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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ca1240c --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #51740 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51740) diff --git a/old/51740-h.zip b/old/51740-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 016d1d1..0000000 --- a/old/51740-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/51740-h/51740-h.htm b/old/51740-h/51740-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 957099f..0000000 --- a/old/51740-h/51740-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1835 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Don't Look Now, by Leonard Rubin. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -.caption {font-weight: bold;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - -.ph1, .ph2, .ph3, .ph4 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; } -.ph1 { font-size: xx-large; margin: .67em auto; } -.ph2 { font-size: x-large; margin: .75em auto; } -.ph3 { font-size: large; margin: .83em auto; } -.ph4 { font-size: medium; margin: 1.12em auto; } - - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Don't Look Now, by Leonard Rubin - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Don't Look Now - -Author: Leonard Rubin - -Release Date: April 12, 2016 [EBook #51740] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DON'T LOOK NOW *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="403" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<h1>Don't Look Now</h1> - -<p>BY LEONARD RUBIN</p> - -<p>Illustrated by WOOD</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Galaxy Magazine April 1960.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph3"><i>The Royalty Party wasn't what you would<br /> -imagine—it stood for a great deal, but<br /> -there was as much it wanted no part of!</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>"You're not allowed in the ambulance," Miss Knox said.</p> - -<p>They were both typical advertising men, down to the motorskates -strapped beneath their shoes. Their faces were so utterly undistinctive -as to seem fuzzy. Each carried a large flat briefcase with a coil -antenna sticking out.</p> - -<p>"Watch it!" the attendant growled, and they skated aside with a whir.</p> - -<p>Big Carl came driving up the ramp, ducked his head to enter, and -brought the bed to a stop in the belly of the ambulance. Miss Knox -pressed the button and the door closed in the admen's faces.</p> - -<p>When Mr. Barger was lowered from the hovering ambulance, his swollen, -tearful eyes were sun-blind. Square hands clenched over and over with -pain. Above the rotors' <i>rackety-rackety-rack</i>, Miss Knox shouted -soothing things. She didn't wait for an answer. He was the worst -case of laryngitis she had ever known—the only case, really, in her -professional experience. Abolished diseases always came back virulently.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus1.jpg" width="600" height="492" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>She and the bed sank between white hospital walls and landed in the -room with a bump. The waiting attendant walked around the platform, -folding the safety gates. He unhooked the four support cables, each -vanishing out of his grasp like spaghetti slurped from a plate.</p> - -<p>Just as the ceiling closed overhead, cutting off sight and sound of the -whirlybird against the sun, Brooks, the radiologist, came in through -the door, shepherding an entire class of medical students. Then two -nurses seemed to clear an inoffensive path through the chemically -tainted air of the corridor—and after them came Dr. Gesner, the -greatest throat man in the country. Miss Knox knew him from his -portrait in the Mushroom.</p> - -<p>Brooks winked her an "At ease!" with a shaggy eyebrow and followed -the fat man through the crowd. Dr. Gesner went to the bed and sat -down. He was Barger's weight, with the same sort of elephantine bones, -but he was almost two feet shorter. He stared at the nose and cheeks -protruding from the bedclothes, and opened a fat black bag.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>A bell rang three times in the corridor. Five interns scurried into the -room and stopped still, watching Dr. Gesner as though he were a golden -calf. On each side of the doorway stood a student nurse at attention.</p> - -<p>Mr. Barger stopped twitching and opened one eye wide. His chin lifted, -and his other chins came out from under the sheet's folded edge.</p> - -<p>One of Dr. Gesner's hands felt through the black bag. It emerged -dragging a mutape by one wire. Brooks leaned forward and took out the -rest of the apparatus. Shaking the hair off his forehead, he plugged -into the bedside computer relay and placed the rubber-rimmed cup -against the patient's skull, just over the Broca convolution.</p> - -<p>Mr. Barger remained staring at the doctor through a gray film. The -mutape chattered rapidly. Miss Knox craned her neck, deciphering the -punched tape as it unrolled from the recorder in Brooks' hands. Sweat -popped out on Mr. Barger's forehead.</p> - -<p>"Help me, damn it," read Mr. Barger's tape. "I know you. You abolished -laryngitis; why should it come to me now? I have a right to stop misuse -of my work and to be free from pain—my patent is vital—free from -pain. I want to be free...." His face turned pink in a new contortion -and the hands folded over.</p> - -<p>"Yes," Dr. Gesner said as the chatter stopped. "I know it hurts." He -smiled gently in the middle of his face. He was writing on an index -card, but his main effort was devoted to getting up from the bed with -the help of two internes. "It will hurt this badly for twenty-four -hours. Then the injection will have the upper hand." He turned to -Brooks. "Please pass the tape around, Doctor. If any students haven't -seen the X-rays yet, they're in my file."</p> - -<p>Mr. Barger's face grayed a little; the sweat had turned to patches of -crust against his skin. Dipping cotton in alcohol, Miss Knox bathed his -forehead.</p> - -<p>"That's all," said Dr. Gesner, handing her the card as the students -began to vanish.</p> - -<p>She stalked after him. "No examination, Doctor?" she asked, ignoring -Brooks' horrified expression.</p> - -<p>"Unnecessary, Nurse." He backed away from her and the door slid open. -"I've already seen the X-rays and charts you phoned from the ambulance. -And the patient cannot open his mouth. His intravenous menu is all -here...."</p> - -<p>"Yes, Doctor."</p> - -<p>Three bells sounded in the corridor. "Calling Dr. Gesner. Emergency. -Please come to the telephone. Emergency. Calling Dr. Gesner...."</p> - -<p>He rolled his eyes at the index card in her hand. "You yourself are to -take the shots prescribed for you, to prevent your catching or carrying -the disease. In that bed, but for the grace of God...." He was crying -softly.</p> - -<p>"Doctor!" said Brooks, and the internes and nurses gasped.</p> - -<p>"After all," said Dr. Gesner, "I <i>did</i> abolish laryngitis."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Miss Knox walked back up the drive and struck a cigarette on one of the -stone lions. It glowed in the dark, but the river breeze blew it out -before she could draw. She snorted in annoyance.</p> - -<p>Miss Erwin looked up sharply.</p> - -<p>"Is there <i>anywhere</i> where you can still buy matches?" asked Miss Knox.</p> - -<p>"Not in New York City. Why?"</p> - -<p>"We used to just try again when a cigarette didn't light. Now we have -to throw it away."</p> - -<p>"Of course," said Miss Erwin. "That's how they train us to be right the -first time."</p> - -<p>"Ridiculous. That's how they sell more cigarettes."</p> - -<p>"Why, <i>Miss Knox</i>! You sound like Royalty!"</p> - -<p>Miss Knox laughed. "I'm not ready to join the British Commonwealth yet. -No fooling, Hilda, you see the Silvertongue cigarette factory across -the river?"</p> - -<p>Miss Erwin twisted white-gloved hands in the dark. "Why, no ... mmm, -smell that spray." An ocean-breathing tugboat passed, its complicated -silhouette blocking the view. "No-oooooo," the whistle blew.</p> - -<p>"Just wait till that tug is gone. There, Miss Erwin. Do you see the -Silvertongue factory? Just before the Williamsburg Bridge."</p> - -<p>"Is it the one with the new radio—the radio-thing on top?"</p> - -<p>"Radiocompressor. Yes."</p> - -<p>"They used to put <i>names</i> on those factories. All lit up."</p> - -<p>"Well, ladies—ladies," said a gravel voice beyond the entrance lights. -"How is life in the Toadstool?"</p> - -<p>"Boney!" said Miss Knox.</p> - -<p>"The what?" asked Miss Erwin.</p> - -<p>"That's what Dr. Brooks called it. Now you tell me what he meant—he -wouldn't say. Toadstool."</p> - -<p>"Come into the light, Boney—you frighten us," said Miss Erwin.</p> - -<p>The man appeared, smiling, and climbed the first stone step. Resting -his elbows on the lion and his chin in his hand, he looked down on them -sideways.</p> - -<p>"Not <i>another</i> new suit," said Miss Knox.</p> - -<p>It was an archaic double-breasted suit in good condition. Where the -jacket hiked up in back, a wide expanse of extra trouser seat had been -folded over and tucked beneath the belt.</p> - -<p>"Hundred-fifty-dollar suit," he said.</p> - -<p>"With or without the bottle?" asked Miss Knox.</p> - -<p>"What bottle?"</p> - -<p>"The one that bangs on your ribs when the breeze blows."</p> - -<p>"Now listen here, lady...." He came down the step.</p> - -<p>"Boney, I'm only kidding. You know that."</p> - -<p>"Kidding. <i>Kidding.</i> And here I was giving you inside information. -<i>Inside</i> information."</p> - -<p>"What information?"</p> - -<p>Bringing his drawn face so close that they could smell the wine, he -gave both women a look of scorn. Then he backed away and leaned his -padded shoulder against the lion.</p> - -<p>"Boney, she's sorry," said Miss Erwin.</p> - -<p>"I am not," said Miss Knox.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He glowered at her and walked away into the dark, his spider legs -dissolving sooner than expected. Then he marched back.</p> - -<p>"Sorry," he said. "Ha. I won't tell you. I'm going to tell it to the -Director himself."</p> - -<p>"Forget it, Boney. He'd throw you out again. You'd better just tell us."</p> - -<p>His skeleton hand stretched toward the water. "You see that radio -presser?"</p> - -<p>"You mean the new radiocompressor on the Silvertongue factory?"</p> - -<p>"<i>Radio</i>compressor. All right. Do you ladies know what it does?"</p> - -<p>"Anything," Miss Knox said. "Our patient, Mr. Barger, builds them. He -told us all about it the moment he came. In Greek."</p> - -<p>"Not—not <i>all</i> about it. <i>I</i> know all about it. I had a big deal -going—my Armenian partner and me, we were buying up neckties to sell -in the hospital...."</p> - -<p>"<i>What</i> do you know? And will you <i>stop</i> blowing in my face?"</p> - -<p>He glowered.</p> - -<p>"I'm sorry, Boney."</p> - -<p>"Radiocompressors can do things—any things—without touching. Like -rolling cigarettes or chopping up tobacco. The radio waves are so small -they—push things." He pushed the air with his left hand. "Not just go -through them." He wiggled the brittle fingers of his right.</p> - -<p>"Everyone knows that," said Miss Knox. "What you mean is that the -supra-short wave has an intense direct effect on matter. It was in all -the papers."</p> - -<p>"Oh, is that so? Is <i>that</i> so? Well, you listen to me. <i>This</i> isn't in -all the papers."</p> - -<p>"All right, go on." Miss Knox struck a cigarette, which blew out. She -threw it down and succeeded in lighting another.</p> - -<p>"You can fool people, also, with the same radio waves," said Boney.</p> - -<p>"You mean hide behind the door with a wave compressor and push chairs -around? Like that?"</p> - -<p>"Don't be silly. Nothing like <i>that</i>. Dr. Brooks told me today, when I -was sweeping his <i>private</i> lab in the Toadstool, he told me they make -one kind where if you put it on a table, say, no one can see what else -is there. You could put—a cat on the table, and anyone would think it -was just a table with a radio presser. Until the cat jumped off. Then -you could see it."</p> - -<p>"Can it jump off?" asked Miss Knox.</p> - -<p>"Can it jump off? Did you ever see a cat that couldn't jump? And that's -not all—"</p> - -<p>"Quite a trick," she said.</p> - -<p>"No trick. You could rule the world with that, ladies. Think about it. -Rule the world. Got a cigarette? After all, I always get you coffee."</p> - -<p>She handed him one.</p> - -<p>Miss Erwin stared across the river. "I hope it isn't a new kind of -bomb," she said.</p> - -<p>Boney pulled out a stick match and struck it on the stone lion. Cupping -his hands around the flame, he lit up and walked away.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"But, Dr. Brooks, when you tell Boney things like that," said Miss -Knox, "he believes them, and he quotes you like mad. Don't you care -about your reputation at all?"</p> - -<p>"My dear woman," Dr. Brooks replied, "I've been interested in many -things in my years, but getting my portrait in the Mushroom has never -been one of them—"</p> - -<p>Mr. Barger's legs spasmed suddenly and shot straight out, jerking the -covers from his fat-layered neck. But the pink shut eyelids hadn't -quivered.</p> - -<p>"—and, anyway, Boney is right," Dr. Brooks finished. "Why do you think -the Royalties want government control of the whole invention?"</p> - -<p>Miss Knox was tucking the covers around his warm, sticky jowls. "But he -said you said—"</p> - -<p>"I said she said we said." Brooks grabbed her chin between his thumb -and forefinger. "Did you know that machine on the Silvertongue roof -could get at us inside our own homes?"</p> - -<p>She shook her head, swinging his arm from side to side.</p> - -<p>"If you know nothing about it, girlie, let me explain." He squeezed -her chin tighter. "You saw those two men from the Christian E. Lodge -Corporation—Silvertongue, that is—who came this afternoon to see -Barger? The ones on motorskates?"</p> - -<p>"They shouldn't allow those buzzing things in the hospital. They -make more noise than a whirlybird." She backed away, tugging at the -white-coated arm until her chin was released. "I mean I saw them -yesterday. They tried to get in the bird. I don't know why <i>they</i> visit -him—he can't say a word. Doesn't he have a family?"