Gone Fishing Page 11

  THE END OF YEAR TWO

  The end of Year Two on the Ecological Base in the Eighteenth Systemarrived and went by without Barney's being immediately aware of thefact. Some two hours later, he glanced at his wrist watch, pushed backthe chair, got up from the desk and went over to the big grandfatherclock to confirm his surmise.

  "Well, well, Brother Chard," he said aloud. "Another anniversary ...and three of them to go. We're almost at the halfway mark--"

  He snapped the cover plate back over the multiple clock faces, andturned away. Three more years on the Ecological Base was a gruesomestretch of time when you thought of it as a whole....

  Which was precisely why he rarely let himself think of it as a wholenowadays.

  This last year, at any rate, Barney conceded to himself, had to beregarded as an improvement on the first. Well, he added irritably,and what wouldn't be? It hadn't been delightful, he'd frequently feltalmost stupefied with boredom. But physically, at least, he wasfit--considerably fitter, as a matter of fact, than he'd ever been inhis life.

  Not very surprising. When he got too restless to be able to settledown to anything else, he was walking about the valley, moving alongat his best clip regardless of obstacles until he was ready to drop tothe ground wherever he was. Exertion ate up restlessnesseventually--for a while. Selecting another tree to chop into firewoodtook the edge off the spasms of rage that tended to come up if hestarted thinking too long about that association of jerks somewherebeyond the sun. Brother Chard was putting on muscle all over. Andafter convincing himself at last--after all, the animals weren'tgetting hurt--that the glaring diamond of fire in the daytime skycouldn't really be harmful, he had also rapidly put on a Palm Beachtan. When his carefully rationed sleep periods eventually came around,he was more than ready for them, and slept like a log.

  Otherwise: projects. Projects to beat boredom, and never mind how muchsense they made in themselves. None of them did. But after the firstmonth or two he had so much going that there was no question any moreof not having something to do. Two hours allotted to work out on thetypewriter a critical evaluation of a chapter from one of McAllen'sabstruse technical texts. If Barney's mood was sufficiently sour, theevaluation would be unprintable; but it wasn't being printed, and twohours had been disposed of. A day and a half--Earth Standard Time--toconstruct an operating dam across the stream. He was turning into anexperienced landscape architect; the swimming pool in the floor of thevalley beneath the cabin might not have been approved by Carstairs ofCalifornia, but it was the one project out of which he had even drawnsome realistic benefit.

  Then:

  Half an hour to improve his knife-throwing technique.

  Fifteen minutes to get the blade of the kitchen knife straightened outafterwards.

  Two hours to design a box trap for the capture of one of the fat graysquirrels that always hung about the cabin.

  Fifty minutes on a new chess problem. Chess, Barney had discovered,wasn't as hairy as it looked.

  Five hours to devise one more completely foolproof method of bringingabout the eventual ruin of the association. That made no morepractical sense than anything else he was doing--and couldn't, untilhe knew a great deal more about McAllen's friends than he did now.

  But it was considerably more absorbing, say, than even chess.

  Brother Chard could beat boredom. He could probably beat another threeyears of boredom.

  He hadn't forgiven anyone for making him do it.

  THE END OF YEAR FIVE

  For some hours, the association's Altiplano station had been dark andalmost deserted. Only the IMT transit lock beneath one of thesprawling ranch houses showed in the vague light spreading out of thebig scanning plate in an upper wall section. The plate framed anunimpressive section of the galaxy, a blurred scattering of starscondensing toward the right, and, somewhat left of center, a largemisty red globe.

  Gone Fishing]

  John Emanuel Fredericks, seated by himself in one of the two Tubeoperator chairs, ignored the plate. He was stooped slightly forwards,peering absorbedly through the eyepieces of the operator scannerbefore him.

  Melvin Simms, Psychologist, strolled in presently through the transitlock's door, stopped behind Fredericks, remarked mildly, "Goodevening, doctor."

