Tomorrow, the Stars Page 6

  "Bombers sighted!" cried the Aleutian observers.

  "Rockets away!" barked the New Mexico radio operator.

  All of us looked quickly at the big electric clock over the mantel, while the professor, a half-smile on his face, continued to watch the television sets. In hollow tones, the general counted away the seconds remaining. "Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one. . . . Concentrate!"

  Professor Barnhouse closed his eyes, pursed his lips, and stroked his temples. He held the position for a minute. The television images were scrambled, and the radio signals were drowned in the din of Barnhouse static. The professor sighed, opened his eyes and smiled confidently.

  "Did you give it everything you had?" asked the general dubiously.

  "I was wide open," the professor replied.

  The television images pulled themselves together, and mingled cries of amazement came over the radios tuned to the observers. The Aleutian sky was streaked with the smoke trails of bombers screaming down in flames. Simultaneously, there appeared high over the rocket target a cluster of white puffs, followed by faint thun­der.

  General Barker shook his head happily. "By George!" he crowed. "Well, sir, by George, by George, by George!"

  "Look!" shouted the admiral seated next to me. "The fleet—it wasn't touched!"

  "The guns seem to be drooping," said Mr. Cuthrell.

  We left the bench and clustered about the television sets to examine the damage more closely. What Mr. Cuthrell had said was true. The ships' guns curved downward, their muzzles resting on the steel decks. We in Virginia were making such a hullabaloo that it was impossible to hear the radio reports. We were so engrossed, in fact, that we didn't miss the professor un­til two short snarls of Barnhouse static shocked us into sudden silence. The radios went dead.

  We looked around apprehensively. The professor was gone. A harassed guard threw open the front door from the outside to yell that the professor had escaped. He brandished his pistol in the direction of the gates, which hung open, limp and twisted. In the distance a speeding government station wagon topped a ridge and dropped from sight into the valley beyond. The air was filled with choking smoke, for every vehicle on the grounds was ablaze. Pursuit was impossible.

  "What in God's name got into him?" bellowed the general.

  Mr. Cuthrell, who had rushed out onto the front porch, now slouched back into the room, reading a pen­ciled note as he came. He thrust the note into my hands. "The good man left this billet-doux under the door knocker. Perhaps our young friend here will be kind enough to read it to you gentlemen while I take a restful walk through the woods."

  "Gentlemen [I read aloud],

  As the first superweapon with a conscience, I am removing myself from your national defense stockpile. Setting a new precedent in the behavior of ordnance, I have humane reasons for going off.

  A. Barnhouse."

  Since that day, of course, the professor has been systematically destroying the world's armaments, until there is now little with which to equip an army other than rocks and sharp sticks. His activities haven't exactly resulted in peace, but have, rather, precipitated a bloodless and entertaining sort of war that might be called the "War of the Tattletales." Every nation is flooded with enemy agents whose sole mission is to locate military equipment, which is promptly wrecked when it is brought to the professor's attention in the press.

  Just as every day brings news of more armaments pulverized by dynamopsychism, so has it brought rumors of the professor's whereabouts. During last week alone, three publications carried articles proving variously that he was hiding in an Inca ruin in the Andes, in the sewers of Paris, and in the unexplored chambers of Carlsbad Caverns. Knowing the man, I am inclined to regard such hiding places as unnecessarily romantic and uncomfortable. While there are numerous persons eager to kill him, there must be millions who would care for him and hide him. I like to think that he is in the home of such a person.

  One thing is certain: At this writing, Professor Barnhouse is not dead. Barnhouse static jammed broadcasts not ten minutes ago. In the eighteen months since his disappearance, he has been reported dead some half-dozen times. Each report has stemmed from the death of an unidentified man resembling the professor, during a period free of the static. The first three reports were followed at once by renewed talk of rearmament and recourse to war. The saber rattlers have learned how im­prudent premature celebrations of the professor's demise can be.

