... "Presence," with the crystals, was not a physical thing ...
"Do you see it yet?" Fenwick asked.
"No, I'm afraid I don't!" Baker was snappish. "This is one of the most devilish things I've ever come across!"
"You don't think it's working the way Jim and Sam say it is?"
"Of course not. The thing is utterly impossible! I am convinced a hypnotic condition is involved, but I must admit I don't see how."
"You may figure it out when you go through Ellerbee's lab."
Baker was obviously shaken. He spoke in subdued tones as Ellerbee started the tour of the crystal lab again. Baker's eyes took in everything. As the tour progressed he seemed to devour each new item with frenzied intensity. He inspected the crystals through a microscope. He checked the measurements of the thickness of the growing crystal layers.
The rain began while they were in the crystal lab. It beat furiously on the roof of the laboratory building, but Baker seemed scarcely aware that it was taking place. His eyes sought out every minute feature of the building. Fenwick was sure he was finding nothing to confirm his belief that the communicator crystals were a hoax.
Fenwick hadn't realized it before, but he recognized now that it would be a terrific blow to Baker if he couldn't prove the existence of a hoax.
Proof that the communicator crystals were all they were supposed to be would be a direct frontal attack on the sacred Index. It would blast a hole in Baker's conviction that nothing of value could come from the crackpot fringe. And, not least of all, it would require Baker to issue a research grant to Clearwater College.
What else it might do to Baker, Fenwick could only guess, but he felt certain Bill Baker would never be the same man again.
As it grew darker, Baker looked up from the microscope through which he had been peering. He glanced at the windows and the drenched countryside beyond. "It's been raining," he said.
Mary Ellerbee had already anticipated that the visitors would be staying the night. She had the spare room ready for Baker and Fenwick before dinner. While they ate in the big farmhouse kitchen, Ellerbee explained. "It would be crazy to try to get down to the highway tonight. The county's been promising us a new road for five years, but you see what we've got. Even the oldest citizen wouldn't tackle it in weather like this, unless it was an emergency. You put up for the night with us. You'll get home just as fast by leaving in the morning, after the storm clears. And it will be a lot more pleasant than spending the night stuck in the mud somewhere—or worse."
Baker seemed to accept the invitation as he ate without comment. To Fenwick he appeared stunned by the events of the day, by his inability to find a hoax in connection with the communicator crystals.
It was only when Baker and Fenwick were alone in the upstairs bedroom that Baker seemed to stir out of his state of shock.
"This is ridiculous, Fenwick!" he said. "I don't know what I'm doing here. I can't possibly stay in this place tonight. I've got people to see this evening, and appointments early in the morning."
"It's coming down like cats and dogs again," said Fenwick. "You saw the road coming in. It's a hog wallow by now. Your chance of getting through would be almost zero."
"It's a chance I have to take," Baker insisted. He started for the door. "You don't have to take it, of course."
"I'm not going to!" said Fenwick.
"But I must!"
Fenwick followed him downstairs, still trying to persuade him of the foolishness of driving back tonight. When Ellerbee heard of it he seemed appalled.
"It's impossible, Dr. Baker! I wouldn't have suggested your not returning if there were any chance of getting through. I assure you there isn't."
"Nevertheless I must try. Dr. Fenwick will remain, and I will come back tomorrow afternoon to complete our investigation. There are important things I must attend to before then, however."
Fenwick had the sudden feeling that Baker was in a flight of panic. His words had an aimless stream-of-consciousness quality that contrasted sharply with his usually precise speech. Fenwick was certain there was nothing sufficiently important that it demanded his attention on a night like this. He could have telephoned his family and had his wife cancel any appointments.
No, Fenwick thought, there was nothing Baker had to go to; rather, he was running from. He was running in panicky fear from his failure to pin down the hoax in the crystals. He was running, Fenwick thought, from the fear that there might be no hoax.
It seemed incredible that such an experience could trigger so strong a reaction. Yet Fenwick was aware that Baker's attitude toward Ellerbee and his device was not merely one aspect of Baker's character. His attitude in these things was his character.
Fenwick dared not challenge Baker with these thoughts. He knew it would be like probing Baker's flesh with a hot wire. There was nothing at all that he could do to stop Baker's flight.
Ellerbee insisted on loaning him a powerful flashlight and a hand lantern, which Baker ridiculed but accepted. It was only after Baker's tail-light had disappeared in the thick mist that Fenwick remembered he still had the crystal cube in his coat pocket.
"He's bound to get stuck and spend the night on the road," said Ellerbee. "He'll be so upset he'll never come back to finish his investigation."
Fenwick suspected this was true. Baker would seal off every association and reminder of the communicator crystals as if they were some infection that would not heal. "There's no use beating your brains out trying to get the NBSD to pay attention," Fenwick told Ellerbee. "You've got a patent. Figure out some gadgety use and start selling the things. You'll get all the attention you want."
"I wanted to do it in a dignified way," said Ellerbee regretfully.
You, too, Fenwick thought as he moved back up the stairs to the spare bedroom.
Fenwick undressed and got into bed. He tried to read a book he had borrowed from Ellerbee, but it held no interest for him. He kept thinking about Baker. What produced a man like Baker? What made him tick, anyway?
Fenwick had practically abandoned his earlier determination that something had to be done about Baker. There was really nothing that could be done about Baker, Bill Baker in particular—and the host of assorted Bakers scattered throughout the world in positions of power and importance, in general.
They stretched on and on, back through the pages of history and time. Jim Ellerbee understood the breed. He had quite rightly tagged Baker in addressing him as "Dear Urban." Pope Urban, who persecuted the great Galileo, had certainly been one of them.
It wasn't that Baker was ignorant or stupid. He was neither. Fenwick gave reluctant respect to his intelligence and his education. Baker was quick-witted. His head was stuffed full of accurate scientific information from diversified fields.
But he refused to be jarred loose from his fixed position that scientific breakthroughs could come from any source but the Established Authority. The possibility that the crackpot fringe could produce such a break-through panicked him. It had panicked him. He was fleeing dangerously now through the night, driven by a fear he did not know was in him.
Inflexibility. This seemed to be the characteristic that marked Baker and his kind. Defender of the Fixed Position might well have been his title. With all his might and power, Bill Baker defended the Fixed Position he had chosen, the Fixed Position behind the wall of Established Authority.
