A Treasury of Great Science Fiction Vol 2 Part 4

"I'm afraid that there are more important things in life than Mr. Ross-man's country retreat," said Bergen evenly. "You can handle the place all right, even if Voss leaves too."

Fright and bewilderment lashed into scorn: "Scared of the animals, huh?"

"Why, no, Archie. Always remember that you're still brighter than they are, and what's more important, you have hands. A gun will stop anything." Bergen walked over to the window and looked out. It was a bright windy day with sunlight torn in the restless branches of trees. "As a matter of fact," he went on in the same gentle, remote tone, "a farm is safer than any other place I can think of. If the production and distribution systems break down, as they may, you'll still have something to eat. But my wife and I aren't getting any younger. I've been a steady, sober, conscientious man all my life. Now I wonder what all the fuss and the lost years were about."He turned his back. "Good-by, Archie." It was a command.

Brock went out into the yard, shaking his head and muttering to himself. Joe whined uneasily and nuzzled his palm. He ruffled the golden fur and sat down on a bench and put his head in his hands.

The trouble is, he thought, that while the animals and I got smarter, so did everybody else. G.o.d in Heaven-what sort of things are going on inside Bill Bergen's skull?

It was a terrifying concept. The speed and scope and sharpness of his own mind were suddenly cruel. He dared not think what a normal human might be like by now.

Only it was hard to realize. Bergen hadn't become a G.o.d. His eyes didn't blaze, his voice was not vibrant and resolute, he didn't ttart building great engines that flamed and roared. He was still a tall stoop-shouldered man with a weary face, a patient drawl, nothing else. The trees were still green, a bird chattered behind a rosebush, a fly rested cobalt-blue on the arm of the bench.

Brock remembered, vaguely, sermons from the few times he had been in church. The end of the world-was the sky going to open up, would the angels pour down the vials of wrath on a shaking land, and would G.o.d appear to judge the sons of man? He listened for the noise of great galloping hoofs, but there was only the wind in the trees.

That was the worst of it. The sky didn't care. The Earth went on turning through an endlessness of dark and silence, and what happened in the thin sc.u.m seething over its crust didn't matter.

n.o.body cared. It wasn't important.

Brock looked at his scuffed shoes and then at the strong hairy hands between his knees. They seemed impossibly alien, the hands of a stranger. Sweet Jesus, he thought, is this really happening to me?

He grabbed Joe by the ruffed neck and held him close. Suddenly he had a wild need for a woman, someone to hold him and talk to him and block out the loneliness of the sky.

He got up, sweat cold on his body, and walked over to the Bergens' cottage. It was his now, he supposed.

Voss was a young fellow, a kid from town who wasn't very bright and hadn't been able to find any other employment. He looked moodily up from a book as the other man entered the small living room.

"Well," said Brock, "Bill just quit."

"I know. What're we gonna do?" Voss was scared and weak and willing to surrender leaders.h.i.+p.

Bergen must have foreseen that. The sense of responsibility was strengthening.

"We'll be all right if we stay here," said Brock. "Just wait it out, keep going, that's all."

"The animals---"

"You got a gun, don't you? Anyway, they'll know when they're well off. Just be careful, always lock the gates behind you, treat 'em good---"

"I'm not gonna wait on any d.a.m.n animals," said Voss sullenly.

"That you are, though." Brock went over to the icebox and took out two cans of beer and opened them.

"Look here, I'm smarter than you are, and---""And I'm stronger'n you. If you don't like it, you can quit. I'm staying." Brock gave Voss one can and tilted the other to his mouth.

"Look," he said after a moment, "I know those animals. They're mostly habit. They'll stick around because they don't know any better and because we feed 'em and because-uh-respect for man has been drilled into 'em. There ain't no bears or wolves in the woods, nothing that can give us trouble except maybe the pigs. Me, I'd be more scared to be in a city."

"How come?" Despite himself, Voss was overmastered. He laid down the book and took up his beer.

Brock glanced at the t.i.tle: Night of Pa.s.sion, in a two-bit edition. Voss might have gained a better mind, but that didn't change him otherwise. He just didn't want to think.

