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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d84f2bc --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #61119 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61119) diff --git a/old/61119-0.txt b/old/61119-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1a409df..0000000 --- a/old/61119-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1135 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dangerous Quarry, by Jim Harmon - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Dangerous Quarry - -Author: Jim Harmon - -Release Date: January 6, 2020 [eBook #61119] -[Most recently updated: April 12, 2023] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANGEROUS QUARRY *** - - - - - DANGEROUS QUARRY - - BY JIM HARMON - - One little village couldn't have - a monopoly on all the bad breaks - in the world. They did, though! - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1962. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -They say automation makes jobs, especially if "they" are trying to keep -their own job of selling automation machines. I know the Actuarvac made -one purple passion of a job for me, the unpleasantly fatal results of -which are still lingering with me. - -Thad McCain, my boss at Manhattan-Universal Insurance, beamed over -the sprawling automatic brain's silver gauges and plastic toggles as -proudly as if he had just personally gave birth to it. "This will -simplify your job to the point of a pleasant diversion, Madison." - -"Are you going to keep paying me for staying with my little hobby?" I -asked, suspiciously eyeing my chrome competitor. - -"The Actuarvac poses no threat to your career. It will merely keep you -from flying off on wild-goose chases. It will unvaryingly separate from -the vast body of legitimate claims the phony ones they try to spike us -for. Then all that remains is for you to gather the accessory details, -the evidence to jail our erring customers." - -"Fine," I said. I didn't bother to inform him that that was all my job -had ever been. - -McCain shuffled his cards. They were cards for the machine, listing new -individual claims on company policies. Since the two-month-old machine -was literate and could read typewriting, the cards weren't coded or -punched. He read the top one. "Now this, for instance. No adjuster -need investigate this accident. The circumstances obviously are such -that no false claim could be filed. Of course, the brain will make -an unfailing analysis of all the factors involved and clear the claim -automatically and officially." - -McCain threaded the single card into the slot for an example to me. -He then flicked the switch and we stood there watching the monster -ruminate thoughtfully. It finally rang a bell and spit the card back at -Manhattan-Universal's top junior vice-president. - -He took it like a man. - -"That's what the machine is for," he said philosophically. "To detect -human error. Hmm. What kind of a shove do you get out of this?" - -He handed me the rejected claim card. I took it, finding a new, neatly -typed notation on it. It said: - - Investigate the Ozark village of Granite City. - -"You want me to project it in a movie theater and see how it stands it -all alone in the dark?" I asked. - -"Just circle up the wagon train and see how the Indians fall," McCain -said anxiously. - -"It's too general. What does the nickel-brained machine mean by -investigating a whole town? I don't know if it has crooked politics, -a polygamy colony or a hideout for supposedly deported gangsters. I -don't care much either. It's not my business. How could a whole town be -filing false life and accident claims?" - -"Find that out," he said. "I trust the machine. There have been cases -of mass collusion before. Until you get back, we are making no more -settlements with that settlement." - - * * * * * - -Research. To a writer that generally means legally permissible -plagiarism. For an insurance adjuster, it means earnest work. - -Before I headed for the hills, or the Ozark Mountains, I walked a few -hundred feet down the hall and into the manual record files. The brain -abstracted from empirical data but before I planed out to Granite City -I had to find the basis for a few practical, nasty suspicions. - -Four hours of flipping switches and looking at microfilm projections -while a tawny redhead in a triangular fronted uniform carried me reels -to order gave me only two ideas. Neither was very original. The one -that concerned business was that the whole village of Granite City must -be accident-prone. - -I rejected that one almost immediately. While an accident-prone was -in himself a statistical anomaly, the idea of a whole town of them -gathered together stretched the fabric of reality to the point where -even an invisible re-weaver couldn't help it. - -There was an explanation for the recent rise in the accident rate down -there. The rock quarry there had gone into high-level operation. I -knew why from the floor, walls, ceiling border, table trimmings in the -records room. They were all granite. The boom in granite for interior -and exterior decoration eclipsed earlier periods of oak, plastics, -wrought iron and baked clay completely. The distinctive grade of -granite from Granite City was being put into use all over the planet -and in the Officer's Clubs on the Moon and Mars. - -Yet the rise in accident, compared to the rise in production, was out -of all proportion. - -Furthermore, the work at the quarry could hardly explain the excessive -accident reports we had had from the village as far back as our records -went. - -We had paid off on most of the claims since they seemed irrefutably -genuine. All were complete with eye-witness reports and authenticated -circumstances. - -There was one odd note in the melodic scheme: We had never had a claim -for any kind of automobile accident from Granite City. - -I shut off the projector. - -It may be best to keep an open mind, but I have found in practice that -you have to have some kind of working theory which you must proceed to -prove is either right or wrong. - -Tentatively, I decided that for generations the citizens of -Granite City had been in an organized conspiracy to defraud -Manhattan-Universal and its predecessors of hundreds upon hundreds of -thousands of dollars in false accident claims. - -Maybe they made their whole livelihood off us before the quarry opened -up. - -I used my pocket innercom and had my secretary get me a plane -reservation and a gun. - -After so many profitable decades, Granite City wasn't going to take -kindly to my spoil-sport interference. - - * * * * * - -The Absinthe Flight to Springfield was jolly and relatively fast. -Despite headwinds we managed Mach 1.6 most of the way. My particular -stewardess was a blonde, majoring in Video Psychotherapy in her night -courses. I didn't have much time to get acquainted or more than hear -the outline of her thesis on the guilt purgings effected by The Life -and Legend of Gary Cooper. The paunchy businessman in the next lounge -was already nibbling the ear of his red-haired hostess. He was the -type of razorback who took the girls for granted and aimed to get his -money's worth. I gave Helen, the blonde, a kiss on the cheek and began -flipping through the facsimiles in my briefcase as we chute-braked for -a landing at the Greater Ozarks. - -It took me a full five minutes to find out that I couldn't take a -copter to Granite City. Something about downdrafts in the mountains. - -Since that put me back in the days of horsepower, I trotted over to the -automobile rental and hired a few hundred of them under the hood of a -Rolls. That was about the only brand of car that fit me. I hadn't been -able to get my legs into any other foreign car since I was fifteen, -and I have steadfastly refused to enter an American model since they -all sold out their birthrights as passenger cars and went over to the -tractor-trailer combinations they used only for cargo trucks when I was -a boy. Dragging around thirty feet of car is sheer nonsense, even for -prestige. - -It was a tiresome fifty-mile drive, on manual all the way after I left -the radar-channel area of the city. Up and down, slowing for curves, -flipping into