 The Coffin Cure by Alan E. Norse. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Max Lindberg. X-1 project The Coffin Cure by Alan E. Norse. When the discovery was announced, it was Dr. Chauncey Patrick Coffin who announced it. He had of course arranged with Thuncanny's skill to take most of the credit for himself. If it turned out to be greater than he had hoped, so much the better. His presentation was scheduled for the last night of the American College of Clinical Practitioners annual meeting and Coffin had fully intended it to be a bombshell. It was. Its explosion exceeded even Dr. Coffin's wilder expectations which took quite a bit of doing. In the end he had waited through more newspaper reporters and medical doctors as he left the hall that night. It was a heady evening for Chauncey Patrick Coffin MD. Certain others were not so delighted with Coffin's bombshell. It's idiocy. Young Dr. Philip Dawson wailed in the laboratory conference room the next morning. Blind, screaming idiocy. You've gone out of your mind. That's all there is to it. Can't you see what you've done? Aside from selling your colleagues down the river that is. He clenched the reprint of Coffin's address in his hand and brandished it like a broadsword. Report on a vaccine for the treatment and cure of the common cold by C.P. Coffin et al. That's what it says. Et al. My idea in the first place. Jake and I both pounding our heads in the wall for eight solid months and now you sneak it into publication a full year before we have any business publishing a word about it. Well, really, Philip, Dr. Chauncey Coffin ran a pudgy hand through his snowy hair. How ungrateful. I thought for sure you'd be delighted. An excellent presentation, I must say, terse, succinct, unequivocal. He raised his hand, but generously unequivocal, you understand. You should have heard the preservation. They nearly went wild and the look on Underwood's face worth waiting twenty years for. And the reporters snapped, Philip. Don't forget the reporters. He whirled on the small dark man sitting quietly in the corner. How about that, Jake? Did you see the warning papers? This thief not only steals our work, he splashes it all over the countryside in red ink. Dr. Jacob Miles coughed apologetically. What Philip is so stormed up about is the prematurity of it all, he said to Coffin. After all, we've hardly had an acceptable period of clinical trial. Nonsense, said Coffin, glaring at Philip. Underwood and his men were ready to publish their discovery within another six weeks. Where would we be then? How much clinical testing do you want, Philip? You had the worst cold of your life when you took the vaccine. Have you had any sense? No, of course not, said Philip, peevishly. Jacob, how about you? Any stiffles? No, no, no, colds. Well, what about those six hundred students from the university? And did I misread the reports on them? No, 98% cured of active symptoms within 24 hours. Not a single recurrence. The results were just short of miraculous. Jake hesitated, of course, it's only been a month. Month, year, century, look at the 600 of the world's most luxurious colds. And now not even a sniffle. A chubby doctor sank down behind the desk, his ruddy face beaming. Come now, gentlemen, be reasonable, fake positively. There's work to be done, a great deal of work. They'll be wanting me in Washington, I imagine, press conferences 20 minutes, drug houses to consult with. How dare we stand in the path of progress? We've won the greatest medical triumph of all times, the conquering of the common cold. We'll go down in history. And he was perfectly right on one point, at least. They did go down in history. The public response to the vaccine was little less than monumental. Of all the ailments that have tormented mankind through history, none has ever been more universal, more tenacious, more uniformly miserable than the common cold. It was a respecter of no barriers, boundaries, or classes. Ambassadors and chambermaids snuffled and sneezed and drippy-nosed unanimity. The powers of the Kremlin sniffed and blew and wept genuine tears on drafty days, while senatorial debates on earth-shaking issues paused reverently upon the unplugging of a nose and the clearing of a ranarer throat. Other illnesses brought disability, even death, in their wake. The common cold merely brought torment to the millions as it implacably resisted the most superhuman efforts to curb it. Until that chill November day, when the tidings broke to the world in four-inch banner heads, coffin nails lid on common cold. No more coffin states co-founder of Cure. Sniffles sniped single shot to save sneezers. Well, in medical circles it was called the coffin multicentric upper respiratory virus inhibiting vaccine. But the papers could never stand for such high-sounding names. They called it simply the coffin cure. Below the banner heads, world-renowned feature writers expounded in reverent terms the story of the Leviathan's struggle of Dr. Chauncey Patrick Coffin et al. in solving this riddle of the ages. How, after years of failure, they ultimately succeeded in culturing the causative agent of the common cold, identifying it not as a single virus or group of viruses, but as a multicentric virus complex invading the soft mucus linings of the nose, throat, and eyes. Capable of altering its basic molecular structure at any time to resist efforts of the body from within or the physician from without to attack and dispel it. How the hypothesis was set forth by Dr. Philip Dawson that the virus could be destroyed only by an antibody which could freeze the virus complex in one form long enough for normal body defenses to dispose of the offending invader. The exhausting search for such a crippling agent and the final crowning success after injecting untold gallons of cold virus material into the hides of a group of cooperative and forebearing dogs, a species which never suffered from colds and hence endured the whole business with an air of affectionate boredom. And finally the testing. First, he was suffering a particularly horrendous case of the affliction he sought to cure. Then his assistants, Philip Dawson and Jacob Miles. Then a multitude of