A blind spot, perhaps? But it seemed more than mere blindness that kept Baker so hotly defending his Fixed Position. It seemed as if, somehow, he was aware of its vulnerability and was determined to fight off any and all attacks, regardless of consequences.
Fenwick didn't know. He felt as if it was less than hopeless, however, to attempt to change Bill Baker. Any change would have to be brought about by Baker himself. And that, at the moment, seemed far less likely than the well-known snowball in Hades.
Fenwick knew he must have dozed off to sleep with the light still on in the room and Ellerbee's unread book opened over his chest. He did not know what time it was when he awoke. He was aware only of a suffocating sensation as if some ghostly aura were within the room, filling it, pressing down upon him. A wailing of agony and despair seemed to scratch at his senses although he was certain there was no audible sound. And a depression clutched at his soul as if death itself had suddenly walked unseen through the closed door.
Fenwick sat up, shivering in the sudden coolness of the room, but clammy with sweat over his whole body. He had never experienced such sensations before in his life. His stomach turned to a hard ball under the flow of panic that surged through all his nerves.
He forced himself to sit quietly for a moment, trying to release his fear-tightened muscles. He relaxed the panic in his stomach and looked slowly about the room. He could recall no stimulus in his sleep that had produced such a reaction. He hadn't even been dreaming, as far as he could tell. There was no recollection of any sound or movement within the house or outside.
He was calmer after a moment, but that sensation of death close at hand would not go away. He would have been unable to describe it if asked, but it was there. It filled the atmosphere of the room. It seemed to emanate from—
Fenwick turned his head about. It was almost as if there was some definite source from which the ghastly sensation was pouring over him. The walls—the air of the room—
His eyes caught the crystal on the table by the bed.
He could feel the force of death pouring from it.
His first impulse was to pick up the thing and hurl it as far as he could. Then in saner desperation he leaped from the bed and threw on his clothes. He grabbed the crystal in his hand and ran out through the door and down the stairs.
Jim Ellerbee was already there in the living room. He was seated by the old-fashioned library table, his hand outstretched upon it. In his hand lay the counterpart of the crystal Fenwick carried.
"Ellerbee!" Fenwick cried. "What's going on? What in Heaven's name is coming out of these things?"
"Baker," said Ellerbee. "He smashed up on the road somewhere. He's out there dying."
"Can you be sure? Then don't sit there, man! Let's get on our way!"
Ellerbee shook his head. "He'll be dead before we can get there."
"How do you know he cracked up, anyway? Can you read that out of the crystal?"
Ellerbee nodded. "He kept it in his pocket. It's close enough to him to transmit the frantic messages of his dying mind."
"Then we've got to go! No matter if we get there in time or not."
Ellerbee shook his head again. "Sam is on his way over here. He's in touch with Baker. He says he thinks he can talk Baker back."
"Talk him back? What do you mean by that?"
Ellerbee hesitated. "I'm not sure. In some ways Sam understands a lot more about these things than I do. He can do things with the crystals that I don't understand. If he says he can talk Dr. Baker back, I think maybe he can."
"But we can't depend on that!" Fenwick said frantically. "Can't we get on our way in the car and let Sam do what he thinks he can while we drive? Maybe he can get Baker to hold on until we get him to a doctor."
"You don't understand," said Ellerbee. "Dr. Baker has gone over the edge. He's dying. I know what it's like. I looked into a dying mind once before. There is nothing whatever that a doctor can do after an organism starts dying. It's a definite process. Once started, it's irreversible."
"Then what does Sam—?"
"Sam thinks he knows how to reverse it."
There wasn't much pain. Not as much as he would have supposed. He felt sure there was terrible damage inside. He could feel the warmth of blood welling up inside his throat. But the pain was not there. That was good.
In place of pain, there was a kind of infinite satisfaction and a growing peace. The ultimate magnitude of this peace, which he could sense, was so great that it loomed like some blinding glory.
This was death. The commitment and the decision had been made. But this was better than any alternative. He could not see how there could have been any question about it.
He was lying on his back in the wet clay of a bank below the road. It was raining, softly now, and he rather liked the gentle drop of it on his face. Somewhere below him the hulk of his wrecked car lay on its side. He could smell the unpleasant odor of gasoline. But all of this was less than nothing in importance to him now. Somewhere in the back of his mind was a remnant of memory of what he had been doing this day. He remembered the name of John Fenwick, and the memory brought a faint amusement to his bloody lips. There had been some differences between him and John Fenwick. Those differences were also less than nothing, now. All differences were wiped out. He gave himself up to the pleasure of being borne along on that great current that seemed to be carrying him swiftly to a quiet place.
After a time, he remembered two other names, also. James Ellerbee and Sam Atkins. He remembered a crystal, and it meant nothing. He remembered that it was in his pocket and that for some time he had felt a warmth from it, that was both pleasant and unpleasant. It was of no importance. He might have reached for it and thrown it farther from him, but his arm on that side was broken.
He was glad that there was nothing—nothing whatever—that had any magnitude of importance. Even his family—they were like fragments of a long-ago dream.
He lay waiting quietly and patiently for the swiftly approaching destination of ultimate peace. He did not know how long it would take, but he knew it could not be long, and even the journey was sweet.
It was while he waited, letting his mind drift, that he became aware of the intruder. In that moment, the pain boiled up in shrieking agony.
He had thought himself alone. He wanted above all else to be alone. But there was someone with him. He wasn't sure how he knew. He could simply feel the unwanted presence. He strained to see in the wet darkness. He listened for muted sounds. There was nothing. Only the presence.
"Go away!" he whispered hoarsely. "Go away, and leave me alone—whoever you are."
"No. Let me take you by the hand, William Baker. I have come to show you the way back. I have come to lead you back."
"Leave me alone! Whoever you are, leave me alone!" Baker was conscious of his own voice screaming in the black night. And it was not only terror of the unknown presence that made him scream, but the physical pain of crushed bones and torn flesh was sweeping like a torrent through him.
"Don't be afraid of me. You know me. You remember, we met this afternoon. Sam Atkins. You remember, Dr. Baker?"
"I remember." Baker's voice was a painful gasp. "I remember. Now go away and leave me alone. You can do nothing for me. I don't want you to do anything for me."
Sam Atkins. The crystal. Baker wished he could reach the cursed thing and hurl it away from him. That must be how Atkins was communicating with him. Yes, somehow it was possible. He had found no trick, no gimmick. Somehow, the miserable things worked.