</p> - -<p>"No, but the Silvertongue men love him like a brother. Barger designed -their radiocompressor—the one in all the newspapers. Here, you can see -it from the window if you—"</p> - -<p>"I know, Dr. Brooks."</p> - -<p>"Do you know what that machine can really do, girlie?"</p> - -<p>"When I was your age—" Miss Knox began.</p> - -<p>"You are. I just <i>look</i> young. That machine can cure and shred tobacco -with supra-short waves on a polished magnesium bowl, just the way -the papers say, but they have cheaper ways to process their tobacco. -They really use the machine for guided tours of the factory. Public -relations."</p> - -<p>"You mean float visitors through the air?"</p> - -<p>"No. You'd need the power of ten maritime atomic piles in series just -to lift Dr. Gesner to the height of—"</p> - -<p>"Very funny!"</p> - -<p>"—his own square root. What they can do with that machine is to -disguise an object—say the incoming leaf tobacco. They can make it -look firm, golden, and so forth. The girls at the sorting tables, -wherever the guided tour happens to be, will all look like Norma -Norden. They'll be dressed as angels and work in heaven. Then the -V.I.P.s can tour the girls' homes and dormitories, and instead of a -dirty slum, they'll see—they'll see <i>mushrooms</i>, if they like."</p> - -<p>"How is it done?"</p> - -<p>"Only Barger Electronics really knows," said Dr. Brooks, "and the -Christian E. Lodge engineers. It's something to do with compressing the -wave length to approximate that of light, so that images are canceled -out. This leaves a clear field for subliminal techniques. If there are -subvisual images projected on the walls, for instance, that's what the -observers will see inside the room."</p> - -<p>"Oh, my God!" exclaimed Miss Knox.</p> - -<p>"The only other thing I know is that it has to be done with -intersecting spheres. The machine has two portable secondary -transmitters—or projectors, or whatever they call them—each emitting -in all directions to form a wave-sphere. Where the two spheres overlap, -you get your possible interference with light."</p> - -<p>"Frankly, I just don't understand it."</p> - -<p>"Any radio waves go out in all directions to form spheres." His voice -had become a mutter. "You know that."</p> - -<p>"No, I didn't."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He gave a false sigh. "Well, take an ordinary weak phone transmitter -very high up in a whirlybird. That's the simplest case. You know what -sound a whirlybird makes, don't you?"</p> - -<p>"Of course," said Miss Knox.</p> - -<p>"What?" Dr. Brooks challenged, moving at her. "How does it sound?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, clatter-clatter chug-chug," she said, moving back.</p> - -<p>"No. Listen closely and you'll hear any whirlybird—especially hospital -ambulances—go <i>rackety-rackety-rack groundhog</i>, <i>rackety-rack -groundhog</i>!—a reminder to people that they belong on the ground, one -may assume. Picture a microphone attached outside the bird and wired to -your transmitter. The radio waves go out in all directions through the -air. Suppose your air is all of the same density, and so forth—then -all the waves peter out at a constant radius and form a perfect sphere -going <i>rackety-rackety-rack groundhog</i>!</p> - -<p>"Now compressed waves travel a certain number of feet—theoretically, -the number of foot-pounds of work the power input could perform -modified by a constant value called 'e'—and at that point they -revert to ordinary radio waves. This forms a sphere of compressed or -supra-short waves. Do you understand that?"</p> - -<p>"No," said Miss Knox.</p> - -<p>"Well, anyway, where two spheres overlap, you get the Barger effect. -And they can vary or limit the effect in interesting ways. Just move -one or both projectors so that the waves intersect each other in -different phases—"</p> - -<p>"That's a fascinating way to back me into a corner of the room, Dr. -Brooks. Now will you please let me look at my patient?"</p> - -<p>Mr. Barger's body convulsed and twitched, and the disordered bedclothes -exposed the pink, swollen layers of his throat. Only the face slept. -Miss Knox reduced the feed on the water envelope, and with her palm -brushed drops of moisture from the burning, out-of-focus pink skin. The -drops were sticky and warm. She wiped her hands on a piece of cotton -and started to prepare the blood transfusion.</p> - -<p>"Before you get out of here," she said to Dr. Brooks, "let me thank -you."</p> - -<p>"For the information? You'll only forget it."</p> - -<p>"No, for the crack about my age."</p> - -<p>Slumping his eyebrows, he went to the door and stepped through almost -before it could slide open.</p> - -<p>"Wait!" she commanded in a stage whisper.</p> - -<p>He appeared, the door sliding back harmlessly against his shoulder -before it changed direction.</p> - -<p>"What's so terrible?" she asked. "You talk as though that -radiocompressor on the Silvertongue roof were going to destroy the -American home, at the very least."</p> - -<p>"They don't just have to transmit within the factory," he said. -"Suppose they wanted you arrested. Say they didn't like brunettes. -Well, first they get some dame to call police and say she's going to -do a strip in front of the Psychiatric Pavilion wall. Then they go -across First Avenue and set up a subliminal movie sequence of some -stripper in action and focus it on the wall from their car. They set up -two portable wave projectors and adjust their phasing to achieve the -Barger effect in that one place. Then they wait for you to pass that -spot on your way to church. Very little power is required; the actual -radiocompression takes place across the river."</p> - -<p>Brooks raised his pants from the knees and minced across the room, -exposing curly hair above his fallen argylls. His white coat twitched -from side to side. "Now here you come. A man watching the street from -the broken stool at the Green Gables twists one of his cufflinks, or -maybe he just whistles. This starts the projectors and you become -invisible, or very blurry, while the subliminal film gives the cops -what they want. Then the whole thing shuts off and the cops can see -<i>you</i> again. You're hustled off to jail and they keep you there—along -with other enemies—by making a similar visual 'fix' on the results in -some polling place and putting in their own judge!"</p> - -<p>"Oh, they'll probably just use it for advertising."</p> - -<p>"Sure," said Brooks. "How would you like it if you were watching -television with your roommate, and all of a sudden she turned into a -giant pack of Silvertongue cigarettes?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Water dripped on her palm, leaving a red stain. A ringing, ringing, and -the whir of motorskates receded down the corridor. It rang and rang, -her hand sticky and warm against her cheek. It rang.</p> - -<p>The telephone. Trying to recapture something she had known, she -let groping fingers stretch toward the instrument. They descended, -clenched, lifted. The ringing stopped.</p> - -<p>She forced her eyes open far enough to see her white arm return. -Hunching up around her pillow with the receiver, she croaked, "Hello."</p> - -<p>"Miss Knox?" A high voice. "Boney—it's Boney—"</p> - -<p>"You have a nerve, Boney, to wake me up at this hour."</p> - -<p>"This isn't Boney—it's Hilda Erwin. I'm on emergency duty and they've -brought in Boney. His throat is cut—"</p> - -<p>"<i>No!</i> Is he alive?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, yes. But he may never speak again. He lay there in the street for -hours and hours. Dr. Gesner's internes are here—"</p> - -<p>"Oh, not being able to talk would be worse for him than dying. I'll -come! I'll be right there!" Miss Knox dropped the receiver and swung -out of bed, feeling in the darkness for her robe. She pulled it on and -opened the door, and found her slippers in the faint yellow light from -the hallway.</p> - -<p>As she ran, knotting the belt of her robe, she looked up and down the -ancient residential corridors for a motorbed. She stumbled against a -rotten wood molding. She pressed the elevator button and turned, her -loose hair swinging heavily, to face the flat eye of a clock. It was -five-fifteen.</p> - -<p>Overhead, the floor indicator creaked around its dial—seven, six, -five, four—and the doors opened. There was a motorbed on the elevator.</p> - -<p>She stepped inside and pressed the button for seven, the lowest floor -with a bridge to the Mushroom. The doors shut and the car moved upward. -Tripping over the torn linoleum, she managed to fall backward onto the -bed's driving seat. She swung her legs around and turned on the switch.</p> - -<p>As the doors opened, she drove out with a jolt and entered the -sparkling newness of a tubular bridge which rose through the night -across First Avenue. The Mushroom towered overhead, its spiral -corridors glowing. Night traffic vibrated beneath her as she crossed—a -crowd of trucks was baying north along the hidden cobblestones, -following traffic lights which jumped from red to green, one after -another, like an electronic rabbit. The trucks passed out of sight -under their own diesel cloud and another pack approached in a higher -key....</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus2.jpg" width="341" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Then a lurch as towing cables grated and took hold in the curve of the -many-windowed corridor. Whining under glass, the motorbed veered off -in a rising circle around the stem of the Mushroom. Around and around -again, faster, while room numbers flashed red one by one on the silver -doors, over the river, over the roof garden of the Administration wing, -over the river, over the garden, around and around and out, out—far -out over a city of dark crumbling toys and up and up over the rim....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>She approached the great transparent dome of the Mushroom looking ahead -into the sky, as though enemies in immense distance were triangulating -upon her. An echo of voices rolled out. Far across the marble floor, -one of the emergency rooms had its lights on. The door opened and a -tiny figure in a motorchair sped out and along the wall, followed by -a line of running dolls in white. Some of them clustered around the -man in the chair, waving their arms. Thinning like a comet's tail, the -procession vanished down the south escalator. The door of the room slid -shut.</p> - -<p>She hurtled across beneath the stars and drove straight at the room, -applying brakes sharply with a tightening in her stomach as the door -began to open. Her long hair swept forward against her cheeks and -shoulders. She jarred to a stop inside and rose, refocusing her senses -on the enclosed white space.</p> - -<p>The bedside table held a pot of paper geraniums. Something lay beneath -the covers like lumber on edge, the angles of knees projecting -sideways. Out of the sheets stuck part of a thin white drainpipe neck -and a face like a broken roof shingle, over which the weeping Miss -Erwin cast her shadow.</p> - -<p>Brooks sat hunched over the stool, fingers buried in his hair. His lab -coat was twisted awry; a bare knee protruded between two buttons.</p> - -<p>"What happened?" asked Miss Knox.</p> - -<p>"He's all right," Miss Erwin sobbed at her. "Delinquents—vandals—they -cut his throat by the river, right in front of the hospital. The mutape -says—he didn't—see their faces."</p> - -<p>"Don't worry about him," said a low muttered voice. "He's been -conscious. The doctors say he'll speak, in time." Dr. Brooks had raised -his head and was trying to cover himself with the lab coat.</p> - -<p>"River rats," Miss Knox snapped, peering at Boney's wasted face. "What -do you mean, in time?"</p> - -<p>"Two or three weeks. An expert job of quick surgery, really."</p> - -<p>"No! No!" Miss Erwin broke into a fit of sobbing and blindly rearranged -the flowers.</p> - -<p>"Do you mean to say?—"</p> - -<p>"Some medical students on a horror spree. Damned age of—what did that -Washington press secretary say?—'atomic hyper-specialization'! That -means young brains growing in channels until they explode through the -wall. You remember the physicist who killed his colleagues when the -English won the Nobel Prize."</p> - -<p>"It can't be," said Miss Knox. She watched the hurt man grimace -somewhere along his razor edge of nightmare.</p> - -<p>"It's the only likelihood. Well, we can't do anything for him now, and -you look a little beat. Come on, I'll buy you coffee from the vending -machine on the Administration roof."</p> - -<p>Dr. Brooks stood up, lifted Miss Knox gently beneath the arms and sat -her on the motorbed, then swung a hairy shin over the driving seat. -They rolled through the doorway.</p> - -<p>"Who was that big shot in the motorchair?" Miss Knox asked. "Dr. -Gesner?"</p> - -<p>Dawn had just begun to spread. They crossed within a widening circle -of mushroom-shaped arches containing portraits which drew farther away -until they resembled portal guards, and then converged again in full -austerity on the opposite side of the great dome.</p> - -<p>"Director himself—they can't reach Gesner anyplace," Brooks said.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They started to descend inward from the Mushroom's edge. Numbers -flashed by as they spiraled down faster along the self-steering guide -rail. Over the river, over the garden. Over the river....</p> - -<p>She leaned back against the pillows. "What was himself doing in the -hospital at this hour?" she asked.</p> - -<p>"As a matter of fact"—his shadow crossed her face as he moved the -deceleration lever—"he was with me."</p> - -<p>"With you?"</p> - -<p>"I was listening to the newscasts in bed. He came to see me because, -as resident radiologist, I'm the only person who knows anything at all -about electronics. While we listened, his assistant with the high voice -called him on my phone and told him about Boney."</p> - -<p>"How did he react?"