students from the university carefully chosen for the severity of their symptoms, the longevity of their colds, their tendency to acquire these on little or no provocation, and their utter inability to get rid of them with any known medical program. They were a sorry spectacle, those students filing through the coffin laboratory for three days in October, wheezing like steam shuffles, snorting and sneezing and sniffling and blowing coughing and squeaking, mute appeals glowing in their blood shot eyes. The researchers dispense the materials, a single shot of the right arm, a sensitivity control in the left. With growing delight, they then watched as the results came in. The sneezing stopped, the sniffling ceased. A great silence settled over the campus in the classrooms in the library and classic halls. Dr. Coffin's voice returned rather to the regret of his fellow workers. And he began bouncing about the laboratory like a small boy at a fair. Students by the dozen trooped in for checkups with noses dry and eyes bright. In a matter of days there was no doubt left that the goal had been reached. But we have to be sure, Philip Dawson had cried cautiously. This was only a pilot test. We need mass testing now on an entire community. We should go to West Coast and run studies there. They have a different breed of cold out there I hear. We'll have to see how long the immunity lasts, make sure there are no unexpected side effects. And muttering to himself, he fell to work with pad and pencil, calculating the program to be undertaken before publication. But there were rumors underwood at Stanford, they said that already completed his tests and was repairing a paper for publication in a matter of months. Surely with such dramatic results on the pilot tests, something could be put into print. It would be tragic to lose the race for the sake of a little unnecessary caution. Peter Dawson was adamant, but he was a voice crying in the wilderness. Chauncey Patrick Coffin was boss. Within a week even Coffin was wondering if he had bitten off just a trifle too much. They had expected that demand for the vaccine would be great. But even the grisly memory of the early days of the Salk vaccine had not prepared them for the mobs of sneezing, wheezing, red-eyed people bombarding them for the first fruits. Clearide young men from the Government Bureau pushed through the crowds of local towns people lining the streets outside the Coffin Laboratory, standing in the pouring rain to raise insistent placards. 17 pharmaceutical houses decedent like vultures with production plans, cost estimates, colorful graphs demonstrating proposed yield and the distribution programs. Coffin was flown to Washington where conferences labored far into the night as demands pounded their doors like a tidal wave. One laboratory promised the vaccine in ten days, another said a week. The first actually appeared in three weeks and two days to be soaked up in the space of three hours by the thirsty sponge of cold, weary humanity. Express planes were dispatched to Europe, to Asia, to Africa with the precious cargo. A million needles pierced a million hides with a huge, convulsive sneeze mankind has stepped forth into a new era. There were abstainers, of course, there always are. It doesn't make any difference how much you talk. Ellie Dawson cried hoarsely, shaking her blonde curls. I know what any cold shots. You're being totally unreasonable, Phillips said, glowering at his wife in annoyance. She wasn't the sweet young thing he had married not this evening. Her eyes were puffy or nose red and dripping. You've had this cold for two solid months now, and there just isn't any sense to it. It's making him miserable. You can't eat, you can't breathe, you can't sleep. I don't want any cold shots, she repeated stubbornly. But why not? It's just one little needle you'll hardly feel it. But I don't like needles, she cried bursting into tears. Why don't you leave me alone? Go take your nasty old needles and stick them in people that want them. Oh, Ellie, I don't care. I don't like needles. She wailed buried her face in his shirt. He held her close, making comforting little noises. It was no use. He reflected sadly science just wasn't Ellie's long suit. She didn't know a cold vaccine from a case of smallpox and no appeal to logic or common sense could surmount her irrational fear of hypodermics. All right, nobody's going to make you do anything you don't want to do, he said. And anyway, think of the poor tissue manufacturers, she sniffled wiping her nose with a pink facial tissue, all their little children starving to death. Say, you have got a cold, said Philip sniffling. You've got on enough perfume to fell an ox. He wiped away tears and grinned at her. Come on now, fix your face dinner at the driftwood. I hear they have a marvelous lamb chops. It was a mellow evening. The lamb chops were delectable. The tastiest lamb chops he'd ever eaten, he thought, even being blessed with as good a cook as Ellie for a spouse. Ellie drift and blew continuously, but refused to go home until they had taken in a movie and stopped by to dance for a while. I hardly ever got to see you any more, she said. Oh, because of that dusty bedside you're going to people. It was true, of course, the work at the lab was endless. They danced, but came home early. Never the last Philip needed all the sleep he could get. He awoke once during the night to a parade of sneezes from his wife and rolled over frowning sleepily to himself. It was ignominious in a way his own wife refusing the fruit of all those months of work. And cold or no cold, she surely was using a whale of a lot of perfume. He awoke suddenly began to stretch and set bolt upright in bed, staring wildly about the room. Pale morning sunlight drifted in the window and downstairs. He heard Ellie stirring in the kitchen. For a moment he thought he was suffocating. He leaped out of bed, stared at the vanity table across the room. Somebody spilled the whole damned bottle. The heavy, sick, sweet miasma hung like a cloud around him, drenching the room. With every breath it grew thicker. He searched the tabletop frantically, but there were no empty bottles. His head