. Right on the wall over there, see!” He jabbed a vicious finger at the spot. “Then I’m going to focus it at whatever part of the mine is being worked, and I’m going to watch. That’s all.” “That’s all? Greg–” Powell rose from his chair and leaned his balled fists on the desk, “Mike, I’m having a hard time.” His voice was weary. “For a week, you’ve been plaguing me about Dave. You say he’s gone wrong. Do you know how he’s gone wrong? No! Do you know what shape this wrongness takes? No! Do you know what brings it on? No! Do you know what snaps him out? No! Do you know anything about it? No! Do I know anything about it? No! So what do you want me to do?” Donovan’s arm swept outward in a vague, grandiose gesture, “You got me!” “So I tell you again. Before we do anything toward a cure, we’ve got to find out what the disease is in the first place. The first step in cooking rabbit stew is catching the rabbit. Well, we’ve got to catch that rabbit! Now get out of here.” Donovan stared at the preliminary outline of his field report with weary eyes. For one thing, he was tired and for another, what was there to report while things were unsettled? He felt resentful. He said, “Greg, we’re almost a thousand tons behind schedule.” “You,” replied Powell, never looking up, “are telling me something I don’t know.” “What I want to know,” said Donovan, in sudden savagery, “is why we’re always tangled up with new-type robots. I’ve finally decided that the robots that were good enough for my great-uncle on my mother’s side are good enough for me. I’m for what’s

5

tried and true. The test of time is what counts — good, solid, old-fashioned robots that never go wrong.” Powell threw a book with perfect aim, and Donovan went tumbling off his seat. “Your job,” said Powell, evenly, “for the last five years has been to test new robots under actual working conditions for United States Robots. Because you and I have been so injudicious as to display proficiency at the task, we’ve been rewarded with the dirtiest jobs. That,” he jabbed holes in the air with his finger in Donovan’s direction, “is your work. You’ve been griping about it, from personal memory, since about five minutes after United States Robots signed you up. Why don’t you resign?” “Well, I’ll tell you.” Donovan rolled onto his stomach, and took a firm grip on his wild, red hair to hold his head up. “There’s a certain principle involved. After all, as a troubleshooter, I’ve played a part in the development of new robots. There’s the principle of aiding scientific advance. But don’t get me wrong. It’s not the principle that keeps me going; it’s the money they pay us. Greg!’ Powell jumped at Donovan’s wild shout, and his eyes followed the redhead’s to the visiplate, when they goggled in fixed horror. He whispered, “Holy — howling — Jupiter!” Donovan scrambled breathlessly to his feet, “Look at them, Greg. They’ve gone nuts.” Powell said, “Get a pair of suits. We’re going out there.” He watched the posturings of the robots on the visiplate. They were bronzy gleams of smooth motion against the shadowy crags of the airless asteroid. There was a marching formation now, and in their own dim body light, the roughhewn walls of the mine tunnel swam past noiselessly, checkered with misty erratic blobs of shadow. They marched in unison, seven of them, with Dave at the head. They wheeled and turned in macabre simultaneity; and melted through changes of formation with the weird ease of chorus dancers in Lunar Bowl. Donovan was back with the suits, “They’ve gone jingo on us, Greg. That’s a military march.” “For all you know,” was the cold response, “it may be a series of callisthenic exercises. Or Dave may be under the hallucination of being a dancing master. Just you think first, and don’t bother to speak afterward, either.” Donovan scowled and slipped a detonator into the empty side holster with an ostentatious shove. He said, “Anyway, there you are. So we work with new-model robots. It’s our job, granted. But answer me one question. Why... why does something invariably go wrong with them?” “Because,” said Powell, somberly, “we are accursed. Let’s go!” Far ahead through the thick velvety blackness of the corridors that reached past the illuminated circles of their flashlights, robot light twinkled. “There they are,” breathed Donovan. Powell whispered tensely, “I’ve been trying to get him by radio but he doesn’t answer. The radio circuit is probably out.”

6

“Then I’m glad the designers haven’t worked out robots who can work in total darkness yet. I’d hate to have to find seven mad robots in a black pit without radio communication, if they weren’t lit up like blasted radioactive Christmas trees.” “Crawl up on the ledge above, Mike. They’re coming this way, and I want to watch them at close range. Can you make it?” Donovan made the jump with a grunt. Gravity was considerably below Earth-normal, but with a heavy suit, the advantage was not too great, and the ledge meant a near ten-foot jump. Powell followed. The column of robots was trailing Dave single-file. In mechanical rhythm, they converted to double and returned to single in different order. It was repeated over and over again and Dave never turned his head. Dave was within twenty feet when the play-acting ceased. The subsidiary robots broke formation, waited a moment, then clattered off into the distance — very rapidly. Dave looked after them, then slowly sat down. He rested his head in one hand in a very human gesture. His voice sounded in Powell’s earphones, “Are you here, boss?” Powell beckoned to Donovan and hopped off the ledge. “O.K., Dave, what’s been going on?” The robot shook his head, “I don’t know. One moment I was handling a tough outcropping in Tunnel 17, and the next I was aware of humans close by, and I found myself half a mile down main-stem.” “Where are the subsidiaries now?” asked Donovan. “Back at work, of course. How much time has been lost?” “Not much. Forget it.” Then to Donovan, Powell added, “Stay with him the rest of the shift. Then, come back. I’ve got a couple of ideas.” It was three hours before Donovan returned. He looked tired. Powell said, “How did it go?” Donovan shrugged wearily, “Nothing ever goes wrong when you watch them. Throw me a butt, will you?” The redhead lit it with exaggerated care and blew a careful smoke ring. He said, “I’ve been working it out, Greg. You know, Dave has a queer background for a robot. There are six others under him in an extreme regimentation. He’s got life and death power over those subsidiary robots and it must react on his mentality. Suppose he finds it necessary to emphasize this power as a concession to his ego.” “Get to the point.” “It’s right here. Suppose we have militarism. Suppose he’s fashioning himself an army. Suppose — he’s training them in military maneuvers. Suppose–” “Suppose you go soak your head. Your nightmares must be in technicolor. You’re postulating a major aberration of the positronic brain. If your analysis were correct, Dave would have to break down the First Law of Robotics: that a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to be injured. The type of

7

militaristic attitude and domineering ego you propose must have as the end-point of its logical implications, domination of humans.” “All right. How do you know that isn’t the fact of the matter?” “Because any robot with a brain like that would, one, never have left the factory, and two, be spotted immediately if it ever was. I tested Dave, you know.” Powell shoved his chair back and put his feet on the desk. “No. We’re still in the position where we can’t make our stew because we haven’t the slightest notion as to what’s wrong. For instance, if we could find out what that dance macabre we witnessed was all about, we would be on the way out.” He paused, “Now listen, Mike, how does this sound to you? Dave goes wrong only when neither of us is present. And when he is wrong, the arrival of either of us snaps him out of it.” “I once told you that was sinister.” “Don’t interrupt. How is a robot different when humans are not present? The answer is obvious. There is a larger requirement of personal initiative. In that case, look for the body parts that are affected by the new requirements.” “Golly.” Donovan sat up straight, then subsided. “No, no. Not enough. It’s too broad. It doesn’t cut the possibilities much.” “Can’t help that. In any case, there’s no danger of not making quota. We’ll take shifts watching those robots through the visor. Any time anything goes wrong, we get to the scene of action immediately. That will put them right.” “But the robots will fail spec anyway, Greg. United States Robots can’t market DV models with a report like that.” “Obviously. We’ve got to locate the error in make-up and correct it — and we’ve got ten days to do it in.” Powell scratched his head. “The trouble is... well, you had better look at the blueprints yourself.” The blueprints covered the floor like a carpet and Donovan crawled over the face of them following Powell’s erratic pencil. Powell said, “Here’s where you come in, Mike. You’re the body specialist, and I want you to check me. I’ve been trying to cut out all circuits not involved in the personal initiative hookup. Right here, for instance, is the trunk artery involving mechanical operations. I cut out all routine side routes as emergency divisions–” He looked up, “What do you think?” Donovan had a very bad taste in his mouth, “The job’s not that simple, Greg. Personal initiative isn’t an electric circuit you can separate from the rest and study. When a robot is on his own, the intensity of the body activity increases immediately on almost all fronts. There isn’t a circuit entirely unaffected. What must be done is to locate the particular condition — a very specific condition — that throws him off, and then start eliminating circuits.” Powell got up and dusted himself, “Hmph. All right. Take away the blueprints and burn them.”

8

Donovan said, “You see when activity intensifies, anything can happen, given one single faulty part. Insulation breaks down, a condenser spills over, a connection sparks, a coil overheats. And if you work blind, with the whole robot to choose from, you’ll never find the bad spot. If you take Dave apart and test every point of his body mechanism one by one, putting him together each time, and trying him out” “All right. All right. I can see through a porthole, too.” They faced each other hopelessly, and then Powell said cautiously, “Suppose we interview one of the subsidiaries.” Neither Powell nor Donovan had ever had previous occasion to talk to a “finger.” It could talk; it wasn’t quite the perfect analogy to a human finger. In fact, it had a fairly developed brain, but that brain was tuned primarily to the reception of orders via positronic field, and its reaction to independent stimuli was rather fumbling. Nor was Powell certain as to its name. Its serial number was DV-5-2, but that was not very useful. He compromised. “Look, pal,” he said, “I’m going to ask you to do some hard thinking and then you can go back to your boss.” The “finger” nodded its head stiffly, but did not exert its limited brainpower on speech. “Now on four occasions recently,” Powell said, “your boss deviated from brain-scheme. Do you remember those occasions?” “Yes, sir.” Donovan growled angrily, “He remembers. I tell you there is something very sinister–” “Oh, go bash your skull. Of course, the ‘finger’ remembers. There is nothing wrong with him.” Powell turned back to the robot, “What were you doing each time... I mean the whole group” The “finger” had a curious air of reciting by rote, as if he answered questions by the mechanical pressure of his brainpan, but without any enthusiasm whatever. He said, “The first time we were at work on a difficult outcropping in Tunnel 17, Level B. The second time we were buttressing the roof against a possible cave-in. The third time we were preparing accurate blasts in order to tunnel farther without breaking into a subterranean fissure. The fourth time was just after a minor cave-in” “What happened at these times?” “It is difficult to describe. An order would be issued, but before we could receive and interpret it, a new order came to march in queer formation.” Powell snapped out, “Why?” “I don’t know.” Donovan broke in tensely, “What was the first order... the one that was superseded by the marching directions?” “I don’t know. I sensed that an order was sent, but there was never time to receive it.” “Could you tell us anything about it? Was it the same order each time?” The “finger” shook his head unhappily, “I don’t know.” Powell leaned back, “All right, get back to your boss.” The “finger” left, with visible relief.

9

Donovan said, “Well, we accomplished a lot that time. That was real sharp dialogue all the way through. Listen, Dave and that imbecile ‘finger’ are both holding out on us. There is too much they don’t know and don’t remember. We’ve got to stop trusting them, Greg.” Powell brushed his mustache the wrong way, “So help me, Mike, another fool remark out of you, and I’ll take away your rattle and teething ring.” “All right. You’re the genius of the team. I’m just a poor sucker. Where do we stand?” “Right behind the eight ball. I tried to work it backward through the ‘finger,’ and couldn’t. So we’ve got to work it forward.” “A great man,” marveled Donovan. “How simple that makes it. Now translate that into English, Master.” “Translating it into baby talk would suit you better. I mean that we’ve got to find out what order it is that Dave gives just before everything goes black. It would be the key to the business.” “And how do you expect to do that? We can’t get close to him because nothing will go wrong as long as we are there. We can’t catch the orders by radio because they are transmitted via this positronic field. That eliminates the close-range and the long-range method, leaving us a neat, cozy zero.” “By direct observation, yes. There’s still deduction.” “Huh?” “We’re going on shifts, Mike.” Powell smiled grimly. “And we are not taking our eyes off the visiplate. We’re going to watch every action of those steel headaches. When they go off into their act, we’re going to see what happened immediately before and we’re going to deduce the order.” Donovan opened his mouth and left it that way for a full minute. Then he said in strangled tones, “I resign. I quit.” “You have ten days to think up something better,” said Powell wearily. Which, for eight days, Donovan tried mightily to do. For eight days, on alternate four-hour shifts, he watched with aching and bleary eyes those glinty metallic forms move against the vague background. And for eight days in the four-hour in-betweens, he cursed United States Robots, the DV models, and the day he was born. And then on the eighth day, when Powell entered with an aching head and sleepy eyes for his shift, Donovan stood up and with very careful and deliberate aim launched a heavy bookend for the exact center of the visiplate. There was a very appropriate splintering noise. Powell gasped, “What did you do that for?” “Because,” said Donovan, almost calmly, “I’m not watching it any more. We’ve got two days left and we haven’t found out a thing. DV-5 is a lousy loss. He’s stopped five times since I’ve been watching and three times on your shift, and I can’t make out what orders he gave, and you couldn’t make it out. And I don’t believe you could ever make it out because I know I couldn’t ever.” “Jumping Space, how can you watch six robots at the same time? One makes with the hands, and one with the feet and one like a windmill and another is jumping up and

10

down like a maniac. And the other two... devil knows what they are doing. And then they all stop. So! So!” “Greg, we’re not doing it right. We got to get up close. We’ve got to watch what they’re doing from where we can see the details.” Powell broke a bitter silence. “Yeah, and wait for something to go wrong with only two days to go.” “Is it any better watching from here?” “It’s more comfortable.” “Ah — But there’s something you can do there that you can’t do here.” “What’s that?” “You can make them stop — at whatever time you choose and while you’re prepared and watching to see what goes wrong.” Powell startled into alertness, “Howzzat?” “Well, figure it out, yourself. You’re the brains you say. Ask yourself some questions. When does DV-5 go out of whack? When did that ‘finger’ say he did? When a cave-in threatened, or actually occurred, when delicately measured explosives were being laid down, when a difficult seam was hit.” “In other words, during emergencies,” Powell was excited. “Right! When did you expect it to happen! It’s the personal initiative factor that’s giving us the trouble. And it’s just during emergencies in the absence of a human being that personal initiative is most strained. Now what is the logical deduction? How can we create our own stoppage when and where we want it?” He paused triumphantly — he was beginning to enjoy his role — and answered his own question to forestall the obvious answer on Powell’s tongue. “By creating our own emergency.” Powell said, “Mike — you’re right.” “Thanks, pal. I knew I’d do it some day.” “All right, and skip the sarcasm. We’ll save it for Earth, and preserve it in jars for future long, cold winters. Meanwhile, what emergency can we create?” “We could flood the mines, if this weren’t an airless asteroid.” “A witticism, no doubt,” said Powell. “Really, Mike, you’ll incapacitate me with laughter. What about a mild cave-in?” Donovan pursed his lips and said, “O.K. by me.” “Good. Let’s get started.” Powell felt uncommonly like a conspirator as he wound his way over the craggy landscape. His sub-gravity walk teetered across the broken ground, kicking rocks to right and left under his weight in noiseless puffs of gray dust. Mentally, though, it was the cautious crawl of the plotter. He said, “Do you know where they are?” “I think so, Greg.” “All right,” Powell said gloomily, “but if any ‘finger’ gets within twenty feet of us, we’ll be sensed whether we are in the line of sight or not. I hope you know that.” “When I need an elementary course in robotics, I’ll file an application with you formally, and in triplicate. Down through here.”

