The Tomorrow File (20 page)

One thing I was certain of: There was no way,
no
way to halt change. Or even to postpone it. Declare a moratorium on all scientific research, destroy all laboratory equipment, dismantle all the paraphernalia of science, and still you would have someone, somewhere, ef or em, pacing in a drafty attic perhaps, scrawling symbols on a blackboard, erasing, scribbling more.

We could not stop the future. We could only hope it didn’t stop us.   

We arrived at the dirt access road a little before 1145 Saturday morning.

“There it is,” Lydia said.

She nodded toward a marker at the roadside: a large pseudo-folkart cutout of a human hand, one finger pointing toward the river. The knuckles had HAMMONDS’ POINT painted across them in flaky red paint.

“Cutesy,” I said.

I turned slowly onto the dirt road, slowed even more as we bumped over the rusted railroad tracks. I looked about casually. If Mansfield had installed the cameras, he had performed a good service; I didn’t spot them.

I had expected the “interesting people” to be there before us, waiting. But only a single car was parked outside the house. I guessed it to be about a 1980 model. Hammond had a yen for the obso.

He came out the front door, waving, as we pulled up. He was wearing a brown corduroy suit, suede bush boots, a checked flannel shirt. He was smoking his silly pipe. The country squire.

We had brought them a two-kilo package of probisks, the round container a reasonably accurate plastic imitation of an old English biscuit tin. Of course, it was labeled “Olde English Tea Biscuits. ” Hammond was delighted.

We went into the kitchen where Alice was preparing food. She kissed Lydia’s cheek, smiled at me. Even in a cheerfully patterned “rustic” dress, she was a gray ef. Lydia stayed with her while Hammond took me on a tour of the grounds. We went first to the edge of the cliff overlooking the river. The view was magnificent. He swept his arm around in a fustian gesture.

“Imagine all this as it was originally,” he commanded me.

‘ ‘Virgin forest as far as the eye could see. Untouched. Unspoiled by the hand of white men. And then, coming up the river in their birchbark canoes, a band of red Mohawks, with the pelts of mink and otter and beaver to trade.”

I was tempted to ask, “Do you really think the Mohawks traded this far East? And did they really have mink pelts?’ ’ But I wouldn’t interrupt his glorious oratory for the world.

It continued as we wandered about the house. He pointed out the thick stone walls of the foundation.

“Actually a fort,” he revealed. “Not all the Indians who arrived came to trade.”

Politely, I admired everything. In truth, it was a pleasant place on this mild spring afternoon. I heard birdcalls. As promised, the air was clear. The sky was cloudless azure.

“And now,” he said, “the
piece de resistance.
Follow me. . .
Piece de resistance,
I mused. That must be Mohawk for “unwilling squaw.”

We went back into the kitchen. The efs looked up from their service.

“I want to show Nick the tunnel,” he said, excited as a boy. 

“Henry, you’ll muck up everything,” Alice snapped at him. “Just take a minute.”

With his heel, he pulled a rag rug aside. It had concealed a trapdoor with an iron ring set into a recess so the floor was perfectly flat. He looked for my expression of surprise. I obliged.

“Y’see,” he explained, “incaseof Indian attack, they held them off as long as possible from behind the stone walls. But if push came to shove, they nipped down through here. Now follow me. Watch your head, Nick.”

He bent and, with some effort, raised the trap.

“Original hinges,” he said proudly. “Hammered iron.”

He took a cadmium-celled lantern from a kitchen shelf and led the way down a narrow wooden staircase. I followed cautiously. At the bottom, we stood on a packed earthen floor. He moved the light about. It was a small chamber, not too deep; we had to stoop. The walls appeared to be marl. It was cooler and damper than the upstairs rooms.

‘ ‘Probably used for a fruit cellar, ’ ’ he said. “To store apples and such during the winter.”

“And firewater,” I said maliciously.

“What? Oh, yes. That, too. Now follow me closely, Nick, and watch your head.”

He led the way into the small opening of a tunnel cut through the clayey earth.

The walk, or creep, took only a few minutes. We came up against a barred iron gate, fastened on the inside with an obso chain and padlock. We looked out onto the surface of the river, a few meters below us.

“Escape?” I said.

“Right!” he said triumphantly. “Out through this gate and you practically step onto the beach.”