second for the hills. - -The whole trip hardly seemed worth it when I saw the cluster of -painted frame buildings that was Granite City. They looked like a -tumble of dingy building blocks tossed in front of a rolled-up indigo -sports shirt. That was Granite Mountain in the near foreground. But I -remembered that over the course of some forty years the people in these -few little stacks of lumber had taken Manhattan-Universal for three -quarters of a megabuck. - -I turned off onto the gravel road, spraying my fenders with a hail of -a racket. Then I stepped down hard on my brakes, bracing myself to keep -from going through the windscreen. I had almost sideswiped an old man -sitting at the side of the road, huddled in his dusty rags. - -"Are you okay?" I yelled, thumbing down the window. - -"I've suffered no harm at your hands--or your wheels, sir. But I could -use some help," the old man said. "Could I trouble you for a lift when -you leave town?" - -I wasn't too sure about that. Most of these guys who are on the hobo -circuit talking like they owned some letters to their names besides -their initials belonged to some cult or other. I try to be as tolerant -as I can, and some of my best friends are thugs, but I don't want to -drive with them down lonely mountain roads. - -"We'll see what we can work out," I said. "Right now can you tell me -where I can find Marshal Thompson?" - -"I can," he said. "But you will have to walk there." - -"Okay. It shouldn't be much of a walk in Granite City." - -"It's the house at the end of the street." - -"It is," I said. "Why shouldn't I drive up there? The street's open." - -The old man stared at me with red-shot eyes. "Marshal Thompson doesn't -like people to run automobiles on the streets of Granite City." - -"So I'll just _lock_ the car up and walk over there. I couldn't go -getting tire tracks all over your clean streets." - -The old man watched as I climbed down and locked up the Rolls. - -"You would probably get killed if you did run the car here, you know," -he said conversationally. - -"Well," I said, "I'll be getting along." I tried to walk sideways so I -could keep an eye on him. - -"Come back," he said, as if he had doubts. - - * * * * * - -The signs of a menacing conspiracy were growing stronger, I felt. I -had my automatic inside my shirt, but I decided I might need a less -lethal means of expression. Without breaking stride, I scooped up a -baseball-size hunk of bluish rock from the road and slipped it into my -small change pocket. - -I have made smarter moves in my time. - - * * * * * - -As I approached the house at the end of the lane, I saw it was about -the worse construction job I had seen in my life. It looked as -architecturally secure as a four-year-old's drawing of his home. The -angles were measurably out of line. Around every nail head were two -nails bent out of shape and hammered down, and a couple of dozen welts -in the siding where the hammer had missed any nail. The paint job was -spotty and streaked. Half the panes in the windows were cracked. I -fought down the dust in my nose, afraid of the consequences of a sneeze -to the place. - -My toe scuffed the top porch step and I nearly crashed face first into -the front door. I had been too busy looking at the house, I decided. I -knocked. - -Moments later, the door opened. - -The lean-faced man who greeted me had his cheeks crisscrossed with -razor nicks and his shirt on wrong side out. But his eyes were bright -and sparrow alert. - -"Are you Mr. Marshal Thompson, the agent for Manhattan-Universal -Insurance?" I put to him. - -"I'm _the_ marshal, name of Thompson. But you ain't the first to take -my title for my Christian name. You from the company?" - -"Yes," I said. "Were you expecting me?" - -Thompson nodded. "For forty-one years." - - * * * * * - -Thompson served the coffee in the chipped cups, favoring only slightly -his burned fingers. - -Catching the direction of my glance, he said, "Company is worth a few -scalds, Mr. Madison." - -I accepted the steaming cup and somehow it very nearly slipped out of -my hands. I made a last microsecond retrieve. - -The marshal nodded thoughtfully. "You're new here." - -"First time," I said, sipping coffee. It was awful. He must have made a -mistake and put salt into it instead of sugar. - -"You think the claims I've been filing for my people are false?" - -"The home office has some suspicions of that," I admitted. - -"I don't blame them, but they ain't. Look, the company gambles on luck, -doesn't it?" - -"No. It works on percentages calculated from past experience." - -"But I mean it knows that there will be, say, a hundred fatal car -crashes in a day. But it doesn't know if maybe ninety of them will be -in Iowa and only ten in the rest of the country." - -"There's something to that. We call it probability, not luck." - -"Well, probability says that more accidents are going to occur in -Granite City than anywhere else in the country, per capita." - -I shook my head at Thompson. "That's not probability. Theoretically, -anything can happen but I don't--I can't--believe that in this town -everybody has chanced to be an accident prone. Some other factor is -operating. You are all deliberately faking these falls and fires--" - -"We're not," Thompson snapped. - -"Or else something is causing you to have this trouble. Maybe the -whole town is a bunch of dope addicts. Maybe you grow your own mescalin -or marijuana; it's happened before." - -Thompson laughed. - -"Whatever is going on, I'm going to find it out. I don't care what you -do, but if I can find a greater risk here and prove it, the Commission -will let us up our rates for this town. Probably beyond the capacity of -these people, I'm afraid." - -"That would be a real tragedy, Mr. Madison. Insurance is vital to this -town. Nobody could survive a year here without insurance. People pay me -for their premiums before they pay their grocery bills." - -I shrugged, sorrier than I could let on. "I won't be able to pay for -my own groceries, marshal, if I don't do the kind of job the company -expects. I'm going to snoop around." - -"All right," he said grudgingly, "but you'll have to do it on foot." - -"Yes, I understood you didn't like cars on your streets. At least not -the cars of outsiders." - -"That doesn't have anything to do with it. Nobody in Granite City owns -a car. It would be suicide for anybody to drive a car, same as it would -be to have a gas or oil stove, instead of coal, or to own a bathtub." - -I took a deep breath. - -"Showers," Thompson said. "With nonskid mats and handrails." - -I shook hands with him. "You've been a great help." - -"Four o'clock," he said. "Roads are treacherous at night." - -"There's always a dawn." - -Thompson met my eyes. "That's not quite how we look at it here." - - - II - -The quarry was a mess. - -I couldn't see any in the way they sliced the granite out of the -mountain. The idea of a four-year-old--a four-year-old moron--going -after a mound of raspberry ice cream kept turning up in my mind as I -walked around. - -The workmen were gone; it was after five local time. But here and -there I saw traces of them. Some of them were sandwich wrappers and -cigarette stubs, but most of the traces were smears of blood. Blood -streaked across sharp rocks, blood oozing from beneath heavy rocks, -blood smeared on the handles and working surfaces of sledge hammers and -tools. The place was as gory as a battlefield. - -"What are you looking for, bud?" - -The low, level snarl had come from a burly character in a syn-leather -jacket and narrow-brimmed Stetson. - -"The reason you have so many accidents here," I said frankly. "I'm from -the insurance company. Name's Madison." - -"Yeah, I know." - -I had supposed he would. - -"I'm Kelvin, the foreman here," the big man told me, extending a ham of -a fist to be shook. "Outside, doing my Army time, I noticed that most -people don't have as many slipups as we do here. Never could figure it -out." - -"This rock is part of it--" - -"What do you mean by that!" Kelvin demanded savagely. - -"I mean the way you work it. No system to it. No stratification, no -plateau work..." - -"Listen, Madison, don't talk about what you don't know anything -about. The stuff in these walls isn't just rock; it isn't even plain -granite. Granite City exports some of the finest grade of the stone in -the world. And it's used all over the world. We aren't just a bunch -of meatheaded ditch diggers--we are craftsmen. We have to figure a -different way of getting out every piece of stone." - -"It's too bad." - -"What's too bad?" - -"That you chose the wrong way so often," I said. - -Kelvin breathed a virile grade of tobacco into my face. "Listen, -Madison, we have been working this quarry for generations, sometimes -more of us working than other times. Today most of us are working -getting the stone out. That's the way we like it. We don't want any -outsider coming in and interfering with that." - -"If this quarry has anything to do with defrauding Manhattan-Universal, -I can tell you that I will do something about that!" - -As soon as my teeth clicked back together, the sickening feeling hit me -that I shouldn't have said that. - - * * * * * - -The general store was called a supermarket, but it wasn't particularly -superior. - -I took a seat at the soda fountain and took a beer, politely declining -the teen-age clerk's offer of a shot of white lightning from the -Pepsi-Cola fountain syrup jug for a quarter. - -Behind me were three restaurant tables and one solitary red-upholstered -booth. Two men somewhere between forty and sixty sat at the nearest -table playing twenty-one. - -Over the foam of my stein I saw the old man I had almost run down in -the road. He marched through the two-thirds of the building composed of -rows of can goods and approached the fat man at the cash register. - -"Hello, Professor," the fat man said. "What can we do for you?" - -"I'd like to mail a letter," he said in an urgent voice. - -"Sure, Professor, I'll send it right off on the facsimile machine as -soon as I get a free moment." - -"You're sure you can send it? Right away?" - -"Positive. Ten cents, Professor." - -The professor fumbled in his pants' pocket and fished out a dime. He -fingered it thoughtfully. - -"I suppose the letter can wait," he said resignedly. "I believe I will -buy a pair of doughnuts, Mr. Haskel." - -"Why not get a hamburger, Professor? Special sale today. Only a dime. -And since you're such a good customer I'll throw in a cup of coffee and -the two sinkers for nothing." - -"That's--kind of you," the old man said awkwardly. - -Haskel shrugged. "A man has to eat." - -The man called "the professor" came over and sat down two stools away, -ignoring me. The clerk dialed his hamburger and served it. - -I stayed with my beer and my thoughts. - -More and more, I was coming to believe that Granite City wasn't a job -for an investigative adjuster like myself but a psychological adjuster. -Crime is a structural flaw in a community, yes. But when the whole -society is criminal, distorted, you can't isolate the flaw. The whole -village was meat for a sociologist; let him figure out why otherwise -decent citizens felt secure in conspiracy to defraud an honored -corporation. - -I didn't feel that I was licked or that the trip had been a failure. -I had merely established to my intuitive satisfaction that the job was -not in my field. - -I glanced at the old man. The proprietor of the store knew him and -evidently thought him harmless enough to feed. - -"I think I can make it down the mountain before dark, Old Timer," I -called over to him. "You can come along if you like." - -The acne-faced kid behind the counter stared at me. I looked over and -caught the bright little eyes of Haskel, the proprietor, too. Finally, -the old professor turned on his stool, his face pale and his eyes sad -and resigned. - -"I doubt very much if either of us will be leaving, Mr. Madison," he -said. "Now." - - * * * * * - -I took my beer and the professor his coffee over to the single booth. -We looked at each other across the shiny table and our beverage -containers. - -"I am Doctor Arnold Parnell of Duke University," the professor said. "I -left on my sabbatical five months ago. I have been here ever since." - -I looked at his clothes. "You must not have been very well fixed for a -year's vacation, Professor." - -"I," he said, "have enough traveler's checks with me to paper a -washroom. Nobody in this town will cash them for me." - -"I can understand why you want to go somewhere where people are more -trusting in that case." - -"They know the checks are good. It's _me_ they refuse to trust to leave -this place. They think they _can't_ let me go." - -"I don't see any shackles on you," I remarked. - -"Just because you can't see them," he growled, "doesn't mean they -aren't there. Marshal Thompson has the only telephone in the village. -He has politely refused to let me use it. I'm a suspicious and -undesirable character; he's under no obligation to give me telephone -privileges, he says. Haskel has the Post Office concession--the Telefax -outfit behind the money box over there. He takes my letters but I never -see him send them off. And I never get a reply." - -"Unfriendly of them," I said conservatively. "But how can they stop you -from packing your dental floss and cutting out?" - -"Haskel has the only motor vehicle in town--a half-ton pick-up, a -minuscule contrivance less than the size of a passenger car. He makes -about one trip a week down into the city for supplies and package mail. -He's been the only one in or out of Granite City for five months." - -It seemed incredible--more than that, unlikely, to me. "How about the -granite itself? How do they ship it out?" - -"It's an artificial demand product, like diamonds," Professor Parnell -said. "They stockpile it and once a year the executive offices for the -company back in Nashville runs in a portable monorail railroad up the -side of the mountain to take it out. That won't be for another four -months, as nearly as I can find out. I may not last that long." - -"How are you living?" I asked. "If they won't take your checks--" - -"I do odd jobs for people. They feed me, give me a little money -sometimes." - -"I can see why you want to ride out with me," I said. "Haven't you ever -thought of just _walking_ out?" - -"Fifty miles down a steep mountain road? I'm an old man, Mr. Madison, -and I've gotten even older since I came to Granite City." - -I nodded. "You have any papers, any identification, to back this up?" - -Wordlessly, he handed over his billfold, letters, enough identification -to have satisfied Allen Pinkerton or John Edgar Hoover. - -"Okay," I drawled. "I'll accept your story for the moment. Now answer -me the big query: Why are the good people of Granite City doing this to -you? By any chance, you wouldn't happen to know of a mass fraud they -are perpetrating on Manhattan-Universal?" - -"I know nothing of their ethical standards," Parnell said, "but I do -know that they are absolutely _subhuman_!" - -"I admit I have met likelier groups of human beings in my time." - -"No, understand me. These people are literally subhuman--they are -inferior to other human beings." - -"Look, I know the Klan is a growing organization but I can't go along -with you." - -"Madison, understand me, I insist. Ethnologically speaking, it is well -known that certain tribes suffer certain deficiencies due to diet, -climate, et cetera. Some can't run, sing, use mathematics. The people -of Granite City have the most unusual deficency on record, I admit. -Their _psionic_ senses have been impaired. They are completely devoid -of any use of telepathy, precognition, telekinesis." - - * * * * * - -"Because they aren't supermen, that doesn't mean that they are submen," -I protested. "I don't have any psionic abilities either." - -"But you do!" Parnell said earnestly. "Everybody has some psionics -ability, but we don't realize it. We don't have the fabulous abilities -of a few recorded cases of supermen, but we have some, a trace. Granite -City citizens have _no_ psionic ability whatsoever, not even the little -that you and I and the rest of the world have!" - -"You said you were Duke University, didn't you?" I mused. "Maybe you -know what you are talking about; I've never been sure. But these -people can't suffer very much from their lack of what you call psi -ability." - -"I tell you they do," he said hoarsely. "We never realize it but we all -have some power of precognition. If we didn't, we would have a