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diff --git a/59415-0.txt b/59415-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..288ff84 --- /dev/null +++ b/59415-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,695 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59415 *** + + + + + + + + + + + + + TO PAY THE PIPER + + BY JAMES BLISH + + _Clearly, re-educating Man's brain wouldn't + fit him for survival on the plague-ridden + surface. Re-educating his body was the answer; + but the process was so very long...._ + + [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from + Worlds of If Science Fiction, February 1956. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that + the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + +The man in the white jacket stopped at the door marked "Re-Education +Project--Col. H. H. Mudgett, Commanding Officer" and waited while the +scanner looked him over. He had been through that door a thousand +times, but the scanner made as elaborate a job of it as if it had never +seen him before. + +It always did, for there was always in fact a chance that it _had_ +never seen him before, whatever the fallible human beings to whom it +reported might think. It went over him from grey, crew-cut poll to +reagent-proof shoes, checking his small wiry body and lean profile +against its stored silhouettes, tasting and smelling him as dubiously +as if he were an orange held in storage two days too long. + +"Name?" it said at last. + +"Carson, Samuel, 32-454-0698." + +"Business?" + +"Medical director, Re-Ed One." + +While Carson waited, a distant, heavy concussion came rolling down +upon him through the mile of solid granite above his head. At the same +moment, the letters on the door--and everything else inside his cone +of vision--blurred distressingly, and a stab of pure pain went lancing +through his head. It was the supersonic component of the explosion, and +it was harmless--except that it always both hurt and scared him. + +The light on the door-scanner, which had been glowing yellow up to +now, flicked back to red again and the machine began the whole routine +all over; the sound-bomb had reset it. Carson patiently endured its +inspection, gave his name, serial number and mission once more, and +this time got the green. He went in, unfolding as he walked the flimsy +square of cheap paper he had been carrying all along. + +Mudgett looked up from his desk and said at once: "What now?" + +The physician tossed the square of paper down under Mudgett's eyes. +"Summary of the press reaction to Hamelin's speech last night," he +said. "The total effect is going against us, Colonel. Unless we can +change Hamelin's mind, this outcry to re-educate civilians ahead of +soldiers is going to lose the war for us. The urge to live on the +surface again has been mounting for ten years; now it's got a target to +focus on. Us." + +Mudgett chewed on a pencil while he read the summary; a blocky, bulky +man, as short as Carson and with hair as grey and close-cropped. A +year ago, Carson would have told him that nobody in Re-Ed could afford +to put stray objects in his mouth even once, let alone as a habit; +now Carson just waited. There wasn't a man--or a woman or a child--of +America's surviving thirty-five million "sane" people who didn't have +some such tic. Not now, not after twenty-five years of underground life. + +"He knows it's impossible, doesn't he?" Mudgett demanded abruptly. + +"Of course he doesn't," Carson said impatiently. "He doesn't know any +more about the real nature of the project than the people do. He thinks +the 'educating' we do is in some sort of survival technique--That's +what the papers think, too, as you can plainly see by the way they +loaded that editorial." + +"Um. If we'd taken direct control of the papers in the first place--" + +Carson said nothing. Military control of every facet of civilian life +was a fact, and Mudgett knew it. He also knew that an appearance +of freedom to think is a necessity for the human mind--and that +the appearance could not be maintained without a few shreds of the +actuality. + +"Suppose we do this," Mudgett said at last. "Hamelin's position in +the State Department makes it impossible for us to muzzle him. But it +ought to be possible to explain to him that no unprotected human being +can live on the surface, no matter how many Merit Badges he has for +woodcraft and first aid. Maybe we could even take him on a little trip +topside; I'll wager he's never seen it." + +"And what if he dies up there?" Carson said stonily. "We lose +three-fifths of every topside party as it is--and Hamelin's an +inexperienced--" + +"Might be the best thing, mightn't it?" + +"_No_," Carson said. "It would look like we'd planned it that way. The +papers would have the populace