  Many a stouthearted patriot has found himself prone in the tangled bunting and timbers of a smashed reviewing stand, seconds after having announced that the archtyranny of Barnhouse was at an end. But those who would make war if they could, in every country in the world, wait in sullen silence for what must come—the passing of Professor Barnhouse.

  To ask how much longer the professor will live is to ask how much longer we must wait for the blessings of another world war. He is of short-lived stock: his mother lived to be fifty-three, his father to be forty-nine; and the life spans of his grandparents on both sides were of the same order. He might be expected to live, then, for perhaps fifteen years more, if he can remain hidden from his enemies. When one considers the number and vigor of these enemies, however, fifteen years seems an extraordinary length of time, which might better be revised to fifteen days, hours, or minutes.

  The professor knows that he cannot live much longer. I say this because of the message left in my mailbox on Christmas Eve. Unsigned, typewritten on a soiled scrap of paper, the note consisted of ten sentences. The first nine of these, each a bewildering tangle of psychological jargon and references to obscure texts, made no sense to me at first reading. The tenth, unlike the rest, was simply constructed and contained no large words—but its irrational content made it the most puzzling and bizarre sentence of all. I nearly threw the note away, thinking it a colleague's warped notion of a practical joke. For some reason, though, I added it to the clutter on top of my desk, which included, among other mementos, the professor's dice.

  It took me several weeks to realize that the message really meant something, that the first nine sentences, when unsnarled, could be taken as instructions. The tenth still told me nothing. It was only last night that I discovered how it fitted in with the rest. The sentence appeared in my thoughts last night while I was toying absently with the professor's dice.

  I promised to have this report on its way to the publishers today. In view of what has happened, I am obliged to break that promise, or release the report in­complete. The delay will not be a long one, for one of the few blessings accorded a bachelor like myself is the ability to move quickly from one abode to another, or from one way of life to another. What property I want to take with me can be packed in a few hours. For­tunately, I am not without substantial private means, which may take as long as a week to realize in liquid and anonymous form. When this is done, I shall mail the report.

  I have just returned from a visit to my doctor, who tells me my health is excellent. I am young, and with any luck at all, I shall live to a ripe old age indeed, for my family on both sides is noted for longevity.

  Briefly, I propose to vanish.

  Sooner or later, Professor Barnhouse must die. But long before then I shall be ready. So, to the saber rat­tlers of today—and even, I hope, of tomorrow—I say: Be advised. Barnhouse will die. But not the Barnhouse Effect.

  Last night I tried once more to follow the oblique in­structions on the scrap of paper. I took the professor's dice, and then, with the last, nightmarish sentence flitting through my mind, I rolled fifty consecutive sevens.

  Good-by.

  THE TOURIST TRADE

  by Bob TUCKER

  Judy had climbed to her place at the breakfast table that morning and announced the presence of a ghost in her room the previous night, a good-looking man ghost who had courteously asked if she were having a nice time.

  And Judy's mother, being a sensible, sane American citizen, said nonsense, child, there is no such thing as a ghos
t.

  "Well, then," Judy demanded, "who was the man in my bedroom last night, huh?"

  Mother looked up from the toast, startled.

  "A man, baby?"

  "Yes, Mania. A good-looking man, gooder-looking even than Daddy, and he had on a brown uniform-like, only it wasn't a soldier's uniform of course but just a uniform."

  "A man—with a uniform?"

  "Yes, Mama. A nice man, you know."

  "No," Mama contradicted, "I don't know. Are you sure you saw a man in your room last night?"

  "Sure, Mama. He was a ghost, a man ghost."

  "Oh, Judy! Those ghosts again. I've asked you time and again to stop that! There is no such thing as a ghost."

  "Well, maybe not, Mama, but this man come riding in right through my wall on a sort of motor scooter, and he stood up and made a speech like that man said at the museum, and he asked me if I was having a nice time."

  "All that? Judy!"

  "Yes, Mama. And I told him yes and he said, That's nice, and he sat down again and rode the scooter right across my room and went right through my other wall."

  "Judy, stop it! You were dreaming."

  "Yes, Mama. The motor scooter didn't make any noise, though, and he had a uniform on."

