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                      THE GREAT GRAY PLAGUE

                       BY RAYMOND F. JONES


     There is no enemy so hard to fight as a dull gray fog. It's not
     solid enough to beat, too indefinite to kill, and too omnipresent
     to escape.


[Transcribers Note: This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact and
Science Fiction February 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any
evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

[Illustration]


Dr. William Baker was fifty and didn't mind it a bit. Fifty was a
tremendously satisfying age. With that exact number of years behind him
a man had stature that could be had in no other way. Younger men, who
achieve vast things at, say, thirty-five, are always spoken of with
their age as a factor. And no matter what the intent of the connection,
when a man's accomplishments are linked to the number of years since he
was born there is always a sense of apologia about it.

But when a man is fifty his age is no longer mentioned. His name stands
alone on whatever foundation his achievements have provided. He has
stature without apology, if the years have been profitably spent.

William Baker considered his years had been very profitably spent. He
had achieved the Ph. D. and the D. Sc. degrees in the widely separated
fields of electronics and chemistry. He had been responsible for some of
the most important radar developments of the World War II period. And
now he held a post that was the crowning achievement of those years of
study and effort.

On this day of his fiftieth birthday he walked briskly along the
corridor of the Bureau building. He paused only when he came to the
glass door which was lettered in gold: National Bureau of Scientific
Development, Dr. William Baker, Director. He was unable to regard that
door without a sense of pride. But he was convinced the pride was
thoroughly justifiable.

He turned the knob and stepped into the office. Then his brisk stride
came to a pause. He closed the door slowly and frowned. The room was
empty. Neither his receptionist nor his secretary, who should have been
visible in the adjoining room, were at their posts. Through the other
open door, at his left, he could see that his administrative assistant,
Dr. James Pehrson, was not at his desk.

He had always expected his staff to be punctual. In annoyance that took
some of the glint off this day, he twisted the knob of his own office
door and strode in.

He stopped just inside the room, and a warm wave of affection welled up
within him. All nine members of his immediate staff were gathered around
the table in the center of his office. On the table was a cake with pink
frosting. A single golden candle burned brightly in the middle of the
inscription: Happy Birthday, Chief.

The staff broke into a frighteningly off-key rendition of "Happy
Birthday to You." William Baker smiled fondly, catching the eye of each
of them as they badgered the song to its conclusion.

Afterward, he stood for a moment, aware of the moisture in his own eyes,
then said quietly, "Thank you. Thank you very much, Family. This is most
unexpected. None of you will ever know how much I appreciate your
thoughtfulness."

"Don't go away," said Doris Quist, his blond and efficient secretary.
"There's more. This is from all of us."

He opened the package she offered him. A genuine leather brief case. Of
course, the Government didn't approve of gifts like this. If he observed
the rules strictly, he ought to decline the gift, but he just couldn't
do that. The faces of Doris and the others were glowing as he held up
the magnificent brief case. This was the first time such a thing had
occurred in his office, and a man hit fifty only once.

"Thanks so much for remembering," Baker said. "Things like this and
people like you make it all worth while."

When they were all gone he sat down at his desk to take up the day's
routine. He felt a little twinge of guilt at the great satisfaction that
filled him. But he couldn't help it. A fine family, an excellent
professional position--a position of prominence and authority in the
field that interested him most--what more could a man want?

His meditation was interrupted by the buzzing of the interphone. Pehrson
was on the other end. "Just reminding you, Chief," the assistant said.
"Dr. Fenwick will be in at nine-thirty regarding the request for the
Clearwater grant. Would you like to review the file before he arrives?"

"Yes, please," said Baker. "Bring everything in. There's been no change,
no new information, I suppose?"

"I'm afraid not. The Index is hopelessly low. In view of that fact there
can be no answer but a negative one. I'm sorry."

"It's all right. I can make Fenwick understand, I'm sure. It may take a
little time, and he may erupt a bit, but it'll work out."

Baker cut off and waited while Pehrson came in silently and laid the
file folders of the offending case on the desk. Pehrson was the epitome
of owl-eyed efficiency, but now he showed sympathy behind his great
horn-rimmed spectacles as he considered Baker's plight. "I wish we could
find some way to make the Clearwater research grant," he said. "With
just a couple of good Ph. D.'s who had published a few things, the Index
would be high enough--"

"It doesn't matter. Fenwick is capable of handling his own troubles."
Pehrson was a good man, but this kind of solicitousness Baker found
annoying.

"I'll send him in as soon as he comes," Pehrson said as he closed the
door behind him.

       *       *       *       *       *

Baker sighed as he glanced at the folder labeled, Clearwater College.
Jerkwater is what it should be, he thought. He almost wished he had let
Pehrson handle Fenwick. But one couldn't neglect old friends, even
though there was nothing that could be done for shortsighted ones.

Baker's memories shifted. He and Fenwick had gone to school together.
Fenwick had always been one to get off into weird wide alleys, mostly
dead ended. Now he was involved in what was probably the most dead ended
of all. For the last three years he had been president of little
Jerkwater--Clearwater College, and he seemed to have some hope that NBSD
could help him out of the hole.

That was a mistake many people made. Baker sometimes felt that half his
time was spent in explaining that NBSD was not in the business of
helping people and institutions out of holes. It was in the business of
buying for the United States Government the best scientific research
available in the world.

Fenwick wanted help that would put Clearwater College on its feet
through a research contract in solid state physics. Fenwick, thought
Baker, was dreaming. But that was Fenwick.

The President of Clearwater College entered the outer office promptly at
nine-thirty. Pehrson greeted him, and Doris showed him into Baker's
office.

Dr. John Fenwick didn't look like a college president, and Baker,
unknowingly, held this vaguely against him, too. He looked more like a
prosperous small business man and gave the impression of having just
finished a brisk workout on the handball court, and a cold shower. He
was ruddy and robust and ill-equipped with academic dignity.

Baker pumped his hand as if genuinely glad to see him. "It's good to see
you again, John. Come on over and sit down."

"I'll bet you hoped I'd break a leg on the way here," said Fenwick. He
took a chair by the desk and glanced at the file folder, reading the
title, Clearwater College. "And you've been hoping my application would
get lost, and the whole thing would just disappear."

"Now, look, John--" Baker took his own seat behind the desk. Fenwick had
always had a devilish knack for making him feel uncomfortable.

"It's all right," said Fenwick, waving away Baker's protests with a
vigorous flap of his hand. "I know Clearwater isn't MIT or Cal Tech, but
we've got a real hot physics department, and you're going to see some
sparks flying out of there if you'll give us half a chance in the
finance department. What's the good word, anyway? Do we get the research
grant?"

Baker took a deep breath and settled his arms on the desk in front of
him, leaning on them for support. He wished Fenwick wasn't so abrupt
about things.

"John," Baker said slowly. "The head of your physics department doesn't
even have a Ph. D. degree."

Fenwick brightened. "He's working on that, though! I told you that in
answer to the question in the application. Bill, I wish you'd come down
and see that boy. The things he can do with crystals would absolutely
knock your hat off. He can stack them just like a kid stacking building
blocks--crystals that nobody else has ever been able to manipulate so
far. And the electrical characteristics of some of them--you wouldn't
believe the transistors he's been able to build!"

"John," said Baker patiently. "The head of the physics department in any
institution receiving a grant must have a Ph. D. degree. That is one
absolutely minimum requirement."

"You mean we've got to wait until George finishes his work for his
degree before we get the grant? That puts us in kind of a predicament
because the work that we hoped to have George do under the grant would
contribute towards his degree. Can't you put it through on the basis
that he'll have his degree just as soon as the present series of
experiments is completed?"

Baker wiped his forehead and looked down at his hands on the desk. "I
said this is _one_ minimum requirement. There are others, John."

"Oh, what else are we lacking?" Fenwick looked crestfallen for the first
time.

"I may as well be blunt," said Baker. "There is no conceivable way in
which Clearwater College can be issued a research grant for
_anything_--and especially not for basic research in any field of
physical science."

       *       *       *       *       *

Fenwick just stared at him for a minute as if he couldn't believe what
he had heard, although it was the thing he had expected to hear since
the moment he sat down.

He seemed deflated when he finally spoke. "I don't think it was the
intent of the Congressional Act that made these funds available," he
said, "that only the big, plush outfits should get all the gravy. There
are plenty of smaller schools just like Clearwater who have first rate
talent in their science departments. It isn't fair to freeze us out
completely--and I don't think it's completely legal, either."

"Clearwater is not being frozen out. Size has nothing to do with the
question of whether an institution receives a grant from NBSD or not."

"When did you last give a grant to a college like Clearwater?"

"I am afraid we have never given a grant to a college--like Clearwater,"
said Baker carefully.

Fenwick's face began to grow more ruddy. "Then will you tell me just
what is the matter with Clearwater, that we can't get any Government
research contract when every other Tom, Dick, and Harry outfit in the
country can?"

"I didn't state my case in exactly those terms, John, but I'll be glad
to explain the basis on which we judge the qualifications of an
institution to receive a grant from us."

Baker had never done this before for any unsuccessful applicant. In
fact, it was the policy of the Bureau to keep the mysteries of the Index
very carefully concealed from the public. But Baker wanted Fenwick to
know what had hung him. It was the one more or less merciful thing he
could do to show Fenwick what was wrong, and might be sufficient to
shake him loose from his dismal association with Clearwater.

Baker opened the file folder and Fenwick saw now that it was
considerably fuller than he had first supposed. Baker turned the pages,
which were fastened to the cover by slide fasteners. Chart after chart,
with jagged lines and multicolored areas, flipped by under Baker's
fingers. Then Baker opened the accordian folds of a four-foot long chart
and spread it on the desk top.

"This is the Index," he said, "a composite of all the individual charts
which you saw ahead of it. This Index shows in graphical form the
relationship between the basic requirements for obtaining a research
grant and the actual qualifications of the applicant. This line marks
the minimum requirement in each area."

Baker's finger pointed to a thin, black line that crossed the sheet.
Fenwick observed that most of the colored areas and bars on the chart
were well inside the area on Baker's side of the line. He guessed that
the significance of the chart lay in this fact.

"I take it that Clearwater College is in pretty sad shape, chartwise,"
said Fenwick.

"Very," said Baker.

"Can you tell me how these charts are compiled?"

Baker turned back to the sheaf of individual charts. "Each item of data,
which is considered significant in evaluating an applicant, is plotted
individually against standards which have been derived from an
examination of all possible sources of information."

"Such as?"

"For example, the student burden per faculty Ph. D. That is shown on
this chart here."

"The what? Say that again," said Fenwick in bewilderment.

"The number of students enrolled, plotted against the number of
doctorate degrees held by the faculty."

"Oh."

"As you see, Clearwater's index for this factor is dismally low."

"We're getting a new music director next month. She expects to get her
doctorate next summer."

"I'm afraid that doesn't help us now. Besides, it would have to be in a
field pertinent to your application to have much weight."

"George--"

"Doesn't help you at all for the present. You would require a minimum of
two in the physics department alone. These two would have to be of
absolutely top quality with a prolific publication record. That would
bring this factor to a bare minimum."

"You take the number of Ph. D.'s and multiply them by the number of
papers published and the years of experience and divide by the number of
students enrolled. Is that the idea?"

"Roughly," said Baker. "We have certain constants which we also inject.
In addition, we give weight to other factors such as patents applied for
and granted. Periods of consultation by private industry, and so on.
Each of these factors is plotted separately, then combined into the
overall Index."

Baker turned the pages slowly, showing Fenwick a bleak record of black
boundary lines cutting through nearly virginal territory on the charts.
Clearwater's evaluation was reflected in a small spot of color near the
bottom edge.

       *       *       *       *       *

Fenwick stared at the record without expression for a long time. "What
else do you chart?" he said finally.

"The next thing we evaluate is the performance of students graduated
during the past twenty-five years."

"Clearwater is only ten years old," said Fenwick.

"True," said Baker, "and that is why, I believe, we have obtained such
an anomalous showing in the chart of this factor."

Fenwick observed that the colored area had made a considerable invasion
on his side of the boundary on this chart. "Why anomalous? It looks like
we make a pretty good showing here."

"On the face of it, this is true," Baker admitted. "The ten-year record
of the graduates of Clearwater is exceptional. But the past decade has
been unusual in the scope of opportunities, you must admit."

"Your standard level must take this into account."

"It does. But somehow, I am sure there is a factor we haven't recognized
here."

"There might be," said Fenwick. "There might be, at that."

"Another factor which contributes to the Index," said Baker, "is the
cultural impact of the institution upon the community. We measure that
in terms of the number and quality of cultural activities brought into
the community by the university or college. We include concerts,
lectures, terpsichorean activities, Broadway plays, and so on."

"Terpsichorean activities. I like that," said Fenwick.

"Primarily ballet," said Baker.

"Sure."

"Clearwater's record here is very low. It fact, there isn't any."

"This helps us get turned down for a research grant in physics?"

"It's a factor in the measurement of the overall status."

"Look," said Fenwick, "the citizens of Clearwater are so infernally busy
with their own shindigs that they wouldn't know what to do if we brought
a long-hair performance into town. If it isn't square-dancing in the
Grange Hall, it's a pageant in the Masonic Temple. The married kids
would probably like to see a Broadway play, all right, but they're so
darned busy rehearsing their own in the basement of the Methodist Church
that I doubt they could find time to come. Besides that, there's the
community choir every Thursday, and the high school music department has
a recital nearly every month. People would drop dead if they had any
more to go to in Clearwater. I'd say our culture is doing pretty good."

"Folk activities are always admirable," said Baker, "but improvement of
the cultural level in any community depends on the injection of outside
influences, and this is one of the functions of the university.
Clearwater College has not performed its obligation to the community in
this respect."

Fenwick appeared to be growing increasingly ruddy. Baker thought he saw
moisture appearing on Fenwick's forehead.

"I know this is difficult to face," said Baker sympathetically, "but I
wanted you to understand, once and for all, just how Clearwater College
appears to the completely objective eye."

Fenwick continued to stare at him without comment. Then he said flatly,
"Let's see some more charts, Bill."

"Museum activities. This is an important function of a college level
institution. Clearwater has no museum."

"We can't afford one, in the first place. In the second place, I think
you've overlooked what we do have."

"There _is_ a Clearwater museum?" Baker asked in surprise.

"Two or three hundred of them, I guess. Every kid in the county has his
own collection of arrowheads, birds' eggs, rocks, and stuffed animals."

"I'm not joking, John," said Baker bleakly. "The museum aspect of the
college is extremely important."

"What else?" said Fenwick.

"I won't go into everything we evaluate. But you should be aware of
several other factors pertaining to the faculty, which are evaluated. We
establish an index of heredity for each faculty member. This is
primarily an index of ancestral achievement."

Fenwick's color deepened. Baker thought it seemed to verge on the
purple. "Should I open the window for a moment?" Baker asked.

Fenwick shook his head, his throat working as if unable to speak. Then
he finally managed to say, "Apart from the sheer idiocy of it, how did
you obtain any information in this area?"

Baker ignored the comment, but answered the question. "You filled out
forms. Each faculty member filled out forms."

"Yeah, that's right. I remember. Acres of forms. None of us minded if it
was to help get the research grant. We supposed it was the usual
Government razzmatazz to keep some GS-9 clerk busy."