boiling by the next morning." + +Mudgett groaned and nibbled another double row of indentations around +the barrel of the pencil. "There must be something," he said. + +"There is." + +"Well?" + +"Bring the man here and show him just what we _are_ doing. Re-educate +_him_, if necessary. Once we told the newspapers that he'd taken the +course ... well, who knows, they just might resent it. Abusing his +clearance privileges and so on." + +"We'd be violating our basic policy," Mudgett said slowly. "'Give +the Earth back to the men who fight for it.' Still, the idea has some +merits...." + +"Hamelin is out in the antechamber right now," Carson said. "Shall I +bring him in?" + + * * * * * + +The radioactivity never did rise much beyond a mildly hazardous level, +and that was only transient, during the second week of the war--the +week called the Death of Cities. The small shards of sanity retained +by the high commands on both sides dictated avoiding weapons with +a built-in backfire: no cobalt bombs were dropped, no territories +permanently poisoned. Generals still remembered that unoccupied +territory, no matter how devastated, is still unconquered territory. + +But no such considerations stood in the way of biological warfare. It +was controllable: you never released against the enemy any disease you +didn't yourself know how to control. There would be some slips, of +course, but the margin for error-- + +There were some slips. But for the most part, biological warfare worked +fine. The great fevers washed like tides around and around the globe, +one after another. In such cities as had escaped the bombings, the +rumble of truck convoys carrying the puffed heaped corpses to the mass +graves became the only sound except for sporadic small-arms fire; and +then that too ceased, and the trucks stood rusting in rows. + +Nor were human beings the sole victims. Cattle fevers were sent +out. Wheat rusts, rice molds, corn blights, hog choleras, poultry +enteritises fountained into the indifferent air from the hidden +laboratories, or were loosed far aloft, in the jet-stream, by +rocketing fleets. Gelatin capsules pullulating with gill-rots fell +like hail into the great fishing grounds of Newfoundland, Oregon, +Japan, Sweden, Portugal. Hundreds of species of animals were drafted +as secondary hosts for human diseases, were injected and released to +carry the blessings of the laboratories to their mates and litters. +It was discovered that minute amounts of the tetracycline series of +antibiotics, which had long been used as feed supplements to bring farm +animals to full market weight early, could also be used to raise the +most whopping Anopheles and Aëdes mosquitoes anybody ever saw, capable +of flying long distances against the wind and of carrying a peculiarly +interesting new strains of the malarial parasite and the yellow fever +virus.... + +By the time it had ended, everyone who remained alive was a mile under +ground. + +For good. + + * * * * * + +"I still fail to understand why," Hamelin said, "if, as you claim, you +have methods of re-educating soldiers for surface life, you can't do so +for civilians as well. Or instead." + +The under-secretary, a tall, spare man, bald on top, and with a heavily +creased forehead, spoke with the odd neutral accent--untinged by +regionalism--of the trained diplomat, despite the fact that there had +been no such thing as a foreign service for nearly half a century. + +"We're going to try to explain that to you," Carson said. "But we +thought that, first of all, we'd try to explain once more why we think +it would be bad policy--as well as physically out of the question. + +"Sure, everybody wants to go topside as soon as it's possible. Even +people who are reconciled to these endless caverns and corridors hope +for something better for their children--a glimpse of sunlight, a +little rain, the fall of a leaf. That's more important now to all of us +than the war, which we don't believe in any longer. That doesn't even +make any military sense, since we haven't the numerical strength to +occupy the enemy's territory any more, and they haven't the strength to +occupy ours. We understand all that. But we also know that the enemy is +intent on prosecuting the war to the end. Extermination is what they +say they want, on their propaganda broadcasts, and your own Department +reports that they seem to mean what they say. So we can't give up +fighting them; that would be simple suicide. Are you still with me?" + +"Yes, but I don't see--" + +"Give me a moment more. If we have to continue to fight, we know +this much: that the first of the two sides to get men on the surface +again--so as to be able to _attack_ important targets, not just keep +them isolated in seas of plagues--will be the side that will bring this +war