 7 Michael Cavendish, 2027 Mike was just coming through the clump of trees when the boy began to wave at him. He shifted the clumsy old Jeffrey 475 cursing the weight as he quickened his pace. But there was no help for it. He had to carry the gun himself. None of the boys were big enough. He wondered what it had been like in the old days when you could get full-sized bearers. There used to be game all over the place too, and a white hunter was king. And what was there left now? Nothing but pygmies, all of them, scaring around and beating the brush for dibotags and geronics. When he was still a boy, Mike had seen the last of the big antelopes go, the last of the wildebeests and zebra too. Then the carnivores followed, the lions and the leopards. Simba was dead. And just as well, these natives would never dare to come out of the villages if they knew any lions were left. Most of them had gone to Cape and the other cities anyway. Handling cattle was too much of a chore except on a government farm. Those cows looked like moving mountains alongside the average boy. Of course there were still some of the older generation left. Kikuyu and even a few Watusi. But the free inoculations had begun many years ago, and the life-cycle moved at an accelerated pace here. Natives grew old and died at thirty. They matured at fifteen. Now with the shortage of game the elders perished still more swiftly and only the young remained outside the cities and the farm projects. Mike smiled as he waited for the boy to come up to him. He wasn't smiling at the boy. He was smiling at himself for being here. He ought to be in Cape too, or Kenya Roby. Damn silly this business of being a white hunter when there was nothing left to hunt. But somehow he'd stayed on since dad died. There were a few compensations. At least here in the forest a man could still move about a bit, taste privacy and solitude and the strange exotic tropical fruit called loneliness. Even that was vanishing today. It was compensation enough, perhaps, for lugging this damned Jeffery. Mike tried to remember the last time he'd fired it at a living target. A year? Two years? Yes, almost two. That gorilla up in Ruinzori country. At least the boys swore it wasn't Gagi. He hadn't hit it anyway, got away in the darkness. Probably he'd been shooting at a shadow. There were no more gorillas. Maybe they'd been taking the shots too. Perhaps they'd all turned into Reese's monkeys. Mike watched the boy run towards him. It was a good five hundred yards from the river bank and the short brown legs couldn't move very swiftly. He wondered what it felt like to be small. One's sense of proportion must be different and that in turn would affect one's sense of values. What values applied to the world about you when you were only three feet high? Mike wouldn't know. He was a big man. Almost five feet seven. Sometimes Mike reflected on what things might be like if he'd been born, say, twenty years later. By that time almost everyone would be a product of left shots and he'd be no exception. He might stay with people his own age in Kenya Roby without feeling self-conscious, clumsy, conspicuous. Pressed, he had to admit that was part of the reason he preferred to remain out here at Dad's old place. He could tolerate the stares of the natives, but whenever he ventured into a city he felt awkward under the scrutiny of the young people. The way those teenagers looked up at him made him feel a monster rather. Better to endure the monotony, the emptiness out here, yes, and wait for a chance to hunt. Even though nine times out of ten it turned out to be a wild goose chase. During the past year or so Mike had hunted nothing but legends and rumors, spent his time stalking shadows. Then the villagers had come to him three days ago with their wild story. Even when he heard it he realized it must be pure fable and the more they insisted, the more they protested, the more he realized it simply couldn't be. Still he'd come, anything to experience some action, anything to create the illusion of purpose, of Tembo shriek the boy, excited beyond all pretence of caution. Up ahead, in the river, you come quick, you see. No, it couldn't be. The government surveys were thorough. The last record of a specimen dated back over a half dozen years ago. It was impossible that any survivors remained, and all during the safari these past days, not a sign or a print or a spore. Tembo shriek the boy. Come quick! Mike cradled the gun and started forward. The other bearers shuffled behind him, unable to keep pace because of their short legs, and he suspected unwilling to do so for fear of what might lie ahead. Halfway towards the river bank, Mike halted. Now he could hear the rumbling, the unmistakable rumbling, and now he could smell the rank mustiness born on the hot breeze. Well, at least he was downwind. The boy behind him trembled, eyes wide. He had seen something all right. Maybe just a crocodile, though. Still some crocs around, and he doubted if any young native would know the difference. Nevertheless, Mike felt a sudden urge of unfamiliar excitement, half expectancy and half fear. Something wallowed in the river, something that rumbled and exuded the stench of life. Now they were approaching the trees bordering the bank. Mike checked his gun carefully. Then he advanced until his body was aligned with the trees. From here he could see and not be seen. He could peer down at the river, or the place where the river had been during the rainy season long past. Now it was nothing but a mud-wallow under the glaring sun, a huge mud-wallow pitted with deep circular indentations and dotted with dung. But in the middle of it stood Tembo. Tembo was a mountain. Tembo was a black block of breathing basalt. Tembo roared and snorted and rolled red eyes. Mike gasped. He was a white hunter, but he'd never seen a bull-elephant before, and this one stood eleven feet at the shoulders of it stood an inch, the biggest creature walking the face of the earth. It had risen from the mud, abandoned its wallowing as its trunk curled about, sensitive to the unfamiliar scent of man. Its ears rose like the outspread wings of some gigantic jungle bat. Mike could see the flies buzzing around the ragged edges. He stared at the great tusks that were veined and yellowed and broken. Once men had hunted elephants for ivory, he remembered. But how could they, even with guns, how had they dared to confront a moving mountain? Mike tried to swallow, but his throat was dry. The stock slipped through his clammy hands. Shoot, implored the boy beside him. You shoot now! Mike gazed down. The elephant was aware of him. It turned deliberately, staring up the bank as it swayed on the four black pillars of its legs. Mike could see its eyes set in a mass of grayish wrinkles. The eyes had recognized him. They knew, he realized. The eyes knew all about him, who he was and what he was and what he had come here to do. The eyes had seen man before, perhaps long before Mike was born. They understood everything, the gun and the presence and the purpose. Shoot! the boy cried, not bothering to hold his voice down any longer, for the elephant was moving slowly towards the side of the wallow, moving deliberately to firmer footing. And the boy was afraid. Mike was afraid too, but he couldn't shoot. No, he murmured. Let him go. I can't kill him. You must, the boy said. You promised. Look, all the meat. Meat for two, three villages! Mike shook his head. I can't do it, he said. That isn't meat. That's life. Bigger life than we are. Don't you understand? Oh, the bloody hell with it. Come on! The boy wasn't listening to him. He was watching the elephant, and now he started to tremble. For the elephant was moving up onto solid ground. It moved slowly, taintily, almost mincing as its legs sampled the surface of the shore. Then it looked up, and this time there was no doubt as to the direction of its gaze. It stared intently at Mike and the boy on the bank. Its ears fanned, then flared. Suddenly the elephant raised its trunk and trumpeted fiercely. And then, lowering the black battering ram of its head, the beast came forward, a deceptively slow lope, a scarcely accelerating trot, and then, all at once, it was moving swiftly, swiftly and surely, and inexorably toward them. The angle of the bank was not steep, and the elephant's speed never slackened on the slope. Its right shoulder struck a sapling, and the sapling splintered. It was crashing forward in full charge. Again it trumpeted, trunk extended like a flail of doom. Shoot! The boy screamed. Mike didn't want to shoot. He wanted to run. He wanted to flee the mountain, flee the incredible breathing bulk of this grotesque giant. But he was a white hunter. He was a man. And a man is not a beast. A man does not run away from life in any shape or size. The trunk came up. Mike raised the gun. He heard the monster roar far away, and then he heard another sound that must be the gun's discharge, and something hit him in the shoulder and knocked him down. Recoil? Yes, because the elephant wasn't there anymore. He could hear the crashing and thrashing down below over the rim of the riverbank. Mike stood up. He saw the boy running now, running back to the bearers, huddled along the edge of the trail. He rubbed his shoulder, picked up his gun, reloaded. The sounds from below had ceased. Slowly Mike advanced to the lip of the bank and stared down. The bull elephant had fallen and rolled into the wallow once more. It had taken a direct hit just beneath the right ear, and even as Mike watched, its trunk writhed feebly like a dying serpent, then fell forward into the mud. The gigantic ears twitched and flicked and flopped and the huge body rolled and settled. Suddenly Mike began to cry. Damn it! He hadn't wanted to shoot. If the elephant hadn't charged like that. But the elephant had to charge, just as he had to shoot. That was the whole secret, the secret of life and the secret of death, too. Mike turned away, facing the east. Kenya Roby was east, and he'd be going there now. Nothing to hold him here in the forests any longer. He wouldn't even wait for the big feast, to hell with the elephant meat anyway. His hunting days were over. Mike walked slowly up the trail to the waiting boys, and behind him, in the wallow, the flies settled down on the lifeless carcass of the last elephant in the world. Chapter 8 Harry Collins, 2029 The guards at Stark Falls were under strict orders not to talk. Each prisoner here was exercised alone in a courtyard runway, and meals were served in the cells. The cells were comfortable enough, and while there were no telescreens, books were available. Genuine, old-style books, which must have been preserved from libraries dismantled fifty years ago or more. Harry Collins found no titles dated later than 1975. Every day or so, an attendant wheeled around a cart piled high with the dusty volumes. Harry read to pass the time. At first he kept anticipating his trial, but after a while he almost forgot about that possibility, and it was well over a year before he got a chance to tell his story to anyone. When his opportunity came, his audience did not consist of judge or jury, doctor, lawyer, or penologist. He spoke only to Richard Wade, a fellow prisoner who had been thrust into the adjoining cell on the evening of October 11, 2013. Harry spoke haltingly at first, but as he progressed the words came more easily, and emotion lent its own eloquence. His unseen auditor on the other side of the wall did not interrupt or question him. It was enough for