Two novels of far future.., p.24
Two Novels of Far-Future Apocalypse, page 24
Drummond held up a bulky notebook. ‘All here,’ he said tonelessly. ‘All the facts we’ll need. Not formally correlated yet, but the picture is simple enough.’
Robinson took his arm and steered him into the office. He felt the general’s hand shaking, but he’d sat down and had a drink before business came up again.
‘You’ve done a good job,’ said the leader warmly. ‘When the country’s organized again, I’ll see you get a medal for this. Your men in the other planes aren’t in yet.’
‘No, they’ll be surveying for a long time. The job won’t be finished for years. I’ve only got a sort of outline here, but it’s enough. It’s enough.’ Drummond’s eyes were haunted.
Robinson felt cold at meeting that too-steady gaze. He whispered shakily: ‘Is it – bad?’
‘The worst. Physically, the country’s recovering. But biologically, we’ve reached a crossroads and taken the wrong fork.’
‘What do you mean? What do you mean?’
Drummond let him have it then, straight and hard as a bayonet thrust. ‘The birth rate’s a little over half the prewar,’ he said, ‘and about seventy-five percent of all births are mutant, of which possibly two-thirds are viable and presumably fertile. Of course, that doesn’t include late-maturing characteristics, or those undetectable by naked-eye observation, or the mutated recessive genes that must be carried by all of us. And it’s everywhere. There are no safe places.’
‘I see,’ said Robinson after a long time. He nodded, like a man struck a stunning blow and not yet fully aware of it. ‘The reason—’
‘Is obvious.’
‘Yes. People going through radioactive areas—’
‘Why, no. That would only account for a few, if any at all. Remember those old experimental results. Temporary irradiation just doesn’t produce mutation on that scale.’
‘No matter. The fact’s there, and that’s enough. We have to decide what to do about it.’
‘And soon.’ Drummond’s jaw tightened. ‘Its wrecking our civilization. We at least preserved our cultural continuity, but even that’s going now. People are going crazy as birth after birth is monstrous. Fear of the unknown, striking at minds still sick from the war and its aftermath. Frustration of parenthood, perhaps the most basic instinct there is. It’s leading to infanticide, desertion, despair, a cancer at the root of society. We’ve got to act.’
‘How? How?’ Robinson stared down at his hands.
‘I don’t know. You’re the leader. Maybe an educational campaign, though that doesn’t sound too practicable. Maybe an acceleration of your program for re-integrating the country. Maybe – I don’t know.’
Drummond stuffed tobacco into his pipe. He was near the end of his supply, but would rather take a few good smokes than a lot of niggling puffs. ‘Of course,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘it’s probably not the end of things. We won’t know for a generation or more, but I rather imagine the mutants can grow into society. They’d better, for they’ll outnumber the humans. The thing is, if we just let matters drift there’s no telling where they’ll go. The situation is unprecedented. We may end up as a culture of specialized variations, which would be very bad from an evolutionary standpoint. There may be fighting between mutant types, or with humans. Interbreeding may produce worse freaks, particularly when accumulated recessives start showing up. Robinson, if we want any say at all in what’s going to happen in the next few centuries, we have to act quickly. Otherwise it’ll snowball out of all control.’
‘Yes. Yes, we’ll have to act fast. And hard.’ Robinson straightened in his chair. Decision firmed his countenance, but his eyes were staring. ‘We’re mobilized,’ he said. ‘We have the men and weapons and the organization. They won’t be able to resist.’
Drummond felt a swift and horrible wrenching of fear. ‘What are you getting at?’ he snapped.
‘Racial death. All mutants and their parents to be sterilized whenever and wherever detected.’
‘You’re crazy!’ Drummond sprang from his seat, grabbed Robinson’s shoulders across the desk, and shook him. ‘You … why, it’s impossible! You’ll bring revolt, civil war, final collapse!’
