Collected short fiction, p.425
Collected Short Fiction, page 425
“Aye, the world’s ill!”
With the dry, precise austerity of a convenanter, Andrew Douglas supported that text with quotations from the evening paper. The eurasian war was spreading. A million were on strike, here in America, and millions unemployed. Everywhere there was oppression, corruption, human misery. And now the “war fever” was ravaging half the world.
Sometimes this new, man-made pandemic was called the “whistling death.” Because the virus attacked the respiratory system, and the last hopeless battle for breath made a characteristic sound. The virus was a product of protein-synthesis in “biological warfare” laboratories, and both armies had scattered it, in simultaneous thrusts at civilian morale.
“ ’Tis more of Cotterstone’s work,” rasped the dried-up little Scot. “They’ve learned in Washington that agents of World Chemical and Steel sold the virus to both sides at once—warning each country that they must hasten to use it for self-defense, because the enemy was planning to. An old trick of Cotterstone’s. Now, if our antigen fails, the plague may sweep all the world!”
The gaunt stooped bio-chemist shook his huge grizzled head, solemnly. Jethro Kallent looked twenty years older than his forty-four—all except his eyes. His eyes were blue and young with the undying fire of genius.
“We can’t fail,” Kallent said.
Wendell Lundoon—lean and earnest, for two years Kallent’s eager assistant—felt his hands clench. He had caught the fire of Kallent’s genius, and his smooth youthful face reflected Kallent’s firm purpose.
“No,” he whispered. “We won’t fail.”
“But the world’s ill.” Douglas nervously stirred his coffee, on the corner of the big acid-stained desk. “Lost. Aye, and damned! The old faith has weakened. But men need a god. A being of power, that they must look up to and obey; one to choose the way, and lead them, and punish those who straggle. That’s why they must set up dictators, and worship them like demigods.”
SLOWLY, Kallent set down his empty cup.
“Science is religion enough for me,” he said quietly. “Science—in the service of human progress—has room for all the awe and humility and sacrifice and devotion and sheer exultation that any human being is capable of.”
“For you, perhaps,” admitted Douglas. “But most people can never grasp that ideal. They need to fear, and worship, and follow. They are too small to stand alone. They need to lean on something greater than themselves.”
Lundoon’s serious young face was illuminated with a thought. His dark head lifted, with a sudden eager motion.
“Some day,” he whispered, “science will create such a god. I mean, a superman. Not just a thinking machine, or a robot. But a being wise and powerful—”
The youthful researcher checked himself. His first awe of Kallent’s huge learning had increased, in their two years together. And the vastness of this idea was almost appalling. Flushed, feeling a little foolish, he looked diffidently at the tall gaunt-bio-chemist. But Kallent was nodding soberly.
“Perhaps,” he said softly, “it could be done!”
Lundoon stared at him, whispering:
“Do you think—”
But Kallent said no more. His deep-sunken eyes looked past Lundoon, as if they saw something far-away and great. His furrowed face smiled faintly. Then a look of weariness and pain settled upon it. And Lundoon remembered a bitter, seldom-mentioned chapter in Kallent’s life.
Kallent had worked for years, Lundoon knew, on the problem of synthetic life. Through the vague contemporary concepts of static equilibrium, dipolar moment, alpha brain-waves, electrochemical transmission, he had advanced to a more fundamental grasp of the laws of life. He actually announced the creation of living cells—and was stunned by the popular reaction to that triumph. The sensational press roused a savage resentment against him. Laws were demanded, “to keep creation for the Creator.” Then the war came. Kallent dropped his biosynthesis experiments, for his efforts to protect the world from the deadly products of the biological warfare laboratories abroad.
“Aye,” cried little Douglas, “if science could make a god!”
But Kallent said no more.
It was a month later that Kallent announced his “anti-virus”—a synthetic protein which conferred lasting immunity to the virus of the “whistling death”—in time to arrest the first cases breaking out in American ports. The great pandemic was checked, and uneasy peace came to the exhausted Eurasian nations.