"Our forms are hardly designed to keep people busy. They are designed to
give us needed information about applicant institutions."

"And so you plot everybody's heredity."

"As well as possible. You understand, of course, that the data are
necessarily limited."

"Sure. How do our grandpas stack up on the charts?"

"Not very well. Among Clearwater's total faculty of thirty-eight there
were no national political figures through three generations back. There
was one mayor, a couple of town councilmen, and a state senator or two.
That is about all."

"Our people weren't very politically minded."

"This is a measure of social consciousness and contemporary evaluation."

Fenwick shrugged. "As I said, we aren't so good at politics."

"Achievements in welfare activities are similarly lacking. No notable
intentions or discoveries, with the exception of one patent on a new
kind of beehive, appear in the record."

[Illustration: _... But liars figure ...!_]

"And this keeps us from getting a research grant in physics? What _did_
our progenitors do, anyway? Get hung for being horse thieves?"

"No criminal activities were reported by your people, but there is a
record of singular restlessness and dissatisfaction with established
conditions."

       *       *       *       *       *

"What did they do?"

"They were constantly on the move, for the most part. In the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries they were primarily pioneers, frontiersmen,
settlers of new country. But when the country was established they
usually packed up and went somewhere else. Rovers, trappers, unsettled
people."

"This is not good?" Fenwick glanced at the chart that was open now. It
was almost uncolored.

"I regret to say that such people are not classed as the stable element
of communities," said Baker. "We cannot evaluate the index of hereditary
accomplishment for the Clearwater faculty very high."

"It appears that our grandpas were among those generally given credit
for getting things set up," said Fenwick.

"Such citizens are indeed necessary," said Baker. "But our index
evaluates stability in community life and accomplishments with
long-range effects in science and culture."

"We haven't got much of a chance then, grandpa being foot-loose as he
was."

"Other factors could completely override this negative evaluation. You
see, this is the beauty of the Index; it doesn't depend on any one
factor or small group of factors. We evaluate the whole range of factors
that have anything to do with the situation. Weaknesses in one spot may
be counterbalanced by strength in others."

"It looks like Clearwater is staffed by a bunch of bums without any
strong spots."

"I wouldn't say it in such terms, but the reason I am pointing these
things out to you, John, is to try to persuade you to disassociate
yourself from such a weak organization and go elsewhere. You have fine
talents of your own, but you have always had a pattern of associating
with groups like this one at Clearwater. Don't you see now that the only
thing for you to do is go somewhere where there are people capable of
doing things?"

"I _like_ Clearwater. I like the people at the College. Where else are
we in the bums category?"

Baker suddenly didn't want to go on. The whole thing had become
distasteful to him. "There are a good many others. I don't think we need
to go into them. There is the staff reading index, the social activity
index, wardrobe evaluation, hobbies, children--actual and planned."

"I want to hear about them," said Fenwick. "That wardrobe
evaluation--that sounds like a real fascinating study."

"Actually, it's comparatively minor," said Baker. "Our psychologists
have worked out some extremely interesting correlations, however. Each
item of a man's wardrobe is assigned a numerical rating. Tuxedo, one or
more. Business suits, color and number. Hunting jackets. Slacks. Sport
coats. Work shoes. Dress shoes. Very interesting what our people can do
with, such information."

"Clearwater doesn't rate here?"

Baker indicated the chart. "I'm afraid not. Now, this staff reading
index is somewhat similar. You recall the application forms asked for
the number of pages of various types of material read during the past
six months--scientific journals, newspapers, magazines, fiction."

"I suppose Clearwater is a pretty illiterate bunch," said Fenwick.

Baker pointed soundlessly to the graph.

"Hobbies and social activities are not bad," Baker said, after a time.
"Almost up to within ten points of the standard. A few less bingo
parties and Brownie meetings and that many more book reviews or serious
soirees would balance the social activity chart. If the model railroad
club were canceled and a biological activity group substituted, the
hobby classification would look much better. Then, in the number of
children, actual and planned, Clearwater is definitely out of line, too.
You see, the standard takes the form of the well-known bell-shaped
curve. Clearwater is way down on the high side."

"Too much biological activity already," Fenwick murmured.

Baker looked up. "What was that? I didn't hear what you said."

Fenwick leaned back and extended his arms on the desk. "I said your
whole damned Index is nothing but a bunch of pseudo-intellectual
garbage."

       *       *       *       *       *

Baker felt the color rising in his face, but he forced himself to remain
calm. After a moment of silence he said. "Your emotional feelings are
understandable, but you must remember that the Index permits us to
administer accurately the National Science Development Act. Without the
scientific assurance of the Index there would be no way of determining
where these precious funds could best be utilized."

"You'd be better off putting the money on the ponies," said Fenwick.
"Sometimes they win. As it stands, you've set it up for a sure loss. You
haven't got a chance in the world."

"You think Clearwater College could make better use of some of our funds
than, say, MIT?"

"I wouldn't be surprised. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the boys at
MIT or Cal Tech or a lot of other places couldn't come up with a real
development in the way of a fermodacular filter for reducing
internucleated cross currents. But the real breakthroughs--you've closed
your doors and locked them out."

"Who have we locked out? We've screened and fine combed the resources of
the entire country. We know exactly where the top research is being
conducted in every laboratory in the nation."

Fenwick shook his head slowly and smiled. "You've forgotten the boys
working in their basements and in their back yard garages. You've
forgotten the guys that persuade the wife to put up with a busted-down
automatic washer for another month so they can buy another hundred bucks
worth of electronic parts. You've remembered the guys who have Ph. D.'s
for writing 890-page dissertations on the Change of Color in the Nubian
Daisy after Twilight, but you've forgotten guys like George Durrant, who
can make the atoms of a crystal turn handsprings for him."

Baker leaned back in his chair and smiled. He almost wished he hadn't
wasted the effort of trying to show Fenwick. But, then, he had tried.
And he would always have regretted it if he hadn't.

"You're referring now to the crackpot fringe?" he said.

"I suppose so," said Fenwick. "I've heard it called that before."

"One of the things, above all else, which the Index was designed to
accomplish," said Baker, "was the screening out of all elements that
might be ever so remotely associated with the crackpot fringe. And
believe me, you'll never know how strong it is in this country! Every
two-bit tinkerer wants a handout to develop his world-shaking gadget
that will suppress the fizz after the cap is removed from a pop bottle,
or adapt any apartment-size bathtub for raising tropical fish."

"You ever heard of the flotation process?" said Fenwick abruptly.

Baker frowned at the sudden shift of thought. "Of course--"

"What would the world be like without the flotation process?"

"The metals industry would be vastly different, of course. Copper would
be much scarcer and higher priced. Gold--"

"A ton of ore and maybe a pound of recovered metal, right?" said
Fenwick. "Move a mountain of waste to get anything of value. Crush
millions of tons of rock and float out the pinpoint particles of metal
on bubbles of froth."

"That's a rough description of what happens."

"You've heard of high-grading."

"Of course. A somewhat colloquial term used in mining."

"The high-grader takes a pick and digs for anything big enough to see
and pick up with his hands. He doesn't worry about the small stuff that
takes sweat and machinery to recover."

"I suppose so. I fail to see the significance--"

"You're high-grading, Bill," said Fenwick. He leaned across the desk and
spoke with bitter intensity. "You're high-grading and you should be
using a flotation process."

Fenwick slowly drew back in his chair. Baker felt overwhelmed by the
sudden intensity he had never before seen displayed in John Fenwick. Any
reaction on his part seemed suddenly inadequate. "I fail to see any
connection--," he said finally.

Fenwick looked at him steadily. "Human creativeness can be mined only by
flotation methods. It's in low-grade ore. Process a million stupid
notions and find a pin point of genius. Turn over enormous wastes of
human thought and recover a golden principle. But turn your back on
these mountains of low-grade material and you shut out the wealth of
creative thought that is buried in them. More than that, by high-grading
only where rich veins have appeared in the past, you're mining lodes
that have played out."

"An ingenious analogy," said Baker, recovering with a smile now. "But
it's hardly an accurate or applicable one. The human mind is not a piece
of precious metal found in a mountain of ore. Rather, it's an intricate
device capable of producing computations of unbelievable complexity. And
we know how such devices that are superior in function are produced, and
we know what their characteristics are. We also know that such a device
does not 'play out'. If it is superior in function, it can remain so for
a long time."

"High-grading," said Fenwick. "And the vein is played out. You'll never
find the thing you're looking for until you develop means of processing
low-grade material."

       *       *       *       *       *

Baker watched Fenwick across the desk. He was weary of the whole thing.
He certainly had no need to prove himself to this man. He had simply
tried to do Fenwick a favor, and Fenwick had thrown it right back in his
face. Yet there was a temptation to go on, to prove to Fenwick the
difference between their two worlds. Fenwick belonged to a world
compounded of inevitable failure. The temptation to show him, to try
again to lift him out of it was born of a kind of pity for Fenwick.

Baker's own life had arrowed decisively, without waver, to a goal that
was as correct as the tolerances of human error could make it. He often
permitted himself the pride of considering his mind somewhat as a
computer that had been programmed through a magnificent gene inheritance
to drive irresistibly toward the precise goals he had reached. But
Fenwick--Fenwick was still fumbling around in a morass of uncertainty.
After years of erratic starts and stops he was now confusedly trying to
make something out of that miserable little institution called
Clearwater College.

It wasn't particularly friendship that urged Baker to show Fenwick.
Their friendship was of a breed that Baker had never quite been able to
define to his own satisfaction. It seemed to him there was a sort of
deadly fascination in associating with a man who walked so blindly, who
was so profoundly incapable of understanding his own blindness and
peril.

"I'm going to show you," Baker said abruptly, "exactly what it would
mean if we were to do as you suggest. I'll show you what it would be
like to give attention to every halfwit and crackpot that comes begging
for a handout." He switched the intercom and spoke into it. "Doris,
please bring in the Ellerbee file. Yes--the crackpot section."

He switched off. "Doris has her own quaint but quite accurate way of
cataloguing our various applications," he explained.

In a moment the secretary entered and placed the file on the desk.
"There's a new letter in there," she said. "Dr. Pehrson initialed it. He
said you didn't want to be bothered any more with this case."

"That's right."

Baker opened the file and shoved it toward Fenwick. "This boy has a
gadget he wants us to look at. Doesn't really need any money, he says.
That's the kind we really have to be on guard against. If we looked at
his wonder gadget, we'd be pestered for a million-dollar handout for
years to come."

"What's he got?" Fenwick asked.

"Some kind of communication device, he says. He claims it's nothing but
a grown crystal which you hold in your hand and talk to anybody anywhere
on Earth."

"Sounds like it wouldn't take much to find out whether he's got anything
or not. Just let him put on a five-minute demonstration."

"But multiply that five minutes by a thousand, by ten thousand. And once
you let them get their teeth into you, it doesn't stop with five
minutes. It goes on into reams of letters and years of time. No, you
have to stop this kind of thing before it ever starts. But take a look
at some of this material in the file and you'll see what I mean."

Fenwick picked up the top letter as Baker pushed the file toward him.
"He starts this one by saying, 'Dear Urban.' Is that what he calls you?
What does he mean?"

"Who knows? He's a crackpot, I told you. Who cares what he means,
anyway. We've got far more important things to worry about."

Fenwick scanned the letter a moment, then looked up, a faint smile on
his face. "I know what he means. Urban--Pope Urban--was the one
responsible for the persecutions of Galileo."

Baker shrugged embarrassedly. "I told you he was a crackpot. Delusions
of grandeur and of persecution are typical."

"This boy may not be as crazy as he sounds. You're giving him a pretty
good imitation of a Galileo treatment--won't even look at his device. He
says here that 'Since you have previously refused to examine my device
and have questioned my reliability as an observer, I have obtained the
services of three unbiased witnesses, whose affidavits, signed and
notarized, are attached. These men are the Fire Chief, the Chief of
Police, and the Community Church Pastor of Redrock, all of whom testify
that they did see my device in full operation this past week. I trust
that this evidence will persuade you that an investigation should be
made of my device. I fail to see how the bull-headedness and
cocksureness of your office can withstand any more of the evidence I
have to offer in support of my claims.'"

"A typical crackpot letter," said Baker. "He tries to be reasonable, but
his colors are soon shown when he breaks down into vituperative language
like a frustrated child."

Fenwick thumbed through the large pile of correspondence. "I'd say
anybody would likely blow his stack a good deal harder than this if he'd
been trying to get your attention this long. Why didn't he ever send you
one of his gadgets in the mail?"

"Oh, he did," said Baker. "That was one of the first things he did."

"What did you do?"

"Sent it back. We always return these things by registered return mail."

"Without even trying it out?"

"Of course."

"Bill, that isn't even reasonable. These earlier letters of his describe
the growing of these crystals. He tells exactly how he does it. He knows
what he's talking about. I'd like to see him and see his crystal."

"That's what I was hoping you'd say! All we have to do is get Doris to
give him a call and he'll be here first thing in the morning. You can be
our official investigator. You can see what it's like dealing with a
crackpot!"

       *       *       *       *       *

James Ellerbee was a slim man, impetuous and energetic. Fenwick liked
him on sight. He was not a technical man; he was a farmer. But he was an
educated farmer. He had a degree from the State Agricultural College. He
dabbled in amateur radio and electronics as a hobby.

"I'm certainly glad someone is finally willing to give me a break and
take a look at my device," he said as he shook Fenwick's hand. "I've had
nothing but a runaround from this office for the past eight months. Yet,
according to all the publicity, this is where the nation's scientific
progress is evaluated."

Fenwick felt like a hypocrite. "We get pretty overloaded," he said
lamely.

They were in Baker's office. Baker watched smugly from behind his desk.
Ellerbee said, "Well, we might as well get started. All you have to do,
Mr. Fenwick, is hold one of these crystal cubes in your hand. I'll go in
the other office and close the door. It may help at first if you close
your eyes, but this is not really necessary."

"Wait," said Fenwick. Somehow he wanted to get away from Baker while
this was going on. "I'd like to take it outside, somewhere in the open.
Would that be all right?"

"Sure. Makes no difference where you try it," said Ellerbee. "One place
is as good as another."

Baker waved a hand as they went out. "Good luck," he said. He smiled
confidently at Fenwick.

As far as Fenwick could see, the crystal was not even potted or cased in
any way. The raw crystal lay in his hand. The striations of the
multitude of layers in which it was laid down were plainly visible.

Ellerbee dropped Fenwick off by the Jefferson memorial, then drove on
about a mile. Still in sight, he stopped the car and got out. Fenwick
saw him wave a hand. Nothing happened.

Fenwick glanced down at the crystal in his hand. About the size of a
child's toy block. He could almost understand Baker's position. It _was_
pretty silly to suppose this thing could have the powers Ellerbee said
it had. No electric energy applied. It merely amplified the normal
telepathic impulses existing in every human mind, Ellerbee said. Fenwick
sighed. You just couldn't tell ahead of time that a thing wasn't going
to pan out. He knew his philosophy was right. These had to be
investigated--every lousy, crackpot one of them. You could never tell
what you were missing out on unless you did check.

He squeezed harder on the crystal, as Ellerbee had told him to do.

It was just a little fuzzy at first, fading and coming back. Then it was
there, shimmering a little, but steady. The image of Ellerbee standing
in front of him, grinning.

