The Science-Fantasy Megapack Page 32

  “What about this ghost thing?” The publisher frowned and looked at his watch.

  “That was the only explanation that was ever given for the two events,” said Dickie. “Something triggered off their imaginations all at once. Something projected the same pictures into all their minds, and they believed, just as we believed yesterday, that they saw what they didn’t see.”

  “But what?” An impatient publisher now.

  “This einflubergeist. In Germany they believe that influences move around the world in the guise of men but not real men. They are emotions, not substantial. They merely have physical form—”

  “Why?” Butty. “Why do they need to have physical form at all?” Butty amused. Dickie ignored him.

  “When they appear there is always tragedy—or the appearance of tragedy. In that Rhine village and in Switzerland people spoke of a stranger—and strangers weren’t common in small places in those days.” Dickie looked at Butty. Deliberately— “In both cases they painted the same picture. A man, difficult to describe because he seemed of no age, no features to remember him by—just a vague creature, poorly dressed, shabby.”

  “In fact,” helped Butty, “just like the fellow who upset the table outside Dalrymple’s yesterday.” He turned to the publisher. “You know, the weirdie you sent packing because he looked a bum.”

  The publisher was a little proud of the memory and nodded.

  Young Dickie took the plunge. “Just like him. Mr. Butteridge, something happened yesterday that was above natural laws of explanation. You tell me, how can the same identical story leap into a hundred people’s minds when it didn’t happen? Something happened to plant those pictures in those minds. I still think I saw them. They’re vivid to me. Yet I am prepared to accept that I didn’t see them. Even so, I want to know—what put the pictures into our minds, the same pictures at the same moments?”

  The Swiss and the Germans blamed it on the passing stranger.” Butty was on sure ground. “Passing strangers have been lynched for unaccountable happenings to communities right through the ages. You should read The Witches of Salem. Not quite the same, but it does demonstrate the power of hysteria.”

  Dickie said levelly, not liking to be laughed at, “Both the Swiss and the Germans put down the hallucination to the presence and influence of the einflubgeist. For them there was no other explanation. In some mysterious way that stranger in their midst was able to influence their minds. They saw—or thought they saw—tragedy. And in both cases, next day the stranger had gone and was never seen again.” His young voice ended on triumph.

  Butty squashed him easily. He felt rather a cad for doing so, for Dickie was a nice lad, just quaint because he liked bug-eyed monsters.

  “Now, Dickie, are you saying that yesterday’s hallucination was caused by that weirdie who showed up here only a minute or so before the event?”

  Put like that, Dickie wasn’t on such firm ground. He wavered. “Well, not exactly.” He pondered and saw for the first time where a vivid imagination could take one—into quicksand that could bring shame and retraction. Defiantly, “All right, but what’s your explanation? What caused it all?”

  Butty looked out on to the High Street, seeing Dunn’s the gents’ hatters opposite. His eyes lifted to the tall chimneys on the industrial estate behind. No smoke today. Good. Smokeless zones are to be observed.

  Butty said, “I approve of your explanation. It was the work of an einflubgeist.”

  The publisher said, “Oh, come off it, Butteridge. Even I can’t swallow that. And let’s stop talking. God knows, we’re so far behind we’ll have nothing to publish next month.”

  Neither took any notice of him. Dickie said, “But I thought you were deriding my theory?”

  “I am. So far as the weirdie is concerned. He wasn’t the einflubgeist,” He looked at Dickie, smiled slightly, and said, “You were it.”

  Dickie just sat there with his mouth open. Butty said, “Let us accept that something put people into a mental condition where they could be receptive to thought suggestions. I have a theory about that.” His eyes looked through the doorway again. “At that very moment—and it must have been exactly at that moment—something happened to cause a stir, a bit of a panic, a commotion.”

  That car that ended up in Jolly’s window, thought Butty. Yes, that would be the thing that triggered things off, first aroused emotions. The driver—a heart attack—a swerve. Into the window and everybody shouting and running like mad. Young Dickie drawn out by the noise, and then the publisher. And then—But first something had tampered with all those minds down the High Street.