  Fredericks started and looked around. "Never heard you arrive, Mel.Where's Ollie?"

  "He and Spalding dropped in at Spalding's place in Vermont. Theyshould be along in a few minutes."

  "Spalding?" Fredericks repeated inquiringly. "Our revered presidentintends to observe the results of Ollie's experiment in person?"

  "He'll represent the board here," Simms said. "Whereas I, as you mayhave guessed, represent the outraged psychology department." He noddedat the plate. "That the place?"

  "That's it. ET Base Eighteen."

  "Not very sharp in the Tube, is it?"

  "No. Still plenty of interfering radiation. But it's thinned outenough for contact. Reading 0.19, as of thirty minutes ago."Fredericks indicated the chair beside him. "Sit down if you want abetter look."

  "Thanks." The psychologist settled himself in the chair, leanedforward and peered into the scanner. After a few seconds he remarked,"Not the most hospitable-looking place--"

  Fredericks grunted. "Any of the ecologists will tell you Eighteen's anunspoiled beauty. No problems there--except the ones we bring alongourselves."

  Simms grinned faintly. "Well, we're good at doing that, aren't we?Have you looked around for uh ... for McAllen's subject yet?"

  "No. Felt Ollie should be present when we find out what's happened.Incidentally, how did the meeting go?"

  "You weren't tuned in?" Simms asked, surprised.

  "No. Too busy setting things up for contact."

  "Well"--Simms sat back in his chair--"I may say it was a regular beargarden for a while, doctor. Psychology expressed itself as beingastounded, indignant, offended. In a word, they were hopping mad. Ikept out of it, though I admit I was startled when McAllen informed meprivately this morning of the five-year project he's been conductingon the quiet. He was accused of crimes ranging ... oh, from theclandestine to the inhumane. And, of course, Ollie was giving it backas good as he got."

  "Of course."

  "His arguments," Simms went on, pursing his lips reflectively, "werenot without merit. That was recognized. Nobody enjoys the idea ofeuthanasia as a security device. Many of us feel--I do--that it'sstill preferable to the degree of brain-washing required to producesignificant alterations in a personality type of Chard's class."

  "Ollie feels that, too," Fredericks said. "The upshot of the originalsituation, as he saw it, was that Barney Chard had been a dead manfrom the moment he got on the association's trail. Or a permanentlydeformed personality."

  Simms shook his head. "Not the last. We wouldn't have consideredattempting personality alteration in his case."

  "Euthanasia then," Fredericks said. "Chard was too intelligent to bethrown off the track, much too unscrupulous to be trusted under anycircumstances. So Ollie reported him dead."

  * * * * *

  The psychologist was silent for some seconds. "The point might bethis," he said suddenly. "After my talk with McAllen this morning, Iran an extrapolation on the personality pattern defined for Chard fiveyears ago on the basis of his background. Results indicate he wentinsane and suicided within a year."

  "How reliable are those results?" Fredericks inquired absently.

  "No more so than any other indication in individual psychology. Butthey present a reasonable probability ... and not a very pleasantone."

  Fredericks said, "Oliver wasn't unaware of that as a possible outcome.One reason he selected Base Eighteen for the experiment was to makesure he couldn't interfere with the process, once it had begun.

  "His feeling, after talking with Chard for some hours, was that Chardwas an overcondensed man. That is Oliver's own term, you understand.Chard obviously was intelligent, had a very strong survival drive. Hehad selected a good
personal survival line to follow--good but verynarrow. Actually, of course, he was a frightened man. He had beenrunning scared all his life. He couldn't stop."

  Simms nodded.

  "Base Eighteen stopped him. The things he'd been running from simplyno longer existed. Ollie believed Chard would go into a panic when herealized it. The question was what he'd do then. Survival now had avery different aspect. The only dangers threatening him were the onesinherent in the rigid personality structure he had maintainedthroughout his adult existence. Would he be intelligent enough tounderstand that? And would his survival urge--with every alternativeabsolutely barred to him for five