The Classic Philip Jose Farmer. 1952 - 1964 Part 7

Wonderful source of meat, you know.

"Anyway," he continued, as he saw my increasing impatience, "I've found that one doesn't need a gun, which no longer explodes in this area, anyway, nor a bow and arrow. All one has to do is locate an area abundant in squirrels and sit down and read aloud. While one is both enjoying and educating oneself, the squirrel, attracted by one's monotonous voice, descends slowly from his tree and draws nearer.

"One pays no attention to him-one reads on. The beast sits close to one, slowly waving its bushy tail, its big black eyes fixed on one. After a while, one rises, closes the book, and picks up the squirrel, which is by now completely stupefied and never comes out of its state, not even when one takes it home and cuts it throat.

"I've found by experiment that one gets the best results by reading The Critique of Pure Reason.

Absolutely stuns them. However, rabbits, for some reason, are more easily seduced by my reading Henry Millers Tropic of Capricorn. In the French translation, of course. Friend of mine says that the best book for the birds is Hubbard's Dianetics, but one ought to take pride in one's tools, you know.

I've always caught my pheasants and geese with Three Contributions to the Theory of s.e.x."We came to his estate and said good-by to him. Stepping up our pace, we walked for several miles past the many farmhouses along the gravel road. Some of these had burned down, but their occupants had simply moved into the barn. Or, if that had gone up in flames, had erected a lean-to.

"Photographs from Army balloons have shown that a good many houses in the city have burned down," I said. "Not only that, the gra.s.s is literally growing in the streets again. I've been wondering where the burned-out people were living, but this shows how they manage. They live like savages."

"Well, why not?" asked Alice. "They don't seem to have to work very hard to live in abundance. I've noticed we haven't been bitten by mosquitoes, so noxious insects must have been exterminated.

Sanitation shouldn't bother them-the Brew kills all diseases, if we're to believe that squirrel-reader.

They don't have much refuse in the way of tin cans, paper, and so on to get rid of. They all seem very happy and hospitable. We've had to turn down constant invitations to stop and eat and drink some Brew. And even," she added with a malicious smile, "to partic.i.p.ate in orgies afterward. That seems to be quite a respectable word now. I noticed that beautiful blonde back at the last farm tried to drag you off the road. You'll have to admit that that couldn't have happened Outside."

"Maybe I am bald," I snarled, "but I'm not so d.a.m.ned repulsive that no good-looking girl could fall in love with me. I wish I had a photo of Bernadette to show you. Bernadette and I were just on the verge of getting engaged. She's only thirty and-"

"Has she got all her teeth?"

"Yes, she has," I retorted. "She didn't get hit in the mouth by a mortar fragment and then lose the rest of her upper teeth through an infection, with no antibiotics available because enemy fire kept her in a foxhole for five days."

I was so mad I was shaking.

Alice answered softly, "Dan, I'm sorry I said that. I didn't know."

"Not only that," I plunged on, ignoring her apology. "What have you got against me besides my teeth and hair and the fact that I thought of this conditioning idea and my superiors-including the President-thought enough of my abilities to send me into this area without ten thousand Marines paving the way for me? As far as that goes, why were you sent with me? Was it because your father happens to be a general and wanted to grab some glory for you and him by a.s.sociation with me? If that isn't militaristic parasitism, what is? And furthermore..."

I raved on, and every time she opened her mouth, I roared her down. I didn't realize how loud I was until I saw a man and a woman standing in the road ahead of us, watching intently. I shut up at once, but the damage was done.

As soon as we were opposite them, the man said, "Newcomer, you're awfully grumpy." He held out a bottle to me. "Here, drink. It's good for what ails you. We don't have any harsh words in Mahrudland."

I said, "No, thanks," and tried to go around them, but the woman, a brunette who resembled a cross between the two Rus-sells, Jane and Lillian, grabbed me around my neck and said, "Aw, come on, skinhead, I think you're cute. Have a drink and come along with us. We're going to a fertility ceremony at Jonesy's farm. Polivinosel himself'll be there. He's deigning to mix with us mortals for tonight. And you can make love with me and ensure a good crop. I'm one of Poli's nymphs, you know."