But what did Sam Atkins want? He had broken in on a moment that was as private as a dream. There was nothing he could do. Baker was dying. He knew he was dying. There was no medicine that could heal the battering his body had taken. He had been slipping away into peace and release of pain. He had no desire to have it interrupted.
There was no more evidence of Sam Atkins' presence. It was there—and Baker wished furiously that Atkins would let his death be a private thing—but he was not interfering now.
There was the faint suggestion of other presences, too. Baker thought he could pick them out, Fenwick and Ellerbee. They were all gathered to watch him die through the crystals. It was unkind of them to so intrude—but it didn't really matter very much. He began drifting pleasantly again.
"William Baker." The soft voice of Sam Atkins shattered the peaceable realm once more. "We must do some healing before we start back, Dr. Baker. Give me your hand, and come with me, Dr. Baker, while we touch these tissues and heal their breaks. Stay close to me and the pain will not be more than you can endure."
The night remained dark and there was no sound, but Baker's body arched and twisted in panic as he fought against invisible hands that seemed to touch with fleeting, exploratory passes over him.
"I don't want to be healed," he whispered. "There is nothing that can be done. I'm dying. I want to die! Can't you understand that? I want to die! I don't want your help!"
He had said it. And the shock of it jolted even him in the depths of his half-conscious mind. Could a man really want to die?
Yes.
He had forgotten what terror he had left so far behind. He knew only that he wanted to move forever in the direction of the flowing peace.
Like probing fingers, Sam Atkins' mind continued to touch him. It scanned the broken organs of his body, and, in some kind of detached way, Baker felt that he was accompanying Atkins on that journey of exploration, even as Sam had asked.
They searched the skeleton and found the splintered bones. They examined the muscle structure and found the torn and shattered tissue. They searched the dark recesses of his vital organs and came to injury that Baker knew was hopeless.
"You built this once," Sam Atkins' voice whispered. "You can build it again. The materials are all here. The blood stream is still moving. The nerve tissue will carry your instructions. I'll supply the scaffolding—while you build—"
He remembered. Baker examined the long-untouched record of when he had done this before. He remembered the construction of cells, the building of organs, the interconnection of nerve tissue. He felt an infinite sadness at the present ruin. Yes—he could build again.
Sam Atkins' face was like that of a dead man. Across the table from him, Jim Ellerbee and John Fenwick watched silently. Faintly, between them was the crystal-projected image of Baker's body.
Fenwick felt the cold touch of some mysterious unknown prickle his scalp. Sam Atkins seemed remote and alien, like the practitioner of ancient and forbidden arts. Fenwick found the question tumbling over and over in his mind, who is this man? He felt as if the very life energy of Sam Atkins was somehow flowing out through the crystal, across space, to the distant broken body of Bill Baker and was supporting it while Baker's own feeble energy was consumed in the rebuilding of his shattered organs.
Though Fenwick and Ellerbee held their own crystals, Sam had somehow shut them out. They were in faint contact with Baker, but they could not follow the fierce contact that Sam's mind held with him.
Ellerbee's face showed worry and a trace of panic. He hesitantly reached out to touch the immobile figure of Sam Atkins, who sat with closed eyes and imperceptible breath. Fenwick sensed disaster. He arrested the motion of Ellerbee's hand.
"I think you could kill them both," he whispered. The life force of one man, divided between two—it was not sufficient to cope with unexpected shocks to either, now.
Ellerbee desisted. "I've never seen anything like this before," he said. "I don't know what Sam's doing—I don't know how he's doing it—"
Fenwick looked sharply at Ellerbee. Ellerbee had discovered the crystals, so he and Sam said. Yet Sam was able to do things with them that Ellerbee could not conceive. Fenwick wondered just who was responsible for the crystals. And he resolved that some day, when and if Baker pulled out of this, he would learn something more about Sam Atkins.
Time moved beyond midnight and into the early morning hours of the day, but this meant nothing to William Baker. He was in the midst of eternity. Because the old pattern was there, and the ancient memories were clear, his reconstruction moved at a pace that was limited only by the materials available. When these grew scarce, Sam Atkins showed him how to break down and utilize other structures that could be rebuilt leisurely at a later time. There was remembered joy in the building and, once started, Baker gave only idle wonder to the question of whether this was more desirable than death. He did not know. This seemed the right thing to do.
In the presence of Sam Atkins everything he was doing seemed right, and a lifetime of doubts, and errors, and fears seemed distant and vague.
But Sam said suddenly, "It is almost finished. Just a little farther and you'll have to go the rest of the way alone."
Terror struck at Baker. He had reached a point where he was absolutely sure he could not go on alone without Sam's supporting presence. "You tricked me!" Baker cried. "You tricked me! You didn't tell me I would have to be reborn alone!"
"Doesn't every man?" said Sam. "Is there any way to be born, except alone?"
Slowly, the world closed in about Baker.
Light. Sounds.
Wet. Cold.
The impact of a million idiot minds. The coursing of cosmic-ray particles. The wrenching of Earth's magnetic and gravitational fields. Old and sluggish memories were renewed, memories meant to be buried for all of his life.
Baker felt as if he were suddenly running down a dark and immense corridor. Behind were all the terrors spawned since the beginning of time. Ahead were a thousand openings of light and safety. He raced for the nearest and brightest and most familiar.
"No," said Sam Atkins. "You cannot go that way again. It is the way you went before—and it led to this—to a search for death. For you, it will lead only to the same goal again."
"I can't go on!" Baker cried. The terrors seemed to be swiftly closing in.
"Take my hand a moment longer," said Sam. "Inspect these more distant paths. There are many of them that will be agreeable to you."
Baker felt calmer now in the renewed presence of Sam Atkins. He passed the branching pathway that Sam had forbidden, that had seemed so bright. He sensed now why Sam had cautioned him against it. Far down, in the depths of it, he glimpsed faintly a dark ugliness that he had not seen before. He shuddered.
Directly ahead there seemed to be the opening of a corridor of blazing brightness. Baker's calmness increased as he approached. "This one," he said.
He heard nothing, but he sensed Sam Atkins' smile, and nod of approval.
He remembered now for the first time why he had wanted to die. It was to avoid the very terrors by which he had been pursued through the dark corridor. All this had happened before, and he had gone down the pathway Sam had forbidden. Somehow, like a circle, it had come back to this very point, to this forgotten experience for which he had been willing to die rather than endure again.
