Dead End — Story, Setting & Ideas

Norcross was worried.

His fears were well founded. The young man wheeled on Scientist Norcross the minute he stepped through the hedge into the force field under the giant live oak tree.

"Where are they?" he demanded. "I am coming to believe, Scientist, that your reputation is exceeded only by your inability to live up to it. The problem is only an extension of your own early work. You volunteered cooperation, and I accepted it gladly, but your delays are very distressing!"

"Johnny," said Scientist Norcross, "the press of my own experiments--"

"Then tell me you won't do it!"

"I want to help you. Don't you remember the years we spent together in your training to the high calling of scientist? I took your young hand, Johnny, and helped you over the juvenile stumbling blocks. Why, your first mind machine was one I gave you, and when--"

"You're a fraud, Scientist!" said the young man bitterly.

"The young never appreciate the old," sighed Norcross.

Norcross was shocked. "There's no call for being obscene, John Davis Drumstetter," he said sternly. "To mention eating to another person, and right in public, where you might be overheard--"

"Eat a slippery, sloppery mango on _television_, you old fool! Smear it all over your face while you ingest it into your unspeakable digestive tract!"

"John Davis Drumstetter," said the scientist with great control, "I have been your friend since you were born. Your father and I became scientists on the same day. You are young and over-eager. Just remember," he finished with a warning shake of his finger, "Satellite Station One wasn't built in a day!"

Drumstetter stopped his furious pacing and subdued his rage with visible effort. He chilled, like red steel hardening, and when he spoke he was in full command of himself.

"Now listen to me, Norcross, and keep your mouth shut. For the past forty years I've been working on the stellar overdrive. We have the Solar System in our reticule, colonies have been established on every planet, and ships have been sent to Alpha Centauri, with every chance that mankind has established itself in that solar system. But in the four hundred years since science emerged from the dark ages, we've managed to creep only four light years away from home! And you, Scientist, are withholding your work on the overdrive relay. Do you understand why your plea of old friendship does not affect me? In the past two years, you've done nothing--"

"Experiments that must be kept secret," mumbled Norcross.

"And it is my belief," said the young man in a clipped, cold voice, "that you have sold yourself to your taste buds and digestive tract. Either that," and here his burning rage came into the open, "or you are a pseudo-life!"

At this ultimate insult, Scientist Norcross was silent with indignation. He watched Drumstetter shrug into a stole, turn down the power to the huge mind machine, sling his reticule over his shoulder, and stalk off through the hedge.

Norcross slumped into a chair, his mind in confusion. He heard Drumstetter's plane as it left the ground. Plane, he thought, his mind avoiding the problem. Plane. What a curious name, handed down through the ages, to call a swift skip powered by Earth's magnetism. An original plane fought the air, buoyed up by the lift of plane surfaces in movement. When the movement stopped, it died.

Died. Death. Pseudo-life.

Scientist Norcross shuddered. His well-trained sense of humor did not include abominations.

He took the communication from his pocket and cleared to Prime Center. When the prim, grim face of Prime Center himself in the little disc was sharp, Norcross reported what had happened, even to the suggestion Drumstetter had made that he was pseudo-life.

"This is very bad," said Prime Center. "Monica Drake Lane is now pseudo-life, too."

"Took her skip into a cliff in the Sierra Mountains yesterday. Disconnected the anti-collision. A clear case."

"What will this do to Drumstetter?"

"Nothing," said Prime Center, "unless he learns."

"I'm sending her to you right now for indoctrination. Reports are that Drumstetter is visiting scientists on the West Coast, and Probability reports that he may cover the world before he returns. Do you understand? Her indoctrination must be perfect."

"It always has been." Norcross pulled his lip. "The same limitation will be in Monica Drake Lane?" he asked hopelessly.

"Of course," said Prime Center. "We'll keep you posted on developments."

"You'd better try women," said Norcross.

"Women, narcotics, or anything else! I'd eat a blueberry pie with my hands behind my back at high noon," said Prime Center with fierce obscenity, "if I thought it would do any good!"

He cut the connection.