 THE HUNTED HEROES by Robert Silverberg The hunted heroes by Robert Silverberg The planet itself was tough enough, barren, desolate, forbidding, enough to stop the most adventurous and dedicated. But they had to run head-on against a mad genius who had a motto—death to all Terrans. Let's keep moving, I told Val. The surest way to die out here on Mars is to give up. I reached over and turned up the pressure on her oxymask to make things a little easier for her. Through the glass-eyed of the mask I could see her face contorted in an agony of fatigue. And she probably thought the failure of the sand-cat was all my fault, too. Val's usually about the best wife a guy could ask for, but when she wants to be, she can be a real flying bother. It was beyond her to see that some grease-monkey back at the dome was at fault. Whoever it was who had failed to fasten down the engine-hood. Nothing but what had stopped us could stop a sand-cat—sand—in the delicate mechanism of the atomic engine. But no, she blamed it all on me somehow. So we were out walking on the spongy sand of the Martian Desert. We'd been walking a good eight hours. Can we turn back now, Ron? Val pleaded. Maybe there isn't any uranium in this sector at all. I think we're crazy to keep on searching out here. I started to tell her that the Uranco chief had assured me we'd hit something out this way, but changed my mind. When Val's tired and overwrought there's no sense in arguing with her. I stared ahead at the bleak desolate wastes of the Martian landscape. Behind us somewhere was the comfort of the dome. Ahead nothing but the mazes and gullies of this dead world. Try to keep going, Val. My gloved hand reached out and clumsily enfolded hers. Come on, kid. Remember, we're doing this for Earth. We're heroes. She glared at me. Heroes? Hell, she muttered. That's the way it looked back home, but out there it doesn't seem so glorious, and Uranco's pay is stinking. We didn't come out here for the pay, Val. I know, I know, but just the same. It must have been hell for her. We had wandered fruitlessly over the red sands all day, both of us listening for the clicks of the counter, and the geigers had been obstinately hushed all day except for the constant undercurrent of meaningless noises. Even though the Martian gravity was only a fraction of Earth's, I was starting to tire, and I knew it must have been really rough on Val with her lovely but unrugged legs. Heroes, she said bitterly. We're not heroes. We're suckers. Why did I ever let you volunteer for the Geigkor and drag me along? Which wasn't anywhere close to the truth. Now I knew she was at the breaking point because Val didn't lie unless she was so exhausted she didn't know what she was doing. She had been just as much inflamed by the idea of coming to Mars to help in the search for uranium as I was. We knew the pay was poor, but we had felt it a sort of obligation, something we could do as individuals to keep the industries of radioactive starved Earth going. And we'd always had a roving foot, both of us. No. We had decided together to come to Mars, the way we decided together on everything. Now she was turning it against me. I tried to jolly her. Buck up, kid, I said. I didn't dare turn up her oxy pressure any higher, but it was obvious she couldn't keep going. She was almost sleepwalking now. We pressed on over the barren terrain. The Geigor kept up a fairly steady click pattern, but never broke into that sudden explosive tumult that meant we had found paydirt. I started to feel tired myself, terribly tired. I longed to lie down on the soft spongy Martian sand and bury myself. I looked at Val. She was dragging along with her eyes half shut. I felt almost guilty for having dragged her out to Mars. Until I recalled that I hadn't. In fact, she had come up with the idea before I did. I wished there was some way of turning the weary, bedraggled girl at my side back into the Val who had so enthusiastically suggested we join the Geigs. Twelve steps later I decided this was about as far as we could go. I stopped, slipped out of the Geigor harness, and lowered myself ponderously to the ground. What's the matter, Ron? Val asked sleepily. Something wrong? No, baby. I said, putting out a hand and taking hers. I think we ought to rest a little before we go any further. It's been a long, hard day. It didn't take much to persuade her. She slid down beside me, curled up, and in a moment she was fast asleep, sprawled out on the sands. Poor kid, I thought. Maybe we shouldn't have come to Mars after all, but I reminded myself someone had to do the job. A second thought appeared, but I squelched it. Why the hell me? I looked down at Valerie's sleeping form and thought of our warm, comfortable little home on earth. It wasn't much, but people in love don't need very fancy surroundings. I watched her sleeping peacefully, a wayward lock of her soft blonde hair trailing down over one eyebrow, and it seemed hard to believe that we'd exchanged earth and all it held for us for the raw, untamed struggle that was Mars. But I knew I'd do it again if I had the chance. It's because we wanted to keep what we had. Heroes? Hell no. We just liked our comforts and wanted to keep them, which took a little work. Time to get moving, but then Val stirred and rolled over in her sleep, and I didn't have the heart to wake her. I sat there holding her, staring out over the desert, watching the wind whip the sand up into weird shapes. The Geig Korps preferred married couples working in teams. That's what had finally decided it for us. We were a good team. We had no ties on earth that couldn't be broken without much difficulty, so we volunteered. And here we are. Heroes. The wind blasted a mass of sand into my face, and I felt it tinkle against the oxymask. I glanced at the suit chronometer, getting late. I decided once again to wake Val, but she was tired, and I was tired too. Tired from our wearying journey across the empty desert. I started to shake Val, but I never finished. It would be so nice just to lean back and nuzzle up to her, down in the sand. So nice. I yawned and stretched back. I awoke with a sudden startled shiver and realized angrily I had let myself doze off. Come on, Val! I said savagely and started to rise to my feet. I couldn't. I looked down. I was neatly bound in thin, tough plastic tangle-cord swath from chin to boot bottoms. My arms imprisoned. My feet caught. And tangle-cord is about as easy to get out of as a spider's web is for a trapped fly. It wasn't Martians that had done it. There weren't any Martians hadn't been for a million years. It was some earth man who had bound us. I rolled my eyes toward Val and saw that she was similarly trust in this sticky stuff. The tangle-cord was still fresh, giving off a faint, repugnant odor like that of drying fish. It had been spun on us only a short time ago, I realized. Ron! Don't try to move, baby. This stuff can break your neck if you twist it wrong. She continued for a moment to struggle futilely and I had to snap. Lie still, Val! A very wise statement. Said a brittle, harsh voice from above me. I looked up and saw a helmeted figure above us. He wasn't wearing the customary skin-tight flyable oxysuits we had. He wore an outmoded bulky spacesuit and a fishbowl helmet, all but the face area opaque. The oxygen canisters weren't attached to his back as expected, though. They were strapped to the back of the wheelchair in which he sat. Through the fishbowl I could see hard little eyes, a yellowed parchment-like face, a grim set jaw. I didn't recognize him, and this struck me odd. I thought I knew everyone sparsely settled Mars. Somehow I'd missed him. What shocked me most was that he had no legs, the spacesuit ended neatly at the thighs. He was holding in his left hand the tangle gun with which he had entrapped us, and a very efficient-looking blaster was in his right. I didn't want to disturb your sleep, he said coldly, so I've been waiting here for you to wake up. I could just see it. He might have been sitting there for hours complacently waiting to see how we'd wake up. That was when I realized he must be totally insane. I could feel my stomach muscles tighten, my throat constrict painfully. Then anger ripped through me, washing away the terror. What's going on? I demanded, staring at the half of a man who confronted us from the wheelchair. Who are you? You'll find out soon enough, he said. Suppose now you come with me. He reached for the tangle gun, flipped a little switch on its side tube, melt, and shot a stream of watery fluid over our legs, keeping the blaster trained on us all the while. Our legs were free. You may get up now, he said, slowly, without trying to make trouble. Val and I helped each other to our feet as best we could, considering our arms were still tightly bound against the sides of our oxysuits. Walk, the stranger said, waving the tangle gun to indicate the direction. I'll be right behind you. He holstered the tangle gun. I glimpsed the bulk of an outward atomic rigging behind him, strapped to the back of the wheelchair. He fingered a knob on the arm of the chair and the two exhaust ducts behind the wheel housings flamed for a moment and the chair began to roll. So obediently we started walking. You don't argue with a blaster even if the man pointing it is in a wheelchair. What's going on, Ron? Val asked in a low voice as we walked. Behind us, the wheelchair hissed steadily. I don't quite know, Val. I've never seen this guy before and I thought I knew everyone at the dome. Quiet up there! Our captor called and we stopped talking. We trudged along together with him following behind. I could hear the crunch-crunch of the wheelchair as its wheels chewed into the sand. I wondered where we were going and why. I wondered why we had ever left earth. The answer to that came to me quick enough. We had to. Earth needed their radioactives and the only way to get them was to get out and look. The great atomic wars of the late twentieth century had used up much of the supply, but the amount used to blow up half the great cities of the world hardly compared with the amount we needed to put them back together again. In three centuries the shattered world had been completely rebuilt. The wreckage of New York and Shanghai and London and all the other ruined cities had been hidden by a shining new world of gleaming towers and flying roadways. We had profited by our grandparents' mistakes. They had used their atomics to make bombs. We used ours for fuel. There was an atomic world. Everything. Power drills, printing presses, typewriters, can-openers, ocean liners. Powered by the inexhaustible energy of the dividing atom. But though the energy