Harry that there was someone to listen at last. So it wasn't a bit like I expected, he concluded. No trial, no publicity. I've never seen laughing well again, nor Manshaw. Nobody questioned me. By the time I recovered consciousness I was here in prison, buried alive. Richard Wade spoke slowly for the first time. You're lucky. They might have shot you down on the spot. That's just what bothers me, Harry told him. Why didn't they kill me? Why lock me up in Communicado this way? There aren't many prisons left these days with food and space at such a premium. There are no prisons left at all officially, Wade said, just as there are no longer any cemeteries. But important people are still given private burials and their remains secretly preserved. All a matter of influence. I've no influence. I'm not important. Wouldn't you think they'd consider it risky to keep me alive under the circumstances? If there'd ever be an investigation, who would investigate? Not the government, surely. But suppose there's a political turnover. Suppose Congress wants to make capital of the situation. There is no Congress. Harry gasped. No Congress? As of last month it was dissolved. Henceforth we are governed by the cabinet, with authority delegated to department heads. But that's preposterous. Nobody'd stand still for something like that. They did stand still, most of them, after a year of careful preparation of wholesale exposés of congressional graft and corruption and inefficiency. Turned out that Congress was the villain all along. The Senators and Representatives had finagled tariff barriers and restrictive trade agreements which kept our food supply down. They were opposing International Federation. In plain language, people were sold a bill of goods. Get rid of Congress and you'll have more food. That did it. But you'd think the politicians themselves would realize that they were cutting their own throats. The state legislatures and the governors, legislatures were dissolved by the same agreement, Wade went on. There are no states anymore, just governmental districts based upon sensible considerations of area and population. This isn't the old-time expanding economy based on obsolescence and conspicuous consumption. The primary problem at the moment is sheer survival. In a way, the move makes sense. Old-fashioned political machinery couldn't cope with the situation. There's no time for debate when instantaneous decisions are necessary to international welfare. You've heard how civil liberties were suspended during the old wars. Well, there's a war on right now. A war against hunger. A war against the forces of fecundity. In another dozen years or so, when the left shot generation is full grown and a lot of the elderly have died off, the tensions will ease. Meanwhile, quick action is necessary. Arbitrary action. But you're defending dictatorship. Richard Wade made a sound which is usually accompanied by a derisive shrug. Am I? Well, I didn't when I was outside, and that's why I'm here now. Harry Collins cleared his throat. What did you do? If you refer to my profession, I was a scripter. If you refer to my alleged criminal activity, I made the error of thinking the way you do, and the worse error of attempting to inject such attitudes in my scripts. Seems that when Congress was formerly dissolved, there was some notion of preparing a timely show, a sort of historical review of the body using old film clips. What my superiors had in mind was a comedy of errors, a cavalcade of mistakes and misdeeds showing just why we were better off without supporting a political sideshow. Well, I carried out the assignment and edited the films, but when I drafted a rough commentary, I made the mistake of taking both a pro and con slant. Nothing like that ever reached the telescreens, of course, but what I did was promptly noted. They came for me at once and hustled me off here. I didn't get a hearing or a trial either. But why didn't they execute you? Or, Harry hesitated, is that what you expect? Why didn't they execute you, Wade shot back? He was silent for a moment before continuing. No, I don't expect anything like that now. They'd have done it on the spot if they intended to do so at all. No, I've got another idea about people like you and myself, and about some of the congressmen and senators who dropped out of sight, too. I think we're being stockpiled. Stockpiled? It's all part of a plan. Give me a little time to think. We can talk again later. Wade chuckled once more. Looks as if there'll be ample opportunity in the future. And there was. In the months ahead, Harry spoke frequently with his friend behind the wall. He never saw him. Prisoners at Stark Falls were exercised separately, and there was no group assembly or recreation. Surprisingly adequate meals were served in surprisingly comfortable cells. In the matter of necessities, Harry had no complaints. And now that he had someone to talk to, the time seemed to go more swiftly. He learned a great deal about Richard Wade during the next few years. Mostly, Wade liked to reminisce about the old days. He talked about working for the networks. The commercial networks, privately owned, which flourished before the government took over communications media in the 80s. That's where you got your start, eh? Harry asked. Lord, no, boy. I'm a lot more ancient than you think. Why, I'm pushing 65, born in 1940. That's right, during World War II. I can almost remember the atomic bomb. And I sure as hell remember the Sputniks. It was a crazy period, let me tell you. The pessimists worried about the Russians blowing us up. And the optimists were sure we had a glorious future in the conquest of space. Ever hear that old fable about the blind man examining an elephant? Well, that's the way most people were. Each of them groping around and trying to determine the exact shape of things to come. A few of us even made a little money from it for a while, writing science fiction. That's how I got my start. You were a writer? Sold my first story when I was 18 or so. Kept on writing off and on for almost 20 years. Of course, Robertson's thermonuke formula came along in 75, and after that everything went to pot. It knocked out the chances of future war. But it also knocked out the interest in speculation or escape fiction. So I moved over into television for a while and stayed with it. But the old science fiction was fun while it lasted. Ever read any of it? No, Harry admitted. That was all before my time. Tell me, though, did any of it make sense? I mean, did some of those writers foresee what was really going to happen? There were plenty of penny-profits in Nicol Mastradamus's, Wade told him. But as I said, most of them were assuming war with the communists or a new era of space travel. Since communism collapsed and spaceflight was just an expensive journey to a dead end and dead worlds, it followed that the majority of fictional futures were founded on fallacies. And all the rest of the extrapolations dealt with superficial social manifestations. For example, they wrote about civilizations dominated by advertising and mass motivation techniques. It's true that during my childhood this seemed to be a logical trend. But once demand exceeded supply, the whole mechanism of stimulating demand, which was advertising's chief function, bogged down. And mass motivation techniques today are dedicated almost entirely to maintaining minimum resistance to a system ensuring our survival. Another popular idea was based on the notion of an expanding matriarchy. A gerontomatriarchy, rather, in which older women would take control. In an age when women outlived men by a number of years this seemed possible. Now, of course, shortened working hours and medical advances have equalized the lifespan. And since private property has become less and less of a factor in dominating our collective destinies, it hardly matters whether the male or female has the upper hand. Then there was the common theory that technological advances would result in a push-button society where automatons would do all the work. And so they might if we had an unlimited supply of raw materials to produce robots and unlimited power sources to activate them. As we now realize, atomic power cannot be utilized on a minute scale. Last but not least, there was the concept of a medically oriented system with particular emphasis on psychotherapy, neurosurgery, and parapsychology. The world was going to be run by telepaths. Psychosis eliminated by brainwashing, intellect developed by hypnotic suggestion. It sounded great, but the conquest of physical disease has occupied the medical profession almost exclusively. No, what they all seemed to overlook with only a few exceptions was the population problem. You can't run a world through advertising when there are so many people that there aren't enough goods to go around anyway. You can't turn it over to big business when big government has virtually absorbed all of the commercial and industrial functions just to cope with an ever-growing demand. A matriarchy loses its meaning when the individual family unit changes character under the stress of an increasing population pressure which eliminates the old-fashioned home, family circle, and social pattern. And the more we must conserve dwindling natural resources for people, the less we can expend on experimentation with robots and machinery. As for the psychologist-dominated society, there are just too many patients and not enough physicians. I don't have to remind you that the military cast lost its chance of control when war disappeared, and that religion is losing ground every day. Class lines are vanishing and racial distinctions will be going next. The old idea of a world federation is becoming more and more practical. Once the political barriers are down, miscegenation will finish the job. But nobody seemed to foresee this particular future. They all made the mistake of worrying about the hydrogen bomb instead of the sperm bomb. Harry nodded thoughtfully, although Wade couldn't see his response. But isn't it true that there's a little bit of each of these concepts in our actual situation today, he asked? I mean, government and business are virtually one and the same, and they do use propaganda techniques to control all media. As for scientific research, look at how we've rebuilt our cities and developed synthetics for food and fuel and clothing and shelter. When it comes to medicine, there's lefting well in his inoculations. Isn't that all along the lines of your early science fiction? Where's your underground? Richard Wade demanded. My what? Your underground, Wade repeated. Hell, every science fiction yarn about a future society has its underground. That was the whole gimmick in the plot. The hero was a conformist who tangled with the social order. Come to think of it, that's what you did years ago. Only instead of becoming an impotent victim of the system, he'd meet up with the underground movement. Not some sour ball like your friend Richie, who tried to operate on his own hook without real plans or system, but a complete sub-rosa organization, bent on starting a revolution and taking over. There'd be wise old priests and wise old crooks and wise old officers and wise old officials all playing a double game and planning a coup. Spies all over the place, get me? And in no time at all, our hero would be playing tag with the top figures in the government. That's how it all worked out in all the stories. But what happens in real life? What happened to you, for example? You fell for