</p> - -<p>Brooks swung his tiller bar and they veered onto the roof of the -Administration wing, the door behind them cutting off all light -from inside the Mushroom. They were in a formal garden filled with -scent, and surrounded by distant hedges. The few remaining stars were -surprised naked, floating above a monstrous concrete bird-bath.</p> - -<p>"Like a bureaucrat," he muttered as they rolled to a stop. "First he -requisitioned flowers. He's probably in here somewhere now, plotting -revenge against the Commissary clerk who issued the knife they found -near Boney. I know he'd love to see you rushing in your bathrobe to -other people's emergencies."</p> - -<p>"Disgusting. And they call him the Father of the Mushroom. Big shot."</p> - -<p>"Why?" he asked. "After all, he <i>is</i> a bureaucrat. How did you -yourself react—like a woman, no?"</p> - -<p>He helped her down. They walked within a double row of mountain laurels -to the coffee machine.</p> - -<p>"I'd forgotten all about the bathrobe," she said. "Black for me."</p> - -<p>"One day soon," he muttered, "they'll build him a mushroom he'll never -see the end of. Sandwich? Anything?"</p> - -<p>"No." She took the warm plastic cup and sipped. It was bad coffee. Far -below, a snort of traffic echoed down First Avenue. "I've only been -here once before. I'm a bit lower-echelon for the Administrative roof."</p> - -<p>"Who isn't?"</p> - -<p>She looked past the white-on-red Emergency Exit sign to a wrought-iron -gate in the hedge facing the river. "Look, the Silvertongue factory is -all lit up. Every single window on the top floor."</p> - -<p>"I should think so. You mean you don't <i>know</i>?"</p> - -<p>"Know what?"</p> - -<p>"My heavens, the fate of man's grasp on reality is being decided -tonight! Congress was still in special session at five A.M.—still is, -as far as I know."</p> - -<p>"Session over what? Don't tell me the bombs have started."</p> - -<p>"Visual interference by radio wave compression. Yesterday the Royalty -called an immediate special session. There is at present <i>no law</i> to -prevent the Christian E. Lodge Corporation from buying the right to -tamper with light waves in the home, for advertising purposes or—God -knows what other kinds of control."</p> - -<p>"I didn't know. I was on duty with Mr. Barger and then no one told me."</p> - -<p>"Barger was against it," said Dr. Brooks. "He sold them the device -with a set of conditions on its use, but now they're buying the patent -outright."</p> - -<p>"But—don't they have to wait for him? Barger Electronics is his -company."</p> - -<p>"No. He's chairman of the board, but any three or more directors can -sell the patent. Once it's sold, there will be nothing Congress can do."</p> - -<p>"Why?" asked Miss Knox, staring out over the water. Some of the -Silvertongue windows had winked out. The others vanished together, -leaving only a pale vertical row to mark the fire stairs.</p> - -<p>Three bells sounded.</p> - -<p>"Your attention please!"—a piping male voice.</p> - -<p>Brooks said, "I'll bet it's the Director himself."</p> - -<p>"In a moment," shrilled the voice, "we will tune in the broadcast -direct from Washington so that all personnel can hear history in the -making. After the congressional vote, Dr. Hamilton, our director, will -honor us with a few words here in the hospital, which he will repeat -later for the benefit of the day shift."</p> - -<p>There was a ringing tone, growling in volume like the approach of -motorskates.</p> - -<p>"I told you," Brooks shouted over the noise. "His family has stock in -Silvertongue."</p> - -<p>"... been informed that a purchase has been completed of full rights to -the Barger Radiocompressor. I warn you that this device will be used -indiscriminately against the public interest." The voice was strong -but unsteady. "Barger engineers have been withdrawn. There are no -controls—"</p> - -<p>"Too late," said Brooks. "That's Thorpe of Louisiana."</p> - -<p>"Bear with me now. I do not doubt that visual interference is already -being used to disrupt this session of Congress. Do you understand? I -have a blinding headache, brought about externally, I am quite certain. -I can no longer read the notes in front of me. If what I say is still -sense, I insist I want a vote, immediate vote, to make this thing -illegal—illegal, and let the New York City police or the Militia or -the Army—the Army...."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>In sudden silence, she clung to Brooks' sleeve.</p> - -<p>"Ladies and gentlemen," said the piping voice from within the hospital, -"the House of Representatives is still far from approaching a vote. -We will tune in debate on the Senate floor, being broadcast by another -network."</p> - -<p>"... alleged that Patent Number 90,732,440B has something to do with -national safety. I assure you, gentlemen—ladies and gentlemen—that -American business ethics will prevent such dangerous use of technology -now as in the past, and that any weapons application will be confined -strictly to that sphere where weapons are themselves a safety -factor—the sphere of national defense against foreign aggressors.</p> - -<p>"It has further been alleged that there is some connection between -Patent Number 90,732,440B and the hospitalization of Mr. William Barger -of Barger Electronics Company, Incorporated, who is currently afflicted -with"—the Senator breathed a chuckle—"laryngitis.</p> - -<p>"It has even been supposed by certain Senators that the non-fatal -stabbing of Nathan Bonaparte, a part-time employee...."</p> - -<p>Silence.</p> - -<p>"Ladies and gentlemen," the voice from within the hospital said, "we -will tune in again when the matter is brought to a vote. And now—Dr. -Hamilton."</p> - -<p>A long pause filled with buzzing.</p> - -<p>"People," said the Director, and the buzzing ended. "There is no war. -Let me repeat: there is no atomic war going on." He paused.</p> - -<p>"Now there has been a lot of fuss over a steel tower on a factory -across the river. I want to make it clear that no advertising gimmicks -will change our job here. All hospitals—public, like ours, or even our -esteemed allies, the private hospitals—are bound by medical and staff -ethics to pay no official attention to the world of advertising.</p> - -<p>"I am especially amazed by rumors that Nat Bonaparte, or 'Boney,' who -does clean-up work here from time to time, was silenced because he -'knew something' about this wonderful advertising gimmick. Nothing can -be sillier. It just happens that the fellow left <i>my</i> office shortly -before he must have been wounded by delinquents from the nearby slums. -He was giving me 'inside information,' as he called it, about light-ray -guns, and mechanical hypnotism, and plots against the patients. These, -apparently, are the things which Boney 'knew,' and he has been talking -endlessly about them since I first came into office, and presumably -before."</p> - -<p>Brooks struck two cigarettes against his pack and handed one to Miss -Knox. Their first puff obscured his puzzled frown.</p> - -<p>"This <i>fuss</i> I am talking about," continued the Director, "has been -taken as grounds for wild infringement of any and all regulations -by personnel of this hospital. I want it made perfectly clear that -motorbeds not in official use should be stored in the proper supply -rooms, according to the chart in the Commissary office. We are setting -up a daily check-in system—"</p> - -<p>"Let's get out of here," said Miss Knox.</p> - -<p>"—to prevent further misuse of this equipment."</p> - -<p>"Get on the bed," said Dr. Brooks. "If they saw you go up to Boney, we -can't leave it here."</p> - -<p>"<i>Furthermore</i>, any private or unauthorized use of this or other -hospital equipment may be punished by immediate dismissal—"</p> - -<p>Miss Knox took a step toward the motorbed. "I'd like to look in on Mr. -Barger."</p> - -<p>"—with <i>particular</i> application to the young woman who used a motorbed -tonight to visit a sick friend."</p> - -<p>Miss Knox stood feet apart, hands on hips. "The dirty son of a bitch," -she said.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Miss Erwin came running across the Mushroom, white pumps clacketing -half off her feet. "Oh!" she said, and stopped, panting. "Has the world -really been taken over by admen?"</p> - -<p>Brooks stopped the motorbed. "Just America," he said, "and only a -few admen." He helped Miss Knox down and they all walked toward the -emergency rooms.</p> - -<p>"Boney is fine, Dr. Brooks," said Miss Erwin. "He just went back to -sleep. But Mr. Barger is not feeling well."</p> - -<p>"Is Mr. Barger awake?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, no, Doctor, but he was moaning. A sort of breath-moan, with his -eyes still shut. Dr. Feld took a mutape and said he wasn't getting -regular delirium patterns at all."</p> - -<p>"Has Dr. Gesner been here?"</p> - -<p>"We've tried and tried to reach him, but he left no word with his -office or at home. His nurses are terribly worried about him, and his -wife—oh, Miss Knox, do you suppose he drinks?" Miss Erwin's forehead -grew a splotch of pink. "<i>Oh</i>, I'm sorry, Doctor! I'm terribly upset."</p> - -<p>"Go home, Hilda," said Miss Knox. "I can handle things—I go on in less -than an hour, anyway. Let's foul up Hamilton's schedule."</p> - -<p>"Oh, Miss <i>Knox</i>!"</p> - -<p>"Just one more thing—before you go to bed, get a uniform from my room -and give it to Miss Kelly, to bring with her when she comes up for day -shift. If my door is open, close it."</p> - -<p>"Here's a key." Dr. Brooks said. "Give it to one of the attendants in -the dining room. If no one's eating breakfast yet, leave it with Old -Man Mackey. Say that I want some linens and a suit—any suit—brought -up for me when the shift changes. Not before."</p> - -<p>"What color socks, Doctor?"</p> - -<p>"Any color."</p> - -<p>"Thanks so much," said Miss Erwin, backing toward the escalator.</p> - -<p>Brooks muttered, "The Mushroom doesn't suit her looks."</p> - -<p>"She's too young," said Miss Knox. "What's-his-name who designed -it—you know, the one who did the museums—was ninety-four."</p> - -<p>"He's still designing," said Brooks.</p> - -<p>"Can I do anything for you? Preferably against regulations." She -watched him lock the door and close the viewplate, and rummage in the -manila folder at the foot of the bed.</p> - -<p>"I don't know what's wrong with these people," Dr. Brooks muttered.</p> - -<p>"What is it?" she asked over his shoulder.</p> - -<p>"They've gotten their tapes crossed! That idiot Feld must have had this -in his machine when he came. It's some accident victim's tape—one -hundred per cent unverbalized pain, and the victim was <i>wide awake</i> -when he made it. It might be Boney's tape. This man here has been in -coma since this—since yesterday morning, thank heaven."</p> - -<p>"Poor Boney," said Miss Knox, adjusting Mr. Barger's covers and her own -loose hair. As though in answer, Mr. Barger stirred feebly, raising -his arm.</p> - -<p>"Honey, there isn't much we can do," said Dr. Brooks.</p> - -<p>"You're right." She glanced down and plucked at the bathrobe around her -smooth lace-bordered throat. "Can't save the world in my old nightgown."</p> - -<p>He took her by the shoulders and bent his head toward the palpitating -muscle in her throat.</p> - -<p>Leaning back against the edge of the bed, she held him at arm's length. -She wet her lips and said, "Did I tell you I'm supposed to wear -glasses?"</p> - -<p>He sprawled forward into her embrace. Her dark mane tumbled thickly -over Mr. Barger. They twisted and pulled each other down to the floor, -freeing loose strands of hair from the blanket's electricity.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>She opened her eyes and saw a flat briefcase with a coil antenna -sticking out.</p> - -<p>"What's the matter?" whispered Dr. Brooks.</p> - -<p>"On the bottom of the bed!"</p> - -<p>He pressed his cheek to the floor and examined the under-carriage of -Mr. Barger's motorbed.</p> - -<p>"Projector!" He reached in and tugged at the object, bracing his other -hand against the driveshaft. "Help me, quick!"</p> - -<p>She grasped smooth leather and pulled, her nails making scars, as he -slid under the bed and hammered with his fist. "It's hooked on the -other way," she said. He pulled, and the briefcase fell heavily to the -floor.</p> - -<p>Dr. Brooks rolled to his feet, kicking the object into the light, and -yanked at its buckles and straps. "My bag is somewhere near the chair. -Get the mutape on him, fast!"</p> - -<p>She found his black satchel on the floor, plugged into the computer -outlet and spread the apparatus over Mr. Barger's bed. She made a -trembling fist around the Broca cup, and watched the dormant pink -cheeks and eyelids as she lowered the cup toward his skull.</p> - -<p>The rubber rim thudded against empty air, pleating like a horse's -muzzle as she pushed. The sleeping Barger face remained a picture -glowing out of reach inches beneath her straining fist, behind a smell -of blood. A hand from under the covers grasped her wrist....</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus3.jpg" width="600" height="286" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>She struggled. Dr. Brooks, at the telephone, contorted his face and -heaved the briefcase against the wall. It shattered into coils and -smashed tubes and pieces of electronic chassis like a shower of silver -Christmas ornaments, and a moan from the bed faded away.</p> - -<p>Brooks shouted and hung up the phone. The mutape was chattering -violently. He unlocked the door, flung himself to the bed and took -the recorder between his hands. The grasp on her wrist relaxed, and -she leaned over to decipher the punched tape as it unrolled from the -machine. Its dot patterns were unverbalized bloody agony, cleanly -formulated in computer language.</p> - -<p>"He'll verbalize," Brooks said. "Just don't look at him—thank God -they've found Gesner."</p> - -<p>A red, bloated forehead above eyes fixed on her own through lenses of -gray fluid as it writhed and pressed up against the Broca cup in her -fist. She covered her face, and between her fingers the sleeping Barger -face still lay on its pillow.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Dr. Brooks screwed his own features into a wink, and she turned away to -watch the unrolling tape still chattering between his hands: "England -is the only hope. We must go through immediately before direct control -and defenses build against us—morphine, why did you not give me -morphine? Pain is intolerable."