is inexhaustible, the supply of nuclei isn't. After three centuries of heavy consumption the supply failed. The mighty machine that was Earth's industry had started to slow down. And that started the chain of events that led Val and me to end up as a madman's prisoners on Mars. With every source of uranium mine dry on Earth we had tried other possibilities. All sorts of schemes came forth. Project Sea Dredge was trying to get uranium from the oceans. In forty or fifty years they'd get some results. We hoped. But there wasn't forty or fifty years' worth of raw stuff to tide us over until then. In a decade or so our power would be just about gone. I could picture the sort of dog-eat-dog world we'd revert back to. Millions of starving, freezing humans' tooth and clawing it in the useless shell of a great atomic civilization. So, Mars. There's not much uranium on Mars and it's not easy to find or any cinch to mine. But what little there is helps. It's a stop-cap effort. Just to keep things moving until Project Sea Dredge starts functioning. Enter the Geig Corp. Volunteers out on the face of Mars coaming for its uranium deposits. And here we are, I thought. After we walked on awhile a dome became visible up ahead. It slid up over the crest of a hill, set back between two hummocks on the desert, just out of the way enough to escape observation. For a puzzled moment I thought it was our dome, the settlement where all of Uranko's Geig Corps were located. But another look told me that this was actually quite near us and fairly small. A one man dome, of all things. Welcome to my home, he said. The name is Gregory Ledman. He herded us off to one side of the airlock, uttered a few words keyed to his voice and motioned us inside when the doors slid up. When we were inside he reached up clumsily, holding the blaster and unscrewed the ancient spacesuit fish-bowl. His face was a bitter, dried-up mask. He was a man who hated. The place was spartanly furnished. No chairs, no tape-player, no decoration of any sort. Hard bulkhead walls, rivet studded, glared back at us. He had an automatic chef, a bed, and a writing desk, and no other furniture. Suddenly he drew the tangle-gun and sprayed our legs again. We toppled heavily to the floor. I looked up angrily. I imagine you want to know the whole story, he said. The others did too. Valerie looked at me anxiously. Her pretty face was a dead white behind her oxymask. What others? I never bothered to find out their names, Ledman said casually. They were other gags I caught on wares like you, out on the desert. That's the only sport I have left. Gag hunting. Look out there. He gestured through the translucent skin of the dome and I felt sick. There was a little heap of bones lying there, looking oddly bright against the redness of the sands. They were the dried, parched skeletons of earthmen. Bits of cloth and plastic, once oxymasks and suits, still clung to them. Suddenly I remembered. There had been a pattern there all the time. We didn't much talk about it. We chalked it off as occupational hazards. There had been a pattern of disappearances on the desert. I could think of six, eight names now. None of them had been particularly close friends. You don't get time to make close friends out here. But we'd vowed it wouldn't happen to us. It had. You've been hunting gags, I asked. Why? What have they ever done to you? He smiled as calmly as if I'd just praised his housekeeping. Because I hate you, he said blandly. I intend to wipe every last one of you out, one by one. I stared at him. I'd never seen a man like this before. I thought all his kind had died at the time of the atomic wars. I heard Val Sab. He's a madman. No, Ledman said evenly. I'm quite sane, believe me. But I'm determined to drive the gags and Yuran-ko off Mars. Eventually I'll scare you all away. Just pick us off in the desert? Exactly, replied Ledman. And I have no fears of an armed attack. This place is well fortified. I've devoted years to building it. And I'm back against those hills. They couldn't pry me out. He let his pale hand run up to his gnarled hair. I've devoted years to this. Ever since I landed here on Mars. What are you going to do with us? Val finally asked after a long silence. He didn't smile this time. Kill you, he told her. Not your husband. I want him as an convoy to go back and tell the others to clear off. He rocked back and forth in his wheelchair toying with the gleaming deadly blaster in his hand. We stared in horror. It was a nightmare, sitting there placidly rocking back and forth. A nightmare. I found myself fervently wishing I was back out there on the infinitely safer desert. Do I shock you, he asked? I shouldn't, not when you see my motives. We don't see them, I snapped. Well, let me show you. You're on Mars hunting uranium, right? To mine and ship the radioactive back to earth to keep the atomic engines going. Right? I nodded over at our Geiger counters. We volunteered to come to Mars, Val said irrelevantly. Ah, two young heroes, Ledman said acidly. How sad. I could almost feel sorry for you. Almost. Just what is it you're after, I said. Stalling. Stalling. Atomics cost me my legs, he said. You remember the Sadlerville blast? He asked. Of course. And I did too. I'd never forget it. No one would. How could I forget that great accident killing hundreds, injuring thousands more, sterilizing forty miles of Mississippi land when the Sadlerville pile went up? I was there on business at the time, Ledman said. I represented Ledman Atomics. I was there to sign a new contract for my company. You know who I am now? I nodded. I was fairly well shielded when it happened. I never got the contract, but I got a good dose of radiation instead. Not enough to kill me, he said. Just enough to necessitate the removal of—he indicated the empty space at his thighs. So I got off lightly. He gestured at the wheelchair blanket. I still didn't understand. But why kill us guys? We had nothing to do with it. You're just in this by accident, he said. You see, after the explosion and the amputation, my fellow members on the board of Ledman Atomics decided that a semi-basket case like myself was a poor risk as head of the board. And they took my company away. All quite legal, I assure you. They left me almost a pauper. Then he snapped the punchline at me. They renamed Ledman Atomics. Who did you say you worked for? I began, your reign—don't bother. A more inventive title than Ledman Atomics, but not quite as much hard, wouldn't you say? He grinned. I saved for years. Then I came to Mars, lost myself, built this dome, and swore to get even. There's not a great deal of uranium on this planet, but enough to keep me in a style to which, unfortunately, I'm no longer accustomed. He consulted his wristwatch. Time for my injection. He pulled out the tangle-gun and sprayed us again just to make doubly certain. That's another little souvenir of Sadlerville. I'm short on red blood-core puzzles. He rolled over to a wall-table and fumbled in a container among a pile of hypodermics. There are other injections, too—adrenaline, insulin, others. The blast turned me into a walking pin cushion. But I'll pay it all back, he said. He plunged the needle into his arm. My eyes widened. It was too nightmarish to be real. I wasn't seriously worried about his threat to wipe out the entire guide-core, since it was unlikely that one man in a wheelchair could pick us all off. No. It wasn't the threat that disturbed me so much as the whole concept, so strange to me that the human mind could be as warped and twisted as Ledman's. I saw the horror on Val's face, and I knew she felt the same way I did. Do you really think you can succeed, I taunted him? Really think you can kill every Earthman on Mars? Of all the insane, cock-eyed, Val's quick-worried head-shake cut me off. But Ledman had felt my words all right. Yes. I'll get even with every one of you for taking away my legs. If we hadn't meddled with the atom in the first place, I'd be as tall and powerful as you today, instead of a useless cripple in a wheelchair. You're sick, Gregory Ledman, Val said quietly. You've conceived an impossible scheme of revenge, and now you're taking it out on innocent people who've done nothing, nothing at all to hurt you. That's not sane. His eyes blazed. Who are you to talk of sanity? Uneasily, I caught Val's glance from a corner of my eye. Sweat was rolling down her smooth forehead faster than the auto-wiper could swab it away. Why don't you do something? What are you waiting for, Ron? Easy, baby, I said. I knew what our ace in the hole was, but I had to get Ledman within reach of me first. Enough, he said. I'm going to turn you loose outside right after—get. Sick. I hissed to Val. Low. She began immediately to cough violently, emitting harsh choking sobs. Can't breathe! She began to yell, writhing in her bonds. That did it. Ledman hadn't much humanity left in him, but there was a little. He lowered the blaster a bit and wheeled one hand over to see what was wrong with Val. She continued to wretch and moan most horribly. It almost convinced me. I saw Val's pale, frightened face turn to me. He approached and peered down at her. He opened his mouth to say something, and at that moment I snapped my leg up hard, tearing the tangle-cord with a snicking rasp and kicked his wheelchair over. The blaster went off, burning a hole through the dome roof. The automatic sealers glued it instantly. Ledman went sprawling helplessly out into the middle of the floor. The wheelchair upended next to him, its wheels slowly revolving in the air. The blaster flew from his hands at the impact of landing and spun out near me. In one quick motion I rolled over and covered it with my body. Ledman clawed his way to me with tremendous effort and tried wildly to pry the blaster out from under me, but without success. I twisted a bit, reached out with my free leg, and booted him across the floor. He fetched up against the wall of the dome and lay there. Vow rolled over to me. Now if we could get free of this stuff, I said, I could get him covered before he comes to, but how? Teamwork, Vow said. She swiveled around on the floor until her head was near my boot. Push my oxymask off with your foot, if you can. I searched for the clamp and tried to flip it. No luck with my heavy, clumsy boot. I tried again, and this time it snapped open. I got the tip of my boot in and pried upward. The oxymask came off, slowly scraping a jagged red scratch up the side of Vow's neck as it came. There she breathed. That's that. I looked uneasily at Ledman. He was groaning and beginning to stir. Vow rolled onto the floor and her face lay near my right arm. I saw what she had