a series of stupid tricks, stupidly perpetrated, because the people in power are people, and not the kind of synthetic super intellects dreamt up by frustrated fiction fabricators. You found out that the logical candidates to constitute an underground were the naturalists. Again, they were just ordinary individuals with no genius for organization. As for coming in contact with key figures, you were actually on hand when Leffingwell completed his experiments, and you came back years later to hunt him down, very much in the heroic tradition, I admit. But you never saw the man except through the telescopic sights of your rifle. That was the end of it. No modern day Machiavelli has hauled you in to play cat and mouse games with you, and no futuristic Freud has bothered to wash your brain or soft-soap your subconscious. You just aren't that important, Collins. But they put me in a special prison. Why? Who knows? They put me here, too. You said something once about stockpiling us. What did you mean? Well, it was just an old science fiction idea. I suppose I'll tell you about it tomorrow, eh? And so the matter and Harry Collins rested for the night. The next day Richard Wade was gone. Harry called to him, and there was no answer. He cried out, and he cursed, and he paced his cell, and he walked alone in the courtyard, and he begged the impassive guards for information. And he sweated, and he talked to himself, and he counted the days, and he lost count of the days. Then, all at once, there was another prisoner in the adjacent cell, and his name was William Chang, and he was a biologist. He was reticent about the crime he had committed, but quite voluble about the crimes committed by others in the world outside. Much of what he said about genes and chromosomes and recessive characteristics and mutation seemed incomprehensible to Harry. But in their talks, one thing emerged clearly enough. Chang was concerned for the future of the race. Leftingwell should have waited, he said. It's the second generation that will be important, as I tried to tell my people. Is that why you're here? Chang sighed. I suppose so. They wouldn't listen, of course. Overpopulation has always been the curse of Asia, and this seemed to be such an obvious solution, but who knows? The time may come when they need men like myself. So you were stockpiled, too. What's that? Harry told him about Richard Wade's remarks, and together they tried to puzzle out the theory behind them. But not for long, because once again Harry Collins awoke in the morning to find the adjoining cell empty, and once again he was alone for a long time. At last a new neighbor came. His name was Lars Nillstrom. Nillstrom talked to him of ships and shoes and sealing wax, and the thousand and one things men will discuss in their loneliness and frustration, including, inevitably, their reason for being here. Nillstrom had been an instructor under vocational apt, and he was at a loss to explain his presence at Stark Falls. When Harry spoke of the stockpiling theory, his fellow prisoner demured. It's more like Kafka than science fiction, he said, but then I don't suppose you've ever read any Kafka. Yes I have, Harry told him. Since I came here I've done nothing but read old books. Lately they've been giving me micro scans. I've been studying up on biology and genetics. Talking to Chen got me interested. In fact, I'm really going in for self-education. There's nothing else to do. Self-education. That's the only method left nowadays. Nillstrom sounded bitter. I don't know what's going to become of our heritage of knowledge in the future. I'm not speaking of technological skill, so-called scientific information is carefully preserved, but the humanities are virtually lost. The concept of the well-rounded individual is forgotten, and when I think of the crisis to come, what crisis? A new generation is growing up. Ten or fifteen years from now we'll have succeeded in erasing political and racial and religious divisions, but there'll be a new and more dangerous differentiation, a physical one. What do you think will happen when half the world is around six feet tall and the other half under three? I can't imagine. Well, I can. The trouble is most people don't realize what the problem will be. Things have moved too swiftly. Why, there were more changes in the last hundred years than in the previous thousand, and the rate of acceleration increases. Up until now we've been concerned about too rapid technological development, but what we have to worry about is social development. Most people have been conditioned to conform. Yes, that's our job in vocational apt, but the system only works when there's a single standard of conformity. In a few years there'll be a double one, based on size. What then? Harry wanted some time to consider the matter, but the question was never answered, because Lars Nielstrom went away in the night as had his predecessors before him, and in succeeding interludes Harry came to know a half a dozen other transient occupants of the cell next to his. They came from all over, and they had many things to discuss, but always there was the problem of why they were there, and the memory of Richard Wade's premise concerning stockpiling. There came a time when the memory of Richard Wade merged with the memory of Arnold Ritchie. The past was a dim montage of life at the agency and the treatment center and the ranch, a recollection of lying on the riverbank with women in attitudes of apathotnes, or of lying against the boulders with a rifle. Somewhere there was an image of a child's wide eyes and a voice saying, My name is Harry Collins, but that seemed very far away. What was real was the cell and the years of talking and reading the micro scans and trying to find a pattern. Harry found himself describing it all to a newcomer who said his name was Austin, a soft-voiced man who became a resident of the next cell one day in 2029, and eventually he came to Wade's theory. Maybe there were a few wiser heads who foresaw a coming crisis, he concluded. Maybe they anticipated a time when they might need a few nonconformists, people like ourselves who haven't been passive or persuaded. Maybe we're the government's insurance policy. If an emergency arises, we'll be freed. And then what would you do? Austin asked softly. You're against the system, aren't you? Yes, but I'm for survival. Harry Collins spoke slowly, thoughtfully. You see, I've learned something through the years of study and contact here. Rebellion is not the answer. You hated Leffingwell? Yes, I did, until I realized that all this was inevitable. Leffingwell is not a villain, and neither is any given individual in or out of our government. Our road to hell has been paved with only the very best of intentions. Killing the engineers and contractors will not get us off that road, and we're all on it together. We'll have to find a way of changing the direction of our journey. The young people will be too anxious to merely rush blindly ahead. Most of my generation will be sheep-like, moving as part of the herd because of their conditioning. Only we, old-time rebels, will be capable of plotting a course. A course for all of us. What about your son, Austin asked? I'm thinking of him, Harry Collins answered, of him and of all the others. Maybe he does not need me. Maybe none of them need me. Maybe it's all an illusion. But if the time ever comes, I'll be ready. And meanwhile I can hope. The time has come, Austin said gently. And then he was standing miraculously enough outside his cell, and before the door to Harry's cell. And the door was opening. And once again Harry stared into the wide eyes he remembered so well. The same wide eyes set in the face of a full-grown man. A full-grown man, three feet tall. He stood up shakily as the man held out his hand and said, Hello, Father. But I don't understand. I've waited a long time for this moment. I had to talk to you, find out how you really felt, so that I'd be sure. Now you're ready to join us. What's happening? What do you want with me? We'll talk later, Harry's son smiled. Right now I'm taking you home. End of Chapter 8 Of This Crowded Earth By Robert Block Chapter 9 Of This Crowded Earth By Robert Block This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Reading by Greg Marguerite This Crowded Earth By Robert Block Chapter 9 Eric Donovan 2031 Eric was glad to get to the office and shut the door. Lately he'd had this feeling whenever he went out, this feeling that people were staring at him. It wasn't just his imagination. They did stare. Every younger person over a yard high got stared at nowadays as if they were freaks. And it wasn't just the staring that got him down, either. Sometimes they muttered and mumbled, and sometimes they called names. Eric didn't mind stuff like dirty naturalist. That he could understand. Once upon a time, way back, everybody who was against the left law was called a naturalist. And before that it had still another meaning, or so he'd been told. Today, of course, it just meant anyone who was over five feet tall. No, he could take the ordinary name-calling all right, but sometimes they said other things. They used words nobody ever uses unless they really hate you and want to kill you. And that was at the bottom of it. Eric knew. They did hate him. They did want to kill him. Was he a coward? Perhaps. But it wasn't just Eric's imagination. You never saw anything about such things on the telescreens, but naturalists were being killed every day. The older people were still in the majority, but the youngsters were coming up fast, and there were so many more of them. Besides, they were more active, and this created the illusion that there were yardsticks everywhere. Eric sat down behind his desk, grinning. Yardsticks. When he was a kid, it had been just the other way around. He and the rest of them who didn't get shots in those early days considered themselves to be the normal ones. And they did the name-calling. Names like Runt and Halfpint and Midgy. But the most common name was the one that stuck. Yardstick. That used to be the worst insult of all. But now it wasn't an insult anymore. Being taller was the insult. Being a dirty naturalist or a son of a naturalist. Times certainly had changed. Eric glanced at the communicator almost noon, and it had not flicked yet. There he'd been, beaming these big offers. You'd think he'd get some response to an expensive beaming program, but no. Maybe that was the trouble. Nobody liked big things anymore. Everything was small. He shifted uneasily in his chair. That was one consolation, at least. He still had old-time furniture. Getting to be harder and harder to find stuff that fitted him these days. Seemed like most of the firms making furniture and bedding and household appliances were turning out the small stuff for the younger generation. Cheaper to make, less material, and more demand for it. Government allocated size priorities to the manufacturers. It was even murder to ride public transportation because of the space reductions. Eric drove his own jetter. Besides, that way was safer. Crowded into a liner with a gang of yardsticks with only a few other naturalists around, there might be trouble. Oh, it was getting to be a yardstick world and no mistake. Smaller furniture, smaller meals, smaller sizes in clothing, smaller buildings. That reminded Eric of something, and he frowned again. Damn it! Why didn't the communicator flick? He should be getting some kind of inquiries. Hell, he was practically giving the space away. But