</p> - -<p>"Analgesics nullify the Gesner shots," Brooks said.</p> - -<p>"Morphine," chattered the tape, "worth it, worth it, cure me when we -have left for England. And hurry, they want me alive, and as soon as -they control the police...."</p> - -<p>Turning under Dr. Brooks' twisted glance as he took the Broca cup, -she went to the sink and scrubbed her hands. She found the hypodermic -and phial in the black satchel and measured two cc of clear tincture -of morphine, and turned back to the arm which grasped Dr. Brooks' -wrist, pressing the cup hard against a swollen red mass. She rolled up -the sleeve of the hospital gown which led to a raised shoulder (she -wouldn't look at the face) and hesitated—another needle was already -stuck in the muscle, protruding just above the skin. She found the vein -and pushed the plunger in, and withdrew her needle.</p> - -<p>Dr. Brooks said, "Get that out of there."</p> - -<p>She took tweezers from her bathrobe pocket and carefully removed an -inch of broken hypodermic shaft. The blood spurted. She reached for -cotton and alcohol.</p> - -<p>Three bells rang in the corridor as the door slid open, and Miss Erwin -came fluttering in.</p> - -<p>"Don't look, Hilda!" warned Miss Knox.</p> - -<p>"Calling the emergency rooms," said a piping voice. "Beware of patient -William Barger who may attempt to escape. He may be armed...."</p> - -<p>The mutape chattered.</p> - -<p>"Here, take the cup," said Dr. Brooks. He picked up the bedside chair -and placed it on the foot of the bed. Climbing onto the swaying surface -like a trained ape, he reached up and loosened the screws which held -the light globe in place on the ceiling, and threw it to shatter on -the floor. Miss Erwin stepped backward. Then she tiptoed toward the -light and steadied the chair, and stared at the patient's face in -fascination. Dr. Brooks was tugging at an object resembling a camera, -attached by a spring clamp between the bulbs of the ceiling fixture.</p> - -<p>"Hilda!" Miss Knox said.</p> - -<p>"Oh, look at his face now!"</p> - -<p>"Subliminal picture slide," said Dr. Brooks, dropping the object to the -floor with a crash. "There goes his sweet sleeping face—an illusion -filling in for reality <i>because there was nothing else for us to see</i>."</p> - -<p>Mr. Barger's face was blotched red and covered with shiny ooze. His -throat was swollen as thick as his cheeks, with lumpy rolls of neck -stretched taut like strands of pink beads above the bedsheet. His mouth -was hidden beneath caked blood.</p> - -<p>The mutape read, "You are running out of time."</p> - -<p>Three bells in the corridor as the door slid open. "Calling Dr. -Gesner," said a cool nurse's voice. "Emergency. Calling Dr. Feld. -Emergency."</p> - -<p>Five internes scurried in, surrounding the figure on the bed. Behind -them strode rawboned Dr. Feld in a red hunting jacket. A motorchair -rolled after him and stopped in the doorway, and an assistant -administrator stood up and piped, "Hold him! He may be armed!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>With the mutape chattering and Dr. Brooks bent close over the recorder, -Miss Knox stood up and prepared her needle with penicillin from the -black satchel.</p> - -<p>"Don't kill him," the administrator whined.</p> - -<p>Three bells in the corridor. "All personnel," said the nurse's voice. -"Day shift, please take notice. Beware of a patient, armed, seeking to -escape from the emergency floor. All hospital personnel. Beware of a -patient...."</p> - -<p>Big Carl kicked the motorchair out of the doorway, stepped through and -handed Dr. Brooks a blue serge suit on a hanger. After him came a nurse -carrying a white uniform and a paper bag. The room was filled with an -echo of voices spreading across the Mushroom.</p> - -<p>"Step back," said Dr. Feld, stumbling over an interne.</p> - -<p>Two student nurses came to the doorway and stood on either side, one -with her hand in the photocell beam to keep the door from closing. The -noise grew.</p> - -<p>"Calling Dr. Gesner," said the cool nurse's voice.</p> - -<p>A group of internes shuffled inside, faces averted, moving sideways in -the crowd around the bed. Two attendants came striding up and stood on -either side of the door, next to the student nurses.</p> - -<p>A class of medical students filed in and moved along the wall, the -taller ones standing on tiptoe to see the patient. A bearded professor -in tweeds followed, whispering, "Here he comes, here he comes."</p> - -<p>After a pause, Dr. Gesner waddled through the doorway between his -nurses. Three internes came after with white coats flying open, the -middle one a Hindu in a blue sash, and then a messenger boy calling, -"Telegram for Dr. Gesner!" Three bells rang in the corridor, and the -door slid shut.</p> - -<p>A path cleared before Dr. Gesner as he made his way to the bed. Helped -to a sitting position, he opened the telegram which had been passed -from interne to interne.</p> - -<p>"You don't mind," he said, turning to the patient's bloody face. He -read the message and threw it away. "The police have been holding me -for two days. Here my lawyers have a nice case against City Hall, just -when this England business comes up—so you're the man who's dangerous -and armed! I'm sure Hamilton isn't responsible for that story."</p> - -<p>Dr. Gesner had removed some of the cake with Miss Knox's tweezers and -was prodding the lipless inflammation.</p> - -<p>"Wash this off as gently as you can," said Dr. Gesner, and Miss Knox -stepped forward. "And the antiseptic ointment in my bag—it has a -purple label."</p> - -<p>"I had to give him morphine," said Dr. Brooks.</p> - -<p>"Ah—and some antibiotic?"</p> - -<p>"Penicillin," said Miss Knox.</p> - -<p>"Ah. Now tell me, where is this other man who was put out of commission -by these—these throat specialists? I'd like to examine him."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The mutape chattered suddenly and then stopped. Dr. Brooks bent and -read out loud, "Get those two on motorskates! I know them. They appear -blond with their projector fields turned on; otherwise they are both -narrow-faced and dark."</p> - -<p>Dr. Gesner smiled with just the middle of his face. "We caught them in -the lobby on our way in. One of my lawyers is coming with us. His son -plays right tackle—young lady!" He looked straight at Miss Knox. "I -understand you've been talking about this business for days, along with -our friend with the cut throat. You've been in danger—those two men -were still in the building on your account, I'm sure. It's a very good -thing you weren't alone, you or Dr. Brooks. I take it you were both on -night duty."</p> - -<p>Dr. Brooks said, "If any of the nurses or Dr. Gesner's students don't -know what this is all about, I'm sure he'll make an announcement when -we're all on the way to England. You must have some idea of what's -happened. If anyone doesn't want to come, of course—"</p> - -<p>"Treason and insubordination!" piped a hidden voice. "Under the -circumstances, Dr. Hamilton will have you jailed when he finds out what -you're up to, Dr. Brooks."</p> - -<p>Brooks stretched his arm between two students and pulled a switch on -the wall. The ceiling began to open, sweeping bright sunshine down -the wall and making metal buttons twinkle on Dr. Feld's jacket. The -ceiling slid back on rollers with a rumbling sound, until nothing was -overheard but the black dots of aircraft rising toward the sun. Nearby, -a whirlybird took off with a <i>rackety-rackety-rackety-rack</i>!</p> - -<p>"I phoned the Director," Dr. Brooks told the crowd. "He's not -interfering. In fact, I'm pretty sure Dr. Hamilton will come."</p> - -<p>"Dr. Feld," said Dr. Gesner, "will you show the adman out?"</p> - -<p>"I'm not—"</p> - -<p>There was the sound of a blow and the assistant administrator appeared, -scrabbling for his motorchair, which was buried among the students. -His spindle limbs flailed from one side to the other until he was -propelled from the room at a run, screaming, and the messenger boy -vanished after him. Three bells rang in the corridor as the door closed.</p> - -<p>Dr. Gesner raised his hand and voices were stilled, the shuffle of feet -ended and the mutape chattered alone in the sunshine. He leaned over -and read the tape, and as he straightened his back, even the recorder -stopped still. He heaved himself to his feet with the help of two -internes.</p> - -<p>"He says—" puffed Dr. Gesner—"he says this is no time for sadism."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Last ones up, girlie," said Dr. Brooks.</p> - -<p>She sat on the bed and the mutape spoke to her noisily. Big Carl had -hooked two cables in place, Dr. Brooks the other two, and the floor -platform began to rise through the room toward the maw of the hovering -whirlybird. She tucked the covers gently around her patient's distorted -throat.</p> - -<p>The chatter stopped. She read, "This is something the Royalty -predicted for weeks ahead of time. I thought we could avoid it, -but the Silvertongue people must have fed me the virus at our last -luncheon meeting. Then when negotiations remained uncertain—thanks to -Royalty sentiment on my board—they came visiting while I slept and -injected me with a larger dose and planted the projectors. I woke up -in awful pain. You were there, young lady—I screamed, silently, with -my features. I was unable to raise my head. You wiped blood from my -cheeks with your palm and cleaned it on a piece of cotton. You thought -it was under water. Your eyes turned away before your hand left the -projector field—or else you could not see what you could not expect. -While I looked on, you treated me like a sleeping baby and asked Dr. -Brooks about radio...." The perforated tape had stopped feeding from -the machine.</p> - -<p>"His tape!" she cried.</p> - -<p>"Don't worry," Dr. Brooks said. "We're unplugged from the hospital -system, but I reserved the only ambulance with its own computer -circuit. It conveys limited ideas, but that's better than nothing."</p> - -<p>Big Carl had erected the safety gates. "Look below," he said.</p> - -<p>She stood up and pressed her forehead to the latticework of the nearest -gate. At first there was only a diamond-shaped patch of sky, with the -Silvertongue factory in the bottom corner. Then, as the platforms -swung on its cables, she saw the curved edge of the Mushroom, and the -Administration roof swarming with figures on motorskates. They circled -among the squat mountain laurels, pointing upward. The ambulance walls -settled around her suddenly blocking the view, and the belly of the -vehicle rumbled shut. With a bump, the floor platform was deposited on -its girders.</p> - -<p>Dr. Brooks said, "We're away—I'll have the pilot phone the others!"</p> - -<p>"Where's the socket?" Miss Knox asked. "Mr. Barger and I were talking."</p> - -<p>Dr. Brooks plugged into an overhead beam and the mutape immediately -began to chatter: "What is your first name, Miss Knox?"</p> - -<p>"Delia," she said.</p> - -<p>"Pete Brooks."</p> - -<p>"Carl," the big man growled as he folded the gates.</p> - -<p>"Call me Bill," said Mr. Barger's tape. Mr. Barger's square hand -motioned her closer beside him. "Delia, do you know what we must do -when we reach England? We must use the atom bomb first, before the -admen have full control. Only then may we return to the America we -know. The real America."</p> - -<p>"Do the English know?" asked Miss Knox.</p> - -<p>"Of course," she said. "They heard the broadcasts, and their scientists -understood. They have supported our Royalty Party for years. I think I -could increase the range of my device and reach America before they -reached England—but there is no time for that. The world must unite -against invasion. Even the Russians know that there is no limit to the -scope or methods of greedy marketing specialists"—the machine punched -out a pattern of giggles and chuckles—"and I doubt if the Russians -could ever invent a radiocompressor."</p> - -<p>"Are <i>all</i> the admen part of this?"</p> - -<p>"Absolutely not, young lady! The very great majority has always -followed a strict code of ethics that the very small minority has -always subverted. Many ethical admen are in the birds now, on their way -to England—knowing perfectly well that England is poor territory for -emotional salesmanship."</p> - -<p>"But why a Royalty Party in a democracy?" Miss Knox asked.</p> - -<p>"Royalty—" The tape showed amusement. "Not aristocracy. Royalty, as in -share of and control over. Motto of the Royalty Party: 'The inventor is -worthy of his invention,' meaning the right to say how his discovery -shall or shall not be used—or not be used at all, if it can only be -destructive—as well as sharing in the proceeds. Unreasonable attitudes -are not possible; we have an Appeals Board that can overrule a -pig-headed patentee. Radiocompressors were intended for beautification -of environment, not deception or thought control."</p> - -<p>"Why England?" she persisted.</p> - -<p>"Pretty generally, the Royalty code is and has been standard procedure -there. Like their constitution, it hasn't had to be put in writing."</p> - -<p>"Aren't there slums and unsightly monuments in England, too?"</p> - -<p>"Of course. Why do you think they would like to have the invention? But -it's safe there; it won't be subverted to thought control and sales -engineering.... Tell me, Delia, is Dr. Gesner on this ambulance? I -would like to meet him."</p> - -<p>Dr. Brooks had come back from the control room. He sat beside -her on the bed. "Dr. Gesner went ahead with Dr. Hamilton," he -said, "because you're healthier than either one of them. But, Mr. -Barger—Bill—doesn't light-wave interference need two overlapping -projectors plus the subliminal image? We only found one."</p> - -<p>The recorder chattered: "I am sure the other is also somewhere in the -bed. It is harmless by itself, and I am glad we have it—it will help -me instruct a team of British physicists and engineers. But who is in -the other compartment? I hate to play chess with the same people over -and over."</p> - -<p>"I'm afraid he doesn't play," said Brooks. "I think it's old Boney, who -had his throat cut because your friends thought he might get you some -help too soon."