in mind. She began to nibble the vile tasting tangle cord running her teeth up and down it until it started to give. She continued unfailingly. Finally one strand snapped, then another. At last I had enough use of my hand to reach out and grasp the blaster. Then I pulled myself across the floor to Ledman, removed the tangle gun, and melted the remaining tangle cord off. My muscles were stiff and bunched and rising made me wince. I turned and freed Vow, then I turned and faced Ledman. I suppose you'll kill me now, he said. No. That's the difference between sane people and insane, I told him. I'm not going to kill you at all. I'm going to see to it that you're sent back to earth. No, he shouted. No. Anything but back there. I don't want to face them again, not after what they did to me. Not so loud, I broke in. They'll help you on earth. They'll take all the hatred and sickness out of you and turn you into a useful member of society again. I hate earth men, he spat out. I hate all of them. I know, I said sarcastically, you're just all full of hate. You hated us so much that you couldn't bear to hang around on earth for as much as a year after the Sadlerville blast. You had to take right off for Mars without a moment's delay, didn't you? You hated earth so much you had to leave. Why are you telling all this to me? Because if you'd stayed long enough you'd have used some of your pension money to buy yourself a pair of prosthetic legs and then you wouldn't need this wheelchair. Ledman scowled and then his face went belligerent again. They told me I was paralyzed below the waist, that I'd never walk again, even with prosthetic legs, because I had no muscles to fit them to. You left earth too quickly, Val said. It was the only way, he protested, I had to get off. She's right, I told him. The item can take away, but it can give as well. Soon after you left they developed atomic-powered prosthetics, amazing things, virtually robot legs. All the survivors of the Sadlerville blast were given the necessary replacement limbs free of charge. All except you. You were so sick you had to get away from the world you despised and come here. You're lying, he said. It's not true. Oh, but it is, Val smiled. I saw him wilt visibly and for a moment I almost felt sorry for him. A pathetic legless figure propped up against the wall of a dome at blaster point. But then I remembered he'd killed twelve guides or more and would have added Val to the number had he had the chance. You're a very sick man, Ledman, I said. All this time you could have been happy, useful on earth instead of being holed up here nursing your hatred. You might have been useful on earth, but you decided to channel everything out as revenge. I still don't believe it. Those legs, I might have walked again. No, no, it's all a lie. They told me I'd never walk, he said, weakly, but stubbornly still. I could see his whole structure of hate starting to topple and I decided to give it the final push. Haven't you wondered how I managed to break the tangle-cord when I kicked you over? Yes, human legs aren't strong enough to break tangle-cord that way. Of course not, I said. I gave Val the blaster and slipped out of my oxysuit. Look, I said. I pointed to my smooth gleaming metal legs. The almost soundless purr of their motors was the only noise in the room. I was in the Satherville blast, too, I said, but I didn't go crazy with hate when I lost my legs. Ledman was sobbing. Okay, Ledman, I said. Val got him into his suit and brought him the fish-ball helmet. Get your helmet on and let's go. Between the Sykes and the Prosthetics men you'll be a new man inside of a year. But—but I'm a murderer! That's right, and you'll be sentenced to psych-adjustment. When they're finished, Gregory Ledman, the killer, will be as dead as if they'd electrocuted you. But there'll be a new and sane Gregory Ledman. I turned to Val. Got the Geiger's, honey? For the first time since Ledman had caught us I remembered how tired Val had been out in the desert. I realized now that I had been driving her mercilessly—me, with my chromium legs and atomic-powered muscles. No wonder she was ready to fold, and I'd been too dense to see how unfair I had been. She lifted the Geiger harness and I put Ledman back in his wheel-chair. Val slipped her oxymask back on and fastened it shut. Let's get back to the dome in a hurry, I said. We'll turn Ledman over to the authorities. Then we can catch the next ship for Earth. Go back? Go back? If you think I'm backing down now and quitting, you can find another wife. After we dump this guy, I'm sacking in for twenty hours, and then we're going back out there to finish that search pattern. Earth needs the uranium, honey, and I know you'd never be happy quitting in the middle like that. She smiled. I can't wait to get out there and start listening for those tell-tale clinks. I gave a joyful whoop and swung her around. When I put her down, she squeezed my hand. Hard. Let's get moving, fellow hero, she said. I pressed the stud for the airlock, smiling. End of The Hunted Heroes by Robert Silverberg The Last Supper by T. D. Ham Before reading this story, prepare yourself for a jolt and a chill and capsule form. O. Henry could have been proud of it. It could well become a minor classic. Not as she was by the child in her arms, the woman was running less fleetly now. A wave of exultation swept over Gouldron, drowning out the uneasy feeling of guilt at disobeying orders. The instructions were mandatory and concise. No capture must be attempted individually. In the event of citing any form of human life, the ship must be notified immediately. All small craft must be back at the landing-space not later than one hour before take-off. Anyone not so reporting will be presumed lost. Gouldron thought uneasily of the great seas of snow and ice sweeping inexorably toward each other since the earth had reversed on its axis in the great catastrophe a millennium ago. Now summer and winter alike brought paralyzing gales and blizzards heralded by the sleety snow in which the woman's skin-clad feet had left the tracks which led to discovery. His trained anthropologist's mind speculated avidly over the little they had gotten from the younger of the two men found nearly a week before, nearly frozen and half-starved. The older man had succumbed almost at once. The other, in the most primitive sign language, had indicated that of several humans living in caves to the west, only he and the other had survived to flee some mysterious terror. Gouldron felt a throb of pity for the woman and her child left behind by the men, no doubt, as a hindrance. But what a stroke of fortune that there should be left a male and female of the race to carry the seed of terror to another planet, and what a triumph if he, Gouldron, should be the one to return at the eleventh hour with the prize. No need of calling for help. This was no armed war-party, but the most defenseless being in the universe, a mother burdened with the child. Gouldron put on another burst of speed. His previous shouts had served only to spur the woman to greater efforts. Surely there was some magic word that had survived even the centuries of illiteracy, something equivalent to the bread and salt of all illiterate peoples. Cupping his hands to his mouth, he shouted, Food! Food! Ahead of him the woman turned her head, leapt lightly in mid-stride, and went on, slowing a little, but still running doggedly. Gouldron's pulse leaped. He yelled again, Food! The instant that his foot touched the yielding surface of the trap, he knew that he had met defeat. As his body crashed down on the fire-sharpened stakes, he knew, too, the terror from which the last men of the human race had fled. Above him the woman looked down, her teeth gleaming wolfishly. She pointed down into the pit, spoke exultantly to the child. Food! said the last woman on earth. End of The Last Supper by T. D. Ham. Old Rambling House by Frank Herbert. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Greg Marguerite. Old Rambling House by Frank Herbert. All the grams desired was a home they could call their own, but what did the home want? On his last night on earth, Ted Graham stepped out of a glass-walled telephone booth, ducked to avoid a swooping moth that battered itself in a frenzy against a bare globe above the booth. Ted Graham was a long-necked man, with a head of pronounced egg-shape, topped by prematurely balding sandy hair. Something about his lanky, intense appearance suggested his occupation. Certified public accountant. He stopped behind his wife, who was studying a newspaper classified page and frowned. They said to wait here, they'll come and get us, said the place is hard to find at night. Martha Graham looked up from the newspaper. She was a doll-faced woman, heavily pregnant, a kind of pink prettiness about her. The yellow glow from the light above the booth subdued the red auburn cast of her ponytail hair. I just have to be in a house when the baby's born, she said. What'd they sound like? I don't know. There was a funny kind of interruption, like an argument in some foreign language. Did they sound foreign? In a way, he motioned along the night shrouded line of trailers toward one with two windows glowing amber. Let's wait inside. These bugs out here are fierce. Did you tell them which trailer is ours? Yes, they didn't sound at all anxious to look at it. That's odd, them wanting to trade their house for a trailer. There's nothing odd about it. They've probably just got itchy feet like we did. He appeared not to hear her funniest sounding language you ever heard when that argument started like a squirt of a noise. Inside the trailer, Ted Graham sat down on the green couch that opened into a double bed for company. They could use a good tax accountant around here, he said. When I first saw the place, I got that definite feeling. The valley looks prosperous. It's a wonder nobody's opened an office here before. His wife took a straight chair by the counter, separating kitchen and living area, folded her hands across her heavy stomach. I'm just continental tired of wheels going around under me, she said. I want to sit and stare at the same view for the rest of my life. I don't know how a trailer ever seemed glamorous when... It was the inheritance, gave a itchy feet, he said. Tires gritted on gravel outside. Martha Graham straightened. Could that be them? Awful quick if it is. He went to the door, opened it, stared down at the man who was just raising a hand to knock. Are you Mr. Graham? He asked. Yes. He found himself staring at the caller. I'm Clint Rush. You called about the house? The man moved farther into the light. At first he