  "All right, baby. Forget it, darling."

  Judy didn't forget it; she filed the matter away in whatever storage cabinet children have for accumu­lating knowledge and experiences temporarily unclas­sifiable. She filed the matter away, somewhat, until that evening and a new bedtime. Scarcely fifteen minutes after climbing the stairs to bed, she was back down again.

  Daddy was hunched in a chair reading a whodunit, fighting off the interfering noise of the radio. Mama was listening to the radio and haphazardly working on a jigsaw puzzle. Judy paused in the doorway of the living room, her pajamas still unmussed, a robe trailing in one hand.

  "Now what do you want, baby? You should have been asleep ten minutes ago."

  "That man ghost is back again."

  "Now, Judy! Don't start that again."

  "Well, Mama, he is, and on top of that he's got some people with him this time, and they're all riding in—"

  "Judy!"

  "Yes, Mama?"

  "Up to bed."

  "Yes, Mama." The girl turned and slowly climbed the steps. The last of her trailing footsteps sounded on the stairs and presently the bedroom door slammed in its characteristic manner. Her mother sighed and looked across the room for help.

  "Donald, you've got to do something. That child has ghosts on her mind; all I hear is ghosts, ghosts, ghosts. I'm worried about it. Do you think she's been listening to the radio too much?"

  Donald wearily raised his eyes from the book. "All kids go through that. Forget about it. She's just imaginative, that's all."

  "But such an imagination! It isn't healthy."

  "Oh, bosh. Keep it up and she'll grow up to be an ac­tress, or a writer or something. Listen—" He paused as the sound of Judy's bedroom door opening came to them. The approaching footsteps padded slowly down the stairs.

  Judy paused timidly in the doorway, glancing from one parent to the other.

  "It's getting late, Judy." Daddy spoke up. "Those ghosts again?"

  "Yes, Daddy."

  "Won't let you sleep, I suppose?"

  "No, Daddy."

  "How many of them, do you think?"

  Judy beamed. "Four of them—no, five I guess, counting the woman stuck in the wall, only she's kinda fuzzy and you can't see her very good. And the man in the uniform."

  "Oh, a uniform, eh? And what's he doing?"

  "He's showing my room to the rest of them and he drives the scooter everybody rides in and he's telling them about my furniture and my dolls and things. Daddy, he don't like it very much."

  "Now, really!" Louise broke in.

  "Wait a minute, Louise, I'll handle this." He turned his attention to his daughter. "He didn't like your fur­niture, eh, Judy? How do you know that?"

  "I could tell by the way he talked, Daddy. He said it was Millerya or something, and he waved his hand and looked down his nose like you do when you don't like something. Like it wasn't much good, you know."

  "Sure I know. Millerya, huh? Well, that's too bad. We like it, and if he doesn't, he can just lump it, isn't that what you say? What are they going to do next?"

  "He wanted to know if there was anybody living in the house besides me."

  "Oh, he did, eh? Well, you should have told him we were down here."

  "I did, Daddy. And the man in the uniform said for me to come down and tell you they were here."

  "I see." He nodded wisely and prepared to wrap it up. "Well, I hate to disappoint your ghost, Judy, but neither your mother nor I feels like climbing the stairs to meet him right now. Will you tell him that for me?"

  "Sure thing, Daddy."

  "All right. Good night, Judy."

  Judy climbed the stairs at a brisk trot and the bedroom door slammed in its usual fashion. It was opened again and Judy trotted back down just as briskly. She put her head into the living room.

  "Daddy?"

  "Uh—what?" He came up from the depths of the book.

  "The ghost says you had better come up there or else."

  "Indeed! Or else what?"

  "Or else he'll report you."

  Donald slammed the book to the floor. Judy jumped in alarm.

  "Well, Daddy, he did. He did!" the girl cried. "Judy—you get right back up those stairs and tell that ghost I'm not coming up to meet him. Not until he plays 'Yankee Doodle' on the saxophone. Get that?"

  "Yes, Daddy."

