John D. Macdonald

Half-Past Eternity

Chapter One

Stolen Lives

The kid didn’t talk. Nat February talked. Which is what you might have expected.

The kid had a punch like the business end of a mule, sure, and he kept boring in, shuffling flat-footed, game all the way through. But everybody on the Beach knew that the kid, who, by the way, at thirty-one was a kid no longer, had suffered slow degeneration of the reflexes to the point where his Sunday punch floated in like a big balloon and he could be tagged at will.

The way the bout happened to be set up was on account of Jake Freedon, a fast, vicious young heavy, not being able to get his title bout. The champion was justly leery of young Jake and the only thing for Jake’s managers to do was to line up every pug in the country and let Jake knock them over. Sooner or later the pressure would grow heavy enough for the title match to be a necessity.

The Garden crowd was slim. There was no question about Jake Freedon winning. The kid was all through in the fight game although nobody had told him that yet. The odds hovered around twelve to one.

This old man had come to Nat February, having been guided to him after three or four days of asking questions. Nat was hard at work on a cheese blintz and resented the intrusion. He had his usual little group with him and Nat was about to give the brush to the old gentleman when same old gentleman said with tremulous dignity that he wished to speak alone to Nat February. So saying, he pulled a wad of currency out of his wallet that looked entirely capable of choking the fabulous cow.

Nat gave the sign and his cohorts cleared out.

“I,” said the old man, “wish to bet on Mr. Goth in the contest tomorrow night.”

“Mr. Who?”

“Goth. He is scheduled to box a gentleman named Freedon.”

“Oh! The kid! Let me get this. You want to bet on the kid. A poor old guy like you with holes in his socks wants to bet the wrong way. You’re going to make me feel like the guy with his mitt in the poor box, uncle.”

“Your emotional reaction is of little interest to me, Mr. February. I understood that if I stated my wager clearly, you would take my money and give me a slip of paper testifying as to my wager. I understand that in your — ah — profession, you are considered to be one of the most thoroughly ethical and — ah — well financed.”

“What have you got there, uncle?” February asked.

“Thirty-two hundred and fourteen dollars. I had hoped to bet thirty-two hundred and twenty-five, but my expenses were higher than I had planned and it has taken longer to locate you.”

“The whole wad on the kid, eh?” February was not at all troubled by removing the funds from the old gentleman. It appeared to him that if he did not do so, someone else would.

“Yes, young man. All of this I would like to bet on the circumstance of Mr. Goth striking Mr. Freedon unconscious during the first three minutes of their engagement.”

“Holy mice, uncle! The kid to knock Jake out in the first round?”

“Exactly. They told me you would quote the odds on that particular thing happening.”

“I don’t want to take your money.”

“I insist, Mr. February.”

“Okay. Thirty to one.”

“You will please write out the paper for me, Mr. February, and tell me where I can find you directly after the fight. I shall expect you to have ninety-six thousand four hundred and twenty dollars with you. I am not — ah — superstitious about thousand-dollar bills.”

“You’ll bring a satchel, eh? Maybe a carpet bag?”

“If you consider it necessary.”

For a fraction of a second Nat February’s calm was shaken. But he quickly reviewed the past record of both the kid and Jake Freedon. It seemed highly probable that if the two of them were locked in a phone booth, it would take the kid more than three minutes to lay a glove on Freedon, much less chill him.

“What’s your name, uncle?”

“Garfield Tomlinson.

Nat wrote out the slip, counted the money, pocketed it, pushed the slip across (he table. Tomlinson picked it up, examined it, sighed, put it in his wallet, now almost completely empty.

“And where will I find you?”

“Right here, uncle. In this same booth. They save it for me. I don’t wish you any had luck, but I hope you won’t be looking for me.”