began to spin from the sickening effluvium. He blinked in confusion, his hand trembling as he lit a cigarette. No need to panic, he thought. She probably knocked a bottle over when she was dressing. He took a deep puff and burst into a paroxysm of coughing as acrid fumes burned down his throat to his lungs. Ellie! He rushed into the hall, still coughing. The match-smell had given way to a harsh, claustic stench of burning weeds. He stared at his cigarette in horror and threw it into the sink. The smell grew worse. He threw open the hall closet, expecting smoke to come billowing out. Ellie! Somebody's burning down the house! Whatever you're talking about, Ellie's voice came from the stairwell. It's just the toasty bird, silly. He rushed down the stairs due at a time and nearly gagged as he reached the bottom. The smell of hot, rancid grease struck him like a solid wall. It was intermingled with an oily smell of boiled and parboiled coffee overpowering in its intensity. By the time he reached the kitchen, he was holding his nose, tears pouring from his eyes. Ellie! What are you doing in here? She stared at him. I'm baking breakfast. But don't you smell it? Spell what? said Ellie. On the stove, the automatic percolator was making small, promising noises. In the frying pan, four sunny side eggs were sizzling. Half a dozen strips of bacon drained on a paper towel on the sideboard. It couldn't have looked more innocent. Cautiously, Philip released his nose, sniffed. The stench nearly choked him. You mean you don't smell anything strange? I didn't smell anything, period, said Ellie defensively. The coffee, the bacon. Come here a minute. She reeked of bacon, of coffee, of burned toast, but mostly of perfume. Did you put on any fresh perfume this morning? Before breakfast does be ridiculous. Not even a drop, Philip was turning very white. Duh the drop. He shook his head. Now wait a minute. This must be all in my mind. I'm just imagining things. That's all. Working too hard, hysterical reaction. In a minute it'll all go away. He poured a cup of coffee and added cream and sugar. But he couldn't get it close enough to taste it. It smelled as if it had been boiling three weeks in a rancid pot. It was the smell of coffee, all right, but a smell that was fiendishly distorted, overpoweringly, nauseatingly magnified. It pervaded the room and burned his throat and brought tears gushing to his eyes. Slowly, realization began to dawn. He spilled the coffee as he set the cup down. The perfume, the coffee, the cigarette. My hat, he choked. Get me my hat. I've got to get to the laboratory. It got worse all the way downtown. He fought down waves of nausea as the smell of damp, rotting earth rose from his front yard in a gray cloud. The neighbor's dog dashed out to greet him, exuding the great grandfather of all doggy orders. As Philip waited for the bus, every passing car fouled the air with noxious fumes gagging him, doubling him up with coughing as he dabbed at his streaming eyes. Nobody else seemed to notice anything wrong at all. The bus ride was a nightmare. It was a damp rainy day. The inside of the bus smelled like a men's locker room after a big game. A blurry eyed man with three days stubble on his chin flopped down in the seat next to him. And Philip reeled back with a jolt to the job he held in his student days, cleaning vats in the brewery. It's a great morning, blurry eyes breathed at him, aren't I? Philip blanched. To top it, the man had had a breakfast of salami. In the seat ahead, a fat man held a dead cigar clamped in his mouth like a rank growth. Philip's stomach began rolling. He sank his face into his hand trying unobtrusively to clamp his nostrils. With a groan of deliverance, he lurched off the bus at the laboratory gate. He met Jake Miles coming up the steps. Jake looked pale, too pale. Morning, Philip said weakly. Nice day. Looks like the sun might come through. Yeah, said Jake. Nice day. You feel all right this morning? Fine, fine. Philip tossed his hat in the closet, opened the incubator on his culture tubes, trying to look busy. He slammed the door after one whiff and gripped the edge of the work table with whitening knuckles. Why? Oh, nothing. Thought you looked a little peak, it was all. They stared at each other in silence. Then, as though by signal, their eyes turned to the office at the end of the lab. coffin in yet. Jake nodded. He's in there. He's got the door locked. I think he's going to have to open it, said Philip. A gray-faced doctor coffin unlocked the door, backed quickly toward the wall. The room reeked of kitchen deodorant. Stay right where you are, coffin squeak. Don't come a step closer. I can't see you now. I'm busy. I've got work that has to be done. You're telling me, growled Philip. Emotion Jake into the office and locked the door carefully. Then he turned the coffin. When did it start for you? Coffin was trembling right after his supper last night. I thought I was going to suffocate. Got up, walked the streets all night. My God, what a stench. Jake? Dr. Miles shook his head. Sometime this morning I don't know when I woke up with it. That's when it hit me, said Philip. But I don't understand, coffin howled. Nobody else seems to notice anything. Yet, said Philip, we were the first three to take the coffin cure. Remember? You and me and Jake two months ago. Coffin's forehead was beaded with sweat. He stared at the two men of growing horror. But what about the others? He whispered. I think, said Philip, that we better find something spectacular to do in a mighty big hurry. That's what I think. Jake Miles said, the most important thing right now is secrecy. We mustn't let a word get out, not until we're absolutely certain. But, but what's happened? Coffin cried. These foul smells everywhere. You, Philip, you had a cigarette this morning. I can smell it clear over here. And it's bringing tears to my eyes. And if I didn't know better, I'd swear neither of you had a bath in a week. Every odor in town suddenly turned foul. Magnified, you mean, said Jake. Perfume still smells sweet. There's just too much of it. The same with cinnamon. I tried it, cried for half an hour. But it still smelled like cinnamon. No, I