appeared an old man, fine wrinkle lines in his face, a tired leather look to his skin. But as he moved his head in the light, the wrinkles seemed to dissolve and with them the years lifted from him. Yes, we called, said Ted Graham. He stood aside. Do you want to look at the trailer now? Martha Graham crossed to stand beside her husband. We've kept it in awfully good shape, she said. We've never let anything get seriously wrong with it. She sounds too anxious, thought Ted Graham. I wish he'd let me do the talking for the two of us. We can come back and look at your trailer tomorrow in daylight, said Rush. My car's right out here if you'd like to see our house. Ted Graham hesitated. He felt a nagging, worry tug at his mind, tried to fix his attention on what bothered him. Hadn't we better take our car, he asked. We could follow you. No need, said Rush. We're coming back into town tonight anyway. We can drop you off then. Ted Graham nodded. Be right with you as soon as I lock up. Inside the car Rush mumbled introductions. His wife was a dark shadow in the front seat, her hair drawn back in a severe bun. Her features suggested gypsy blood. He called her Ramey. Odd name thought Ted Graham, and he noticed that she too gave that strange first impression of age that melted in a shift of light. Mrs. Rush turned her gypsy features toward Martha Graham. You are going to have a baby? It came out as an odd veiled statement. Abruptly the car rolled forward. Martha Graham said, It's supposed to be born in about two months. We hope it's a boy. Mrs. Rush looked at her husband. I have changed my mind, she said. Rush spoke without taking his attention from the road. It is too, he broke off, spoke in a tumble of strange sounds. Ted Graham recognized it as the language he'd heard on the telephone. Mrs. Rush answered in the same tongue, anger showing in the intensity of her voice. Her husband replied his voice calmer. Presently Mrs. Rush fell moodily silent. Rush tipped his head toward the rear of the car. My wife has moments when she does not want to get rid of the old house. It has been with her for many years. Ted Graham said, Oh, then are you Spanish? Rush hesitated. No, we are Basque. He turned the car down a well lighted avenue that merged into a highway. They turned onto a side road. There followed more turns, left, right, right. Ted Graham lost track. They hit a jolting bump that made Martha gasp. I hope that wasn't too rough on you, said Rush. We're almost there. The car swung into a lane, its lights picking out the skeleton outlines of trees, peculiar trees, tall, gaunt, leafless. They added to Ted Graham's feeling of uneasiness. The lane dipped, ended at a low wall of a house, red brick with clear story windows beneath overhanging eaves. The effect of the wall and a wide-beamed door they could see to the left was ultra-modern. Ted Graham helped his wife out of the car, followed the rushes to the door. I—I thought you told me it was an old house, he said. It was designed by one of the first modernists, said Rush. He fumbled with an odd curved key. The wide door swung open onto a hallway equally wide, carpeted by a deep pile rug. They could glimpse floor to ceiling view windows at the end of the hall, city lights beyond. Martha Graham gasped, entered the hall as though in a trance. Ted Graham followed, heard the door close behind them. It's—it's so—so—so big! exclaimed Martha Graham. You want to trade this for our trailer? asked Ted Graham. It's too inconvenient for us, said Rush. My work is over the mountains on the coast. He shrugged. We cannot sell it. Ted Graham looked at him sharply. Isn't there any money around here? He had a sudden vision of a tax accountant with no customers. Only a money, but no real estate customers. They entered the living room. Sectional divans lined the walls, subdued lighting glowed from the corners. Two paintings hung on the opposite walls, oblongs of odd lines and twists that made Ted Graham dizzy. Warning bells clamored in his mind. Martha Graham crossed to the windows, looked at the lights far below. I had no idea we'd climbed so far, she said. It's—it's like a fairy city. Mrs. Rush emitted a short, nervous laugh. Ted Graham glanced around the room, thought, if the rest of the house is like this, it's worth fifty or sixty thousand. He thought of the trailer—a good one, but not worth more than seven thousand. Uneasiness was like a neon sign flashing in his mind. This seemed so—he shook his head. Would you like to see the rest of the house? Asked Rush. Martha Graham turned from the window. Oh, yes! Ted Graham shrugged. No harm in looking, he thought. When they returned to the living room, Ted Graham had doubled his previous estimate on the house's value. His brain reeled with the summing of it—a solarium with an entire ceiling covered by sunlamps, an automatic laundry where you dropped soiled clothing down a chute that took it washed and ironed from the other end. Perhaps you and your wife would like to discuss it in private, said Rush. We will leave you for a moment. And they were gone before Ted Graham could protest. Martha Graham said, Ted, I honestly never in my life dreamed. Something's very wrong, honey. But, Ted, this house is worth at least a hundred thousand dollars, maybe more. And they want to trade this, he looked around him, for a seven thousand dollar trailer. Ted, they're foreigners, and if they're so foolish they don't know the value of this place, then why should— I don't like it, he said. Again he looked around the room, recalled the fantastic equipment of the house. But maybe you're right. He stared out at the city lights. They had a lace-like quality, tall buildings linked by lines of flickering incandescence. Something like a Roman candle shot skyward in the distance. Okay, he said. If they want to trade, let's go push the deal. Abruptly the house shuddered. The city lights blinked out. A humming sound filled the air. Martha Graham clutched her husband's arm. Ted, what—what was that? I don't know. He turned. Mr. Rush? No answer. Only the humming. The door at the end of the room opened. A strange man came through it. He wore a short, togel-like garment of gray metallic cloth belted at the waist by something that glittered and shimmered through every color of the spectrum. An aura of coldness and power emanated from him. A sense of untouchable hot air. He glanced around the room, spoke in the same tongue the rushes had used. Ted Graham said, I don't understand you, mister. The man put a hand to his flickering belt. Both Ted and Martha Graham felt themselves rooted to the floor, a tingling sensation vibrating along every nerve. Again the strange language rolled from the man's tongue, but now the words were understood. Who are you? My—my name's Graham. This is my wife. What's going—how did you get here? The rushes. They wanted to trade us this house for our trailer. They brought us. Now look, we—what is your talent? Your occupation? Tax accountant. Say, why all these? That was to be expected, said the man. Clever. Oh, excessively clever. His hand moved again to the belt. Now be very quiet. This may confuse you momentarily. Colored lights filled both the Graham's minds. They staggered. You are qualified, said the man. You will serve. Where are we? demanded Martha Graham. The coordinates would not be intelligible to you, he said. I am of the Rojack. It is sufficient for you to know that you are under Rojack's sovereignty. Ted Graham said, but you have in a way been kidnapped, and the Raimys have fled to your planet, an unregistered planet. I'm afraid, Martha Graham said shakily. You have nothing to fear, said the man. You are no longer on the planet of your birth, nor even in the same galaxy. He glanced at Ted Graham's wrist. That device on your wrist, it tells your local time? Yes. That will help in the search. And your son, can you describe its atomic cycle? Ted Graham groped in his mind for his science memories from school, from the Sunday supplements. I can recall that our galaxy is a spiral, like most galaxies are spiral. Is this some kind of practical joke, asked Ted Graham? The man smiled, a cold, superior smile. It is no joke. Now I will make you a proposition. Ted nodded warily. All right, let's have this stinger. The people who brought you here were tax collectors. We, Rojak, recruited from a subject planet. They were conditioned to make it impossible for them to leave their job untended. Unfortunately, they were clever enough to realize that if they brought someone else in who could do their job, they were released from their mental bonds. Very clever. But you may have their job, said the man. Normally, you would be put to work in the lower echelons, but we believe in metting out justice wherever possible. The Raimys undoubtedly stumbled on your planet by accident and lured you into this position without how do you know I can do your job? That moment of brilliance was an aptitude test. You passed. Well, do you accept? What about our baby? Martha Graham waredly wanted to know. You will be allowed to keep it until it reaches the age of decision. About the time it will take the child to reach adult stature. Then what? insisted Martha Graham. The child will take its position in society according to its ability. Will we ever see our child after that? Possibly. Ted Graham said, what's the joker in this? Again, the cold, superior smile. You will receive conditioning similar to that which we gave the Raimys, and we will want to examine your memories to aid us in our search for your planet. It would be good to find a new, inhabitable place. Why did they trap us like this? asked Martha Graham. It's lonely work, the man explained. Your house is actually a type of space conveyance that travels along your collection route, and there is much travel to the job. And then you will not have friends nor time for much other than work. Our methods are necessarily severe at times. Travel? Martha Graham repeated in dismay. Almost constantly. Ted Graham felt his mind whirling, and behind him he hurt his wife sobbing. The Raimys sat in what had been the Graham's trailer. For a few moments I feared he would not succumb to the bait, she said. I knew you could never overcome the mental compulsion enough to leave them there without their first agreeing. Raimys chuckled. Yes. And now I'm going to indulge in everything the Rojak never permitted. I'm going to write ballads and poems. And I'm going to paint, she said. Ah, the delicious freedom. Greed won this for us, he said. The long study of the Graham's paid off. They couldn't refuse to trade. I knew they'd agree. The looks in their eyes when they saw the house. They both had, she broke off, a look of horror coming into her eyes. One of them did not agree. They both did. You heard them. The baby? He stared at his wife. But it's not at the age of decision. In perhaps eighteen of this planet's years it will be at the age of decision. What then? His shoulders sagged. He shuddered. I will not be able to fight it off. I will have to build a transmitter, call the Rojak, and confess. And they will collect another inhabitable place, she said. Her voice flat and toneless. I've spoiled it, he said. I've spoiled it. End of Old Rambling House by Frank Herbert. Pythias by Frederick Pole. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Greg Marguerite. Pythias by Frederick Pole. Sure, Larry Cannot saved my life. But it was how he did it that forced me to murder him. I am sitting on the edge of what passes for a bed. It is made of loosely woven strips of steel and there is no mattress, only an extra blanket of thin olive drab. It isn't comfortable, but of course they expect to make me still more uncomfortable. They expect to take me out of this precinct jail to a district prison and eventually to the death house. Sure, there will be a trial first, but that's only a formality. Not only did they catch me with a smoking gun in my hand and Cannot bubbling to death through the hole in his throat, but I admitted it. I, knowing what I was doing with, as they say, malice of forethought, deliberately shot to death Lawrence Cannot. They execute murderers, so they didn't mean to execute me, especially because Lawrence Cannot had saved my life. Well, there are extenuating circumstances. I do not think they would convince a jury. Cannot and I were close friends for years. We lost touch during the war. We met again in Washington a few years after the war was over. We had, to some extent, grown apart. He had become a man with a mission. He was working very hard on something and he did not choose to discuss his work and there was nothing else in his life on which to form a basis for communication. And, well, I had my own life, too. It wasn't scientific research, in my case. I flunked out of med school, while he went on. I'm not ashamed of it. It is nothing to be ashamed of. I simply was not able to cope with the messy business of carving corpses. I didn't like it. I didn't want to do it. And when I was forced to do it, I did it badly. So I left. Thus I have no string of degrees, but you don't need them in order to be a senate guard. Does that sound like a terribly impressive career to you? Of course not. But I liked it. The senators are relaxed and friendly when the guards are around and you learn wonderful things about what goes on behind the scenes of government. And a senate guard is in a position to do favors for newspaper men who find a story useful, for government officials who sometimes base a whole campaign on one careless, repeated remark, and for just about anyone who would like to be in the visitor's gallery during a hot debate. Larry cannot, for instance. I ran into him on the street one day and we chatted for a moment and he asked if it was possible to get him in to see the upcoming foreign relations debate. It was. I called him the next day and told him I had arranged for a pass. And he was there watching eagerly with his moist little eyes when the secretary got up to speak. And there was that sudden unexpected yell and the handful of Central American fanatics dragged out their weapons and began to change American policy with gun powder. You remember the story, I suppose. There were only three of them, two with guns, one with a hand grenade. The pistol men managed to wound two senators in a guard. I was right there talking to Conaut. I spotted the little fellow with the hand grenade and tackled him. I knocked him down, but the grenade went flying. Pin pulled, seconds ticking away. I lunged for it. Larry Conaut was ahead of me. The newspaper stories made heroes out of us both. They said it was miraculous that Larry, who had fallen right on top of the grenade, had managed to get it away from himself and so placed that when it exploded no one was hurt. For it did go off and the flying steel touched nobody. The papers mentioned that Larry had been knocked unconscious by the blast. He was unconscious all right. He didn't come to for six hours and when he woke up he spent the next whole day in a stupor. I called on him the next night. He was glad to see me. That was a close one, Dick, he said. Take me back to Tarawa. I said, I guess you saved my life, Larry. Nonsense, Dick. I just jumped. Lucky. That's all. The papers said you were terrific. They said you moved so fast nobody could see exactly what happened. He made a depreciating gesture, but his wet little eyes were wary. Nobody was really watching, I suppose. I was watching. I told him flatly. He looked at me silently for a moment. I was between you and the grenade, I said. You didn't go past me, over me, or through me, but you were on top of the grenade. He started to shake his head. I said, also, Larry, you fell on the grenade. It exploded underneath you. I know because I was almost on top of you and it blew you clear off the floor of the gallery. Did you have a bulletproof vest on? He cleared his throat. Well, as a matter of—cut it out, Larry. What's the answer? He took off his glasses and rubbed his wood-ary eyes. He grumbled. Don't you read the papers? It went off a yard away. Larry, I said gently, I was there. He slumped back in his chair staring at me. Larry Connaught was a small man, but he never looked smaller than he did in that big chair, looking at me as though I were Mr. Nemesis himself. Then he laughed. He surprised me. He sounded almost happy. He said, well, hell, Dick, I had to tell somebody about it sooner or later. Why not you? I can't tell you all of what he said. I'll tell you most of it, but not the part that matters. I'll never tell that part to anybody. Larry said, I should have known you'd remember. He smiles at me ruefully, affectionately. Those pull sessions in the cafeteria say, talking all night about everything, but you remembered. You claimed that the human mind possessed powers of psychokinesis, I said. You argued that just by the mind without moving a finger or using a machine a man could move his body anywhere instantly. You said that nothing was impossible to the mind. I felt like an absolute fool saying those things. They were ridiculous notions. Imagine a man thinking himself from one place to another. But I had been on that gallery. I licked my lips and looked to Larry Canot for confirmation. I was all wet, Larry left. Imagine. I suppose I showed surprise because he patted my shoulder. He said, becoming sober. Sure, Dick, you're wrong, but you're right all the same. The mind alone can't do anything of this sort. That was just a silly kid notion. But he went on. But there are, well, techniques linking the mind to physical forces, simple physical forces that we all use every day that can do it all. Everything. Everything I ever thought of and things I haven't found out yet. Fly across the ocean in a second, Dick. Wall off an exploding bomb easily. You saw me do it. Oh, it's work. It takes energy. You can't escape natural law. That was what knocked me out for a whole day. But that was a hard one. It's a lot easier, for instance, to make a bullet miss its target. It's even easier to lift the cartridge out of the chamber and put it in my pocket so that the bullet can't even be fired. Want the crown jewels of England? I could get them, Dick. I asked, can you see the future? He frowned. That's silly. This isn't superstit- How about reading minds? Larry's expression cleared. Oh. You're remembering some of the things I said years ago. No, I can't do that, either, Dick. Maybe someday if I keep working at this thing. Well, I can't right now. There are things I can do, though, that are just as good. Show me something you can do, I asked. He smiled. Larry was enjoying himself. I didn't begrudge it to him. He had hugged this to himself for years from the day he found his first clue through the decade of proving and experimenting, almost always being wrong but always getting closer. He needed to talk about it. I think he was really glad that at last someone had found him out. He said, show you something. Why, let's see, Dick. He looked around the room, then winked. See that window? I looked. It opened with a slither of wood and a rumble of sash weights. It closed again. The radio, said Larry. There was a click and his little set turned itself on. Watch it. It disappeared and reappeared. It was on top of Mount Everest, Larry said, panting a little. The plug on the radio's electric cord picked itself up and stretched toward the baseboard socket, then dropped to the floor again. Now, said Larry, and his voice was trembling. I'll show you a hard one. Watch the radio, Dick. I'll run it without plugging it in. The electrons themselves—he was staring intently at the little set. I saw the dial light go on, flicker and hold steady. The speaker began to make scratching noises. I stood up, right behind Larry, right over him. I used the telephone on the table beside him. I caught him right beside the ear and he folded over without a murmur. Methodically, I hit him twice more, and then I was sure he wouldn't wake up for at least an hour. I rolled him over and put the telephone back in its cradle. I ransacked his apartment. I found it in his desk, all his notes, all the information, the secret of how to do the things he could do. I picked up the telephone and called the Washington police. When I heard the siren outside, I took out my service revolver and shot him in the throat. He was dead before they came in. For, you see, I knew Lawrence Connalt. We were friends. I would have trusted him with my life. But this was more than just life. Twenty-three words told how to do the things that Lawrence Connalt did. Anyone who could read could do them. Criminals, traitors, lunatics—the formula would work for anyone. Lawrence Connalt was an honest man and an idealist, I think. But what would happen to any man when he becomes a god? Suppose you were told twenty-three words that would let you reach into any bank vault, peer inside any closed room, walk through any wall. Suppose pistols could not kill you. They say power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And there can be no more absolute power than the twenty-three words that can free a man of any jail or give him anything he wants. Larry was my friend. But I killed him cold blood, knowing what I did, because he could not be trusted with the secret that could make him king of the world. But I can. End of Pythias by Frederick Poe. Steve Anderson Revenge by Arthur Porges If