there was only silence as there had been all during this past week. That's why he let Loretto go. Sweet girl, but there was no work for her here anymore. No work and no pay, either. Besides, the place spooked her. She'd been the one who suggested leaving, really. Eric, I'm sorry, but I just can't take this anymore. All alone in this huge building, it's curling my toes. At first he tried to talk her out of it. Don't be silly, luscious. There's Bernstein down on ten, and Salt and Stahl above us, and Wallaby and Son on fourteen. I tell you, this place is coming back to life. I can feel it. I'll beam for tenants next week. You'll see. Actually, he'd been talking against his own fear, and Lorette must have known it. Anyway, she left. And now he was here, alone. Alone. Eric didn't like the sound of that word, or the absence of sound behind it. Three other tenants in a ninety-story building. Three other tenants in a place that had once held three thousand. Why, fifty years ago, when this place went up, you couldn't buy a vacancy. Where had the crowds gone to? He knew the answer, of course. The Left Shots had created the new generation of yardsticks, and they lived in their own world, their shrunken, dehydrated world of doll houses and miniatures. They deserted the old-fashioned skyscrapers, and cut the big apartment buildings up into tiny cubicles. Two could occupy the space formally reserved for one. That had been the purpose of the Left Shots in the first place, to put an end to overcrowding and conserve on resources. Well, it had worked out. Worked out too perfectly for people like Eric Donovan. Eric Donovan, rental agent for a building nobody wanted anymore, a ninety-story mausoleum, and nobody could collect rent from ghosts. Ghosts. Eric Damnear jumped through the ceiling when the door opened and this man walked in. He was tall and toe-headed. Eric stared. There was something vaguely familiar about his face. Something about those ears. That was it, those ears. No, it couldn't be. It wasn't possible. Eric stood up and held out his hand. I'm Donovan, he said. The toe-headed man smiled and nodded. Yes, I know. Don't you remember me? I thought I knew you from some place. You wouldn't be Sam Walzik. The toe-headed man's smile became a broad grin. That's not what you were going to say, Eric. You were going to say, Handlehead, weren't you? Well, go on, say it. I don't mind. I've been called a lot worse things since we were kids together. I can't believe it, Eric Mermit. It's really you, old Handlehead Walzik. And after all these years turning up to rent an office from me, well, what do you know? I didn't come here to rent an office. Oh, then it was your name that brought me. I recognized it on the beemings. This is a social call, eh? Well, that's good. I don't get much company these days. Sit down and have a reef. Walzik sat down but refused the smoke. I know quite a bit about your setup, he said. You and your three tenants. It's tough, Eric. Oh, things could be worse. Eric forced to laugh. It isn't as if my bucks depended on the number of tenants in the building. Government subsidizes this place. I'm sure of a job as long as I live. As long as you live, Walzik stared at him in a way he didn't like. And just how long do you figure that to be? I'm only 26, Eric answered, according to statistics that gives me maybe another 60 years. Statistics. Walzik said it like a dirty word. Your life expectancy isn't determined by statistics anymore. I say you don't have 60 months left, perhaps not even 60 days. What are you trying to hand me? The truth. And don't go looking for a silver platter underneath it, either. But I mind my own business. I don't hurt anybody. Why should I be in any danger? Why does a government subsidy support one rental manager to sit here in this building every day, but ten guards to patrol it every night? Eric opened his mouth wide before shaping it for speech. Who told you that? Like I said, I know the setup. Walzik crossed his legs, but he didn't lean back. And in case you haven't guessed it, this is a business call, not a social one. Eric sighed. Might have figured, he said. You're a naturalist, aren't you? Of course I am. We all are. Not I. Oh yes, whether you like it or not, you're a naturalist too. As far as the yardsticks are concerned, everyone over three feet high is a naturalist, an enemy, someone to be hated and destroyed. Think I'd believe that? Sure. I know they don't like us. And why should they? We eat twice as much, we take up twice the space, and I guess when we were kids we gave a lot of them a hard time. Besides, outside of a few exceptions like ourselves, all the younger generation are yardsticks with more coming every year. The older people hold the key positions in the power. Of course there's a lot of friction and resentment, but you know all that. Certainly Walzik nodded, all that and more, much more. I know that up until a few years ago, no yardstick held any public office or government position. Now they're starting to move in, particularly in Europe Asia. But there's so many of them now, adults in their early 20s, that the pressure is building up. They're impatient, getting out of hand. They won't wait until the old folks die off. They want control now. And if they ever manage to get it, we're finished for good. Impossible, Eric said. Impossible? Walzik's voice was a mocking echo. You sit there in this tomb and when somebody tells you that the world you know has died, you refuse to believe it. Even though every night after you sneak home and huddle up inside your room, trying not to be noticed, ten guards patrol this place with subatomics so the yardstick gangs won't break in and take over. So they won't do what they did down south, overrun the office buildings and the factories, and break them up, cut them down to size for living quarters. But they were stopped, Eric objected. I saw it on the telescreen. The security forces stopped them. Crap, Bola! Walzik pronounced the archaicism with studied care. You saw films, faked films. Have you ever traveled, Eric, been down south and seen conditions there? Nobody travels nowadays. You know that. Priorities. I travel, Eric, and I know. Security forces don't suppress anything in the south these days, because they're made up of yardsticks now. That's right. Yardsticks exclusively. And in a few years, that's the way it will be up here. Did you ever hear about the Chicago riots? You mean last year when the yardsticks tried to take over the synthetic plants at the stockyards? Tried. They succeeded. The workers' ousted management. Over 50,000 were killed in the revolution. Oh, don't look so shocked. That's the right word for it. But the yardsticks won out in the end. But the telescreens showed, damn the telescreens. I know, because I happened to be there when it happened. And if you had been there, you and a few million other ostriches who sit with your heads buried in telescreens, maybe we could have stopped them. I don't believe it. I can't. All right. Think back. That was last year. And since the first of this year, what's happened to the standard size meat ration? They cut it in half, Eric admitted, but that's because of ag shortages, according to the telescreen reports. He stood up gulping. Look here. I'm not going to listen to any more of this kind of talk. By rights, I ought to turn your name in. Go ahead. Walzak waved his hand. It's happened before. I was reported when I blasted the yardsticks who shot my father down when he tried to land his jet in a southern field. I was reported when they killed Annette. Annette? You remember that name, don't you, Eric? Your first girl, wasn't she? Well, I'm the guy who married her. Yes, and I'm the guy who talked her into having a baby without the benefit of left shots. Sure, it's illegal and only a few of us ever try it anymore, but we both agreed that we wanted it that way. A real life-sized normal baby, or abnormal, according to the yardsticks and the stupid government. It was a dirty scum of a government doctor who let her die on the table when he discovered the child weighed seven pounds. That's when I really woke up, Eric. That's when I knew there was going to be only one decision to make in the future. Kill or be killed. Annette, she died, you say? Walzak moved over and put his hand on Eric's shoulder. You never married her, did you, Eric? I think I know why. It's because you felt the way I did about it. You wanted a regular kid, not a yardstick. Only you didn't quite have the guts to try and beat the law. Well, you'll need guts now, because it's getting to the point where the law can't protect you anymore. The government is made up of old men, and they're afraid to take action. In a few years they'll be pushed out of office all over the world. We'll have yardstick government then, all the way, and yardstick law. And that means they'll cut us down to size. But what can you—we do about it. Plenty. There's still a little time if we naturalists can only get together. Stop being just a name and become an organized force. Maybe the ending will be different. We've got to try, in any case. The yardsticks are human beings, just like us, Eric said slowly. We can't just declare war on them, wipe them out. It's not their fault. They were born that way. Walzak nodded. I know. Nothing is anybody's fault, really. This whole business began in good faith. Lefting well, and some of the other geniuses saw a problem, and offered what they sincerely believed was a solution. But it didn't work, Eric murmured. Wrong. It worked only too well. That's the trouble. Sure, we eliminated our difficulties on the physical level. In less than thirty years we've reached a point where there's no longer any danger of overcrowding or starvation. But the psychological factor is something we can't cope with. We thought we'd ended war and the possibilities of war a long time ago. But it isn't foreign enemies we must fear today. We've created a nation divided into Davids and Goliaths. And David and Goliath are always enemies. David killed Goliath, Eric said. Does that mean we're going to die? Only if we're as stupid as Goliath was, only if we wear our telescreens like invisible armor and pay no attention to the slingshots in David's hands. Eric lit a wreath. All right, he said. You don't have to lecture. I'm willing to join. But I'm no Goliath. Really, I never had a fight in my life. What could I do to help? You're a rental agent. You have the keys to this building. The guards don't bother you by day, do they? You come and go as you please. That means you can get into the cellars. You can help us move the stuff down there, and we'll take care of the guards some night after that. I don't understand. The friendly pressure on Eric's shoulder became a fierce grip. You don't have to understand. All you do is let us plant the stuff in the cellars and let us get rid of the guards afterwards in our own way. The yardsticks will do the rest. You mean take over the building when it's not protected? Of course. They'll take it over completely once they see there's no opposition, and they'll remodel it to suit themselves, and within a month there'll be 10,000 yardsticks sitting in this place. The government will never stand still for that. Wake up. It's happening all over all the time, and nothing is being done to prevent it. Security is too weak, and officials are too timid to risk open warfare. So the yardsticks win, and I'm going to see that they win this place. But how will that help us? You don't see it yet, do you? And neither will the yardsticks, until