Nat February had bad dreams that night. In the morning, trusting more to dreams than to judgment, he shopped around town until he found odds of fifty to one. He placed a thousand of Tomlinson’s money there, accepting the jeers of the wise ones. In doing so he cut his maximum profit to twenty-two hundred and fourteen dollars, but his maximum loss went down to forty-six thousand four hundred and twenty He still felt uneasy. He looked up Lew Karon in the afternoon, talked Lew into offering sixty to one and placed a bet of eight hundred twenty-five. Now, if the old man’s bet was bad, he still had a profit of thirteen hundred and eighty-nine. But if the old man had a reliable crystal ball — and he had acted like a man who at least had access to one — Nat would profit to the extent of three thousand and eighty dollars. If the old boy got wise and misted on getting his original bet back, which he had every right to do, as well as the ninety-six thousand four hundred and twenty, then Nat would be out one hundred and thirty-four bucks. He felt comfortably covered.

He sat in his usual fifth-row ringside and dozed through the preliminary bouts, making a little here, losing a little there — but always more making than losing.

When the main came on and the kid fumbled his way over the ropes, his gray battered face wearing its usual dopy look, Nat cursed himself for cutting his profit with the overlay. Jake Freedon bounced in, smiling, confident, young, alert.

After the usual formalities the house lights dimmed and they came out for the first round. The kid shuffled out, slower and dopier than ever. They touched gloves. Freedon flicked the kid with a searching, stinging left jab and danced back. The kid stood, flat-footed. The referee motioned to him to fight.

Nat’s eyes bulged and his hands clamped on the arm of the chair. He shut his eyes and shook his head.

When he opened his eyes again he saw what he thought he had seen in the first place. Freedon, spread-eagled on his face, his mouth in a puddle of blood, the referee jumping out of his stunned shock to pick up the timekeeper’s count. The referee counted to eight, then spread his arms wide and Freedon’s seconds jumped in to cart him back to the stool.

Nat shook the man beside him. “What’d you see happen?”

“Gosh!” the man said. “Gosh!”

“What happened?”

“Well, the way I see it the kid kinda jumped at Freedon, real fast. Fast as a flyweight. It looked to me like he nailed him with a left first. I can’t be sure. And I don’t know how many times he hit him on the way down. Maybe six or nine times. Every one right on the mush. Hell, his fists were going so fast I couldn’t see them.”

The doctor jumped up into Freedon’s corner. Nat read his lips as he shook his head and said, “Broken jaw.”

Nat joined the shuffling crowd heading toward the exists. He picked up two boys he sometimes used, arranged with Lew Karon for the transfer of cash in some way that would not pain the Bureau of Internal Revenue boys by focusing their attention on it, and went back to the booth.

Garfield Tomlinson was there. There was relief on his face as he saw Nat February approach.

“Think I stood you up, uncle?”

“I rather hoped you’d be here. I brought this — uh — small suitcase.”

Nat whacked the old man on the shoulder. “You’re the one! Yes sir, you’re the one. Come on, uncle. We gotta go get the sugar.”

“I trust this large loss won’t disconcert you, Mr. February.”

“Uh? Oh, no. Just a flea bite, uncle. Tomorrow I’ll have it back.”

As they climbed into the taxi, the four of them, Tomlinson said, “Should it make any difference to you, Mr. February, let me state that you could not have lost money to any more worthy venture.”

“You win it for a church?”

Tomlinson laughed dryly. “Oh dear me, no! Not at all for a church.”

They went to the hotel where February lived. The envelope was taken out of the safe and given to February. At that point the two young men became very wary, very alert.

Nat pulled Tomlinson over into a corner, shielded the transaction with a big padded shoulder. “Uncle, these are tired old thousands because the new ones are poison. I got ’em folded in packages of ten each with the rubber band on ’em. Here’s one, three, seven, eight, nine. Now check those.”

“Ninety thousand,” Tomlinson said. His voice shook a little.

“Plus one, two, three, four, five, six. Now the hundreds. These I get outa my billfold. One, two, three, four. And here’s the change. A twenty. Ninety-six thousand four hundred and twenty dollars. Correct?”

“Ah — I’m not acquainted with these things. The wager was at thirty to one. Don’t I get my original wager returned?”

“Thirty to one to make it simple. You wanna be that accurate I should have told you twenty-nine to one, plus getting your bet back.”