Fenwick glanced down the road. Ellerbee was still there, a mile away.
But he was also right there in front of him, about four feet away.

"It shakes you up a little bit at first," said Ellerbee. "But you get
used to it after a while. Anyway, this is it. Are you convinced my
device works?"

Fenwick shook his head to try to clear it rather than to give a negative
answer. "I'm convinced _something_ is working," he said. "I'm just not
quite sure what it is."

"I'll drive across town," Ellerbee offered. "You can see that distance
makes no difference at all. Later, I'll prove it works clear across the
country if you want me to."

They arranged that proof of Ellerbee's presence on the other side of the
city could be obtained by Fenwick's calling him at a drug store pay
phone. Then they would communicate by means of the cubes.

It was no different than before.

The telephone call satisfied Fenwick that Ellerbee was at least ten
miles away. Then, within a second, he also appeared to be standing
directly in front of Fenwick.

"What do you want?" said Fenwick finally. "What do you want the Bureau
to do about your device? How much money do you want for development?"

"Money? I don't need any money!" Ellerbee exploded. "All I want is for
the Government to make some use of the thing. I've had a patent on it
for six months. The Patent Office had sense enough to give me a patent,
but nobody else would look at it. I just want somebody to make some use
of it!"

"I'm sure a great many practical applications can be found," Fenwick
said lamely. "We'll have to make a report, first, however. There will be
a need for a great many more experiments--"

But most important of all, Baker would have to be shown. Baker would
have to _know_ from his own experience that this thing worked.

Fenwick suddenly wanted to get away from Ellerbee as much as he had from
Baker a little earlier. There was just so much a man's aging synapses
could stand, he told himself. He had to do a bit of thinking by himself.
When Ellerbee drove up again, Fenwick told him what he wanted.

Ellerbee looked disappointed but resigned. "I hope this isn't another
runaround, Mr. Fenwick. You'll pardon me for being blunt, but I've had
some pretty raw treatment from your office since I started writing about
my communicator."

"I promise you this isn't a runaround," said Fenwick, "but it's
absolutely necessary to get Dr. Baker to view your demonstration. We
will want to see your laboratories and your methods of production. I
promise you it won't be more than two or three days, depending on Dr.
Baker's busy schedule."

"O.K. I'll wait until the end of the week," said Ellerbee. "If I don't
hear something by then, I'll go ahead with my plans to market the
crystals as a novelty gadget."

"I'll be in touch with you. I promise," said Fenwick. He stood by the
curb and watched Ellerbee drive away.

       *       *       *       *       *

Fenwick moved slowly back to his own car and sat behind the wheel
without starting the motor. It seemed a long time since nine-thirty
yesterday morning, when he had come in to Baker's office to check on the
grant he had known Baker wasn't going to give him. Now, merely by
kicking Baker's refuse pile with his toe, so to speak, he had turned up
a diamond that Baker was ready to discard.

Fenwick felt a sudden surge of revulsion. How was it possible for such a
blind, ignorant fool as Baker to be placed in the position he was in?
How could the administrative officers of the United States Government be
responsible for such misjudgment? Such maladministration, if performed
consciously, would be sheer treason. Yet, unconsciously and ignorantly,
Baker's authority was perpetuated, giving him a stranglehold on the
creative powers of the nation.

Fenwick tried to recall how he and Baker had become friends--so long
ago, in their own college days. It wasn't that there was any closeness
or common interest between them, yet they seemed to have drawn together
as two opposites might. They were both science majors at the time, but
their philosophies were so different that their studies were hardly a
common ground.

Fenwick figuratively threw away the textbook the first time the
professor's back was turned. Baker, Fenwick thought, never took his eyes
from its pages. Fenwick distrusted everything that he could not prove
himself. Baker believed nothing that was not solidly fixed in black and
white and bound between sturdy cloth covers, and prefaced by the name of
a man who boasted at least two graduate degrees.

Fenwick remembered even now his first reaction to Baker. He had never
seen his kind before and could not believe that such existed. He
supposed Baker felt similarly about him, and, out of the strange
contradiction of their worlds, they formed a hesitant friendship. For
himself, Fenwick supposed that it was based on a kind of fascination in
associating with one who walked so blindly, who was so profoundly
incapable of understanding his own blindness and peril.

But never before had he realized the absolute danger that rested in the
hands of Baker. And there must be others like him in high Government
scientific circles, Fenwick thought. He had learned long ago that
Baker's kind was somewhere in the background in every laboratory and
scientific office.

But few of them achieved the strangling power that Baker now possessed.

The Index! Fenwick thought of it and gagged. Wardrobe evaluation! Staff
reading index! The reproductive ratio--social activity index--the index
of hereditary accomplishment--multiply your ancestors by the number of
technical papers your five-year old children have produced and divide by
the number of book reviews you attend weekly--

Fenwick slumped in the seat. We hold these truths to be
self-evident--that the ratio of sports coats to tuxedos in a faculty
member's closet shall determine whether Clearwater gets to do research
in solid state physics, whether George Durrant gives his genius to the
nation or whether it gets buried in Dr. William Baker's refuse pile.

But not only George Durrant. Jim Ellerbee, too. And how many others?

Something had to be done.

Fenwick hadn't realized it before, but this was the thought that had
been churning in his cortex for the last hour. Something had to be done
about Bill Baker.

But, short of murder, what?

Getting rid of Baker physically was not the answer, of course. If he
were gone, a hundred others like him would fight for his place.

Baker had to be shown. He had to be shown that high-grading was costing
him the very thing he was trying to find. It must be proven to him that
flotation methods work as well in mining human resources as in mining
metal. That the extra trouble paid off.

This was known--a long time ago--Fenwick thought. Somewhere along the
way things got changed. He glanced toward the Jefferson Memorial. Tom
Jefferson knew how it should be, Tom Jefferson, statesman, farmer,
writer, and amateur mechanic and inventor. It was not only every
gentleman's privilege, it was also his duty to be a tinkerer and amateur
scientist, no matter what else he might be.

Fenwick glanced in the distance toward the Lincoln Memorial. Abe had
done his share of tinkering. His weird boot-strap system for hoisting
river boats off shoals and bars hadn't amounted to much, but Abe knew
the principle that every man has the right to be his own scientist.

And then there was Ben Franklin, the noblest amateur of them all! He had
roamed these parts, too.

Somewhere it had been lost. The Bill Bakers would have laughed out of
existence the great tinkerers like Franklin and Lincoln and Jefferson.
And the Pasteurs and the Mendels--and the George Durrants and the Jim
Ellerbees, too.

Fenwick started the car. Something had to be done about Bill Baker.

       *       *       *       *       *

Baker leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily. "So it worked, did
it? He showed you something that made you think he had a real working
device."

"There was no 'think' about it," said Fenwick. "I saw it with my own
eyes. That boy's got something terrific!"

Baker sobered and thumbed through the Ellerbee file again. "Any freshman
math major could poke holes all through this mathematical explanation he
offers. Right? Secondly, a device such as he claims to have produced
violates all the basic laws of science. Why, it's even against the
Second Law of Thermodynamics!"

"I don't care what it's against," said Fenwick. "It works. I want you to
come with me to Ellerbee's and see for yourself. His device will
revolutionize communications."

Baker shook his head sadly. "It's always tougher when they show you
something that seems to work. Then you've got to waste a lot of time
looking for the gimmick if you're going to follow it through. I just
haven't got the time--"

"You've got to, Bill!"

"I'll tell you what I'll do. You go out there and look over his setup.
If you can't find his gimmick in half a day, I'll come out and show it
to you. But I warn you, some of these things are very tricky--like the
old perpetual motion machines. You've got to have your wits about you.
Is that fair enough?"

"Fair enough," Fenwick agreed.

Baker smiled broadly. "I'll do even more. If this Ellerbee device should
prove to be on the level, I'll give you the research grant you want for
Clearwater."

"I'm not so sure I want it on those terms," said Fenwick.

"Well, it's a purely academic matter. You won't have to worry about it.
But, on the other hand, I'll expect you to agree that when Ellerbee is
exposed you'll not persist in your request to this office."

"Well, now--"

"That's a fair offer. I'm giving you a chance to prove I'm wrong in
setting up the Index to screen out people like Ellerbee--"

"--And institutions like Clearwater."

"And institutions like Clearwater," Baker agreed.

"All right," said Fenwick. "I'll gamble with you--for one more stake: If
Ellerbee's device is on the level, you'll make a grant to Clearwater
_and_ other institutions of like qualifications, and you'll scrap that
insane Index--"

Baker tapped the desk placatingly. "The grant to Clearwater, yes. As for
the Index, if it should fail in its applicability to this clear-cut
Ellerbee case I would be the first to want to know why. But I assure you
there is no flaw in the Index. It has been tried too many thousands of
times."

       *       *       *       *       *

Ellerbee's place was in Virginia, in a dairying area in the hills. The
last ten miles of the road were not the kind to attract visitors. The
road was steep and narrow in places that turned sharply around the
hillsides. No guardrails blocked the descent into the steep gullies. It
was definitely a region for people who liked solitude. The farms that
lay in the valleys of the hills were neat and well-cared for, however.
The people Fenwick passed on the road didn't look like the recluse type.

Ellerbee's farm was one of the best looking in the vicinity. It had the
look of being cared for by a man who could do everything. The huge barn
and the corrals were as neat as a garden, and the large white frame
farmhouse stood out like a monument against the green pasture.

A woman and two children were in the garden beside the house as Fenwick
drove up. "May I help you? I'm Mrs. Ellerbee," the woman said.

Fenwick explained who he was and his purpose in coming. "Jim's been
expecting you," the woman said. "His laboratory is the long white
building back of the house. He's out there now."

Jim Ellerbee met him at the door. "You didn't bring Dr. Baker," he said
almost accusingly.

"Later," said Fenwick. "I came, as I promised. Dr. Baker wants my report
on your facilities and production methods. Then he will come up to make
his own inspection."

There was doubt in Ellerbee's eyes, as if he was used to such stories.
"Maybe it would be best if I marketed the crystals in any form I can,"
he said.

He led Fenwick through a number of rooms of expensive, precision
electronic equipment. Then they passed through a set of double doors,
which Fenwick observed acted as a thermal lock between the crystal
growing room and the rest of the building. It reminded him of George
Durrant's laboratory at Clearwater.

"This is where the crystals are grown," said Ellerbee. "I suppose you're
familiar with such processes. Here we must use a very precisely
controlled sequence of co-crystallization to get layers of desired
thickness--"

Fenwick wasn't listening. He had suddenly observed the second man in the
room, a rather small, swarthy man, who moved with quiet precision among
a row of tanks on the far side of the room. There was a startling
quality about the man that Fenwick was unable to define, a strangeness.

Ellerbee caught the direction of his glance. "Oh," he said. "You must
meet my neighbor, Sam Atkins. Sam is in this as deep or even deeper than
I am. I think perhaps he's more responsible for the communicator
crystals."

The man turned as his name was mentioned, and came toward them. "You
were the one who developed the crystals," he said in a soft, persuasive
voice, to Jim Ellerbee.

"This is my setup," Ellerbee explained with a wave of his hand to
indicate the laboratory surroundings. "But Sam has been working with me
for about a year on this thing. When Sam moved in, we found we were both
radio hams and electronic bugs. I'd been fooling around with crystal
growing, trying to design some new type transistors. Then Sam suggested
some experiments in co-crystallization--using different chemicals that
will crystallize in successive layers in one crystal.

"We stumbled on one combination that made a terrific amplifier. Then we
found it would actually radiate to a distant point all by itself.
Finally, we discovered that its radiation was completely
nonelectromagnetic. There is no way we have yet found of detecting the
radiation from the crystal--except by means of another piece of the same
crystal.

"I know it's against all the rules in the books. It just doesn't make
sense. But there it is. It works."

Sam Atkins had turned away for a moment to attend to one of the tanks,
but Fenwick found himself intensely aware of the man's presence. There
was nothing he could put his finger on. He just knew, with such intense
certainty, that Sam Atkins was _there_.

"What does Mr. Atkins do?" Fenwick asked. "Does he have a dairy farm,
too?"

Ellerbee nodded. "His place is right next to mine. Since we started this
project Sam has practically lived here, however. He's a bachelor, and so
he takes most of his meals with us."

"Seems strange--" Fenwick mused, "two men like you, way out here in the
country, doing work on a level with that of the best crystal labs in the
country. I should think you'd both rather be in academic or industrial
work."

Ellerbee smiled and looked up through the windows to the meadows beyond.
"We're _free_ out here," he said.

Fenwick thought of Baker. "You are that," he said.

"You said you wanted to investigate the whole production process. We'll
start here, if you like, and I'll show you every step in our process.
This tank contains an ordinary alum solution. We start building on a
seed crystal of alum and continue until we reach a precise thickness.
Here is a solution of chrome alum. You'll note the insulated tanks. Room
temperature is maintained within half a degree. The solutions are held
to within one-tenth of a degree. Crystal dimensions must be held to
tolerances of little more than the thickness of a molecule--"

       *       *       *       *       *

The gimmick to fool him and cheat him. Where was it? Fenwick asked
himself. Baker was sure it was here. If so, where could it be? There was
no trickery in the crystal laboratory--unless it was the trickery of
precision refinement of methods. Only men of great mechanical skill
could accomplish what Ellerbee and his friend were doing. Genius behind
the milking machine! Fenwick could almost sympathize with Baker in his
hiding behind the ridiculous Index. Without some such protection a man
could encounter shocks.

The crackpot fringe.

Where else would credence have been given to the phenomenon of a crystal
that seemed to radiate in a nonelectromagnetic way?

But, of course, it couldn't actually be doing that. All the books, all
the authorities, and the known scientific principles said it couldn't
happen. Therefore, it wouldn't have happened--outside the crackpot
fringe.

If Ellerbee and Atkins weren't trying to foist a deliberate deception,
where were they mistaken? It was possible for such men as these to make
an honest mistake. That would more than likely turn out to be the case
here. But how could there be a mistake in the production of a phenomenon
such as Fenwick had witnessed? How could that be produced through some
error when it couldn't even be done by known electronic methods--not
just as Fenwick had seen it.

Throughout the morning Ellerbee led him down the rows of tanks,
explaining at each step what was happening. Sometimes Sam Atkins offered
a word of explanation also, but always he stayed in the background. The
two farmers showed Fenwick how they measured crystal size down to the
thickness of a molecule while the crystals were growing.

A sudden suspicion crossed Fenwick's mind. "If those dimensions are so
critical, how did you determine them in the first place?"

"Initially, it was a lucky accident," said Sam Atkins.

"Very lucky," said Fenwick, "if you were able to accidentally obtain a
crystal of fifteen layers or so and have each layer even approximately
correct."

Sam smiled blandly. "Our first crystals were not so complex, you
understand. Only three layers. We thought we were building transistors,
then. Later, our mathematics showed us the advantage of additional
layers and gave us the dimensions."

The mathematics that Baker said a kid could poke holes in. Fenwick
didn't know. He hadn't checked the math.

Where was the gimmick?

In the afternoon they took him out for field tests again. A rise behind
the barn was about a mile from a similar rise on Sam Atkins' place. They
communicated across that distance in all the ways, including various
kinds of codes, that Fenwick could think of to find some evidence of
hoax. Afterwards, they returned to the laboratory and sawed in two the
crystals they had just used. Then they showed him the tests they had
devised to determine the nature of the radiation between the crystals.