hundred -accidents a day--just as these people _do_. They can't foresee the -bump in the road the way we can, or that that particular match will -flare a little higher and burn their fingers. There are other things, -as well. You'll find it is almost impossible to carry on a lengthy -conversation with any of them--they have no telepathic ability, no -matter how slight, to see through the semantic barrier. None of them -can play ball. They don't have the unconscious psionic ability to -influence the ball in flight. All of us can do that, even if the case -of a 'Poltergeist' who can lift objects is rare." - -"Professor, you mean these people are holding you here simply so you -won't go out and tell the rest of the world that they are submen?" - -"They don't want the world to know _why_ they are psionically -subnormal," he said crisply. "It's the _granite_! I don't understand -why myself. I'm not a physicist or a biologist. But for some reason the -heavy concentration and particular pattern of the radioactive radiation -in its matrix is responsible for both inhibiting the genes that -transmit psi powers from generation to generation _and_ affecting those -abilities in the present generation. A kind of psionic sterility." - -"How do you know this?" - -"We haven't the time for all that. But think about it. What else -_could_ it be? It's that granite that they are shipping all over the -world, spreading the contamination. I want to stop that contamination. -To the people of Granite City that means ruining their only industry, -putting them all out of work. They are used to this psionic sterility; -they don't see anything so bad about it. Besides, like everybody else, -they have some doubts that there really are such things as telepathy -and the rest to be affected." - -"Frankly," I said, hedging only a little, "I don't know what to -make of your story. This is something to be decided by somebody -infallible--like the Pope or the President or Board Chairman of -Manhattan-Universal. But the first thing to do is get you out of here. -We had better get back to my car. I've got good lights to get down the -mountain." - -Parnell jumped up eagerly, and brushed over his china mug, staining the -tabletop with brown caffeine. - -"Sorry," he said. "I should have been precognizant of that. I try to -stay away from the rock as much as possible, but it's getting to me." - -I should have remembered something then. But, naturally, I didn't. - - * * * * * - -It was the time when you could argue about whether it was twilight or -night. In the deep dusk, the Rolls looked to be a horror-flicker giant -bug. I fumbled for the keys. Then the old man made me break stride by -digging narrow fingers into my bicep. - -Marshal Thompson and the bulky quarry foreman, Kelvin, stepped out of -the shadow of the car. - -"First, throw away that gun of yours, Mr. Madison," the marshal said. - -I looked at his old pistol that must have used old powder cartridges, -instead of liquid propellants, and forked out my Smith & Wesson with -two fingers, letting it plop at my feet. - -"I'm afraid we can't let you spread the professor's lies, Mr. Madison," -Thompson said. - -"You planning on killing me?" I asked with admirable restraint. - -"I hope not. You can have the run of the town, like the professor. -I'll tell your company you are making a _thorough_ investigation. Then -maybe in a few weeks or months I can arrange so it looks like you were -killed--someplace outside." - -"We don't aim to let any crazy fanatic like Parnell ruin our business, -our whole town," Kelvin interjected bitterly. - -I took a pause to make abstractions on the situation. I glanced at the -little man at my right. "Parnell, my car is our only chance of getting -out of here. If they stop us from getting in that car, we'll be bums -here on town charity for the rest of our lives." - -"_No!_" Parnell gave a terrier yell and charged the gun in the old -marshal's hand. - -It seemed as if it would take me too long to recover my gun from the -dirt, but almost instinctively I felt the rock in the pocket of my -pants. - -I scooped out the sample of granite and heaved it at the head of the -old cop. But my control seemed completely shot. It missed the old man's -head with an appalling gap and hit the roof of the Rolls. - -Fortunately, the granite radiations didn't influence non-human-oriented -factors of chance. The stone bounced off the car and struck the -marshal's gun hand. - -Thompson dropped his gun and I reached for mine in the dust, vaguely -aware of Kelvin pumping toward me. - -I straightened up. He led with his right, of all damn things. I blocked -it with my gun hand and let him have my left in the midst of his solar -plexus. He crumpled prettier than a paper doll. - -When the dust cleared, Professor Parnell was sitting on Thompson's -chest. - -"Hooray," I said, "for our side." - - * * * * * - -The people had made one mistake. They thought people would believe us. - -Parnell and I broke the story to some newspaper friends of mine. They -gave it a play in the mistaken belief the professor and I were starting -our own cult, and the equal-time law is firm. But nobody paid any more -attention to us than to the Hedonists, the Klan, the Soft-shelled -Baptists or the Reformed Agnostics. - -I tried to get Thad McCain to realize all the money this cursed -granite was costing us in accident claims, but it wasn't easy. -Manhattan-Universal owned stock in Granite City Products, Inc. And we -had spent a quarter of a megabuck modernizing our offices with granite -only months before. - -"McCain," I said earnestly, "will you just let me feed the new data -we've got from Parnell into the Actuarvac? It's infallible. See what it -says." - -"Very well," McCain said with a sigh. He let me feed the big brain the -hypothesis I had got from Parnell. It chattered to itself for some -minutes and at last flipped a card into the slot. - -I dug the pasteboard out and read it. It said: - - No such place as Granite City exists. - -"The rock has got to the machine," I screamed. "Chief, this brain is -stoned. It's made a _mistake_. We _know_ there is such a place." - -"Nonsense, my boy," McCain said in a fatherly way. "The Actuarvac -merely means that no such place as you erroneously described could -possibly exist. Why don't you try one of our Hedonist revival meetings -tonight?" - - * * * * * - -Things have got steadily worse since then. - -So far nobody has made the big mistake of dropping an H-bomb on anyone, -but that's probably because all the governments made so many smaller -mistakes the people made the mistake (or was it?) of kicking them out -for almost absolute anarchy. But the individuals are doing worse than -the governments...if that's possible. - -People have given up going anywhere except by foot, for the most part. - -Granite City granite is still as widely disbursed and almost as highly -prized as South African diamonds. - -I hope we will find some way out of our current world crisis, although -I can't imagine what it will be. - -Meanwhile, I hope you will excuse any typographical errors. It seems as -if I just can't seem to hit the right keys on my typewriter any more, -as my--and all of our--psionic sterility increases. - -I ask hugh--wear wall it owl end? - - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANGEROUS QUARRY *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ -concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Dangerous Quarry</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Jim Harmon</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: January 6, 2020 [eBook #61119]<br /> -[Most recently updated: April 12, 2023]</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team</div> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANGEROUS QUARRY ***</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="331" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>DANGEROUS QUARRY</h1> - -<h2>BY JIM HARMON</h2> - -<p class="ph1">One little village couldn't have<br /> -a monopoly on all the bad breaks<br /> -in the world. They did, though!</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1962.