11

They were in the tunnels now; even the starlight was gone. The two hugged the walls, flashes flickering out the way in intermittent bursts. Powell felt for the security of his detonator. “Do you know this tunnel, Mike?” “Not so good. It’s a new one. I think I can make it out from what I saw in the visiplate, though–” Interminable minutes passed, and then Mike said, “Feel that!” There was a slight vibration thrumming the wall against the fingers of Powell’s metal-incased hand. There was no sound, naturally. “Blasting! We’re pretty close.” “Keep your eyes open,” said Powell. Donovan nodded impatiently. It was upon them and gone before they could seize themselves — just a bronze glint across the field of vision. They clung together in silence. Powell whispered, “Think it sensed us?” “Hope not. But we’d better flank them. Take the first side tunnel to the right.” “Suppose we miss them altogether?” “Well what do you want to do? Go back?” Donovan grunted fiercely. “They’re within a quarter of a mile. I was watching them through the visiplate, wasn’t I? And we’ve got two days–” “Oh, shut up. You’re wasting your oxygen. Is this a side passage here?” The flash flicked. “It is. Let’s go.” The vibration was considerably more marked and the ground below shuddered uneasily. “This is good,” said Donovan, “if it doesn’t give out on us, though.” He flung his light ahead anxiously. They could touch the roof of the tunnel with a half-upstretched hand, and the bracings had been newly placed. Donovan hesitated, “Dead end, let’s go back.” “No. Hold on.” Powell squeezed clumsily past. “Is that light ahead?” “Light? I don’t see any. Where would there be light down here?” “Robot light.” He was scrambling up a gentle incline on hands and knees. His voice was hoarse and anxious in Donovan’s ears. “Hey, Mike, come up here.” There was light. Donovan crawled up and over Powell’s outstretched legs. “An opening?” “Yes. They must be working into this tunnel from the other side now I think.” Donovan felt the ragged edges of the opening that looked out into what the cautious flashlight showed to be a larger and obviously main stem tunnel. The hole was too small for a man to go through, almost too small for two men to look through simultaneously. There’s nothing there,” said Donovan. “Well, not now. But there must have been a second ago or we wouldn’t have seen light. Watch out!”

12

The walls rolled about them and they felt the impact. A fine dust showered down. Powell lifted a cautious head and looked again. “All right, Mike. They’re there.” The glittering robots clustered fifty feet down the main stem. Metal arms labored mightily at the rubbish heap brought down by the last blast. Donovan urged eagerly, “Don’t waste time. It won’t be long before they get through, and the next blast may get us.” “For Pete’s sake, don’t rush me.” Powell unlimbered the detonator, and his eyes searched anxiously across the dusky background where the only light was robot light and it was impossible to tell a projecting boulder from a shadow. “There’s a spot in the roof, see it, almost over them. The last blast didn’t quite get it. If you can get it at the base, half the roof will cave in.” Powell followed the dim finger, “Check! Now fasten your eye on the robots and pray they don’t move too far from that part of the tunnel. They’re my light sources. Are all seven there?” Donovan counted, “All seven.” “Well, then, watch them. Watch every motion!” His detonator was lifted and remained poised while Donovan watched and cursed and blinked the sweat out of his eye. It flashed! There was a jar, a series of hard vibrations, and then a jarring thump that threw Powell heavily against Donovan. Donovan yowled, “Greg, you threw me off. I didn’t see a thing.” Powell stared about wildly, “Where are they?” Donovan fell into a stupid silence. There was no sign of the robots. It was dark as the depths of the River Styx. “Think we buried them?” quavered Donovan. “Let’s get down there. Don’t ask me what I think.” Powell crawled backward at tumbling speed. “Mike!” Donovan paused in the act of following. “What’s wrong now?” “Hold on!” Powell’s breathing was rough and irregular in Donovan’s ears. “Mike! Do you hear me, Mike?” “I’m right here. What is it?” “We’re blocked in. It wasn’t the ceiling coming down fifty feet away that knocked us over. It was our own ceiling. The shock’s tumbled it!” “What!” Donovan scrambled up against a hard barrier. “Turn on the flash.” Powell did so. At no point was there room for a rabbit to squeeze through. Donovan said softly, “Well, what do you know?” They wasted a few moments and some muscular power in an effort to move the blocking barrier. Powell varied this by wrenching at the edges of the original hole. For a moment, Powell lifted his blaster. But in those close quarters, a flash would be suicide and he knew it. He sat down.

13

“You know, Mike,” he said , “we’ve really messed this up. We are no nearer finding out what’s wrong with Dave. It was a good idea but it blew up in our face.” Donovan’s glance was bitter with an intensity totally wasted on the darkness, “I hate to disturb you, old man, but quite apart from what we know or don’t know of Dave, we’re slightly trapped. If we don’t get loose, fella, we’re going to die. D-I-E, die. How much oxygen have we anyway? Not more than six hours. “I’ve thought of that.” Powell’s fingers went up to his long-suffering mustache and clanged uselessly against the transparent visor. “Of course, we could get Dave to dig us out easily in that time, except that our precious emergency must have thrown him off, and his radio circuit is out.” “And isn’t that nice?” Donovan edged up to the opening and managed to get his metal incased head out. It was an extremely tight fit. “Hey, Greg!” “What?” “Suppose we get Dave within twenty feet. He’ll snap to normal. That will save us.” “Sure, but where is he?” “Down the corridor — way down. For Pete’s sake, stop pulling before you drag my head out of its socket. I’ll give you your chance to look.” Powell maneuvered his head outside, “We did it all right. Look at those saps. That must be a ballet they’re doing.” “Never mind the side remarks. Are they getting any closer?” “Can’t tell yet. They’re too far away. Give me a chance. Pass me my flash, will you? I’ll try to attract their attention that way.” He gave up after two minutes, “Not a chance! They must be blind. Uh-oh, they’re starting toward us. What do you know?” Donovan said, “Hey, let me see!” There was a silent scuffle. Powell said, “All right!” and Donovan got his head out. They were approaching. Dave was high-stepping the way in front and the six “fingers” were a weaving chorus line behind him. Donovan marveled, “What are they doing? That’s what I want to know. It looks like the Virginia reel — and Dave’s a major-domo, or I never saw one.” “Oh, leave me alone with your descriptions,” grumbled Powell. “How near are they?” “Within fifty feet and coming this way. We’ll be out in fifteen minUh-huh-HUH-HEY-Y!” “What’s going on?” It took Powell several seconds to recover from his stunned astonishment at Donovan’s vocal gyrations. “Come on, give me a chance at that hole. Don’t be a hog about it.” He fought his way upward, but Donovan kicked wildly, “They did an about-face, Greg. They’re leaving. Dave! Hey, Da-a ave!” Powell shrieked, “What’s the use of that, you fool? Sound won’t carry.”

14

“Well, then,” panted Donovan, “kick the walls, slam them, get some vibration started. We’ve got to attract their attention somehow, Greg, or we’re through. “ He pounded like a madman. Powell shook him, “Wait, Mike, wait. Listen, I’ve got an idea. Jumping Jupiter, this is a fine time to get around to the simple solutions. Mike!” “What do you want?” Donovan pulled his head in. “Let me in there fast before they get out of range.” “Out of range! What are you going to do? Hey, what are you going to do with that detonator?” He grabbed Powell’s arm. Powell shook off the grip violently. “I’m going to do a little shooting.” “Why?” “That’s for later. Let’s see if it works first. If it doesn’t, then — Get out of the way and let me shoot!” The robots were flickers, small and getting smaller, in the distance. Powell lined up the sights tensely, and pulled the trigger three times. He lowered the guns and peered anxiously. One of the subsidiaries was down! There were only six gleaming figures now. Powell called into his transmitter uncertainly. “Dave!” A pause, then the answer sounded to both men, “Boss? Where are you? My third subsidiary has had his chest blown in. He’s out of commission.” “Never mind your subsidiary,” said Powell. “We’re trapped in a cave-in where you were blasting. Can you see our flashlight?” “Sure. We’ll be right there.” Powell sat back and relaxed, “That, my fran’, is that” Donovan said very softly with tears in his voice, “All right, Greg. You win. I beat my forehead against the ground before your feet. Now don’t feed me any bull. Just tell me quietly what it’s all about.” “Easy. It’s just that all through we missed the obvious — as usual. We knew it was the personal initiative circuit, and that it always happened during emergencies, but we kept looking for a specific order as the cause. Why should it be an order?” “Why not?” “Well, look, why not a type of order. What type of order requires the most initiative? What type of order would occur almost always only in an emergency?” “Don’t ask me, dreg. Tell me!” “I’m doing it! It’s the six-way order. Under all ordinary conditions, one or more of the ‘fingers’ would be doing routine tasks requiring no close supervision — in the sort of offhand way our bodies handle the routine walking motions. But in an emergency, all six subsidiaries must be mobilized immediately and simultaneously. Dave must handle six robots at a time and something gives. The rest was easy. Any decrease in initiative required, such as the arrival of humans, snaps him back. So I destroyed one of the robots. When I did, he was transmitting only five-way orders. Initiative decreases — he’s normal”

15

“How did you get all that?” demanded Donovan. “Just logical guessing. I tried it and it worked.” The robot’s voice was in their ears again, “Here I am. Can you hold out half an hour?”

16

Old Crompton’s Secret

Harl Vincent

Tom tripped on a wire and fell, with his ferocious adversary on top.

Two miles west of the village of Laketon there lived an aged recluse who was known

only as Old Crompton. As far back as the villagers could remember he had visited the

town regularly twice a month, each time tottering his lonely way homeward with a load

of provisions. He appeared to be well supplied with funds, but purchased sparingly as

became a miserly hermit. And so vicious was his tongue that few cared to converse with

him, even the young hoodlums of the town hesitating to harass him with the banter

usually accorded the other bizarre characters of the streets.

Tom's extraordinary machine glowed—and the years were banished from Old

Crompton's body. But there still remained, deep-seated in his century-old mind, the

memory of his crime.

The oldest inhabitants knew nothing of his past history, and they had long since lost

their curiosity in the matter. He was a fixture, as was the old town hall with its

surrounding park. His lonely cabin was shunned by all who chanced to pass along the

old dirt road that led through the woods to nowhere and was rarely used.

His only extravagance was in the matter of books, and the village book store profited

considerably by his purchases. But, at the instigation of Cass[154] Harmon, the

bookseller, it was whispered about that Old Crompton was a believer in the black art—

that he had made a pact with the devil himself and was leagued with him and his imps.

For the books he bought were strange ones; ancient volumes that Cass must needs order

from New York or Chicago and that cost as much as ten and even fifteen dollars a copy;

translations of the writings of the alchemists and astrologers and philosophers of the

dark ages.

It was no wonder Old Crompton was looked at askance by the simple-living and deeply

religious natives of the small Pennsylvania town.

17

But there came a day when the hermit was to have a neighbor, and the town buzzed

with excited speculation as to what would happen.

The property across the road from Old Crompton's hut belonged to Alton Forsythe,

Laketon's wealthiest resident—hundreds of acres of scrubby woodland that he

considered well nigh worthless. But Tom Forsythe, the only son, had returned from

college and his ambitions were of a nature strange to his townspeople and utterly

incomprehensible to his father. Something vague about biology and chemical

experiments and the like is what he spoke of, and, when his parents objected on the

grounds of possible explosions and other weird accidents, he prevailed upon his father

to have a secluded laboratory built for him in the woods.

When the workmen started the small frame structure not a quarter of a mile from his

own hut, Old Crompton was furious. He raged and stormed, but to no avail. Tom

Forsythe had his heart set on the project and he was somewhat of a successful debater

himself. The fire that flashed from his cold gray eyes matched that from the pale blue

ones of the elderly anchorite. And the law was on his side.

So the building was completed and Tom Forsythe moved in, bag and baggage.

For more than a year the hermit studiously avoided his neighbor, though, truth to tell,

this required very little effort. For Tom Forsythe became almost as much of a recluse as

his predecessor, remaining indoors for days at a time and visiting the home of his

people scarcely oftener than Old Crompton visited the village. He too became the target

of village gossip and his name was ere long linked with that of the old man in similar

animadversion. But he cared naught for the opinions of his townspeople nor for the

dark looks of suspicion that greeted him on his rare appearances in the public places.

His chosen work engrossed him so deeply that all else counted for nothing. His parents

remonstrated with him in vain. Tom laughed away their recriminations and fears,

continuing with his labors more strenuously than ever. He never troubled his mind

over the nearness of Old Crompton's hut, the existence of which he hardly noticed or

considered.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It so happened one day that the old man's curiosity got the better of him and Tom

caught him prowling about on his property, peering wonderingly at the many rabbit

hutches, chicken coops, dove cotes and the like which cluttered the space to the rear of

the laboratory.

18

Seeing that he was discovered, the old man wrinkled his face into a toothless grin of

conciliation.

"Just looking over your place, Forsythe," he said. "Sorry about the fuss I made when you

built the house. But I'm an old man, you know, and changes are unwelcome. Now I

have forgotten my objections and would like to be friends. Can we?"

Tom peered searchingly into the flinty eyes that were set so deeply in the wrinkled,

leathery countenance. He suspected an ulterior motive, but could not find it within him

to turn the old fellow down.

"Why—I guess so, Crompton," he hesitated: "I have nothing against you,[155] but I

came here for seclusion and I'll not have anyone bothering me in my work."

"I'll not bother you, young man. But I'm fond of pets and I see you have many of them

here; guinea pigs, chickens, pigeons, and rabbits. Would you mind if I make friends

with some of them?"

"They're not pets," answered Tom dryly, "they are material for use in my experiments.

But you may amuse yourself with them if you wish."

"You mean that you cut them up—kill them, perhaps?"

"Not that. But I sometimes change them in physical form, sometimes cause them to

become of huge size, sometimes produce pigmy offspring of normal animals."

"Don't they suffer?"

"Very seldom, though occasionally a subject dies. But the benefit that will accrue to

mankind is well worth the slight inconvenience to the dumb creatures and the

infrequent loss of their lives."

Old Crompton regarded him dubiously. "You are trying to find?" he interrogated.

"The secret of life!" Tom Forsythe's eyes took on the stare of fanaticism. "Before I have

finished I shall know the nature of the vital force—how to produce it. I shall prolong

human life indefinitely; create artificial life. And the solution is more closely

approached with each passing day."