to an end. They know that, too. We have good reason to believe +that they have a re-education project, and that it's about as far +advanced as ours is." + +"Look at it this way," Col. Mudgett burst in unexpectedly. "What we +have now is a stalemate. A saboteur occasionally locates one of the +underground cities and lets the pestilences into it. Sometimes on our +side, sometimes on theirs. But that only happens sporadically, and +it's just more of this mutual extermination business--to which we're +committed, willy-nilly, for as long as they are. If we can get troops +onto the surface first, we'll be able to scout out their important +installations in short order, and issue them a surrender ultimatum with +teeth in it. They'll take it. The only other course is the sort of +slow, mutual suicide we've got now." + +Hamelin put the tips of his fingers together. "You gentlemen lecture +me about policy as if I had never heard the word before. I'm familiar +with your arguments for sending soldiers first. You assume that you're +familiar with all of mine for starting with civilians, but you're +wrong, because some of them haven't been brought up at all outside the +Department. I'm going to tell you some of them, and I think they'll +merit your close attention." + +Carson shrugged. "I'd like nothing better than to be convinced, Mr. +Secretary. Go ahead." + +"You of all people should know, Dr. Carson, how close our underground +society is to a psychotic break. To take a single instance, the number +of juvenile gangs roaming these corridors of ours has increased 400% +since the rumors about the Re-Education Project began to spread. +Or another: the number of individual crimes without motive--crimes +committed, just to distract the committer from the grinding monotony of +the life we all lead--has now passed the total of all other crimes put +together. + +"And as for actual insanity--of our thirty-five million people still +unhospitalized, there are four million cases _of which we know_, +each one of which should be committed right now for early paranoid +schizophrenia--except that were we to commit them, our essential +industries would suffer a manpower loss more devastating than anything +the enemy has inflicted upon us. Every one of those four million +persons is a major hazard to his neighbors and to his job, but how +can we do without them? And what can we do about the unrecognized, +sub-clinical cases, which probably total twice as many? How long can we +continue operating without a collapse under such conditions?" + +Carson mopped his brow. "I didn't suspect that it had gone that far." + +"It has gone that far," Hamelin said icily, "and it is accelerating. +Your own project has helped to accelerate it. Col. Mudgett here +mentioned the opening of isolated cities to the pestilences. Shall I +tell you how Louisville fell?" + +"A spy again, I suppose," Mudgett said. + +"No, Colonel. Not a spy. A band of--of vigilantes, of mutineers. I'm +familiar with your slogan, 'The Earth to those who fight for it.' Do +you know the counter-slogan that's circulating among the people?" + +They waited. Hamelin smiled and said: "'Let's die on the surface.' + +"They overwhelmed the military detachment there, put the city +administration to death, and blew open the shaft to the surface. About +a thousand people actually made it to the top. Within twenty-four hours +the city was dead--as the ringleaders had been warned would be the +outcome. The warning didn't deter them. Nor did it protect the prudent +citizens who had no part in the affair." + +Hamelin leaned forward suddenly. "People won't wait to be told when +it's their turn to be re-educated. They'll be tired of waiting, tired +to the point of insanity of living at the bottom of a hole. They'll +just go. + +"And that, gentlemen, will leave the world to the enemy ... or, more +likely, the rats. They alone are immune to everything by now." + +There was a long silence. At last Carson said mildly: "Why aren't _we_ +immune to everything by now?" + +"Eh? Why--the new generations. They've never been exposed." + +"We still have a reservoir of older people who lived through the war: +people who had one or several of the new diseases that swept the +world, some as many as five, and yet recovered. They still have their +immunities; we know; we've tested them. We know from sampling that no +new disease has been introduced by either side in over ten years now. +Against all the known ones, we have immunization techniques, anti-sera, +antibiotics, and so on. I suppose you get your shots every six months +like all the rest of us; we should all be very hard to infect now, and +such infections as do take should run mild courses." Carson held the +under-secretary's eyes grimly. "Now, answer me this question: why is it +that, despite