In the midst of the praise and awards heaped upon him, Kallent quietly announced that he was leaving the laboratory. Even to Douglas and Lundoon, he refused to reveal fully his purpose.
“I have another piece of work to do,” he told them. “You had to point it out to me, Wendell. But I see now that all I have done is mere preparation for it. It’s a big thing. It may take the rest of my life. If it succeeds, there’ll be nothing more for me to do. If it fails, nothing else will matter.”
HIS eyes were looking far away again.
“The thing can’t be done in America. Jethro Kallent wouldn’t be allowed to attempt it, anywhere. So I am going to leave America. And Jethro Kallent is dead. Jethro Jones is going to make a new experiment in bio-chemistry—somewhere.”
Douglas whispered, “Alone?”
Kallent’s rugged, grizzled head nodded.
“I must go alone. There are essential tasks for both of you, behind. Jethro Jones is going to need money and information and equipment. Andy, a Scot can always make money.”
“Aye,” said little Douglas.
Kallent set his lean hand on Lundoon’s shoulder.
“Wendell,” he said, “Jethro Jones will probably have a few research problems for you. And you must take my place, in the laboratory here. We must be ready, when Cotterstone decides to sell mankind another war. I think you need more training, and I’ve outlined a course of study for you—you’ll work with some of the biological warfare experts, abroad.”
Kallent shook their hands, picked up a black brief-case that was already initialed “J. J.,” and walked swiftly-out of the laboratory—and apparently out of the world of men.
Where had he gone? Lundoon had not dared ask—he knew that Kallent had already told them as much as he thought wise. Douglas, he knew, had instructions for forwarding letters and money and scientific equipment to Jethro Jones, but the little Scot refused to divulge the address.
“Kallent is afraid,” he told Lundoon. “Aye, afraid of Cotterstone. We didn’t tell you, but we had a wire from Cotterstone, after the anti-virus was announced. He offered Kallent a round million a year to work for World Chemical and Steel. Kallent replied with a devastating no. But Cotterstone is not a man you can say no to, safely.”
Douglas knew no more than Lundoon of the mysterious “bio-chemical” experiment that “Jethro Jones” was going to attempt.
“Andy, do you suppose—?”
Lundoon couldn’t forget that midnight conversation. The thing was incredible, too stupendous to be possible. Yet everything seemed to hint at it.
“Do you suppose, Andy, that he’s going to try to make a superman—a god?”
With a characteristic bird-like quickness, Douglas shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But, if any man could do such a thing, it is Jethro.” No word came back from “Jethro Jones.”
CHAPTER II
KALLENT had refused to demand any large reward for the “war fever” antigen. After he was gone, Lundoon spent seventy hours in the laboratory, and emerged with a formula for a new household antiseptic. Thereupon Andrew Douglas displayed his canny Scotch genius at finance. He organized the Jethro Kallent Electro-Biological research Foundation, with an initial endowment, from advance royalties on the antiseptic, of half a million dollars.
Lundoon prepared the first shipments of biological—and, oddly, metallurgical—equipment ordered by “Jethro Jones.” Douglas forwarded the crates, together with drafts for a hundred thousand dollars.
Presently, then, Lundoon was off to begin the two years of study that Kallent had outlined. He was in Paris, at work under a distinguished French astro-physicist, when he met Gina Arneth.
Deciding that his pupil was working too hard, the Frenchman began to vary his discourse on sub-atomic chemistry with lectures on the Gallic art of living; and finally presented Gina as a competent instructress in the latter.
Lundoon was instantly captivated with the beauty of her tall, pale body, the flame of her hair, the flashing spirit of her violet eyes. To the savant’s astonishment, he persuaded her to break her contract to sing in a night club, to fly with him to the Avalon.
The isle-port, for two weeks, was to Lundoon a dream of happiness. A scientific vision of his boyhood, made real. A floating man-made atoll, it ringed an oval blue lagoon, bore the gardens, hotels, and casinos of a luxurious resort.