It was very bewildering. He did not understand the meaning of it. But he knew he had corrected a former error. He was back in the world. He was alive again.
Sam Atkins looked up at his companions through eyes that seemed all but dead. "He's going to make it," he said. "We can get the car out and pick up Baker now."
They used Sam's panel truck, which had a four-wheel drive and mud tires. Nothing else could possibly get through. Fenwick left his own car at Ellerbee's.
It was still raining lightly as the truck sloshed and slewed through the muck that was hardly recognizable now as a road. For an hour Sam fought the wheel to hold the car approximately in the middle of the brownish ooze that led them through the night. The three men sat in the cab. Behind them, a litter and first-aid equipment had been rigged for Baker. Sam told them nothing would be needed except soap and water, but Fenwick and Ellerbee felt it impossible to go off without some other emergency equipment.
After an hour, Sam said, "He's close. Just around the next bend. That's where his car went off."
Baker loomed suddenly in the lights of the car. He was standing at the edge of the road. He waved an arm wearily.
Fenwick would not have recognized him. And for some seconds after the car had come to a halt, and Baker stood weaving uncertainly in the beam of the lights, Fenwick was not sure it was Baker at all.
He looked like something out of an old Frankenstein movie. His clothes were ripped almost completely away. Those remaining were stained with blood and red clay, and soaked with rain. Baker's face was laced with a network of scars as if he had been slashed with a shower of glass not too long ago and the wounds were freshly healed. Blood was caked and cracked on his face and was matted in his hair.
He smiled grotesquely as he staggered toward the car door. "About time you got here," he said. "A man could catch his death of cold standing out here in this weather."
Dr. William Baker was quite sure he had no need of hospitalization, but he let them settle him in a hospital bed anyway. He had some thinking to do, and he didn't know of a better place to get it done.
There was a good deal of medical speculation about the vast network of very fresh scars on his body, the bones which X rays showed to have been only very recently knit, and the violent internal injuries which gave some evidence of their recent healing. Baker allowed the speculation to go on without offering explanations. He let them tap and measure and apply electrical gadgets to their heart's content. It didn't bother the thinking he had to get done.
Fenwick and Ellerbee came back the next day to see him. The two approached the bed so warily that Baker burst out laughing. "Pull up chairs!" he exclaimed. "Just because you saw me looking a shade less than dead doesn't mean I'm a ghost now. Sit down. And where's Sam? Not that I don't appreciate seeing your ugly faces, but Sam and I have got some things to talk about."
Ellerbee and Fenwick looked at each other as if each expected the other to speak.
"Well, what's the matter?" demanded Baker. "Nothing's happened to Sam, I hope!"
Fenwick spoke finally. "We don't know where Sam is. We don't think we'll be seeing him again."
"Why not?" Baker demanded. But in the back of his mind was the growing suspicion that he knew.
"After your—accident," said Fenwick, "I went back to the farm with Ellerbee and Sam because I'd left my car there. I went back to bed to try to get some more shut-eye, but the storm had started up again and kept me awake. Just before dawn a terrific bolt of lightning seemed to strike Sam's silo. Later, Jim went out to check on his cows and help his man finish up the milking.
"By mid-morning we hadn't heard anything from Sam and decided to go over and talk to him about what we'd seen him do for you. I guess it was eleven by the time we got there."
... Lightning doesn't strike up from inside a silo! That's something else ...
Jim Ellerbee nodded agreement.
"When we got there," Fenwick went on, "we saw that the front door of the house was open as if the storm had blown it in. We called Sam, but he didn't answer, so we went on in. Things were a mess. We thought it was because of the storm, but then we saw that drawers and shelves seemed to have been opened hastily and cleaned out. Some things had been dropped on the floor, but most of the stuff was just gone.
"It was that way all through the house. Sam's bed hadn't been disturbed. He had either not slept in it, or had gone to the trouble of making it up even though he left the rest of the house in a mess."
"Sounds like the place might have been broken into," said Baker. "Didn't you notify the sheriff?"
"Not after we'd seen what was outside, in back."
"What was that?"
"We wanted to see the silo after the lightning had struck it. Jim said he'd always been curious about that silo. It was one of the best in the county, but Sam never used it. He used a pit.
"When we went out, all the cows were bellowing. They hadn't been milked. Sam did all his own work. Jim called his own man to come and take care of Sam's cows. Then we had a close look at the silo. It had split like a banana peel opening up. It hardly seemed as if a bolt of lightning could have caused it. We climbed over the broken pieces to look inside. It was still warm in there. At least six hours after lightning—or whatever had struck it, the concrete was still warm. The bottom and several feet of the sides of the silo were covered with a glassy glaze."
"No lightning bolt did that."
"We know that now," said Fenwick. "But I had seen the flash of it myself. Then I remembered that in my groggy condition that morning something had seemed wrong about that flash of lightning. Instead of a jagged tree of lightning that formed instantly, it had seemed like a thin thread of light striking upward. I thought I must be getting bleary-eyed and tried to forget it. In the silo, I remembered. I told Jim.
"We went back through the house once more. In Sam's bedroom, as if accidently dropped and kicked partway under the bed, I found this. Take a look!"
Fenwick held out a small book. It had covers and pages as did any ordinary book. But when Baker's fingers touched the book, something chilled his backbone.
The material had the feel and appearance of white leather—yet Baker had the insane impression that the cells of that leather still formed a living substance. He opened the pages. Their substance was as foreign as that of the cover. The message—printing, or whatever it might be called—consisted of patterned rows of dots, pin-head size, in color. It reminded him of computer tape cut to some character code. He had the impression that an eye might scan those pages and react as swiftly as a tape-fed computer.
Baker closed the book. "Nothing more?" he asked Fenwick.
"Nothing. We thought maybe you had found out something else when he worked to save your life."
Baker kept his eyes on the ceiling. "I found out a few things," he said. "I could scarcely believe they were true. I have to believe after hearing your story."
"What did you find?"
"Sam Atkins came from—somewhere else. He went back in the ship he had hidden in the silo."
"Where did he come from? What was he doing here?"
"I don't know the name of the world he was from or where it is located. Somewhere in this galaxy, is about all I can deduce from my impressions. He was here on a scientific mission, a sociological study. He was responsible for the crystals. I suppose you know that by now?" Baker glanced at Ellerbee.