“Oh. Oh, I see. Well, I — ah — hmm, I guess I didn’t need the satchel after all. Just a joke, was it?”

“I can see you got a great sense of humor, uncle. Now don’t go running away. Don’t you think you otighta tell me how you know that clown was going to clobber Freedon in the first?”

Garfield Tomlinson gave Nat February a look of utter surprise. “But my dear fellow! He couldn’t possibly have failed to do otherwise!”

Tomlinson turned and walked out into the night. Nat handed the slimmer envelope back to the desk clerk. One of the guards licked his lips and stared hungrily after the old gentleman.

“Ah-ah-ah!” February said warningly. “No naughty thoughts, children.”

He sighed. “Kinda cute, wasn’t he?”

And to leave it there would have been fine. But Nat had a reputation as a wit and charming dinner companion.

By noon of the next day he was saying to a table of eight at Lidnik’s, “This little old guy comes to me and what does he want but to bet his wad on a knockout by the kid in the first. Naturally I tried to talk him out of it. Candy from babies, yet. And so—”

Jake was talking in a peculiar way. His teeth were wired together. His two managers, squat men with ugly expressions, stood by his bed.

“I tell yah,” Jake mumbled, “I never see the punch coming. Not at all. I know, I’ve been hit before, but then I seen it when it was too late to duck. This time I never even knew I was hit. I’m moving in and boom — I’m walking up the aisle with rubber knees.”

“An investment we had in you,” one of them said with disgust.

“Come on, Joe,” the other said.

They walked out and left Jake Freedon staring hopelessly at the ceiling.

In a grimy suite in a Forty-first Street hotel of a little less than third class, a tall young man glowered at Lew Karon. Taken as a whole, Sam Banth’s face was well proportioned, almost handsome. But each individual feature was oversized, heavy. The big lips rested together with a hint of ruthlessness and brutality. Pale eyes protruded slightly, and they looked coldly incapable of any change of expression. His neck and sloped shoulders were ox-heavy. In contrast to the extreme cut of sharp-nosed little Lew Karon’s clothes, Banth was dressed in quite good taste.

“Just tell me this, Lew,” Sam said, “tell me why on a sixty to one shot you didn’t cover it the other way.”

“Take it easy, kid,” Lew said loftily. “Take a look at the record. I hire you to help my collection department. You do good. You get a little stake. So I let you buy in. The piece you got of this business doesn’t give you no right to tell me how to handle the bets, does it?”

“Just tell me why, Lew,” Banth said. “That’s all.”

“Look, kid! Some sucker wants you to lay him fifty to one the Empire State Building falls down tomorrow at noon sharp. I ask you, do you cover a bet like that?”

“But it wasn’t a sucker, Lew. It was Nat February. Couldn’t you smell some kind of a fix?”

“After the investment they got in Freedon? And after the pounding everybody’s been giving the kid? It doesn’t figure, Sam.”

“How do we stand? Can we stall February?”

“I’d rather bust J. Edgar Hoover in the nose. We pay off, in full. That’ll drag the kitty down to about eleven thousand. You own a fifth of that.”

“Twenty-two hundred,” Banth said disgustedly. “I put in ten thousand.”

“These things happen,” Lew said philosophically. “All the time they happen. Look, Sam. For your own good. You got an education. Why don’t you go back to that steady job you had?”

“Maybe I’m restless.”

“I’ll give you your twenty-two hundred, Sam. You look like you don’t like the way I handle things.”

“I don’t.”

“Here. I’ll count them out right here. Three fives and seven ones. Twenty-two hundred. Better luck next time.”

Sam studied little Lew Karon for a moment. He knew what the play was. Lew wanted him to back down, refuse the money, continue the arrangement. He picked the money up, folded it casually, shoved it into his pocket.

“Get yourself a new boy, Lew. I can do better with this than you can. I thought you were shrewd.”

“Walk out! See if I care! You’ll be broke in a week.”

Sam Banth realized that he had been restless lately. Progress with Lew Karon had been too slow. The hard ambition that drove him was satisfied at first. Working with Lew had been more interesting and more profitable than work in the brokerage house. But Lew had his limitations. Sam had no intention of halting his climb at the petty gambling level.