all these protections, _every single person_ in an opened +city dies?" + +"I don't know," Hamelin said, staring at each of them in turn. "By your +showing, some of them should recover." + +"They should," Carson said. "But nobody does. Why? Because the very +nature of disease has changed since we all went underground. There are +now abroad in the world a number of mutated bacterial strains which can +bypass the immunity mechanisms of the human body altogether. What this +means in simple terms is that, should such a germ get into your body, +your body wouldn't recognize it as an invader. It would manufacture +no antibodies against the germ. Consequently, the germ could multiply +without any check, and--you would die. So would we all." + +"I see," Hamelin said. He seemed to have recovered his composure +extraordinarily rapidly. "I am no scientist, gentlemen, but what you +tell me makes our position sound perfectly hopeless. Yet obviously you +have some answer." + +Carson nodded. "We do. But it's important for you to understand the +situation, otherwise the answer will mean nothing to you. So: is it +perfectly clear to you now, from what we've said so far, that no amount +of re-educating a man's brain, be he soldier _or_ civilian, will allow +him to survive on the surface?" + +"Quite clear," Hamelin said, apparently ungrudgingly. Carson's hopes +rose by a fraction of a millimeter. "But if you don't re-educate his +brain, what can you re-educate? His reflexes, perhaps?" + +"No," Carson said. "His lymph nodes, and his spleen." + +A scornful grin began to appear on Hamelin's thin lips. "You need +better public relations counsel than you've been getting," he said. +"If what you say is true--as of course I assume it is--then the term +'re-educate' is not only inappropriate, it's downright misleading. +If you had chosen a less suggestive and more accurate label in the +beginning, I wouldn't have been able to cause you half the trouble I +have." + +"I agree that we were badly advised there," Carson said. "But not +entirely for those reasons. Of course the name is misleading; that's +both a characteristic and a function of the names of top secret +projects. But in this instance, the name 'Re-Education', bad as it now +appears, subjected the men who chose it to a fatal temptation. You see, +though it is misleading, it is also entirely accurate." + +"Word-games," Hamelin said. + +"Not at all," Mudgett interposed. "We were going to spare you the +theoretical reasoning behind our project, Mr. Secretary, but now +you'll just have to sit still for it. The fact is that the body's +ability to distinguish between its own cells and those of some foreign +tissue--a skin graft, say, or a bacterial invasion of the blood--isn't +an inherited ability. It's a learned reaction. Furthermore, if you'll +think about it a moment, you'll see that it has to be. Body cells die, +too, and have to be disposed of; what would happen if removing those +dead cells provoked an antibody reaction, as the destruction of foreign +cells does? We'd die of anaphylactic shock while we were still infants. + +"For that reason, the body has to learn how to scavenge selectively. +In human beings, that lesson isn't learned completely until about a +month after birth. During the intervening time, the newborn infant is +protected by antibodies that it gets from the colestrum, the 'first +milk' it gets from the breast during the three or four days immediately +after birth. It can't generate its own; it isn't allowed to, so to +speak, until it's learned the trick of cleaning up body residues +_without_ triggering the antibody mechanisms. Any dead cells marked +'personal' have to be dealt with some other way." + +"That seems clear enough," Hamelin said. "But I don't see its +relevance." + +"Well, we're in a position now where that differentiation between the +self and everything outside the body doesn't do us any good any more. +These mutated bacteria have been 'selfed' by the mutation. In other +words, some of their protein molecules, probably desoxyribonucleic acid +molecules, carry configurations or 'recognition-units' identical with +those of our body cells, so that the body can't tell one from another." + +"But what has all this to do with re-education?" + +"Just this," Carson said. "What we do here is to impose upon the cells +of the body--all of them--a new set of recognition-units for the +guidance of the lymph nodes and the spleen, which are the organs that +produce antibodies. The new units are highly complex, and the chances +of their being duplicated by bacterial evolution, even under forced +draught, are too small to worry about. That's what Re-Education is. In +a few moments, if you like, we'll show you just how it's done." + +Hamelin ground out his fifth cigarette in Mudgett's ashtray and