“You think they kept a boat moored?” I asked.

“Shouldn’t wonder,” he said portentously.

He looked at me expectantly.  “Amazing,” I breathed.

He seemed satisfied.

We retraced our steps. When we came to the wooden stairway leading up to the kitchen, he paused and played his torch behind the steps. He found a small box, held it out to me. He beamed the light to illuminate the contents. I peered in.

“Arrowheads,” he whispered. “Three. Genuine. Indian. Arrowheads. I found them in the dirt floor of the tunnel.”

“Amazing,” I repeated.

He nodded solemnly in agreement. Dolt.

We had a reasonably profitable lunch. We filled our plates from the pot of stew simmering on the obso electric range and brought them to the dining table in the big room. There was also a large bowl of greens.

“All from plants in the woods,” Hammond bragged. “All natural. You’ve never tasted anything like this before.”

That was not reassuring. During our tour I had identified at least three toxic species, including a particularly noxious toadstool. But I said nothing. Nor did I make any reference to the missing “interesting people” I had been invited to meet.

We all served in the cleanup after dinner. Then we sat in chintz-covered chairs in the living room while Hammond lectured on Oriental philology. His accent was atrocious. Finally, recalling his duties as host, he brought out a small bottle of something. He and I took drinks; the efs declined—thus proving their superior intelligence. Lydia was making a valiant effort to stay awake. Alice knitted placidly, pushing back and forth in an obso wooden rocker.

It was close to 1630 when we heard the sound of approaching cars. Hammond stopped his monologue immediately, rose, looked out the window.

“Here they are,” he announced. I thought his manner suddenly tense, but perhaps_not.

The four objects who came through the door, ef and three ems, had arrived in two cars. I could not see the license plates, but perhaps Mansfield’s cameras had caught them.

The newcomers were dressed casually. The taffy-haired ef was wearing a jolly plaid zipsuit with an overjacket of plastifur. Two of the ems had black turtleneck sweaters. They looked like brothers. One carried a small cassette machine. I knew what
that
was. Those three were young. The other was an obso, perhaps forty. He was a short, barrel-shaped em, chunky through the shoulders. He had a great, black walrus mustache. Dyed, I suspected.

I recognized him immediately. Dr. Thomas J. Wiley. He was a genetic biologist who had won several prizes for his services on shortening normal gestation periods by enzymatic manipulation. I had studied with him at Harvard. But that had been almost ten years ago; I doubted if he’d remember me. He did.

“Nicholas Flair!” he said, coming toward me with outspread arms. “After all these years! How nice to see you again.”

He gripped me in a surprisingly strong embrace, then withdrew to slap my arms while he examined me critically.

“Yes, yes.” He nodded. “A few more lines. What, no fountain ' of youth from that respected Division of yours?”

“Not yet, sir,” I said. “We’re serving on it.”

He nodded again, suddenly sober.

There was a flurry of introductions. The tall, willowy ef was Martha Wiley, the doctor’s daughter. She was also serving in her father’s specialty. The two ems were, as I had guessed, brothers: Tod and Vernon DeTilly. Tod was a nuclear physicist, Vernon a neuropharmacologist. It was Tod who circled me casually, glancing occasionally at an instrument on his wrist. I was happy I had not swallowed a transmitter.

Chairs were brought from the kitchen. We settled in a rough oval, only Dr. Wiley standing. He was evidently the leader.

“Well,” he said genially, “here we all are. Dr. Flair, we know you for a very brilliant, very talented young man. You see? I do not say ‘em.’ Man. We would not waste your time. Also, we have a long drive to make, another visit, so I will speak bluntly and to the point.”

I looked at him in puzzlement, then looked around at the others. They were all staring at me.

“You see, Dr. Flair,” he continued, “all of us in this room are members of a secret organization that—”

I rose hastily to my feet, held up a hand.

“Please, Dr. Wiley,” I said. “I think perhaps I better leave.” “No,” he said. “I think perhaps you better stay.”

“If it’s anything that might compromise my official—”

Now he held up his hand.

“We do not have the time,” he said. “Vernon, play the tape.” Obediently, the DeTilly em pressed the Start button of the cassette machine held in his lap. I heard my own voice. . . .