He did not find the gimmick.

By the end of the day Ellerbee seemed beat, as if he'd been under a
heavy strain all day long. And then Fenwick realized that was actually
the case. Ellerbee wanted desperately to have someone believe in him,
believe in his communication device. Not only had he used all the
reasoning power at his command, he had been straining physically to
induce Fenwick to believe.

Through it all, however, Sam Atkins seemed to remain bland and utterly
at ease, as if it made absolutely no difference to him, whatever.

"I guess we've just about shot our wad," said Ellerbee. "That's about
all we've got to show you. If we haven't convinced you by now that our
communicator works, I don't know how we can accomplish it."

Had they convinced him? Fenwick asked himself. Did he believe what he
had seen or didn't he? He had been smug in front of Baker after the
first demonstration, but now he wondered how much he had been covered by
the same brush that had tarred Baker.

It wasn't easy for him to admit the possibility of nonelectromagnetic
radiation from these strange crystals, radiation which could carry sight
and sound from one point to another without any transducers but the
crystals themselves.

"You have to step out of the world you've grown accustomed to," said Sam
Atkins very quietly. "This is what we have had to do. It's not hard now
to comprehend that telepathic forces of the mind can be directed by this
means. This is a new pattern. Think of it as such. Don't try to cram it
into the old pattern. Then it's easy."

A new pattern. That was the trouble, Fenwick thought. There couldn't
really be any new patterns, could there? There was only one basic
pattern, in which all the phenomena of the universe fit. He readily
admitted that very little was known about that pattern, and many things
believed true were false. But the Second Law of Thermodynamics. _That_
had to be true--invariably true--didn't it?

If there was a hoax, Baker would have to find it.

"I'll be back with Dr. Baker in a couple of days," Fenwick said. "After
that, the one final evidence we'll need will be to construct these
crystals in our own laboratories, entirely on our own, based on your
instructions."

Ellerbee nodded agreement. "That would suit us just fine."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Hypnotism," said Baker. "It sounds like some form of hypnotism, and I
don't like that kind of thing. It could merit criminal prosecution."

"There's no possible way I could have been hypnotized," said Fenwick.

"These crystals--obviously it has something to do with them. But I
wonder what their game is, anyway? It's hard to see where they can think
they're headed."

"I don't know," said Fenwick. "But you promised to show me the gimmick
if I couldn't find it in half a day. I spent a whole day out there
without finding anything."

Baker slapped the desk in exasperation. "You're not really going to make
me go out there and look at this fool thing, are you? I know I made a
crazy promise, but I was sure you could find where they were hoaxing you
if you took one look at their setup. It's probably so obvious you just
stumbled right over it without even seeing it was there."

"Possibly. But you're going to have to show me."

"John, look--"

"Or, I _might_ be willing to take that Clearwater research grant without
any more questions on either side."

Baker thought of the repercussions that would occur in his own office,
let alone outside it, if he ever approved such a grant. "All right," he
sighed. "You've got me over a barrel. I'll drive my car. I may have to
stop at some offices on the other side of town."

"I might be going on, rather than coming back to town," said Fenwick. "I
ought to have my car, too. Suppose I meet you out there?"

"Good enough. Say one o'clock. I'm sure that will give us more time than
we need."

       *       *       *       *       *

Baker was prompt. He arrived with an air of
let's-get-this-over-as-quick-as-possible. He nodded perfunctorily as
Ellerbee introduced his wife. He scarcely looked at Sam Atkins.

"I hope you've got your demonstration all set up," he said. He glanced
at the darkening sky. "It looks like we might get some heavy rain this
afternoon."

"We're all ready," said Ellerbee. "Sam will drive over to that little
hill on his farm, and we'll go out behind the barn."

On the knoll, Baker accepted the crystal cube without looking at it.
Clenching it in his fist, he put his hand in his pocket. Fenwick guessed
he was trying to avoid any direct view and thus avoid the possibility of
hypnotic effects. This seemed pretty farfetched to Fenwick.

Through field glasses Sam Atkins was seen to get out of his car and walk
to the top of the knoll. He stood a moment, then waved to signal his
readiness.

"Press the crystal in your hand," Ellerbee said to Baker. "Direct your
attention toward Sam Atkins."

Each of them had a cube of the same crystal. It was like a party line.
Fenwick pressed his only slightly. He had learned it didn't take much.
He saw Baker hesitate, then purse his lips as if in utter disgust, and
follow instructions.

In a moment the image of Sam Atkins appeared before them. Regardless of
their position, the image gave the illusion of standing about four feet
in front of them.

"Good afternoon, Dr. Baker," Sam Atkins said.

Fenwick thought Baker was going to collapse.

The director just stood for a moment, like a creature that had been
pole-axed. Then his color began to deepen and he turned with robot
stiffness. "Did you men hear anything? Fenwick ... did you hear ... did
you see?"

"Sure," said Fenwick, grinning broadly. "Sam Atkins said good afternoon
to you. It would be polite if you answered him back."

The image of Sam Atkins was still before them. He, too, was grinning
broadly. The grins infuriated Baker.

"Mr. Atkins," said Baker.

"Yes, Dr. Baker," said Sam Atkins.

"If you hear me, wave your hands. I will observe you through the field
glasses."

"The field glasses won't be necessary."

Both the image before them, and the distant figure on the knoll were
seen to wave arms and gyrate simultaneously. For good measure, Sam
Atkins turned a cartwheel.

Baker seemed to have partly recovered. "There seems to be a very
remarkable effect present here," he said cautiously.

"Dr. Baker," Jim Ellerbee spoke earnestly, "I know you're skeptical. You
don't think the crystals do what I say they do. Even though you see it
with your own eyes you doubt that it is happening. I will do anything
possible to test this device to your satisfaction. Name the test that
will dispel your doubts and we will perform it!"

"It's not entirely a question of demonstration, Mr. Ellerbee," said
Baker. "There are the theoretical considerations as well. The
mathematics you have submitted in support of your claim are not, to put
it mildly, sound."

"I know. Sam keeps telling me that. He says we need an entirely new math
to handle it. Maybe we'll get around to that. But the important thing is
that we've got a working device."

"Your mathematical basis _must_ be sound!" Baker's fervor returned.
Fenwick felt a sudden surge of pity for the director.

The demonstration was repeated a dozen times more. Fenwick went over on
Sam Atkins' hill. He and Baker conversed privately.

[Illustration: ... _"Presence," with the crystals, was not a physical
thing_ ...]

"Do you see it yet?" Fenwick asked.

"No, I'm afraid I don't!" Baker was snappish. "This is one of the most
devilish things I've ever come across!"

"You don't think it's working the way Jim and Sam say it is?"

"Of course not. The thing is utterly impossible! I am convinced a
hypnotic condition is involved, but I must admit I don't see how."

"You may figure it out when you go through Ellerbee's lab."

       *       *       *       *       *

Baker was obviously shaken. He spoke in subdued tones as Ellerbee
started the tour of the crystal lab again. Baker's eyes took in
everything. As the tour progressed he seemed to devour each new item
with frenzied intensity. He inspected the crystals through a microscope.
He checked the measurements of the thickness of the growing crystal
layers.

The rain began while they were in the crystal lab. It beat furiously on
the roof of the laboratory building, but Baker seemed scarcely aware
that it was taking place. His eyes sought out every minute feature of
the building. Fenwick was sure he was finding nothing to confirm his
belief that the communicator crystals were a hoax.

Fenwick hadn't realized it before, but he recognized now that it would
be a terrific blow to Baker if he couldn't prove the existence of a
hoax.

Proof that the communicator crystals were all they were supposed to be
would be a direct frontal attack on the sacred Index. It would blast a
hole in Baker's conviction that nothing of value could come from the
crackpot fringe. And, not least of all, it would require Baker to issue
a research grant to Clearwater College.

What else it might do to Baker, Fenwick could only guess, but he felt
certain Bill Baker would never be the same man again.

As it grew darker, Baker looked up from the microscope through which he
had been peering. He glanced at the windows and the drenched countryside
beyond. "It's been raining," he said.

Mary Ellerbee had already anticipated that the visitors would be staying
the night. She had the spare room ready for Baker and Fenwick before
dinner. While they ate in the big farmhouse kitchen, Ellerbee explained.
"It would be crazy to try to get down to the highway tonight. The
county's been promising us a new road for five years, but you see what
we've got. Even the oldest citizen wouldn't tackle it in weather like
this, unless it was an emergency. You put up for the night with us.
You'll get home just as fast by leaving in the morning, after the storm
clears. And it will be a lot more pleasant than spending the night stuck
in the mud somewhere--or worse."

Baker seemed to accept the invitation as he ate without comment. To
Fenwick he appeared stunned by the events of the day, by his inability
to find a hoax in connection with the communicator crystals.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was only when Baker and Fenwick were alone in the upstairs bedroom
that Baker seemed to stir out of his state of shock.

"This is ridiculous, Fenwick!" he said. "I don't know what I'm doing
here. I can't possibly stay in this place tonight. I've got people to
see this evening, and appointments early in the morning."

"It's coming down like cats and dogs again," said Fenwick. "You saw the
road coming in. It's a hog wallow by now. Your chance of getting through
would be almost zero."

"It's a chance I have to take," Baker insisted. He started for the door.
"_You_ don't have to take it, of course."

"I'm not going to!" said Fenwick.

"But I must!"

Fenwick followed him downstairs, still trying to persuade him of the
foolishness of driving back tonight. When Ellerbee heard of it he seemed
appalled.

"It's impossible, Dr. Baker! I wouldn't have suggested your not
returning if there were any chance of getting through. I assure you
there isn't."

"Nevertheless I must try. Dr. Fenwick will remain, and I will come back
tomorrow afternoon to complete our investigation. There are important
things I must attend to before then, however."

Fenwick had the sudden feeling that Baker was in a flight of panic. His
words had an aimless stream-of-consciousness quality that contrasted
sharply with his usually precise speech. Fenwick was certain there was
nothing sufficiently important that it demanded his attention on a night
like this. He could have telephoned his family and had his wife cancel
any appointments.

No, Fenwick thought, there was nothing Baker had to go _to_; rather, he
was running _from_. He was running in panicky fear from his failure to
pin down the hoax in the crystals. He was running, Fenwick thought, from
the fear that there might be no hoax.

It seemed incredible that such an experience could trigger so strong a
reaction. Yet Fenwick was aware that Baker's attitude toward Ellerbee
and his device was not merely one aspect of Baker's character. His
attitude in these things _was_ his character.

Fenwick dared not challenge Baker with these thoughts. He knew it would
be like probing Baker's flesh with a hot wire. There was nothing at all
that he could do to stop Baker's flight.

Ellerbee insisted on loaning him a powerful flashlight and a hand
lantern, which Baker ridiculed but accepted. It was only after Baker's
tail-light had disappeared in the thick mist that Fenwick remembered he
still had the crystal cube in his coat pocket.

"He's bound to get stuck and spend the night on the road," said
Ellerbee. "He'll be so upset he'll never come back to finish his
investigation."

Fenwick suspected this was true. Baker would seal off every association
and reminder of the communicator crystals as if they were some infection
that would not heal. "There's no use beating your brains out trying to
get the NBSD to pay attention," Fenwick told Ellerbee. "You've got a
patent. Figure out some gadgety use and start selling the things. You'll
get all the attention you want."

"I wanted to do it in a dignified way," said Ellerbee regretfully.

_You, too_, Fenwick thought as he moved back up the stairs to the spare
bedroom.

Fenwick undressed and got into bed. He tried to read a book he had
borrowed from Ellerbee, but it held no interest for him. He kept
thinking about Baker. What produced a man like Baker? What made him
tick, anyway?

Fenwick had practically abandoned his earlier determination that
something had to be done about Baker. There was really nothing that
could be done about Baker, Bill Baker in particular--and the host of
assorted Bakers scattered throughout the world in positions of power and
importance, in general.

They stretched on and on, back through the pages of history and time.
Jim Ellerbee understood the breed. He had quite rightly tagged Baker in
addressing him as "Dear Urban." Pope Urban, who persecuted the great
Galileo, had certainly been one of them.

It wasn't that Baker was ignorant or stupid. He was neither. Fenwick
gave reluctant respect to his intelligence and his education. Baker was
quick-witted. His head was stuffed full of accurate scientific
information from diversified fields.

But he refused to be jarred loose from his fixed position that
scientific breakthroughs could come from any source but the Established
Authority. The possibility that the crackpot fringe could produce such a
break-through panicked him. It _had_ panicked him. He was fleeing
dangerously now through the night, driven by a fear he did not know was
in him.

Inflexibility. This seemed to be the characteristic that marked Baker
and his kind. Defender of the Fixed Position might well have been his
title. With all his might and power, Bill Baker defended the Fixed
Position he had chosen, the Fixed Position behind the wall of
Established Authority.

A blind spot, perhaps? But it seemed more than mere blindness that kept
Baker so hotly defending his Fixed Position. It seemed as if, somehow,
he was aware of its vulnerability and was determined to fight off any
and all attacks, regardless of consequences.

Fenwick didn't know. He felt as if it was less than hopeless, however,
to attempt to change Bill Baker. Any change would have to be brought
about by Baker himself. And that, at the moment, seemed far less likely
than the well-known snowball in Hades.

       *       *       *       *       *

Fenwick knew he must have dozed off to sleep with the light still on in
the room and Ellerbee's unread book opened over his chest. He did not
know what time it was when he awoke. He was aware only of a suffocating
sensation as if some ghostly aura were within the room, filling it,
pressing down upon him. A wailing of agony and despair seemed to scratch
at his senses although he was certain there was no audible sound. And a
depression clutched at his soul as if death itself had suddenly walked
unseen through the closed door.

Fenwick sat up, shivering in the sudden coolness of the room, but clammy
with sweat over his whole body. He had never experienced such sensations
before in his life. His stomach turned to a hard ball under the flow of
panic that surged through all his nerves.

He forced himself to sit quietly for a moment, trying to release his
fear-tightened muscles. He relaxed the panic in his stomach and looked
slowly about the room. He could recall no stimulus in his sleep that had
produced such a reaction. He hadn't even been dreaming, as far as he
could tell. There was no recollection of any sound or movement within
the house or outside.

He was calmer after a moment, but that sensation of death close at hand
would not go away. He would have been unable to describe it if asked,
but it was there. It filled the atmosphere of the room. It seemed to
emanate from--

Fenwick turned his head about. It was almost as if there was some
definite source from which the ghastly sensation was pouring over him.
The walls--the air of the room--

His eyes caught the crystal on the table by the bed.

He could feel the force of death pouring from it.

His first impulse was to pick up the thing and hurl it as far as he
could. Then in saner desperation he leaped from the bed and threw on his
clothes. He grabbed the crystal in his hand and ran out through the door
and down the stairs.

Jim Ellerbee was already there in the living room. He was seated by the
old-fashioned library table, his hand outstretched upon it. In his hand
lay the counterpart of the crystal Fenwick carried.

"Ellerbee!" Fenwick cried. "What's going on? What in Heaven's name is
coming out of these things?"

"Baker," said Ellerbee. "He smashed up on the road somewhere. He's out
there dying."