"Sorry," I said. "I've got to go."I felt something wet and warm flooding over my scalp. For a second, I couldn't guess what it was. But when I smelled the hop-like Brew, I knew! And I responded with all the violence and horror the stuff inspired in me. Before the man could continue pouring the liquid over my head, I tore the woman's grip loose and threw her straight into the face of her companion. Both went down.

Before they could rise, I grabbed Alice's hand and fled with her down the road.

After we had run about a quarter of a mile, I had to slow to a walk. My heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest, and my head was expanding to fill the dome of the sky. Even my setting-up exercises hadn't fitted me for this.

However, I didn't feel so bad when I saw that Alice, young and fit as she was, was panting just as hard.

"They're not chasing us," I said. "Do you know, we've penetrated this area so easily, I wonder how far a column of Marines could have gone if they'd come in tonight. Maybe it would have been better to try an attack this way."

"We've tried four already," said Alice. "Two by day, two by night. The first three marched in and never came back, and you saw what happened to the last."

We walked along in silence for a while. Then I said, "Look, Alice, I blew my top a while ago, and we almost got into trouble. So why don't we agree to let bygones be bygones and start out on a nice fresh foot?"

"Nothing doing! I will refrain from quarreling, but there'll be none of this buddy-buddy stuff. Maybe, if we drank this Brew, I might get to liking you. But I doubt if even that could do it."

I said nothing, determined to keep my mouth shut if it killed me.

Encouraged by my silence-or engaged-she said, "Perhaps we might end up by drinking the Brew.

Our water is gone, and if you're as thirsty as I am, you're on fire. We'll be at least fourteen hours without water, maybe twenty. And we'll be walking all the time. What happens when we just have to have water and there's nothing but the river to drink from? It won't be as if the stuff was poison.

"As a matter of fact, we know we'll probably be very happy.

And that's the worst of it. That X substance, or Brew, or whatever you want to call it, is the most insidious drug ever invented. Its addicts not only seem to be permanently happy, they benefit in so many other ways from it."

I couldn't keep silent any longer. "That's dangerous talk!"

"Not at all, Mister Temper. Merely the facts."

"I don't like it!"

"What are you so vehement about?"

"Why?" I asked, my voice a little harder. "There's no reason why I should be ashamed. My parents were hopheads. My father died in the state hospital. My mother was cured, but she burned to death when the restaurant she was cooking in caught fire. Both are buried in the old Meltonville cemetery just outside Onaback. When I was younger, I used to visit their graves at night and howl at the skies because an unjust G.o.d had allowed them to die in such a vile and beastly fas.h.i.+on. I..."Her voice was small but firm and cool. "I'm sorry, Dan, that that happened to you. But you're getting a little melodramatic aren't you?"

I subsided at once. "You're right. It's just that you seem to needle me so I want to-"

"Bare your naked soul? No, thanks, Dan. It's bad enough to have to bare our bodies. I don't want to make you sore, but there's not much comparison between the old narcotics and this Brew."

"There's no degeneration of the body of the Brewdrinker? How do you know there isn't? Has this been going on long enough to tell? And if everybody's so healthy and harmless and happy, why did Polivinosel try to rape you?"

"I'm certainly not trying to defend that Jacka.s.s," she said. "But, Dan, can't you catch the difference in the psychic atmosphere around here? There seem to be no barriers between men and women doing what they want with each other. Nor are they jealous of each other. Didn't you deduce, from what that Russell-type woman said, that Polivinosel had his choice of women and n.o.body objected? He probably took it for granted that I'd want to roll in the gra.s.s with him."

"All right, all right," I said. "But it's disgusting, and I can't understand why Durham made him a G.o.d of fertility when he seems to have hated him so."

"What do you know about Durham?" she countered.