</p> - -<p>The recorder punched out, "I would like to meet him," as Miss Knox -jumped from the bed, pulling Dr. Brooks by the arm. The machine -chattered again briefly and she stopped and read, "Do not neglect -me altogether," and ran on. She opened the door to the other bed -compartment.</p> - -<p>Miss Erwin fell on her with a cuddly embrace, and then Dr. Brooks -reached over her shoulder to shake Miss Erwin's hand. "How's the -patient?" he asked.</p> - -<p>Across the compartment, Boney's face expanded in a three-cornered smile.</p> - -<p>"At least he slept," said Miss Erwin. "That poor Mr. Barger—all the -time we thought he was in coma, he was wide awake!"</p> - -<p>Miss Knox said, "Oh, my God!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"I hear more jets!" wailed Miss Erwin's voice from the other room. -"Why are they all flying home tonight, and we have to leave? Carl, are -we—are we a quarter of the way to England?"</p> - -<p>"No," Big Carl answered.</p> - -<p>Miss Knox called through the doorway, "This one won't let me open the -hatch!"</p> - -<p>Hunched across the bed, his hair falling over his forehead, Dr. Brooks -played chess with Mr. Barger. "Not in here," he said. "You can open the -emergency hatch in back if you like night air. But don't expect to see -the bombers—or anything but our own landing gear."</p> - -<p>She slid past him and shut herself into the small rear compartment and -turned out the light. She felt for the emergency lock and swung her -weight backward as the damp black air screamed in and tugged at her -face—the whirlybird showed its fat thigh with a <i>rackety-rackety-rack -groundhog</i>! Tears ran down her cheeks, distorting her first view of -darkness.</p> - -<p>Beyond the machine's ungainly silhouette she peered and saw flashes of -yellow light on water—but nothing, nothing familiar. Thus, squinting -desperately toward home, she noticed it, marking the horizon. A glowing -mushroom. It must have been gigantic.</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Don't Look Now, by Leonard Rubin - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DON'T LOOK NOW *** - -***** This file should be named 51740-h.htm or 51740-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/7/4/51740/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Don't Look Now - -Author: Leonard Rubin - -Release Date: April 12, 2016 [EBook #51740] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DON'T LOOK NOW *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - Don't Look Now - - BY LEONARD RUBIN - - Illustrated by WOOD - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Galaxy Magazine April 1960. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - - - - The Royalty Party wasn't what you would - imagine--it stood for a great deal, but - there was as much it wanted no part of! - - -"You're not allowed in the ambulance," Miss Knox said. - -They were both typical advertising men, down to the motorskates -strapped beneath their shoes. Their faces were so utterly undistinctive -as to seem fuzzy. Each carried a large flat briefcase with a coil -antenna sticking out. - -"Watch it!" the attendant growled, and they skated aside with a whir. - -Big Carl came driving up the ramp, ducked his head to enter, and -brought the bed to a stop in the belly of the ambulance. Miss Knox -pressed the button and the door closed in the admen's faces. - -When Mr. Barger was lowered from the hovering ambulance, his swollen, -tearful eyes were sun-blind. Square hands clenched over and over with -pain. Above the rotors' _rackety-rackety-rack_, Miss Knox shouted -soothing things. She didn't wait for an answer. He was the worst -case of laryngitis she had ever known--the only case, really, in her -professional experience. Abolished diseases always came back virulently. - -She and the bed sank between white hospital walls and landed in the -room with a bump. The waiting attendant walked around the platform, -folding the safety gates. He unhooked the four support cables, each -vanishing out of his grasp like spaghetti slurped from a plate. - -Just as the ceiling closed overhead, cutting off sight and sound of the -whirlybird against the sun, Brooks, the radiologist, came in through -the door, shepherding an entire class of medical students. Then two -nurses seemed to clear an inoffensive path through the chemically -tainted air of the corridor--and after them came Dr. Gesner, the -greatest throat man in the country. Miss Knox knew him from his -portrait in the Mushroom. - -Brooks winked her an "At ease!" with a shaggy eyebrow and followed -the fat man through the crowd. Dr. Gesner went to the bed and sat -down. He was Barger's weight, with the same sort of elephantine bones, -but he was almost two feet shorter. He stared at the nose and cheeks -protruding from the bedclothes, and opened a fat black bag. - - * * * * * - -A bell rang three times in the corridor. Five interns scurried into the -room and stopped still, watching Dr. Gesner as though he were a golden -calf. On each side of the doorway stood a student nurse at attention. - -Mr. Barger stopped twitching and opened one eye wide. His chin lifted, -and his other chins came out from under the sheet's folded edge. - -One of Dr. Gesner's hands felt through the black bag. It emerged -dragging a mutape by one wire. Brooks leaned forward and took out the -rest of the apparatus. Shaking the hair off his forehead, he plugged -into the bedside computer relay and placed the rubber-rimmed cup -against the patient's skull, just over the Broca convolution. - -Mr. Barger remained staring at the doctor through a gray film. The -mutape chattered rapidly. Miss Knox craned her neck, deciphering the -punched tape as it unrolled from the recorder in Brooks' hands. Sweat -popped out on Mr. Barger's forehead. - -"Help me, damn it," read Mr. Barger's tape. "I know you. You abolished -laryngitis; why should it come to me now? I have a right to stop misuse -of my work and to be free from pain--my patent is vital--free from -pain. I want to be free...." His face turned pink in a new contortion -and the hands folded over. - -"Yes," Dr. Gesner said as the chatter stopped. "I know it hurts." He -smiled gently in the middle of his face. He was writing on an index -card, but his main effort was devoted to getting up from the bed with -the help of two internes. "It will hurt this badly for twenty-four -hours. Then the injection will have the upper hand." He turned to -Brooks. "Please pass the tape around, Doctor. If any students haven't -seen the X-rays yet, they're in my file." - -Mr. Barger's face grayed a little; the sweat had turned to patches of -crust against his skin. Dipping cotton in alcohol, Miss Knox bathed his -forehead. - -"That's all," said Dr. Gesner, handing her the card as the students -began to vanish. - -She stalked after him. "No examination, Doctor?" she asked, ignoring -Brooks' horrified expression. - -"Unnecessary, Nurse." He backed away from her and the door slid open. -"I've already seen the X-rays and charts you phoned from the ambulance. -And the patient cannot open his mouth. His intravenous menu is all -here...." - -"Yes, Doctor." - -Three bells sounded in the corridor. "Calling Dr. Gesner. Emergency. -Please come to the telephone. Emergency. Calling Dr. Gesner...." - -He rolled his eyes at the index card in her hand. "You yourself are to -take the shots prescribed for you, to prevent your catching or carrying -the disease. In that bed, but for the grace of God...." He was crying -softly. - -"Doctor!" said Brooks, and the internes and nurses gasped. - -"After all," said Dr. Gesner, "I _did_ abolish laryngitis." - - * * * * * - -Miss Knox walked back up the drive and struck a cigarette on one of the -stone lions. It glowed in the dark, but the river breeze blew it out -before she could draw. She snorted in annoyance. - -Miss Erwin looked up sharply. - -"Is there _anywhere_ where you can still buy matches?" asked Miss Knox. - -"Not in New York City. Why?" - -"We used to just try again when a cigarette didn't light. Now we have -to throw it away." - -"Of course," said Miss Erwin. "That's how they train us to be right the -first time." - -"Ridiculous. That's how they sell more cigarettes." - -"Why, _Miss Knox_! You sound like Royalty!" - -Miss Knox laughed. "I'm not ready to join the British Commonwealth yet. -No fooling, Hilda, you see the Silvertongue cigarette factory across -the river?" - -Miss Erwin twisted white-gloved hands in the dark. "Why, no ... mmm, -smell that spray." An ocean-breathing tugboat passed, its complicated -silhouette blocking the view. "No-oooooo," the whistle blew. - -"Just wait till that tug is gone. There, Miss Erwin. Do you see the -Silvertongue factory? Just before the Williamsburg Bridge." - -"Is it the one with the new radio--the radio-thing on top?" - -"Radiocompressor. Yes." - -"They used to put _names_ on those factories. All lit up." - -"Well, ladies--ladies," said a gravel voice beyond the entrance lights. -"How is life in the Toadstool?" - -"Boney!" said Miss Knox. - -"The what?" asked Miss Erwin. - -"That's what Dr. Brooks called it. Now you tell me what he meant--he -wouldn't say. Toadstool." - -"Come into the light, Boney--you frighten us," said Miss Erwin. - -The man appeared, smiling, and climbed the first stone step. Resting -his elbows on the lion and his chin in his hand, he looked down on them -sideways. - -"Not _another_ new suit," said Miss Knox. - -It was an archaic double-breasted suit in good condition. Where the -jacket hiked up in back, a wide expanse of extra trouser seat had been -folded over and tucked beneath the belt. - -"Hundred-fifty-dollar suit," he said. - -"With or without the bottle?" asked Miss Knox. - -"What bottle?" - -"The one that bangs on your ribs when the breeze blows." - -"Now listen here, lady...." He came down the step. - -"Boney, I'm only kidding. You know that." - -"Kidding. _Kidding._ And here I was giving you inside information. -_Inside_ information." - -"What information?" - -Bringing his drawn face so close that they could smell the wine, he -gave both women a look of scorn. Then he backed away and leaned his -padded shoulder against the lion. - -"Boney, she's sorry," said Miss Erwin. - -"I am not," said Miss Knox. - - * * * * * - -He glowered at her and walked away into the dark, his spider legs -dissolving sooner than expected. Then he marched back. - -"Sorry," he said. "Ha. I won't tell you. I'm going to tell it to the -Director himself." - -"Forget it, Boney. He'd throw you out again. You'd better just tell us." - -His skeleton hand stretched toward the water. "You see that radio -presser?" - -"You mean the new radiocompressor on the Silvertongue factory?" - -"_Radio_compressor. All right. Do you ladies know what it does?" - -"Anything," Miss Knox said. "Our patient, Mr. Barger, builds them. He -told us all about it the moment he came. In Greek." - -"Not--not _all_ about it. _I_ know all about it. I had a big deal -going--my Armenian partner and me, we were buying up neckties to sell -in the hospital...." - -"_What_ do you know? And will you _stop_ blowing in my face?" - -He glowered. - -"I'm sorry, Boney." - -"Radiocompressors can do things--any things--without touching. Like -rolling cigarettes or chopping up tobacco. The radio waves are so small -they--push things." He pushed the air with his left hand. "Not just go -through them." He wiggled the brittle fingers of his right. - -"Everyone knows that," said Miss Knox. "What you mean is that the -supra-short wave has an intense direct effect on matter. It was in all -the papers." - -"Oh, is that so? Is _that_ so? Well, you listen to me. _This_ isn't in -all the papers." - -"All right, go on." Miss Knox struck a cigarette, which blew out. She -threw it down and succeeded in lighting another. - -"You can fool people, also, with the same radio waves," said Boney. - -"You mean hide behind the door with a wave compressor and push chairs -around? Like that?" - -"Don't be silly. Nothing like _that_. Dr. Brooks told me today, when I -was sweeping his _private_ lab in the Toadstool, he told me they make -one kind where if you put it on a table, say, no one can see what else -is there. You could put--a cat on the table, and anyone would think it -was just a table with a radio presser. Until the cat jumped off. Then -you could see it." - -"Can it jump off?" asked Miss Knox. - -"Can it jump off? Did you ever see a cat that couldn't jump? And that's -not all--" - -"Quite a trick," she said. - -"No trick. You could rule the world with that, ladies. Think about it. -Rule the world. Got a cigarette? After all, I always get you coffee." - -She handed him one. - -Miss Erwin stared across the river. "I hope it isn't a new kind of -bomb," she said. - -Boney pulled out a stick match and struck it on the stone lion. Cupping -his hands around the flame, he lit up and walked away. - - * * * * * - -"But, Dr. Brooks, when you tell Boney things like that," said Miss -Knox, "he believes them, and he quotes you like mad. Don't you care -about your reputation at all?" - -"My dear woman," Dr. Brooks replied, "I've been interested in many -things in my years, but getting my portrait in the Mushroom has never -been one of them--" - -Mr. Barger's legs spasmed suddenly and shot straight out, jerking the -covers from his fat-layered neck. But the pink shut eyelids hadn't -quivered. - -"--and, anyway, Boney is right," Dr. Brooks finished. "Why do you think -the Royalties want government control of the whole invention?" - -Miss Knox was tucking the covers around his warm, sticky jowls. "But he -said you said--" - -"I said she said we said." Brooks grabbed her chin between his thumb -and forefinger. "Did you know that machine on the Silvertongue roof -could get at us inside our own homes?" - -She shook her head, swinging his arm from side to side. - -"If you know nothing about it, girlie, let me explain." He squeezed -her chin tighter. "You saw those two men from the Christian E. Lodge -Corporation--Silvertongue, that is--who came this afternoon to see -Barger? The ones on motorskates?" - -"They shouldn't allow those buzzing things in the hospital. They -make more noise than a whirlybird." She backed away, tugging at the -white-coated arm until her chin was released. "I