"Can you be sure? Then don't sit there, man! Let's get on our way!"

Ellerbee shook his head. "He'll be dead before we can get there."

"How do you know he cracked up, anyway? Can you read that out of the
crystal?"

Ellerbee nodded. "He kept it in his pocket. It's close enough to him to
transmit the frantic messages of his dying mind."

"Then we've got to go! No matter if we get there in time or not."

Ellerbee shook his head again. "Sam is on his way over here. He's in
touch with Baker. He says he thinks he can talk Baker back."

"_Talk_ him back? What do you mean by that?"

Ellerbee hesitated. "I'm not sure. In some ways Sam understands a lot
more about these things than I do. He can do things with the crystals
that I don't understand. If he says he can talk Dr. Baker back, I think
maybe he can."

"But we can't depend on that!" Fenwick said frantically. "Can't we get
on our way in the car and let Sam do what he thinks he can while we
drive? Maybe he can get Baker to hold on until we get him to a doctor."

"You don't understand," said Ellerbee. "Dr. Baker has gone over the
edge. He's _dying_. I know what it's like. I looked into a dying mind
once before. There is nothing whatever that a doctor can do after an
organism starts dying. It's a definite process. Once started, it's
irreversible."

"Then what does Sam--?"

"Sam thinks he knows how to reverse it."

       *       *       *       *       *

There wasn't much pain. Not as much as he would have supposed. He felt
sure there was terrible damage inside. He could feel the warmth of blood
welling up inside his throat. But the pain was not there. That was good.

In place of pain, there was a kind of infinite satisfaction and a
growing peace. The ultimate magnitude of this peace, which he could
sense, was so great that it loomed like some blinding glory.

This was death. The commitment and the decision had been made. But this
was better than any alternative. He could not see how there could have
been any question about it.

He was lying on his back in the wet clay of a bank below the road. It
was raining, softly now, and he rather liked the gentle drop of it on
his face. Somewhere below him the hulk of his wrecked car lay on its
side. He could smell the unpleasant odor of gasoline. But all of this
was less than nothing in importance to him now. Somewhere in the back of
his mind was a remnant of memory of what he had been doing this day. He
remembered the name of John Fenwick, and the memory brought a faint
amusement to his bloody lips. There had been some differences between
him and John Fenwick. Those differences were also less than nothing,
now. All differences were wiped out. He gave himself up to the pleasure
of being borne along on that great current that seemed to be carrying
him swiftly to a quiet place.

After a time, he remembered two other names, also. James Ellerbee and
Sam Atkins. He remembered a crystal, and it meant nothing. He remembered
that it was in his pocket and that for some time he had felt a warmth
from it, that was both pleasant and unpleasant. It was of no importance.
He might have reached for it and thrown it farther from him, but his arm
on that side was broken.

He was glad that there was nothing--nothing whatever--that had any
magnitude of importance. Even his family--they were like fragments of a
long-ago dream.

He lay waiting quietly and patiently for the swiftly approaching
destination of ultimate peace. He did not know how long it would take,
but he knew it could not be long, and even the journey was sweet.

It was while he waited, letting his mind drift, that he became aware of
the intruder. In that moment, the pain boiled up in shrieking agony.

He had thought himself alone. He wanted above all else to be alone. But
there was someone with him. He wasn't sure how he knew. He could simply
_feel_ the unwanted presence. He strained to see in the wet darkness. He
listened for muted sounds. There was nothing. Only the presence.

"Go away!" he whispered hoarsely. "Go away, and leave me alone--whoever
you are."

"No. Let me take you by the hand, William Baker. I have come to show you
the way back. I have come to lead you back."

"Leave me alone! Whoever you are, leave me alone!" Baker was conscious
of his own voice screaming in the black night. And it was not only
terror of the unknown presence that made him scream, but the physical
pain of crushed bones and torn flesh was sweeping like a torrent through
him.

"Don't be afraid of me. You know me. You remember, we met this
afternoon. Sam Atkins. You remember, Dr. Baker?"

"I remember." Baker's voice was a painful gasp. "I remember. Now go away
and leave me alone. You can do nothing for me. I don't want you to do
anything for me."

       *       *       *       *       *

Sam Atkins. The crystal. Baker wished he could reach the cursed thing
and hurl it away from him. That must be how Atkins was communicating
with him. Yes, somehow it was possible. He had found no trick, no
gimmick. Somehow, the miserable things worked.

But what did Sam Atkins want? He had broken in on a moment that was as
private as a dream. There was nothing he could do. Baker was dying. He
knew he was dying. There was no medicine that could heal the battering
his body had taken. He had been slipping away into peace and release of
pain. He had no desire to have it interrupted.

There was no more evidence of Sam Atkins' presence. It was there--and
Baker wished furiously that Atkins would let his death be a private
thing--but he was not interfering now.

There was the faint suggestion of other presences, too. Baker thought he
could pick them out, Fenwick and Ellerbee. They were all gathered to
watch him die through the crystals. It was unkind of them to so
intrude--but it didn't really matter very much. He began drifting
pleasantly again.

"William Baker." The soft voice of Sam Atkins shattered the peaceable
realm once more. "We must do some healing before we start back, Dr.
Baker. Give me your hand, and come with me, Dr. Baker, while we touch
these tissues and heal their breaks. Stay close to me and the pain will
not be more than you can endure."

The night remained dark and there was no sound, but Baker's body arched
and twisted in panic as he fought against invisible hands that seemed to
touch with fleeting, exploratory passes over him.

"I don't want to be healed," he whispered. "There is nothing that can be
done. I'm dying. I want to die! Can't you understand that? I want to
die! I don't want your help!"

He had said it. And the shock of it jolted even him in the depths of his
half-conscious mind. Could a man really _want_ to die?

Yes.

He had forgotten what terror he had left so far behind. He knew only
that he wanted to move forever in the direction of the flowing peace.

Like probing fingers, Sam Atkins' mind continued to touch him. It
scanned the broken organs of his body, and, in some kind of detached
way, Baker felt that he was accompanying Atkins on that journey of
exploration, even as Sam had asked.

They searched the skeleton and found the splintered bones. They examined
the muscle structure and found the torn and shattered tissue. They
searched the dark recesses of his vital organs and came to injury that
Baker knew was hopeless.

"You built this once," Sam Atkins' voice whispered. "You can build it
again. The materials are all here. The blood stream is still moving. The
nerve tissue will carry your instructions. I'll supply the
scaffolding--while you build--"

He remembered. Baker examined the long-untouched record of when he had
done this before. He remembered the construction of cells, the building
of organs, the interconnection of nerve tissue. He felt an infinite
sadness at the present ruin. Yes--he could build again.

       *       *       *       *       *

Sam Atkins' face was like that of a dead man. Across the table from him,
Jim Ellerbee and John Fenwick watched silently. Faintly, between them
was the crystal-projected image of Baker's body.

Fenwick felt the cold touch of some mysterious unknown prickle his
scalp. Sam Atkins seemed remote and alien, like the practitioner of
ancient and forbidden arts. Fenwick found the question tumbling over and
over in his mind, who is this man? He felt as if the very life energy of
Sam Atkins was somehow flowing out through the crystal, across space, to
the distant broken body of Bill Baker and was supporting it while
Baker's own feeble energy was consumed in the rebuilding of his
shattered organs.

[Illustration]

Though Fenwick and Ellerbee held their own crystals, Sam had somehow
shut them out. They were in faint contact with Baker, but they could not
follow the fierce contact that Sam's mind held with him.

Ellerbee's face showed worry and a trace of panic. He hesitantly reached
out to touch the immobile figure of Sam Atkins, who sat with closed eyes
and imperceptible breath. Fenwick sensed disaster. He arrested the
motion of Ellerbee's hand.

"I think you could kill them both," he whispered. The life force of one
man, divided between two--it was not sufficient to cope with unexpected
shocks to either, now.

Ellerbee desisted. "I've never seen anything like this before," he said.
"I don't know what Sam's doing--I don't know how he's doing it--"

Fenwick looked sharply at Ellerbee. Ellerbee had discovered the
crystals, so he and Sam said. Yet Sam was able to do things with them
that Ellerbee could not conceive. Fenwick wondered just who was
responsible for the crystals. And he resolved that some day, when and if
Baker pulled out of this, he would learn something more about Sam
Atkins.

Time moved beyond midnight and into the early morning hours of the day,
but this meant nothing to William Baker. He was in the midst of
eternity. Because the old pattern was there, and the ancient memories
were clear, his reconstruction moved at a pace that was limited only by
the materials available. When these grew scarce, Sam Atkins showed him
how to break down and utilize other structures that could be rebuilt
leisurely at a later time. There was remembered joy in the building and,
once started, Baker gave only idle wonder to the question of whether
this was more desirable than death. He did not know. This seemed the
right thing to do.

In the presence of Sam Atkins everything he was doing seemed right, and
a lifetime of doubts, and errors, and fears seemed distant and vague.

But Sam said suddenly, "It is almost finished. Just a little farther and
you'll have to go the rest of the way alone."

Terror struck at Baker. He had reached a point where he was absolutely
sure he could _not_ go on alone without Sam's supporting presence. "You
tricked me!" Baker cried. "You tricked me! You didn't tell me I would
have to be reborn alone!"

"Doesn't every man?" said Sam. "Is there any way to be born, except
alone?"

Slowly, the world closed in about Baker.

Light. Sounds.

Wet. Cold.

The impact of a million idiot minds. The coursing of cosmic-ray
particles. The wrenching of Earth's magnetic and gravitational fields.
Old and sluggish memories were renewed, memories meant to be buried for
all of his life.

Baker felt as if he were suddenly running down a dark and immense
corridor. Behind were all the terrors spawned since the beginning of
time. Ahead were a thousand openings of light and safety. He raced for
the nearest and brightest and most familiar.

"No," said Sam Atkins. "You cannot go that way again. It is the way you
went before--and it led to this--to a search for death. For you, it will
lead only to the same goal again."

"I can't go on!" Baker cried. The terrors seemed to be swiftly closing
in.

"Take my hand a moment longer," said Sam. "Inspect these more distant
paths. There are many of them that will be agreeable to you."

Baker felt calmer now in the renewed presence of Sam Atkins. He passed
the branching pathway that Sam had forbidden, that had seemed so bright.
He sensed now why Sam had cautioned him against it. Far down, in the
depths of it, he glimpsed faintly a dark ugliness that he had not seen
before. He shuddered.

Directly ahead there seemed to be the opening of a corridor of blazing
brightness. Baker's calmness increased as he approached. "This one," he
said.

He heard nothing, but he sensed Sam Atkins' smile, and nod of approval.

He remembered now for the first time why he had wanted to die. It was to
avoid the very terrors by which he had been pursued through the dark
corridor. All this had happened before, and he had gone down the pathway
Sam had forbidden. Somehow, like a circle, it had come back to this very
point, to this forgotten experience for which he had been willing to die
rather than endure again.

It was very bewildering. He did not understand the meaning of it. But he
knew he had corrected a former error. He was back in the world. He was
alive again.

Sam Atkins looked up at his companions through eyes that seemed all but
dead. "He's going to make it," he said. "We can get the car out and pick
up Baker now."

       *       *       *       *       *

They used Sam's panel truck, which had a four-wheel drive and mud tires.
Nothing else could possibly get through. Fenwick left his own car at
Ellerbee's.

It was still raining lightly as the truck sloshed and slewed through the
muck that was hardly recognizable now as a road. For an hour Sam fought
the wheel to hold the car approximately in the middle of the brownish
ooze that led them through the night. The three men sat in the cab.
Behind them, a litter and first-aid equipment had been rigged for Baker.
Sam told them nothing would be needed except soap and water, but Fenwick
and Ellerbee felt it impossible to go off without some other emergency
equipment.

After an hour, Sam said, "He's close. Just around the next bend. That's
where his car went off."

Baker loomed suddenly in the lights of the car. He was standing at the
edge of the road. He waved an arm wearily.

Fenwick would not have recognized him. And for some seconds after the
car had come to a halt, and Baker stood weaving uncertainly in the beam
of the lights, Fenwick was not sure it was Baker at all.

He looked like something out of an old Frankenstein movie. His clothes
were ripped almost completely away. Those remaining were stained with
blood and red clay, and soaked with rain. Baker's face was laced with a
network of scars as if he had been slashed with a shower of glass not
too long ago and the wounds were freshly healed. Blood was caked and
cracked on his face and was matted in his hair.

[Illustration]

He smiled grotesquely as he staggered toward the car door. "About time
you got here," he said. "A man could catch his death of cold standing
out here in this weather."

       *       *       *       *       *

Dr. William Baker was quite sure he had no need of hospitalization, but
he let them settle him in a hospital bed anyway. He had some thinking to
do, and he didn't know of a better place to get it done.

There was a good deal of medical speculation about the vast network of
very fresh scars on his body, the bones which X rays showed to have been
only very recently knit, and the violent internal injuries which gave
some evidence of their recent healing. Baker allowed the speculation to
go on without offering explanations. He let them tap and measure and
apply electrical gadgets to their heart's content. It didn't bother the
thinking he had to get done.

Fenwick and Ellerbee came back the next day to see him. The two
approached the bed so warily that Baker burst out laughing. "Pull up
chairs!" he exclaimed. "Just because you saw me looking a shade less
than dead doesn't mean I'm a ghost now. Sit down. And where's Sam? Not
that I don't appreciate seeing your ugly faces, but Sam and I have got
some things to talk about."

Ellerbee and Fenwick looked at each other as if each expected the other
to speak.

"Well, what's the matter?" demanded Baker. "Nothing's happened to Sam, I
hope!"

Fenwick spoke finally. "We don't know where Sam is. We don't think we'll
be seeing him again."

"Why not?" Baker demanded. But in the back of his mind was the growing
suspicion that he knew.

"After your--accident," said Fenwick, "I went back to the farm with
Ellerbee and Sam because I'd left my car there. I went back to bed to
try to get some more shut-eye, but the storm had started up again and
kept me awake. Just before dawn a terrific bolt of lightning seemed to
strike Sam's silo. Later, Jim went out to check on his cows and help his
man finish up the milking.

"By mid-morning we hadn't heard anything from Sam and decided to go over
and talk to him about what we'd seen him do for you. I guess it was
eleven by the time we got there."

[Illustration: ... _Lightning doesn't strike up from inside a silo!
That's something else_ ...]

Jim Ellerbee nodded agreement.

"When we got there," Fenwick went on, "we saw that the front door of the
house was open as if the storm had blown it in. We called Sam, but he
didn't answer, so we went on in. Things were a mess. We thought it was
because of the storm, but then we saw that drawers and shelves seemed to
have been opened hastily and cleaned out. Some things had been dropped
on the floor, but most of the stuff was just gone.

"It was that way all through the house. Sam's bed hadn't been disturbed.
He had either not slept in it, or had gone to the trouble of making it
up even though he left the rest of the house in a mess."

"Sounds like the place might have been broken into," said Baker. "Didn't
you notify the sheriff?"

"Not after we'd seen what was outside, in back."

"What was that?"

"We wanted to see the silo after the lightning had struck it. Jim said
he'd always been curious about that silo. It was one of the best in the
county, but Sam never used it. He used a pit.