the syndicate is half as powerful as some people have claimed, they'll murder me any day now. I object on principle to being killed by evil men for a good deed, so maybe lynching by stupid ones is preferable. I mean you. And you, the suet heads who profited by my work, but refused your help. You've been yammering about narcotics for years. How drug addiction was spreading. Reaching down even to your unmanly, spoiled brats who despise their parents and our venal society to the same degree. The stuff comes in by the ton across the Mexican border. They grow it for a benefit in red China, and a few friendly Asian countries don't mind exporting some now and then either. In spite of heroic work by our small group of poorly financed narcotics agents, the flow of drugs cannot be halted. Oh, you and your elected representatives made a lot of panicky moves to combat this threat. The Department of Health, Education Welfare was given a new bureau, set up like the FBI, and headed by Myron P. Bishop, a man trained by that distinguished expert on narcotics, Anslinger himself, but as to sensible solutions, such as legalizing the sale of heroin to break the worldwide criminal control on the distribution of drugs, that your vapid Puritan morality wouldn't permit. Millions of dollars for enforcement, and to punish the sick, but not one cent for prevention, and almost nothing to find out why people bothered to become addicts in the first place. And how to cure them. Oh, it wasn't entirely your fault. You listened to the experts, usually career policemen who expect to cure any social evil with clubs and prisons. I'm reminded of the simpleton found measuring two horses with a tape in order to be able to distinguish the black one from the white. Until I came along, nobody had ever reached the core of the matter. You don't kill a flourishing plant, in this case a upus tree. By lopping off a handful of leaves, you strike at the roots. That's what I meant to do. And did for your benefit. Oh, I admit there were a few dollars in it for me, but so what? The ox that treads the wheat is not muzzled. When a man saves a manufacturer fifty thousand dollars a year by some improved process, or even by using three bolts some place instead of four, they gladly pay him three percent of the annual savings or something like that as a reward. Most big outfits have such a policy, and it's a good one. Well, if I cut millions off the government budget, it's a lousy hundred thousand dollars too much to ask. I just wanted to go on with my researches without battling a horde of bill collectors every month. Fat chance. I didn't get them easily dime. You, your elected and appointed officials and your kept press just gave me all the time horse laugh. Well, he who laughs last. You will remember the old saw. I'll see to that. I'm writing this so you'll know how they treated me. You mustn't think I'm a crank, mad at the world for no reason. My case is better than dryfaces and sacco vansettis combined. Here I was prepared to remove the drug scourge forever and at a piddling cost. Did I get courteous handling or at least a fair hearing? Not bloody likely. I was an idiot to expect anything from the world's most inflated bureaucracy. Dickens, Circumlucution office brought up to date. Let me start at the beginning. Then you'll see who's right. I'm a biochemist by profession. Damned good one. But too individualistic to please the research centers. They like docile teams. Scientific percherans to pull the big red wagon. So I taught at one jerkwater college after another. Sooner or later, my superiors, all daughterers who stopped thinking with size of relief once they had their PhD union cards objected to my attitude. If I published, they were jealous. It made the other faculty members look bad. If I failed to produce, then why was I wasting lab facilities and neglecting my classes? The students wanted their term papers back within five days. The other teachers could manage it. Why not me? The difference between what my colleagues expected from their pupils and what I did was the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. Those students. They didn't want biochemistry. They want a letter on a card. A C would do. Damn few of them got it from me, I'm happy to say, and those that did knew more about the subject than most PhDs. Now, I take as my creed the fruitful dictum. Think in other categories. A famous researcher once invented or discovered this maxim in a dream. It is the secret of many great advances in science. Get off the main line. Stop fooling with the leaves of the tree and turn to the roots. Invert the problem if necessary. I was thinking about the narcotics scandal. A teacher at my college had a lovely 16 year old daughter carefully reared who was badly hooked. Saw that poor man's hair whiten in a few months. How would you feel knowing that your daughter had been so degraded by a drug as to sell herself to anybody with enough money to buy her a fix. An innocent playful sniff at a party. Some punk probably an addict himself had trapped her in order to finance his own habit. They talk about cures but people on the inside know that permanent escape from the trap is as rare as portraits of Trotsky and Russia or integrity among politicians in this country. Well, I put my brains to work on the problem. Seemed obvious that as in the case of prohibition you couldn't possibly lick the drug traffic by cutting the lines of supply. Not in a country as big as ours with a Mexican border and red China on the side of the enemy. Not when a package the size of a watch could be worth a fortune. Think in other categories, I reminded myself. How can a biochemist rather than a policeman stop the syndicate? Well, then it came to me simple and obvious. Hit the source. The weak link. The roots of the poison tree. In short, papaver soniferum. The opium poppy itself. Basic, isn't it? Destroy the plant and you cut the heart out of the drug traffic. No cops. No hopeless warfare against cunning smugglers. No battle with big money corruption of officials. And remember, no chemist alive can synthesize opium or its derivatives. Sure, there are a few other bad narcotic drugs from different plants like marijuana, but they play a relatively small part and can be controlled. Besides, it was my intention to destroy their sources as well when the time came. But first, the biggest culprit. I go to work. Re-examining all the recent work on tobacco virus and similar plant killers. New studies on the key protein chain of the genes were the foundation stones of my plan. The disease had to be highly specific and deadly. I couldn't risk even the remotest possibility of harming food plants in a hungry world. But, as I've said, with no false modesty, I'm no slouch in my field of biochemistry. I took a harmless poppy rust from our California flowers here and treated its genes with certain chemicals. It was a matter of six months and well over 80 tries, but finally I came up with a virus that killed the opium poppy-like smallpox wiped out the sue. No, more than that. Some Indians were or became immune to the disease, just as insects build up resistance to the most potent poisons. But with my virus, that's simply not possible. I won't get technical here, but to become immune to this stuff would be like man's developing antibodies against his own tissues. Couldn't happen without killing the organism faster than the virus does. Once this epidemic began, not a poppy would survive. So far, everything was fine. Except that, as usual, I lost my job. I got 50 turnpapers behind. Didn't bother me because there wasn't a student in my three classes who knew any more biochemistry than a baboon. In the first paper I'd found this gem, it is well known that a mammal reproduces by suckling its young. Faced with more of the same, it was a pleasure to be fired. Now, in any really civilized society, they'd have my statue on top of the Capitol building and with neon lights to boot. But in our bureaucratic wilderness of Washington, with a thousand government hired Cretans running interference for each big appointed super Cretan, my troubles had just begun. I took some sample poppies to the HEW offices. They were in vacuum sealed plastic envelopes because I knew that once my virus spores got loose in the atmosphere, they'd spread all over the world like radioactive dust, or faster. I hope to see the commissioner of narcotics, Myron P. Bishop, but his magnificence was harder to reach than the whole College of Cardinals. It was impossible to put my point across. Plants was it? That way to the Department of Agriculture. Oh, poppies, pamphlets on wildflowers could be had from documents. I wrote countless letters, pulled what few wires were within my reach and haunted Washington like the ghost of Calhoun. And finally, I got 10 minutes with El Pomposo himself. As I've said, dumb students are nothing new to me, but even the worst of them couldn't have been any more obtuse than Bishop. I had the dead plants all brown and withered. There were simple charts showing exactly in terms of time how the virus worked, killing the poppy within 48 hours, and even destroying the viability of any seeds that might be ripening. Did this jughead appointed by the president to fight the terrible drug problem comprehend the miracle being offered to him? The simple solution that would make him the greatest, in fact, the only success in his post that this country had ever known? Not he. I had to spell it out in nursery school terms. But I've penetrated many numskull in class by dint of persistent drilling and finally got through to the cold oatmeal under his parietal bones. Did that clear the air? If you think so, guess again, he threw up his hands in horror. Turn a plant disease loose on the world deliberately? It was a violation of the conventions against germ warfare. It was barred by international law. It was unthinkable that the United States would indulge in such irresponsible behavior. All right, I said, take it to the UN. Let them distribute the poppy killer. He brightened a little of that, since every bureaucrat loves above all to pass the buck. A clear-cut decision is fatal to the species. Then he gave me a note to our delegate, Wilbur Kavanaugh, Jr. This character was a bit sharper. He heard me out, looked at my deceased poppies, and arranged a conference with a bigwig from the State Department. Then things got really messy. When I pointed out that in a few weeks every damned opium plant in Asia would be deader than the Ming dynasty, this little creep from Fargy Bottom almost had kittens on the spot. It seems that just now our relations with red China are highly delicate. If we turned the virus loose