  Butty looked at Dickie. “You did it. You have a wonderfully fertile imagination. You handle imaginative writing, science fiction, good, bad and plain lousy. Your job is to deal with ideas, wild ideas at times, richly imaginative ideas occasionally. So your mind is a stockpot of many men’s inventiveness, so that when the time came you were able to draw upon your imagination.”

  Dickie was incredulous. He just stared at Butty, then said, “Are you telling me I went into that crowd and made up the whole story about the conductress and the bus and those people being run down?”

  Butty was laughing. “Well, someone did, didn’t they?”

  Dickie snapped, “You must think I’m mad.”

  Butty shook his head, “Oh, you didn’t do it consciously. Perhaps someone else even started it off. An odd phrase— ‘These damn’ buses. Shouldn’t be on the High Street. That caused the accident.’ I don’t know, I’m only ad libbing. But you have an inventive mind and you probably started off the crowd and they responded and you accepted their statements and built upon them and between you in no time you had worked out a story which in their condition they saw as pictures in their minds.”

  “I saw them.” The publisher was looking hard at Butty. He was entertaining some theory of his own now, and by the look of things it would not be in Butty’s favor.

  Butty said, “That was it. All in seconds a story built up, and those who had been influenced accepted it and believed they saw the events invented.”

  Dickie was a little dazed. “I can’t really accept that.” He began to protest, as anyone would in his situation. “I mean, being responsible for all that hysteria.” He was shuddering, Sick inside, thinking, “Great God, if it’s true and it comes out in the papers.” Then he said, suspicious, “But people aren’t normally responsive to suggestions like that. If I went into the street right now and shouted to people that a bus was mowing down pedestrians on the zebra crossing, they’d take one look then—”

  “Then tell you to get stuffed.”

  “It happened yesterday, though, according to your theory. What’s different?”

  Butty sighed. He had to use his handkerchief again. “That chimney isn’t smoking. The wind isn’t swinging a down draught on to the High Street.”

  The publisher had lost all interest. He snapped, “Stop playing detectives. This is something far above your head. Leave police work to the police.”

  Deliberately Butty said, “This is science fantasy on a vastly higher plane than anything you publish.” He would probably get fired for that. Butty knew he had been asking for the boot for some days past. But, the hell with this job.

  He said, “Every day we see protestors go by to picket USUK Chenucal Company’s premises. Why? Why do they do it? Because USUK are known to be researching in chemicals for use in warfare. They’ve a number already on the market, some used by police in uncivilized countries. I mean by that, in the United States, Germany, France, Japan, Northern Ireland.

  “What these young people are picketing against, however, is YOG 45, the Eunuch Drug, as the popular press have called it. Used against an enemy and it makes them as docile, as unaggressive as eunuchs are supposed to be.” Butty was thoughtful. “Not that castration does make all eunuchs unaggressive—history gives the lie to that.”

  The publisher was getting tizzier because time was going on. Now, rather like a spoilt ch
ild, he had to say, “I thought you approved of drugs that made people content, unwarlike, un-aggressive?”

  “Not if they are employed by war-like people seeking to hurt and to dominate.” Butty could dispose of the publisher any time he liked.

  Dickie was startled at the idea. “You think some YOG 45 escaped into the High Street.” His mind jumped on to it eagerly. This was rich, real SF. He frowned. There were snags to the theory.

  “Not necessarily YOG 45, probably not that at all. But something, something else they manufacture. Something that went up in smoke yesterday morning—probably by accident. Right at the time I saw white vapor—” He pointed to one of the chimneys on the industrial estate. “I remember wondering about it—smokeless zone, you know. Seemed to last too long for steam. And it blew down, down towards us. Down on to the High Street.”

  Dickie was on edge. He got up and walked two or three irresolute steps across the office. Plainly he wanted to run out and discuss excitedly this theory.

  “Just a whiff,” said Butty. “Probably affected only this part of the High Street and nowhere else. A whiff, but it created conditions fertile for hallucinations. A hundred or so people affected. And between you, building up this mass hallucinatory effect.”