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>They say automation makes jobs, especially if "they" are trying to keep -their own job of selling automation machines. I know the Actuarvac made -one purple passion of a job for me, the unpleasantly fatal results of -which are still lingering with me.</p> - -<p>Thad McCain, my boss at Manhattan-Universal Insurance, beamed over -the sprawling automatic brain's silver gauges and plastic toggles as -proudly as if he had just personally gave birth to it. "This will -simplify your job to the point of a pleasant diversion, Madison."</p> - -<p>"Are you going to keep paying me for staying with my little hobby?" I -asked, suspiciously eyeing my chrome competitor.</p> - -<p>"The Actuarvac poses no threat to your career. It will merely keep you -from flying off on wild-goose chases. It will unvaryingly separate from -the vast body of legitimate claims the phony ones they try to spike us -for. Then all that remains is for you to gather the accessory details, -the evidence to jail our erring customers."</p> - -<p>"Fine," I said. I didn't bother to inform him that that was all my job -had ever been.</p> - -<p>McCain shuffled his cards. They were cards for the machine, listing new -individual claims on company policies. Since the two-month-old machine -was literate and could read typewriting, the cards weren't coded or -punched. He read the top one. "Now this, for instance. No adjuster -need investigate this accident. The circumstances obviously are such -that no false claim could be filed. Of course, the brain will make -an unfailing analysis of all the factors involved and clear the claim -automatically and officially."</p> - -<p>McCain threaded the single card into the slot for an example to me. -He then flicked the switch and we stood there watching the monster -ruminate thoughtfully. It finally rang a bell and spit the card back at -Manhattan-Universal's top junior vice-president.</p> - -<p>He took it like a man.</p> - -<p>"That's what the machine is for," he said philosophically. "To detect -human error. Hmm. What kind of a shove do you get out of this?"</p> - -<p>He handed me the rejected claim card. I took it, finding a new, neatly -typed notation on it. It said:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>Investigate the Ozark village of Granite City.</p></div> - -<p>"You want me to project it in a movie theater and see how it stands it -all alone in the dark?" I asked.</p> - -<p>"Just circle up the wagon train and see how the Indians fall," McCain -said anxiously.</p> - -<p>"It's too general. What does the nickel-brained machine mean by -investigating a whole town? I don't know if it has crooked politics, -a polygamy colony or a hideout for supposedly deported gangsters. I -don't care much either. It's not my business. How could a whole town be -filing false life and accident claims?"</p> - -<p>"Find that out," he said. "I trust the machine. There have been cases -of mass collusion before. Until you get back, we are making no more -settlements with that settlement."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Research. To a writer that generally means legally permissible -plagiarism. For an insurance adjuster, it means earnest work.</p> - -<p>Before I headed for the hills, or the Ozark Mountains, I walked a few -hundred feet down the hall and into the manual record files. The brain -abstracted from empirical data but before I planed out to Granite City -I had to find the basis for a few practical, nasty suspicions.</p> - -<p>Four hours of flipping switches and looking at microfilm projections -while a tawny redhead in a triangular fronted uniform carried me reels -to order gave me only two ideas. Neither was very original. The one -that concerned business was that the whole village of Granite City must -be accident-prone.</p> - -<p>I rejected that one almost immediately. While an accident-prone was -in himself a statistical anomaly, the idea of a whole town of them -gathered together stretched the fabric of reality to the point where -even an invisible re-weaver couldn't help it.</p> - -<p>There was an explanation for the recent rise in the accident rate down -there. The rock quarry there had gone into high-level operation. I -knew why from the floor, walls, ceiling border, table trimmings in the -records room. They were all granite. The boom in granite for interior -and exterior decoration eclipsed earlier periods of oak, plastics, -wrought iron and baked clay completely. The distinctive grade of -granite from Granite City was being put into use all over the planet -and in the Officer's Clubs on the Moon and Mars.</p> - -<p>Yet the rise in accident, compared to the rise in production, was out -of all proportion.</p> - -<p>Furthermore, the work at the quarry could hardly explain the excessive -accident reports we had had from the village as far back as our records -went.</p> - -<p>We had paid off on most of the claims since they seemed irrefutably -genuine. All were complete with eye-witness reports and authenticated -circumstances.</p> - -<p>There was one odd note in the melodic scheme: We had never had a claim -for any kind of automobile accident from Granite City.</p> - -<p>I shut off the projector.</p> - -<p>It may be best to keep an open mind, but I have found in practice that -you have to have some kind of working theory which you must proceed to -prove is either right or wrong.</p> - -<p>Tentatively, I decided that for generations the citizens of -Granite City had been in an organized conspiracy to defraud -Manhattan-Universal and its predecessors of hundreds upon hundreds of -thousands of dollars in false accident claims.</p> - -<p>Maybe they made their whole livelihood off us before the quarry opened -up.</p> - -<p>I used my pocket innercom and had my secretary get me a plane -reservation and a gun.</p> - -<p>After so many profitable decades, Granite City wasn't going to take -kindly to my spoil-sport interference.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The Absinthe Flight to Springfield was jolly and relatively fast. -Despite headwinds we managed Mach 1.6 most of the way. My particular -stewardess was a blonde, majoring in Video Psychotherapy in her night -courses. I didn't have much time to get acquainted or more than hear -the outline of her thesis on the guilt purgings effected by The Life -and Legend of Gary Cooper. The paunchy businessman in the next lounge -was already nibbling the ear of his red-haired hostess. He was the -type of razorback who took the girls for granted and aimed to get his -money's worth. I gave Helen, the blonde, a kiss on the cheek and began -flipping through the facsimiles in my briefcase as we chute-braked for -a landing at the Greater Ozarks.</p> - -<p>It took me a full five minutes to find out that I couldn't take a -copter to Granite City. Something about downdrafts in the mountains.</p> - -<p>Since that put me back in the days of horsepower, I trotted over to the -automobile rental and hired a few hundred of them under the hood of a -Rolls. That was about the only brand of car that fit me. I hadn't been -able to get my legs into any other foreign car since I was fifteen, -and I have steadfastly refused to enter an American model since they -all sold out their birthrights as passenger cars and went over to the -tractor-trailer combinations they used only for cargo trucks when I was -a boy. Dragging around thirty feet of car is sheer nonsense, even for -prestige.</p> - -<p>It was a tiresome fifty-mile drive, on manual all the way after I left -the radar-channel area of the city. Up and down, slowing for curves, -flipping into second for the hills.</p> - -<p>The whole trip hardly seemed worth it when I saw the cluster of -painted frame buildings that was Granite City. They looked like a -tumble of dingy building blocks tossed in front of a rolled-up indigo -sports shirt. That was Granite Mountain in the near foreground. But I -remembered that over the course of some forty years the people in these -few little stacks of lumber had taken Manhattan-Universal for three -quarters of a megabuck.</p> - -<p>I turned off onto the gravel road, spraying my fenders with a hail of -a racket. Then I stepped down hard on my brakes, bracing myself to keep -from going through the windscreen. I had almost sideswiped an old man -sitting at the side of the road, huddled in his dusty rags.