“You’ve taught me a lot, Lew.” He moved toward the sharp-featured man.

“Stick around and you’ll learn more, kid.”

“You’re pretty happy about that slim patrician nose of yours, eh, Lew?”

“Huh? Nose?”

“Here’s for what you did to my first ten thousand bucks, Lew.”

He yanked the man close, striking as he did so. He let go and backed away, smiling without humor. Lew fell to his knees, gasping with the pain. His eyes ran tears and blood came between his fingers as he held his hand flat against the smashed nose.

Sam Banth walked to the door. He ignored the half-screamed threats of Lew Karon. Out in the sunlight he squared his shoulders, smiled warmly at an at tractive girl, hailed a cruising cab and gave the name of the restaurant where he was most likely to find February.

“I know you,” Nat said. “You’re Lew’s boy.”

“Was. I heard talk about an old man who nicked you for that first-round knockout. I was wondering about him. What’s his name?”

“Garfield Tomlinson, he said. He acted like it was the first bet he ever made in his life. He sure had the right dope.”

“By the way, where can I find the kid?” Sam asked.

“Over in Jersey someplace. Find Bull Willman at Conover’s Gym and he can tell you exact. You looking for a job? I got two horse players give one of my partners bad checks. Shake it out of ‘em and you can have ten percent.”

“Haven’t you got your own people?”

“Sure, but Lew’s been bragging so much about how you operate on collections I wanted to see you work.”

“Later, maybe.”

The taxi from the Elizabeth station pulled up in front of a frame house on a quiet street. “The kid did real good in there last night,” the driver said.

“He’s still got it,” Sam said absently. He paid off the cab and walked up to the front porch. The house was jammed full of people, all in various stages of celebration. There was so much noise that Sam couldn’t tell whether the bell worked or not. He opened the door and went in. A fat little man lurched against him in the hall, grabbed his shoulder and said, “Greatest li’l ol’ battler ever was. Tipped me to bet on a knockout in the first. Spread twenny bucks around and got better’n five hunnert back.”

“Sure, sure,” said Sam, untangling Himself.

Most of the noise seemed to be coming from the kitchen. A tall slatternly girl blundered through the open door, grabbed Sam and kissed him wetly. “Wasn’ it wonnerful!” she sighed.

The kid was at the kitchen table, his gray knobbly face wearing a mild permanent grin. The table top was covered with bottles. His eyes were faraway.

“Everybody-have-’nother-drink, ” the kid said. His voice was high-pitched and he spoke so quickly that it was hard to follow him. “Gonna-be-champ-f’r-sure.”

Sam moved through the press of bodies and made himself a drink. He sipped it and watched the kid narrowly. Somebody blundered against the table and a bottle at the kid’s elbow tipped and fell. Without seeming to look the kid reached out and caught it an inch from the floor. Everybody applauded.

“Lookit that reaction time,” somebody shouted.

Sam pursed his lips. He’d watched the kid work out more than once. The kid was at that stage of punchiness where it was almost painful to watch his slow response to any stimulus. He moved around the table and with what was apparently a careless sweep of his arm sent another bottle plummeting. As before, the kid’s hand flashed out and he plucked the bottle out of the air and replaced it on the table.

Sam left the house, walking slowly, his head bent. He swung onto a bus and sat looking, unseeing, out the smeared window. At three-thirty he turned the corner on Forty-second and went into the Public Library.

At last he found the references he wanted. His hand began to tremble. Dr. Garfield A. Tomlinson — Pathologist. From the magazine index he located the Journal of American Medicine for February, 1946. Relation Between Hormone Theories and Tissue Entropy in Geriatrics. He read the article with great care. Much of it was meaningless to him, but he absorbed a few of the basic ideas.

It was no trick to find out that Dr. Tomlinson lived on R.F.D. 2 at Kingston, New York. His next step was to recontact Bull Willman.

“I was wondering where the kid trained for this last go, Bull.”