Jim Ellerbee nodded. "I suspected for a long time that I was being led, but I couldn't understand it. I thought I was doing the research that produced the crystals, but Sam would drop a hint or a suggestion every once in a while, that would lead off on the right track and produce something fantastic. He knew where we were going, ahead of time. He led me to believe that we were exploring together. Do you know why he did this?"
"Yes," said Baker. "It was part of his project. The project consisted of a study of human reaction to scientific processes which our scientific culture considered impossible. He was interested in measuring our flexibility and reaction to such introductions."
Baker smiled grimly. "We sure gave him his money's worth, didn't we! We really reacted when he brought out his little cubes. I'd like to read the report he writes up!"
"Why did he leave so suddenly?" asked Fenwick. "Was he through?"
"No, that's the bad part of it. My reaction to the crystals was a shock that sent me into a suicidal action—"
Fenwick stared at him, shocked. "You didn't—"
"But I did," said Baker calmly. "All very subconsciously, of course, but I did try to commit suicide. The crystals triggered it. I'll explain how in a minute, but since Sam Atkins was an ethical being he felt the responsibility for what had happened to me. He had to reveal himself to the extent of saving my life—and helping me to change so that the suicidal drive would not appear again. He did this, but it revealed too much of himself and destroyed the chance of completing his program. When he gets back home, he's really going to catch hell for lousing up the works. It's too bad."
Jim Ellerbee let out a long breath. "Sam Atkins—somebody from another world—it doesn't seem possible. What things he could have taught us if he'd stayed!"
Fenwick wondered why it had to have been Baker to receive this knowledge. Baker, the High Priest of the Fixed Position, the ambassador of Established Authority. Why couldn't Sam Atkins—or whatever his real name might be—have whispered just a few words of light to a man willing to listen and profit? His bowels felt sick with the impact of opportunity forever lost.
"How did the crystals trigger a suicidal reaction?" asked Fenwick finally, as if to make conversation more than anything else.
Baker's face seemed to glow. "That's the really important thing I learned from Sam. I learned that about me—about all of us. It's hard to explain. I experienced it—but you can only hear about it."
"We're listening," said Fenwick dully.
"I saw a picture of a lathe in a magazine a few months ago," said Baker slowly. "You can buy one of these lathes for $174,000, if you want one. It's a pretty fancy job. The lathe remembers what it does once, and afterwards can do it again without any instructions.
"The lathe has a magnetic tape memory. The operator cuts the first piece on the lathe, and the tape records all the operations necessary for that production. After that, the operator needs only to insert the metal stock and press the start button.
"There could be a million memories in storage, and the lathe could draw on any one of them to repeat what it had done before at any time in its history."
"I don't see what this has got to do with Sam and you," said Fenwick.
Baker ignored him. "A long time ago a bit of life came into existence. It had no memory, because it was the first. But it faced the universe and made decisions. That's the difference between life and nonlife. Did you know that, Fenwick? The capacity to make decisions without pre-programming. The lathe is not alive because it must be pre-programmed by the operator. We used to say that reproduction was the criterion of life, but the lathe could be pre-programmed to build a duplicate of itself, complete with existing memories, if that were desired, but that would not make it a living thing.
"Spontaneous decision. A single cell can make a simple binary choice. Maybe nothing more complex than to be or not to be. The decision may be conditioned by lethal circumstances that permit only a 'not' decision. Nevertheless, a decision is made, and the cell shuts down its life processes in the very instant of death. They are not shut down for it.
"In the beginning, the first bit of life faced the world and made decisions, and memory came into being. The structures of giant protein molecules shifted slightly in those first cells and became a memory of decisions and encounters. The cells split and became new pairs carrying in each part giant patterned molecules of the same structure. These were memory tapes that grew and divided and spread among all life until they carried un-numbered billions of memories.
"Molecular tapes. Genes. The memory of life on earth, since the beginning. Each new piece of life that springs from parent life comes equipped with vast libraries of molecular tapes recording the experiences of life since the beginning.
"Life forms as complex as mammals could not exist without this tape library to draw upon. The bodily mechanisms could not function if they came into existence without the taped memories out of the ages, explaining why each organ was developed and how it should function. Sometimes, part of the tapes are missing, and the organism, if it endures, must live without instructions for some function. One human lifetime is too infinitesimally small to relearn procedures that have taken aeons to develop.
"Just as the lathe operator has a choice of tapes which will cause the lathe to function in different ways, so does new life have a choice. The accumulated instructions and wisdom of the whole race may be available, except for those tapes which have been lost or destroyed through the ages. New life has a choice from that vast library of tapes. In its inexperience, it relies on the parentage for the selection of many proven combinations, and so we conclude certain characteristics are 'dominant' or 'inherited,' but we haven't been able to discover the slightest reason why this is so.
"A selection of things other than color of eyes, the height of growth to be attained, the shape of the body must also be made. A choice of modes of facing the exterior world, a choice of stratagems to be used in attaining survival and security in that world, must be made.
"And there is one other important factor: Mammalian life is created in a universe where only life exists. The mammal in the womb does not know of the existence of the external universe. Somewhere, sometime, the first awareness of this external universe arises. In the womb. Outside the womb. Early in fetal life, or late. When and where this awareness comes is an individual matter. But when it comes, it arrives with lethal impact.
"Awareness brings a million sensory invasions—chemical, physical, extrasensory—none of them understood, all of them terrifying.
"This terrible fear that arises in this moment of awareness and non-understanding is almost sufficient to cause a choice of death rather than life at this point. Only because of the developed toughness, acquired through the aeons, does the majority of mammalian life choose to continue.
"In this moment, choices must be made as to how to cope with the external world, how to understand it so as to diminish the fear it inspires. The library of genetic tapes is full of possible solutions. Parental experience is examined, too, and the very sensory impacts that are the source of the terror are inspected to a greater or lesser extent to see how they align with taped information.
"A very basic choice is then made. It may not be a single decision, but, rather, a system of decisions all based on some fundamental underlying principle. And the choice may not be made in an instant. How long a time it may occupy I do not know.
"When the decision has been made, reaction between the individual and the external universe begins and understanding begins to flow into the data storage banks. As data are stored, and successful solutions found in the encounter with the world, fear diminishes. Some kind of equilibrium is eventually reached, in which the organism decides how much fear it is willing to tolerate to venture farther into areas of the unknown, and how much it is willing to limit its experience because of this fear.