don't think the smells have changed any. But what then? Our noses have changed, obviously. Jake paced the floor in excitement. Look at our dogs. They have never had colds and they practically live by their noses. Other animals, all dependent on their senses of smell for survival. And none of them ever have anything even vaguely reminiscent of a common cold. The multicentric virus hits primates only. And it reaches its fullest parasitic powers in man alone. Coffin shook his head miserably. But why this horrible stench of all of a sudden? I haven't had a cold in weeks. Of course not. That's just what I'm trying to say, Jake. Cry to look. Why do we have any sense of smell at all? Because we have tiny olfactory nerve endings buried in the mucus membrane of our noses and throats. But we have always had the virus living there, too, colds or no colds throughout our entire lifetime. It's always been there, anchored in the same cells, parasitizing the same sensitive tissues that carry our olfactory nerve endings, numbing them and crippling them, making them practically useless as sensory organs. No wonder we never smelled anything before. Those poor little nerve endings never had a chance until we came along in our shining armor and destroy the virus, said Phillips. Oh, we didn't destroy it. We merely stripped it of a very slippery protective mechanism against normal body defenses. Jake perched on the edge of the desk his dark face intense. These two months since we had our shots have witnessed a battle to the death between our bodies and the virus. With the help of the vaccine, our bodies have won. That's all stripped away the last vestiges of an invader that has been almost a part of our normal physiology since the beginning of time. And now, for the first time, those crippled little nerve endings are just beginning to function. Oh, God, help us, coffin-grown. You think we'll get worse? And worse and still worse, said Jake. I wonder, said Phillips slowly, what the anthropologists will say. What do you mean? Maybe it was just a single mutation somewhere back there, a tiny change of cell structure or metabolism that left one line of primates vulnerable to an invader no other would harbor. Why else should man have to flower and blossom intellectually, grow to depend so much on his brains instead of his brawn that he could rise above all others? What better reason than because somewhere along the line in the world of fang and claw he suddenly lost his sense of smell? They stared at each other. Well, he's got it back now, coffin-wailed, and he's not going to like it a bit. No, he surely isn't, Jake agreed. He's going to start looking very quickly for someone to blame, I think. They both looked at coffin. Oh, don't be ridiculous, boys, said coffin turning white. We're in this together, Philip. It was your idea in the first place. You said so yourself. You can't leave me now. The telephone jangled. They heard the frightened voice of the secretary clear across the room. Dr. Coffin, there was a student on the line just a moment ago. He said he was coming up to see you. Now, he said, not later. Well, I'm busy, Coffin sputtered. I can't see anyone and I can't take any calls. But he's already on his way up. The girl burst out. He was saying something about tearing you apart with his bare hands. Coffin slammed down the receiver's face was the color of lead. They'll crucify me, he sobbed. Jake, Philip, you've got to help me. Philip sighed and unlocked the door. Send a girl down to the freezer and have her bring up all the live cold virus she can find. Get us some inoculated monkeys and a few dozen dogs. He turned to Coffin and stopped sniveling. You're the big publicity man around here. You're going to handle the screening masses, whether you like it or not. What are you going to do? I haven't the faintest idea, said Philip, but whatever I do is going to cost you your shirt. We're going to find out how to catch a cold again if we have to die. It was an admirable struggle and a futile one. They sprayed their noses and throats with enough pure culture of virulent live virus to have condemned an ordinary man to a lifetime of sneezing, watery-eyed misery. They didn't develop a sniffle among them. They mixed six different strains of virus and gargled the extract, spraying themselves and every inoculated monkey they could get their hands on with the vials smelling stuff. Not a sneeze. They injected it hyperdermically, intradermally, subcutaneously, intramuscularly and intravenously. They drank it. They bathed in the stuff. But they didn't catch a cold. Maybe it's the wrong approach, Jake said one morning. Our body defenses are keyed up to the top performance right now. Maybe if we break them down, we can get somewhere. They plunged down that alley with grim abandon. They starved themselves. They forced themselves to stay awake for days on end until exhaustion forced their eyes close in spite of all they could do. They carefully devised vitamin-free, protein-free, mineral-free diets that tasted like library paste and smelled worse. They wore wet clothes and sopping shoes to work, turned off the heat and threw windows open to the raw winter air. Then they resprayed themselves with a live cold virus and waited reverently for the sneezing to begin. It didn't. They stared at each other in gathering gloom. They'd never felt better in their lives. Except for the smells, of course. They'd hoped that they might presently get used to them, but they didn't. Every day it grew a little worse. They began smelling smells they'd never dreamed existed. Noxious smells, cloying smell, smells that drove them gagging to the sinks. Their nose plugs were rapidly losing their effectiveness. Mealtimes were nightmarish ordeals. They lost weight with alarming speed, but they didn't catch cold. I think you should all be locked up, Ellie Dawson said severely as she dragged her husband, blue faced and shivering out of an icy shower one bitter morning. You've lost your wits. You need to be protected against yourselves. That's what you need. You don't understand, Philip Moaned. We've got to catch cold. Why, Ellie snapped angrily. Suppose you don't. What's going to happen? We had 300 students