‘Not if we go about it right.’ Sweat studded the general’s forehead. ‘I don’t like it any better than you, but it’s got to be done or the human race is finished. Normal births are rare.’ He surged to his feet, gasping. ‘I’ve thought a long time about this. I’ve studied the thing. Your facts only confirmed my suspicions. This tears it. Can’t you see? Evolution has to proceed slowly. Life wasn’t meant for such a storm of change. Unless we can save the true human stock, it’ll be absorbed, and the changes will go on and on and on. Or there must be a lot of lethal recessives.
‘In a large population, they can accumulate unnoticed till nearly everybody has them, and then start emerging all at once. That could nearly wipe us out. It’s happened before, population cycles in rats and lemmings and— If we eliminate mutant stock now, we can still save the race. It won’t be cruel. We can sterilize so it won’t make any difference, except that those people won’t have children. But it’s got to be done.’ His voice broke on a scream. ‘It’s got to be done!’
Drummond slapped him, hard. Robinson drew a shuddering breath, sat down, and began to cry, and somehow that was the most horrible sight of all.
‘You’re crazy,’ said Drummond. ‘You’ve gone nuts with brooding alone on this the last six months, without knowing or being able to act. You’ve lost all perspective.’
After a moment, he continued: ‘We can’t use violence. In the first place, it would break our cracked and shaking civilization for good, into a mad-dog finish fight. We’d not even win. We’re outnumbered, and we couldn’t hold down a continent, eventually a planet. And remember what we said once, about leaving the old savage way of settling things, that never brings a settlement at all? We’d throw away a lesson our noses were rubbed in not three years ago. We’d commit race suicide just because we were scared to go on living.’
Robinson didn’t reply, and Drummond went on very quietly: ‘And anyway, it wouldn’t do a bit of good. Mutants would still be born. The poison is everywhere. Normal parents will still give birth to mutants, somewhere along the line. We just have to accept that fact, and adjust to it. The new human race will have to.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Robinson raised a ghastly face from his hands, but there was a certain calm on it now. ‘I … blew my top. You’re right. I’ve been thinking of this, worrying and wondering, lying awake nights, and when I finally sleep I dream of it. I— Yes, I see your point. And you’re right.’
‘It’s okay. You’ve been under a terrific strain. Three years with never a rest, and the responsibility for a nation, and now this. Sure, everybody’s entitled to be a little crazy. We’ll work out a solution, somehow.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Robinson poured out two stiff drinks and gulped his own. He paced restlessly, with a rising strength. ‘Let me see— Eugenics, of course. If we work hard, we’ll have the nation tightly organized inside of ten years. Then … well, I don’t suppose we can keep the mutants from interbreeding, but certainly we can pass laws to protect humans and encourage their propagation. Since radical mutations would probably be intersterile anyway, and most mutants handicapped one way or another, a few generations should see humans completely dominant again.’
Drummond frowned. He was worried. It wasn’t like Robinson to be so unreasonable. Somehow, the man had acquired a blind spot where this most ultimate of human problems was concerned. He said slowly: ‘That won’t work either. First, it’d be hard to impose and enforce. Second, we’d be repeating the old Herrenvolk fallacy. Mutants are inferior, mutants must be kept in their place – to enforce that, especially on a majority, you’d need a full-fledged totalitarian state. Third, that wouldn’t work either, for the rest of the world, with almost no exceptions, is under no such control. And we won’t be in a position to rule them for a long time – generations, probably. Before then, mutants will dominate everywhere over there, and if they resent the way we treat their kind here, we’d better run for cover.’
‘You assume a lot. How do you know those hundreds or thousands of different types will work together? They’re less like each other than like us, even. They could be played off against each other.’
‘Maybe. But that would be going back onto the old road of treachery and violence, the road to Hell. Conversely, if every not-quite-human is called a “mutant”, like a separate class, he’ll think he is, and act accordingly against the lumped-together “humans”. No, the only way to sanity – to survival – is to abandon class prejudice and race hate altogether, and work as individuals. We’re all – well, Earthlings – and subclassification is deadly. We all have to live together, and might as well make the best of it.’ Drummond smiled with little mirth. ‘End of sermon.’
‘Yeah … yeah, I guess you’re right, at that.’