mean I saw them -yesterday. They tried to get in the bird. I don't know why _they_ visit -him--he can't say a word. Doesn't he have a family?" - -"No, but the Silvertongue men love him like a brother. Barger designed -their radiocompressor--the one in all the newspapers. Here, you can see -it from the window if you--" - -"I know, Dr. Brooks." - -"Do you know what that machine can really do, girlie?" - -"When I was your age--" Miss Knox began. - -"You are. I just _look_ young. That machine can cure and shred tobacco -with supra-short waves on a polished magnesium bowl, just the way -the papers say, but they have cheaper ways to process their tobacco. -They really use the machine for guided tours of the factory. Public -relations." - -"You mean float visitors through the air?" - -"No. You'd need the power of ten maritime atomic piles in series just -to lift Dr. Gesner to the height of--" - -"Very funny!" - -"--his own square root. What they can do with that machine is to -disguise an object--say the incoming leaf tobacco. They can make it -look firm, golden, and so forth. The girls at the sorting tables, -wherever the guided tour happens to be, will all look like Norma -Norden. They'll be dressed as angels and work in heaven. Then the -V.I.P.s can tour the girls' homes and dormitories, and instead of a -dirty slum, they'll see--they'll see _mushrooms_, if they like." - -"How is it done?" - -"Only Barger Electronics really knows," said Dr. Brooks, "and the -Christian E. Lodge engineers. It's something to do with compressing the -wave length to approximate that of light, so that images are canceled -out. This leaves a clear field for subliminal techniques. If there are -subvisual images projected on the walls, for instance, that's what the -observers will see inside the room." - -"Oh, my God!" exclaimed Miss Knox. - -"The only other thing I know is that it has to be done with -intersecting spheres. The machine has two portable secondary -transmitters--or projectors, or whatever they call them--each emitting -in all directions to form a wave-sphere. Where the two spheres overlap, -you get your possible interference with light." - -"Frankly, I just don't understand it." - -"Any radio waves go out in all directions to form spheres." His voice -had become a mutter. "You know that." - -"No, I didn't." - - * * * * * - -He gave a false sigh. "Well, take an ordinary weak phone transmitter -very high up in a whirlybird. That's the simplest case. You know what -sound a whirlybird makes, don't you?" - -"Of course," said Miss Knox. - -"What?" Dr. Brooks challenged, moving at her. "How does it sound?" - -"Oh, clatter-clatter chug-chug," she said, moving back. - -"No. Listen closely and you'll hear any whirlybird--especially hospital -ambulances--go _rackety-rackety-rack groundhog_, _rackety-rack -groundhog_!--a reminder to people that they belong on the ground, one -may assume. Picture a microphone attached outside the bird and wired to -your transmitter. The radio waves go out in all directions through the -air. Suppose your air is all of the same density, and so forth--then -all the waves peter out at a constant radius and form a perfect sphere -going _rackety-rackety-rack groundhog_! - -"Now compressed waves travel a certain number of feet--theoretically, -the number of foot-pounds of work the power input could perform -modified by a constant value called 'e'--and at that point they -revert to ordinary radio waves. This forms a sphere of compressed or -supra-short waves. Do you understand that?" - -"No," said Miss Knox. - -"Well, anyway, where two spheres overlap, you get the Barger effect. -And they can vary or limit the effect in interesting ways. Just move -one or both projectors so that the waves intersect each other in -different phases--" - -"That's a fascinating way to back me into a corner of the room, Dr. -Brooks. Now will you please let me look at my patient?" - -Mr. Barger's body convulsed and twitched, and the disordered bedclothes -exposed the pink, swollen layers of his throat. Only the face slept. -Miss Knox reduced the feed on the water envelope, and with her palm -brushed drops of moisture from the burning, out-of-focus pink skin. The -drops were sticky and warm. She wiped her hands on a piece of cotton -and started to prepare the blood transfusion. - -"Before you get out of here," she said to Dr. Brooks, "let me thank -you." - -"For the information? You'll only forget it." - -"No, for the crack about my age." - -Slumping his eyebrows, he went to the door and stepped through almost -before it could slide open. - -"Wait!" she commanded in a stage whisper. - -He appeared, the door sliding back harmlessly against his shoulder -before it changed direction. - -"What's so terrible?" she asked. "You talk as though that -radiocompressor on the Silvertongue roof were going to destroy the -American home, at the very least." - -"They don't just have to transmit within the factory," he said. -"Suppose they wanted you arrested. Say they didn't like brunettes. -Well, first they get some dame to call police and say she's going to -do a strip in front of the Psychiatric Pavilion wall. Then they go -across First Avenue and set up a subliminal movie sequence of some -stripper in action and focus it on the wall from their car. They set up -two portable wave projectors and adjust their phasing to achieve the -Barger effect in that one place. Then they wait for you to pass that -spot on your way to church. Very little power is required; the actual -radiocompression takes place across the river." - -Brooks raised his pants from the knees and minced across the room, -exposing curly hair above his fallen argylls. His white coat twitched -from side to side. "Now here you come. A man watching the street from -the broken stool at the Green Gables twists one of his cufflinks, or -maybe he just whistles. This starts the projectors and you become -invisible, or very blurry, while the subliminal film gives the cops -what they want. Then the whole thing shuts off and the cops can see -_you_ again. You're hustled off to jail and they keep you there--along -with other enemies--by making a similar visual 'fix' on the results in -some polling place and putting in their own judge!" - -"Oh, they'll probably just use it for advertising." - -"Sure," said Brooks. "How would you like it if you were watching -television with your roommate, and all of a sudden she turned into a -giant pack of Silvertongue cigarettes?" - - * * * * * - -Water dripped on her palm, leaving a red stain. A ringing, ringing, and -the whir of motorskates receded down the corridor. It rang and rang, -her hand sticky and warm against her cheek. It rang. - -The telephone. Trying to recapture something she had known, she -let groping fingers stretch toward the instrument. They descended, -clenched, lifted. The ringing stopped. - -She forced her eyes open far enough to see her white arm return. -Hunching up around her pillow with the receiver, she croaked, "Hello." - -"Miss Knox?" A high voice. "Boney--it's Boney--" - -"You have a nerve, Boney, to wake me up at this hour." - -"This isn't Boney--it's Hilda Erwin. I'm on emergency duty and they've -brought in Boney. His throat is cut--" - -"_No!_ Is he alive?" - -"Yes, yes. But he may never speak again. He lay there in the street for -hours and hours. Dr. Gesner's internes are here--" - -"Oh, not being able to talk would be worse for him than dying. I'll -come! I'll be right there!" Miss Knox dropped the receiver and swung -out of bed, feeling in the darkness for her robe. She pulled it on and -opened the door, and found her slippers in the faint yellow light from -the hallway. - -As she ran, knotting the belt of her robe, she looked up and down the -ancient residential corridors for a motorbed. She stumbled against a -rotten wood molding. She pressed the elevator button and turned, her -loose hair swinging heavily, to face the flat eye of a clock. It was -five-fifteen. - -Overhead, the floor indicator creaked around its dial--seven, six, -five, four--and the doors opened. There was a motorbed on the elevator. - -She stepped inside and pressed the button for seven, the lowest floor -with a bridge to the Mushroom. The doors shut and the car moved upward. -Tripping over the torn linoleum, she managed to fall backward onto the -bed's driving seat. She swung her legs around and turned on the switch. - -As the doors opened, she drove out with a jolt and entered the -sparkling newness of a tubular bridge which rose through the night -across First Avenue. The Mushroom towered overhead, its spiral -corridors glowing. Night traffic vibrated beneath her as she crossed--a -crowd of trucks was baying north along the hidden cobblestones, -following traffic lights which jumped from red to green, one after -another, like an electronic rabbit. The trucks passed out of sight -under their own diesel cloud and another pack approached in a higher -key.... - -Then a lurch as towing cables grated and took hold in the curve of the -many-windowed corridor. Whining under glass, the motorbed veered off -in a rising circle around the stem of the Mushroom. Around and around -again, faster, while room numbers flashed red one by one on the silver -doors, over the river, over the roof garden of the Administration wing, -over the river, over the garden, around and around and out, out--far -out over a city of dark crumbling toys and up and up over the rim.... - - * * * * * - -She approached the great transparent dome of the Mushroom looking ahead -into the sky, as though enemies in immense distance were triangulating -upon her. An echo of voices rolled out. Far across the marble floor, -one of the emergency rooms had its lights on. The door opened and a -tiny figure in a motorchair sped out and along the wall, followed by -a line of running dolls in white. Some of them clustered around the -man in the chair, waving their arms. Thinning like a comet's tail, the -procession vanished down the south escalator. The door of the room slid -shut. - -She hurtled across beneath the stars and drove straight at the room, -applying brakes sharply with a tightening in her stomach as the door -began to open. Her long hair swept forward against her cheeks and -shoulders. She jarred to a stop inside and rose, refocusing her senses -on the enclosed white space. - -The bedside table held a pot of paper geraniums. Something lay beneath -the covers like lumber on edge, the angles of knees projecting -sideways. Out of the sheets stuck part of a thin white drainpipe neck -and a face like a broken roof shingle, over which the weeping Miss -Erwin cast her shadow. - -Brooks sat hunched over the stool, fingers buried in his hair. His lab -coat was twisted awry; a bare knee protruded between two buttons. - -"What happened?" asked Miss Knox. - -"He's all right," Miss Erwin sobbed at her. "Delinquents--vandals--they -cut his throat by the river, right in front of the hospital. The mutape -says--he didn't--see their faces." - -"Don't worry about him," said a low muttered voice. "He's been -conscious. The doctors say he'll speak, in time." Dr. Brooks had raised -his head and was trying to cover himself with the lab coat. - -"River rats," Miss Knox snapped, peering at Boney's wasted face. "What -do you mean, in time?" - -"Two or three weeks. An expert job of quick surgery, really." - -"No! No!" Miss Erwin broke into a fit of sobbing and blindly rearranged -the flowers. - -"Do you mean to say?--" - -"Some medical students on a horror spree. Damned age of--what did that -Washington press secretary say?--'atomic hyper-specialization'! That -means young brains growing in channels until they explode through the -wall. You remember the physicist who killed his colleagues when the -English won the Nobel Prize." - -"It can't be," said Miss Knox. She watched the hurt man grimace -somewhere along his razor edge of nightmare. - -"It's the only likelihood. Well, we can't do anything for him now, and -you look a little beat. Come on, I'll buy you coffee from the vending -machine on the Administration roof." - -Dr. Brooks stood up, lifted Miss Knox gently beneath the arms and sat -her on the motorbed, then swung a hairy shin over the driving seat. -They rolled through the doorway. - -"Who was that big shot in the motorchair?" Miss Knox asked. "Dr. -Gesner?" - -Dawn had just begun to spread. They crossed within a widening circle -of mushroom-shaped arches containing portraits which drew farther away -until they resembled portal guards, and then converged again in full -austerity on the opposite side of the great dome. - -"Director himself--they can't reach Gesner anyplace," Brooks said. - - * * * * * - -They started to descend inward from the Mushroom's edge. Numbers -flashed by as they spiraled down faster along the self-steering guide -rail. Over the river, over the garden. Over the river.... - -She leaned back against the pillows. "What was himself doing in the -hospital at this hour?" she asked. - -"As a matter of fact"--his shadow crossed her face as he moved the -deceleration lever--"he was with me." - -"With you?" - -"I was listening to the newscasts in bed. He came to see me because, -as resident radiologist, I'm the only person who knows anything at all -about electronics. While we listened, his assistant with the high voice -called him on my phone and told him about Boney." - -"How did he react?" - -Brooks swung his tiller bar and they veered onto the roof of the -Administration wing, the door behind them cutting off all light -from inside the Mushroom. They were in a formal garden filled with -scent, and surrounded by distant hedges. The few remaining stars were -surprised naked, floating above a monstrous concrete bird-bath. - -"Like a bureaucrat," he muttered as they rolled to a stop. "First he -requisitioned flowers. He's probably in here somewhere now, plotting -revenge against the Commissary clerk who issued the knife they found -near Boney. I know he'd love to see you rushing in your bathrobe to -other people's emergencies." - -"Disgusting. And they call him the Father of the Mushroom. Big shot." - -"Why?" he asked. "After all, he _is_ a bureaucrat. How did you -yourself react--like a woman, no?" - -He helped her down. They walked within a double row of mountain laurels -to the coffee machine. - -"I'd forgotten all about the bathrobe," she said. "Black for me." - -"One day soon," he muttered, "they'll build him a mushroom he'll never -see the end of. Sandwich? Anything?" - -"No." She took the warm plastic cup and sipped. It was bad coffee. Far -below, a snort of traffic echoed down First Avenue. "I've only been -here once before. I'm a bit lower-echelon for the Administrative roof." - -"Who isn't?" - -She looked past the white-on-red Emergency Exit sign to a wrought-iron -gate in the hedge facing the river. "Look, the Silvertongue factory is -all lit up. Every single window on the top floor." - -"I should think so. You mean you don't _know_?" - -"Know what?" - -"My heavens, the fate of man's grasp on reality is being decided -tonight! Congress was still in special session at five A.M.