"When the decision has been made, and the point of equilibrium chosen, a personality exists. The individual has shaped himself to face the world.
"And nothing short of a Heavenly miracle will ever change that shape!"
"You have said nothing about how the crystal caused you to attempt suicide," said Fenwick.
"The crystal invalidated the molecular tape I had chosen to provide my foundation program for living. The tape was completely shattered, brought to an end. There was nothing left for me to go on."
"Wait a minute!" said Fenwick. "Even supposing this could happen as you describe it, other programs could be selected out of the great number you have described."
"Quite true. But do you know what happens to an adult human being when the program on which his entire life is patterned is destroyed?"
Fenwick shook his head. "What is it like?"
"It's like it was in the beginning, in that moment of first awareness of the external universe. He is aware of the universe, but has no understanding of it. Previous understanding—or what he thought was understanding—has been invalidated, destroyed. The drive to keep living, that was present in that first moment of awareness, has weakened. The strongest impulse is to escape the terror that follows awareness without understanding. Death is the quickest escape.
"This is why men are inflexible. This is why the Urbans cannot endure the Galileos. This is why the Bill Bakers cannot face the Jim Ellerbees. That was what Sam Atkins wanted to find out.
"If a man should decide his basic program is invalid and decide to choose another, he would have to face again the terror of awareness of a world in which understanding does not exist. He would have to return to that moment of first awareness and select a new program in that moment of overwhelming fear. Men are not willing to do this. They prefer a program—a personality—that is defective, that functions with only a fraction of the efficiency it might have. They prefer this to a basic change of programs. Only when a program is rendered absolutely invalid—as mine was by the crystal communicator—is the program abandoned. When that happens, the average man drives his car into a telephone pole or a bridge abutment, or he steps in front of a truck at a street intersection. I drove into a gully in a storm."
"All this would imply that the tape library is loaded with genetic programs that contain basic defects!" said Fenwick.
Baker hesitated. "That's not quite true," he said finally. "The library of molecular tapes does contain a great many false solutions. But they are false not so much because they are defective as because they are obsolete. All of them worked at one time, under some set of circumstances, however briefly. Those times and circumstances may have vanished long since."
"Then why are they chosen? Why aren't they simply passed over?"
"Because the individual organism lacks adequate data for evaluating the available programs. In addition, information may be presented to him which says these obsolete programs are just the ones to use."
Fenwick leaned against the bed and shook his head. "How could a crazy thing like that come about?"
"Cultures become diseased," said Baker. "Sparta was such a one in ancient times. A more psychotic culture has scarcely existed anywhere, yet Sparta prevailed for generations. Ancient Rome is another example. The Age of Chivalry. Each of these cultures was afflicted with a different disease.
"These diseases are epidemic. Individuals are infected before they emerge from the womb. In the Age of Chivalry this cultural disease held out the data that the best life program was based on the concept of Honor. Honor that could be challenged by a mistaken glance, an accidental touch in a crowd. Honor that had to be defended at the expense of life itself.
"Pure insanity. Yet how long did it persist?"
"And our culture?" said Fenwick. "There is such a sickness in our times?"
Baker nodded. "There's a disease in our times. A cultural disease you might call the Great Gray Plague. It is a disease which premises that safety, security, and effectiveness in dealing with the world may be obtained by agreement with the highest existing Authority.
"This premise was valid in the days when disobedience to the Head Man meant getting lost in a bog or eaten by a saber-toothed tiger. Today it is more than obsolete. It is among the most vicious sicknesses that have ever infected any culture."
"And you were sick with it."
"I was sick with it. You remember I said a molecular program is chosen partly on the basis of data presented by parental sources and the spears of invasion from the external world. This data that came to me from both sources said that I could deal with the world by yielding to Authority, by surrounding myself with it as with a shell. It would protect me. I would have stature. My world-problems would be solved if I chose this pattern.
"I chose it well. In our culture there are two areas of Authority, one in government, one in science. I covered myself both ways. I became a Government Science Administrator. You just don't get any more authoritative than that in our day and time!"
"But not everyone employs this as a basic premise!" exclaimed Fenwick.
"No—not everyone, fortunately. In that, may be our salvation. In all times there have been a few infected individuals—Pope Urban, for example. But in his time the culture was throwing off such ills and was surging forward under the impetus of men like Galileo.
"In our own time we are on the other end of the stick. We are just beginning to sink into this plague; it has existed in epidemic form only a few short decades. But look how it has spread! Our civil institutions, always weak to such infection, have almost completely succumbed. Our educational centers are equally sick. Approach them with a new idea and no Ph. D. and see what happens. Remember the Greek elevator engineer who did that a few years ago? He battered his way in by sheer force. It was the only way. He became a nuclear scientist. But for every one of his kind a thousand others are defeated by the Plague."
Fenwick was grinning broadly. He suddenly laughed aloud. "You must be crazy in the head, Bill. You sound just like me!"
Baker smiled faintly. "You are one of the lucky ones. You and Jim. It hasn't hit you. And there are plenty of others like you. But they are defeated by the powerful ones in authority, who have been infected.
"It's less than fifty years since it hit us. It may have five hundred years to run. I think we'll be wiped out by it before then. There must be something that can be done, some way to stamp it out."
"Well," said Fenwick. "You could give Clearwater enough to get us on our feet and running. That would be a start in the right direction."
"An excellent start," said Baker. "The only trouble is you asked for less than half of what you need. As soon as I get back to the office a grant for what you need will be on its way."
William Baker stayed in the hospital two more days. Apart from his family, he asked that no visitors be admitted. He felt as if he were a new-born infant, facing the world with the knowledge of a man—but innocent of experience.
He remembered the days before the accident. He remembered how he dealt with the world in those days. But the methods used then were as impossible to him now as if he were paralyzed. The new methods, found in that bright portal to which Sam Atkins had helped guide him, were untried. He knew they were right. But he had never used them.
He found it difficult to define the postulates he had chosen. The more he struggled to identify them, the more elusive they seemed to become. When he gave up the struggle he found the answer. He had chosen a program that held no fixed postulates. It was based on a decision to face the world as it came.
He was not entirely sure what this meant. The age-old genetic wisdom was still available to guide him. But he was committed to no set path. Fresh decisions would be required at every turn.