I told her that Durham had been a short, bald, and paunchy little man with a face like an Irish leprechaun, with a wife who henpecked him till the holes showed, with a poet's soul, with a penchant for quoting Greek and Latin cla.s.sics, with a delight in making puns, and with an unsuppressed desire to get his book of essays, The Golden Age, published.

"Would you say he had a vindictive mind?" she asked.

"No, he was very meek and forbearing. Why?"

"Well, my half-sister Peggy wrote that her steady, Polivinosel, hated Durham because he had to take his course to get a credit in the Humanities. Not only that, it was evident that Durham was sweet on Peggy.

So, Polivinosel upset the doctor every time he got a chance. In fact, she mentioned that in her last letter to me just before she disappeared. And when I read in the papers that Durham was suspected of having murdered them, I wondered if he hadn't been harboring his hate for a long time."

"Not the doc," I protested. "He might get mad, but not for long."

"There you are," she said triumphantly. "He changed Polivinosel into a jacka.s.s, and then he got soft-hearted and forgave him. Why not? He had Peggy."

"But why wasn't Polivinosel changed back to a man then?"

"All I know is that he was majoring in Agriculture, and, if I'm to believe Peggy's letters, he was a Casanova."

"No wonder you were a little sarcastic when I gave my lecture," I said. "You knew more about those two than I did. But that doesn't excuse your reference to my baldness and false teeth."

She turned away. "I don't know why I said that. All I do know is that I hated you because you were a civilian and were being given such authority and entrusted with such an important mission."I wanted to ask her if she'd changed her mind. Also I was sure that wasn't all there was to it, but I didn't press the point. I went on to tell her all I knew about Durham. The only thing I kept back was the most important. I had to sound her out before I mentioned that.

"Then the way you see it," she said, "is that everything that's been happening here fits this Doctor Boswell Durham's description of the hypothetical Golden Age?"

"Yes," I said. "He often used to lecture to us on what an opportunity the ancient G.o.ds lost. He said that if they'd taken the trouble to look at their mortal subjects, they'd have seen how to do , away with disease, poverty, unhappiness, and war. But he maintained the ancient G.o.ds were really men who had somehow or other gotten superhuman powers and didn't know how to use them *(because they weren't versed in philosophy, ethics, or science.

"He used to say he could do better, and he would then proceed to give us his lecture ent.i.tled How to Be a G.o.d and Like It. It used to make us laugh, because you couldn't imagine anyone less divine than Durham."

"I know that," she said. "Peggy wrote me about it. She said that was what irked Polivinosel so. He didn't understand that the doctor was just projecting his dream world into cla.s.sroom terms. Probably he dreamed of such a place so he could escape from his wife's nagging. Poor little fellow."

"Poor little fellow, my foot!" I snorted. "He's done just what he said he wanted to do, hasn't he? How many others can say the same, especially on such a scale?"

"No one," she admitted. "But tell me, what was Durham's main thesis in The Golden Age?"

"He maintained that history showed that the so-called common man, Mr. Everyman, is a guy who wants to be left alone and is quite pleased if only his mundane life runs fairly smoothly. His ideal is an existence with no diseases, plenty of food and amus.e.m.e.nt and s.e.x and affection, no worry about paying bills, just enough work to keep from getting bored with all play and someone to do his thinking for him. Most adults want a G.o.d of some sort to run things for them while they do just what they please."

"Why," exclaimed Alice, "he isn't any better than Hitler or Stalin!"

"Not at all," I said. "He could bring about Eden as we can see by looking around us. And he didn't believe in any particular ideology or in using force. He..."

I stopped, mouth open. I'd been defending the Professor!

Alice giggled. "Did you change your mind?"

"No," I said. "Not at all. Because the Professor, like my dictator, must have changed his mind. He is using force. Look at Polivinosel."

"He's no example. He always was an a.s.s, and he still is. And how do we know he doesn't like being one?"

I had no chance to reply. The eastern horizon was lit up by a great flash of fire. A second or two later, the sound of the explosion reached us.