  Dickie said, “That’s it, that’s it. A hallucinatory drug, then…imagination.”

  “Yours,” grinned Butty. “Master of space Bug science Fiction professional sensational man, harborer of way-out ideas.”

  The publisher finally exploded. He stood up, almost raving. “You go on and on, yacking. You think because you handle SF you’ve got a superior insight into things. But you haven’t. You’re too clever by half, that’s your trouble.”

  They blinked at him. He was really in a paddy, but much more so, his sarcasm rasped like a power-tool saw. The publisher was well and truly worked up. Butty experienced a spasm of unease.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, YOG 45. You’re just carried away with absurd theories when you know they don’t stand the test at all. Think, man, think.” He was unpleasant to Butty, leering at him.

  Butty went stiff-faced, thinking, “Think what?” His mind racing to see what he might have overlooked. Dickie just stood there, motionless.

  The publisher. He troweled on his sarcasm. “You say a gust of wind came down, blowing some hallucinatory drug on to the High Street and into this office?”

  Butty caught on. Too late. The publisher pounced for the kill.

  “All right, Superior Intellect, if it affected Armstrong and me, why didn’t it affect you?”

  And Butty hadn’t a word to say to that. So curious, the weakness in his theory just hadn’t occurred to him. He could only look at the publisher, staring, helpless. And Dickie was looking at him, pleading for support, wanting now to believe in this YOG 45, or whatever it was theory.

  Butty went to his desk and sat down. He didn’t say anything, because he had nothing to say. Right back to the beginning? was his thought. He’d had no hallucinations.…

  The boss wasn’t a man to leave things alone. This was his moment of triumph. “I tell you, you can’t see wood for trees. You’re so damned sure of yourself. you won’t believe what others tell you. Nothing on earth will you convince me that what I saw yesterday was a hallucination. Nothing.” A resolute, no=-nonsense-about-me businessman. He jerked his chin up, that little gesture to show independence, toughness, down-to-earth qualities,

  “Nothing.” Dozy old Dalrymple was in the doorway. The publisher ignored him. “I know my own mind, and the sooner you stop talking your fanciful theories, the sooner we’ll be in business again. Look at all the work.” He gestured towards a swollen in-tray.

  Butty sat and thought. Old Dalrymple cleared his throat and said. “About those remainders.” His voice globby with catarrh.

  The publisher was irritable, though it meant a pound or two of spending money. “Look, Dal, have I had time to do anything with all that happening out there, and Butteridge off with cold—and a bit off his head this morning, too,” he added maliciously.

  Dalrymple honked, “Damn’ fools.”

  The publisher sad, “Who? Damn’ fools?”

  Dal husked, “Hysterical people, seeing corpses when there were none!”

  The publisher looked huffed. Dickie turned his eyes on Butty. And Butty was getting to his feet, beginning to smile.

  He said, “Mr. Dalrymple, so you weren’t affected yesterday. You didn’t see any…accident?”

  Dalrymple gave a quick, birdlike look over the tops of his glasses. Very short, his answer. “Too busy putting that table up. Damned man. Hope he never comes near my shop again.”

  Butty was beaming. “Blame the damp Merseyside air,” he said. Dalrymple grunted and looked surprised. “Catarrh,” said Butty. “That’s it.”

  The publisher and Dickie were looking at him as if he was daft. Butty snapped his fingers. “Two of us weren’t affected. Now, why? I’m just going to make a guess. I had a cold in my head—nasal passage blocked—Mr. Dalrymple has permanent catarrh, same effect. Something to do with the nose, don’t you see? The gas affected healthy people, not people with bunged-up hooters. Dickie, don’t you see, the theory’s right, after all.”

  He went out into the street. It didn’t matter what the publisher thought. This was better than reading science fiction—crap stuff, that is—and anyway he was firmly in sympathy with young people who gave their time to protesting against new weapons of war.