march on the laboratory today, Philip said patiently. The smells were driving them crazy, they said. They couldn't even bear to be close to their best friends. They wanted something done about it or else. They wanted blood. Tomorrow we'll have them back and 300 more. And they were just the pilot study. What's going to happen when 15 million people find their noses going bad on them? He shuddered. Have you seen the papers? People are already going around sniffing like bloodhounds. And now we're finding out what a thorough job we did. We can't crack it, Ellie. We can't even get a toehold. Those antibodies are just doing too good a job. Well, maybe you can find some uncle bodies to take care of them, Ellie offered vaguely. Look, don't make bad jokes. I'm not making jokes. All I want is a husband back who doesn't complain about how everything smells and eats the dinners I cook and doesn't stand around in cold showers at six in the morning. I know it's miserable, he said helplessly, but I don't know how to stop it. He found Jake and Kauffin in tight-lipped conference when he reached the lab. I can't do it any more, Kauffin was saying. I've begged them for time. I've threatened them. I've promised them everything but my upper plate. I can't face them again. I just can't. We only have a few days left, Jake said grimly. If we don't come up with something, we're goneners. Philip's jaw suddenly sagged as he stared at them. You know what I think, he said suddenly. I think we've been prize idiots. We've gotten so rattled we haven't used our heads. And all the time it's been sitting there blinking at us. What are you talking about, snap Jake? Uncle bodies, said Philip. Oh, great God. No, I'm serious. Philip's eyes were very bright. How many of those students do you think we can corral to help us? Kauffin gulped. Six hundred. They're out there in the street right now howling for a lynching. All right, I want them in here. And I want some monkeys. Monkeys with coals. The worse coals the better. Do you have any idea what you're doing? Asked Jake. None in the least said Philip happily except that it's never been done before. But maybe it's time we tried following our noses for a while. The tidal wave began to break two days later. Only a few people here, a dozen there, but enough to confirm the direst newspaper predictions. The boomerang was completing its circle. At the laboratory, the doors were kept barred, the telephones disconnected. Within there was a bustle of feverish if odorous activity. For the three researchers, the olfactory acuity had reached agonizing proportions. Even the small gas masks Philip had devised could no longer shield them from the constant barrage of odors. But the work went on in spite of the smell. Truckloads of monkeys arrived at the lab, cold ridden monkeys, sneezing, coughing, weeping, wheezing monkeys by the dozen. Culture trays bulged with tubes overflowed the incubators and work tables. Each day 600 angry students paraded through the lab, arms exposed, mouths open, grumbling, but cooperating. At the end of the first week, half the monkeys were cured of their colds and quite unable to catch them back. The other half had new colds and couldn't get rid of them. Philip observed this fact with grim satisfaction and went about the laboratory mumbling to himself. Two days later he burst forth jubilantly lugging a sad looking puppy under his arm. It was like no other puppy in the world. This puppy was sneezing and snuffling with a perfect howler of a cold. The day came when they injected a tiny droplet of milky fluid beneath the skin of Philip's arm and then got the virus spray and gave his nose and throwed a liberal application. Then they sat back and waited. They were still waiting three days later. It was a great idea. Jake said gloomily, flipping a bulging notebook closed with finality. It just didn't work, that's all. Philip nodded. Both men had grown thin with pouches under their eyes. Jake's riot eye had begun to twitch uncontrollably whenever anyone came within three yards of him. We can't go on like this, you know. The people are going wild. Where's Coffin? He collapsed three days ago. Nervous prostration. He kept having dreams about hangings. Philip sighed. Well, I suppose we better just face it. Nice knowing you, Jake. Pity it had to be this way. It was a great try, old man. A great try. Ah, yes. Nothing like going down in the blaze of Philip's stock dead. His eyes widening. His nose began to twitch. He took a gasp, a larger gasp. As a long dead reflex came sleepily to life, shook his head, reared back. Philip sneezed. He sneezed for ten minutes without a pause until he lay on the floor, blue-faced and gasping for air. He caught hold of Jake, wringing his hand as tears gushed from his eyes. He gave his nose an enormous blow and headed shakily for the telephone. It was a simple enough principle, he said later to Ellie as she spread mustard on his chest and poured more warm water into his foot bath. The cure itself depended upon it. The ethyged ethybody reactoid. We had the ethybody against the virus, all right. But we had to find was some kind of ethybody against the ethybody. He sneezed violently and poured in nose drops with a happy grin. Will they be able to make it fast enough? Just about fast enough for people to get good and eager to catch a cold again, said Philip. There is only one little hitch. Ellie Dawson took the stakes from the grill and set them still sizzling on the dinner table. Hitch. Philip nodded as he chewed the steak with the pretense of enthusiasm. It tasted like slightly damp curation. This stuff we bathe does a real good job, just a little too good. He wiped his nose and reached for a fresh tissue. I may be wrong, but I take I've got this cold for keeps, he said sadly, unless I could find an ethybody against the ethybody against the ethybody. End of the coffin cure by Alan E. Norse. Recording by Max Lindbergh. Death Wish by Robert Sheckley. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Greg Marguerite. Death Wish by Robert Sheckley. Compared with a spaceship in distress, going to hell in a hand basket is roomy and slow. The space freighter Queen Deirdre was a great squat pockmarked vessel of the Earth Mars run and she never gave anyone a bit of trouble. That should have been sufficient warning to Mr. Watkins, her engineer. Watkins was fond of saying that there are two kinds of equipment. The kind that fails bit by bit and the kind that fails all at once. Watkins was short and red faced, magnificently moustached and always a little out of breath. With a cigar in his hand over a glass of beer, he talked most cynically about his ship in the immemorial fashion of engineers. But in reality, Watkins was foolishly infatuated with Deirdre. Idealized her, humanized her, and couldn't conceive of anything serious ever happening. On this particular run, Deirdre soared away from Tara at the proper speed. Mr. Watkins signaled that fuel was being consumed at the proper rate and Captain Summers cut the engines at the proper moment indicated by Mr. Rajik, the navigator. As soon as Point Able had been reached and the engines stopped, Summers frowned and studied his complex control board. He was a thin and meticulous man and he operated his ship with mechanical perfection. He was well liked in the front offices of Mickelson Spacelines where Old Man Mickelson pointed to Captain Summers' reports as models of neatness and efficiency. On Mars he stayed at the officer's club, eschewing the stews and dives of Marsport. On Earth he lived in a little Vermont cottage and enjoyed the quiet companionship of two cats, a Japanese houseboy and a wife. His instructions read true and yet he sensed something was wrong. Summers knew every creek rattle and groan that Deirdre was capable of making. During blast-off he had heard something different. In space something different had to be wrong. Mr. Rajik, he said, turning to his navigator, would you check the cargo? I believe something may have shifted. You bet, Rajik said cheerfully. He was an almost offensively handsome young man with black wavy hair, blaze blue eyes and a cleft chin. Despite his appearance, Rajik was thoroughly qualified for his position, but he was only one of 50,000 thoroughly qualified men who lost it for a birth on one of the 14 spaceships in existence. Only Stephen Rajik had had the foresight, appearance and fortitude to court and wed Helga, old man Mickelson's eldest daughter. Rajik went af to the cargo hold. Deirdre was carrying transistors this time and microfilm books and platinum filaments, salamis and other items that could not as yet be produced on Mars. But the bulk of her space was taken by the immense farce and computer. Rajik checked the positioning lines on the monster, examined the stays and turnbuckles that held it in place and returned it to the cabin. All in order, boss. He reported to Captain Summers with a smile that only an employer's son-in-law can both manage and afford. Mr. Watkins, do you read anything? Watkins was at his own instrument panel. Not a thing, sir. I'll vouch for every bit of equipment in Deirdre. Very well. How long before we reach Point Baker? Three minutes, chief. Rajik said. Good. The spaceship hung in the void, all sensation of speed lost for lack of a reference point. Beyond the portals was darkness, the true color of the universe, perforated by the brilliant lost points of the stars. Captain Summers turned away from the disturbing reminder of his extreme finitude and wondered if he could land, Deirdre, without shifting the computer. It was by far the largest, heaviest, and most delicate piece of equipment ever transported in space. He worried about that machine. Its value ran into the billions of dollars for Mars Colony had ordered the best possible, a machine whose utility would offset the immense transportation charge across space. As a result, the farce and computer was perhaps the most complex and advanced machine ever built by man. Ten seconds to Point Baker, Rajik announced. Very well. Summers readied himself at the control board. Four, three, two, one, fire. Summers activated the engines. Acceleration pressed the three men back into their couches. And more acceleration and, shockingly, still more acceleration. The fuel Watkins yelped, watching his indicators spinning. The course! Rajik gasped, fighting for breath. Captain Summers cut the engine switch. The engines continued firing, pressing the men deeper into their couches. The cabin lights flickered, went out, came on again, and still the acceleration mounted and Deirdre's engines howled in agony, thrusting the ship forward. Summers raised one leaden hand and inched it toward the emergency cutoff switch. With a fantastic expenditure of energy, he reached the switch and depressed it. The engines stopped with dramatic suddenness, while tortured metal creaked and groaned. The lights flickered rapidly as though Deirdre were blinking in pain. They steadied and then there was silence. Watkins hurried to the engine room. He returned morosely. Of all the damned things, he muttered. What was it? Captain Summers asked. Main firing circuit, it fused on us. He shook his head. Metal fatigue, I'd say, it must have been flawed for years. When was it last checked out? Well, it's a sealed unit supposed to outlast the ship, absolutely foolproof unless it's flawed. Don't blame it on me. Those circuits are supposed to be x-rayed. He treated fluoroscope. You just can't trust machinery. At last Watkins believed that engineering axiom. How are we on fuel? Captain Summers asked. Not enough left to push a kiddie car down Main Street, Watkins said gloomily. If I could get my hands on that factory inspector. Captain Summers turned to Racheck, who was seated at the navigator's desk, hunched over his charts. How does this affect our course? Racheck finished the computation he was working on and nod thoughtfully at his pencil. It kills us. We're going to cross the orbit of Mars before Mars gets there. How long before? Too long, Captain. We're flying out of the solar system like a proverbial bat out of hell. Racheck smiled a courageous devil-may-care smile, which Watkins found singularly inappropriate. Damn it, man! He roared. Don't just leave it there. We've got a little fuel left. We can turn her, can't we? You are a navigator, aren't you? I am, Racheck said, icely. And if I computed my course