some fine day three or four months from now when we get around to what will be planted in the cellars. Somebody will throw a switch miles away and... boom. Walzac, you couldn't. It's coming. Not only here, but in 50 other places. We've got to fight fire with fire, Eric. It's our only chance. Bring this thing out into the open. Make the government realize this is war, civil war. That's the only way to force them to take real action. We can't do it any other way. It's illegal to organize politically, and petitions do no good. We can't get a hearing. Well, they'll have to listen to the explosions. I just don't know. Maybe you're the one who should have married a net after all. Walzac's voice was cold. Maybe you could have watched her. Watched her scream and beg and die, and never wanted to move a muscle to do anything about it afterwards. Maybe you're the model citizen, Eric. You and the thousands of others who are standing by and letting the yardsticks chop us down one by one. They say in nature it's survival of the fittest. Well, perhaps you're not fit to survive. Eric wasn't listening. She screamed, he said. You heard her scream? Walzac nodded. I can still hear her. I'll always hear her. Eric blinked abruptly. When do we start? Walzac smiled at him. It was a pretty good smile for a man who can always hear screaming. I knew I could count on you, he murmured. Nothing like old friends. Funny, isn't it? Eric tried to match his smile. The way things work out. You and I being kids together, you marrying my girl, and then us meeting up again this way. Yes, said Walzac, and he wasn't smiling now. I guess it's a small world. End of Chapter 9 Of This Crowded Earth By Robert Block Chapter 10 Of This Crowded Earth By Robert Block This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Reading by Greg Marguerite This Crowded Earth By Robert Block Chapter 10 Harry Collins, 2032 Harry's son's house was on the outskirts of Washington near what had once been called Gettysburg. Harry was surprised to find that it was a house, and a rather large one despite the fact that almost all the furniture had been scaled down proportionately to fit the needs of a man three feet high. But then Harry was growing accustomed to surprises. He found a room of his own, ready and waiting on the second floor. Here the furniture was of almost antique vintage, but adequate in size, and here, in an atmosphere of unaccustomed comfort, he could talk. So you're a physician, eh? Harry gazed down into the diminutive face, striving to accept the fact that he was speaking to a mature adult, his own son, his ensues. A grown man and a doctor. It seemed incredible. But then nothing was more incredible than the knowledge that he was actually here in his child's home. We're all specialists in one field or another, his son explained. Every one of us born and surviving during the early experimental period received our schooling under a plan letting well set up. It was part of his conditional agreement that we become wards of the state. He knew the time might come when we'd be needed. But why wasn't all this done openly? You know the answer to that. There was no way of educating us under the prevailing system, and there was always a danger we might be singled out as freaks who must be destroyed, particularly in those early years. So Leffingwell relied on secrecy, just as he did during his experimentation period. You know how you felt about that. You believed innocent people were being murdered. Would you have listened to his explanations, accepted the facts that his work was worth the cost of a few lives so that future billions of human beings might be saved? No. There was no time for explanation or indoctrination. Leffingwell chose concealment. Yes, Harry-Side, I understand that better now, I think, but I couldn't see it then when I tried to kill him. He flushed. And I still can't quite comprehend why he spared me after that attempt. Because he wasn't the monster you thought him to be. When I pleaded with him, You were the one? Harry's son turned away. Yes, when I was told who you really were, I went to him. But I was only a child, remember that, and he didn't spare you out of sentimentality. He had a purpose. A purpose in sending me to prison, letting me rot all these years while I grew up, I and others like myself, and while the world outside changed. Harry's son smiled. Your friend Richard Wade was right, you know. He guessed a great deal of the truth. Leffingwell and Manshawf and the rest of their associates deliberately set out to assemble a select group of non-conformists. Men have specialized talents and outlooks. There were over three hundred of you at Stark Falls. Richard Wade knew why. And so he was dragged off and murdered? Murdered? No, Father. He's very much alive. I assure you, in fact, he'll be here tonight. But why was he taken away so abruptly without any warning? He was needed. There was a crisis when Dr. Leffingwell died. Harry's son sighed. You didn't know about that, did you? There's so much for you to learn. But I'll let him tell you himself when you see him this evening. Richard Wade told him. And so did William Chang and Lars Nielstrom and all the others. During the ensuing weeks, Harry saw each of them again. But Wade's explanation was sufficient. I was right, he said. There was no underground when we were at Stark Falls. What I didn't realize, though, was that there was an overground. Overground? You might call it that. Leffingwell and his staff formed the nucleus. They foresaw the social crisis which lay ahead. When the world became physically divided into the tall and the short, the young and the old, they knew there'd be a need of individuality then. And they did create a stockpile, a stockpile of the younger generation, especially educated, a stockpile of the older generation, carefully selected. We conspicuous rebels were incarcerated and given an opportunity to think the problem through, with limited contact with one another's viewpoints. But why weren't we told the truth at the beginning allowed to meet face to face and make some sensible plans for the future? Harry's son interrupted. Because Dr. Leffingwell realized this would defeat the ultimate purpose. You'd have formed your own in-group as prisoners. Dedicated to your own welfare. There'd be emotional ties. I still don't know what you're talking about. What are we supposed to prepare for now? Richard Wade shrugged. Leffingwell had it all planned. He foresaw that when the first generation of yardsticks, that's what they call themselves, you know, came of age there'd be social unrest. The young people would want to take over and the older generation would try to remain in positions of power. It was his belief that tensions could be alleviated only by proper leadership on both sides. He himself had an important voice in government circles. He set up an arrangement whereby a certain number of posts would be assigned to people of his choice, both young and old. Similarly, in the various professions, there'd be room for appointees he'd select. Given a year or two of training, Leffingwell felt that we'd be ready for these positions. Young men like your son would be placed in key spots where their influence would be helpful with the yardsticks. Older men such as yourself would go into other assignments in communications media chiefly. The skillful use of group psychological techniques could avert open clashes. He predicted a danger period lasting about 20 years, roughly from 2030 to 2050. Once we weathered that span, equilibrium would be regained, as a second and third generation came along and the elders became a small minority. If we did our work well and eliminated the sources of prejudice, friction and hostility, the transition could be made. The overground in governmental circles would finance us. This was Leffingwell's plan, his dream. You speak in the past tense, Harry said. Yes, Wade's voice was harsh. Because Leffingwell is dead of cerebral hemorrhage, and his plan died with him. Oh, we still have some connections in government enough to get men like yourself out of stark falls. But things have moved too swiftly. The yardsticks are already on the march. The people in power, even those we relied upon, are getting frightened. They can't see that there's time left to train us to take over, and frankly I'm afraid most of them have no inclination to give up their present power. They intend to use force. But you talk as though the yardsticks were united. They are uniting and swiftly. Remember the naturalists? Harry nodded slowly. I was one once or I thought I was. You were a liberal. I'm talking about the new naturalists. The ones bent on actual revolution. Revolution? That's the word and that's the situation. It's coming to a head fast. And how will we prevent it? I don't know. Harry's son stared up at him. Most of us believe it's too late to prevent it. Our immediate problem will be survival. The naturalists want control for themselves. The yardsticks intend to destroy the power of the older generation, and we feel that if matters come to a head soon, the government itself may turn on us too. They'll have to. In other words, Harry said, we stand alone. Fall alone more likely, weighed corrected. How many of us are there? About six hundred, said Harry's son, located in private homes throughout this eastern area. If there's violence, we don't have a chance of controlling the situation. But we can survive as I see it. That's our only salvation at the moment. To somehow survive the coming conflict, then perhaps we can find a way to function as lefting well planned. We'll never survive here. They'll use every conceivable weapon. But since there's no open break with the government yet, we could still presumably arrange for transportation facilities. To where? Some spot in which we could weather the storm. What about lefting well's old hideout? The units are still standing, Harry's son nodded. Yes, that's a possibility, but what about food? Grizzik. What? Friend of mine, Harry told him, look, we're going to have to work fast, and yet we've got to do it in a way that won't attract any attention, not even from the government. I suggest we set up an organizing committee and make plans. He frowned. How much time do you think we have? A year or so? Six months, his son hazarded. Four at most, Wade said. Haven't you been getting the full reports on those riots? Pretty soon they'll declare a state of national emergency, and then nobody will be going anywhere. All right, Harry Collins grinned. We'll do it in four months. Actually, as it worked out, they did it in just a day or so under three. Five hundred and forty-two men moved by Jeter to Colorado Springs, then spy helicopter to the canyon hideaway. They moved in small groups a few each week. Harry himself had already established the liaison system, and he was based at Grizzik's ranch. Grizzik was dead, but Bassett and Tom Lowry remained, and they cooperated. Food would be ready for the copters that came out of the canyon. The canyon installation itself was deserted, and the only problem it presented was one of rehabilitation. The first contingent took over. The Jetters carried more than their human cargo. They were filled with equipment of all sorts, microscans and laboratory instruments and devices for communication. By the time the entire group was assembled, they had the necessary implementation for study and research. It was a well-conceived and well-executed operation. To his surprise, Harry found himself acting as the leader of the expedition, and