"When we went out, all the cows were bellowing. They hadn't been milked.
Sam did all his own work. Jim called his own man to come and take care
of Sam's cows. Then we had a close look at the silo. It had split like a
banana peel opening up. It hardly seemed as if a bolt of lightning could
have caused it. We climbed over the broken pieces to look inside. It was
still warm in there. At least six hours after lightning--or whatever had
struck it, the concrete was still warm. The bottom and several feet of
the sides of the silo were covered with a glassy glaze."

"No lightning bolt did that."

"We know that now," said Fenwick. "But I had seen the flash of it
myself. Then I remembered that in my groggy condition that morning
something had seemed wrong about that flash of lightning. Instead of a
jagged tree of lightning that formed instantly, it had seemed like a
thin thread of light striking _upward_. I thought I must be getting
bleary-eyed and tried to forget it. In the silo, I remembered. I told
Jim.

"We went back through the house once more. In Sam's bedroom, as if
accidently dropped and kicked partway under the bed, I found this. Take
a look!"

Fenwick held out a small book. It had covers and pages as did any
ordinary book. But when Baker's fingers touched the book, something
chilled his backbone.

The material had the feel and appearance of white leather--yet Baker had
the insane impression that the cells of that leather still formed a
living substance. He opened the pages. Their substance was as foreign as
that of the cover. The message--printing, or whatever it might be
called--consisted of patterned rows of dots, pin-head size, in color. It
reminded him of computer tape cut to some character code. He had the
impression that an eye might scan those pages and react as swiftly as a
tape-fed computer.

Baker closed the book. "Nothing more?" he asked Fenwick.

"Nothing. We thought maybe you had found out something else when he
worked to save your life."

       *       *       *       *       *

Baker kept his eyes on the ceiling. "I found out a few things," he said.
"I could scarcely believe they were true. I have to believe after
hearing your story."

"What did you find?"

"Sam Atkins came from--somewhere else. He went back in the ship he had
hidden in the silo."

"Where did he come from? What was he doing here?"

"I don't know the name of the world he was from or where it is located.
Somewhere in this galaxy, is about all I can deduce from my impressions.
He was here on a scientific mission, a sociological study. He was
responsible for the crystals. I suppose you know that by now?" Baker
glanced at Ellerbee.

Jim Ellerbee nodded. "I suspected for a long time that I was being led,
but I couldn't understand it. I thought I was doing the research that
produced the crystals, but Sam would drop a hint or a suggestion every
once in a while, that would lead off on the right track and produce
something fantastic. He knew where we were going, ahead of time. He led
me to believe that we were exploring together. Do you know why he did
this?"

"Yes," said Baker. "It was part of his project. The project consisted of
a study of human reaction to scientific processes which our scientific
culture considered impossible. He was interested in measuring our
flexibility and reaction to such introductions."

Baker smiled grimly. "We sure gave him his money's worth, didn't we! We
really reacted when he brought out his little cubes. I'd like to read
the report he writes up!"

"Why did he leave so suddenly?" asked Fenwick. "Was he through?"

"No, that's the bad part of it. My reaction to the crystals was a shock
that sent me into a suicidal action--"

Fenwick stared at him, shocked. "You didn't--"

"But I did," said Baker calmly. "All very subconsciously, of course, but
I did try to commit suicide. The crystals triggered it. I'll explain how
in a minute, but since Sam Atkins was an ethical being he felt the
responsibility for what had happened to me. He had to reveal himself to
the extent of saving my life--and helping me to change so that the
suicidal drive would not appear again. He did this, but it revealed too
much of himself and destroyed the chance of completing his program. When
he gets back home, he's really going to catch hell for lousing up the
works. It's too bad."

Jim Ellerbee let out a long breath. "Sam Atkins--somebody from another
world--it doesn't seem possible. What things he could have taught us if
he'd stayed!"

Fenwick wondered why it had to have been Baker to receive this
knowledge. Baker, the High Priest of the Fixed Position, the ambassador
of Established Authority. Why couldn't Sam Atkins--or whatever his real
name might be--have whispered just a few words of light to a man willing
to listen and profit? His bowels felt sick with the impact of
opportunity forever lost.

       *       *       *       *       *

"How did the crystals trigger a suicidal reaction?" asked Fenwick
finally, as if to make conversation more than anything else.

Baker's face seemed to glow. "That's the really important thing I
learned from Sam. I learned that about me--about all of us. It's hard to
explain. I experienced it--but you can only hear about it."

"We're listening," said Fenwick dully.

"I saw a picture of a lathe in a magazine a few months ago," said Baker
slowly. "You can buy one of these lathes for $174,000, if you want one.
It's a pretty fancy job. The lathe remembers what it does once, and
afterwards can do it again without any instructions.

"The lathe has a magnetic tape memory. The operator cuts the first piece
on the lathe, and the tape records all the operations necessary for that
production. After that, the operator needs only to insert the metal
stock and press the start button.

"There could be a million memories in storage, and the lathe could draw
on any one of them to repeat what it had done before at any time in its
history."

"I don't see what this has got to do with Sam and you," said Fenwick.

Baker ignored him. "A long time ago a bit of life came into existence.
It had no memory, because it was the first. But it faced the universe
and made decisions. That's the difference between life and nonlife. Did
you know that, Fenwick? The capacity to make decisions without
pre-programming. The lathe is not alive because it must be
pre-programmed by the operator. We used to say that reproduction was the
criterion of life, but the lathe could be pre-programmed to build a
duplicate of itself, complete with existing memories, if that were
desired, but that would not make it a living thing.

"Spontaneous decision. A single cell can make a simple binary choice.
Maybe nothing more complex than to be or not to be. The decision may be
conditioned by lethal circumstances that permit only a 'not' decision.
Nevertheless, a decision _is_ made, and the cell shuts down its life
processes in the very instant of death. They are not shut down for it.

"In the beginning, the first bit of life faced the world and made
decisions, and memory came into being. The structures of giant protein
molecules shifted slightly in those first cells and became a memory of
decisions and encounters. The cells split and became new pairs carrying
in each part giant patterned molecules of the same structure. These were
memory tapes that grew and divided and spread among all life until they
carried un-numbered billions of memories.

"Molecular tapes. Genes. The memory of life on earth, since the
beginning. Each new piece of life that springs from parent life comes
equipped with vast libraries of molecular tapes recording the
experiences of life since the beginning.

"Life forms as complex as mammals could not exist without this tape
library to draw upon. The bodily mechanisms could not function if they
came into existence without the taped memories out of the ages,
explaining why each organ was developed and how it should function.
Sometimes, part of the tapes _are_ missing, and the organism, if it
endures, must live without instructions for some function. One human
lifetime is too infinitesimally small to relearn procedures that have
taken aeons to develop.

"Just as the lathe operator has a choice of tapes which will cause the
lathe to function in different ways, so does new life have a choice. The
accumulated instructions and wisdom of the whole race may be available,
except for those tapes which have been lost or destroyed through the
ages. New life has a choice from that vast library of tapes. In its
inexperience, it relies on the parentage for the selection of many
proven combinations, and so we conclude certain characteristics are
'dominant' or 'inherited,' but we haven't been able to discover the
slightest reason why this is so.

"A selection of things other than color of eyes, the height of growth to
be attained, the shape of the body must also be made. A choice of modes
of facing the exterior world, a choice of stratagems to be used in
attaining survival and security in that world, must be made.

"And there is one other important factor: Mammalian life is created in a
universe where only life exists. The mammal in the womb does not know of
the existence of the external universe. Somewhere, sometime, the first
awareness of this external universe arises. In the womb. Outside the
womb. Early in fetal life, or late. When and where this awareness comes
is an individual matter. But when it comes, it arrives with lethal
impact.

"Awareness brings a million sensory invasions--chemical, physical,
extrasensory--none of them understood, all of them terrifying.

"This terrible fear that arises in this moment of awareness and
non-understanding is almost sufficient to cause a choice of death rather
than life at this point. Only because of the developed toughness,
acquired through the aeons, does the majority of mammalian life choose
to continue.

"In this moment, choices must be made as to how to cope with the
external world, how to understand it so as to diminish the fear it
inspires. The library of genetic tapes is full of possible solutions.
Parental experience is examined, too, and the very sensory impacts that
are the source of the terror are inspected to a greater or lesser extent
to see how they align with taped information.

"A very basic choice is then made. It may not be a single decision, but,
rather, a system of decisions all based on some fundamental underlying
principle. And the choice may not be made in an instant. How long a time
it may occupy I do not know.

"When the decision has been made, reaction between the individual and
the external universe begins and understanding begins to flow into the
data storage banks. As data are stored, and successful solutions found
in the encounter with the world, fear diminishes. Some kind of
equilibrium is eventually reached, in which the organism decides how
much fear it is willing to tolerate to venture farther into areas of the
unknown, and how much it is willing to limit its experience because of
this fear.

"When the decision has been made, and the point of equilibrium chosen, a
personality exists. The individual has shaped himself to face the world.

"And nothing short of a Heavenly miracle will ever change that shape!"

"You have said nothing about how the crystal caused you to attempt
suicide," said Fenwick.

"The crystal invalidated the molecular tape I had chosen to provide my
foundation program for living. The tape was completely shattered,
brought to an end. There was nothing left for me to go on."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Wait a minute!" said Fenwick. "Even supposing this could happen as you
describe it, other programs could be selected out of the great number
you have described."

"Quite true. But do you know what happens to an adult human being when
the program on which his entire life is patterned is destroyed?"

Fenwick shook his head. "What is it like?"

"It's like it was in the beginning, in that moment of first awareness of
the external universe. He is aware of the universe, but has no
understanding of it. Previous understanding--or what he thought was
understanding--has been invalidated, destroyed. The drive to keep
living, that was present in that first moment of awareness, has
weakened. The strongest impulse is to escape the terror that follows
awareness without understanding. Death is the quickest escape.

"This is why men are inflexible. This is why the Urbans cannot endure
the Galileos. This is why the Bill Bakers cannot face the Jim Ellerbees.
That was what Sam Atkins wanted to find out.

"If a man should decide his basic program is invalid and decide to
choose another, he would have to face again the terror of awareness of a
world in which understanding does not exist. He would have to return to
that moment of first awareness and select a new program in that moment
of overwhelming fear. Men are not willing to do this. They prefer a
program--a personality--that is defective, that functions with only a
fraction of the efficiency it might have. They prefer this to a basic
change of programs. Only when a program is rendered absolutely
invalid--as mine was by the crystal communicator--is the program
abandoned. When that happens, the average man drives his car into a
telephone pole or a bridge abutment, or he steps in front of a truck at
a street intersection. I drove into a gully in a storm."

"All this would imply that the tape library is loaded with genetic
programs that contain basic defects!" said Fenwick.

Baker hesitated. "That's not quite true," he said finally. "The library
of molecular tapes does contain a great many false solutions. But they
are false not so much because they are defective as because they are
obsolete. All of them worked at one time, under some set of
circumstances, however briefly. Those times and circumstances may have
vanished long since."

"Then why are they chosen? Why aren't they simply passed over?"

"Because the individual organism lacks adequate data for evaluating the
available programs. In addition, information may be presented to him
which says these obsolete programs are just the ones to use."

Fenwick leaned against the bed and shook his head. "How could a crazy
thing like that come about?"

"Cultures become diseased," said Baker. "Sparta was such a one in
ancient times. A more psychotic culture has scarcely existed anywhere,
yet Sparta prevailed for generations. Ancient Rome is another example.
The Age of Chivalry. Each of these cultures was afflicted with a
different disease.

"These diseases are epidemic. Individuals are infected before they
emerge from the womb. In the Age of Chivalry this cultural disease held
out the data that the best life program was based on the concept of
Honor. Honor that could be challenged by a mistaken glance, an
accidental touch in a crowd. Honor that had to be defended at the
expense of life itself.

"Pure insanity. Yet how long did it persist?"

"And our culture?" said Fenwick. "There is such a sickness in our
times?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Baker nodded. "There's a disease in our times. A cultural disease you
might call the Great Gray Plague. It is a disease which premises that
safety, security, and effectiveness in dealing with the world may be
obtained by agreement with the highest existing Authority.

"This premise was valid in the days when disobedience to the Head Man
meant getting lost in a bog or eaten by a saber-toothed tiger. Today it
is more than obsolete. It is among the most vicious sicknesses that have
ever infected any culture."

"And you were sick with it."

"I was sick with it. You remember I said a molecular program is chosen
partly on the basis of data presented by parental sources and the spears
of invasion from the external world. This data that came to me from both
sources said that I could deal with the world by yielding to Authority,
by surrounding myself with it as with a shell. It would protect me. I
would have stature. My world-problems would be solved if I chose this
pattern.

"I chose it well. In our culture there are two areas of Authority, one
in government, one in science. I covered myself both ways. I became a
Government Science Administrator. You just don't get any more
authoritative than that in our day and time!"

"But not everyone employs this as a basic premise!" exclaimed Fenwick.

"No--not everyone, fortunately. In that, may be our salvation. In all
times there have been a few infected individuals--Pope Urban, for
example. But in his time the culture was throwing off such ills and was
surging forward under the impetus of men like Galileo.

"In our own time we are on the other end of the stick. We are just
beginning to sink into this plague; it has existed in epidemic form only
a few short decades. But look how it has spread! Our civil institutions,
always weak to such infection, have almost completely succumbed. Our
educational centers are equally sick. Approach them with a new idea and
no Ph. D. and see what happens. Remember the Greek elevator engineer who
did that a few years ago? He battered his way in by sheer force. It was
the only way. He became a nuclear scientist. But for every one of his
kind a thousand others are defeated by the Plague."

Fenwick was grinning broadly. He suddenly laughed aloud. "You must be
crazy in the head, Bill. You sound just like me!"

Baker smiled faintly. "You are one of the lucky ones. You and Jim. It
hasn't hit you. And there are plenty of others like you. But they are
defeated by the powerful ones in authority, who have been infected.

"It's less than fifty years since it hit us. It may have five hundred
years to run. I think we'll be wiped out by it before then. There must
be something that can be done, some way to stamp it out."

"Well," said Fenwick. "You could give Clearwater enough to get us on our
feet and running. That would be a start in the right direction."

"An excellent start," said Baker. "The only trouble is you asked for
less than half of what you need. As soon as I get back to the office a
grant for what you need will be on its way."

       *       *       *       *       *

William Baker stayed in the hospital two more days. Apart from his
family, he asked that no visitors be admitted. He felt as if he were a
new-born infant, facing the world with the knowledge of a man--but
innocent of experience.

He remembered the days before the accident. He remembered how he dealt
with the world in those days. But the methods used then were as
impossible to him now as if he were paralyzed. The new methods, found in
that bright portal to which Sam Atkins had helped guide him, were
untried. He knew they were right. But he had never used them.

He found it difficult to define the postulates he had chosen. The more
he struggled to identify them, the more elusive they seemed to become.
When he gave up the struggle he found the answer. He had chosen a
program that held no fixed postulates. It was based on a decision to
face the world as it came.

He was not entirely sure what this meant. The age-old genetic wisdom was
still available to guide him. But he was committed to no set path. Fresh
decisions would be required at every turn.

A single shot of vaccine could not stem an epidemic. His immunity to the
sickness of his culture could not immunize the entire populace. Yet, he
felt there was something he could do. He was just not sure what it was.