19

The hermit blinked in pretended mystification. But he understood perfectly, and he

bitterly envied the younger man's knowledge and ability that enabled him to delve into

the mysteries of nature which had always been so attractive to his own mind. And

somehow, he acquired a sudden deep hatred of the coolly confident young man who

spoke so positively of accomplishing the impossible.

During the winter months that followed, the strange acquaintance progressed but little.

Tom did not invite his neighbor to visit him, nor did Old Crompton go out of his way to

impose his presence on the younger man, though each spoke pleasantly enough to the

other on the few occasions when they happened to meet.

With the coming of spring they encountered one another more frequently, and Tom

found considerable of interest in the quaint, borrowed philosophy of the gloomy old

man. Old Crompton, of course, was desperately interested in the things that were

hidden in Tom's laboratory, but he never requested permission to see them. He hid his

real feelings extremely well and was apparently content to spend as much time as

possible with the feathered and furred subjects for experiment, being very careful not to

incur Tom's displeasure by displaying too great interest in the laboratory itself.

Then there came a day in early summer when an accident served to draw the two men

closer together, and Old Crompton's long-sought opportunity followed.

He was starting for the village when, from down the road, there came a series of

tremendous squawkings, then a bellow of dismay in the voice of his young neighbor.

He turned quickly and was astonished at the sight of a monstrous rooster which had

escaped and was headed straight for him with head down and wings fluttering wildly.

Tom followed close behind, but was unable to catch the darting monster. And monster

it was, for this rooster stood no less than three feet in height and appeared more

ferocious than a large turkey. Old Crompton had his shopping bag, a large one of

burlap which he always carried to town, and he summoned enough courage to throw it

over the head of the screeching, over-sized fowl. So tangled did the panic-stricken bird

become that it was a comparatively simple matter to effect his capture, and the old man

rose to his feet triumphant with the bag securely closed over the struggling captive.

"Thanks," panted Tom, when he drew alongside. "I should never have caught him, and

his appearance at large might have caused me a great deal of trouble—now of all

times."

20

"It's all right, Forsythe," smirked the old man. "Glad I was able to do it."

Secretly he gloated, for he knew this occurrence would be an open sesame to that

laboratory of Tom's. And it proved to be just that.

A few nights later he was awakened by a vigorous thumping at his door, something

that had never before occurred during his nearly sixty years occupancy of the

tumbledown hut. The moon was high and he cautiously peeped from the window and

saw that his late visitor was none other than young Forsythe.

"With you in a minute!" he shouted, hastily thrusting his rheumatic old limbs into his

shabby trousers. "Now to see the inside of that laboratory," he chuckled to himself.

It required but a moment to attire himself in the scanty raiment he wore during the

warm months, but he could hear Tom muttering and impatiently pacing the flagstones

before his door.

"What is it?" he asked, as he drew the bolt and emerged into the brilliant light of the

moon.

"Success!" breathed Tom excitedly. "I have produced growing, living matter

synthetically. More than this, I have learned the secret of the vital force—the spark of

life. Immortality is within easy reach. Come and see for yourself."

They quickly traversed the short distance to the two-story building which comprised

Tom's workshop and living quarters. The entire ground floor was taken up by the

laboratory, and Old Crompton stared aghast at the wealth of equipment it contained.

Furnaces there were, and retorts that reminded him of those pictured in the wood cuts

in some of his musty books. Then there were complicated machines with many levers

and dials mounted on their faces, and with huge glass bulbs of peculiar shape with coils

of wire connecting to knoblike protuberances of their transparent walls. In the exact

center of the great single room there was what appeared to be a dissecting table, with a

brilliant light overhead and with two of the odd glass bulbs at either end. It was to this

table that Tom led the excited old man.

"This is my perfected apparatus," said Tom proudly, "and by its use I intend to create a

new race of supermen, men and women who will always retain the vigor and strength

of their youth and who can not die excepting by actual destruction of their bodies.

Under the influence of the rays all bodily ailments vanish as if by magic, and organic

defects are quickly corrected. Watch this now."

21

He stepped to one of the many cages at the side of the room and returned with a

wriggling cottontail in his hands. Old Compton watched anxiously as he picked a

nickeled instrument from a tray of surgical appliances and requested his visitor to hold

the protesting animal while he covered its head with a handkerchief.

"Ethyl chloride," explained Tom, noting with amusement the look of distaste on the old

man's face. "We'll just put him to sleep for a minute while I amputate a leg."

The struggles of the rabbit quickly ceased when the spray soaked the handkerchief and

the anaesthetic took effect. With a shining scalpel and a surgical saw, Tom speedily

removed one of the forelegs of the animal and then he placed the limp body in the

center of the table, removing the handkerchief from its head as he did so. At the end of

the table there was a panel with its glittering array of switches and electrical

instruments, and Old Crompton observed very closely the manipulations of the controls

as Tom started the mechanism. With the ensuing hum of a motor-generator from a

corner of the room, the four bulbs ad[157]jacent to the table sprang into life, each

glowing with a different color and each emitting a different vibratory note as it

responded to the energy within.

"Keep an eye on Mr. Rabbit now," admonished Tom.

From the body of the small animal there emanated an intangible though hazily visible

aura as the combined effects of the rays grew in intensity. Old Crompton bent over the

table and peered amazedly at the stump of the foreleg, from which blood no longer

dripped. The stump was healing over! Yes—it seemed to elongate as one watched. A

new limb was growing on to replace the old! Then the animal struggled once more, this

time to regain consciousness. In a moment it was fully awake and, with a frightened

hop, was off the table and hobbling about in search of a hiding place.

Tom Forsythe laughed. "Never knew what happened," he exulted, "and excepting for

the temporary limp is not inconvenienced at all. Even that will be gone in a couple of

hours, for the new limb will be completely grown by that time."

"But—but, Tom," stammered the old man, "this is wonderful. How do you accomplish

it?"

22

"Ha! Don't think I'll reveal my secret. But this much I will tell you: the life force

generated by my apparatus stimulates a certain gland that's normally inactive in warm

blooded animals. This gland, when active, possesses the function of growing new

members to the body to replace lost ones in much the same manner as this is done in

case of the lobster and certain other crustaceans. Of course, the process is extremely

rapid when the gland is stimulated by the vital rays from my tubes. But this is only one

of the many wonders of the process. Here is something far more remarkable."

He took from a large glass jar the body of a guinea pig, a body that was rigid in death.

"This guinea pig," he explained, "was suffocated twenty-four hours ago and is stone

dead."

"Suffocated?"

"Yes. But quite painlessly, I assure you. I merely removed the air from the jar with a

vacuum pump and the little creature passed out of the picture very quickly. Now we'll

revive it."

Old Crompton stretched forth a skinny hand to touch the dead animal, but withdrew it

hastily when he felt the clammy rigidity of the body. There was no doubt as to the

lifelessness of this specimen.

Tom placed the dead guinea pig on the spot where the rabbit had been subjected to the

action of the rays. Again his visitor watched carefully as he manipulated the controls of

the apparatus.

With the glow of the tubes and the ensuing haze of eery light that surrounded the little

body, a marked change was apparent. The inanimate form relaxed suddenly and it

seemed that the muscles pulsated with an accession of energy. Then one leg was

stretched forth spasmodically. There was a convulsive heave as the lungs drew in a first

long breath, and, with that, an astonished and very much alive rodent scrambled to its

feet, blinking wondering eyes in the dazzling light.

"See? See?" shouted Tom, grasping Old Crompton by the arm in a viselike grip. "It is the

secret of life and death! Aristocrats, plutocrats and beggars will beat a path to my door.

23

But, never fear, I shall choose my subjects well. The name of Thomas Forsythe will yet

be emblazoned in the Hall of Fame. I shall be master of the world!"

Old Crompton began to fear the glitter in the eyes of the gaunt young man who seemed

suddenly to have become demented. And his envy and hatred of his talented host

blazed anew as Forsythe gloried in the success of his efforts. Then he was struck with an

idea and he affected his most ingratiating manner.

"It is a marvelous thing, Tom," he said, "and is entirely beyond my poor

comprehension. But I can see that it is all you say and more. Tell me—can you restore

the youth of an aged person by these means?"

"Positively!" Tom did not catch the eager note in the old man's voice. Rather he took the

question as an inquiry into the further marvels of his process. "Here," he continued,

enthusiastically, "I'll prove that to you also. My dog Spot is around the place

somewhere. And he is a decrepit old hound, blind, lame and toothless. You've probably

seen him with me."

He rushed to the stairs and whistled. There was an answering yelp from above and the

pad of uncertain paws on the bare wooden steps. A dejected old beagle blundered into

the room, dragging a crippled hind leg as he fawned upon his master, who stretched

forth a hand to pat the unsteady head.

"Guess Spot is old enough for the test," laughed Tom, "and I have been meaning to

restore him to his youthful vigor, anyway. No time like the present."

He led his trembling pet to the table of the remarkable tubes and lifted him to its

surface. The poor old beast lay trustingly where he was placed, quiet, save for his husky

asthmatic breathing.

"Hold him, Crompton," directed Tom as he pulled the starting lever of his apparatus.

And Old Crompton watched in fascinated anticipation as the ethereal luminosity

bathed the dog's body in response to the action of the four rays. Somewhat vaguely it

came to him that the baggy flesh of his own wrinkled hands took on a new firmness

and color where they reposed on the animal's back. Young Forsythe grinned

triumphantly as Spot's breathing became more regular and the rasp gradually left it.

Then the dog whined in pleasure and wagged his tail with increasing vigor. Suddenly

24

he raised his head, perked his ears in astonishment and looked his master straight in the

face with eyes that saw once more. The low throat cry rose to a full and joyous bark. He

sprang to his feet from under the restraining hands and jumped to the floor in a lithe-

muscled leap that carried him half way across the room. He capered about with the

abandon of a puppy, making extremely active use of four sound limbs.

"Why—why, Forsythe," stammered the hermit, "it's absolutely incredible. Tell me—tell

me—what is this remarkable force?"

His host laughed gleefully. "You probably wouldn't understand it anyway, but I'll tell

you. It is as simple as the nose on your face. The spark of life, the vital force, is merely

an extremely complicated electrical manifestation which I have been able to duplicate

artificially. This spark or force is all that distinguishes living from inanimate matter, and

in living beings the force gradually decreases in power as the years pass, causing loss of

health and strength. The chemical composition of bones and tissue alters, joints become

stiff, muscles atrophied, and bones brittle. By recharging, as it were, with the vital force,

the gland action is intensified, youth and strength is renewed. By repeating the process

every ten or fifteen years the same degree of vigor can be maintained indefinitely.

Mankind will become immortal. That is why I say I am to be master of the world."

For the moment Old Crompton forgot his jealous hatred in the enthusiasm with which

he was imbued. "Tom—Tom," he pleaded in his excitement, "use me as a subject. Renew

my youth. My life has been a sad one and a lonely one, but I would that I might live it

over. I should make of it a far different one—something worth while. See, I am ready."

He sat on the edge of the gleaming table and made as if to lie down on its gleaming

surface. But his young host[159] only stared at him in open amusement.

"What? You?" he sneered, unfeelingly. "Why, you old fossil! I told you I would choose

my subjects carefully. They are to be people of standing and wealth, who can contribute

to the fame and fortune of one Thomas Forsythe."

"But Tom, I have money," Old Crompton begged. But when he saw the hard mirth in

the younger man's eyes, his old animosity flamed anew and he sprang from his position

and shook a skinny forefinger in Tom's face.

25

"Don't do that to me, you old fool!" shouted Tom, "and get out of here. Think I'd waste

current on an old cadger like you? I guess not! Now get out. Get out, I say!"

Then the old anchorite saw red. Something seemed to snap in his soured old brain. He

found himself kicking and biting and punching at his host, who backed away from the

furious onslaught in surprise. Then Tom tripped over a wire and fell to the floor with a

force that rattled the windows, his ferocious little adversary on top. The younger man

lay still where he had fallen, a trickle of blood showing at his temple.

"My God! I've killed him!" gasped the old man.

With trembling fingers he opened Tom's shirt and listened for his heartbeats. Panic-

stricken, he rubbed the young man's wrists, slapped his cheeks, and ran for water to

dash in his face. But all efforts to revive him proved futile, and then, in awful fear, Old

Crompton dashed into the night, the dog Spot snapping at his heels as he ran.

Hours later the stooped figure of a shabby old man might have been seen stealthily re-

entering the lonely workshop where the lights still burned brightly. Tom Forsythe lay

rigid in the position in which Old Crompton had left him, and the dog growled

menacingly.

Averting his gaze and circling wide of the body, Old Crompton made for the table of

the marvelous rays. In minute detail he recalled every move made by Tom in starting

and adjusting the apparatus to produce the incredible results he had witnessed. Not a

moment was to be wasted now. Already he had hesitated too long, for soon would

come the dawn and possible discovery of his crime. But the invention of his victim

would save him from the long arm of the law, for, with youth restored, Old Crompton

would cease to exist and a new life would open its doors to the starved soul of the

hermit. Hermit, indeed! He would begin life anew, an active man with youthful vigor

and ambition. Under an assumed name he would travel abroad, would enjoy life, and

would later become a successful man of affairs. He had enough money, he told himself.

And the police would never find Old Crompton, the murderer of Tom Forsythe! He

deposited his small traveling bag on the floor and fingered the controls of Tom's

apparatus.

He threw the starting switch confidently and grinned in satisfaction as the answering

whine of the motor-generator came to his ears. One by one he carefully made the

26

adjustments in exactly the manner followed by the now silenced discoverer of the

process. Everything operated precisely as it had during the preceding experiments. Odd

that he should have anticipated some such necessity! But something had told him to

observe Tom's movements carefully, and now he rejoiced in the fact that his intuition

had led him aright. Painfully he climbed to the table top and stretched his aching body

in the warm light of the four huge tubes. His exertions during the struggle with Tom

were beginning to tell on him. But the soreness and stiffness of feeble muscles and

stubborn joints would soon be but a memory. His pulses quickened at the thought and

he breathed deep in a sudden feeling of unaccustomed well-being.

The dog growled continuously from his position at the head of his master, but did not

move to interfere with the intruder. And Old Crompton, in the excitement of the

momentous experience, paid him not the slightest attention.

His body tingled from head to foot with a not unpleasant sensation that conveyed the

assurance of radical changes taking place under the influence of the vital rays. The

tingling sensation increased in intensity until it seemed that every corpuscle in his veins

danced to the tune of the vibration from those glowing tubes that bathed him in an

ever-spreading radiance. Aches and pains vanished from his body, but he soon

experienced a sharp stab of new pain in his lower jaw. With an experimental forefinger

he rubbed the gum. He laughed aloud as the realization came to him that in those gums

where there had been no teeth for more than twenty years there was now growing a

complete new set. And the rapidity of the process amazed him beyond measure. The

aching area spread quickly and was becoming really uncomfortable. But then—and he

consoled himself with the thought—nothing is brought into being without a certain

amount of pain. Besides, he was confident that his discomfort would soon be over.