</p> - -<p>"Are you okay?" I yelled, thumbing down the window.</p> - -<p>"I've suffered no harm at your hands—or your wheels, sir. But I could -use some help," the old man said. "Could I trouble you for a lift when -you leave town?"</p> - -<p>I wasn't too sure about that. Most of these guys who are on the hobo -circuit talking like they owned some letters to their names besides -their initials belonged to some cult or other. I try to be as tolerant -as I can, and some of my best friends are thugs, but I don't want to -drive with them down lonely mountain roads.</p> - -<p>"We'll see what we can work out," I said. "Right now can you tell me -where I can find Marshal Thompson?"</p> - -<p>"I can," he said. "But you will have to walk there."</p> - -<p>"Okay. It shouldn't be much of a walk in Granite City."</p> - -<p>"It's the house at the end of the street."</p> - -<p>"It is," I said. "Why shouldn't I drive up there? The street's open."</p> - -<p>The old man stared at me with red-shot eyes. "Marshal Thompson doesn't -like people to run automobiles on the streets of Granite City."</p> - -<p>"So I'll just <i>lock</i> the car up and walk over there. I couldn't go -getting tire tracks all over your clean streets."</p> - -<p>The old man watched as I climbed down and locked up the Rolls.</p> - -<p>"You would probably get killed if you did run the car here, you know," -he said conversationally.</p> - -<p>"Well," I said, "I'll be getting along." I tried to walk sideways so I -could keep an eye on him.</p> - -<p>"Come back," he said, as if he had doubts.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The signs of a menacing conspiracy were growing stronger, I felt. I -had my automatic inside my shirt, but I decided I might need a less -lethal means of expression. Without breaking stride, I scooped up a -baseball-size hunk of bluish rock from the road and slipped it into my -small change pocket.</p> - -<p>I have made smarter moves in my time.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>As I approached the house at the end of the lane, I saw it was about -the worse construction job I had seen in my life. It looked as -architecturally secure as a four-year-old's drawing of his home. The -angles were measurably out of line. Around every nail head were two -nails bent out of shape and hammered down, and a couple of dozen welts -in the siding where the hammer had missed any nail. The paint job was -spotty and streaked. Half the panes in the windows were cracked. I -fought down the dust in my nose, afraid of the consequences of a sneeze -to the place.</p> - -<p>My toe scuffed the top porch step and I nearly crashed face first into -the front door. I had been too busy looking at the house, I decided. I -knocked.</p> - -<p>Moments later, the door opened.</p> - -<p>The lean-faced man who greeted me had his cheeks crisscrossed with -razor nicks and his shirt on wrong side out. But his eyes were bright -and sparrow alert.</p> - -<p>"Are you Mr. Marshal Thompson, the agent for Manhattan-Universal -Insurance?" I put to him.</p> - -<p>"I'm <i>the</i> marshal, name of Thompson. But you ain't the first to take -my title for my Christian name. You from the company?"</p> - -<p>"Yes," I said. "Were you expecting me?"</p> - -<p>Thompson nodded. "For forty-one years."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Thompson served the coffee in the chipped cups, favoring only slightly -his burned fingers.</p> - -<p>Catching the direction of my glance, he said, "Company is worth a few -scalds, Mr. Madison."</p> - -<p>I accepted the steaming cup and somehow it very nearly slipped out of -my hands. I made a last microsecond retrieve.</p> - -<p>The marshal nodded thoughtfully. "You're new here."</p> - -<p>"First time," I said, sipping coffee. It was awful. He must have made a -mistake and put salt into it instead of sugar.</p> - -<p>"You think the claims I've been filing for my people are false?"</p> - -<p>"The home office has some suspicions of that," I admitted.</p> - -<p>"I don't blame them, but they ain't. Look, the company gambles on luck, -doesn't it?"</p> - -<p>"No. It works on percentages calculated from past experience."</p> - -<p>"But I mean it knows that there will be, say, a hundred fatal car -crashes in a day. But it doesn't know if maybe ninety of them will be -in Iowa and only ten in the rest of the country."</p> - -<p>"There's something to that. We call it probability, not luck."</p> - -<p>"Well, probability says that more accidents are going to occur in -Granite City than anywhere else in the country, per capita."</p> - -<p>I shook my head at Thompson. "That's not probability. Theoretically, -anything can happen but I don't—I can't—believe that in this town -everybody has chanced to be an accident prone. Some other factor is -operating. You are all deliberately faking these falls and fires—"</p> - -<p>"We're not," Thompson snapped.</p> - -<p>"Or else something is causing you to have this trouble. Maybe the -whole town is a bunch of dope addicts. Maybe you grow your own mescalin -or marijuana; it's happened before."</p> - -<p>Thompson laughed.</p> - -<p>"Whatever is going on, I'm going to find it out. I don't care what you -do, but if I can find a greater risk here and prove it, the Commission -will let us up our rates for this town. Probably beyond the capacity of -these people, I'm afraid."</p> - -<p>"That would be a real tragedy, Mr. Madison. Insurance is vital to this -town. Nobody could survive a year here without insurance. People pay me -for their premiums before they pay their grocery bills."</p> - -<p>I shrugged, sorrier than I could let on. "I won't be able to pay for -my own groceries, marshal, if I don't do the kind of job the company -expects. I'm going to snoop around."</p> - -<p>"All right," he said grudgingly, "but you'll have to do it on foot."</p> - -<p>"Yes, I understood you didn't like cars on your streets. At least not -the cars of outsiders."</p> - -<p>"That doesn't have anything to do with it. Nobody in Granite City owns -a car. It would be suicide for anybody to drive a car, same as it would -be to have a gas or oil stove, instead of coal, or to own a bathtub."</p> - -<p>I took a deep breath.</p> - -<p>"Showers," Thompson said. "With nonskid mats and handrails."</p> - -<p>I shook hands with him. "You've been a great help."</p> - -<p>"Four o'clock," he said. "Roads are treacherous at night."</p> - -<p>"There's always a dawn."</p> - -<p>Thompson met my eyes. "That's not quite how we look at it here."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">II</p> - -<p>The quarry was a mess.</p> - -<p>I couldn't see any in the way they sliced the granite out of the -mountain. The idea of a four-year-old—a four-year-old moron—going -after a mound of raspberry ice cream kept turning up in my mind as I -walked around.</p> - -<p>The workmen were gone; it was after five local time. But here and -there I saw traces of them. Some of them were sandwich wrappers and -cigarette stubs, but most of the traces were smears of blood. Blood -streaked across sharp rocks, blood oozing from beneath heavy rocks, -blood smeared on the handles and working surfaces of sledge hammers and -tools. The place was as gory as a battlefield.</p> - -<p>"What are you looking for, bud?"</p> - -<p>The low, level snarl had come from a burly character in a syn-leather -jacket and narrow-brimmed Stetson.</p> - -<p>"The reason you have so many accidents here," I said frankly. "I'm from -the insurance company. Name's Madison."</p> - -<p>"Yeah, I know."</p> - -<p>I had supposed he would.</p> - -<p>"I'm Kelvin, the foreman here," the big man told me, extending a ham of -a fist to be shook. "Outside, doing my Army time, I noticed that most -people don't have as many slipups as we do here. Never could figure it -out."</p> - -<p>"This rock is part of it—"</p> - -<p>"What do you mean by that!" Kelvin demanded savagely.</p> - -<p>"I mean the way you work it. No system to it. No stratification, no -plateau work..."</p> - -<p>"Listen, Madison, don't talk about what you don't know anything -about. The stuff in these walls isn't just rock; it isn't even plain -granite. Granite City exports some of the finest grade of the stone in -the world. And it's used all over the world. We aren't just a bunch -of meatheaded ditch diggers—we are craftsmen. We have to figure a -different way of getting out every piece of stone."