Collected Fiction, page 467
“The Sequoia Baldies,” Hobson said. “And the non-Baldy staff—and the patients. We couldn’t leave them.”
“But—”
“It was the only possible answer for us, Burkhalter. Listen. For twenty years we’ve been preparing—not for this, but for the pogrom. Up in the woods, in a place only Mutes know about, there’s a series of interlocking caves. It’s a city now. A city without population. The Codys—there are four of them, really—have been using it as a laboratory and a hideout. There’s material there for hydroponics, artificial sunlight, everything a culture needs. The caves aren’t big enough to shelter all the Baldies, but they’ll hold Sequoia’s population.”
Burkhalter stared. “The non-Baldies?”
“Yes. They’ll be segregated, for a while, till they can face truth. They’ll be prisoners; we can’t get around that fact. It was a choice between killing them and holding them incommunicado. In the caves, they’ll adapt. Sequoia was a tight, independent community. Family units won’t be broken up. The same social pattern can be followed. Only—it’ll be underground, in an artificial culture.”
“Can’t the paranoids find them?”
“There are no stars underground. The paranoids may read the minds of the Sequoians, but you can’t locate a mind by telepathic triangulation. Only Mutes know the location of the caves, and no paranoid can read a Mute’s thoughts. They’re on their way now to join us—enough Mutes to take the Sequoians on the last lap. Not even the Hedgehounds will know where they’re going.”
“Then the secret will be safe among telepaths—except for the Hedgehounds. What if they talk?”
“They won’t. Lots of reasons. For one, they have no communication to speak of with the outside world. For another, they’re under an autocracy, really. The Codys know how to enforce their rules. Also, have you thought how the towns would react if they knew Hedgehounds had cleaned out a whole village? To save their own skins the Hedgehounds will keep their mouths shut. Oh, it may leak out. With so many individuals involved you never can be absolutely sure. But I think for an extemporaneous plan, it’ll work out well enough.” Hobson paused and his mind brushed with the keenness of a quick glance against Burkhalter’s mind. “What’s the matter, Burk? Still worried about something?”
“The people, I suppose,” Burkhalter admitted. “The humans. It doesn’t seem exactly fair, you know. I’d hate to be cut off forever from all contact with the rest of the world. They—”
Hobson thought an explosive epithet. It was much more violent thought than voiced. He said, “Fair! Of course it isn’t fair! You saw that mob coming up the road, Burk—did they have fairness in mind then? If anyone ever deserved punishment that mob does!” His voice grew milder. “One thing we tend to lose sight of, you see. We grow up with the idea of indulgence toward humans pounded into us to such an extent we almost forget they’re responsible people, after all. A pogrom is the most indefensible concerted action a group can be guilty of. It’s always an attack by a large majority on a defenseless minority. These people would have killed us all without a qualm, if they could. They’re lucky we aren’t as vicious as they were. They deserve a lot worse than they’re getting, if you ask me. We didn’t ask to be put in a spot like this. There’s unfairness involved all around, but I think this solution is the best possible under the circumstances.”
They watched the procession below moving through the moonlight. Presently Hobson went on. “Another angle turned up after we put this thing in motion, too. A mighty good one, By sheer accident we’re going to have a wonderful laboratory experiment going on in human relations. It won’t be a dead-end community in the caves, Eventually, we think the Baldies and the non-Baldies will intermarry there. The hospital staff are potential good-will ambassadors. It’ll take careful handling, but I think with our facilities for mind reading and the propaganda we can put out adjusted by the readings, things will work out. It may be the basis for the ultimate solution of the whole Baldy-human problem.