he continued in this capacity after they were established. The irony of the situation did not escape him. To all intents and purposes, he was now ruling the very domain in which he had once languished as a prisoner. But with Wade and Chang and the others, he set up a provisional system which worked out very well, and proved very helpful once the news reached them that open revolt had begun in the world outside. A battered copter landed one evening at dusk, and the wounded pilot poured out his message, then his life's blood. Angelisco was gone. Washington was gone. The naturalists had struck using the old outlawed weapons, and it was the same abroad according to the few garbled reports thereafter obtainable only via ancient shortwave devices. From then on nobody left the canyon except on weekly copter lifts to the ranch grazing lands for fresh supplies. Fortunately, that area was undisturbed, and so were its laconic occupants. They neither knew nor cared what went on in the world outside, what cities were reported destroyed, what forces triumphed, or went down into defeat, what activity or radio activity prevailed. Life in the canyon flowed on, more peacefully than the river cleaving its center. There was much to do, and much to learn. It was actually a monastic existence, compounded of frugality, abstinence, consonance, and devotion to scholarly pursuits. Within a year gardens flourished. Within two years herds grazed the grassy slopes. Within three years cloth was being woven on looms in the ancient way, and most of the homespun arts of an agrarian society had been revived. Men fell sick, and men died, but the survivors lived in amity. Harry Collins celebrated his 60th birthday as the equivalent of a second-year student of medicine, his instructor being his own son. Everyone was studying some subject, acquiring some new skill. One-time rebellious natures and one-time biological oddities alike were united by the common bond of intellectual curiosity. It was, however, no utopia. Some of the younger men wanted women, and there were no women. Some were irked by confinement and wandered off. Three of the fleet of eleven copters were stolen by groups of malcontents. From time to time there would be a serious quarrel. Six men were murdered. The population dwindled to 420. But there was progress in the main. Eventually Banning joined the group from the ranch, and under his guidance the study system was formalized. Attempts were made to project the future situation, to prepare for the day when it would be possible to venture safely into the outside world once again, and utilize newly won abilities. Nobody could predict when that would be, nor what kind of world would await their coming. By the time the fifth year had passed, even short-wave reports had long since ceased. Rumors persisted that radioactive contamination was widespread, that the population had been virtually decimated, that the government had fallen, that the naturalists had set up their own reign only to fall victim to internal strife. But one thing is certain, Harry Collins told his companions as they assembled in the usual monthly meeting on the grounds before the old headquarters building one afternoon in July. The fighting will end soon. If we hear nothing more within the next few months, we'll send out observation parties. Once we determine the exact situation, we can plan accordingly. The world is going to need what we can give. It will use what we have learned. It will accept our aid. One of these days, and he went on to outline a carefully calculated program of making contact with the powers that be, or might be. It sounded logical, and even the chronic grumblers and habitual pessimists in the group were encouraged. If at times they felt the situation fantastic and the hope forlorn, they were heartened now. Richard Wade summed it up succinctly afterwards in a private conversation with Harry. It isn't going to be easy, he said. In the old science fiction yarns, I used to write a group like this would have been able to prevent the revolution. At the very least, it would decide who won if fighting actually broke out. But in reality, we were too late to forestall revolt, and we couldn't win the war no matter on whose side we fought. There's just one job we're equipped for, and that's to win the peace. I don't mean we'll step out of here and take over the world, either. We'll have to move slowly and cautiously, dispersing in little groups of five or six all over the country, and we'll have to sound out men in the communities we go to, find those who are willing to learn and willing to build. But we can be an influence and an important one. We have the knowledge and the skill. We may not be chosen to lead, but we can teach the leaders, and that's important. Harry smiled in agreement. They did have something to offer, and surely it would be recognized even if the naturalists had won, even if the entire country had sunk into semi-barbarism. No use anticipating such problems now. Wait until fall came. Then they'd reconnoiter and find out. Wait until fall. It was a wise decision, but one which ignored a single important fact. The naturalists didn't wait until fall to conduct their reconnaissance. They came over the canyon that very night, a large group of them in a large jeter, and they dropped a large bomb. End of Chapter 10 OF THIS CROWDED EARTH by Robert Bloch Chapter 11 OF THIS CROWDED EARTH by Robert Bloch This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Reading by Greg Marguerite This Crowded Earth by Robert Bloch Chapter 11 Jesse Pringle 2039 They were after him. The whole world was in flames, and the buildings were falling. The mighty were fallen. The day of judgment was at hand. He ran through the flames blindly. Blind Samson, Islas and Gaza treading at the mill. The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small. Small. They were all small, but that didn't matter. They had the guns, and they were hunting him down to his doom. Day of doom. Doomsday. The great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns was abroad in the land. They had unleashed the dragon, and his breath was a fire that seared, and his tail was a thunder that toppled towers. The dragon was searching him out for his sins. He would be captured and set to labor in the mill. But he would escape. He must escape. He was afraid of them, small as they were, and great oaks from little acorns grow. It's the little things that count, and he dare not go hunting for fear of little men. Jesse crouched against the dock, watching the grain elevators burn. The whole city was burning. Babylon the mighty. The whole world was burning in God's final wrath of judgment. Nobody believed in God anymore. Nobody read the Bible, and that's why they didn't know these things. Jesse knew, because he was an old man, and he remembered how it had been when he was a little boy, a little boy who learned of the word of God and the wrath of God. He could see the reflection of the flames in the water now, and the reflection was shimmery and broken because of the black clusters floating past. Large clusters and small clusters. There were bodies in the water, the bodies of the slain. Thunder boomed from the city behind him. Explosions. That's how it had started. When the naturalists began blowing up the buildings, and then the yardsticks had come with their weapons hunting down the naturalists. Or had it been that way, really? It didn't matter now. That was in another country, and besides, the wench was dead. The wench is dead. His wench. Jesse's wench. She wasn't so old, only seventy-two. But they killed her. They blew off the top of her head, and he could feel it when they did. It was as if something had happened in his head. And then he ran at them, and screamed, and there was a great slaughter amongst the heathen, the forces of unrighteousness. And Jesse had fled, and smote evil in the name of the Lord, for he perceived now that the time was at hand. How the mighty are fallen! Jesse blinked at the water, wishing it would clear, wishing his thoughts would clear. Sometimes, for a moment, he could remember back to the way things really were, when it was still a real world with real people in it, when he was just a little boy, and everybody else was big. Strange. Now he was an old man, a big old man, and almost everybody else was little. He tried to think what it had been like so long ago. It was too long, and all he could remember about being small was that he had been afraid, afraid of the bigger people. And now he was big, and afraid of the smaller people. Of course they weren't real. It was just part of the prophecy. They were the locusts sent to consume and destroy. He kept telling himself there was nothing to fear, the righteous need not fear when the day of judgment is at hand. Only somewhere inside him was this little boy, crying, Mama, Mama, Mama, and somewhere else was this old man just staring down into the water and waiting for them to find him. Another explosion sounded. This one was closer. They must be bombing the entire city, or else it was the dragon lashing his tail. Somebody ran past Jesse carrying a torch. No, it wasn't a torch. His hair was on fire. He jumped into the water screaming, They're coming, they're coming! Jesse turned and blinked. They were coming all right. He could see them pouring out of the alleyways like rats, rats with gleaming eyes, gleaming claws. Suddenly his head cleared. He realized that he was going to die. He had perhaps one minute of life left, one minute out of eighty years, and he couldn't fool himself any longer. He was not delirious. Day of judgment? That was nonsense. And there was no dragon, and these were not rats. They were merely men, puny little men, who killed because they were afraid. Jesse was a big man, but he was afraid, too. Six feet three inches tall he was, when he stood up straight as he did now, watching them come, but he knew fear. And he resolved that he must not take that fear with him into death. He wanted to die with something better than that. Wasn't there something he could find and cling to, perhaps some memory? A minute is so short, and eighty years is so long. Jesse stood there swaying, watching them draw nearer, watching them as they caught sight of him and raised their weapons. He scanned rapidly into the past, into the past before the time the wench was dead. Back to when you and I were young, Maggie. Back still earlier and earlier, seeking the high point, the high school. That was it, the high school, the highlight, the moment of triumph, the game with Lincoln. Yes, that was it. He hadn't been ashamed of being six feet three inches then. He'd been proud of it, proud as he raised his arms and splashed down into the water as the bullets struck. And that was the end of Jesse Pringle. Jesse Pringle, Champion Basketball Center of the Class of 79. End of Chapter 11 of This Crowded Earth by Robert Bloch Chapter 12 of This Crowded Earth by Robert Bloch This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Reading by Greg Marguerite This Crowded Earth by Robert Bloch Chapter 12 Little John 2065 The helicopter landed on the roof and the attendants wheeled it over to one side. They propped the ladder up and Little John descended slowly, panting. They had a coaster chair waiting and he sank into it, grateful for the rest. Hardy fellows these attendants, but then they were almost three feet tall. More stamina. That was the secret. Common stock, of course, but they served a purpose. Somebody had to carry out the orders. When they