He examined his hand, and found that the joints of two fingers long crippled with

rheumatism now moved freely and painlessly. The misty brilliance surrounding his

body was paling and he saw that the flesh was taking on a faint green fluorescence

instead. The rays had completed their work and soon the transformation would be fully

effected. He turned on his side and slipped to the floor with the agility of a youngster.

The dog snarled anew, but kept steadfastly to his position.

There was a small mirror over the wash stand at the far end of the room and Old

Crompton made haste to obtain the first view of his reflected image. His step was firm

27

and springy, his bearing confident, and he found that his long-stooped shoulders

straightened naturally and easily. He felt that he had taken on at least two inches in

stature, which was indeed the case. When he reached the mirror he peered anxiously

into its dingy surface and what he saw there so startled him that he stepped backward

in amazement. This was not Larry Crompton, but an entirely new man. The straggly

white hair had given way to soft, healthy waves of chestnut hue. Gone were the seams

from the leathery countenance and the eyes looked out clearly and steadily from under

brows as thick and dark as they had been in his youth. The reflected features were those

of an entire stranger. They were not even reminiscent of the Larry Crompton of fifty

years ago, but were the features of a far more vigorous and prepossessing individual

than he had ever seemed, even in the best years of his life. The jaw was firm, the once

sunken cheeks so well filled out that his high cheek bones were no longer in evidence. It

was the face of a man of not more than thirty-eight years of age, reflecting exceptional

intelligence and strength of character.

"What a disguise!" he exclaimed in delight. And his voice, echoing in the stillness that

followed the switching off of the apparatus, was deep-throated and mellow—the voice

of a new man.

Now, serenely confident that discovery was impossible, he picked up his small but

heavy bag and started for the door. Dawn was breaking and he wished to put as many

miles between himself and Tom's laboratory as could be covered in the next few hours.

But at the door he hesitated. Then, despite the furious yapping of Spot, he returned to

the table of the rays and, with deliberate thoroughness smashed the costly tubes which

had brought about his rehabilitation. With a pinch bar from a nearby tool rack, he

wrecked the controls and generating mechanisms beyond recognition. Now he was[161]

absolutely secure! No meddling experts could possibly discover the secret of Tom's

invention. All evidence would show that the young experimenter had met his death at

the hands of Old Crompton, the despised hermit of West Laketon. But none would

dream that the handsome man of means who was henceforth to be known as George

Voight was that same despised hermit.

He recovered his satchel and left the scene. With long, rapid strides he proceeded down

the old dirt road toward the main highway where, instead of turning east into the

village, he would turn west and walk to Kernsburg, the neighboring town. There, in not

more than two hours time, his new life would really begin!

28

Had you, a visitor, departed from Laketon when Old Crompton did and returned

twelve years later, you would have noticed very little difference in the appearance of

the village. The old town hall and the little park were the same, the dingy brick building

among the trees being just a little dingier and its wooden steps more worn and sagged.

The main street showed evidence of recent repaving, and, in consequence of the

resulting increase in through automobile traffic; there were two new gasoline filling

stations in the heart of the town. Down the road about a half mile there was a new

building, which, upon inquiring from one of the natives, would be proudly designated

as the new high school building. Otherwise there were no changes to be observed.

In his dilapidated chair in the untidy office he had occupied for nearly thirty years, sat

Asa Culkin, popularly known as "Judge" Culkin. Justice of the peace, sheriff, attorney-

at-law, and three times Mayor of Laketon, he was still a controlling factor in local

politics and government. And many a knotty legal problem was settled in that gloomy

little office. Many a dispute in the town council was dependent for arbitration upon the

keen mind and understanding wit of the old judge.

The four o'clock train had just puffed its labored way from the station when a stranger

entered his office, a stranger of uncommonly prosperous air. The keen blue eyes of the

old attorney appraised him instantly and classified him as a successful man of business,

not yet forty years of age, and with a weighty problem on his mind.

"What can I do for you, sir?" he asked, removing his feet from the battered desk top.

"You may be able to help me a great deal, Judge," was the unexpected reply. "I came to

Laketon to give myself up."

"Give yourself up?" Culkin rose to his feet in surprise and unconsciously straightened

his shoulders in the effort to seem less dwarfed before the tall stranger. "Why, what do

you mean?" he inquired.

"I wish to give myself up for murder," answered the amazing visitor, slowly and with

decision, "for a murder committed twelve years ago. I should like you to listen to my

story first, though. It has been kept too long."

29

"But I still do not understand." There was puzzlement in the honest old face of the

attorney. He shook his gray locks in uncertainty. "Why should you come here? Why

come to me? What possible interest can I have in the matter?"

"Just this, Judge. You do not recognize me now, and you will probably consider my

story incredible when you hear it. But, when I have given you all the evidence, you will

know who I am and will be compelled to believe. The murder was committed in

Laketon. That is why I came to you."

"A murder in Laketon? Twelve years ago?" Again the aged attorney shook his head.

"But—proceed."

"Yes. I killed Thomas Forsythe."

The stranger looked for an expression of horror in the features of his listener, but there

was none. Instead the benign countenance took on a look of deepening amazement, but

the smile wrinkles had somehow vanished and the old face was grave in its surprised

interest.

"You seem astonished," continued the stranger. "Undoubtedly you were convinced that

the murderer was Larry Crompton—Old Crompton, the hermit. He disappeared the

night of the crime and has never been heard from since. Am I correct?"

"Yes. He disappeared all right. But continue."

Not by a lift of his eyebrow did Culkin betray his disbelief, but the stranger sensed that

his story was somehow not as startling as it should have been.

"You will think me crazy, I presume. But I am Old Crompton. It was my hand that

felled the unfortunate young man in his laboratory out there in West Laketon twelve

years ago to-night. It was his marvelous invention that transformed the old hermit into

the apparently young man you see before you. But I swear that I am none other than

Larry Crompton and that I killed young Forsythe. I am ready to pay the penalty. I can

bear the flagellation of my own conscience no longer."

The visitor's voice had risen to the point of hysteria. But his listener remained calm and

unmoved.

"Now just let me get this straight," he said quietly. "Do I understand that you claim to

be Old Crompton, rejuvenated in some mysterious manner, and that you killed Tom

30

Forsythe on that night twelve years ago? Do I understand that you wish now to go to

trial for that crime and to pay the penalty?"

"Yes! Yes! And the sooner the better. I can stand it no longer. I am the most miserable

man in the world!"

"Hm-m—hm-m," muttered the judge, "this is strange." He spoke soothingly to his

visitor. "Do not upset yourself, I beg of you. I will take care of this thing for you, never

fear. Just take a seat, Mister—er—"

"You may call me Voight for the present," said the stranger, in a more composed tone of

voice, "George Voight. That is the name I have been using since the mur—since that

fatal night."

"Very well, Mr. Voight," replied the counsellor with an air of the greatest solicitude,

"please have a seat now, while I make a telephone call."

And George Voight slipped into a stiff-backed chair with a sigh of relief. For he knew

the judge from the old days and he was now certain that his case would be disposed of

very quickly.

With the telephone receiver pressed to his ear, Culkin repeated a number. The stranger

listened intently during the ensuing silence. Then there came a muffled "hello"

sounding in impatient response to the call.

"Hello, Alton," spoke the attorney, "this is Asa speaking. A stranger has just stepped

into my office and he claims to be Old Crompton. Remember the hermit across the road

from your son's old laboratory? Well, this man, who bears no resemblance whatever to

the old man he claims to be and who seems to be less than half the age of Tom's old

neighbor, says that he killed Tom on that night we remember so well."

There were some surprised remarks from the other end of the wire, but Voight was

unable to catch them. He was in a cold perspiration at the thought of meeting his

victim's father.

"Why, yes, Alton," continued Culkin, "I think there is something in this story, although I

cannot believe it all. But I wish you would accompany us and visit the laboratory. Will

you?"

"Lord, man, not that!" interrupted the judge's visitor. "I can hardly bear to visit the scene

of my crime—and in the company of Alton Forsythe. Please, not that!"

31

"Now you just let me take care of this, young man," replied the judge, testily. Then, once

more speaking into the mouthpiece of the telephone, "All[163] right, Alton. We'll pick

you up at your office in five minutes."

He replaced the receiver on its hook and turned again to his visitor. "Please be so kind

as to do exactly as I request," he said. "I want to help you, but there is more to this thing

than you know and I want you to follow unquestioningly where I lead and ask no

questions at all for the present. Things may turn out differently than you expect."

"All right, Judge." The visitor resigned himself to whatever might transpire under the

guidance of the man he had called upon to turn him over to the officers of the law.

Seated in the judge's ancient motor car, they stopped at the office of Alton Forsythe a

few minutes later and were joined by that red-faced and pompous old man. Few words

were spoken during the short run to the well-remembered location of Tom's laboratory,

and the man who was known as George Voight caught at his own throat with nervous

fingers when they passed the tumbledown remains of the hut in which Old Crompton

had spent so many years. With a screeching of well-worn brakes the car stopped before

the laboratory, which was now almost hidden behind a mass of shrubs and flowers.

"Easy now, young man," cautioned the judge, noting the look of fear which had clouded

his new client's features. The three men advanced to the door through which Old

Crompton had fled on that night of horror, twelve years before. The elder Forsythe

spoke not a word as he turned the knob and stepped within. Voight shrank from

entering, but soon mastered his feelings and followed the other two. The sight that met

his eyes caused him to cry aloud in awe.

At the dissecting table, which seemed to be exactly as he had seen it last but with

replicas of the tubes he had destroyed once more in place, stood Tom Forsythe!

Considerably older and with hair prematurely gray, he was still the young man Old

Crompton thought he had killed. Tom Forsythe was not dead after all! And all of his

years of misery had gone for nothing. He advanced slowly to the side of the wondering

young man, Alton Forsythe and Asa Culkin watching silently from just inside the door.

32

"Tom—Tom," spoke the stranger, "you are alive? You were not dead when I left you on

that terrible night when I smashed your precious tubes? Oh—it is too good to be true! I

can scarcely believe my eyes!"

He stretched forth trembling fingers to touch the body of the young man to assure

himself that it was not all a dream.

"Why," said Tom Forsythe, in astonishment. "I do not know you, sir. Never saw you in

my life. What do you mean by your talk of smashing my tubes, of leaving me for dead?"

"Mean?" The stranger's voice rose now; he was growing excited. "Why, Tom, I am Old

Crompton. Remember the struggle, here in this very room? You refused to rejuvenate

an unhappy old man with your marvelous apparatus, a temporarily insane old man—

Crompton. I was that old man and I fought with you. You fell, striking your head. There

was blood. You were unconscious. Yes, for many hours I was sure you were dead and

that I had murdered you. But I had watched your manipulations of the apparatus and I

subjected myself to the action of the rays. My youth was miraculously restored. I

became as you see me now. Detection was impossible, for I looked no more like Old

Crompton than you do. I smashed your machinery to avoid suspicion. Then I escaped.

And, for twelve years, I have thought myself a murderer. I have suffered the tortures of

the damned!"

Tom Forsythe advanced on this remarkable visitor with clenched fists. Staring him in

the eyes with cold appraisal, his wrath was all too apparent.[164] The dog Spot, young

as ever, entered the room and, upon observing the stranger, set up an ominous

growling and snarling. At least the dog recognized him!

"What are you trying to do, catechise me? Are you another of these alienists my father

has been bringing around?" The young inventor was furious. "If you are," he continued,

"you can get out of here—now! I'll have no more of this meddling with my affairs. I'm

as sane as any of you and I refuse to submit to this continual persecution."

The elder Forsythe grunted, and Culkin laid a restraining hand on his arm. "Just a

minute now, Tom," he said soothingly. "This stranger is no alienist. He has a story to

tell. Please permit him to finish."

Somewhat mollified, Tom Forsythe shrugged his assent.

33

"Tom," continued the stranger, more calmly now, "what I have said is the truth. I shall

prove it to you. I'll tell you things no mortals on earth could know but we two.

Remember the day I captured the big rooster for you—the monster you had created?

Remember the night you awakened me and brought me here in the moonlight?

Remember the rabbit whose leg you amputated and re-grew? The poor guinea pig you

had suffocated and whose life you restored? Spot here? Don't you remember

rejuvenating him? I was here. And you refused to use your process on me, old man that

I was. Then is when I went mad and attacked you. Do you believe me, Tom?"

Then a strange thing happened. While Tom Forsythe gazed in growing belief, the

stranger's shoulders sagged and he trembled as with the ague. The two older men who

had kept in the background gasped their astonishment as his hair faded to a sickly gray,

then became as white as the driven snow. Old Crompton was reverting to his previous

state! Within five minutes, instead of the handsome young stranger, there stood before

them a bent, withered old man—Old Crompton beyond a doubt. The effects of Tom's

process were spent.

"Well I'm damned!" ejaculated Alton Forsythe. "You have been right all along, Asa. And

I am mighty glad I did not commit Tom as I intended. He has told us the truth all these

years and we were not wise enough to see it."

"We!" exclaimed the judge. "You, Alton Forsythe! I have always upheld him. You have

done your son a grave injustice and you owe him your apologies if ever a father owed

his son anything."

"You are right, Asa." And, his aristocratic pride forgotten, Alton Forsythe rushed to the

side of his son and embraced him.

The judge turned to Old Crompton pityingly. "Rather a bad ending for you, Crompton,"

he said. "Still, it is better by far than being branded as a murderer."

"Better? Better?" croaked Old Crompton. "It is wonderful, Judge. I have never been so

happy in my life!"

The face of the old man beamed, though scalding tears coursed down the withered and

seamed cheeks. The two Forsythes looked up from their demonstrations of

peacemaking to listen to the amazing words of the old hermit.

34

"Yes, happy for the first time in my life," he continued. "I am one hundred years of age,

gentlemen, and I now look it and feel it. That is as it should be. And my experience has

taught me a final lasting lesson. None of you know it, but, when I was but a very young

man I was bitterly disappointed in love. Ha! ha! Never think it to look at me now,

would you? But I was, and it ruined my entire life. I had a little money—inherited—and

I traveled about in the world for a few years, then settled in that old hut across the road

where I buried myself for sixty years, becoming crabbed and sour and despicable.

Young Tom here was the[165] first bright spot and, though I admired him, I hated him

for his opportunities, hated him for that which he had that I had not. With the promise

of his invention I thought I saw happiness, a new life for myself. I got what I wanted,

though not in the way I had expected. And I want to tell you gentlemen that there is

nothing in it. With developments of modern science you may be able to restore a man's

youthful vigor of body, but you can't cure his mind with electricity. Though I had a

youthful body, my brain was the brain of an old man—memories were there which

could not be suppressed. Even had I not had the fancied death of young Tom on my

conscience I should still have been miserable. I worked. God, how I worked—to forget!