“You see, this will be a microcosm of what the whole world ought to be—would have been if the Blow-Up hadn’t brought us telepaths into being ahead of our normal mutation time. It will be a community of humans dominated by telepaths, controlled by them benevolently. We’ll learn how to regulate relations with humans, and there’ll be no danger while we learn. It’ll be trial and error without punishment for error. A little hard on the humans, perhaps, but no harder than it’s been for generations on the Baldy minority all over the world. We might even hope that in a few years’ time the experiment may go well enough that even if the news leaked out, the community members would elect to stay put. Well, we’ll have to wait and see. It can’t be solved any better way that we know of. There is no solution, except adjustment between the races. If every Baldy on earth committed voluntary suicide, there’d still be Baldies born. You can’t stop it. The Blow-Up’s responsible for that, not us. We . . . wait a minute.”
Hobson turned his head sharply, and in the rustling night silences of the forest, broken only by the subdued noises of the proposition far below, they listened for a sound not meant for ears.
Burkhalter heard nothing, but in a moment Hobson nodded.
“The town’s about to go,” he said.
Burkhalter frowned. “There’s another loose end, isn’t there? What if they blame Pinewood for dusting Sequoia off?”
“There won’t be any proof either way. We’ve about decided to spread rumors indicating two or three other towns along with Pinewood, enough to confuse the issue. Maybe we’ll say the explosion might have come from an accident in the Egg dump. That’s happened, you know. Pinewood and the rest will just have to get along under a slight cloud for awhile. They’ll have an eye kept on them, and if they should show any more signs of aggression . . . but of course, nothing will happen. I think . . . look, Burkhalter! There she goes!”
Far away below them the glow that was Sequoia lay like a lake of light in the mountains’ cup. As they watched, it changed. A nova flamed in incandescent splendor, whitening the men’s faces and showing the pines in starkly black silhouette.
For an instant the soundless ether was full of a stunning, mindless cry that rocked the brain of every telepath within its range. Then there was that terrible void, that blankness of cessation into which no Baldy cares to look. This time it was a mighty vortex, for a great many telepathic minds perished together in that nova. It was a vortex that made the mind reel perilously near its great, sucking brink. Paranoid they may have been, but they were telepathic too, and their going shook every brain that could perceive the passing.
In Burkhalter’s mind a reeling blindness struck. He thought, Barbara, Barbara . . .
It was an utterly unguarded cry. He made no effort to hush it from Hobson’s perception.
Hobson said, as if he had not heard, “That’s the finish. Two Mutes in copters dropped the Eggs. They’re watching now. No survivors. Burkhalter—”
He waited. Slowly Burkhalter pulled himself out of that blind abyss into which the beautiful, terrible, deadly image of Barbara Pell whirled away toward oblivion. Slowly he brought the world back into focus around him.
“Yes?”
“Look. The last of the Sequoians are going by. You and I aren’t needed here any more, Burk.”
There was significance in that statement. Burkhalter shook himself mentally and said with painful bewilderment,
“I don’t . . . quite get it. Why did you bring me up here? Am I—” He hesitated. “I’m not going with the others?”
“You can’t go with them,” the Mute said quietly. There was a brief silence; a cool wind whispered through the pine needles. The pungent fragrance and freshness of the night washed around the two telepaths. “Think, Burkhalter,” Hobson said. “Think.”
“I loved her,” Burkhalter said. “I know that now.” There was shock and self-revulsion in his mind, but he was too stunned by the realization for much emotion to come through yet.
“You know what that means, Burkhalter? You’re not a true Baldy. Not quite.” He was silent for a moment. “You’re a latent paranoid, Burk,” Hobson said.
There was no sound or thought between them for a full minute. Then Burkhalter sat down suddenly on the pine needles that carpeted the forest floor.
“It isn’t true,” he said. The trees were reeling around him.
“It is true, Burk.” Hobson’s voice and mind were infinitely gentle. “Think. Would you—could you—have loved a paranoid, and such a paranoid as that, if you were a normal telepath?”