wheeled the coaster chair into the elevator, Little John descended. The elevator halted on the first floor and he breathed a sigh of relief. Great heights always made him faint and dizzy, and even a short helicopter trip took its toll. The mere thought of soaring 200 feet above the ground was enough to paralyze him. But this journey was vital. Thurman was waiting for him. Yes, Thurman was waiting for him here in the council chamber. The coaster chair rolled forward into the room and again, Little John felt a twinge of apprehension. The room was vast, too big for comfort. It must be all of 50 feet long and over 10 feet in height. How could Thurman stand it working here? But he had to endure it. Little John reminded himself he was head of the council. Thurman was lying on the couch when Little John rolled in, but he sat up and smiled. I greet you, he said. I greet you, Little John answered. No, don't bother to stay seated. Surely we don't need to be ceremonious. Thurman pricked up his ears at the sound of the unfamiliar word. He wasn't the scholarly type, like Little John, but he appreciated Little John's learning and knew he was important to the council. They needed scholars these days and antiquarians, too. One has to look to the past when rebuilding a world. You sent for me? Little John asked. The question was purely rhetorical, but he wanted to break the silence. Thurman looked troubled as he replied. Yes, it's a matter of confidence between us. So be it. You may speak and trust. Thurman eyed the door. Come nearer, he said. Little John pressed a lever and rolled up to the couchside. Thurman's eyes peered at him through the thick contact lenses. Little John noted the deep wrinkles around his mouth, but without surprise, after all, Thurman was an old man. He must be over thirty. I've been thinking, Thurman said abruptly. We have failed. Failed? Thurman nodded. Need I explain? You have been close to the council for many years. You have seen what we've attempted ever since the close of the naturalist wars. A magnificent effort, Little John answered politely. In less than thirty years an entire new world has risen from the ruins of the old. Civilization has been restored, snatched from the very brink of a barbarism that threatened to engulf us. Nonsense, Thurman muttered. What? Sheer nonsense, Little John. You're talking like a pedant. But I am a pedant, Little John nodded, and it's true when the naturalists were exterminated, this nation and other nations were literally destroyed. Worse than physical destruction was the threat of mental and moral collapse. But the yardstick councils arose to take over. The concept of small government came into being and saved us. We began to rebuild on a sensible scale with local limited control. The little community arose. Spare me the history lesson, said Thurman dryly. We rebuilt, yes, we survived. In a sense perhaps we even made certain advances. There is no longer any economic rivalry, no social distinctions, no external pressures. I think I can safely assume that the danger of future warfare is forever banished. The balance of power is no longer a factor. The balance of nature has been partially restored, and only one problem remains to plague mankind. What is that? We face extinction, Thurman said. But that's not true, Little John interrupted. Look at history and look at us, Thurman sighed. You needn't bother with history. The answer is written in our faces, in our bodies. I've searched the past very little compared to your scholarship, but enough to know that things were different in the old days. The naturalists, whatever else they might have been, were strong men. They walked freely in the land. They lived lustily and long. Do you know what our average life expectancy is today, Little John? A shade under forty years. And that only if one is fortunate enough to lead a sheltered existence as we do. In the mines, in the fields, in the radioactive areas, they die before the age of thirty. Little John leaned forward. Shuler touches on just that point in his psychology of time, he said eagerly. He posits the relationship between size and duration. Time is relative, you know. Our lives short as they may be in terms of comparative chronology nevertheless have a subjective span equal to that of the naturalists in their heyday. Nonsense, Thurman said again. Did you think that's what concerns me? Whether or not we feel that our lives are long or short? What then? I'm talking about the basic elements essential to survival. I'm talking about strength, stamina, endurance, the ability to function. That's what we're losing, along with the normal span of years. The world is soft and flabby. Yardstick children tell us they were healthy at first, but their children are weaker, and their grandchildren weaker still. The effect of the wars, the ravages of radiation and malnutrition have taken a terrible toll. The world is soft and flabby today. People can't walk anymore, let alone run. We find it difficult to lift and bend and work. But we won't have to worry about such matters for long, little John Hazardid. Think of what's been done in robotics. Those recent experiments seem to prove, I know, Thurman nodded. We can create robots, no doubt. We have a limited amount of raw materials to allocate to the project, and if we can perfect automatons, they'll function quite adequately. Virtually indestructible too, I understand. I imagine they'll still be able to operate efficiently a hundred or more years from now if only they learn to oil and repair one another, because by that time the human race will be gone. Come now. It isn't that serious. Oh, but it is. Thurman raised himself again with an effort. Your study of history should have taught you one thing if nothing else. The tempo is quickening. While it took mankind thousands of years to move from the bow and arrow to the rifle, it took only a few hundred to move from the rifle to the thermonuclear weapon. It took ages before men mastered flight, and then in two generations they developed satellites. In three they reached the moon and Mars. But we're talking about physical development. I know. And physically the human race altered just as drastically in an equally short span of time. As recently as the 19th century, the incidence of disease was a thousand fold greater than it is now. Life was short then. In the 20th century disease lessened and life expectancy doubled in certain areas. Height and weight increased perceptibly with every passing decade. Then came lefting well in his injections. Height, weight, life expectancy have fallen perceptively every decade since then. The war merely hastened the process. You appear to have devoted a great deal of time to this question, little John observed. I have, answered the older man. And it's not a question. It's a fact. The one fact that confronts us all. If we proceed along our present path we face certain extinction in a very short time. The strain is weakening constantly. The vitality is draining away. We sought to defeat nature, but the naturalists were right in their way. And the solution? Thurman was silent for a long moment. Then, I have none, he said. You have consulted the medical authorities? Naturally. And experiments have been made. Physical conditioning systems of exercise, experimentation in chemotherapy are still being undertaken. There's no lack of volunteers, but a great lack of results. No. The answer does not lie in that direction. But what else is there? That is what I had hoped you might tell me, Thurman said. You are a scholar. You know the past. You speak often of the lessons of history. Little John was nodding, but not in agreement. He was trying to comprehend, for suddenly the conviction came to him clearly. Thurman was right. It was happening, and happened right under their smug noses. The world was weakening. It was slowing down. And the race is only to the swift. He cursed himself for his habit of thinking in platitudes and quotations, but long years of study had unfitted him for less prosaic phraseology. If he could only be practical. Practical. Thurman, he said. There is a way. A way so obvious we've all overlooked it, passed right over it. And that is? Stop the lefting well injections. But I know what you'll say. There have been genetic mutations. Very true. But such mutations can't be universal. A certain percentage of offspring will be sound capable of attaining full growth. And we don't have the population problem to cope with anymore. There's room for people again. So why not try it? Stop the injections and allow babies to be born as they were before. Little John hesitated before adding a final word, but he knew he had to add it. He knew it now. Normally, he said. Thurman nodded. So that is your answer. Yes. I-I think it will work. So do the biologists, Thurman told him. A generation of normal infants reared to maturity would restore mankind to its former stature in every sense of the word. And now, knowing the lessons of the past, we could prepare for the change to come. We could rebuild the world for them to live in, rebuild it psychically as well as physically. We'd plan to eliminate the rivalry between the large and the small, the strong and the weak. It wouldn't be difficult because there's plenty for all. There'd be no trouble as there was in the old days. We've learned to be psychologically flexible. Little John smiled. Then that is the solution, he asked. Yes. Eliminating the left-wing well injections will give us a good proportion of normal children again. But where do we find the normal women to bear them? Normal women? Thurman sighed. Then reached over and placed a scroll in the scanner. I have already gone into that question with research technicians, he said, and I have the figures here. He switched on the scanner and began to read. The average new bile female aged 13 to 21 is 2 feet 10 inches high and weighs 48 pounds. Thurman flicked the switch again and peered up. I don't think I'll bother with pelvic measurements, he said. You can already see that giving birth to a 6 or 7 pound infant is physically impossible under the circumstances. It cannot be done. But surely there must be some larger females, perhaps a system of selective breeding on a gradual basis. You're talking in terms of generations. We haven't got that much time. Thurman shook his head. No, we're stopped right here. We can't get normal babies without normal women, and the only normal women are those who began life as normal babies. Which comes first, Little John murmured, the chicken or the egg. What's that? Nothing, just an old saying from history. Thurman frowned. Apparently then that's all you can offer in your professional capacity as a historian, just some old sayings. He sighed. Too bad you don't know some old prayers because we need them now. He bowed his head, signifying the end of the interview. Little John rolled out of the room. His copter took him back to his own dwelling back across the rooftops of New Chicago. Ordinarily Little John avoided looking down. He dreaded heights, and the immensity of the city itself was somehow appalling. But now he gazed upon the capital and center of civilization with a certain morbid affection. New Chicago had risen on the ashes of the old after the war's end. Use of thermonukes had been limited, fortunately, so radioactivity did not linger and the vast craters hollowed out by ordinary warheads had been partially filled in by rubble and debris. Artificial fill had done the rest of the job so that now New Chicago was merely a flat prairie as it must have