But I could not forget. I was successful in business and made a lot of money. I am more

independent—probably wealthier than you, Alton Forsythe, but that did not bring

happiness. I longed to be myself once more, to have the aches and pains which had

been taken from me. It is natural to age and to die. Immortality would make of us a

people of restless misery. We would quarrel and bicker and long for death, which

would not come to relieve us. Now it is over for me and I am glad—glad—glad!"

He paused for breath, looking beseechingly at Tom Forsythe. "Tom," he said, "I suppose

you have nothing for me in your heart but hatred. And I don't blame you. But I wish—I

wish you would try and forgive me. Can you?"

The years had brought increased understanding and tolerance to young Tom. He stared

at Old Crompton and the long-nursed anger over the destruction of his equipment

melted into a strange mixture of pity and admiration for the courageous old fellow.

"Why, I guess I can, Crompton," he replied. "There was many a day when I struggled

hopelessly to reconstruct my apparatus, cursing you with every bit of energy in my

make-up. I could cheerfully have throttled you, had you been within reach. For twelve

35

years I have labored incessantly to reproduce the results we obtained on the night of

which you speak. People called me insane—even my father wished to have me

committed to an asylum. And, until now, I have been unsuccessful. Only to-day has it

seemed for the first time that the experiments will again succeed. But my ideas have

changed with regard to the uses of the process. I was a cocksure young pup in the old

days, with foolish dreams of fame and influence. But I have seen the error of my ways.

Your experience, too, convinces me that immortality may not be as desirable as I

thought. But there are great possibilities in the way of relieving the sufferings of

mankind and in making this a better world in which to live. With your advice and help

I believe I can do great things. I now forgive you freely and I ask you to remain here

with me to assist in the work that is to come. What do you say to the idea?"

At the reverent thankfulness in the pale eyes of the broken old man who had so recently

been a perfect specimen of vigorous youth, Alton Forsythe blew his nose noisily. The

little judge smiled benevolently and shook his head as if to say, "I told you so." Tom and

Old Crompton gripped hands—mightily.

36

A Sound Of Thunder

by Ray Bradbury

The sign on the wall seemed to quaver under a film of sliding warm water. Eckels felt

his eyelids blink over his stare, and the sign burned in this momentary darkness:

TIME SAFARI, INC.

SAFARIS TO ANY YEAR IN THE PAST.

YOU NAME THE ANIMAL.

WE TAKE YOU THERE.

YOU SHOOT IT.

Warm phlegm gathered in Eckels’ throat; he swallowed and pushed it down. The

muscles around his mouth formed a smile as he put his hand slowly out upon the air,

and in that hand waved a check for ten thousand dollars to the man behind the desk.

“Does this safari guarantee I come back alive?”

“We guarantee nothing,” said the official, “except the dinosaurs.” He turned. “This is

Mr. Travis, your Safari Guide in the Past. He’ll tell you what and where to shoot. If he

says no shooting, no shooting. If you disobey instructions, there’s a stiff penalty of

another ten thousand dollars, plus possible government action, on your return.”

Eckels glanced across the vast office at a mass and tangle, a snaking and humming of

wires and steel boxes, at an aurora that flickered now orange, now silver, now blue.

There was a sound like a gigantic bonfire burning all of Time, all the years and all the

parchment calendars, all the hours piled high and set aflame.

A touch of the hand and this burning would, on the instant, beautifully reverse itself.

Eckels remembered the wording in the advertisements to the letter. Out of chars and

ashes, out of dust and coals, like golden salamanders, the old years, the green years,

37

might leap; roses sweeten the air, white hair turn Irish-black, wrinkles vanish; all,

everything fly back to seed, flee death, rush down to their beginnings, suns rise in

western skies and set in glorious easts, moons eat themselves opposite to the custom, all

and everything cupping one in another like Chinese boxes, rabbits into hats, all and

everything returning to the fresh death, the seed death, the green death, to the time

before the beginning. A touch of a hand might do it, the merest touch of a hand.

“Unbelievable.” Eckels breathed, the light of the Machine on his thin face. “A real Time

Machine.” He shook his head. “Makes you think, If the election had gone badly

yesterday, I might be here now running away from the results. Thank God Keith won.

He’ll make a fine President of the United States.”

“Yes,” said the man behind the desk. “We’re lucky. If Deutscher had gotten in, we’d

have the worst kind of dictatorship. There’s an anti everything man for you, a militarist,

anti-Christ, anti-human, anti-intellectual. People called us up, you know, joking but not

joking. Said if Deutscher became President they wanted to go live in 1492. Of course it’s

not our business to conduct Escapes, but to form Safaris. Anyway, Keith’s President

now. All you got to worry about is-”

“Shooting my dinosaur,” Eckels finished it for him.

“A Tyrannosaurus Rex. The Tyrant Lizard, the most incredible monster in history. Sign

this release. Anything happens to you, we’re not responsible. Those dinosaurs are

hungry.”

Eckels flushed angrily. “Trying to scare me!”

“Frankly, yes. We don’t want anyone going who’ll panic at the first shot. Six Safari

leaders were killed last year, and a dozen hunters. We’re here to give you the severest

thrill a real hunter ever asked for. Traveling you back sixty million years to bag the

biggest game in all of Time. Your personal check’s still there. Tear it up.” Mr. Eckels

looked at the check. His fingers twitched.

“Good luck,” said the man behind the desk. “Mr. Travis, he’s all yours.”

They moved silently across the room, taking their guns with them, toward the Machine,

toward the silver metal and the roaring light.

First a day and then a night and then a day and then a night, then it was day-night-day-

night. A week, a month, a year, a decade! A.D. 2055. A.D. 2019. 1999! 1957! Gone! The

Machine roared.

38

They put on their oxygen helmets and tested the intercoms.

Eckels swayed on the padded seat, his face pale, his jaw stiff. He felt the trembling in

his arms and he looked down and found his hands tight on the new rifle. There were

four other men in the Machine. Travis, the Safari Leader, his assistant, Lesperance, and

two other hunters, Billings and Kramer. They sat looking at each other, and the years

blazed around them.

“Can these guns get a dinosaur cold?” Eckels felt his mouth saying.

“If you hit them right,” said Travis on the helmet radio. “Some dinosaurs have two

brains, one in the head, another far down the spinal column. We stay away from those.

That’s stretching luck. Put your first two shots into the eyes, if you can, blind them, and

go back into the brain.”

The Machine howled. Time was a film run backward. Suns fled and ten million moons

fled after them. “Think,” said Eckels. “Every hunter that ever lived would envy us

today. This makes Africa seem like Illinois.”

The Machine slowed; its scream fell to a murmur. The Machine stopped.

The sun stopped in the sky.

The fog that had enveloped the Machine blew away and they were in an old time, a

very old time indeed, three hunters and two Safari Heads with their blue metal guns

across their knees.

“Christ isn’t born yet,” said Travis, “Moses has not gone to the mountains to talk with

God. The Pyramids are still in the earth, waiting to be cut out and put up. Remember

that. Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler – none of them exists.” The man nodded.

“That” – Mr. Travis pointed – “is the jungle of sixty million two thousand and fifty-five

years before President Keith.”

He indicated a metal path that struck off into green wilderness, over streaming swamp,

among giant ferns and palms.

“And that,” he said, “is the Path, laid by Time Safari for your use. It floats six inches

above the earth. Doesn’t touch so much as one grass blade, flower, or tree. It’s an anti-

gravity metal. Its purpose is to keep you from touching this world of the past in any

way. Stay on the Path. Don’t go off it. I repeat. Don’t go off. For any reason! If you fall

off, there’s a penalty. And don’t shoot any animal we don’t okay.”

39

“Why?” asked Eckels.

They sat in the ancient wilderness. Far birds’ cries blew on a wind, and the smell of tar

and an old salt sea, moist grasses, and flowers the color of blood.

“We don’t want to change the Future. We don’t belong here in the Past. The

government doesn’t like us here. We have to pay big graft to keep our franchise. A Time

Machine is finicky business. Not knowing it, we might kill an important animal, a small

bird, a roach, a flower even, thus destroying an important link in a growing species.”

“That’s not clear,” said Eckels.

A Sound Of thunder “All right,” Travis continued, “say we accidentally kill one mouse

here. That means all the future families of this one particular mouse are destroyed,

right?”

“Right.”

“And all the families of the families of the families of that one mouse! With a stamp of

your foot, you annihilate first one, then a dozen, then a thousand, a million, a billion

possible mice!”

“So they’re dead,” said Eckels. “So what?”

“So what?” Travis snorted quietly. “Well, what about the foxes that’ll need those mice

to survive? For want of ten mice, a fox dies. For want of ten foxes a lion starves. For

want of a lion, all manner of insects, vultures, infinite billions of life forms are thrown

into chaos and destruction. Eventually it all boils down to this: fifty-nine million years

later, a caveman, one of a dozen on the entire world, goes hunting wild boar or saber-

toothed tiger for food. But you, friend, have stepped on all the tigers in that region. By

stepping on one single mouse. So the caveman starves. And the caveman, please note, is

not just any expendable man, no! He is an entire future nation. From his loins would

have sprung ten sons. From their loins one hundred sons, and thus onward to a

civilization. Destroy this one man, and you destroy a race, a people, an entire history of

life. It is comparable to slaying some of Adam’s grandchildren. The stomp of your foot,

on one mouse, could start an earthquake, the effects of which could shake our earth and

destinies down through Time, to their very foundations. With the death of that one

caveman, a billion others yet unborn are throttled in the womb. Perhaps Rome never

rises on its seven hills. Perhaps Europe is forever a dark forest, and only Asia waxes

40

healthy and teeming. Step on a mouse and you crush the Pyramids. Step on a mouse

and you leave your print, like a Grand Canyon, across Eternity. Queen Elizabeth might

never be born, Washington might not cross the Delaware, there might never be a United

States at all. So be careful. Stay on the Path. Never step off!”

“I see,” said Eckels. “Then it wouldn’t pay for us even to touch the grass?”

“Correct. Crushing certain plants could add up infinitesimally. A little error here would

multiply in sixty million years, all out of proportion. Of course maybe our theory is

wrong. Maybe Time can’t be changed by us. Or maybe it can be changed only in little

subtle ways. A dead mouse here makes an insect imbalance there, a population

disproportion later, a bad harvest further on, a depression, mass starvation, and finally,

a change in social temperament in far-flung countries. Something much more subtle,

like that. Perhaps only a soft breath, a whisper, a hair, pollen on the air, such a slight,

slight change that unless you looked close you wouldn’t see it. Who knows? Who really

can say he knows? We don’t know. We’re guessing. But until we do know for certain

whether our messing around in Time can make a big roar or a little rustle in history,

we’re being careful. This Machine, this Path, your clothing and bodies, were sterilized,

as you know, before the journey. We wear these oxygen helmets so we can’t introduce

our bacteria into an ancient atmosphere.”

“How do we know which animals to shoot?”

“They’re marked with red paint,” said Travis. “Today, before our journey, we sent

Lesperance here back with the Machine. He came to this particular era and followed

certain animals.”

“Studying them?”

“Right,” said Lesperance. “I track them through their entire existence, noting which of

them lives longest. Very few. How many times they mate. Not often. Life’s short, When

I find one that’s going to die when a tree falls on him, or one that drowns in a tar pit, I

note the exact hour, minute, and second. I shoot a paint bomb. It leaves a red patch on

his side. We can’t miss it. Then I correlate our arrival in the Past so that we meet the

Monster not more than two minutes before he would have died anyway. This way, we

kill only animals with no future, that are never going to mate again. You see how

careful we are?”

41

“But if you came back this morning in Time,” said Eckels eagerly, you must’ve bumped

into us, our Safari! How did it turn out? Was it successful? Did all of us get through –

alive?”

Travis and Lesperance gave each other a look.

“That’d be a paradox,” said the latter. “Time doesn’t permit that sort of mess-a man

meeting himself. When such occasions threaten, Time steps aside. Like an airplane

hitting an air pocket. You felt the Machine jump just before we stopped? That was us

passing ourselves on the way back to the Future. We saw nothing. There’s no way of

telling if this expedition was a success, if we got our monster, or whether all of us –

meaning you, Mr. Eckels – got out alive.”

Eckels smiled palely.

“Cut that,” said Travis sharply. “Everyone on his feet!”

They were ready to leave the Machine.

The jungle was high and the jungle was broad and the jungle was the entire world

forever and forever. Sounds like music and sounds like flying tents filled the sky, and

those were pterodactyls soaring with cavernous gray wings, gigantic bats of delirium

and night fever.

Eckels, balanced on the narrow Path, aimed his rifle playfully.

“Stop that!” said Travis. “Don’t even aim for fun, blast you! If your guns should go off ”

Eckels flushed. “Where’s our Tyrannosaurus?”

Lesperance checked his wristwatch. “Up ahead, We’ll bisect his trail in sixty seconds.

Look for the red paint! Don’t shoot till we give the word. Stay on the Path. Stay on the

Path!”

They moved forward in the wind of morning.

“Strange,” murmured Eckels. “Up ahead, sixty million years, Election Day over. Keith

made President. Everyone celebrating. And here we are, a million years lost, and they

don’t exist. The things we worried about for months, a lifetime, not even born or

thought of yet.”

42

“Safety catches off, everyone!” ordered Travis. “You, first shot, Eckels. Second, Billings,

Third, Kramer.”

“I’ve hunted tiger, wild boar, buffalo, elephant, but now, this is it,” said Eckels. “I’m

shaking like a kid.”

“Ah,” said Travis.

Everyone stopped.

Travis raised his hand. “Ahead,” he whispered. “In the mist. There he is. There’s His

Royal Majesty now.”

The jungle was wide and full of twitterings, rustlings, murmurs, and sighs.

Suddenly it all ceased, as if someone had shut a door.

Silence.

A sound of thunder.

Out of the mist, one hundred yards away, came Tyrannosaurus Rex.

“It,” whispered Eckels. “It……

“Sh!”

It came on great oiled, resilient, striding legs. It towered thirty feet above half of the

trees, a great evil god, folding its delicate watchmaker’s claws close to its oily reptilian

chest. Each lower leg was a piston, a thousand pounds of white bone, sunk in thick

ropes of muscle, sheathed over in a gleam of pebbled skin like the mail of a terrible

warrior. Each thigh was a ton of meat, ivory, and steel mesh. And from the great

breathing cage of the upper body those two delicate arms dangled out front, arms with

hands which might pick up and examine men like toys, while the snake neck coiled.

And the head itself, a ton of sculptured stone, lifted easily upon the sky. Its mouth

gaped, exposing a fence of teeth like daggers. Its eyes rolled, ostrich eggs, empty of all

expression save hunger. It closed its mouth in a death grin. It ran, its pelvic bones

crushing aside trees and bushes, its taloned feet clawing damp earth, leaving prints six

inches deep wherever it settled its weight.

43

It ran with a gliding ballet step, far too poised and balanced for its ten tons. It moved

into a sunlit area warily, its beautifully reptilian hands feeling the air.