Dumbly Burkhalter shook his head. He knew it was true. Love between telepaths is a far more unerring thing than love between blind and groping humans. A telepath can make no mistake about the quality of the beloved’s character. He could not if he wished. No normal Baldy could feel anything but utter revulsion toward the thing that had been Barbara Pell. No normal Baldy—
“You should have hated her. You did hate her. But there was something more than hate. It’s a paranoid quality, Burk, to feel drawn toward what you despise. If you’d been normal, you’d have loved some normal telepathic woman, someone your equal. But you never did. You had to find a woman you could look down on. Someone you could build up your ego by despising. No paranoid can admit any other being is his equal. I’m sorry, Burk. I hate to say these things.”
Hobson’s voice was like a knife, merciless and merciful, excising diseased tissue. Burkhalter heard him, and trod down the latent hatred which the truth—and he knew the truth of it—brought out in his double mind.
“Your father’s mind was warped too, Burk,” Hobson went on. “He was born too receptive to paranoid indoctrination—”
“They tried their tricks on him when he was a kid,” Burkhalter said hoarsely. “I remember that.”
“We weren’t sure at first about what ailed you. The symptoms didn’t show till you took on the consulate. Then we began to build up a prognosis, of sorts. You didn’t really want that job, Burkhalter. Not subconsciously. Those heavy fatigues were a defense. I caught that daydream of yours today—not the first one you’ve had. Daydreams concerned with suicide—another symptom, and another means of escape. And Barbara Pell—that was the payoff. You couldn’t let yourself know what your real feelings were, so you projected the opposite emotion—hatred. You believed she was persecuting you, and you let your hatred have full freedom. But it wasn’t hatred. Burk.”
“No. It wasn’t hatred. She . . . she was horrible, Hobson! She was horrible!”
“I know.”
Burkhalter’s mind boiled with violent emotions, too tangled to sort out. Hatred, intolerable grief, bright flashes of the paranoid world, memory of Barbara Pell’s wild mind like a flame in the wind.
“If you’re right, Hobson,” he said with difficulty, “you’ve got to kill me. I know too much. If I’m really a latent paranoid some day I might betray—Us.”
“Latent,” Hobson said. “There’s a world of difference—if you can be honest with yourself.”
“I’m not safe if I live. I can feel—disease—back in my mind right now. I—hate you, Hobson. I hate you for showing me myself. Some day the hate may spread to all Mutes and all Baldies. How can I trust myself any more?”
“Touch your wig, Burk,” Hobson said.
Bewildered, Burkhalter laid a shaking hand upon his head. He felt nothing unusual. He looked at Hobson in complete confusion.
“Take it off, Burk.”
Burkhalter lifted off the wig. It came hard, the suction caps that held it in place giving way with reluctance. When it was off, Burkhalter was amazed to feel that there was still something on his head. He lifted his free hand and felt with unsteady fingers a fine cap of wires like silk, hugging his skull. He looked up in the moonlight and met Hobson’s eyes. He could see the fine wrinkles around them, and the look of kindness and compassion on the Mute’s round face. For an instant he forgot even the mystery of the strange cap on his head. He cried voicelessly,
Help me, Hobson! Don’t let me hate you!
Instantly into his mind came a firm, strong, compassionate locking of thoughts from many, many minds. It was a communion more intimate and of a different quality than anything he had ever felt before. And it was to the mind as the clasp of many supporting hands would be to the body when the body is weary and in infinite need of support.
You’re one of us now, Burkhalter. You wear the Helmet. You are a Mute. No Paranoid can ever read your mind.
It was Hobson’s thought that spoke to him, but behind it spoke the thoughts of many others, many trained minds from hundreds of other Mutes, all speaking as if in a chorus that echoed and amplified all Hobson said.
But I . . . I’m a latent—
The hundreds of minds blended into a cohesive unit, the psychic colloid of the round robin, but a different, more intense union, wrought into something new by the caps that filtered all their thoughts. The unit became a single mind, strong and sane and friendly, welcoming the newcomer. He did not find miraculous healing there—he found something better.
Truth. Honesty.
Now the warp in his mind, the paranoid quirk and its symptoms and illogic, became very clear. It was the highest kind of psychoanalysis, which only a Baldy can know.