"The people," said Brock. "Christ knows what they'll do." He went over to the radio and turned it on and presently got a newscast. It didn't mean much to him; mostly it was about the new brain power, but the words were strung together in a way that didn't make a lot of sense. The voice sounded frightened, though.

After lunch, Brock decided to take a scout through the woods and "* if he couldn't locate the pigs and find out what they were up to. They worned him more than he would admit. Pigs had always been smarter than most people knew. They might also get to thinking about the stores of feed kept on a farm watched by only two men.

Voss wasn't even asked to come; he'd have refused, and in any event it was wise to keep one man on guard at home. Brock and Joe went over the fence and into the six hundred acres of forest alone.

It was green and shadowy and full of rustling in there. Brock went quietly, a rifle under one arm, parting the underbrush before him with habitual ease. He saw no squirrels, though they were ordinarily plentiful.

Well-they must have thought it out, the way crows had done long ago, and seen that a man with a gun was something to stay away from. He wondered how many eyes were watching him, and what was going on behind the eyes. Joe stuck close to his heels, not bounding on all sides as he normally did.

An overlooked branch slapped viciously at the man's face. He stood for an instant of creeping fear.

Were the trees thinking too, now? Was the whole world going to rise in revolt?

No- After a moment he got control of himself and went stolidly on along the sheep trail. To be changed by this-whatever-it-was-a thing had to be able to think in the first place. Trees had no brains. He seemed to recall hearing once that insects didn't either, and made a note to check up on this. Good thing that Mr. Rossman had a big library.

And a good thing, Brock realized, that he himself was steady. He had never gotten too excited about anything, and was taking the new order more calmly than seemed possible. One step at a time, that was it. Just go along from day to day, doing as much as he could to stay alive.

The thicket parted before him and a pig looked out. It was an old black boar, a big mean-looking creature which stood immovably in his path. The snouted face was a mask, but Brock had never seen anything so cold as its eyes. Joe bristled, growling, and Brock lifted the rifle. They stood that way for a long time, not moving. Then the boar grunted-it seemed contemptuous -and turned and slipped into the shadows. Brock realized that his body was wet.

He forced himself to go on for a couple of hours, ranging the woods but seeing little. When he came back, he was sunk in thought. The animals had changed, all right, but he had no way of telling how much, or what they would do next. Maybe nothing."I been thinking," said Voss when he entered the cottage. "Maybe we should move in with another farmer. Ralph Martinson needs extra help, now his hired man has quit."

"I'm staying."

Voss gave him a cool glance. "Because you don't want to go back to being a moron, huh?"

Brock winced, but made his answer flat. "Call it what you like."

"I'm not going to stay here forever."

"n.o.body asked you to. Come on, it's about time for the milking."

"Judas, what'll we do with the milk from thirty cows? The creamery truck ain't come around for three days."

"Mmmmm-yeah- Well, I'll figger out something. Right now, we can't let 'em bust their teats."

"Can't we just?" muttered Voss, but followed him out to the barn.

Milking thirty cows was a big job, even with a couple of machines to help. Brock decided to dry up most of them, but that would take some time, you had to taper them off gradually. Meanwhile they were restless and hard to control.

He came out and took a pitchfork and began throwing hay over the fence to the sheep, which had flocked in from the woods as usual. Halfway through the job, he was roused by Joe's wild yammer. He turned and saw the farm's enormous Holstein bull approaching.

He's loose! Brock's hand went to the pistol at his belt, then back to his fork. A popgun wasn't much use against such a monster. The bull snorted, pawing the ground and shaking his horn-cropped head.

"Okay, fella." Brock went slowly toward him, wiping sandy lips with his tongue. The noise of his heart was loud in his ears. "Okay, easy, back to the pen with yuh."

Joe snarled, stiff-legged beside his master. The bull lowered his head and charged.

Brock braced himself. The giant before him seemed to fill the sky.

Brock stabbed under the jaw. It was a mistake, he realized wildly, he should have gone for the eyes. The fork ripped out of his hands and he felt a blow which knocked him to the ground. The bull ground his head against Brock's chest, trying to gore with horns that weren't there.