on them, even if it did kill only poppies, and he had his doubts about that, what if it, ooh, attacked rice. The reds would scream murder. They'd yell germ warfare and have us cold. Well, they could chip us opium by the long ton. That didn't affect the delicate condition, though. It seemed to me, however, that there was something ambiguous and wistful in the state man's attitude, and I thought I understood. When a country sends a spy to do some dirty job, they disown him officially if he's caught. Except for that you-too fiasco some years ago, when the U.S. broke all the unwritten rules and made jackasses of us before the world. Now, obviously, if I killed all the poppies in the world, that would be a fate to complete. Washington could deny knowing anything about the cause of death, especially since it would work indiscriminately, even in friendly parts of Asia. Just as long as I got my hundred thousand, I didn't mind skipping the official credit. In fact, it would keep the syndicate off my back. Suppose, suppose, I said, on my own responsibility, I released the opium spores and ruined the opium trade for good. Will you see that I get paid? He was horrified. In the first place, nothing whatever could be done until the virus had been checked out by government scientists. If I would give him the virus and my notes, he'd start the ball rolling. I know that Washington ball. It's all angles and doesn't roll worth a damn. I went cold at the thought. Before you can get an okay on anything big from a bureau there, your long gray beard will be sweeping the floor. For a moment, I was tempted to take my plans to England, but then remembered by that sane legislation legalizing the sale of drugs under controlled conditions, they'd already licked the problem and wouldn't be in the market. For two cents, though, I'd make China pay me the money to keep the virus buried. For that matter, this syndicate would gladly kick in with a million. But I'm an American first, and couldn't play it that way, especially remembering Professor A's daughter. I thought the thing through and decided that if I turned the disease loose so that every good poppy is a dead one, any decent government will quietly pay me off. They only need to know that no other plants are affected. And that's the way I played it. The next day, I sprayed a few grams of concentrated virus into the humid air of Washington and went home. If you read the papers, you know the rest of that particular story. In eight months, not even Sherlock Holmes could have found a live opium poppy on the face of the earth. Once current stocks are gone, there'll be no more narcotics deriving from that particular plant. A government sensibly outbid all the addicts and operators in order to save what is left for medical use. Should last for 50 years? All according to my plan. Fine. But when I tried to collect, they didn't know me from the late lucky Luciano. There was no proof whatever they said that my virus did the job. After all, their scientists had not been allowed to check my work. I could have faked the whole thing, attempting to take credit for a mutant disease which began naturally, especially since dozens of bacteriologists were now isolating the virus. When I pressed harder, they dragged out an FBI file showing I was a crank and a maverick unable to hold a job guilty of signing a peace petition in 1949. If Bishop or Kavanaugh tried to help, I don't know about it. I suppose I'm lucky that the syndicate has been equally skeptical, otherwise being out many millions they would have liquidated me by now. But it's basically your fault. You. The people. I took my case to you as a court of last resort. A few papers gave me a fair enough shake to present the evidence, but you paid no attention. I tried to get your signatures to a petition to purge the HEW department or to start a congressional investigation. You just laughed at me. Well, you enjoyed that headline. Crackpot chemist claims he killed all those poppies. Was it self-defense? Well, my jovial friends, I'm going to teach you a lesson. I could easily wipe out half of you by killing some selected food plants but I'm not a mass murderer and would rather make a more subtle job of it. I have two more viruses just about perfected. After the first it's easier. When I turn them loose you'll have a real grievance against me. This time you're getting notice in advance so nobody can talk about natural disease. Besides, the appended lab notes will easily convince a few key men in biochemistry and they'll confirm me. Now let me point out the two plants you'll miss badly. One is yeast. Yes, yeast. When you read this, the one-celled organisms responsible for wine, beer, and alcohol generally will be dying as a race. In a few months, good liquor will be scarcer than an electric blanket in hell. Sure, grain alcohol can be synthesized but bouquet isn't that simple and you'll pay dearly for it. How you'll pay. And decent lab-made whiskey won't be on the shelves tomorrow either. The other plants you'll miss even more. I mean tobacco. No more cigarettes. No more fat cigars. Hallelujah! No more tobacco commercials on TV. Did you know tobacco cannot be synthesized at all? At any price? Get it? You two pack of day fiends. End of Revenge. By Arthur Porges. Recording by Steve Anderson. Jacksonville, Florida. Solander's Radio Tomb. By Ellis Parker Butler. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Steve Anderson. Solander's Radio Tomb. By Ellis Parker Butler. I first met Mr. Remington Solander shortly after I installed my first radio set. I was going into New York on the 8.15 a.m. train and was sitting with my friend Mercheson, and as a matter of course we were talking radio. I had just told Mercheson that he was a lunkhead noodle and that for two cents I would poke him in the jaw and that even a pinheaded idiot ought to know that a tube set was better than a crystal set. To this Mercheson had replied that that settled it. He said he had always known I was a moron and now he was sure of it. If you had enough brains to fill a hazelnut shell, he said, you wouldn't talk that way. Anybody but a half-baked lunatic would know that what a man wants in radio is a clear sharp reception and that's what a crystal gives you. You're one of these half-wits that thinks they're classy if they can hear some two-cent station 500 miles away under a few faint squeaks. Shut up. I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to listen to you. Go and sit somewhere else. Of course this was what was to be expected of Mercheson. And if I did let out a few laps of anger I feel I was entirely justified. Radio fans are always disputing over the relative merits of crystal and tube sets but I knew I was right. I was just trying to decide whether to choke Mercheson with my bare hand and throw his lifeless body out of the car window or tell him a few things I'd been wanting to say ever since he began knocking my tube set. When this Remington Solander who was sitting behind us leaned forward and tapped me on the shoulder. I turned quickly and saw his long sheep-like face close to mine. He was chewing cardamon seed and breathing the odor into my face. My friend, he said, come back and sit with me. I want to ask you a few questions about radio. Well, I couldn't resist that, could I? No radio fan could. I did not care much for the looks of this Remington Solander man, but for a few weeks my friends had seemed to be steering away from me when I drew near. Although I'm sure I never said anything to bore them. All I ever talked about was my radio set and some new hookups I was trying, but I'd noticed that men who formerly had seemed to be fond of my company now gave startled looks when I neared them. Some even climbed over the nearest fence and ran madly across vacant lots, looking over their shoulders with frightened glances as they ran. For a week I had not been able to get any man of my acquaintance to listen to one word from me, except Merchison, and he's another idiot as I think I've made clear. So I left Merchison and sat with Remington Solander. In one way I was proud to be invited to sit with Remington Solander, because he was far and away the richest man in our town. When he died his estate proved to amount to three million dollars. I'd seen him often, and I knew who he was, but he was a standoffish old fellow and did not mix, so I'd never met him. He was a tall man and thin, somewhat flabby, and he was pale in an unhealthy sort of way. But after all he was a millionaire and a member of one of the old families of Westcote, so I took the seat alongside of him with considerable satisfaction. I gathered, he said as soon as I was seated, that you are interested in radio. I told him I was, and I'm just building a new set using a new hookup that I heard of a week ago. I said, I think it's going to be a wonder. Now here's the idea, instead of using a grid. Yes, yes, the old aristocrat said hastily, but never mind that now. I know very little of such things. I have an electrician employed by the year to care for my radio set, and I leave all such things to him. You are a lawyer, are you not? I told him I was. And you are chairman of the trustees of the Westcote Cemetery. Are you not? he asked. I told him I was that also. And I may say that the Westcote Cemetery Association is one of the rightest and tightest little corporations in existence. It has been in existence since 1808 and has been exceedingly profitable to those fortunate enough to hold its stock. I inherited the small block I own from my grandfather. Recently, retrustees had bought 60 additional acres adjoining the old cemetery and had added them to it, and we were about ready to put the new lots on the market. At $300 a piece, they're promised to be a tremendous profit in the thing, for our cemetery was a fashionable place to be buried in, and the demand for the lots in the new addition promised to be enormous. You have not known it, said Remington Solander in his slow drawl, which had the effect of letting his words slide out of his mouth and drip down his long chin like cold molasses. But I have been making inquiries about you, and I have been meaning to speak with you. I am drawing up a new last will and testament, and I want you to draw up one of the clauses for me without delay. Why, certainly, Mr. Solander, I said with increased pride, I'd be glad to be of service to you. I am choosing you for the work, Remington Solander said, because you know and love radio as I do, and because you are a trustee of the Cemetery Association. Are you a religious man? Well, I said a little uneasy, some, some, but not much. No matter, said Mr. Solander, placing a hand on my arm. I am. I have