He thought, It will take time. The cure will take—
Hobson was standing behind him. I’ll be with you. Until you can stand alone. And even then—we’ll all be with you. You are one of us. No Baldy is ever alone.
THE END.
1946
THIS IS THE HOUSE
A house, it has been said, is a machine for living. The house they bought from its previous occupant had, very definitely, been made just that. But—not for human living!
Melton walked somberly into the living room and headed for the front windows, where he remained, brooding over some dark thought and twisting his hands idly behind him. His wife, Michaela, lifted her head and watched him, while the whirring of the sewing machine faded into silence. After a moment she said “You’re in my light, Bob.”
“Am I? Sorry,” Melton murmured, and moved aside. But he still kept his back to the room, and his fingers still moved nervously behind him. Michaela frowned, sent a slow, rather questioning glance around the room, and pushed back her chair.
“Let’s have a drink.” she said, “Your silhouette looks vaguely rocky. A short, strong cocktail, perhaps . . . huh?”
“A short, strong snort of rye, I‘d say,” Melton expanded, brightening a trifle. “I’ll fix it. Hm-m-m.” He had taken a step toward the hall door, but now he paused, almost imperceptibly. Michaela remembered the refrigerator then. “I’ll do it,” she said, but Melton growled something and went on out, his footsteps heavy and determined.
Michaela crossed to the divan under the window and curled up on it, biting her lower lip and listening hard. As she expected, Bob was delaying opening the refrigerator. She heard the rattle of glasses, the clink of bottles, and a gurgle. The last time Bob had had occasion to investigate the refrigerator, there had been a gasp and a string of blazing, subdued oaths. But he had refused to tell why. Remembering other incidents that had occurred in the last three days, Michaela moved her shoulders uneasily. Not that she was cold. The house was warm, almost too warm, and that in itself, implied certain disturbing factors they had already noticed. Because the coal furnace in the basement was working rather impossibly well.
Melton came back with two highballs. He gave one glass to Michaela and slumped into a chair near her. There was a long silence.
“O.K.,” Melton said presently. “So I didn’t put any ice in the drinks.”
“What of it?”
“Because there’s ice today. There wasn’t yesterday. But today the ice-trays are full. Only it’s red ice.”
“Red ice,” Michaela repeated. “I didn’t do it.”
Her husband looked at her darkly. “I made no accusations,” he pointed out. “I didn’t really think you cut a vein and bled into the ice-trays, simply to worry me. I’m just saying that the ice is red now.”
“That’s easily solved. We’ll drink the rye straight. Where’s the bottle?”
Melton produced it from behind his chair. “I thought we could use several. Did you phone the agent today, Mike?”
“Yes. Nothing came of it. He got the idea we had termites.”
“I wish we had. Better termites than . . . well, what about the former tenant? Hadn’t he been able to find out anything at all?”
“No, and he thinks we’re busy-bodies.”
“I don’t care”—Melton took a long swig from his glass—“what he thinks. We bought this house on the understanding that it wasn’t . . . wasn’t . . .” He slowed down and stopped. Michaela exchanged a long glance with him.
Melton nodded. “Sure. That’s the way it is. What can we say?”
“Harmon kept talking about electricians and plumbers. He recommended several.”
“That helps a lot.”
“You’re a defeatist,” Michaela said, “and give me another drink. Thanks. After all, we’re saving coal.”
“At the expense of my sanity.”
“Could be you don’t understand this sort of furnace.”
Melton put down his glass and glared at her. “I’ve handled furnace accounts at the office.” He worked with a New York advertising agency, which was one reason they had taken this house, half an hour from Manhattan and pleasantly isolated on the outskirts of a small Hudson River town. “I’ve had to find out a little about how they worked. There’s a place for a draft, there’s a vent where the gases go out, and there’s a boiler built into the furnace. You put coal in, and, presumably, it burns out, heats the water in the boiler, and is circulated through the house radiators. There’s also a blower that doesn’t work. Look. It you light a match, it burns up, doesn’t it?”