We were both shocked. We had come to accept the idea that such chemical reactions just didn't take place in this valley.

Alice clutched my hand and said sharply. "Do you think the attack has started ahead of schedule? Or isthat one we weren't told about?"

"I don't think so. Why would an attack be launched around here? Let's go and see what's up."

"You know, I'd have thought that was lightning, except that- well, it was just the opposite of lightning."

"The negative, you mean?" I asked her.

She nodded. "The streak was-black."

"I've seen lightning streaks that branched out like trees," I said. "But this is the first tree that I ever..." I stopped and murmured. "No, that's crazy. I'll wait until I get there before I make any more comments."

We left the gravel road and turned right onto a paved highway. I recognized it as the state route that ran past the airfield and into Meltonville, about a mile and a half away. Another explosion lit up the eastern sky, but this time we saw it was much closer than we had first thought.

We hurried forward, tense, ready to take to the woods if danger threatened. We had traveled about half a mile when 1 stopped so suddenly that Alice b.u.mped into me. She whispered, "What is it?"

"I don't remember that creekbed ever being there," I replied slowly. "In fact, I know it wasn't there. I took a lot of hikes along here when I was a Boy Scout."

And there it was. It came up from the east, from Onaback's general direction, and cut southwest, away from the river. It slashed through the state highway, leaving a thirty-foot gap in the road. Somebody had dragged two long tree trunks across the cut and laid planks between them to form a rough bridge.

We crossed it and walked on down the highway, but another explosion to our left told us we were off the trail. This one, very close, came from the edge of a large meadow that I remembered had once been a parking lot for a trucking company.

Alice sniffed and said, "Smell that burning vegetation?"

"Yes." I pointed to the far side of the creek where the moon shone on the bank. "Look at those."

Those were the partly burned and shattered stalks and branches of plants about the size of pine trees.

They were scattered about forty feet apart. Some lay against the bank; some were stretched along the bottom of the creekbed.

What did it mean? The only way to find out was to investigate. So, as we came abruptly to the creeks end, which was surrounded by a ring of about a hundred people, we tried to elbow through to see what was so interesting.

We never made it, for at that moment a woman screamed, "He put in too much Brew!"

A man bellowed, "Run for your lives!"

The night around us was suddenly gleaming with bodies and clamorous with cries. Everybody was running and pus.h.i.+ng everybody else to make room. Nevertheless, in spite of their reckless haste, they were laughing as if it was all a big joke. It was a strange mixture of panic and disdain for the panic.

I grabbed Alice's hand and started running with them. A man came abreast of us and I shouted. "What's the danger?"

He was a fantastic figure, the first person I had seen with any clothing on. He wore a red fez with a ta.s.seland a wide green sash wound around his waist. A scimitar was stuck through it at such an angle it looked like a ducktail-shaped rudder. The illusion was furthered by the speed at which he was traveling.

When he heard my shout, he gave me a wild look that contributed to the weirdness of his garb and shouted something.

"Huh?"

Again he yelled at me and sped on.

"What'd he say?" I panted at Alice. "I'll swear he said 'Horatio Hornblower.'"

"Sounded more like 'Yora.s.siffencornblows,'" she replied.

That was when we found out why the crowd was running like mad. A lion the size of a mountain roared behind us-a blast knocked us flat on our faces-a wave of hot air succeeded the shock-a hail of rocks and clods of dirt pelted us. I yelped as I was. .h.i.t in the back of one leg. For a moment, I could have sworn my leg was broken.

Alice screamed and grabbed me around the neck. "Save me!"

I'd have liked to, but who was going to save me?

Abruptly, the rocks quit falling, and the yells stopped. Silence, except for the drawing of thankful breaths.

Then, giggles and yelps of pure delight and calls back and forth and white bodies were s.h.i.+ning in the moonlight as they rose like ghosts from the gra.s.s. Fear among these uninhibited people could not last long. They were already jos.h.i.+ng each other about the way they'd run and then were walking back to the cause of their flight.