A single shot of vaccine could not stem an epidemic. His immunity to the sickness of his culture could not immunize the entire populace. Yet, he felt there was something he could do. He was just not sure what it was.
What could a single man do? In other times, a lone man had been enough to overturn an age. But William Baker did not feel such heroic confidence in his own capacity.
He was not alone, however. There were the John Fenwicks and the Jim Ellerbees who were immune to the great Plague. It was just that William Baker was probably the only man in the world who had ever been infected so completely and then rendered immune. That gave him a look at both sides of the fence, which was an advantage no one else shared.
There was something that stuck in his mind, something that Sam Atkins had said that night when Baker had been reborn. He couldn't understand it. Sam Atkins had said of the molecular program tape that had been broken: When you cease to be fearful of Authority, you become Authority.
The last thing in the whole world William Baker wanted now was to be Authority. But the thought would not leave his mind. Sam Atkins did not say things that had no meaning.
Baker's return to the office of NBSD was an occasion for outpouring of the professional affection which his staff had always tendered him. He knew that there had been a time when this had given him a great deal of satisfaction. He remembered that fiftieth birthday party.
Looking back, it seemed as if all that must have happened to some other man. He felt like a double of himself, taking over positions and prerogatives in which he was a complete impostor.
This was going to be harder than he had anticipated, he thought.
Pehrson especially, it appeared, was going to be difficult. The administrative assistant came into the office almost as soon as Baker was seated at his desk. "It's very good to have you back," said Pehrson. "I think we've managed to keep things running while you've been gone, however. We have rejected approximately one hundred applications during the past week."
Baker grunted. "And how many have you approved?"
"Approval would have had to await your signature, of course."
"O.K., how many are awaiting my signature?"
"It has been impossible to find a single one which had a high enough Index to warrant your consideration."
"I see," said Baker. "So you've taken care of the usual routine without any help from me?"
"Yes," said Pehrson.
"There's one grant left over from before I was absent. We must get that out of the way as quickly as possible."
"I don't recall any that were pending—" said Pehrson in apology.
"Clearwater College. Get me the file, will you?"
Pehrson didn't know for sure whether the chief was joking or not. He looked completely serious. Pehrson felt sick at the sudden thought that the accident may have so injured the chief's mind that he was actually serious.
He sparred. "The Clearwater College file?"
"That's what I said. Bring a set of approval forms, too."
Pehrson managed to get out with a placid mask on his face, but it broke as soon as he reached the safety of his own office. It wasn't possible that Baker was serious! The check that went out that afternoon convinced him it was so.
When Pehrson left the office, Baker got up and sauntered to the window, looking out over the smoke-gray buildings of Washington. The Index, he smiled, remembering it. Five years he and Pehrson had worked on that. It had seemed like quite a monumental achievement when they considered it finished. It had never been really finished, of course. Continuous additions and modifications were being made. But they had been very proud of it.
Baker wondered now, however, if they had not been very shortsighted in their application of the Index. He sensed, stirring in the back of his mind, not fully defined, possibilities that had never appeared to him before.
His speculations were interrupted by Doris. She spoke on the interphone, still in the sweetly sympathetic tone she had adopted for her greetings that morning. Baker suspected this would last at least a full week.
"Dr. Wily is on the phone. He would like to know if you'd mind his coming in this afternoon. Shall I make an appointment or would you rather postpone these interviews for a few days? Dr. Wily would understand, of course."
"Tell him to come on up whenever he's ready," said Baker. "I'm not doing much today."
President George H. Wily, Ph. D., D.Sc., of Great Eastern University. Wily was one of his best customers.
Baker guessed that he had given Wily somewhere around twelve or thirteen million dollars over the past decade. He didn't know exactly what Wily had done with all of it, but one didn't question Great Eastern's use of its funds. Certainly only the most benevolent use would be made of the money.
Baker reflected on his associations with Wily. His satisfaction had been unmeasurable in those exquisite moments when he had had the pleasure of handing Wily a check for two or three million dollars at a time. In turn, Wily had invited him to the great, commemorative banquets of Great Eastern. He had presented Baker to the Alumni and extolled the magnificent work Baker was doing in the advancement of the cause of Science. It had been a very pleasant association for both of them.
The door opened and Doris ushered Wily into the room. He came forward with outstretched hands. "My dear Baker! Your secretary said you had no objection to my coming up immediately, so I took advantage of it. I didn't hear about your terrible accident until yesterday. It's so good to know that you were not more seriously hurt."
"Thanks," said Baker. "It wasn't very bad. Come and sit down."
Wily was a rather large, beetle-shaped man. He affected a small, graying beard that sometimes had tobacco ashes in it.
"Terrible loss to the cause of Science if your accident had been more serious," Wily was saying. "I don't know of anyone who occupies a more critical position in our nation's scientific advance than you do."
This was what had made him feel safe, secure, able to cope with the problems of the world, Baker reflected. Wily represented Authority, the highest possible Authority in the existing scientific culture.
But it had worked both ways, too. Baker had supplied a similar counterpart for Wily. His degrees matched Wily's own. He represented both Science and Government. The gift of a million dollars expressed confidence on the part of the Government that Wily was on the right track, that his activity was approved.
A sort of mutual admiration society, Baker thought.
"I suppose you are interested in the progress on your application for renewal of Great Eastern's grants," said Baker.
Wily waved the subject away with an emphatic gesture. "Not business today! I simply dropped in for a friendly chat after learning of your accident. Of course, if there is something to report, I wouldn't mind hearing it. I presume, however, the processing is following the usual routine."
"Not quite," said Baker slowly. "An increasing flood of applications is coming in, and I'm finding it necessary to adopt new processing methods to cope with the problem."
"I can understand that," said Wily. "And one of the things I have always admired most about your office is your ability to prevent wastage of funds by nonqualified people. Qualifications in the scientific world are becoming tighter every day. You have no idea how difficult it is to get people with adequate backgrounds today. Men of stature and authority seem to be getting rarer all the time. At any rate, I'm sure we are agreed that only the intellectual elite must be given access to these funds of your Bureau, which are limited at best."
Baker continued to regard Wily across the desk for a long moment. Wily was one of them, he thought. One of the most heavily infected of all. Surround yourself with Authority. Fold it about you like a shell. Never step beyond the boundaries set by Authority. This was George H. Wily, President of Great Eastern University. This was a man stricken by the Great Gray Plague.