</p> - -<p>"It's too bad."</p> - -<p>"What's too bad?"</p> - -<p>"That you chose the wrong way so often," I said.</p> - -<p>Kelvin breathed a virile grade of tobacco into my face. "Listen, -Madison, we have been working this quarry for generations, sometimes -more of us working than other times. Today most of us are working -getting the stone out. That's the way we like it. We don't want any -outsider coming in and interfering with that."</p> - -<p>"If this quarry has anything to do with defrauding Manhattan-Universal, -I can tell you that I will do something about that!"</p> - -<p>As soon as my teeth clicked back together, the sickening feeling hit me -that I shouldn't have said that.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The general store was called a supermarket, but it wasn't particularly -superior.</p> - -<p>I took a seat at the soda fountain and took a beer, politely declining -the teen-age clerk's offer of a shot of white lightning from the -Pepsi-Cola fountain syrup jug for a quarter.</p> - -<p>Behind me were three restaurant tables and one solitary red-upholstered -booth. Two men somewhere between forty and sixty sat at the nearest -table playing twenty-one.</p> - -<p>Over the foam of my stein I saw the old man I had almost run down in -the road. He marched through the two-thirds of the building composed of -rows of can goods and approached the fat man at the cash register.</p> - -<p>"Hello, Professor," the fat man said. "What can we do for you?"</p> - -<p>"I'd like to mail a letter," he said in an urgent voice.</p> - -<p>"Sure, Professor, I'll send it right off on the facsimile machine as -soon as I get a free moment."</p> - -<p>"You're sure you can send it? Right away?"</p> - -<p>"Positive. Ten cents, Professor."</p> - -<p>The professor fumbled in his pants' pocket and fished out a dime. He -fingered it thoughtfully.</p> - -<p>"I suppose the letter can wait," he said resignedly. "I believe I will -buy a pair of doughnuts, Mr. Haskel."</p> - -<p>"Why not get a hamburger, Professor? Special sale today. Only a dime. -And since you're such a good customer I'll throw in a cup of coffee and -the two sinkers for nothing."</p> - -<p>"That's—kind of you," the old man said awkwardly.</p> - -<p>Haskel shrugged. "A man has to eat."</p> - -<p>The man called "the professor" came over and sat down two stools away, -ignoring me. The clerk dialed his hamburger and served it.</p> - -<p>I stayed with my beer and my thoughts.</p> - -<p>More and more, I was coming to believe that Granite City wasn't a job -for an investigative adjuster like myself but a psychological adjuster. -Crime is a structural flaw in a community, yes. But when the whole -society is criminal, distorted, you can't isolate the flaw. The whole -village was meat for a sociologist; let him figure out why otherwise -decent citizens felt secure in conspiracy to defraud an honored -corporation.</p> - -<p>I didn't feel that I was licked or that the trip had been a failure. -I had merely established to my intuitive satisfaction that the job was -not in my field.</p> - -<p>I glanced at the old man. The proprietor of the store knew him and -evidently thought him harmless enough to feed.</p> - -<p>"I think I can make it down the mountain before dark, Old Timer," I -called over to him. "You can come along if you like."</p> - -<p>The acne-faced kid behind the counter stared at me. I looked over and -caught the bright little eyes of Haskel, the proprietor, too. Finally, -the old professor turned on his stool, his face pale and his eyes sad -and resigned.</p> - -<p>"I doubt very much if either of us will be leaving, Mr. Madison," he -said. "Now."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I took my beer and the professor his coffee over to the single booth. -We looked at each other across the shiny table and our beverage -containers.</p> - -<p>"I am Doctor Arnold Parnell of Duke University," the professor said. "I -left on my sabbatical five months ago. I have been here ever since."</p> - -<p>I looked at his clothes. "You must not have been very well fixed for a -year's vacation, Professor."</p> - -<p>"I," he said, "have enough traveler's checks with me to paper a -washroom. Nobody in this town will cash them for me."</p> - -<p>"I can understand why you want to go somewhere where people are more -trusting in that case."</p> - -<p>"They know the checks are good. It's <i>me</i> they refuse to trust to leave -this place. They think they <i>can't</i> let me go."</p> - -<p>"I don't see any shackles on you," I remarked.</p> - -<p>"Just because you can't see them," he growled, "doesn't mean they -aren't there. Marshal Thompson has the only telephone in the village. -He has politely refused to let me use it. I'm a suspicious and -undesirable character; he's under no obligation to give me telephone -privileges, he says. Haskel has the Post Office concession—the Telefax -outfit behind the money box over there. He takes my letters but I never -see him send them off. And I never get a reply."</p> - -<p>"Unfriendly of them," I said conservatively. "But how can they stop you -from packing your dental floss and cutting out?"</p> - -<p>"Haskel has the only motor vehicle in town—a half-ton pick-up, a -minuscule contrivance less than the size of a passenger car. He makes -about one trip a week down into the city for supplies and package mail. -He's been the only one in or out of Granite City for five months."</p> - -<p>It seemed incredible—more than that, unlikely, to me. "How about the -granite itself? How do they ship it out?"</p> - -<p>"It's an artificial demand product, like diamonds," Professor Parnell -said. "They stockpile it and once a year the executive offices for the -company back in Nashville runs in a portable monorail railroad up the -side of the mountain to take it out. That won't be for another four -months, as nearly as I can find out. I may not last that long."</p> - -<p>"How are you living?" I asked. "If they won't take your checks—"</p> - -<p>"I do odd jobs for people. They feed me, give me a little money -sometimes."</p> - -<p>"I can see why you want to ride out with me," I said. "Haven't you ever -thought of just <i>walking</i> out?"</p> - -<p>"Fifty miles down a steep mountain road? I'm an old man, Mr. Madison, -and I've gotten even older since I came to Granite City."</p> - -<p>I nodded. "You have any papers, any identification, to back this up?"</p> - -<p>Wordlessly, he handed over his billfold, letters, enough identification -to have satisfied Allen Pinkerton or John Edgar Hoover.</p> - -<p>"Okay," I drawled. "I'll accept your story for the moment. Now answer -me the big query: Why are the good people of Granite City doing this to -you? By any chance, you wouldn't happen to know of a mass fraud they -are perpetrating on Manhattan-Universal?"</p> - -<p>"I know nothing of their ethical standards," Parnell said, "but I do -know that they are absolutely <i>subhuman</i>!"</p> - -<p>"I admit I have met likelier groups of human beings in my time."</p> - -<p>"No, understand me. These people are literally subhuman—they are -inferior to other human beings."</p> - -<p>"Look, I know the Klan is a growing organization but I can't go along -with you."</p> - -<p>"Madison, understand me, I insist. Ethnologically speaking, it is well -known that certain tribes suffer certain deficiencies due to diet, -climate, et cetera. Some can't run, sing, use mathematics. The people -of Granite City have the most unusual deficency on record, I admit. -Their <i>psionic</i> senses have been impaired. They are completely devoid -of any use of telepathy, precognition, telekinesis."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Because they aren't supermen, that doesn't mean that they are submen," -I protested. "I don't have any psionic abilities either."</p> - -<p>"But you do!" Parnell said earnestly. "Everybody has some psionics -ability, but we don't realize it. We don't have the fabulous abilities -of a few recorded cases of supermen, but we have some, a trace. Granite -City citizens have <i>no</i> psionic ability whatsoever, not even the little -that you and I and the rest of the world have!"