been hundreds of years ago. A flat prairie on which the city had been resurrected. There were almost 50,000 people here in the capital, the largest congregation of population on the entire continent. They had built well, and shortly this time, built for the security and certainty of centuries to come. Little John's side. It was hard to accept the fact that they had been wrong, that all this would end in nothingness. They had eliminated war, eliminated disease, eliminated famine, eliminated social inequality, injustice, disorders external and internal, and in so doing, they had eliminated themselves. The sun was setting in the west and long shadows crept over the city below. Yes, the sun was setting and the shadows were gathering. The night was coming to claim its own. Darkness was falling. Eternal darkness. It was quite dark by the time Little John's copter landed on the rooftop of his own dwelling. So dark, in fact, that for a moment he didn't see the strange vehicle already standing there. Not until he had settled into his coaster-chair did he notice the presence of the other copter, and then it was too late. Too late to do anything except sit and stare as the gigantic shadow loomed out of the night, silhouetted against the sky. The shadow shambled forward, and Little John gaped, gaped in terror at the titanic figure. He opened his mouth to speak, but words did not form. There were no words to form, for how does one address an apparition? Instead it was the apparition which spoke. I have been waiting for you, it said. Yes? I want to talk to you. The voice was deep, menacing. Little John shifted in his coaster-chair. There was nowhere to go, no escape. He gazed up at the shadow. Finally he summoned a response. Shall we go inside? he asked. The figure shook its head. Where? Down into that dollhouse of yours? It isn't big enough. I've already been there. What I have to say can be said right here. Who are you? The figure stepped forward so that its face was illuminated by the fluorescent streaming in the open door which led to the inclined chairway descending to Little John's dwelling. Little John could see the face now, the gigantic wrinkled face scarred and seared It was a human face, but utterly alien to the humanity Little John knew. Faces such as this one had disappeared from the earth a lifetime ago. At least history had taught him that. History had not prepared him for the actual living presence of a— Naturalist, Little John gasped. You're a naturalist. Yes, that's what you are. The apparition scowled. I am not a naturalist. I am a man. But you can't be. The—the war. I am very old. I lived through your war. I have lived through your peace. Soon I shall die. But before I do, there is something else which must be done. You've come here to kill me? Perhaps the looming figure moved closer and stared down. No, don't try to summon help. When your servants saw me, they fled. You're alone now, Little John. You know my name? Yes, I know your name. I know the names of everyone on the council. Each of them has a visitor tonight. Then it's a plot, a conspiracy? We have planned this very carefully through the long years. It's all we lived for. Those few of us who survived the war. But the council wasn't responsible for the war. Most of us weren't even alive then. Believe me, we weren't to blame. I know. The gigantic face creased in a senile simulation of a smile. Nobody was ever to blame for anything. Nobody was ever responsible. That's what they always told me. I mustn't hate mankind for multiplying, even though population created pressure and pressure created panic, and that drove me mad. I mustn't blame lefting-welfers solving the overpopulation problem, even though he used me as a guinea pig in his experiments. I mustn't blame the yardsticks for penning me up in a prison until revolution broke out, and I mustn't blame the naturalists for bombing the place where I took refuge. So whose fault was it that I've gone through eighty years of assorted hell? Why did I, Harry Collins, get singled out for a lifetime of misery and misfortune? The huge old man bent over Little John's huddled form. Maybe it was all a means to an end, a way of bringing me here, at this moment, to do what must be done. Don't—don't harm me. You're—you're not well, you're— Crazy? The old man shook his head. No, I'm not crazy, not now. But I have been at times during my life. Perhaps we all are when we attempt to face up to the complications of an average existence. Try to confront the problems which are too big for a single consciousness to cope with in a single lifespan. I've been crazy in the city, and crazy in the isolation of a cell, and crazy in the welter of war. And perhaps the worst time of all was when I lost my son. Yes, I had a son, Little John. He was one of the first, one of Leffingwell's original mutations, and I never knew him very well until the revolution came, and we went away together. He was a doctor, my boy, and a good one. We spent almost five years together, and I learned a lot from him, about medicine. But that wasn't important then. I'm thinking of what I learned about love. I'd always hated yardsticks, but my son was one, and I came to love him. He had plans for rebuilding the world, he and I and the rest of us. We were going to wait until the revolution ended and then help restore sanity and civilization. But the naturalists flew over and dropped their bomb, and my boy died. Over four hundred of our group died there in the canyon, four hundred who might have changed the fate of the world. Do you think I can forget that? Do you think I and the few others who survived have ever forgotten? Can you blame us if we did go crazy if we hid away out there, and the Western wilderness hid away from a world that had offered us nothing but death and destruction, and plotted to bring death and destruction to that world in return? Think about it for a moment, Little John. We were old men, all of us, and the world had given us only its misery to bear during our lifetimes. The world we wanted to save was destroying itself. Why should we be concerned with its fate or future? So we changed our plans, Little John. Perhaps the shock had been too much. Instead of plotting to rebuild the world, we turned our thoughts to completing its destruction. Our tools and texts were gone, buried in the rubble with the bodies of fine young men. But we had our minds, crazed minds, you'd call them, but aware of reality, the grim reality of the post-revolutionary years. We burrowed away in the desert. We schemed and we dreamed. From time to time we sent out spies. We knew what was going on. We knew the naturalists were gone, that six footers had vanished from a yardstick world. We knew about the rehabilitation projects. We watched your people gradually evolve new patterns of living and learning. Some of the former knowledge was rescued, but not all. Our little group had far more learning than you've ever dreamt of. Fifty of us between ourselves could have surpassed all your scientists in every field. But we watched and we waited, and some of us died of privation, and some of us died of old age, until at last there were only a dozen of us to share the dream, the dream of destruction. And we knew that we must act swiftly, or not at all. So we came into the world, cautiously and carefully, moving unobtrusively and unobserved. We wanted to contemplate the corruption, seek out the weaknesses in your degenerate civilization, and we found them, immediately. Those weaknesses are everywhere apparent, for they are physical. You're one of a dying race, little John. Mankind's days are numbered. There's no need for grandiose schemes of reactivating warheads in buried missile centers of loosing thermonukes upon the world. Merely by killing off the central council here in New Chicago, we can accomplish our objective. A dozen men die, and there's not enough initiative left to replace them. It's as simple as that, and as complicated. Harry Collins nodded. Yes, as complicated, because the only weaknesses we've observed are physical ones. We've seen enough of the ways of this new civilization to realize that. All of the things I hated during my lifetime have disappeared now. The crowding, the competition, the soared self-interest, the bigotry, intolerance, prejudice, the antisocial aspects of society are gone. There is only the human race, living much closer to the concept of utopia than I ever dreamed possible. You and the other survivors have done well, little John. And yet you come to kill us? We came for that purpose because we still retained the flaws and failings of our former cultures. We looked for targets to blame, for villains to hate and destroy. Instead, we found this reality. No, I'm not crazy, little John, and I and my fellows aren't here to execute revenge. We have returned to the original plan, the plan Leffingwell had, and my son, and all the others who worked in their own way for the dream of a better world. We come now to help you, help you before you die, before we die. Little John looked up inside. Why couldn't this have happened before, he murmured? It's too late now. But it isn't too late. My friends are here. They are telling your fellow council members the same thing right now. We may be old, but we can still impart what we have learned. There are any number of technological developments to be made. We can help you to increase your use of atomic power. There's soil reclamation and irrigation projects, and biological techniques. You said it yourself, little John whispered, we're a dying race. That's the primary problem, and it's an insoluble one. Just this afternoon, and he told him about the interview with Thurman. Don't you understand, little John concluded, we have no solution for survival. We're paying the price now because for a while we wouldn't heed history. We tried to defeat nature, and in the end, nature has defeated us. Because we would not render unto Caesar the things which are, Harry Collins smiled. That's it, he said. What? Caesar, that's the answer. Your own medical men must have records. I know because I learned medicine from my son. There used to be an operation in the old days called a Caesarean section, used on normal women and on dwarfs and midgets too, in childbirth. If your problem is how to deliver normal children safely, a technique can be revived. Get hold of some of your people. Let's see what data they have on this. I'll be glad to furnish instruction. There was excitement after that. Too much excitement for little John. By the time the council had assembled an emergency session, by the time plans were formulated and he returned to his own dwelling in the helicopter, he was completely exhausted. Only the edge of elation sustained him, the realization that a solution had been found. As he sank into slumber, he knew that he would sleep the clock around. And so would Harry Collins. The old man and his companions, now guests of the council, had been temporarily quartered in the council chambers. It was the only structure large enough to house them, and even so they had to sleep on the floor. But it was sufficient comfort for the moment. It was many hours before Harry Collins awoke. His waking was automatic. For the tiny telescreen at the end of the council room glowed suddenly, and the traditional voice chirped forth to interrupt his slumber. Good morning, said the voice. It's a beautiful day in New Chicago. Harry stared at the screen, and then he smiled. Yes, he murmured. But tomorrow will be better. End of This Crowded Earth by Robert Block