What could a single man do? In other times, a lone man had been enough
to overturn an age. But William Baker did not feel such heroic
confidence in his own capacity.

He was not alone, however. There were the John Fenwicks and the Jim
Ellerbees who were immune to the great Plague. It was just that William
Baker was probably the only man in the world who had ever been infected
so completely and then rendered immune. That gave him a look at both
sides of the fence, which was an advantage no one else shared.

There was something that stuck in his mind, something that Sam Atkins
had said that night when Baker had been reborn. He couldn't understand
it. Sam Atkins had said of the molecular program tape that had been
broken: When you cease to be fearful of Authority, you become Authority.

The last thing in the whole world William Baker wanted now was to be
Authority. But the thought would not leave his mind. Sam Atkins did not
say things that had no meaning.

       *       *       *       *       *

Baker's return to the office of NBSD was an occasion for outpouring of
the professional affection which his staff had always tendered him. He
knew that there had been a time when this had given him a great deal of
satisfaction. He remembered that fiftieth birthday party.

Looking back, it seemed as if all that must have happened to some other
man. He felt like a double of himself, taking over positions and
prerogatives in which he was a complete impostor.

This was going to be harder than he had anticipated, he thought.

Pehrson especially, it appeared, was going to be difficult. The
administrative assistant came into the office almost as soon as Baker
was seated at his desk. "It's very good to have you back," said Pehrson.
"I think we've managed to keep things running while you've been gone,
however. We have rejected approximately one hundred applications during
the past week."

Baker grunted. "And how many have you approved?"

"Approval would have had to await your signature, of course."

"O.K., how many are awaiting my signature?"

"It has been impossible to find a single one which had a high enough
Index to warrant your consideration."

"I see," said Baker. "So you've taken care of the usual routine without
any help from me?"

"Yes," said Pehrson.

"There's one grant left over from before I was absent. We must get that
out of the way as quickly as possible."

"I don't recall any that were pending--" said Pehrson in apology.

"Clearwater College. Get me the file, will you?"

Pehrson didn't know for sure whether the chief was joking or not. He
looked completely serious. Pehrson felt sick at the sudden thought that
the accident may have so injured the chief's mind that he was actually
serious.

He sparred. "The Clearwater College file?"

"That's what I said. Bring a set of approval forms, too."

Pehrson managed to get out with a placid mask on his face, but it broke
as soon as he reached the safety of his own office. It wasn't possible
that Baker was serious! The check that went out that afternoon convinced
him it was so.

When Pehrson left the office, Baker got up and sauntered to the window,
looking out over the smoke-gray buildings of Washington. The Index, he
smiled, remembering it. Five years he and Pehrson had worked on that. It
had seemed like quite a monumental achievement when they considered it
finished. It had never been really finished, of course. Continuous
additions and modifications were being made. But they had been very
proud of it.

Baker wondered now, however, if they had not been very shortsighted in
their application of the Index. He sensed, stirring in the back of his
mind, not fully defined, possibilities that had never appeared to him
before.

His speculations were interrupted by Doris. She spoke on the interphone,
still in the sweetly sympathetic tone she had adopted for her greetings
that morning. Baker suspected this would last at least a full week.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Dr. Wily is on the phone. He would like to know if you'd mind his
coming in this afternoon. Shall I make an appointment or would you
rather postpone these interviews for a few days? Dr. Wily would
understand, of course."

"Tell him to come on up whenever he's ready," said Baker. "I'm not doing
much today."

President George H. Wily, Ph. D., D.Sc., of Great Eastern University.
Wily was one of his best customers.

Baker guessed that he had given Wily somewhere around twelve or thirteen
million dollars over the past decade. He didn't know exactly what Wily
had done with all of it, but one didn't question Great Eastern's use of
its funds. Certainly only the most benevolent use would be made of the
money.

Baker reflected on his associations with Wily. His satisfaction had been
unmeasurable in those exquisite moments when he had had the pleasure of
handing Wily a check for two or three million dollars at a time. In
turn, Wily had invited him to the great, commemorative banquets of Great
Eastern. He had presented Baker to the Alumni and extolled the
magnificent work Baker was doing in the advancement of the cause of
Science. It had been a very pleasant association for both of them.

The door opened and Doris ushered Wily into the room. He came forward
with outstretched hands. "My dear Baker! Your secretary said you had no
objection to my coming up immediately, so I took advantage of it. I
didn't hear about your terrible accident until yesterday. It's so good
to know that you were not more seriously hurt."

"Thanks," said Baker. "It wasn't very bad. Come and sit down."

Wily was a rather large, beetle-shaped man. He affected a small, graying
beard that sometimes had tobacco ashes in it.

"Terrible loss to the cause of Science if your accident had been more
serious," Wily was saying. "I don't know of anyone who occupies a more
critical position in our nation's scientific advance than you do."

This was what had made him feel safe, secure, able to cope with the
problems of the world, Baker reflected. Wily represented Authority, the
highest possible Authority in the existing scientific culture.

But it had worked both ways, too. Baker had supplied a similar
counterpart for Wily. His degrees matched Wily's own. He represented
both Science and Government. The gift of a million dollars expressed
confidence on the part of the Government that Wily was on the right
track, that his activity was approved.

A sort of mutual admiration society, Baker thought.

"I suppose you are interested in the progress on your application for
renewal of Great Eastern's grants," said Baker.

Wily waved the subject away with an emphatic gesture. "Not business
today! I simply dropped in for a friendly chat after learning of your
accident. Of course, if there is something to report, I wouldn't mind
hearing it. I presume, however, the processing is following the usual
routine."

"Not quite," said Baker slowly. "An increasing flood of applications is
coming in, and I'm finding it necessary to adopt new processing methods
to cope with the problem."

"I can understand that," said Wily. "And one of the things I have always
admired most about your office is your ability to prevent wastage of
funds by nonqualified people. Qualifications in the scientific world are
becoming tighter every day. You have no idea how difficult it is to get
people with adequate backgrounds today. Men of stature and authority
seem to be getting rarer all the time. At any rate, I'm sure we are
agreed that only the intellectual elite must be given access to these
funds of your Bureau, which are limited at best."

Baker continued to regard Wily across the desk for a long moment. Wily
was one of them, he thought. One of the most heavily infected of all.
Surround yourself with Authority. Fold it about you like a shell. Never
step beyond the boundaries set by Authority. This was George H. Wily,
President of Great Eastern University. This was a man stricken by the
Great Gray Plague.

"I need a report," said Baker. "For our new program of screening I need
a report of past performance under our grants. The last two years would
be sufficient, I think, from Great Eastern."

Wily was disturbed. He frowned and hesitated. "I'm sure we could supply
such a report," he said finally. "There's never been any question--"

"No question at all," said Baker. "I just need to tally up the
achievements made under recent grants. I shall also require some new
information for the Index. I'll send forms as soon as they're ready."

"We'll be more than glad to co-operate," said Wily. "It's just that
concrete achievement in a research program is sometimes hard to pin
point, you know. So many intangibles."

"I know," said Baker.

When Wily was gone, Baker continued sitting at his desk for a long time.
He wished fervently that he could talk with Sam Atkins for just five
minutes now. And he hoped Sam hadn't gotten too blistered by his mentors
when he returned home after fluffing the inquiry he was sent out on.

There was no chance, of course, that Baker would ever be able to talk
with Sam again. That one fortuitous encounter would have to do for a
lifetime. But Sam's great cryptic statement was slowly beginning to make
sense: When you cease to be fearful of Authority, you become Authority.

Neither Baker or Wily, or any of the members of Wily's lock-step staff
were Authority. Rather, they all gave obeisance to the intangible
Authority of Science, and stood together as self-appointed vicars of
that Authority, demanding penance for the slightest blasphemy against
it. And each one stood in living terror of such censure.

The same ghost haunted the halls of Government. The smallest civil
servant, in his meanest incivility, could invoke the same reverence for
that unseen mantle of Authority that rested, however falsely, on his
thin shoulders.

The ghost existed in but one place, the minds of the victims of the
Plague. William Baker had ceased to recognize or give obeisance to it.
He was beginning to understand the meaning of Sam Atkins' words.

He was quite sure the grants to Great Eastern were going to diminish
severely.

       *       *       *       *       *

Within six months, the output from Clearwater College was phenomenal.
The only string that Baker had attached to his grants was the provision
that the National Bureau of Scientific Development be granted the
privilege of announcing all new inventions, discoveries, and significant
reports. This worked to the advantage of both parties. It gave the
college the prestige of association in the press with the powerful
Government agency, and it gave Baker the association with a prominent
scientific discovery.

During the first month of operation under the grant, Fenwick appointed a
half dozen "uneducated" professors to his physical science staff. These
were located with Baker's help because they had previously applied to
NBSD for assistance.

The announcement of the developments of the projects of these men was a
kind of unearned windfall for both Baker and Fenwick because most of the
work had already been done in garages and basements. But no one objected
that it gave both Clearwater and NBSD a substantial boost in the public
consciousness.

During this period, Baker found three other small colleges of almost
equal caliber with Clearwater. He made substantial grants to all of them
and watched their staffs grow in number and quality of background that
would have shocked George Wily into apoplexy. Baker's announcements of
substantial scientific gains became the subject of weekly press
conferences.

And also, during this time, he lowered the ax on Great Eastern and two
other giants whose applications were pending. He cut them to twenty per
cent of what they were asking. A dozen of the largest industrial firms
were accorded similar treatment.

Through all this, Pehrson moved like a man in a nightmare. His first
impulse had been to resign. His second was to report the gross
mismanagement of NBSD to some appropriate congressman. Before he did
either of these things the reports began to come in from Clearwater and
other obscure points.

Pehrson was a man in whom allegiance was easily swayed. His loyalty was
only for the top man of any hierarchy, and he suddenly began to regard
Baker with an amazed incredulity. It seemed akin to witchcraft to be
able to pull out works of near genius from the dross material Baker had
been supporting with his grants. Pehrson wasn't quite sure how it had
been done although he had been present throughout the whole process. He
only knew that Baker had developed a kind of prescience that was nothing
short of miraculous, and from now on he was strictly a Baker man.

Baker was happy with this outcome. The problem of Pehrson had been a
bothersome one. Civil Service regulations forbade his displacement.
Baker had been undecided how to deal with him. With Pehrson's acceptance
of the new methods, the entire staff swung behind Baker, and the
previous grumblings and complaints finally ceased. He stood on top in
his own office, at least, Baker reflected.

George H. Wily was not happy, however. He waited two full days after
receiving the announcement of NBSD's grant for the coming year. He
consulted with his Board of Regents and then took a night plane down to
Washington to see Baker.

He was coldly formal as he entered Baker's office. Baker shook his hand
warmly and invited him to sit down.

"I was hoping you'd drop in again when you came to town," said Baker. "I
was sorry we had to ask you for so much new information, but I
appreciate your prompt response."

Wily's eyes were frosty. "Is that why you gave us only two hundred
thousand?" he asked.

Baker spread his hands. "I explained when you were here last that we
were getting a flood of applications. We have been forced to distribute
the money much more broadly than in other years. There is only so much
to go around, you know."

"There is just as much as you've ever had," snapped Wily. "I've checked
on your overall appropriation. And there is no increase in qualified
applicants. There is a decrease, if anything.

"I've done a little checking on the grants you've made, Baker. I'd like
to see you defend your appropriation for that miserable little school
called Clearwater College. I made a detailed study of their staff. They
haven't a single qualified man. Not one with a background any better
than that of your elevator operator!"

Baker looked up at the ceiling. "I remember an elevator man who became
quite a first rate scientist."

Wily glared, waiting for explanation, then snorted. "Oh, _him_--"

"Yes, _him_," said Baker.

"That doesn't explain your wasting of Government funds on such an
institution as Clearwater. It doesn't explain your grants to--"

"Let me show you what does explain my grants," said Baker. "I have what
I call the Index--with a capital I, you know--"

"I don't care anything about your explanations or your Index!" Wily
exclaimed. "I'm here to serve notice that I represent the nation's
interest as well as that of Great Eastern. And I am not going to stand
by silently while you mismanage these sacred funds the way you have
chosen to do in recent months. I don't know what's happened to you,
Baker. You were never guilty of such mistakes before. But unless you can
assure me that the full normal grant can be restored to Great Eastern,
I'm going to see that your office is turned inside out by the Senate
Committee on Scientific Development, and that you, personally, are
thrown out."

Wily glared and breathed heavily after his speech. He sat waiting for
Baker's answer.

Baker gave it when Wily had stopped panting and turned to drumming his
fingers on the desk. "Unless your record of achievement is better this
year than it has been in recent years, Great Eastern may not get any
allotment at all next year," he said quietly.

Wily shaded toward deep red, verging on purple, as he rose. "You'll
regret this, Baker! This office belongs to American Science. I refuse to
see it desecrated by your gross mismanagement! Good day!"

[Illustration]

Baker smiled grimly as Wily stormed out. Then he picked up the phone and
asked Doris to get Fenwick at Clearwater. When Fenwick finally came on,
Baker said, "Wily was just here. I expected he would be the one. This is
going to be it. Send me everything you've got for release. We're going
to find out how right Sam Atkins was!"

He called the other maverick schools he'd given grants, and the penny
ante commercial organizations he'd set on their feet. He gave them the
same message.

It wasn't going to be easy or pleasant, he reflected. The biggest guns
of Scientific Authority would be trained on him before this was over.

       *       *       *       *       *

Drew Pearson had the word even before it reached Baker. Baker read it at
breakfast a week after Wily's visit. The columnist said, "The next big
spending agency to come under the fire of Congressional Investigation is
none other than the high-echelon National Bureau of Scientific
Development. Dr. William Baker, head of the Agency, has been accused of
indiscriminate spending policies wholly unrelated to the national
interest. The accusers are a group of elite universities and top
manufacturing organizations that have benefited greatly from Baker's
handouts in years past. This year, Baker is accused of giving upwards of
five million dollars to crackpot groups and individuals who have no
standing in the scientific community whatever.

"If these charges are true, it is difficult to see what Dr. Baker is up
to. For many years he has had an enviable record as a tight-fisted,
hard-headed administrator of these important funds. Congress intends to
find out what's going on. The watchdog committee of Senator Landrus is
expected to call an investigation early next week."

Baker was notified that same afternoon.

       *       *       *       *       *

Senator Landrus was a big, florid man, who moved about a committee
hearing chamber with the ponderous smoothness of a luxury liner. He was
never visited by a single doubt about the rightness of his chosen
course--no matter how erratic it might appear to an onlooker. His faith
in his established legislative procedures and in the established tenets
of Science was complete. Since he wore the shield of both camps, his
confidence in the path of Senator Robert Landrus was also unmarred by
questions.

Baker had faced him many times, but always as an ally. Now, recognizing
him as the enemy, Baker felt some small qualms, not because he feared
Landrus, but because so much was at stake in this hearing. So much
depended on his ability to guide the whims and uncertainties of this
mammoth vessel of Authority.

There was an unusual amount of press interest in what might have seemed
a routine and unspectacular hearing. No one could recall a previous
occasion when the recipients had challenged a Government handout agency
regarding the size of the handouts. While Landrus made his opening
statement several of the reporters fiddled with the idea of a headline
that said something about biting the hand that feeds. It wouldn't quite
come off.