Gina seemed his dream of perfection. He found her spirited, clever, winsome, gay, utterly lovely. The holiday was expensive, but Douglas, back at the Foundation, honored his drafts without comment.
The day came, however, when the scientist woke in Lundoon. Climbing with Gina back to the swimming deck, after a plunge in the cobalt tropical lagoon, he told her abruptly: “Let’s get dressed. I want to talk.” When they were seated at a palm-shaded table on the uttermost deck, the cool sea-wind in their faces, Gina squeezed his hand and whispered: “Happy, Wendy?”
“I’ve been happy,” he told her soberly. “But I have work to do. Last night I had an idea. I see—I think I see—a connection between one of Dupre’s astro-physical tensors, and the ultra-microscopic radiogens that now appear to be the key to life. Astronomy illuminating biology! Or maybe I’m crazy. Three months in the lab, and I’ll know.”
The hair of Gina Arneth, in the strong tropic light, was like spun flame. Her pointed oval face was smiling, and her violet eyes flashed with a taunting challenge.
“Wendy, what about me?”
Reaching across the little table, Lundoon took both her hands.
“Gina,” he whispered, “will you marry me?”
“I love you, Wendy.” Her voice trembled—yet something reminded Lundoon that she was a trained actress. “But you know already that I am—costly. I must have money, and the splendor that money buys. Money is food to me. Without it, I would die.” Her violet eyes were misty.
“You have ability, Wendy. You could make money.”
LUNDOON’S dark head lifted, and a slow grin smile twisted his face. “If this idea turns out as I expect,” he said softly, “my friend Cotterstone would give several millions for just one simple application of it—to drown the world in blood again.”
Against the green translucent fronds and the sea’s far glinting blue, a brightness suffused the face of Gina Arneth, until he thought that it was like a fantastic painting of some malicious elf.
“Wendy!” It was a hushed, eager plea. “Millions, Wendy—”
His face turned bitter.
“I love you, Gina.” His laugh was a short harsh sound. “Funny—because it seems you stand for everything I hate.” He stood up, and the chair fell unheeded behind him. “But—won’t—” He choked, gulped. “Won’t you go with me, Gina?”
“Not today!” Emotion caught her voice. “Take time to think, Wendy.” She was in his arms—he drew her against him, in spite of himself, and her hair was soft and fragrant in his face. “Money is so much—”
He pushed her roughly from him. “See that purple flying boat down on the lagoon?” Torture drove him to cruelty. “That’s Cotterstone, the munitions king. If you want blood-money, Gina, you had better go to him!”
At the savagery of that, she went pale as if he had struck her face. She pushed over the little table, so violently that its service was flung through the rail into the sea, and ran away from him. She was sobbing.
Mechanically, Lundoon set up the table and his chair, and then went down to make his reservation on the next Clipper for New York. He went back to work, in Kallent’s old laboratory.
In three months he knew that the new idea—sprung from the seed the French astrophysicist had dropped into the fertile bed of Kallent’s modified radiogenic theory—was something greater even than he had hoped.
He knew that Cotterstone would, indeed, give millions for the development of it that he called the azoic radiation. But every precaution had been used for secrecy. Douglas alone knew the details of his success. Lundoon was surprised beyond measure when the armament king came himself to the laboratory.
J. Hollworthy Cotterstone was a big man, single, violent-tempered, fifty-six. His masses of flesh looked puffed and unhealthy. His face was pale and splotched, and his small leaden eyes were set too close together.
Cotterstone’s origin was unknown, the name but the last of a series of aliases that confused the details of his colorful early career as munitions salesman and war-promoter. A child, he had been a bootblack—and, the rumors went, purse-snatcher—in the towns along the Danube. Now only he knew the number of his millions, or the measure of his veiled power.
“I’ll be frank with you, Lundoon.” It was in the office of the new administration building, that Douglas had built while Lundoon was abroad. Cotterstone strode ponderously up to the stained old desk that had been Jethro Kallent’s, and his voice was loud and flat. “I understand that you’ve invented a death ray. I want to buy it.”