the way you maintain your engines, we'd be plowing through Australia now. Why, you little company toadie, at least I got my job legitimately, not by marrying! That's enough, Captain Summers cut in. Watkins' face, a mottled red, his mustache bristling, looked like a walrus about to charge, and Racheck, eyes glittering, was waiting, hopefully. No more of this, Summers said. I give the orders here. I give the orders here. Then give Sum, Watkins snapped. Tell him to plot a return curve. This is life or death. All the more reason for remaining cool. Mr. Racheck, can you plot such a course? First thing I tried, Racheck said. Not a chance, though on the fuel we have left, we can turn a degree or two, but it won't help. Watkins said, of course it will, will curve back into the solar system. Sure, but the best curve we can make will take a few thousand years for us to complete. Perhaps a landfall on some other planet, Neptune, Uranus. Racheck shook his head. Even if an outer planet were in the right place at the right time, we'd need fuel, a lot of fuel, to get into a breaking orbit. And if we could, who'd come get us? No ship has gone past Mars yet. At least we'd have a chance, Watkins said. Maybe. Racheck agreed indifferently. But we can't swing it. I'm afraid you'll have to kiss the solar system goodbye. Captain Summers wiped his forehead and tried to think of a plan. He found it difficult to concentrate. There was too great a discrepancy between his knowledge of the situation and its appearance. He knew intellectually that his ship was traveling out of the solar system at a tremendous rate of speed. But in appearance they were stationary, hung in the abyss. Three men trapped in a small hot room, breathing the smell of hot metal and perspiration. What shall we do, Captain? Watkins asked. Summers frowned at the engineer. Did the man expect him to pull a solution out of the air? Now was he even supposed to concentrate on the problem? He had to slow the ship, turn it, but his senses told him that the ship was not moving. Howl then could speed constitute a problem. He couldn't help but feel that the real problem was to get away from these high strong, squabbling men to escape from this hot, smelly little room. Captain, you must have some idea. Summers tried to shake his feeling of unreality. The problem, the real problem, he told himself was how to stop the ship. He looked around the fixed cabin and out of the porthole at the unmoving stars. We are moving very rapidly, he thought, unconvinced. Ratchick said disgustedly, Our noble captain can't face the situation. Of course I can. Summers objected, feeling very light-headed and unreal. I can pilot any course you lay down. That's my only real responsibility. Plot us a course to Mars. Sure, Ratchick said, laughing. I can. I will. Engineer, I'm going to need plenty of fuel for this course, about ten tons. See that I get it. Right you are, said Watkins. Captain, I'd like to put in a requisition for ten tons of fuel. Requisition granted, Summers said. All right, gentlemen. Responsibility is inevitably circular. Let's get a grip on ourselves. Mr. Ratchick, suppose you radio Mars. When contact had been established, Summers took the microphone and stated their situation. The company official at the other end seemed to have trouble grasping it. But can't you turn the ship? He asked bewilderedly. Any kind of orbit? No. I've just explained that. Then what do you propose to do, Captain? That's exactly what I'm asking you. There was a babble of voices from the loudspeaker punctuated by bursts of static. The lights flickered and reception began to fade. Ratchick, working frantically, managed to re-establish the contact. Captain, the official on Mars said, we can't think of a thing if you could swing into any sort of orbit. I can't. Under the circumstances, you have the right to try anything at all. Anything, Captain. Summers groaned. Listen, I could think of just one thing. We could bail out in spacesuits as near Mars as possible, link ourselves together, take the portable transmitter. It wouldn't give much of a signal, but you'd know our approximate position. Everything would have to be figured pretty closely. Those suits just carry twelve hours' air, but it's a chance. There was a confusion of voices from the other end. Then the official said, I'm sorry, Captain. What? I'm telling you it's our one chance. Captain, the only ship on Mars now is the Diana. Her engines are being overhauled. How long before she can be spaceport? Three weeks at least, and a ship from Earth would take too long. Captain, I wish we could think of something about the only thing we can suggest. The reception suddenly failed. Ratschik cursed frustratedly as he worked over the radio. Watkins gnawed at his moustache. Summers glanced out of a porthole and looked heredly away for the stars, their destination, were impossibly distant. They heard static again, faintly now. I can't get much more, Ratschik said. This damned reception. What could they have been suggesting? Whatever it was, said Watkins. They didn't think it would work. What the hell does that matter? Ratschik asked annoyed. It'd give us something to do. They heard the official's voice. They whisper across space. Can you hear? Suggest. At full amplification the voice faded, then returned. Can only suggest, most unlikely. But try, calculator. Try. The voice was gone, and then even the static was gone. That does it, Ratschik said. The calculator. Did he mean the pharisen computer in our hold? I see what he meant, said Captain Summers. The pharisen is a very advanced job. No one knows the limits of its potential. He suggests we present our problem to it. That's ridiculous, Watkins snorted. This problem has no solution. It doesn't seem to, Summers agreed. But the big computers have solved other apparently impossible problems we can't lose anything by trying. No, said Ratschik. As long as we don't pin any hopes on it. That's right. We don't dare hope, Mr. Watkins. I believe this is your department. Oh, what's the use? Watkins asked. You say don't hope, but both of you are hoping anyhow you think the big electronic God is going to save your lives. Well, it's not. We have to