‘Anyway,’ said Drummond, ‘I repeat that all such attempts would be useless. All Earth is infected with mutation. It will be for a long time. The purest human stock will still produce freaks.’
‘Y-yes, that’s true. Our best bet seems to be to find all such stock and withdraw it into the few safe areas left. It’ll mean a small human population, but a human one.’
‘I tell you, that’s impossible!’ snapped Drummond. ‘There are no safe places. Not one.’
Robinson stopped pacing and looked at Drummond as at a physical antagonist. ‘That so?’ he almost growled. ‘Why?’
Drummond told him, adding incredulously, ‘Surely you knew that. Your physicists have measured the amount of it. Your doctors, your engineers, that geneticist I dug up for you. You obviously got a lot of those biological technicalities you’ve been slinging at me from him. They must all have told you the same thing!’
Robinson shook his head stubbornly. ‘It can’t be. It’s not reasonable. The concentration wouldn’t be great enough.’
‘Why, you poor fool, you need only look around you. The plants, the animals! Haven’t there been any human births here?’
‘No. This is still a man’s town, though women are trickling in and several babies are on the way.’ Robinson’s face twisted. ‘Elaine’s is due any time now. She’s in the hospital. Don’t you see, our other kids died of the plague. This one’s all we have. We want him to grow up in the right kind of world – not the one we’ve got now. You and I are on our way out. We’re the old generation, the one that wrecked the world. It’s up to us to build it again, and then back out and let our children have it. But we’ve got to make it ready for them, don’t we? Don’t we?’
Sudden insight held Drummond motionless for long seconds. Understanding came, and pity, and an odd gentleness that changed his sunken bony face. ‘Yes,’ he murmured, ‘yes, I see. That’s why you’re working with all that’s in you to build a healthy future. That’s why you nearly went crazy when this threat appeared. That … that’s why you just can’t comprehend.’
He put his arm around the other man’s shoulder and guided him toward the door. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go see how your wife’s making out. Maybe we can get some flowers on the way.’
V
The silent cold bit at them as they went down the street. Snow crackled underfoot. It was already grimy with town smoke and dust, but overhead the sky was incredibly clean and blue. Breath smoked whitely from their mouths and nostrils. The sound of men at work rebuilding drifted faintly between the bulking mountains.
‘We couldn’t emigrate to another planet, could we?’ asked Robinson, and answered himself: ‘No, we lack the organization and resources. They aren’t habitable anyway. We’ll have to make out on Earth. A few safe spots – there must be others besides this one – to house the true humans till the mutation period is over. Yes, we can do it.’
‘There are no safe places,’ insisted Drummond. To change the subject: ‘How does your geneticist think this’ll come out, biologically speaking?’
‘He doesn’t know. His specialty is still largely unknown. He can make an intelligent guess, and that’s all.’
‘Yeah. Anyway, our problem is to learn to live with the mutants, to accept anyone as – Earthling – no matter how he looks, to quit thinking anything was ever settled by violence. Funny,’ mused Drummond, ‘how the impractical virtues have become the basic necessities of survival. Maybe it was always true, but it took a beating like this one to make us see that simple fact. Now we’ve got to convince the rest of the world. I wonder if we can.’
They found some flowers, potted in a house, and Robinson bought them with the last of his tobacco. By the time he reached the hospital, he was sweating. The sweat froze on his face as he walked.
The medical center was the town’s largest building, and fairly well-equipped. A nurse met them as they entered.
‘I was just going to send for you, General Robinson,’ she said. ‘The baby’s on the way.’
‘How … is she?’
‘Fine, so far. Just wait here, please.’
Drummond sank into a chair and watched Robinson’s jerky pacing. The poor guy. The poor damned guy. Why is it expectant fathers are supposed to be so funny? It’s like laughing at a man on the rack. I know, Barbara. I know.
‘They have some anesthetics, at least,’ muttered the general. ‘They— Elaine never was very strong.’
‘She’ll be all right.’ It’s afterward that worries me.
‘Yeah – Yeah – How long, though? How long does it take?’