Suddenly he bellowed, a horror of pain in his voice. Joe had come behind him and fastened jaws in the right place. The bull turned, one hoof grating along Brock's ribs. The man got his gun out and fired from the ground. The bull began to run. Brock rolled over, scrambled to his feet, and sprang alongside the great head. He put the pistol behind one ear and fired. The bull stumbled, falling to his knees. Brock emptied the gun into his skull.

After that he collapsed on the body, whirling toward darkness.

He came to as Voss shook him.

"Are yuh hurt, Archie?" The words gibbered meaninglessly in his ears. "Are you hurt?"

Brock let Voss lead him into the cottage. After a stiff drink he felt better and inspected himself. "I'm allright," he muttered. "Bruises and cuts, no bones broke. I'm okay."

"That settles it." Voss was shaking worse than Brock. "We're leaving here."

The red head shook. "No."

"Are you crazy? Alone here, all the animals running wild, everything gone to h.e.l.l-are you crazy?"

"I'm staying."

"I'm not! I got half a mind to make you come along."

Joe growled. "Don't," said Brock. He felt, suddenly, nothing but an immense weariness. "You go if you want to, but leave me. I'll be all right."

"Well---"

"I'll herd some of the stock over to Martinson's tomorrow, if he'll take 'em. I can handle the rest myself."

Voss argued for a while longer, then gave up and took the jeep and drove away. Brock smiled without quite knowing why he did.

He checked the bull's pen. The gate had been broken down by a determined push. Half the power of fences had always lain in the fact that animals didn't know enough to keep shoving at them. Well, now they did, it seemed.

"I'll have to bury that fellow with a bulldozer," said Brock. It was becoming more and more natural for him to speak aloud to Joe. "Do it tomorrow. Let's have supper, boy, and then we'll read and play some music. We're alone from here on, I guess."

CHAPTER SIX.

A CITY WAS AN ORGANISM, but Corinth had never appreciated its intricate and precarious equilibrium before. Now, with the balance gone, New York was sliding swiftly toward disruption and death.

Only a few subways were running, an emergency system manned by those devoted enough to stay by a job which had become altogether flat and distasteful. The stations were hollow and dark, filthy with unswept litter, and the shrieking of wheels held a tormented loneliness. Corinth walked to work, along dirty streets whose traffic had fallen to a reckless fragment of the old steady river.

Memory, five days old: the roads jammed, a steel barricade ten miles long, honking and yelling till the high windows s.h.i.+vered, filling the air with exhaust fumes till men choked-blind panic, a mob fleeing a city they had decided was finished, flying from it at an estimated average speed of five miles an hour. Two cars had locked b.u.mpers and the drivers got out and fought till their faces were b.l.o.o.d.y masks. Police helicopters had buzzed impotently overhead, like monster flies. It was saddening to know that multiplied intelligence had not quenched such an animal stampede.

Those who remained-probably three-fourths of the city's dwellers-were still sc.r.a.ping along. Severely rationed gas, water, and electricity were being supplied. Food still trickled in from the country, though you had to take what you could get and pay exorbitantly. But it was like a pot, rumbling and seething and gathering itself to boil over.Memory, three days old: the second Harlem riot, when fear of the unknown and rage at ancient injustice had stood up to fight, for no reason except that untrained minds could not control their own new powers. The huge roar of burning tenements, giant red flames flapping against a windy night sky. The restless luminance like blood on a thousand dark faces, a thousand ill-clad bodies that stamped and swayed and struggled in the streets.* A knife gleaming high and slaking itself in a human throat. A broken howling under the noise of fire. A scream as some woman went down and was stamped shapeless beneath a hundred running feet. The helicopters tossing and twisting in the storm of superheated air rus.h.i.+ng up from the flames. And in the morning, empty streets, a haze of bitter smoke, a dim sobbing behind shuttered windows.

Yes, still a thin tight-held semblance of order. Only-how long could it endure?