placed +the tips of his fingers together thoughtfully. Carson wondered just +how much of the concept of recognition-marking the under-secretary had +absorbed. It had to be admitted that he was astonishingly quick to +take hold of abstract ideas, but the self-marker theory of immunity +was--like everything else in immunology--almost impossible to explain +to laymen, no matter how intelligent. + +"This process," Hamelin said hesitantly. "It takes a long time?" + +"About six hours per subject, and we can handle only one man at a time. +That means that we can count on putting no more than seven thousand +troops into the field by the turn of the century. Every one will have +to be a highly trained specialist, if we're to bring the war to a quick +conclusion." + +"Which means no civilians," Hamelin said. "I see. I'm not entirely +convinced, but--by all means let's see how it's done." + + * * * * * + +Once inside, the under-secretary tried his best to look everywhere at +once. The room cut into the rock was roughly two hundred feet high. +Most of it was occupied by the bulk of the Re-Education Monitor, a +mechanism as tall as a fifteen-storey building, and about a city block +square. Guards watched it on all sides, and the face of the machine +swarmed with technicians. + +"Incredible," Hamelin murmured. "That enormous object can process only +one man at a time?" + +"That's right," Mudgett said. "Luckily it doesn't have to treat all the +body cells directly. It works through the blood, re-selfing the cells +by means of small changes in the serum chemistry." + +"What kind of changes?" + +"Well," Carson said, choosing each word carefully, "that's more or +less a graveyard secret, Mr. Secretary. We can tell you this much: the +machine uses a vast array of crystalline, complex sugars which _behave_ +rather like the blood group-and-type proteins. They're fed into the +serum in minute amounts, under feedback control of second-by-second +analysis of the blood. The computations involved in deciding upon the +amount and the precise nature of each introduced chemical are highly +complex. Hence the size of the machine. It is, in its major effect, an +artificial kidney." + +"I've seen artificial kidneys in the hospitals," Hamelin said, +frowning. "They're rather compact affairs." + +"Because all they do is remove waste products from the patient's +blood, and restore the fluid and electrolyte balance. Those are very +minor renal functions in the higher mammals. The organ's main duty is +chemical control of immunity. If Burnet and Fenner had known that back +in 1949, when the selfing theory was being formulated, we'd have had +Re-Education long before now." + +"Most of the machine's size is due to the computation section," Mudgett +emphasized. "In the body, the brain-stem does those computations, as +part of maintaining homeostasis. But we can't reach the brain-stem from +outside; it's not under conscious control. Once the body is re-selfed, +it will re-train the thalamus where we can't." Suddenly, two swinging +doors at the base of the machine were pushed apart and a mobile +operating table came through, guided by two attendants. There was a +form on it, covered to the chin with a sheet. The face above the sheet +was immobile and almost as white. + +Hamelin watched the table go out of the huge cavern with visibly mixed +emotions. He said: "This process--it's painful?" + +"No, not exactly," Carson said. The motive behind the question +interested him hugely, but he didn't dare show it. "But any fooling +around with the immunity mechanisms can give rise to symptoms--fever, +general malaise, and so on. We try to protect our subjects by giving +them a light shock anesthesia first." + +"Shock?" Hamelin repeated. "You mean electroshock? I don't see how--" + +"Call it stress anesthesia instead. We give the man a steroid drug that +counterfeits the anesthesia the body itself produces in moments of +great stress--on the battlefield, say, or just after a serious injury. +It's fast, and free of after-effects. There's no secret about that, +by the way; the drug involved is 21-hydroxypregnane-3,20 dione sodium +succinate, and it dates all the way back to 1955." + +"Oh," the under-secretary said. The ringing sound of the chemical name +had had, as Carson had hoped, a ritually soothing effect. + +"Gentlemen," Hamelin said hesitantly. "Gentlemen, I have a--a rather +unusual request. And, I am afraid, a rather selfish one." A brief, +nervous laugh. "Selfish in both senses, if you will pardon me the pun. +You need feel no hesitation in refusing me, but...." + +Abruptly he appeared to find it impossible to go on. Carson mentally +crossed his fingers and plunged in. + +"You would like to undergo the process yourself?" he said. + +"Well, yes. Yes, that's exactly it. Does that seem