“Why, why,” Eckels twitched his mouth. “It could reach up and grab the moon.”

“Sh!” Travis jerked angrily. “He hasn’t seen us yet.”

“It can’t be killed,” Eckels pronounced this verdict quietly, as if there could be no

argument. He had weighed the evidence and this was his considered opinion. The rifle

in his hands seemed a cap gun. “We were fools to come. This is impossible.”

“Shut up!” hissed Travis.

“Nightmare.”

“Turn around,” commanded Travis. “Walk quietly to the Machine. We’ll remit half

your fee.”

“I didn’t realize it would be this big,” said Eckels. “I miscalculated, that’s all. And now I

want out.”

“It sees us!”

“There’s the red paint on its chest!”

The Tyrant Lizard raised itself. Its armored flesh glittered like a thousand green coins.

The coins, crusted with slime, steamed. In the slime, tiny insects wriggled, so that the

entire body seemed to twitch and undulate, even while the monster itself did not move.

It exhaled. The stink of raw flesh blew down the wilderness.

“Get me out of here,” said Eckels. “It was never like this before. I was always sure I’d

come through alive. I had good guides, good safaris, and safety. This time, I figured

wrong. I’ve met my match and admit it. This is too much for me to get hold of.”

“Don’t run,” said Lesperance. “Turn around. Hide in the Machine.”

“Yes.” Eckels seemed to be numb. He looked at his feet as if trying to make them move.

He gave a grunt of helplessness.

“Eckels!”

He took a few steps, blinking, shuffling.

44

“Not that way!”

The Monster, at the first motion, lunged forward with a terrible scream. It covered one

hundred yards in six seconds. The rifles jerked up and blazed fire. A windstorm from

the beast’s mouth engulfed them in the stench of slime and old blood. The Monster

roared, teeth glittering with sun.

The rifles cracked again, Their sound was lost in shriek and lizard thunder. The great

level of the reptile’s tail swung up, lashed sideways. Trees exploded in clouds of leaf

and branch. The Monster twitched its jeweler’s hands down to fondle at the men, to

twist them in half, to crush them like berries, to cram them into its teeth and its

screaming throat. Its boulderstone eyes leveled with the men. They saw themselves

mirrored. They fired at the metallic eyelids and the blazing black iris.

Like a stone idol, like a mountain avalanche, Tyrannosaurus fell.

Thundering, it clutched trees, pulled them with it. It wrenched and tore the metal Path.

The men flung themselves back and away. The body hit, ten tons of cold flesh and

stone. The guns fired. The Monster lashed its armored tail, twitched its snake jaws, and

lay still. A fount of blood spurted from its throat. Somewhere inside, a sac of fluids

burst. Sickening gushes drenched the hunters. They stood, red and glistening.

The thunder faded.

The jungle was silent. After the avalanche, a green peace. After the nightmare, morning.

Billings and Kramer sat on the pathway and threw up. Travis and Lesperance stood

with smoking rifles, cursing steadily. In the Time Machine, on his face, Eckels lay

shivering. He had found his way back to the Path, climbed into the Machine.

Travis came walking, glanced at Eckels, took cotton gauze from a metal box, and

returned to the others, who were sitting on the Path.

“Clean up.”

They wiped the blood from their helmets. They began to curse too. The Monster lay, a

hill of solid flesh. Within, you could hear the sighs and murmurs as the furthest

chambers of it died, the organs malfunctioning, liquids running a final instant from

pocket to sac to spleen, everything shutting off, closing up forever. It was like standing

by a wrecked locomotive or a steam shovel at quitting time, all valves being released or

levered tight. Bones cracked; the tonnage of its own flesh, off balance, dead weight,

snapped the delicate forearms, caught underneath. The meat settled, quivering.

45

Another cracking sound. Overhead, a gigantic tree branch broke from its heavy

mooring, fell. It crashed upon the dead beast with finality.

“There.” Lesperance checked his watch. “Right on time. That’s the giant tree that was

scheduled to fall and kill this animal originally.” He glanced at the two hunters. “You

want the trophy picture?”

“What?”

“We can’t take a trophy back to the Future. The body has to stay right here where it

would have died originally, so the insects, birds, and bacteria can get at it, as they were

intended to. Everything in balance. The body stays. But we can take a picture of you

standing near it.”

The two men tried to think, but gave up, shaking their heads.

They let themselves be led along the metal Path. They sank wearily into the Machine

cushions. They gazed back at the ruined Monster, the stagnating mound, where already

strange reptilian birds and golden insects were busy at the steaming armor. A sound on

the floor of the Time Machine stiffened them. Eckels sat there, shivering.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last.

“Get up!” cried Travis.

Eckels got up.

“Go out on that Path alone,” said Travis. He had his rifle pointed, “You’re not coming

back in the Machine. We’re leaving you here!”

Lesperance seized Travis’s arm. “Wait – ”

“Stay out of this!” Travis shook his hand away. “This fool nearly killed us. But it isn’t

that so much, no. It’s his shoes! Look at them! He ran off the Path. That ruins us! We’ll

forfeit! Thousands of dollars of insurance! We guarantee no one leaves the Path. He left

it. Oh, the fool! I’ll have to report to the government. They might revoke our license to

travel. Who knows what he’s done to Time, to History!”

“Take it easy, all he did was kick up some dirt.”

“How do we know?” cried Travis. “We don’t know anything! It’s all a mystery! Get out

of here, Eckels!”

46

Eckels fumbled his shirt. “I’ll pay anything. A hundred thousand dollars!”

Travis glared at Eckels’ checkbook and spat. “Go out there. The Monster’s next to the

Path. Stick your arms up to your elbows in his mouth. Then you can come back with

us.”

“That’s unreasonable!”

“The Monster’s dead, you idiot. The bullets! The bullets can’t be left behind. They don’t

belong in the Past; they might change anything. Here’s my knife. Dig them out!”

The jungle was alive again, full of the old tremorings and bird cries. Eckels turned

slowly to regard the primeval garbage dump, that hill of nightmares and terror. After a

long time, like a sleepwalker he shuffled out along the Path.

He returned, shuddering, five minutes later, his arms soaked and red to the elbows. He

held out his hands. Each held a number of steel bullets. Then he fell. He lay where he

fell, not moving.

“You didn’t have to make him do that,” said Lesperance.

“Didn’t I? It’s too early to tell.” Travis nudged the still body. “He’ll live. Next time he

won’t go hunting game like this. Okay.” He jerked his thumb wearily at Lesperance.

“Switch on. Let’s go home.”

1492. 1776. 1812.

They cleaned their hands and faces. They changed their caking shirts and pants. Eckels

was up and around again, not speaking. Travis glared at him for a full ten minutes.

“Don’t look at me,” cried Eckels. “I haven’t done anything.”

“Who can tell?”

“Just ran off the Path, that’s all, a little mud on my shoes-what do you want me to do-

get down and pray?”

“We might need it. I’m warning you, Eckels, I might kill you yet. I’ve got my gun

ready.”

“I’m innocent. I’ve done nothing!”

47

1999.2000.2055.

The Machine stopped.

“Get out,” said Travis.

The room was there as they had left it. But not the same as they had left it. The same

man sat behind the same desk. But the same man did not quite sit behind the same

desk. Travis looked around swiftly. “Everything okay here?” he snapped.

“Fine. Welcome home!”

Travis did not relax. He seemed to be looking through the one high window.

“Okay, Eckels, get out. Don’t ever come back.” Eckels could not move.

“You heard me,” said Travis. “What’re you staring at?”

Eckels stood smelling of the air, and there was a thing to the air, a chemical taint so

subtle, so slight, that only a faint cry of his subliminal senses warned him it was there.

The colors, white, gray, blue, orange, in the wall, in the furniture, in the sky beyond the

window, were . . . were . . . . And there was a feel. His flesh twitched. His hands

twitched. He stood drinking the oddness with the pores of his body. Somewhere,

someone must have been screaming one of those whistles that only a dog can hear. His

body screamed silence in return. Beyond this room, beyond this wall, beyond this man

who was not quite the same man seated at this desk that was not quite the same desk . .

. lay an entire world of streets and people. What sort of world it was now, there was no

telling. He could feel them moving there, beyond the walls, almost, like so many chess

pieces blown in a dry wind ….

But the immediate thing was the sign painted on the office wall, the same sign he had

read earlier today on first entering. Somehow, the sign had changed:

TYME SEFARI INC.

SEFARIS TU ANY YEER EN THE PAST.

YU NAIM THE ANIMALL.

WEE TAEK YU THAIR.

YU SHOOT ITT.

48

Eckels felt himself fall into a chair. He fumbled crazily at the thick slime on his boots.

He held up a clod of dirt, trembling, “No, it can’t be. Not a little thing like that. No!”

Embedded in the mud, glistening green and gold and black, was a butterfly, very

beautiful and very dead.

“Not a little thing like that! Not a butterfly!” cried Eckels.

It fell to the floor, an exquisite thing, a small thing that could upset balances and knock

down a line of small dominoes and then big dominoes and then gigantic dominoes, all

down the years across Time. Eckels’ mind whirled. It couldn’t change things. Killing

one butterfly couldn’t be that important! Could it?

His face was cold. His mouth trembled, asking: “Who – who won the presidential

election yesterday?”

The man behind the desk laughed. “You joking? You know very well. Deutscher, of

course! Who else? Not that fool weakling Keith. We got an iron man now, a man with

guts!” The official stopped. “What’s wrong?”

Eckels moaned. He dropped to his knees. He scrabbled at the golden butterfly with

shaking fingers. “Can’t we,” he pleaded to the world, to himself, to the officials, to the

Machine, “can’t we take it back, can’t we make it alive again? Can’t we start over? Can’t

we – ”

A Sound Of Thunder. He did not move. Eyes shut, he waited, shivering. He heard

Travis breathe loud in the room; he heard Travis shift his rifle, click the safety catch,

and raise the weapon.

There was a sound of thunder.

The End.

49

Thy name is Woman

Bryce Walden

After the Doctor gave him the hypo and left the ship, Bowren lay in absolute darkness wondering when the change would start. There would be pain, the Doctor had said. "Then you won't be aware of anything--anything at all." That was a devil of a thing, Bowren thought, not to be aware of the greatest adventure any man ever had. He, Eddie Bowren, the first to escape the Earth into space, the first man to Mars! He was on his back in a small square steel cubicle, a secretly constructed room in the wall of the cargo bin of the big spaceship cradled at the New Chicago Port. He was not without fear. But before the ship blasted he wouldn't care--he would be changed by then. He would start turning any minute now, becoming something else; he didn't know exactly what, but that wouldn't matter. After it was over, he wouldn't remember because the higher brain centers, the cortex, the analytical mind, would be completely cut off, short-circuited, during the alteration. The cubicle was close, hot, sound-proofed, like a tomb. "You will probably make loud unpleasant noises," the Doctor had said, "but no one will hear you. Don't worry about anything until you get to Mars." That was right, Bowren thought. My only problem is to observe, compute, and get back into this dungeon without being observed, and back to Earth. The idea was to keep it from the women. The women wouldn't go for this at all. They would object. The women would be able to bring into effect several laws dealing with spaceflight, among them the one against stowaways, and especially that particular one about aberrated males sneaking into space and committing suicide. A lot of men had tried it, in the beginning. Some of them had managed it, but they had all died. For a long time, the men's egos hadn't been able to admit that the male organism was incapable of standing the rigors of acceleration. Women had had laws passed, and if the women caught him doing this, the punishment would be extreme for him, personally, and a lot more extreme for Earth civilization in general. If you could call it a civilization. You could call it anything, Bowren groaned--but it didn't make sense. A world without women. A birthrate reduced to zero.

50

A trickle of sweat slid past Bowren's eyes, loosening a nervous flush along his back that prickled painfully. His throat was tense and his heart pounded loud in the hot dark. A sharp pain ran up his body and exploded in his head. He tried to swallow, but something gagged in his throat. He was afraid of retching. He lay with his mouth open, spittle dribbling over his lips. The pain returned, hammered at his entrails. He fought the pain numbly, like a man grappling in the dark. The wave subsided and he lay there gasping, his fists clenched. "The pain will come in increasingly powerful waves," the Doctor had said. "At a certain point, it will be so great, the analytical mind will completely short-circuit. It will stay that way enroute to Mars, and meanwhile your body will rapidly change into that of a beast. Don't worry about it. A catalytic agent will return you to normal before you reach the planet. If you live, you'll be human again." * * * * * A male human couldn't stand the acceleration. But a woman could. Animals could. They had experimented on human males and animals in the giant centrifuges, and learned what to do. Animals could stand 25 "G" consistently, or centrifugal forces as high as 120 revolutions a minute. About 10 "G" was the limit of female endurance. Less for men. It had never been thoroughly determined why women had been able to stand higher acceleration. But human females had the same physical advantages over men as female rats, rabbits, and cats over males of the same species. A woman's cellular structure was different; her center of gravity was different, the brain waves given off during acceleration were different. It was suspected that the autonomic nervous system in women could function more freely to protect the body during emergency situations. The only certainty about it was that no man had ever been able to get into space and live. But animals could so they had worked on it and finally they decided to change a man into an animal, at least temporarily. Geneticists and biochemists and other specialists had been able to do a lot with hormones and hard radiation treatment. Especially with hormones. You could shoot a man full of some fluid or another, and do almost anything to his organism. You could induce atavism, regression to some lower form of animal life--a highly speeded up regression. When you did that, naturally the analytical mind, the higher thought centers of a more recent evolutionary development, blanked out and the primal mind took over. The body changed too, considerably.

51

Bowren was changing. Then the pain came and he couldn't think. He felt his mind cringing--giving way before the onslaught of the pain. Dimly he could feel the agony in his limbs, the throbbing of his heart, the fading power of reason. He retched, languished through flaccid minutes. There were recurring spasms of shivering as he rolled his thickened tongue in the arid cavity of his mouth. And then, somewhere, a spark exploded, and drowned him in a pool of streaming flame. * * * * * Consciousness returned slowly--much as it had gone--in waves of pain. It took a long time. Elements of reason and unreason fusing through distorted nightmares until he was lying there able to remember, able to wonder, able to think. Inside the tiny compartment were supplies. A hypo, glucose, a durolene suit neatly folded which he put on. He gave himself a needle, swallowed the tablets, and waited until energy and a sense of well-being gave him some degree of confidence. It was very still. The ship would be cradled on Mars now. He lay there, relaxing, preparing for the real challenge. He thought of how well the Earth Investigation Committee had planned the whole thing. The last desperate attempt of man to get into space--to Mars--a woman's world. At least it was supposed to be. Whatever it was, it wasn't a man's world. The women didn't want Earth anymore. They had something better. But what? There were other questions, and Bowren's job was to find the answers, remain unobserved and get back aboard this ship. He would then hypo himself again, and when the ship blasted off to Earth, he would go through the same transition all over again. He put on the soft-soled shoes as well as the durolene suit and crawled through the small panel into the big cargo bin. It was empty. Only a dim yellow light shone on the big cargo vices along the curved walls. He climbed the ladders slowly, cautiously, through a gnawing silence of suspense, over the mesh grid flooring along the tubular corridors. He wondered what he would find. Could the women have been influenced by some alien life form on Mars? That could explain the fact that women had divorced themselves completely from all men, from the Earth. Something had to explain it.

