Short Fiction, Mack Reynolds [best book reader txt] 📗

Patricia bit out, “This experiment is ridiculous, anyway, and I don’t know why I ever agreed to it. Scientific? Nonsense. Where are our controls? For it to make any sense we’d have to work with scores of subjects. Suppose we do agree that the manner in which Don Crowley has reacted is quite harmless. Does that mean we can release this discovery to the world? Certainly not.”

Ross said sullenly, “But you agreed that we’d go by the results of this.⁠ ⁠…”

“I agreed to no such thing, Rossie Wooley, you overgrown lug. All I agreed to do was consider the results. I was, and am, of the opinion that if the person our politicians so lovingly call the Common Man was released of the restrictions inhibiting him, he’d go hog wild and destroy both society and himself. What is to prevent murder, robbery, rape and a score of other crimes, given invisibility for anyone who has a couple of dollars with which to go into a drugstore and purchase our serum?”

Her fiancé sighed deeply, jamming tobacco fiercely into the bowl of his briar. He growled, “Look, you seem to think that the only thing that restricts man is the fear of being punished. There are other things, you know.”

“Good heavens,” she said sarcastically. “Name one.”

“There is the ethical code in which he was raised, based on religion or otherwise. There is the fact that man is fundamentally good, to use a trite term, given the opportunity.”

“My education has evidently been neglected,” Patricia said, still argumentatively. “I’ve never seen evidence to support your claim.”

“I’m not saying individuals don’t react negatively, given opportunity to be antisocial,” he all but snarled. “I’m just saying people in general, common, little people, trend toward decency, desire the right thing.”

“Individuals my⁠ ⁠… my neck,” Patricia snapped back. “Did you ever hear of Rome and the games? Here a whole people, millions of them, were given the opportunity to indulge in sadistic spectacles to their heart’s desire. How many of them stayed home from the games?” She laughed in ridicule.

Ross flushed. “Some of them did, confound it.”

Dr. Braun had been taking in their debate, uncomfortably. As though in spite of himself, he said now, “Very few, I am afraid.”

“Religious ethic,” Patricia pursued, relentlessly. “The greatest of the commandments is Thou Shalt Not Kill, but comes along a war in which killing becomes not only permissible but an absolute virtue and all our good Christians, Jews, Mohammedans and even Buddhists, who supposedly are not even allowed to kill mosquitoes, wade in with sheer happiness.”

“War releases abnormal passions,” Ross said grudgingly.

“You don’t need a war. Look at the Germans, supposedly one of our most highly civilized people. When the Nazi government released all restraints on persecution of the Jews, gypsies and others, you know what happened. This began in peace time, not in war.”

Dr. Braun shifted in his chair. He said, his voice low, “We needn’t look beyond our own borders. The manner in which our people conducted themselves against the Amerinds from the very beginning of the white occupation of North America was quite shocking.”

Ross said to him, “I thought you were on my side. The Indian wars were a long time ago. We’re more advanced now.”

Dr. Braun said softly, “My father fought against Geronimo in Arizona. It wasn’t so long ago as all that.”

Ross Wooley felt the argument going against him and lashed back. “We’ve been over and over this, what’s your point?”

Patricia said doggedly, “The same point I tried to make from the beginning. This discovery must not be generally released. We’ll simply have to suppress it.”

The door opened behind them. They turned. Nothing was there. Ross, scowling, lumbered to his feet to walk over and close it.

“Hey, take it easy,” a voice laughed. “Don’t walk right into a guy.”

Ross stopped, startled.

Dr. Braun and Patricia stood up and stared, too.

Crowley laughed. “You all look like you’re seeing a ghost.”

Ross rumbled a grudging chuckle. “It’d be all right if we saw the ghost, it’s not seeing you that’s disconcerting.”

The air began to shimmer, somewhat like heat on the desert’s face.

Crowley said, “Hey, the stuff’s wearing off. Where’re my clothes?”

“Where you left them. There in that bedroom,” Ross said. “We’ll wait for you.” He went back and rejoined his associates. The door to the bedroom opened, there was a shimmering, more obvious now, and then the door closed behind it.

“He rejoined us just in time,” Dr. Braun murmured. “Another ten minutes and he would have⁠ ⁠… umah⁠ ⁠… materialized down on the street.”

Ross hadn’t finished the discussion. He said, his face in all but pout, “What you don’t realize, Pat, is the world has gone beyond the point where scientific discoveries can be suppressed. If we try to keep the lid on this today, the Russians or Chinese, or somebody, will hit on it tomorrow.”

Patricia said impatiently, “Good heavens, let’s don’t bring the Cold War into it.”

Ross opened his mouth to snap something back at her, closed it again and shrugged his bulky shoulders angrily.

In a matter of less than ten minutes the bedroom door reopened and this time a grinning Crowley emerged, fully dressed. He said, “Man, that was a devil of an experience!”

They saw him to a chair and had him talk it all through. He was candid enough, bubbling over with it all.

In the some eleven and a half hours he’d been on his own, he had covered quite an area of Manhattan.

Evidently the first hour had been spent in becoming used to the startling situation. He couldn’t even see himself, which, to his surprise affected walking and even use of his hands. You had to get used to it. Then there was the fact that he was nude and felt nude and hence uncomfortable walking about in mixed pedestrian traffic. But that phase passed. Early in the game he found that there was small percentage in getting into crowds. It led to all sorts of complications, including the starting of minor rows, one person thinking another was pushing when it was simply