‘Depends. Take it easy.’ With a wrench, Drummond made a sacrifice to a man he liked. He filled his pipe and handed it over. ‘Here, you need a smoke.’
‘Thanks.’ Robinson puffed raggedly.
The slow minutes passed, fading into hours, and Drummond wondered vaguely what he would do when – it – happened. It didn’t have to happen. But the chances were all against such an easy solution. He was no psychiatrist. Best to let things occur as they would.
The waiting broke at last. A doctor came out, inscrutable in his robe. Robinson stood before him, motionless.
‘You’re a brave man,’ said the doctor. His face was bleak as he took off the mask. ‘You’ll need your courage.’
‘She—’ It was hardly a human sound.
‘Your wife is doing well. But the baby—’
A nurse brought out the little wailing form. It was a boy. But his limbs were limp rubbery tentacles.
Robinson looked, and something went out of him as he stood there. When he turned, he wore a dead man’s face.
‘You’re lucky,’ said Drummond, and meant it. He’d seen too many other mutants. ‘After all, he can learn to use those – arms. Maybe surgery can help. He’ll get along all right. He might even have an advantage for certain types of work. It isn’t a deformity, really. If there’s nothing else, you’ve got a good kid.’
‘If!’ whispered Robinson. ‘How can you tell?’
‘You can’t yet. But you’ve got guts, you and Elaine. You’ll make out, together.’ Yes, together, thought Drummond, and went on swiftly:
‘I see why you didn’t understand the problem. You wouldn’t. It was a psychological bloc, suppressing a fact you didn’t dare face. That boy was the big hope of your life. You couldn’t think the truth about him and his chances, so your subconscious just refused to let you think rationally on the subject of mutation at all.
‘Now you know. Now you realize there is no hiding place, not anywhere in the world. The tremendous incidence of mutant births in the first generation should have told you that by itself. Most such new traits are recessive, which means both parents have to have it for it to show in the child. But genetic changes are random, except for a tendency to fall into roughly similar patterns – four-leaved clovers or albinos, for instance. Think how big the total number of such changes must be, to produce so many corresponding alterations in male and female these past three years. Think how many, many recessives there must be, existing only in gene patterns till their mates show up. We’ll just have to take our chances on something deadly accumulating. We’d never know till too late.’
‘The dust—’ faltered Robinson.
‘Yeah. The radiodust. It’s colloidal, and uncountable other radio-colloids were formed when the bombs went off, and ordinary dirt and air gets into unstable isotopic forms near the craters. The poison is all over the world by now, blown on the wind.
‘The concentration isn’t too high for life, though it’s pretty near the safe limit and there’ll probably be a lot of cancer. But it’s everywhere. Every breath we draw, every crumb we eat and drop we drink, every clod we walk on, the radiation is there. It’s up in the stratosphere and down under the ground. And there’s no escape, for its damage has already been done to us.
‘Mutations were rare before, because a charged particle has to get pretty close to a gene and be moving fast before its electro-magnetic effects cause chemical change, and then that particular chromosome has to enter into reproduction. But now the charged particles, and the gamma rays producing still more, are everywhere. Many genes themselves must contain radioactive atoms.
‘Even at the comparatively low concentration, the odds favor a given organism having so many cells changed that at least one will give rise to a mutant when it reproduces. There’s even a good chance of like recessives meeting in the first generation, as we’ve seen. Nobody is safe, no place is free.’
‘The geneticists,’ said Robinson mechanically, ‘thinks some true humans will continue.’
‘A few, probably. After all, the radioactivity isn’t too concentrated, and it’s burning itself out. But it’ll take fifty or a hundred years for it to drop to insignificance, and by then the “pure” stock will be ‘way in the minority. And there’ll still be all those unmatched recessives, waiting to show up.’
‘You were right. We should never have created science. It brought the end of the race.’
‘I didn’t say that. The race brought its own destruction, through misuse of science. Our culture was scientific anyway, in all except its psychological basis. It’s up to us to take that last and hardest step. If we do, man – or man’s descendants – may yet survive.’