inconsistent? I +should know, should I not, what it is that I'm advocating for my +following? Know it intimately, from personal experience, not just +theory? Of course I realize that it would conflict with your policy, +but I assure you I wouldn't turn it to any political advantage--none +whatsoever. And perhaps it wouldn't be too great a lapse of policy to +process just one civilian among your seven thousand soldiers." + +Subverted, by God! Carson looked at Mudgett with a firmly straight +face. It wouldn't do to accept too quickly. + +But Hamelin was rushing on, almost chattering now. "I can understand +your hesitation. You must feel that I'm trying to gain some advantage, +or even to get to the surface ahead of my fellow-men. If it will set +your minds at rest, I would be glad to enlist in your advance army. +Before five years are up, I could surely learn some technical skill +which would make me useful to the expedition. If you would prepare +papers to that effect, I'd be happy to sign them." + +"That's hardly necessary," Mudgett said. "After you're Re-Educated, we +can simply announce the fact, and say that you've agreed to join the +advance party when the time comes." + +"Ah," Hamelin said. "I see the difficulty. No, that would make my +position quite impossible. If there is no other way--" + +"Excuse us a moment," Carson said. Hamelin bowed, and the doctor pulled +Mudgett off out of ear-shot. + +"Don't overplay it," he murmured. "You're tipping our hand with that +talk about a press release, Colonel. He's offering us a bribe--but he's +plenty smart enough to see that the price you're suggesting is that of +his whole political career. He won't pay that much." + +"What then?" Mudgett whispered hoarsely. + +"Get somebody to prepare the kind of informal contract he suggested. +Offer to put it under security seal so we won't be able to show it +to the press at all. He'll know well enough that such a seal can be +broken if our policy ever comes before a presidential review--and that +will restrain him from forcing such a review. Let's not demand too +much. Once he's been re-educated, he'll have to live the rest of the +five years with the knowledge that he _can_ live topside any time he +wants to try it--and he hasn't had the discipline our men have had. +It's my bet that he'll goof off before the five years are up--and good +riddance." + +They went back to Hamelin, who was watching the machine and humming in +a painfully abstracted manner. + +"I've convinced the Colonel," Carson said, "that your services in the +army might well be very valuable when the time comes, Mr. Secretary. If +you'll sign up, we'll put the papers under security seal for your own +protection, and then I think we can fit you into our treatment program +today." + +"I'm grateful to you, Dr. Carson," Hamelin said. "Very grateful, +indeed." + + * * * * * + +Five minutes after his injection, Hamelin was as peaceful as a flounder +and was rolled through the swinging doors. An hour's discussion of the +probable outcome, carried on in the privacy of Mudgett's office, bore +very little additional fruit, however. + +"It's our only course," Carson said. "It's what we hoped to gain from +his visit, duly modified by circumstances. It all comes down to this: +Hamelin's compromised himself, and he knows it." + +"But," Mudgett said, "suppose he was right? What about all that talk of +his about mass insanity?" + +"I'm sure it's true," Carson said, his voice trembling slightly despite +his best efforts at control. "It's going to be rougher than ever down +here for the next five years, Colonel. Our only consolation is that the +enemy must have exactly the same problem; and if we can beat them to +the surface--" + +"_Hsst!_" Mudgett said. Carson had already broken off his sentence. He +wondered why the scanner gave a man such a hard time outside that door, +and then admitted him without any warning to the people on the other +side. Couldn't the damned thing be trained to knock? + +The newcomer was a page from the haemotology section. "Here's the +preliminary rundown on your 'Student X', Dr. Carson," he said. + +The page saluted Mudgett and went out. Carson began to read. After a +moment, he also began to sweat. + +"Colonel, look at this. I was wrong after all. Disastrously wrong. I +haven't seen a blood-type distribution pattern like Hamelin's since I +was a medical student, and even back then it was only a demonstration, +not a real live patient. Look at it from the genetic point of view--the +migration factors." + +He passed the protocol across the desk. Mudgett was not by background +a scientist, but he was an enormously able administrator, of the breed +that makes it its business to know the technicalities on which any +project ultimately rests. He was not much more than half-way through +the tally before his eyebrows were gaining altitude like shock-waves. + +"Carson, we can't let that man into the machine! He's--" + +"He's already in it, Colonel, you know that. And if we interrupt the +process before it runs to term, we'll kill him." + +"Let's kill him, then," Mudgett said harshly. "Say he died while being +processed. Do the country a favor." + +"That would produce a hell of a stink. Besides, we have no proof." + +Mudgett flourished the protocol excitedly. + +"That's not proof to anyone but a haemotologist." + +"But Carson, the man's a saboteur!" Mudgett shouted. "Nobody but an +Asiatic could have a typing pattern like this! And he's no melting-pot +product, either--he's a classical mixture, very probably a Georgian. +And every move he's made since we first heard of him has been aimed +directly at us--aimed directly at tricking us into getting him into the +machine!" + +"I think so too," Carson said grimly. "I just hope the enemy hasn't +many more agents as brilliant." + +"One's enough," Mudgett said. "He's sure to be loaded to the last cc of +his blood with catalyst poisons. Once the machine starts processing +his serum, we're done for--it'll take us years to re-program the +computer, if it can be done at all. It's _got_ to be stopped!" + +"Stopped?" Carson said, astonished. "But it's already stopped. That's +not what worries me. The machine stopped it fifty minutes ago." + +"It can't have! How could it? It has no relevant data!" + +"Sure it has." Carson leaned forward, took the cruelly chewed pencil +away from Mudgett, and made a neat check beside one of the entries on +the protocol. Mudgett stared at the checked item. + +"Platelets Rh VI?" he mumbled. "But what's that got to do with.... Oh. +Oh, I see. That platelet type doesn't exist at all in our population +now, does it? Never seen it before myself, at least." + +"No," Carson said, grinning wolfishly. "It never was common in the +West, and the pogrom of 1981 wiped it out. That's something the enemy +couldn't know. But the machine knows it. As soon as it gives him the +standard anti-IV desensitization shot, his platelets will begin to +dissolve--and he'll be rejected for incipient thrombocytopenia." He +laughed. "For his own protection! But--" + +"But he's getting nitrous oxide in the machine, and he'll be held six +hours under anesthesia anyhow--also for his own protection," Mudgett +broke in. He was grinning back at Carson like an idiot. "When he comes +out from under, he'll assume that he's been re-educated, and he'll beat +it back to the enemy to report that he's poisoned our machine, so +that they can be sure they'll beat us to the surface. And he'll go the +fastest way: _overland_." + +"He will," Carson agreed. "Of course he'll go overland, and of course +he'll die. But where does that leave us? We won't be able to conceal +that he was treated here, if there's any sort of an inquiry at all. And +his death will make everything we do here look like a fraud. Instead +of paying our Pied Piper--and great jumping Jehosophat, look at his +name! They were rubbing our noses in it all the time! Nevertheless, we +didn't pay the piper; we killed him. And 'platelets Rh VI' won't be an +adequate excuse for the press, or for Hamelin's following." + +"It doesn't worry me," Mudgett rumbled. "Who'll know? He won't die in +our labs. He'll leave here hale and hearty. He won't die until he makes +a break for the surface. After that we can compose a fine obituary +for the press. Heroic government official, on the highest policy +level--couldn't wait to lead his followers to the surface--died of +being too much in a hurry--Re-Ed Project sorrowfully reminds everyone +that no technique is fool-proof--" + +Mudgett paused long enough to light a cigarette, which was a most +singular action for a man who never smoked. "As a matter of fact, +Carson," he said, "it's a natural." + +Carson considered it. It seemed to hold up. And 'Hamelin' would have a +death certificate as complex as he deserved--not officially, of course, +but in the minds of everyone who knew the facts. His death, when it +came, would be due directly to the thrombocytopenia which had caused +the Re-Ed machine to reject him--and thrombocytopenia is a disease of +infants. _Unless ye become as little children...._ + +That was a fitting reason for rejection from the new kingdom of Earth: +anemia of the newborn. + +His pent breath went out of him in a long sigh. He hadn't been aware +that he'd been holding it. "It's true," he said softly. "That's the +time to pay the piper." + +"When?" Mudgett said. + +"When?" Carson said, surprised. "Why, _before_ he takes the children +away." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of To Pay the Piper, by James Blish + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59415 *** |