“About a year ago—well ... a little less than that—an African nation was admitted to statehood in the US. We can do a lot for them—socially, economically, medically, culturally. But they have one tribe, about ten thousand objects, who are national fanatics and oppose statehood. These objects are primitives. ...”

Dr. Wiley made a gesture. DeTilly stopped the tape. I turned slowly to look at Lydia. Her face was flushed but her chin was up; she returned my stare without flinching.

“Lydia!” I said with shocked disbelief.

“Following orders.” Wiley shrugged. “Playing an important role.”

“Oh, yes, ’ ’ I said bitterly. ‘ ‘I presume this secret organization of yours has high ideals?”

“The highest,” he said.

“But you are quite willing to use despicable means to achieve your ends—is that it?”

“Any means!” he said in a passionate voice. “Any means, including violence, murder, terror, blackmail, that will bring this obscene government of yours to its senses.”

How I wished I had
that
speech on tape. We’d have popped the lot of them into R&R and drained them.

“I don’t wish to debate the morality of what you’re doing.” “No,” he agreed unexpectedly. “The time for debate has passed. Now is the time for action.”

I was waiting for him to say, “Those that are not for us are against us.” But his daughter said it.

“Dr. Flair,” she said solemnly, “those that are not for us are against us.”

I looked around the oval of staring faces.

“Time, Dr. Flair,” Wiley warned.

“I don’t understand,” I said.'“What do you want?”

“We want you to serve with us to the limit, and beyond, of your energy, talent, and devotion to the cause.”

In how many forgotten revolts and revolutions had those ringing words been spoken?

“You’re asking me to risk my career to—”

“No,” he interrupted. “We’re asking you to risk your life. Well?”

“You can’t expect me to decide now, this minute?”

“Can and do. Well?”

I collapsed back into my chair, sat a minute with lowered head, hand covering my eyes. What melodrama! Finally I straightened up, raised my head, looked at Dr. Wiley.

“At least tell me what you want me to do. So I can make an informed judgment.”

“Informed judgment?” he repeated. He smiled suddenly, full lips pulling back from big white false teeth. “Yes, I remember Nicholas Bennington Flair and his informed judgments. Your fellow students called you ‘The Thinking Machine.’ Did you know that?”

“I heard.”

He slapped his palms together briskly. “All right. So you can arrive at an informed judgment—we want, primo, all documentation of that little African assignment mentioned on the tape.” “Impossible,” I said. “No documentation exists. All oral orders.”

“I told you,” Tod DeTilly said.

“A disappointment.” Wiley shrugged. “But not fatal. Secondo, that famous severed head in your lab. Fred.”

“What about him?”

“A photo or film of that head has never been released to the media. Correct?”

“Yes, that’s correct. Why needlessly antagonize anti-vivisectionists and dog lovers?”

“Exactly. But I am certain such photos and films do exist. We want them, or copies of them.”

I sat back, crossed my knees, put back my head, stared at the ceiling, apparently deep in thought.

“Dr. Wiley,” I said flatly, “what proof do I have—or
any
evidence, for that matter—that you are what you claim to be, members of a secret organization?”

“I assure you we are. Nationwide, and growing daily.”

“So you say. But how do I know it’s not just the seven of you present in this room? Just seven hotheads. You want me to risk my life for you seven?”

They looked at each other, back and forth. Finally, Alice Hammond spoke:

“Tell him, Tom,” she said flatly. “If he decides not to come in. . . .” She shrugged.

I knew what that shrug meant. The sweet ef. .    .

“You’ve heard of the Society of Obsoletes?” Wiley asked me. “Those lunatics?” I cried. “Surely you don’t—”

“Wait, wait—” He stopped me. “What you see in the Society of Obsos are eccentrics: antivivisectionists, ecology freaks, health food fanatics, occult religionists. That is exactly what we want you to see. That is the public image of the Society: a conglomerate of harmless loons writing letters to the media, marching in silly parades, making ineffectual demonstrations. But the Society is actually a two-tier organization. The second layer, the basic one, hidden, secret, is composed of professionals like ourselves. Scientists, mostly, but also teachers, businessmen, union leaders, journalists, academicians, politicians—all bound together in one determination: to stop the US Government from pursuing the course it is on, and to steer our society’s destiny in a different direction. “What direction?” I demanded.