52

There was one other possibility. That the women had found human life on Mars. That was a very remote possibility based on the idea that perhaps the Solar system had been settled by human beings from outer space, and had landed on two worlds at least. Bowren remembered how his wife, Lora, had told him he was an idiot and a bore, and had walked out on him five years before; taken her three months course in astrogation, and left Earth. He hadn't heard of her or from her since. It was the same with every other man, married or not. The male ego had taken a beating for so long that the results had been psychologically devastating. The ship seemed to be empty of any human being but Bowren. He reached the outer lock door. It was ajar. Thin cold air came through and sent a chill down his arms, tingling in his fingers. He looked out. It was night on Mars, a strange red-tinted night, the double moons throwing streaming color over the land. Across the field, he saw the glowing Luciferin-like light of a small city. Soaring spherical lines. Nothing masculine about its architecture. Bowren shivered. He climbed down the ladder, the air biting into his lungs. The silence down there on the ground under the ship was intense. He stood there a minute. The first man on Mars. Man's oldest dream realized. But the great thrill he had anticipated was dulled somewhat by fear. A fear of what the women had become, and of what might have influenced their becoming. He took out a small neurogun and walked. He reached what seemed to be a huge park that seemed to surround the city. It grew warmer and a soft wind whispered through the strange wide-spreading trees and bushes and exotic blossoms. The scent of blossoms drifted on the wind and the sound of running water, of murmuring voices. The park thickened as Bowren edged into its dark, languid depth. It seemed as though the city radiated heat. He dodged suddenly behind a tree, knelt down. For an instant he was embarrassed seeing the two shadowy figures in each others arms on a bench in the moonlight. This emotion gave way to shock, anger, fear. One of them was a--man! Bowren felt the perspiration start from his face. An intense jealousy surrendered to a start of fearful curiosity. Where had the man come from? Bowren's long frustration, the memory of his wife, the humiliation, the rejection, the abandonment, the impotent rage of loneliness--it all came back to him.

53

He controlled his emotion somehow. At least he didn't manifest it physically. He crept closer, listened. "This was such a sweet idea," the woman was whispering. "Bringing me here to the park tonight. That's why I love you so, Marvin. You're always so romantic." "How else could I think of you, darling," the man said. His voice was cultured, precise, soft, thick with emotion. "You're so sweet, Marvin." "You're so beautiful, darling. I think of you every minute that you're away on one of those space flights. You women are so wonderful to have conquered space, but sometimes I hate the ships that take you away from me." The woman sighed. "But it's so nice to come back to you. So exciting, so comfortable." The kiss was long and deep. Bowren backed away, almost smashing into the tree. He touched his forehead. He was sweating heavily. His beard dripped moisture. There was a hollow panicky feeling in his stomach. Now he was confused as well as afraid. Another couple was sitting next to a fountain, and a bubbling brook ran past them, singing into the darkness. Bowren crouched behind a bush and listened. It might have been the man he had just left, still talking. The voice was slightly different, but the dialogue sounded very much the same. "It must be wonderful to be a woman, dear, and voyage between the stars. But as I say, I'm glad to stay here and tend the home and mind the children, glad to be here, my arms open to you when you come back." "It's so wonderful to know that you care so much. I'm so glad you never let me forget that you love me." "I love you, every minute of every day. Just think--two more months and one week and we will have been married ten years." "It's so lovely," she said. "It seems like ten days. Like those first thrilling ten days, darling, going over and over again." "I'll always love you, darling." "Always?"

54

"Always." The man got up, lifted the woman in his arms, held her high. "Darling, let's go for a night ride across the desert." "Oh, you darling. You always think of these little adventures." "All life with you is an adventure." "But what about little Jimmie and Janice?" "I've arranged a sitter for them." "But darling--you mean you--Oh, you're so wonderful. You think of everything. So practical, yet so romantic ... so--" He kissed her and ran away, holding her high in the air, and her laughter bubbled back to where Bowren crouched behind the bush. He kept on crouching there, staring numbly at the vacancy the fleeing couple had left in the shadows. "Good God," he whispered. "After ten years--" He shook his head and slowly licked his lips. He'd been married five years. It hadn't been like this. He'd never heard of any marriage maintaining such a crazy high romantic level of manic neuroticism as this for very long. Of course the women had always expected it to. But the men-- And anyway--_where did the men come from?_ * * * * * Bowren moved down a winding lane between exotic blossoms, through air saturated with the damp scent of night-blooming flowers. He walked cautiously enough, but in a kind of daze, his mind spinning. The appearance of those men remained in his mind. When he closed his eyes for a moment, he could see them. Perfectly groomed, impeccably dressed, smiling, vital, bronze-skinned, delicate, yet strong features; the kind of male who might be considered, Bowren thought, to be able to assert just the right degree of aggressiveness without being indelicate. Why, he thought, they've found perfect men, their type of men.

55

He dodged behind a tree. Here it was again. Same play, same scene practically, only the players were two other people. A couple standing arm in arm beside a big pool full of weird darting fish and throwing upward a subdued bluish light. Music drifted along the warm currents of air. The couple were silhouetted by the indirect light. The pose is perfect, he thought. The setting is perfect. "You're so wonderful, darling," the man was saying, "and I get so lonely without you. I always see your face, hear your voice, no matter how long you're away." "Do you? Do you?" "Always. Your hair so red, so dark it seems black in certain lights. Your eyes so slanted, so dark a green they seem black usually too. Your nose so straight, the nostrils flaring slightly, the least bit too much sometimes. Your mouth so red and full. Your skin so smooth and dark. And you're ageless, darling. Being married to you five years, it's one exciting adventure." "I love you so," she said. "You're everything any woman could want in a husband. Simply everything, yet you're so modest with it all. I still remember how it used to be. Back there ... with the other men I mean?" "You should forget about _them_, my dear." "I'm forgetting, slowly though. It may take a long time to forget completely. Oh, he was such an unpleasant person, so uninteresting after a while. So inconsiderate, so self-centered. He wasn't romantic at all. He never said he loved me, and when he kissed me it was mere routine. He never thought about anything but his work, and when he did come home at night, he would yell at me about not having ordered the right dinner from the cafelator. He didn't care whether he used hair remover on his face in the mornings or not. He was surly and sullen and selfish. But I could have forgiven everything else if he had only told me every day that he loved me, that he could never love anyone else. The things that you do and say, darling." "I love you," he said. "I love you, I love you. But please, let's not talk about _him_ anymore. It simply horrifies me!" Bowren felt the sudden sickening throbbing of his stomach. The description. Now the slight familiarity of voice. And then he heard the man say, murmuring, "Lois ... darling Lois...." Lois! LOIS!

56

Bowren shivered. His jowls darkened, his mouth pressed thin by the powerful clamp of his jaws. His body seemed to loosen all over and he fell into a crouch. Tiredness and torn nerves and long-suppressed emotion throbbed in him, and all the rage and suppression and frustration came back in a wave. He yelled. It was more of a sound, a harsh prolonged animal roar of pain and rage and humiliation. "Lois ..." He ran forward. She gasped, sank away as Bowren hit the man, hard. The man sighed and gyrated swinging his arms, teetering and flipped backward into the pool among the lights and the weird fish. A spray of cold water struck Bowren, sobering him a little, sobered his burst of mindless passion enough that he could hear the shouts of alarm ringing through the trees. He turned desperately. Lois cringed. He scarcely remembered her now, he realized. She was different. He had forgotten everything except an image that had changed with longing. She hadn't been too impressive anyway, maybe, or maybe she had. It didn't matter now. He tried to run, tried to get away. He heard Lois' voice, high and shrill. Figures closed in around him. He fought, desperately. He put a few temporarily out of the way with the neurogun, but there were always more. Men, men everywhere. Hundreds of men where there should be no men at all. Well-groomed, strong, bronzed, ever-smiling men. It gave him intense pleasure to crack off a few of the smiles. To hurl the gun, smash with his fists. Then the men were swarming all over him, the clean faces, the smiling fragrant men, and he went down under the weight of men. He tried to move. A blow fell hard and his head smashed against the rocks. He tried to rise up, and other blows beat him down and he was glad about the darkness, not because it relieved the pain, but because it curtained off the faces of men. * * * * * After a time it was as though he was being carried through a dim half-consciousness, able to think, too tired to move or open his eyes. He remembered how the men of Earth had rationalized a long time, making a joke out of it. Laughing when they hadn't wanted to laugh, but to hate. It had never been humorous. It had been a war between the sexes, and the women had finally won, destroying the men psychologically, the race physically. Somehow they had managed to go on with a culture of their own. The war between the sexes had never really been a joke. It had been deadly serious, right from the beginning of the militant feminist movements, long before the last big war. There had always been basic psychological and physiological differences. But

57

woman had refused to admit this, and had tried to be the "equal" if not the better of men. For so long woman had made it strictly competitive, and in her subconscious mind she had regarded men as wonderful creatures, capable of practically anything, and that woman could do nothing better than to emulate them in every possible way. There was no such thing as a woman's role unless it had been the same as a man's. That had gone on a long time. And it hadn't been a joke at all. How ironic it was, there at the last! All of man's work through the ages had been aimed at the stars. And the women had assumed the final phase of conquest! For a long time women had been revolting against the masculine symbols, the levers, pistons, bombs, torpedoes and hammers, all manifestations of man's whole activity of overt, aggressive power. The big H-bombs of the last great war had seemed to be man's final symbol, destructive. And after that, the spaceships, puncturing space, roaring outward, the ultimate masculine symbol of which men had dreamed for so long, and which women had envied. And then only the women could stand the acceleration. It was a physiological fact. Nothing could change it. Nothing but what they had done to Bowren. All of man's evolutionary struggle, and the women had assumed the climax, assumed all the past wrapped up in the end, usurped the effect, and thereby psychologically assuming also all the thousands of years of causation. For being held down, being made neurotic by frustration and the impossibility of being the "equal" of men, because they were fundamentally psychologically and physiologically different, women had taken to space with an age-old vengeance. Personal ego salvation. But they hadn't stopped there. What had they done? What about the men? A man for every woman, yet no men from Earth. That much Bowren knew. Native Martians? What? He had been transported somewhere in a car of some kind. He didn't bother to be interested. He couldn't get away. He was held fast. He refused to open his eyes because he didn't want to see the men who held him, the men who had replaced him and every other man on Earth. The men who were destroying the civilization of Earth. The gimmicks whereby the women had rejected Earth and left it to wither and die in neglect and bitter, bitter wonderment.

58

He was tired, very tired. The movement of the car lulled him, and he drifted into sleep. He opened his eyes and slowly looked around. Pretty pastel ceiling. A big room, beautiful and softly furnished, with a marked absence of metal, of shiny chrome, of harshness or brittle angles. It was something of an office, too, with a desk that was not at all business-like, but still a desk. A warm glow suffused the room, and the air was pleasantly scented with natural smelling perfumes. A woman stood in the middle of the room studying him with detached interest. She was beautiful, but in a hard, mature, withdrawn way. She was dark, her eyes large, liquid black and dominating her rather small sharply-sculptured face. Her mouth was large, deeply red. She had a strong mouth. He looked at her a while. He felt only a deep, bitter resentment. He felt good though, physically. He had probably been given something, an injection. He sat up. Then he got to his feet. She kept on studying him. "A change of clothes, dry detergent, and hair remover for your face are in there, through that door," she said. He said: "Right now I'd rather talk." "But don't you want to take off that awful--beard?" "The devil with it! Is that so important? It's natural isn't it for a man to have hair on his face? I like hair on my face." She opened her mouth a little and stepped back a few steps. "And anyway, what could be less important right now than the way I look?" "I'm--I'm Gloria Munsel," she said hesitantly. "I'm President of the City here. And what is your name, please?" "Eddie Bowren. What are you going to do with me?" She shrugged. "You act like a mad man. I'd almost forgotten what you men of Earth were like. I was pretty young then. Well, frankly, I don't know what we're going to do with you. No precedent for the situation. No laws concerning it. It'll be up to the Council." "It won't be pleasant for me," he said, "I can be safe in assuming that."

59

She shrugged again and crossed her arms. He managed to control his emotions somehow as he looked at the smooth lines of her body under the long clinging gown. She was so damn beautiful! A high proud body in a smooth pink gown, dark hair streaming back and shiny and soft. * * * * * It was torture. It had been for a long time, for him, for all the others. "Let me out of here!" he yelled harshly. "Put me in a room by myself!" She moved closer to him and looked into his face. The fragrance of her hair, the warmth of her reached out to him. Somehow, he never knew how, he managed to grin. He felt the sweat running down his dirty, bearded, battered face. His suit was torn and dirty. He could smell himself, the stale sweat, the filth. He could feel his hair, shaggy and long, down his neck, over his ears. Her lips were slightly parted, and wet, and she had a funny dark look in her eyes, he thought. She turned quickly as the door opened, and a man came in. He was only slightly taller than Gloria and he nodded, smiled brightly, bowed a little, moved forward. He carried a big bouquet of flowers and presented them to her. She took the flowers, smiled, thanked him, and put them on the table. The man said. "So sorry, darling, to intrude. But I felt I had to see you for a few minutes. I left the children with John, and dashed right up here. I thought we might have lunch together." "You're so thoughtful, dear," she said. The man turned a distasteful look upon Bowren. He said. "My dear, what is _this_?" "A man," she said, and then added. "From Earth." "What? Good grief, you mean they've found a way--?" "I don't know. You'd better go back home and tend the yard today, Dale. I'll tell you all about it when I come home this evening. All right?" "Well I--oh, oh yes, of course, if you say so, darling." "Thank you, dear." She kissed him and he bowed out. She turned and walked back toward Bowren. "Tell me," she said. "How did you get here alive?"