"I need a report," said Baker. "For our new program of screening I need a report of past performance under our grants. The last two years would be sufficient, I think, from Great Eastern."
Wily was disturbed. He frowned and hesitated. "I'm sure we could supply such a report," he said finally. "There's never been any question—"
"No question at all," said Baker. "I just need to tally up the achievements made under recent grants. I shall also require some new information for the Index. I'll send forms as soon as they're ready."
"We'll be more than glad to co-operate," said Wily. "It's just that concrete achievement in a research program is sometimes hard to pin point, you know. So many intangibles."
"I know," said Baker.
When Wily was gone, Baker continued sitting at his desk for a long time. He wished fervently that he could talk with Sam Atkins for just five minutes now. And he hoped Sam hadn't gotten too blistered by his mentors when he returned home after fluffing the inquiry he was sent out on.
There was no chance, of course, that Baker would ever be able to talk with Sam again. That one fortuitous encounter would have to do for a lifetime. But Sam's great cryptic statement was slowly beginning to make sense: When you cease to be fearful of Authority, you become Authority.
Neither Baker or Wily, or any of the members of Wily's lock-step staff were Authority. Rather, they all gave obeisance to the intangible Authority of Science, and stood together as self-appointed vicars of that Authority, demanding penance for the slightest blasphemy against it. And each one stood in living terror of such censure.
The same ghost haunted the halls of Government. The smallest civil servant, in his meanest incivility, could invoke the same reverence for that unseen mantle of Authority that rested, however falsely, on his thin shoulders.
The ghost existed in but one place, the minds of the victims of the Plague. William Baker had ceased to recognize or give obeisance to it. He was beginning to understand the meaning of Sam Atkins' words.
He was quite sure the grants to Great Eastern were going to diminish severely.
Within six months, the output from Clearwater College was phenomenal. The only string that Baker had attached to his grants was the provision that the National Bureau of Scientific Development be granted the privilege of announcing all new inventions, discoveries, and significant reports. This worked to the advantage of both parties. It gave the college the prestige of association in the press with the powerful Government agency, and it gave Baker the association with a prominent scientific discovery.
During the first month of operation under the grant, Fenwick appointed a half dozen "uneducated" professors to his physical science staff. These were located with Baker's help because they had previously applied to NBSD for assistance.
The announcement of the developments of the projects of these men was a kind of unearned windfall for both Baker and Fenwick because most of the work had already been done in garages and basements. But no one objected that it gave both Clearwater and NBSD a substantial boost in the public consciousness.
During this period, Baker found three other small colleges of almost equal caliber with Clearwater. He made substantial grants to all of them and watched their staffs grow in number and quality of background that would have shocked George Wily into apoplexy. Baker's announcements of substantial scientific gains became the subject of weekly press conferences.
And also, during this time, he lowered the ax on Great Eastern and two other giants whose applications were pending. He cut them to twenty per cent of what they were asking. A dozen of the largest industrial firms were accorded similar treatment.
Through all this, Pehrson moved like a man in a nightmare. His first impulse had been to resign. His second was to report the gross mismanagement of NBSD to some appropriate congressman. Before he did either of these things the reports began to come in from Clearwater and other obscure points.
Pehrson was a man in whom allegiance was easily swayed. His loyalty was only for the top man of any hierarchy, and he suddenly began to regard Baker with an amazed incredulity. It seemed akin to witchcraft to be able to pull out works of near genius from the dross material Baker had been supporting with his grants. Pehrson wasn't quite sure how it had been done although he had been present throughout the whole process. He only knew that Baker had developed a kind of prescience that was nothing short of miraculous, and from now on he was strictly a Baker man.
Baker was happy with this outcome. The problem of Pehrson had been a bothersome one. Civil Service regulations forbade his displacement. Baker had been undecided how to deal with him. With Pehrson's acceptance of the new methods, the entire staff swung behind Baker, and the previous grumblings and complaints finally ceased. He stood on top in his own office, at least, Baker reflected.
George H. Wily was not happy, however. He waited two full days after receiving the announcement of NBSD's grant for the coming year. He consulted with his Board of Regents and then took a night plane down to Washington to see Baker.
He was coldly formal as he entered Baker's office. Baker shook his hand warmly and invited him to sit down.
"I was hoping you'd drop in again when you came to town," said Baker. "I was sorry we had to ask you for so much new information, but I appreciate your prompt response."
Wily's eyes were frosty. "Is that why you gave us only two hundred thousand?" he asked.
Baker spread his hands. "I explained when you were here last that we were getting a flood of applications. We have been forced to distribute the money much more broadly than in other years. There is only so much to go around, you know."
"There is just as much as you've ever had," snapped Wily. "I've checked on your overall appropriation. And there is no increase in qualified applicants. There is a decrease, if anything.
"I've done a little checking on the grants you've made, Baker. I'd like to see you defend your appropriation for that miserable little school called Clearwater College. I made a detailed study of their staff. They haven't a single qualified man. Not one with a background any better than that of your elevator operator!"
Baker looked up at the ceiling. "I remember an elevator man who became quite a first rate scientist."
Wily glared, waiting for explanation, then snorted. "Oh, him—"
"Yes, him," said Baker.
"That doesn't explain your wasting of Government funds on such an institution as Clearwater. It doesn't explain your grants to—"
"Let me show you what does explain my grants," said Baker. "I have what I call the Index—with a capital I, you know—"
"I don't care anything about your explanations or your Index!" Wily exclaimed. "I'm here to serve notice that I represent the nation's interest as well as that of Great Eastern. And I am not going to stand by silently while you mismanage these sacred funds the way you have chosen to do in recent months. I don't know what's happened to you, Baker. You were never guilty of such mistakes before. But unless you can assure me that the full normal grant can be restored to Great Eastern, I'm going to see that your office is turned inside out by the Senate Committee on Scientific Development, and that you, personally, are thrown out."
Wily glared and breathed heavily after his speech. He sat waiting for Baker's answer.
Baker gave it when Wily had stopped panting and turned to drumming his fingers on the desk. "Unless your record of achievement is better this year than it has been in recent years, Great Eastern may not get any allotment at all next year," he said quietly.
Wily shaded toward deep red, verging on purple, as he rose. "You'll regret this, Baker! This office belongs to American Science. I refuse to see it desecrated by your gross mismanagement! Good day!"