  "All right then, get moving. And good night!"

  "Good night, Daddy." The young feet retraced the path up the stairs and the young hands gave the bedroom door a thumping slam. After that the silence from the second floor was a welcome thing.

  "There," Donald said in triumph. "I told you I'd handle her. Tact. That's all it takes, tact." He dropped into the overstuffed chair and sought his place in the mystery novel.

  From Judy's bedroom came the loud, blaring sound of a saxophone tearing through "Yankee Doodle."

  Donald jumped from the chair and hurled the book across the room, narrowly missing a vase. Removing his belt from his trousers in one angry jerk, he sped for the stairs and bounded upward, two steps at a time. His wife shut her eyes and tried to shut her ears after the bedroom door opened and slammed shut again. The blaring of the saxophone ceased. Nervously, she twiddled a piece of the jigsaw puzzle in her fingers and waited for the blows to fall.

  Instead, Donald came down the steps and paused in the doorway.

  "Louise—"

  "Yes, Donald?"

  "The ghost wants you to come up there too."

  "Donald!"

  "But he insists. He said he wanted to exhibit the whole blamed family, and for you to get up there toot-sweet or he'd report us all. Better come along, Louise."

  And he turned to mount the staircase.

  "Ah, at last," the uniformed gentleman exclaimed. He turned to address the people waiting behind him, all seated in a low motor conveyance.

  "This is a complete family unit of the twentieth cen­tury," he announced with evident satisfaction. "They spring from a race of aborigines inhabiting the North American continent from about the fifteenth century through the thirty-third. At the stage of their develop­ment you see here, they lived together as a closely knit family unit in dwelling places they called houses, which is a type of building containing many small cells similar to this one. Usually each member of the unit slept in a separate cell, but they lived together in the remainder of those making up the house.

  "Notice the male. At this early stage of history he has already assumed the place of head of his family unit and is fond of exhibiting various mental and physical characteristics to identify himself as the leader, or chief. Look closely at his face and you will see hair, or fuzz, growing. This was known as a beard and was permitted to grow to assert independence. These early
men were extremely stubborn, as you noted a moment ago when it was necessary to use a musical instrument of the twen­tieth century to summon him from his cell."

  "Go away," Donald said to the uniformed man, "you're bothering us."

  "Earlier in the rise of their race, as you will soon see when we move along to the next stop, the aborigines had not yet learned the use of tools and were of course unable to erect buildings such as this one. During that distant period they lived in natural caves, squatting over continual fires for protection from the elements, for warmth, and for cooking. During the present period you see here they had found a means of moving the fires indoors for both warmth and cooking, and also developed a few primitive instruments to assist them in eating. Holding raw food in the fingers has almost vanished in the year before you."

  "Well, I like that!" Louise exclaimed.

  "G'wan, beat it," Donald chimed in. "It's the kid's bedtime. Shove off."

  "This race," the smartly uniformed man continued, "were called Indians, or Americans, the two terms being interchangeable. Sections, or tribes, existed among them and each tribe adopted the name of some patron saint, protective god, or robber baron to whom they paid monetary and honorary tribute. Their tribes sometimes bore colorful names like Ohio, Dogpatch; Jones, Republican; and so forth."

  "You're a radical!" Donald exclaimed. "Now get out of here or I'll put the dog on you!"

  "Not too much is known of their social cultures, because the various tribes were always warring upon each other, making historical surveys hazardous and the gathering of information extremely difficult. We will make one more stop in this era to observe a gathering of the wise men of the tribes, and there you will see laws and customs being enacted, taxes collected, and so forth. Afterward, we shall move a bit farther along for a quick glimpse of this family's forefathers, and perhaps if we are fortunate we shall see them hunting in the forests with primitive weapons. During this stage of the tour I must remind you to keep your protective shields closed at all times, for occasionally stray bolts from their weapons may drop among us." He paused and turned to move a small lever.

  The conveyance began to move across the room, drawing the misty lady from the confines of the wall to give her a solid, human appearance. The uniformed man cast a glance over his shoulder.