60

Why not tell her? He was helpless here. They'd find out anyway, as soon as they got back to Earth on the cargo run. And even if they didn't find out, that wouldn't matter either. They would be on guard from now on. No man would do again what Bowren had done. The only chance would be to build secret spaceships of their own and every time one blasted, have every member of the crew go through what Bowren had. It couldn't last. Too much injury and shock. As he talked he studied the office, and he thought of other things. An office that was like a big beautiful living room. A thoroughly feminine office. Nor was it the type of office a woman would fix for a man. It was a woman's office. Everything, the whole culture here, was feminine. When he had finished she said, "Interesting. It must have been a very unpleasant experience for you." He grinned. "I suffered. But even though I've failed, it's worth all the suffering, if you'll tell me--where did all the ah--men come from?" She told him. It was, to say the least, startling, and then upon reflection, he realized how simple it all was. No aliens. No native Martians. A very simple and thoroughly logical solution, and in a way, typically feminine. Hormone treatment and genetic manipulation, plus a thorough reconditioning while the treatment was taking place. And the women had simply turned approximately half of their number into men! She paused, then went on. "It was the only way we could see it, Mr. Bowren. Earth was a man's world, and we could never have belonged in it, not the way we wanted to. Men wouldn't stand it anyway, down there, having us going into space, usurping their masculine role. And anyway--you men of Earth had become so utterly unsatisfactory as companions, lovers, and husbands, that it was obvious nothing could ever be done about it. Not unless we set up our own culture, our own civilization, our way." "But meanwhile we die down there," Bowren said. "Logic is nice. But mass murder, and the death of a whole world civilization seems pretty cold from where I'm standing. It's pathological, but it's too late to think about that. It's done now." "But we're happy here," she said. "For the first time in a long, long time, we women feel like ourselves. We feel truly independent. The men around us are the kind of men we want, instead of us being what they want us to be, or even worse, the men being what we want them to be but resenting it and making life unbearable for both. All through the process of being changed into men, our women undergo such a thorough conditioning that they can never be anything else but model men in every sense. Their

61

attitude as women with which they started treatment helped. They knew what they wanted in men, and they became what we wanted them to be, as men." "Very logical," Bowren said. "It smells to heaven it's so logical." It was purely impulse, what he did then. He couldn't help it. It wasn't logical either. It was emotional and he did it because he had to do it and because he didn't see any reason why he shouldn't. He put his arm out suddenly, hooked her slim waist, and pulled her to him. Her face flushed and his eyes were very wide and dark as she looked up at him. "Listen," he said. "The whole thing's insane. The lot of you are mad, and though I can't help it, I hate to see it happen this way. What kind of men are these? These smiling robots, these goons who are nothing else but reflections in a woman's mirror? Who'd want to be a man like that. Who would really want a man like that? And who would want a woman who was just what a man wanted her to be? Where's the fire? Where's the individuality? Where's the conflict, the fighting and snarling and raging that makes living. All this is apathy, this is death! You don't grow by being agreeable, but by conflict." "What are you trying to sell now?" she whispered. He laughed. It was wild sounding to him, not very humorous really, but still it was laughter. "Selling nothing, buying nothing." He pulled her closer and kissed her. Her lips parted slightly and he could feel the warmth of her and the quick drawing of breath. Then she pushed him away. She raised her hand and brushed it over his face. She shook her head slowly. "It feels rather interesting," she said, "your face. I've never felt a man's face before, that wasn't smooth, the way it should be." He laughed again, more softly this time. "Why reform your men? You women always wanted to do that." "We don't reform men here," she said. "We start them out right--from the beginning." She backed away from him. She raised her hand to her face and her fingers touched her lips. Wrinkles appeared between her eyes and she shook her head again. Not at him, but at something, a thought perhaps, he couldn't tell. Finally she said. "That was an inexcusable, boorish thing to do. A typical thoughtless egomanical Earth-male action if there ever was one. Our men are all perfect here, and in comparison to them, you're a pretty miserable specimen. I'm glad you showed up here. It's given me, and other women, a good chance for comparison. It makes our men seem so much better even than they were to us before."

62

He didn't say anything. "Our men are perfect! Perfect you understand? What are you smiling about? Their character is good. They're excellent conversationalists, well informed, always attentive, moderate, sympathetic, interested in life, and always interested in us." "And I suppose they are also--human?" "This is nonsense," she said, her voice rising slightly. "You will take that door out please. The Council will decide what's to be done with you." He nodded, turned, and went through the door. There were two men there waiting for him. They were both blond, with light blue eyes, just medium height, perfectly constructed physically, perfectly groomed, impeccably dressed. They smiled at him. Their teeth had been brushed every morning. One of them wrinkled his nose, obviously as a reaction to Bowren. The other started to reach, seemed reluctant to touch him. "Then don't touch me, brother," Bowren said. "Put a hand on me, and I'll slug you." The man reached away, and it gave Bowren an ecstatic sensation to send his fist against the man's jaw. It made a cracking sound and the man's head flopped back as his knees crumbled and he swung around and stretched out flat on his face on the long tubular corridor. "Always remember your etiquette," Bowren said. "Keep your hands off people. It isn't polite." The other man grunted something, still managing to smile, as he rushed at Bowren. Bowren side-stepped, hooked the man's neck in his arm and ran him across the hall and smashed his head into the wall. He turned, opened the door into Munsel's office, dragged both of them in and shut the door again. He walked down the corridor several hundred feet before a woman appeared, in some kind of uniform, and said. "Will you come this way please?" He said he would. * * * * * It was a small room, comfortably furnished. Food came through a panel in the wall whenever he pressed the right button. A telescreen furnished entertainment when he pushed another button. Tasty mixed drinks responded to other buttons.

63

He never bothered to take advantage of the facilities offered for removing his beard, bathing, or changing clothes. Whatever fate was going to befall him, he would just as soon meet it as the only man on Mars who looked the part--according to Bowren's standards, at least—at least by comparison. He thought of trying to escape. If he could get away from the city and into the Martian hills, he could die out there with some dignity. It was a good idea, but he knew it was impossible. At least so far, it was impossible. Maybe something would come up. An opportunity and he would take it. That was the only thing left for him. He was in there for what seemed a long time. It was still, the light remaining always the same. He slept a number of times and ate several times. He did a lot of thinking too. He thought about the men on Earth and finally he decided it didn't matter much. They had brought it on themselves in a way, and if there was anything like cause and effect operating on such a scale, they deserved no sympathy. Man had expressed his aggressive male ego until he evolved the H-bombs and worse, and by then the whole world was neurotic with fear, including the women. Women had always looked into the mirror of the future (or lack of it), of the race, and the more she had looked, the more the insecurity. The atomic wars had created a kind of final feeling of insecurity as far as men were concerned, forced them to become completely psychologically and Physiologically self-sufficient. They had converted part of their own kind into men, their own kind of men, and theoretically there wouldn't be any more insecurity brought on by the kind of male psychology that had turned the Earth around for so long. All right, drop it right there then, he thought. It's about all over. It's all over but the requiem. Sometime later he was in a mood where he didn't mind it when an impersonal face appeared on the screen and looked right at him and told him the Council's verdict. It was a woman, and her voice was cold, very cold. "Mr. Eddie Bowren. The Council has reached a verdict regarding what is to be done with you. You are to be exterminated. It is painless and we will make it as pleasant as possible." "Thanks," Bowren said. A woman's world was so polite, so mannerly, so remembering of all the social amenities. It would be so difficult after a while to know when anyone was speaking, or doing anything real. "Thanks," he said again. "I will do all in my power to make my extermination a matter of mutual pleasure." By now he was pretty drunk, had been drunk for some time. He raised his glass. "Here's to a real happy time of it, baby." The screen faded. He sat there brooding, and he was still brooding when the door unlocked and opened softly. He sat there and looked at Gloria Munsel for a while,

64

wondering why she was here. Why she would look so provocative, so enchanting, so devastating, whatever other words you cared to dream up. She moved toward him with a slight swaying motion that further disturbed him. He felt her long white fingers rubbing over the stiff wiry beard of his face. "I dreamed about the way that beard felt last night," she said. "Silly of me wasn't it? I heard of the way you smell, of the way you yelled at me, so impolitely. Why did I dream of it, I said this morning, so now I'm here to find out why." "Get out and let me alone," Bowren yelled. "I'm going to be exterminated. So let me alone to my own company." "Yes, I heard about that verdict," she said. She looked away from him. "I don't know why they made that choice. Well, I do in a way, they're afraid of you, your influence. It would be very disruptive socially. Several of our men--" "It doesn't matter why," Bowren said. "What matters is that it will be as pleasant as possible. If you're going to kill a man, be nice about it." She stared down at him. Chills rippled down his back as her warm soft fingers continued to stroke his bearded chin and throat. He got up. It was too uncomfortable and it was torture. He said, "Get out of here. Maybe I'm not a conformist, but I'm damn human!" She backed away. "But--but what do you mean?" He got up and put the flat of his hands cupping her shoulder blades. Her eyes stared wildly, and her lips were wet and she was breathing heavily. He could see the vein pulsing faster in her slim throat. She had an exciting body. He saw it then, the new slow smile that crept across her face. His left hand squirmed at the thick piled hair on her shoulders and he tugged and her face tilted further and he looked at the parted pouting lips. The palm of his right hand brushed her jaw and his fingers took her cheeks and brought her face over and he spread his mouth hard over her mouth. Her lips begged. Hammers started banging away in his stomach. Music from the screen was playing a crescendo into his pulse. They swayed together to the music, her head thrown back, her eyes closed. She stepped back, dropped her arms limply at her sides. There was the clean sweet odor of her hair. "I'd better go now," she whispered. "Before I do something that would result in my not being President anymore."

65

* * * * * He wiped his face. Don't beg, he thought. The devil with her and the rest. A man could lose everything, all the women, not one, but all of them. He could live alone, a thousand miles from nowhere, at the North Pole like Amundsen, and it didn't matter. He could be killed pleasantly or unpleasantly, that didn't matter either. All that mattered was that he maintain some dignity, as a man. He stood there, not saying anything. He managed to grin. Finally he said, "Goodbye, and may your husband never say a harsh word to you or do anything objectionable as long as you both shall live, and may he love you every hour of every day, and may he drop dead." She moved in again, put her arms around him. There were tears in her eyes. She placed her cheek on his shoulder. "I love you," she whispered. "I know that now." He felt a little helpless. Tears, what could you do with a woman's tears? She sobbed softly, talking brokenly. Maybe not to him, but to someone, somewhere. A memory, a shadow out of a long time back.... "Maybe it's ... it's all a mistake after all ... maybe it is. I've never been too sure, not for a while now. And then you--the way you talked and looked--the excitement. I don't know why. But the touch of your beard--your voice. I don't know what happened. We've carried it to extremes, extremes, Eddie. It was always this way with us--once we were sure of our man, and even before, when he was blinded by new love, we tried to make him over, closer to _our_ idea of what was right. But now I know something ... those faults and imperfections, most of them were men's, the real men's chief attractions. Individuality, that's the thing, Eddie, that's it after all. And it's imperfections too, maybe more than anything else. Imperfections.... Oh, Eddie, you're close, much closer to human nature, to real vitality, through _your_ imperfections. Not imperfections. Eddie--your beard is beautiful, your dirt is lovely, your yelling insults are wonderful--and...." She stopped a minute. Her hands ran through his hair. "When you get a man made over, he's never very nice after that, Eddie. Never--" She sobbed, pulled his lips down. "Eddie--I can't let them kill you." "Forget it," he said. "No one can do anything. Don't get yourself in a jam. You'll forget this in a little while. There's nothing here for a guy like me, and I'm not for you."

66

She stepped way, her hands still on his shoulders. "No--I didn't mean that. I've got to go on living in the world I helped make, among the men we all decided we would always want. I've got to do that. Listen, Eddie, how did you intend to get back to Earth?" He told her. "Then it's just a matter of getting back aboard that same ship, and into this secret room unobserved?" "That's all, Gloria. That and keep from being exterminated first." "I can get you out of here. We'll have to do it right now. Take that beard off, and get that hair smoothed down somehow. I hate to see it happen, but I've got to get you out of here, and the only way to do it is for you to be like one of the men here." He went to work on his face and hair. She went out and returned with a suit like the other men wore. He got into it. She smiled at him, a hesitant and very soft smile, and she kissed him before they left the room and cautiously went out of the City. * * * * * The way was clear across the moonlit field and under the deep dark shadow of the ship. He kissed her and then took hold of the ladder. She slipped a notebook of velonex, full of micro-film, into his hands. "Goodbye, Eddie," she said. "Take this with you. It may give you men down there a way out. I never thought much before of how mad it must be for you." He took the folder. He looked up at the double moons painting the night a fantastic shifting wave of changing light. And then he looked down at Gloria Munsel again, at the glinting shine of her hair. "Goodbye," he said. "I might stay after all--except that a lot of men on Earth are waiting for me to tell them something. They'll be surprised. I--" He hesitated. Her eyes widened. Warmth of emotion moved him and he said, or started to say, "I love you," and many other things, but she interrupted him. "Don't please, Eddie. Anything you said now would sound just like what my devoted husband says, every day. I'd rather you wouldn't say anything at all now, Eddie, just goodbye." "Goodbye then," he said again.

67

He looked back from the opened door in the ship's cargo bin. Her face was shining up at him, her lips slightly parted, her cheeks wet. It was a picture he would never be able to forget, even if he wanted to. "When you forget to shave in the mornings, Eddie, think of me." * * * * * Bowren stood up and addressed the investigation committee which had sent him to Mars. He hadn't made any statements at all up to this moment. The ten members of the Committee sat there behind the half-moon table. None of them moved. Their faces were anxious. Some of them were perspiring. Eddie told them what he had seen, what he had heard, his own impressions about the whole thing, about his escape. He left out certain personal details that were, to him, unnecessary to this particular report. The Committee sat there a while, then started to talk. They talked at once for a while, then the Chairman rapped for order and stood up. His face had an odd twist to it, and his bald head was pocked with perspiration. Eddie Bowren took the book of micro-film from under his arm, the one Gloria Munsel had given him. He put it on the table. "That has been thoroughly checked by scientists, and their report is included. I thought it surely was a false report, until they checked it. The first page there gives a brief outline of what the micro-film contains." The Chairman read, then looked up. He coughed. He mopped at his head. Eddie said. "As I saw it up there, this is the way it's going to stay. We'll never get into space, not without using the methods that were used with me. And they're too destructive. I've been examined. I could never go through it again and live. And that's the only way Earth men can ever get into space. The women aren't coming back to us. They have husbands of their own now. Believe me, those women aren't going to leave their perfect husbands. They've set up a completely feminine culture. It's theirs, all theirs. They'll never give it up to return to a masculine world, and that's what Earth will always be to them. There are only a few women left on Earth, and they're of such subnormal intelligence as to be only a menace to any possible future progeny. Our birthrate has stopped. We are living under extremely abnormal circumstances without women. I have, as I said before, but one recommendation to this Committee, and you take it for what it's worth. I personally don't care--much--and that isn't important either." "What is your recommendation, Bowren?"

68

"I assure you that the formulas in that book will work for us, Mr. Chairman. Will you accept the reports of the scientists who investigated those formulas?" "I will," the Chairman said hoarsely. "I'll accept it. Why not--?" Bowren grinned thinly at the ten men. "There's the secret of doing what the women have done. It'll work for us too. Our only chance for survival is to follow their procedure. We've got to start turning at least a percentage of ourselves into women." One man leaned forward and put his head on his arms. The others sat there, in a kind of stunned numb attitude, their eyes drifting vaguely. The Chairman coughed and looked around the silent hall, and at the other ten men in it. "Any volunteers?" he whispered.