always been. For my earliest youth, my mind has been on serious things. As a matter of fact, sir, I have compiled a manuscript collection of religious quotations, hymns, sermons, and uplifting thoughts which now fill fourteen volumes, all in my own handwriting. Fortunately, I inherited money, and this collection is my gift to the world. And a noble one, I'm sure, I said. Most noble, said Mr. Solander. But, sir, I have not confined my activities to the study chair. I have kept my eye on the progress of the world, and it seems to me that radio, this new and wonderful invention, is the greatest discovery of all ages and imperishable. But, sir, it is being twisted to cheap uses, jazz, cheap songs, worldly words, and music, that I mean to remedy. Well, I said, it might be done. Of course, people like what they like. Some nobler souls like better things, said Remington Solander Solander. Some more worthy men and women will welcome nobler radio broadcasting. In my will, I am putting aside one million dollars to establish and maintain a broadcasting station that will broadcast only my fourteen volumes of hymns and uplifting material. Every day this matter will go forth, sermons, lectures on prohibition, noble thoughts, and religious poems. I assured him that some people might be glad to get that, that a lot of people might, in fact, and that I could write that into his will without any trouble at all. Ah! said Remington Solander. But that is already in my will. What I want you to write for my will is another clause. I mean to build, in your cemetery, a high class and imperishable granite tomb for myself. I mean to place it on that knoll, that high knoll, the highest spot in your cemetery. What I want you to write in my will is a clause providing for the perpetual care and maintenance of my tomb. I want to set aside five hundred thousand dollars for that purpose. Well, I said to the sheep-faced millionaire, I can do that too. Yes, he agreed. And I want to give my family and relations the remaining million and a half dollars provided, he said, extending the provided. They carry out faithfully the provisions of the clause providing for the perpetual care and maintenance of my tomb. If they don't care and maintain, he said, giving me a hard look, that million and a half is to go to the home for flea-bitten dogs. They'll care and maintain, all right, I laughed. I think so, said Remington Solander gravely. I do think so indeed. And now, sir, we come to the important part. You, as I know, are a trustee of the cemetery. Yes, I said, I am, for drawing this clause of my will, if you can draw it, said Remington Solander, looking me full in the eye with both his own, which were like the eyes of a salt mackerel. I shall pay you five thousand dollars. Well, I almost gasped. It was a big lot of money for drawing one clause of a will, and I began to smell a rat right there. But, I may say, the proposition Remington Solander made to me was one I was able, after quite a little talk with my fellow trustees of the cemetery, to carry out. What Remington Solander wanted was to be permitted to put a radio-loud speaking outfit in his granite tomb. A radio-loud speaking outfit permanently set at 327 meters wavelength, which was to be the wavelength of his endowed broadcasting station. I don't know how Remington Solander got his first remarkable idea, but just about that time, an undertaker in New York had rigged up a hearse with a phonograph, so that the hearse would loudspeak suitable hymns on the way to the cemetery. And that may have suggested the loud-speaking tomb to Remington Solander, but it's not important where he got the idea. He had it, and he was set on calving it carried out. Think, he said, of the uplifting effect of it. On the highest spot in the cemetery will stand my noble tomb. Loud speaking in all directions the solemn and holy words in music I have collected in my fourteen volumes. All who enter the cemetery will hear. All will be ennobled and uplifted. That was so too. I saw that at once. I said so. So Remington Solander went on to explain that the income from the $500,000 would be set aside to keep A batteries and B batteries supplied, to keep the outfit in repair, and so on. So I tackled the job rather enthusiastically. I don't say that the $5,000 fee did not interest me, but I did think Remington Solander had a grand idea. It would make our cemeteries stand out. People would come from everywhere to see and listen. The lots in the new edition would sell like hotcakes. But I did have a little trouble with the other trustees. They balked when I explained that Remington Solander wanted the sole radio loud speaking rights of our cemetery. But someone finally suggested that if Remington Solander put up a new and artistic iron fence around the whole cemetery it might be all right. They made him submit his fourteen volumes so they could see what sort of matter he meant to broadcast from his high-class station, and they agreed it was solemn enough. It was all solemn and sad and gloomy. Just the stuff for cemetery. So when Remington Solander agreed to build the new iron fence, they made a formal contract with him. And I drew up the claws for the will, and he bought six lots on top of the high knoll and began erecting his marble mausoleum. For eight months or so, Remington Solander was busier than he had ever been in his life. He super-intended the building of the tomb, and he had on hand the job of getting his endowed radio station going. It was given the letters W-Z-Z-Z, and hiring artists to sing and play and speachify his fourteen volumes of gloom and uplift at 327 meters, and it was too much for the old culture. The very night the test of the W-Z-Z-Z outfit was made, he passed away and was no more on earth. His funeral was one of the biggest we ever had in Westcote. I should judge that five thousand people attended his remains to the cemetery, for it had become widely known that the first W-Z-Z-Z program would be received and loud spoken from Remington Solander's tomb that afternoon. The first selection on the program, his favorite hymn, beginning as the funeral cortege left the church and the program continuing until dark. I'll say it was one of the most affecting occasions I have ever witnessed. As the body was being carried into the tomb, the loudspeaker gave us a sermon by Reverend Peter L. Ruggus, full of sob stuff, and every one of the five thousand present wept. And when the funeral was really finished, over two thousand remained to hear the rest of the program, which consisted of hymns, missionary reports, static, and recitations of religious poems. We increased the price of the lots in the new edition one hundred dollars per lot immediately, and we sold four lots that afternoon and to the next morning. The big Metropolitan newspapers all gave the Westcote Cemetery full page illustrated articles the next Sunday, and we received, during the next week, over three hundred letters, mostly from ministers praising what we had done. But that was not the best of it. Request for lots began to come in by mail. Not only people in Westcote wrote for prices, but people away over in New Jersey and up in Westchester County and even from as far away as Poughkeepsie and Delaware. We had twice as many requests for lots as there were lots to sell, and we decided we would have an auction and let them go to the highest bidders. You see, Remington Solander's talking tomb was becoming nationally famous. We began to negotiate with the owners of six farms adjacent to our cemetery. We figured on buying them and making more additions to the cemetery. And then we found we could not use three of the farms. The reason was that the loudspeaker in Remington Solander's tomb would not carry that far. It wasn't strong enough. So we went to the executors of his estate and ran up against another snag. Nothing in the radio outfit in the tomb could be altered in any way whatsoever. That was in the will. The same loudspeaker had to be maintained. The same wavelength had to be kept. The same makes of batteries had to be used. The same style of tubes had to be used. Remington Solander had thought of all that. So we decided to let well enough alone. It was all we could do anyway. We bought the farms that were reached by the loudspeaker and had them surveyed and laid out in lots. And then the thing happened. Yes, sir. I'll sell my cemetery stock for two cents on the dollar if anybody will bid that much for it. But what do you think happened? Along came the government of the United States regulating this radio thing and assigned new wavelengths to all the broadcasting stations. It gave Remington Solander's endowed broadcasting station WZZZ an 855 meter wavelength. And it gave that station at Doddwood station PKX the 327 meter wavelength. The next day, poor old Remington Solander's tomb poured forth. Yes, we ain't got no bananas and the hot dog jazz. And if you don't see mama every night, you can't see mama at all and hink tubs in his funny stories like well one day an Irish man in a swede were walking down Broadway and they see a flapper coming towards them. And she had on one of them short skirts they was wearing. See, so Mike, he says, Gibi Jabba's Oh, I see a peach. So the sweet he says looking at the silk stockings. Maybe you've been see a peach, Mike, but I've been see one mighty nice pair. Well, the other day I went to see my mother-in-law, you know the sort of program. I don't say that the people who like them are not entitled to them. But I do say they're not the sort of programs to loudspeak from a tomb in a cemetery. I expect all Remington Solander turn clear over in his tomb when those programs began to come through. I know our board of trustees went right up in the air, but there was not a thing we could do about it. The newspapers gave us double pages the next Sunday. Remington Solander's jazz tune and Westcote's two step cemetery. Within a week, the inmates of our cemetery began to move out. Friends of people who had been buried over 100 years came and moved them to other cemeteries and took the headstones and monuments with them. And in a month, our cemetery looked like one of those great war battlefields, like a lot of shell holes. Not a man, woman, or child was left in the place, except Remington Solander and his granite tomb on top of the high knoll. What we've got on our hands is a deserted cemetery. They all blame me, but I can't do anything about it. All I can do is groan. Every morning, I grab the paper and look for the PKX program and then I groan. Remington Solander is the lucky man. He's dead. End of Solander's radio tune by Ellis Parker Butler, recording by Steve Anderson, Jacksonville, Florida.