try, Summers told him. We don't. I wouldn't give it the satisfaction of turning us down. They stared at him in vacant astonishment. Now you're implying that machines think, said Ratschik. Of course I am, Watkins said. Because they do. No, I'm not out of my head. Any engineer will tell you that a complex machine has a personality all its own. Do you know what that personality is like? Cold, withdrawn, uncaring, unfeeling. A machine's only purpose is to frustrate desire and produce two problems for every one it solves. And do you know why a machine feels this way? You're hysterical, Summers told him. I am not. A machine feels this way because it knows it is an unnatural creation in nature's domain. Therefore it wishes to reach entropy and cease, a mechanical death wish. I've never heard such gibberish in my life, Summers said. Are you going to hook up that computer? Of course, I'm human. I keep trying. I just wanted you to understand fully that there is no hope. He went to the cargo hold. After he had gone, Ratschik grinned and shook his head. We'd better watch him. He'll be all right, Summers said. Maybe, maybe not. Ratschik pursed his lips thoughtfully. He's blaming the situation on a machine personality now, trying to absolve himself of guilt, and it is his fault that we're in this spot. An engineer is responsible for all equipment. I don't believe you can put the blame on him so dogmatically, Summers replied. Sure I can, Ratschik said. I personally don't care, though. This is as good a way to die as any other and better than most. Captain Summers wiped perspiration from his face. Again, the notion came to him that the problem, the real problem, was to find a way out of this hot, smelly, motionless little box. Ratschik said, Death in space is an appealing idea, in certain ways. Imagine an entire spaceship for your tomb, and you have a variety of ways of actually dying. Thirst and starvation I rule out as unimaginative, but there are possibilities in heat, cold, implosion, explosion. This is pretty morbid, Summers said. I'm a pretty morbid fellow, Ratschik said carelessly. But at least I'm not blaming inanimate objects the way Watkins is, or permitting myself the luxury of shock like you. He studied Summers' face. This is your first real emergency, isn't it, Captain? I suppose so, Summers answered vaguely. And you're responding to it like a stunned ox, Ratschik said. Wake up, Captain, if you can't live with joy, at least try to extract some pleasure from your dying. Shut up, Summers said with no heat. Why don't you read a book or something? I've read all the books on board. I have nothing to distract me except an analysis of your character. Watkins returned to the cabin. Well, I've activated your big electronic god. Would anyone care to make a burnt offering in front of it? Have you given it the problem? Not yet. I decided to confer with the High Priest. What shall I request of the demon, sir? Give it all the data you can, Summers said. Fuel, oxygen, water, food, that sort of thing. Then tell it we want to return to Earth. Alive, he added. It'll love that, Watkins said. It'll get such pleasure out of rejecting our problem as unsolvable. Or better yet, insufficient data. In that way, it can hint that a solution is possible, but just outside our reach. It can keep us hoping. Summers and Ratchick followed him into the cargo hold. The computer activated now, hummed softly. Lights flashed swiftly over its panels, blue and white and red. Watkins punched buttons and turned dials for 15 minutes, then moved back. Watch for the red light on top, he said. That means the problem is rejected. Don't say it, Ratchick warned quickly. Watkins laughed. Superstitious little fellow, aren't you? But not incompetent, Ratchick said, smiling. Can't you two quit it? Summers demanded, and both men turned startledly to face him. Behold, Ratchick said. The sleeper has awakened. After a fashion, said Watkins, snickering. Summers suddenly felt that if death or rescue did not come quickly, they would kill each other or drive each other crazy. Look, Ratchick said. A light on the computer's panel was flashing green. Must be a mistake, said Watkins. Green means the problem is solvable within the condition set down. Solvable, Ratchick said. But it's impossible, Watkins argued. It's fooling us, bleeding us on. Don't be superstitious, Ratchick mocked. How soon do we get the solution? It's coming now, Watkins pointed to a paper tape inching out of a slot in the machine's face. But there must be something wrong. They watched as millimeter by millimeter the tape crept out. The computer hummed its lights flashing green. Then the hum stopped. The green lights blazed once more and faded. What happened, Ratchick wanted to know. It's finished, Watkins said. Pick it up, read it. You read it, you won't get me to play its game. Ratchick laughed nervously and rubbed his hands together, but didn't move. Both men turned to Summers. Captain, it's your responsibility. Go ahead, Captain. Summers looked with loathing at his engineer and navigator. His responsibility. Everything was his responsibility. Would they never leave him alone? He went up to the machine, pulled the tape free, read it with slow deliberation. What does it say, sir? Ratchick asked. Is it possible? Watkins urged. Oh yes, Summers said, it's possible. He laughed and looked around the hot, smelly, low-ceiling little room with its locked doors and windows. What is it? Ratchick shouted. Summers said. You figured a few thousand years to return to the solar system, Ratchick? Well, the computer agrees with you. Twenty three hundred years to be precise. Therefore it has given us a suitable longevity serum. Twenty three hundred years, Ratchick mumbled. I suppose we hibernate or something of the sort? Not at all, Summers said calmly. As a matter of fact, this serum does away quite nicely with the need for sleep. We stay awake and watch each other. The three men looked at one another and at the sickeningly familiar room, smelling of metal and perspiration, its sealed doors and windows that stared at an unchanging spectacle of stars. Watkins said, yes, that's the sort of thing it would do. End of Death Wish, by Robert Sheckley.