  Butty went down the street until he found the superintendent. Then he spoke to him for quite a time, and they watched him from the door of the shop that was an unsuitable editorial premise. The superintendent spotted the local Medical Officer of Health and signaled him to stop, and then Butty talked again.

  The M.O. said. “I’m grateful to you. Mr. Butteridge. I think your theory is worth testing. It hangs together. Yes, I’m really grateful.” He’d been getting nowhere. Now, this.… The M.O. began to feel excited. “Look, I’ll go round to the factory and do some checking. If I need you again, Mr. Butteridge?”

  Butty gave the address of the publisher. After all, he’d still be there for another month, even if he was fired. The publisher would make him work out his time. He went back, happy. One up on his mortal enemy.

  The only thing that worried the M.O. was the car that had veered into Jolly’s window. Uneasily he remembered that the driver had spoken only a few words when he regained consciousness, just before dying. And no one could have got at him with suggestion.

  “The bus…damned thing.… All across the road.… Driver laughing. Mad, mad.…”

  The M.O. decided to forget about the motorist. It made Butty’s theory inconsistent and he needed it.

  THE DILETTANTES, by E. C. Tubb

  Artrui was admiring Bulem’s new nail varnish when Velenda joined them in the breakfast room. Listlessly, she sat down, punched the button for fruit juice, and scowled at the two men. Neither of them paid her the slightest attention.

  “I like it,” said Artrui enviously. “There’s something quite fascinating about the way all those tiny flecks of color shimmer when you move your hands. Prador?”

  “Yes.” Bulem moved his fingers and smiled at the result, “He is experimenting with photon-trapping compounds and sent me this as a sample. Neat, isn’t it?”

  “Very.” Artrui glanced distastefully at his own emerald-tipped fingers then smiled as Marya entered the room. Marya was the latest addition to the composite group, and so was extremely popular. She sat down and punched for a full meal.

  “What are we doing today?”

  “I’ve no idea.” Artrui sat down beside her and, with blatant intimacy, sipped from her glass. “I suppose we could go over and see Tobol. They tell me that he’s worked up some wonderful new fabrics, gossamer with iridescent panels. He’s got some new models, too, from Atheon, I believe. Atheon or maybe Xenadath, some outlandish planet like that.”

  “Yolande,” corrected Velenda. No one took any notice of
her.

  “I’ve seen Tobol’s collection,” protested Bulem. “He hasn’t anything really new, just reworks of his old ideas. I found them intensely boring.” He looked thoughtful. “We could go to the Stadium.”

  “No,” said Marya decisively. “I wouldn’t like that.”

  “No?” Bulem shrugged. “Well, I must admit that the spectacle of trained animals fighting each other to the death begins to pall after a while. What would you suggest?”

  “I don’t know,” snapped Marya impatiently. “Can’t you think of anything?”

  “The races?” Artrui sighed at her expression. “No?” He frowned, resting the tips of his fingers against his temples in an exaggerated gesture of concentration. “Calthin? He can usually be relied on to supply something interesting. Helstart? They say that his tingle-dreams are out of this universe. Malpiquet? He has some interesting exhibits in aborted mutation which should prove interesting if you like that sort of thing.”

  “I don’t,” said Marya curtly.

  “We could go underworld,” suggested Bulem. Like Artrui, he was worried by Marya’s lack of response. “From what I hear it would be most interesting.”

  “Is that all you can think of?” Marya didn’t trouble to hide her impatience. “I’d rather be immolated than have to wear one of those awful suits. What’s the good of going to a place where you can’t do anything?” She stretched, lifting her slender arms until the sheer gossamer of the robe she wore fell back along their smooth perfection. “What I need is something novel and exciting. Maybe.…”

  “A hunt,” said Bulem quickly, before she could finish what she was going to say. “We’ve never been on a hunt before. It should prove amusing.”

  “Where?” Artrui sounded dubious.

  “Alpace. The entire planet is a game reservation, and we should have some good sport.”

  “Killing things, you mean?” Artrui still didn’t sound too eager.

  “Yes.” Bulem warmed to the idea as he thought about it. “We can get guns and things from the Warden. How about it?”