</p> - -<p>"You said you were Duke University, didn't you?" I mused. "Maybe you -know what you are talking about; I've never been sure. But these -people can't suffer very much from their lack of what you call psi -ability."</p> - -<p>"I tell you they do," he said hoarsely. "We never realize it but we all -have some power of precognition. If we didn't, we would have a hundred -accidents a day—just as these people <i>do</i>. They can't foresee the -bump in the road the way we can, or that that particular match will -flare a little higher and burn their fingers. There are other things, -as well. You'll find it is almost impossible to carry on a lengthy -conversation with any of them—they have no telepathic ability, no -matter how slight, to see through the semantic barrier. None of them -can play ball. They don't have the unconscious psionic ability to -influence the ball in flight. All of us can do that, even if the case -of a 'Poltergeist' who can lift objects is rare."</p> - -<p>"Professor, you mean these people are holding you here simply so you -won't go out and tell the rest of the world that they are submen?"</p> - -<p>"They don't want the world to know <i>why</i> they are psionically -subnormal," he said crisply. "It's the <i>granite</i>! I don't understand -why myself. I'm not a physicist or a biologist. But for some reason the -heavy concentration and particular pattern of the radioactive radiation -in its matrix is responsible for both inhibiting the genes that -transmit psi powers from generation to generation <i>and</i> affecting those -abilities in the present generation. A kind of psionic sterility."</p> - -<p>"How do you know this?"</p> - -<p>"We haven't the time for all that. But think about it. What else -<i>could</i> it be? It's that granite that they are shipping all over the -world, spreading the contamination. I want to stop that contamination. -To the people of Granite City that means ruining their only industry, -putting them all out of work. They are used to this psionic sterility; -they don't see anything so bad about it. Besides, like everybody else, -they have some doubts that there really are such things as telepathy -and the rest to be affected."</p> - -<p>"Frankly," I said, hedging only a little, "I don't know what to -make of your story. This is something to be decided by somebody -infallible—like the Pope or the President or Board Chairman of -Manhattan-Universal. But the first thing to do is get you out of here. -We had better get back to my car. I've got good lights to get down the -mountain."</p> - -<p>Parnell jumped up eagerly, and brushed over his china mug, staining the -tabletop with brown caffeine.</p> - -<p>"Sorry," he said. "I should have been precognizant of that. I try to -stay away from the rock as much as possible, but it's getting to me."</p> - -<p>I should have remembered something then. But, naturally, I didn't.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was the time when you could argue about whether it was twilight or -night. In the deep dusk, the Rolls looked to be a horror-flicker giant -bug. I fumbled for the keys. Then the old man made me break stride by -digging narrow fingers into my bicep.</p> - -<p>Marshal Thompson and the bulky quarry foreman, Kelvin, stepped out of -the shadow of the car.</p> - -<p>"First, throw away that gun of yours, Mr. Madison," the marshal said.</p> - -<p>I looked at his old pistol that must have used old powder cartridges, -instead of liquid propellants, and forked out my Smith & Wesson with -two fingers, letting it plop at my feet.</p> - -<p>"I'm afraid we can't let you spread the professor's lies, Mr. Madison," -Thompson said.</p> - -<p>"You planning on killing me?" I asked with admirable restraint.</p> - -<p>"I hope not. You can have the run of the town, like the professor. -I'll tell your company you are making a <i>thorough</i> investigation. Then -maybe in a few weeks or months I can arrange so it looks like you were -killed—someplace outside."</p> - -<p>"We don't aim to let any crazy fanatic like Parnell ruin our business, -our whole town," Kelvin interjected bitterly.</p> - -<p>I took a pause to make abstractions on the situation. I glanced at the -little man at my right. "Parnell, my car is our only chance of getting -out of here. If they stop us from getting in that car, we'll be bums -here on town charity for the rest of our lives."</p> - -<p>"<i>No!</i>" Parnell gave a terrier yell and charged the gun in the old -marshal's hand.</p> - -<p>It seemed as if it would take me too long to recover my gun from the -dirt, but almost instinctively I felt the rock in the pocket of my -pants.</p> - -<p>I scooped out the sample of granite and heaved it at the head of the -old cop. But my control seemed completely shot. It missed the old man's -head with an appalling gap and hit the roof of the Rolls.</p> - -<p>Fortunately, the granite radiations didn't influence non-human-oriented -factors of chance. The stone bounced off the car and struck the -marshal's gun hand.</p> - -<p>Thompson dropped his gun and I reached for mine in the dust, vaguely -aware of Kelvin pumping toward me.</p> - -<p>I straightened up. He led with his right, of all damn things. I blocked -it with my gun hand and let him have my left in the midst of his solar -plexus. He crumpled prettier than a paper doll.</p> - -<p>When the dust cleared, Professor Parnell was sitting on Thompson's -chest.</p> - -<p>"Hooray," I said, "for our side."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The people had made one mistake. They thought people would believe us.</p> - -<p>Parnell and I broke the story to some newspaper friends of mine. They -gave it a play in the mistaken belief the professor and I were starting -our own cult, and the equal-time law is firm. But nobody paid any more -attention to us than to the Hedonists, the Klan, the Soft-shelled -Baptists or the Reformed Agnostics.</p> - -<p>I tried to get Thad McCain to realize all the money this cursed -granite was costing us in accident claims, but it wasn't easy. -Manhattan-Universal owned stock in Granite City Products, Inc. And we -had spent a quarter of a megabuck modernizing our offices with granite -only months before.</p> - -<p>"McCain," I said earnestly, "will you just let me feed the new data -we've got from Parnell into the Actuarvac? It's infallible. See what it -says."</p> - -<p>"Very well," McCain said with a sigh. He let me feed the big brain the -hypothesis I had got from Parnell. It chattered to itself for some -minutes and at last flipped a card into the slot.</p> - -<p>I dug the pasteboard out and read it. It said:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>No such place as Granite City exists.</p></div> - -<p>"The rock has got to the machine," I screamed. "Chief, this brain is -stoned. It's made a <i>mistake</i>. We <i>know</i> there is such a place."</p> - -<p>"Nonsense, my boy," McCain said in a fatherly way. "The Actuarvac -merely means that no such place as you erroneously described could -possibly exist. Why don't you try one of our Hedonist revival meetings -tonight?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Things have got steadily worse since then.</p> - -<p>So far nobody has made the big mistake of dropping an H-bomb on anyone, -but that's probably because all the governments made so many smaller -mistakes the people made the mistake (or was it?) of kicking them out -for almost absolute anarchy. But the individuals are doing worse than -the governments...if that's possible.</p> - -<p>People have given up going anywhere except by foot, for the most part.</p> - -<p>Granite City granite is still as widely disbursed and almost as highly -prized as South African diamonds.</p> - -<p>I hope we will find some way out of our current world crisis, although -I can't imagine what it will be.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, I hope you will excuse any typographical errors. It seems as -if I just can't seem to hit the right keys on my typewriter any more, -as my—and all of our—psionic sterility increases.</p> - -<p>I ask hugh—wear wall it owl end?</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANGEROUS QUARRY ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ -concept and trademark. 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