“I don’t know how you understand it.” Lundoon’s lips had tightened. “We made no such announcement.”
“It doesn’t matter how I know.” Cotterstone’s pale unblinking eyes were keen and yet somehow stupid-seeming. “What’s your price?”
LUNDOON’S eyes flickered shut, and he leaned across the old battered desk.
“I tried to make it clear in my wires, Cotterstone,” he said. “The azoic ray is not for sale.”
The splotches on Cotterstone’s puffy face turned purple.
“You’re a damned fool, Lundoon.” He shook a soft pinkish fist. “War is a business, all right—but a dangerous business. It’s easy to get your fingers burned. World Chemical and Steel will pay as much for your weapon as any other interest will. But I warn you—if you refuse to sell—”
The big man was heaving, too breathless to go on. Lundoon rose slowly behind the desk.
“Listen, Cotterstone.” His voice rang cold. “If war comes again, I’ll give the ray for the defense of America and democracy—without a cent of cost. But—speaking your language—I’m not interested in murder for profit—not at any price.”
He drove a hard finger into Cotterstone’s quivering middle.
“Now get out!”
Gasping and sputtering, dangerously mottled, Cotterstone at last got out. At the door, however, he found breath and voice enough to indicate that he was used to crushing whatever stood in his way, and that he would enjoy annihilating Lundoon.
Standing tense behind the desk, Lundoon saw more than the varnished panels of the closing door. He saw a pointed, elfin face, with lucent violet eyes shining from its pallor. Strange, after nearly two years, how hard it still was to forget.
He sent for Andrew Douglas. Some dark shadow, of late, hid the old twinkle behind the nervous little Scot’s goldframed glasses.
“Andy,” Lundoon said softly, “please collect all our records that you have dealing with the azoic ray—every scrap of paper—and bring them here to me.”
The mild slight man stiffened, his shadowed eyes flashed.
“Why?” Puzzled, Lundoon merely waited, until Douglas rapped tensely, “What are you going to do with them?”
Regret turned Lundoon’s eyes black as he whispered:
“I’m going to destroy them—and all my own notes.”
The pale lined face of Douglas smiled and relaxed.
“I’ll get them at once, Wendy. Forgive me, but I knew that you had just seen Cotterstone—and I know Cotterstone.”
Lundoon smiled a hard white smile.
“Then you understand. If Uncle Sam ever needs the ray, we can set down the specifications from memory.”
“Aye.” The voice of Douglas shook. “Though that would be a bitter day. I hope the ray can be forgotten.”
Lundoon looked at him, suddenly.
“Have they come to you, Andy?”
Douglas ran nervous fingers through his fine graying hair.
“I know almost as much about it as you do, Wendy—unfortunately.” His face went sternly white. “Cotterstone’s agents came to me when you refused their first offer. They have brought to bear a pressure—difficult to resist.”
Lundoon stared, astonished.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Andy?”
DOUGLAS hesitated, bit his quivering lip.
“I couldn’t, Wendy.” His gray face was pinched with pain. “Once—long ago, Wendy—I did a foolish thing. I thought I had escaped it. But Cotterstone’s spies know everything.” His voice was low and hoarse. “A hard choice they offered me—disgrace, or millions. I’m glad you made this decision.”
Douglas brought a thick envelope. Lundoon took a brown folder from the safe. Douglas watched nervously as he burned the sheets one by one, holding each until the flame was close to his fingers, and carefully crushing the ash.
The violet eyes of Gina Arneth looked reproachfully from the flames.
“Now,” Lundoon sighed, “the plans exist only in our brains.”
Looking tense and pale, Douglas echoed faintly:
“In our brains.”
But Lundoon, in his own relief, failed to grasp the significance of those words—until, the next morning, he found the body of Andrew Douglas lying on the laboratory floor. One more record of the azoic ray had been blotted out—by the azoic ray itself, for the head had been charred and hardened in a way that only Lundoon could understand.