--still is, -as far as I know." - -"Session over what? Don't tell me the bombs have started." - -"Visual interference by radio wave compression. Yesterday the Royalty -called an immediate special session. There is at present _no law_ to -prevent the Christian E. Lodge Corporation from buying the right to -tamper with light waves in the home, for advertising purposes or--God -knows what other kinds of control." - -"I didn't know. I was on duty with Mr. Barger and then no one told me." - -"Barger was against it," said Dr. Brooks. "He sold them the device -with a set of conditions on its use, but now they're buying the patent -outright." - -"But--don't they have to wait for him? Barger Electronics is his -company." - -"No. He's chairman of the board, but any three or more directors can -sell the patent. Once it's sold, there will be nothing Congress can do." - -"Why?" asked Miss Knox, staring out over the water. Some of the -Silvertongue windows had winked out. The others vanished together, -leaving only a pale vertical row to mark the fire stairs. - -Three bells sounded. - -"Your attention please!"--a piping male voice. - -Brooks said, "I'll bet it's the Director himself." - -"In a moment," shrilled the voice, "we will tune in the broadcast -direct from Washington so that all personnel can hear history in the -making. After the congressional vote, Dr. Hamilton, our director, will -honor us with a few words here in the hospital, which he will repeat -later for the benefit of the day shift." - -There was a ringing tone, growling in volume like the approach of -motorskates. - -"I told you," Brooks shouted over the noise. "His family has stock in -Silvertongue." - -"... been informed that a purchase has been completed of full rights to -the Barger Radiocompressor. I warn you that this device will be used -indiscriminately against the public interest." The voice was strong -but unsteady. "Barger engineers have been withdrawn. There are no -controls--" - -"Too late," said Brooks. "That's Thorpe of Louisiana." - -"Bear with me now. I do not doubt that visual interference is already -being used to disrupt this session of Congress. Do you understand? I -have a blinding headache, brought about externally, I am quite certain. -I can no longer read the notes in front of me. If what I say is still -sense, I insist I want a vote, immediate vote, to make this thing -illegal--illegal, and let the New York City police or the Militia or -the Army--the Army...." - - * * * * * - -In sudden silence, she clung to Brooks' sleeve. - -"Ladies and gentlemen," said the piping voice from within the hospital, -"the House of Representatives is still far from approaching a vote. -We will tune in debate on the Senate floor, being broadcast by another -network." - -"... alleged that Patent Number 90,732,440B has something to do with -national safety. I assure you, gentlemen--ladies and gentlemen--that -American business ethics will prevent such dangerous use of technology -now as in the past, and that any weapons application will be confined -strictly to that sphere where weapons are themselves a safety -factor--the sphere of national defense against foreign aggressors. - -"It has further been alleged that there is some connection between -Patent Number 90,732,440B and the hospitalization of Mr. William Barger -of Barger Electronics Company, Incorporated, who is currently afflicted -with"--the Senator breathed a chuckle--"laryngitis. - -"It has even been supposed by certain Senators that the non-fatal -stabbing of Nathan Bonaparte, a part-time employee...." - -Silence. - -"Ladies and gentlemen," the voice from within the hospital said, "we -will tune in again when the matter is brought to a vote. And now--Dr. -Hamilton." - -A long pause filled with buzzing. - -"People," said the Director, and the buzzing ended. "There is no war. -Let me repeat: there is no atomic war going on." He paused. - -"Now there has been a lot of fuss over a steel tower on a factory -across the river. I want to make it clear that no advertising gimmicks -will change our job here. All hospitals--public, like ours, or even our -esteemed allies, the private hospitals--are bound by medical and staff -ethics to pay no official attention to the world of advertising. - -"I am especially amazed by rumors that Nat Bonaparte, or 'Boney,' who -does clean-up work here from time to time, was silenced because he -'knew something' about this wonderful advertising gimmick. Nothing can -be sillier. It just happens that the fellow left _my_ office shortly -before he must have been wounded by delinquents from the nearby slums. -He was giving me 'inside information,' as he called it, about light-ray -guns, and mechanical hypnotism, and plots against the patients. These, -apparently, are the things which Boney 'knew,' and he has been talking -endlessly about them since I first came into office, and presumably -before." - -Brooks struck two cigarettes against his pack and handed one to Miss -Knox. Their first puff obscured his puzzled frown. - -"This _fuss_ I am talking about," continued the Director, "has been -taken as grounds for wild infringement of any and all regulations -by personnel of this hospital. I want it made perfectly clear that -motorbeds not in official use should be stored in the proper supply -rooms, according to the chart in the Commissary office. We are setting -up a daily check-in system--" - -"Let's get out of here," said Miss Knox. - -"--to prevent further misuse of this equipment." - -"Get on the bed," said Dr. Brooks. "If they saw you go up to Boney, we -can't leave it here." - -"_Furthermore_, any private or unauthorized use of this or other -hospital equipment may be punished by immediate dismissal--" - -Miss Knox took a step toward the motorbed. "I'd like to look in on Mr. -Barger." - -"--with _particular_ application to the young woman who used a motorbed -tonight to visit a sick friend." - -Miss Knox stood feet apart, hands on hips. "The dirty son of a bitch," -she said. - - * * * * * - -Miss Erwin came running across the Mushroom, white pumps clacketing -half off her feet. "Oh!" she said, and stopped, panting. "Has the world -really been taken over by admen?" - -Brooks stopped the motorbed. "Just America," he said, "and only a -few admen." He helped Miss Knox down and they all walked toward the -emergency rooms. - -"Boney is fine, Dr. Brooks," said Miss Erwin. "He just went back to -sleep. But Mr. Barger is not feeling well." - -"Is Mr. Barger awake?" - -"Oh, no, Doctor, but he was moaning. A sort of breath-moan, with his -eyes still shut. Dr. Feld took a mutape and said he wasn't getting -regular delirium patterns at all." - -"Has Dr. Gesner been here?" - -"We've tried and tried to reach him, but he left no word with his -office or at home. His nurses are terribly worried about him, and his -wife--oh, Miss Knox, do you suppose he drinks?" Miss Erwin's forehead -grew a splotch of pink. "_Oh_, I'm sorry, Doctor! I'm terribly upset." - -"Go home, Hilda," said Miss Knox. "I can handle things--I go on in less -than an hour, anyway. Let's foul up Hamilton's schedule." - -"Oh, Miss _Knox_!" - -"Just one more thing--before you go to bed, get a uniform from my room -and give it to Miss Kelly, to bring with her when she comes up for day -shift. If my door is open, close it." - -"Here's a key." Dr. Brooks said. "Give it to one of the attendants in -the dining room. If no one's eating breakfast yet, leave it with Old -Man Mackey. Say that I want some linens and a suit--any suit--brought -up for me when the shift changes. Not before." - -"What color socks, Doctor?" - -"Any color." - -"Thanks so much," said Miss Erwin, backing toward the escalator. - -Brooks muttered, "The Mushroom doesn't suit her looks." - -"She's too young," said Miss Knox. "What's-his-name who designed -it--you know, the one who did the museums--was ninety-four." - -"He's still designing," said Brooks. - -"Can I do anything for you? Preferably against regulations." She -watched him lock the door and close the viewplate, and rummage in the -manila folder at the foot of the bed. - -"I don't know what's wrong with these people," Dr. Brooks muttered. - -"What is it?" she asked over his shoulder. - -"They've gotten their tapes crossed! That idiot Feld must have had this -in his machine when he came. It's some accident victim's tape--one -hundred per cent unverbalized pain, and the victim was _wide awake_ -when he made it. It might be Boney's tape. This man here has been in -coma since this--since yesterday morning, thank heaven." - -"Poor Boney," said Miss Knox, adjusting Mr. Barger's covers and her own -loose hair. As though in answer, Mr. Barger stirred feebly, raising -his arm. - -"Honey, there isn't much we can do," said Dr. Brooks. - -"You're right." She glanced down and plucked at the bathrobe around her -smooth lace-bordered throat. "Can't save the world in my old nightgown." - -He took her by the shoulders and bent his head toward the palpitating -muscle in her throat. - -Leaning back against the edge of the bed, she held him at arm's length. -She wet her lips and said, "Did I tell you I'm supposed to wear -glasses?" - -He sprawled forward into her embrace. Her dark mane tumbled thickly -over Mr. Barger. They twisted and pulled each other down to the floor, -freeing loose strands of hair from the blanket's electricity. - - * * * * * - -She opened her eyes and saw a flat briefcase with a coil antenna -sticking out. - -"What's the matter?" whispered Dr. Brooks. - -"On the bottom of the bed!" - -He pressed his cheek to the floor and examined the under-carriage of -Mr. Barger's motorbed. - -"Projector!" He reached in and tugged at the object, bracing his other -hand against the driveshaft. "Help me, quick!" - -She grasped smooth leather and pulled, her nails making scars, as he -slid under the bed and hammered with his fist. "It's hooked on the -other way," she said. He pulled, and the briefcase fell heavily to the -floor. - -Dr. Brooks rolled to his feet, kicking the object into the light, and -yanked at its buckles and straps. "My bag is somewhere near the chair. -Get the mutape on him, fast!" - -She found his black satchel on the floor, plugged into the computer -outlet and spread the apparatus over Mr. Barger's bed. She made a -trembling fist around the Broca cup, and watched the dormant pink -cheeks and eyelids as she lowered the cup toward his skull. - -The rubber rim thudded against empty air, pleating like a horse's -muzzle as she pushed. The sleeping Barger face remained a picture -glowing out of reach inches beneath her straining fist, behind a smell -of blood. A hand from under the covers grasped her wrist.... - -She struggled. Dr. Brooks, at the telephone, contorted his face and -heaved the briefcase against the wall. It shattered into coils and -smashed tubes and pieces of electronic chassis like a shower of silver -Christmas ornaments, and a moan from the bed faded away. - -Brooks shouted and hung up the phone. The mutape was chattering -violently. He unlocked the door, flung himself to the bed and took -the recorder between his hands. The grasp on her wrist relaxed, and -she leaned over to decipher the punched tape as it unrolled from the -machine. Its dot patterns were unverbalized bloody agony, cleanly -formulated in computer language. - -"He'll verbalize," Brooks said. "Just don't look at him--thank God -they've found Gesner." - -A red, bloated forehead above eyes fixed on her own through lenses of -gray fluid as it writhed and pressed up against the Broca cup in her -fist. She covered her face, and between her fingers the sleeping Barger -face still lay on its pillow. - - * * * * * - -Dr. Brooks screwed his own features into a wink, and she turned away to -watch the unrolling tape still chattering between his hands: "England -is the only hope. We must go through immediately before direct control -and defenses build against us--morphine, why did you not give me -morphine? Pain is intolerable." - -"Analgesics nullify the Gesner shots," Brooks said. - -"Morphine," chattered the tape, "worth it, worth it, cure me when we -have left for England. And hurry, they want me alive, and as soon as -they control the police...." - -Turning under Dr. Brooks' twisted glance as he took the Broca cup, -she went to the sink and scrubbed her hands. She found the hypodermic -and phial in the black satchel and measured two cc of clear tincture -of morphine, and turned back to the arm which grasped Dr. Brooks' -wrist, pressing the cup hard against a swollen red mass. She rolled up -the sleeve of the hospital gown which led to a raised shoulder (she -wouldn't look at the face) and hesitated--another needle was already -stuck in the muscle, protruding just above the skin. She found the vein -and pushed the plunger in, and withdrew her needle. - -Dr. Brooks said, "Get that out of there." - -She took tweezers from her bathrobe pocket and carefully removed an -inch of broken hypodermic shaft. The blood spurted. She reached for -cotton and alcohol. - -Three bells rang in the corridor as the door slid open, and Miss Erwin -came fluttering in. - -"Don't look, Hilda!" warned Miss Knox. - -"Calling the emergency rooms," said a piping voice. "Beware of patient -William Barger who may attempt to escape. He may be armed...." - -The mutape chattered. - -"Here, take the cup," said Dr. Brooks. He picked up the bedside chair -and placed it on the foot of the bed. Climbing onto the swaying surface -like a trained ape, he reached up and loosened the screws which held -the light globe in place on the ceiling, and