Wily was invited to make his statement next, which he did with icy
reserve, never once looking in Baker's direction. He was followed by two
other university presidents and a string of laboratory directors. The
essence of their remarks was that Russia was going to beat the pants off
American researchers, and it was all Baker's fault.

This recital took up all of the morning and half the afternoon of the
first day. A dozen or so corporation executives were next on the docket
with complaints that their vast facilities were being hamstrung by
Baker's sudden switch of R & D funds to less qualified agents. Baker
observed that the ones complaining were some of those who had never
spent a nickel on genuine research until the Government began buying it.
He knew that Landrus had not observed this fact. It would have to be
called to the senator's attention.

By the end of the day, Landrus looked grave. It was obvious that he
could see nothing but villainy in Baker's recent performance. It had
been explained to him in careful detail by some of the most powerful men
in the nation. Baker was certainly guilty of criminal negligence, if not
more, in derailing these funds which Congress had intended should go to
the support of the nation's scientific leaders. Landrus felt a weary
depression. He hadn't really believed it would turn out this bad for
Baker, for whom he had had a considerable regard in times past.

"You have heard the testimony of these witnesses," Landrus said to
Baker. "Do you wish to reply or make a statement of your own, Dr.
Baker?"

"I most certainly do!" said Baker.

Landrus didn't see what was left for Baker to say. "Testimony will
resume tomorrow at nine a.m.," he said. "Dr. Baker will present his
statement at that time."

       *       *       *       *       *

The press thought it looked bad for Baker, too. Some papers accused him
openly of attempting to sabotage the nation's research program. Wily and
his fellows, and Landrus, were commended for catching this defection
before it progressed any further.

Baker was well aware he was in a tight spot, and one which he had
deliberately created. But as far as he could see, it was the only chance
of utilizing the gift that Sam Atkins had left him. He felt confident he
had a fighting chance.

His battery of supporters had not even been noticed in the glare of
Wily's brilliant assembly, but Fenwick was there, and Ellerbee.
Fenwick's fair-haired boy, George, and a half dozen of his new recruits
were there. Also present were the heads of the other maverick schools
like Clearwater, and the presidents--some of whom doubled as
janitors--of the minor corporations Baker had sponsored.

Baker took the stand the following morning, armed with his charts and
displays. He looked completely confident as he addressed Landrus and the
assembly.

"Gentlemen--and ladies--" he said. "The corner grocery store was one of
America's most familiar and best loved institutions a generation or two
ago. In spite of this, it went out of business because we refused to
support it. May I ask why we refused to continue to support the corner
grocery?

"The answer is obvious. We began to find better bargains elsewhere, in
the supermarket. As much as we regret the passing of the oldtime grocer
I'm sure that none of us would seriously suggest we bring him back.

"For the same reason I suggest that the time may have come to reconsider
the bargains we have been getting in scientific developments and
inventions. Americans have always taken pride in driving a good, hard,
fair bargain. I see no reason why we should not do the same when we go
into the open market to buy ideas.

"Some months ago I began giving fresh consideration to the product we
were buying with the millions of dollars in grants made by NBSD. It was
obvious that we were buying an impressive collection of shiny, glass and
metal laboratories. We were buying giant pieces of laboratory equipment
and monstrous machines of other kinds. We were getting endless
quantities of fat reports--they fill thousands of miles of microfilm.

"Then I discovered an old picture of what I am sure all unbiased
scientists will recognize as the world's greatest laboratory--greatest
in terms of measurable output. I brought this picture with me."

Baker unrolled the first of his exhibits, a large photographic blowup.
The single, whitehaired figure seated at a desk was instantly
recognized. Wily and his group glanced at the picture and glared at
Baker.

"You recognize Dr. Einstein, of course," said Baker. "This is a
photograph of him at work in his laboratory at the Institute for
Advanced Study at Princeton."

"We are all familiar with the appearance of the great Dr. Einstein,"
said Landrus. "But you are not showing us anything of his laboratory, as
you claimed."

"Ah, but I am!" said Baker. "This is all the laboratory Dr. Einstein
ever had. A desk, a chair, some writing paper. You will note that even
the bookshelves behind him are bare except for a can of tobacco. The
greatest laboratory in the world, a place for a man's mind to work in
peace. Nuclear science began here."

Wily jumped to his feet. "This is absurd! No one denies the greatness of
Dr. Einstein's work, but where would he have been without billions of
dollars spent at Oak Ridge, Hanford, Los Alamos, and other great
laboratories. To say that Dr. Einstein did not use laboratory facilities
does not imply that vast expenditures for laboratories are not
necessary!"

"I should like to reverse your question, Dr. Wily, and then let it
rest," said Baker. "What would Oak Ridge, Hanford, and Los Alamos have
done without Dr. Einstein?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Senator Landrus floated up from his chair and raised his hands. "Let us
be orderly, gentlemen. Dr. Baker has the floor. I should not like to
have him interrupted again, please."

Baker nodded his thanks to the senator. "It has been charged," Baker
continued, "that the methods of NBSD in granting funds for research have
changed in recent times. This is entirely correct, and I should first
like to show the results of this change."

He unrolled a chart and pinned it to the board behind him. "This chart
shows what we have been paying and what we have been getting. The black
line on the upper half of the chart shows the number of millions of
dollars spent during the past five years. Our budget has had a
moderately steady rise. The green line shows the value of laboratories
constructed and equipment purchased. The red line shows the measure of
new concepts developed by the scientists in these laboratories, the
improvement on old concepts, and the invention of devices that are
fundamentally new in purpose or function."

The gallery leaned forward to stare at the chart. From press row came
the popping of flash cameras. Then a surge of spontaneous comment rolled
through the chamber as the audience observed the sharp rise of the red
line during the last six months, and the dropping of the green line.

Wily was on his feet again. "An imbecile should be able to see that the
trend of the red line is the direct result of the previous satisfactory
expenditures for facilities. One follows the other!"

Landrus banged for order.

"That's a very interesting point," said Baker. "I have another chart
here"--he unrolled and pinned it--"that shows the output in terms of
concepts and inventions, plotted against the size of the grants given to
the institution."

The curve went almost straight downhill.

Wily was screaming. "Such data are absolutely meaningless! Who can say
what constitutes a new idea, a new invention? The months of
groundwork--"

"It will be necessary to remove any further demonstrators from the
hearing room," said Landrus. "This will be an orderly hearing if I have
to evict everyone but Dr. Baker and myself. Please continue, doctor."

"I am quite willing for my figures and premises to be examined in all
detail," said Baker. "I will be glad to supply the necessary information
to anyone who desires it at the close of this session. In the meantime,
I should like to present a picture of the means which we have devised to
determine whether a grant should be made to any given applicant.

"I am sure you will agree, Senator Landrus and Committee members, that
it would be criminal to make such choices on any but the most scientific
basis. For this reason, we have chosen to eliminate all elements of
bias, chance, or outright error. We have developed a highly advanced
scientific tool which we know simply as The Index."

       *       *       *       *       *

Baker posted another long chart on the wall, speaking as he went. "This
chart represents the index of an institution which shall remain
anonymous as Sample A. However, I would direct Dr. Wily's close
attention to this exhibit. The black median line indicates the boundary
of characteristics which have been determined as acceptable or
nonacceptable for grants. The colored areas on either side of the median
line show strength of the various factors represented in any one
institution. The Index is very simple. All that is required is that
fifty per cent of the area above the line be colored in order to be
eligible for a grant. You will note that in the case of Sample A the
requirement is not met."

Fenwick couldn't believe his eyes. The chart was almost like the first
one he had ever seen, the one prepared for Clearwater College months
ago. He hadn't even known that Baker was still using the idiotic Index.
Something was wrong, he told himself--all wrong.

"The Index is a composite," Baker was saying; "the final resultant of
many individual charts, and it is the individual charts that will show
you the factors which are measured. These factors are determined by an
analysis of information supplied directly by the institution.

"The first of these factors is admissions. For a college, it is
admission as a student. For a corporation, it is admission as an
employee. In each case we present the qualifications of the following at
college age: Thomas Edison, Michael Faraday, Nicholai Tesla, James Watt,
Heinrich Hertz, Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, and Henry Ford. The
admissibility of this group of the world's scientific and the inventive
leaders is shown here." Baker pointed to a minute dab of red on the
chart.

"Gentlemen of the Committee," he said, "would you advise me to support
with a million-dollar grant an institution that would close its doors to
minds like those of Edison and Faraday?"

The roar of surf seemed to fill the committee room as Landrus banged in
vain on the table. Photographers' flashes lit the scene with spurts of
lightning. Wily was on his feet screaming, and Baker thought he heard
the word, "Fraud!" repeated numerous times. Landrus was finally heard,
"The room will be cleared at the next outburst!"

Baker wondered if he ever did carry out such a threat.

But Wily prevailed. "No such question was ever asked," he cried. "My
organization was never asked the ridiculous question of whether or not
it would admit these men. Of course we would admit them if they were
known to us!"

"I should like to answer the gentleman's objection," Baker said to
Landrus.

The senator nodded reluctantly.

"We did not, of course, present these men by name. That would have been
too obvious. We presented them in terms of their qualifications at the
age of college entrance. You see how many would have been turned down.
How many, therefore, who are the intellectual equals of these men are
also being turned down? Dr. Wily says they would be admitted if they
were known. But of course they could not be known at the start of their
careers!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Baker turned the chart and quickly substituted another. "The second
standard is that of creativeness. We simply asked the applicants to
describe ten or more new ideas of speculations entertained by each
member of the staff during the past year. When we received this
information, we did not even read the descriptions; we merely plotted
the degree of response. As you see, the institution represented by
Sample A does not consider itself long on speculative ideas."

A titter rippled through the audience. Baker saw Wily poised, beet-red,
to spring up once more; then apparently he thought better of it and
slumped in his seat.

"Is this a fair test?" Baker asked rhetorically. "I submit that it is.
An institution that is in the business of fostering creativeness ought
to be guilty of a few new ideas once in a while!"

He changed charts once more and faced the listeners. "We have more than
twenty such factors that go into the composition of the Index. I will
not weary you with a recital of all of them, but I will present just one
more. We call this the area of communication, and it is plotted here for
Sample institution A."

Again, a dismal red smudge showed up at the bottom of the sheet. Fenwick
could hardly keep from chuckling aloud as he recalled the first time he
had seen such a chart. He hoped Baker was putting it over. If the
reaction of the gallery were any indication, he was doing so.

"A major activity of scientists in all ages has been writing reports of
their activities. If a man creates something new and talks only to
himself about it, the value of the man and his discovery to the world is
a big round zero. If a man creates something new and tells the whole
world about it, the value is at a maximum. Somewhere in between these
extremes lies the communicative activity of the modern scientist.

"There was a time when the scientist was the most literate of men, and
the writing of a scientific report was a work of literary art. The
lectures of Michael Faraday, Darwin's account of his great
research--these are literate reading still.

"There are few such men among us today. The modern scientists seldom
speak to you and me, but only to each other. To the extent their circle
of communication is limited, so is their value. Shall we support the man
who speaks to the world, or the man who speaks only in order to hear his
own echo?"

He had them now, Fenwick was convinced. He could quit any time and be
ahead. The gallery was smiling approval. The press was nodding and
whispering to each other. The senators wouldn't be human if they weren't
moved.

Baker swept aside all these charts now and placed another series before
the audience. "This is the Index on an institution to whom we have given
a sizable grant," he said. "Is there anyone here who would question our
decision?

"This institution would have accepted every one of the list of
scientists I gave you a moment ago. They would have had their chance
here. This institution has men in whom new ideas pop up like cherry
blossoms in the spring. I don't know how many of them are good ideas. No
one can tell at this stage, but, at least, these men are
_thinking_--which is a basic requirement for producing scientific
discovery.

"Finally, this institution is staffed by men who can't be shut up. They
don't communicate merely with each other. They talk about their ideas to
anyone who comes along. They write articles for little publications and
for big ones. They are in the home mechanics' journals and on
publishers' book lists.

"Most important of all, these are some of the men responsible for the
red line on the first curve I showed you. These are the men who have
produced the most new developments and inventions with the least amount
of money.

"I leave it to you, gentlemen. Has the National Bureau of Scientific
Development chosen correctly, or should we return to our former course?"

There were cheers and applause as Baker sat down. Landrus closed the
hearing with the announcement that the evidence would be examined at
length and a report issued. Wily hurried forward to buttonhole him as
the crowd filed out.

       *       *       *       *       *

"It was a good show," Fenwick said, "but I'm still puzzled by what
you've done. This new Index is really just about as phony as your old
one."

They were seated in Baker's office once more. Baker smiled and glanced
through the window beyond Fenwick. "I suppose so," Baker admitted
finally, "but do you think Wily will be able to convince Landrus and his
committee of that no matter how big a dinner he buys him tonight?"

"No--I don't think he will."

"Then we've accomplished our purpose. Besides, there's a good deal of
truth buried in the Index. It's no lie that we can give them scientific
research at a cheaper price than ever before."

"But what was the purpose you were trying to accomplish?"

Baker hesitated. "To establish myself as an Authority," he said,
finally. "After today, I will be the recognized Authority on how to
manage the nation's greatest research and development program."

Fenwick stared, then gasped. "Authority--you? This is the thing you were
trying to fight. This is the great Plague Sam Atkins taught you--"

Baker was shaking his head and laughing. "No. Sam Atkins didn't tell me
that one man could become immune and fight the Plague head on all by
himself. He taught me something else that I didn't understand for a long
time. He told me that he who ceases to fear Authority becomes Authority.

"To become Authority was the last thing in the world I wanted. But
finally I recognized what Sam meant; it was the only way I could ever
accomplish anything in the face of this Plague. You can't tell men of
this culture that it is wrong to put themselves in total agreement with
Authority. If that's the program on which they've chosen to function,
the destruction of the program would destroy them, just as it did me.
There had to be another way.

"If men are afraid of lions, you don't teach them it's wrong for men to
be afraid of beasts; you teach them how to trap lions.

"If men are afraid of new knowledge-experiences, you don't teach them
that new knowledge is not to be feared. There was a time when men got
burned at the stake for such efforts. The response today is not entirely
different. No--when men are afraid of knowledge you teach them to trap
knowledge, just as you might teach them to trap lions.

"I can do this now because I have shown them that I am an Authority. I
can lead them and it will not fracture their basic program tapes, which
instruct them to be in accord with Authority. I can stop their battle
against those who are not possessed of the Plague. It may even be that I
can change the course of the Plague. Who knows?"

Fenwick was silent for a long time. Then he spoke again. "I read
somewhere about a caterpillar that's called the Processionary
Caterpillar. Several of them hook up, nose to fanny, and travel through
a forest wherever the whims of the front caterpillar take them.

"A naturalist once took a train of Processionary Caterpillars and placed
them on the rim of a flower pot in a continuous chain. They marched for
days around the flower pot, each one supposing the caterpillar in front
of him knew where he was going. Each was the Authority to the one
behind. Food and water were placed nearby, but the caterpillars
continued marching until they dropped off from exhaustion."

Baker frowned. "And what's that got to do with--?"

"You," said Fenwick. "You just led the way down off the flower pot. You
just got promoted to head caterpillar."





End of Project Gutenberg's The Great Gray Plague, by Raymond F. Jones