A tattered man with a ragged, new-looking beard was ranting on a street corner. Some dozen people stood around him, listening with a strange intensity. Corinth heard the words loud and harsh in the quiet: "-because we forgot the eternal principles of life, because we let the scientists betray us, because we all followed the eggheads. I tell you, it is life only that matters before the great Oneness in whom all are one and one are all. Behold, I bring you the word of the returned---"

His skin crawled, and he made a swift detour around that corner. Was it a missionary of the Third Ba'al cultists? He didn't know, and didn't feel like stopping to find out. Not a cop in sight to report it to. There was going to be real trouble if the new religion got many followers here in town. It gave him some comfort to see a woman entering the Catholic church nearby.

A taxi rounded a corner on two wheels, sideswiped a parked car, and was gone in a burst of noise.

Another automobile crept slowly down the street, the driver tightfaced, his pa.s.senger holding a shotgun.

Fear. The shops were boarded up on either side; one small grocery remained open, and its proprietor carried a pistol at his belt. In the dingy entrance to an apartment house, an old man sat reading Kant's Critique with a strange and frantic hunger which ignored the world around him.

"Mister, I haven't eaten for two days."

Corinth looked at the shape which had slunk out of an alley. "Sorry," he answered. "I've only got ten bucks on me. Barely enough for a meal at present prices."

"Christ, I can't find work---"

"Go to City Hall, friend. They'll give you a job and see that you're fed. They need men badly."

Scorn: "That outfit? Sweeping streets, hauling garbage, trucking in food-* I'd starve first!"

"Starve, then," spat Corinth, and went on more swiftly. The weight of the revolver dragging down his coat pocket was cheering. He had little sympathy for that type, after what he had seen.

Though could you expect anything different? You take a typical human, a worker in factory or office, his mind dulled to a collection of verbal reflexes, his future a day-to-day plodding which offered him no more than a chance to fill his belly and be anesthesized by a movie or his television-more and bigger automobiles, more and brighter plastics, onward and upward with the American Way of Life. Even before the change, there had been an inward hollowness in Western civilization, an unconscious realization that there ought to be more in life than one's own ephemeral self-and the ideal had not been forthcoming.

Then suddenly, almost overnight, human intelligence had exploded toward fantastic heights. An entire new cosmos opened before this man, visions, realizations, thought boiling unbidden within him. He sawthe miserable inadequacy of his life, the triviality of his work, the narrow and meaningless limits of his beliefs and conventions-and he resigned.

Not everyone left, of course-not even the majority. But enough people did to throw the whole structure of technological civilization out of gear. If no more coal was being mined, then the makers of steel and of machines could not stay by their jobs even if they wanted to. Add to that the disturbances caused by emotions gone awry, and--- A naked woman walked down the street, carrying a market basket. She had set out to think for herself, Corinth imagined, and had decided that clothes in summer were ridiculous, and had taken advantage of the fact that the police had other worries to shed hers. No harm in that per se, but as a symptom it made him s.h.i.+ver. Any society was necessarily founded on certain more or less arbitrary rules and restrictions.

Too many people had suddenly realized that the laws were arbitrary, without intrinsic significance, and had proceeded to violate whichever ones they didn't like.

A young man sat on a doorstep, his arms clasped about knees drawn up under his chin, rocking to and fro and whimpering softly. Corinth stopped. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Fear." The eyes were bright and glazed. "I suddenly realized it. I am alone."

Corinth's mind leaped ahead to what he was going to say, but he heard out the panic-blurred words: "All I know, all I am, is here, in my head. Everything exists for me only as I know it. And someday I'm going to die." A line of spittle ran from one comer of his mouth. "Someday the great darkness will come, I will not be-nothing will be! You may still exist, for you-though how can I tell that you aren't just a dream of mine?-but for me there will be nothing, nothing, nothing. I will never even have been." The weak tears dribbled out of his eyes, and Corinth went on.

Insanity-yes, that had a lot to do with the collapse. There must be millions who had not been able to stand that sudden range and sharpness of comprehension. They hadn't been able to handle their new power, and it had driven them mad.

He shuddered in the hot still air.

The Inst.i.tute was like a haven. When he walked in, a man sat on guard: submachine gun lying beside his chair, chemistry text on his lap. The face that lifted to Corinth's was serene. "Hullo."

"Had any trouble, Jim?"

"Not yet. But you never can tell, with all the prowlers and fanatics."