threw it to shatter on -the floor. Miss Erwin stepped backward. Then she tiptoed toward the -light and steadied the chair, and stared at the patient's face in -fascination. Dr. Brooks was tugging at an object resembling a camera, -attached by a spring clamp between the bulbs of the ceiling fixture. - -"Hilda!" Miss Knox said. - -"Oh, look at his face now!" - -"Subliminal picture slide," said Dr. Brooks, dropping the object to the -floor with a crash. "There goes his sweet sleeping face--an illusion -filling in for reality _because there was nothing else for us to see_." - -Mr. Barger's face was blotched red and covered with shiny ooze. His -throat was swollen as thick as his cheeks, with lumpy rolls of neck -stretched taut like strands of pink beads above the bedsheet. His mouth -was hidden beneath caked blood. - -The mutape read, "You are running out of time." - -Three bells in the corridor as the door slid open. "Calling Dr. -Gesner," said a cool nurse's voice. "Emergency. Calling Dr. Feld. -Emergency." - -Five internes scurried in, surrounding the figure on the bed. Behind -them strode rawboned Dr. Feld in a red hunting jacket. A motorchair -rolled after him and stopped in the doorway, and an assistant -administrator stood up and piped, "Hold him! He may be armed!" - - * * * * * - -With the mutape chattering and Dr. Brooks bent close over the recorder, -Miss Knox stood up and prepared her needle with penicillin from the -black satchel. - -"Don't kill him," the administrator whined. - -Three bells in the corridor. "All personnel," said the nurse's voice. -"Day shift, please take notice. Beware of a patient, armed, seeking to -escape from the emergency floor. All hospital personnel. Beware of a -patient...." - -Big Carl kicked the motorchair out of the doorway, stepped through and -handed Dr. Brooks a blue serge suit on a hanger. After him came a nurse -carrying a white uniform and a paper bag. The room was filled with an -echo of voices spreading across the Mushroom. - -"Step back," said Dr. Feld, stumbling over an interne. - -Two student nurses came to the doorway and stood on either side, one -with her hand in the photocell beam to keep the door from closing. The -noise grew. - -"Calling Dr. Gesner," said the cool nurse's voice. - -A group of internes shuffled inside, faces averted, moving sideways in -the crowd around the bed. Two attendants came striding up and stood on -either side of the door, next to the student nurses. - -A class of medical students filed in and moved along the wall, the -taller ones standing on tiptoe to see the patient. A bearded professor -in tweeds followed, whispering, "Here he comes, here he comes." - -After a pause, Dr. Gesner waddled through the doorway between his -nurses. Three internes came after with white coats flying open, the -middle one a Hindu in a blue sash, and then a messenger boy calling, -"Telegram for Dr. Gesner!" Three bells rang in the corridor, and the -door slid shut. - -A path cleared before Dr. Gesner as he made his way to the bed. Helped -to a sitting position, he opened the telegram which had been passed -from interne to interne. - -"You don't mind," he said, turning to the patient's bloody face. He -read the message and threw it away. "The police have been holding me -for two days. Here my lawyers have a nice case against City Hall, just -when this England business comes up--so you're the man who's dangerous -and armed! I'm sure Hamilton isn't responsible for that story." - -Dr. Gesner had removed some of the cake with Miss Knox's tweezers and -was prodding the lipless inflammation. - -"Wash this off as gently as you can," said Dr. Gesner, and Miss Knox -stepped forward. "And the antiseptic ointment in my bag--it has a -purple label." - -"I had to give him morphine," said Dr. Brooks. - -"Ah--and some antibiotic?" - -"Penicillin," said Miss Knox. - -"Ah. Now tell me, where is this other man who was put out of commission -by these--these throat specialists? I'd like to examine him." - - * * * * * - -The mutape chattered suddenly and then stopped. Dr. Brooks bent and -read out loud, "Get those two on motorskates! I know them. They appear -blond with their projector fields turned on; otherwise they are both -narrow-faced and dark." - -Dr. Gesner smiled with just the middle of his face. "We caught them in -the lobby on our way in. One of my lawyers is coming with us. His son -plays right tackle--young lady!" He looked straight at Miss Knox. "I -understand you've been talking about this business for days, along with -our friend with the cut throat. You've been in danger--those two men -were still in the building on your account, I'm sure. It's a very good -thing you weren't alone, you or Dr. Brooks. I take it you were both on -night duty." - -Dr. Brooks said, "If any of the nurses or Dr. Gesner's students don't -know what this is all about, I'm sure he'll make an announcement when -we're all on the way to England. You must have some idea of what's -happened. If anyone doesn't want to come, of course--" - -"Treason and insubordination!" piped a hidden voice. "Under the -circumstances, Dr. Hamilton will have you jailed when he finds out what -you're up to, Dr. Brooks." - -Brooks stretched his arm between two students and pulled a switch on -the wall. The ceiling began to open, sweeping bright sunshine down -the wall and making metal buttons twinkle on Dr. Feld's jacket. The -ceiling slid back on rollers with a rumbling sound, until nothing was -overheard but the black dots of aircraft rising toward the sun. Nearby, -a whirlybird took off with a _rackety-rackety-rackety-rack_! - -"I phoned the Director," Dr. Brooks told the crowd. "He's not -interfering. In fact, I'm pretty sure Dr. Hamilton will come." - -"Dr. Feld," said Dr. Gesner, "will you show the adman out?" - -"I'm not--" - -There was the sound of a blow and the assistant administrator appeared, -scrabbling for his motorchair, which was buried among the students. -His spindle limbs flailed from one side to the other until he was -propelled from the room at a run, screaming, and the messenger boy -vanished after him. Three bells rang in the corridor as the door closed. - -Dr. Gesner raised his hand and voices were stilled, the shuffle of feet -ended and the mutape chattered alone in the sunshine. He leaned over -and read the tape, and as he straightened his back, even the recorder -stopped still. He heaved himself to his feet with the help of two -internes. - -"He says--" puffed Dr. Gesner--"he says this is no time for sadism." - - * * * * * - -"Last ones up, girlie," said Dr. Brooks. - -She sat on the bed and the mutape spoke to her noisily. Big Carl had -hooked two cables in place, Dr. Brooks the other two, and the floor -platform began to rise through the room toward the maw of the hovering -whirlybird. She tucked the covers gently around her patient's distorted -throat. - -The chatter stopped. She read, "This is something the Royalty -predicted for weeks ahead of time. I thought we could avoid it, -but the Silvertongue people must have fed me the virus at our last -luncheon meeting. Then when negotiations remained uncertain--thanks to -Royalty sentiment on my board--they came visiting while I slept and -injected me with a larger dose and planted the projectors. I woke up -in awful pain. You were there, young lady--I screamed, silently, with -my features. I was unable to raise my head. You wiped blood from my -cheeks with your palm and cleaned it on a piece of cotton. You thought -it was under water. Your eyes turned away before your hand left the -projector field--or else you could not see what you could not expect. -While I looked on, you treated me like a sleeping baby and asked Dr. -Brooks about radio...." The perforated tape had stopped feeding from -the machine. - -"His tape!" she cried. - -"Don't worry," Dr. Brooks said. "We're unplugged from the hospital -system, but I reserved the only ambulance with its own computer -circuit. It conveys limited ideas, but that's better than nothing." - -Big Carl had erected the safety gates. "Look below," he said. - -She stood up and pressed her forehead to the latticework of the nearest -gate. At first there was only a diamond-shaped patch of sky, with the -Silvertongue factory in the bottom corner. Then, as the platforms -swung on its cables, she saw the curved edge of the Mushroom, and the -Administration roof swarming with figures on motorskates. They circled -among the squat mountain laurels, pointing upward. The ambulance walls -settled around her suddenly blocking the view, and the belly of the -vehicle rumbled shut. With a bump, the floor platform was deposited on -its girders. - -Dr. Brooks said, "We're away--I'll have the pilot phone the others!" - -"Where's the socket?" Miss Knox asked. "Mr. Barger and I were talking." - -Dr. Brooks plugged into an overhead beam and the mutape immediately -began to chatter: "What is your first name, Miss Knox?" - -"Delia," she said. - -"Pete Brooks." - -"Carl," the big man growled as he folded the gates. - -"Call me Bill," said Mr. Barger's tape. Mr. Barger's square hand -motioned her closer beside him. "Delia, do you know what we must do -when we reach England? We must use the atom bomb first, before the -admen have full control. Only then may we return to the America we -know. The real America." - -"Do the English know?" asked Miss Knox. - -"Of course," she said. "They heard the broadcasts, and their scientists -understood. They have supported our Royalty Party for years. I think I -could increase the range of my device and reach America before they -reached England--but there is no time for that. The world must unite -against invasion. Even the Russians know that there is no limit to the -scope or methods of greedy marketing specialists"--the machine punched -out a pattern of giggles and chuckles--"and I doubt if the Russians -could ever invent a radiocompressor." - -"Are _all_ the admen part of this?" - -"Absolutely not, young lady! The very great majority has always -followed a strict code of ethics that the very small minority has -always subverted. Many ethical admen are in the birds now, on their way -to England--knowing perfectly well that England is poor territory for -emotional salesmanship." - -"But why a Royalty Party in a democracy?" Miss Knox asked. - -"Royalty--" The tape showed amusement. "Not aristocracy. Royalty, as in -share of and control over. Motto of the Royalty Party: 'The inventor is -worthy of his invention,' meaning the right to say how his discovery -shall or shall not be used--or not be used at all, if it can only be -destructive--as well as sharing in the proceeds. Unreasonable attitudes -are not possible; we have an Appeals Board that can overrule a -pig-headed patentee. Radiocompressors were intended for beautification -of environment, not deception or thought control." - -"Why England?" she persisted. - -"Pretty generally, the Royalty code is and has been standard procedure -there. Like their constitution, it hasn't had to be put in writing." - -"Aren't there slums and unsightly monuments in England, too?" - -"Of course. Why do you think they would like to have the invention? But -it's safe there; it won't be subverted to thought control and sales -engineering.... Tell me, Delia, is Dr. Gesner on this ambulance? I -would like to meet him." - -Dr. Brooks had come back from the control room. He sat beside -her on the bed. "Dr. Gesner went ahead with Dr. Hamilton," he -said, "because you're healthier than either one of them. But, Mr. -Barger--Bill--doesn't light-wave interference need two overlapping -projectors plus the subliminal image? We only found one." - -The recorder chattered: "I am sure the other is also somewhere in the -bed. It is harmless by itself, and I am glad we have it--it will help -me instruct a team of British physicists and engineers. But who is in -the other compartment? I hate to play chess with the same people over -and over." - -"I'm afraid he doesn't play," said Brooks. "I think it's old Boney, who -had his throat cut because your friends thought he might get you some -help too soon." - -The recorder punched out, "I would like to meet him," as Miss Knox -jumped from the bed, pulling Dr. Brooks by the arm. The machine -chattered again briefly and she stopped and read, "Do not neglect -me altogether," and ran on. She opened the door to the other bed -compartment. - -Miss Erwin fell on her with a cuddly embrace, and then Dr. Brooks -reached over her shoulder to shake Miss Erwin's hand. "How's the -patient?" he asked. - -Across the compartment, Boney's face expanded in a three-cornered smile. - -"At least he slept," said Miss Erwin. "That poor Mr. Barger--all the -time we thought he was in coma, he was wide awake!" - -Miss Knox said, "Oh, my God!" - - * * * * * - -"I hear more jets!" wailed Miss Erwin's voice from the other room. -"Why are they all flying home tonight, and we have to leave? Carl, are -we--are we a quarter of the way to England?" - -"No," Big Carl answered. - -Miss Knox called through the doorway, "This one won't let me open the -hatch!" - -Hunched across the bed, his hair falling over his forehead, Dr. Brooks -played chess with Mr. Barger. "Not in here," he said. "You can open the -emergency hatch in back if you like night air. But don't expect to see -the bombers--or anything but our own landing gear." - -She slid past him and shut herself into the small rear compartment and -turned out the light. She felt for the emergency lock and swung her -weight backward as the damp black air screamed in and tugged at her -face--the whirlybird showed its fat thigh with a _rackety-rackety-rack -groundhog_! Tears ran down her cheeks, distorting her first view of -darkness. - -Beyond the machine's ungainly silhouette she peered and saw flashes of -yellow light on water--but nothing, nothing familiar. Thus, squinting -desperately toward home, she noticed it, marking the horizon. A glowing -mushroom. It must have been gigantic. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Don't Look Now, by Leonard Rubin - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DON'T LOOK NOW *** - -***** This file should be named 51740.txt or 51740.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/7/4/51740/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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