Bull frowned and inspected the wet end of his cigar. “He’s an old hand, not one of these kids you got to watch to see they get in shape. The kid always rounded himself out nice, usually right here at Conover’s. But this time he said he was going to the country. He didn’t say where. I tried once to get him through his wife but she said she didn’t know where he went.” Bull grinned suddenly. “Maybe I oughta send the whole stable to wherever he went, heh?”

“You’ve got yourself a property now, haven’t you?”

Bull shrugged. “Maybe yes, maybe no. If I’m smart I’ll sell the contract right now. For me it looks like the peak of the market. Freedon’ll kill him next fight.”

“How does a thousand dollars for one percent sound to you?”

“Like twice the market value. I got thirty percent of him. Who wants to buy?”

“I do.” He took out his money. “Here’s a hundred on account, the balance when the papers are ready for signature.”

Bull shook his head sadly. “Everybody’s crazy these days.” He took the money.

Chapter Two

Elixir of Death

Tomlinson lived in a rambling farmhouse. The lawn was overgrown with weeds and the fences sagged.

Sam Banth paid the man who had brought him out from Kingston. He walked up the drive carrying a small suitcase. He climbed the sagging porch steps and used the door knocker. After a long wait, just as he was about to try again, the door was yanked open. Sam, in one searching glance before he smiled, took in the straight tallness of her, the wood-smoke eyes which had sooted the lashes heavily, the ripe tautness across the front of the blue work shirt, the lorelei curve of flank which blue jeans couldn’t hide, the softness and petulance and discontent in the wide mouth. She was a big girl. A big restless unhappy girl with annoyance at him and the world showing plainly.

“Brushes?” she said. “Or chicken feed? Or maybe children’s encyclopedias.” Her voice was pleasantly deep, husky-harsh.

“None of those,” he said. “Dreams. I sell dreams to visions who come to doors.”

“Sell me one, brother. Mine haven’t been too good lately.”

“I’ve got a nice little item you might like. Acapulco, surf in the moonlight, dancing on the terrace, and a square-cut emerald the size of a walnut.”

Her manner changed. “We’re through playing now. What are you selling?”

“Are you Miss Tomlinson?”

“I was. Now I’m Mrs. Knight. But I’m not working at it.”

“I came to see your father.”

“Say hello to him for me. He’s been in the barn ever since I can remember. You can go around the house.” She started to slam the door. He put his foot in it.

“I don’t like that little trick,” she blazed. “Now what?”

“What do you want most in the world, Miss Tomlinson?”

“That’s a stupid question. Money. Enough to smother me.”

“What would you say if I told you that because I came here you’re going to have exactly that?”

“I would say you’ve got nails in your head, friend.”

He removed his foot. “You may now slam the door.” She did. He walked around the house, grinning.

The barn was a solid structure and appeared to be in far better shape than the house. A door had been cut into the large original door. He knocked.

The door opened. “Well?” said Dr. Tomlinson. “What is it? You disturbed me at a bad time. Are you selling something?”

“No. Mind if I come in?”

“You can stand right there and state your business.”

“You owe the federal government roughly fifty thousand dollars on the bet you collected last night, Dr. Tomlinson.”

Tomlinson gave a jump of surprise. “Goodness! I never thought — I never realized that— Oh dear, now I’ll have to do it all over again.”

“What you did to Kid Goth?” Tomlinson, in spite of his fussy and pedantic air, had a pair of keen blue eyes. He narrowed them. “Exactly what do you mean, young man?”

Sam Banth pushed by him and into the brightly lighted interior of the barn.

“Here! Yon can’t come in.”

Sam looked at the banked cages of experimental animals, at the tables of chemical apparatus, at the binocular microscope, at the shelves of texts and notebooks.

“Nice layout, Dr. Tomlinson.”

“I shall complain to your superiors. You have no right to force your way in here.”

Sam sighed, put his suitcase next to the microscope, pulled the chair away and turned it around. He sat down, crossed his legs, tapped a cigarette on his thumbnail and smiled gently up into the flushed face of Dr. Tomlinson.

“Independent research takes a lot of money.”

“Of course it does. But I don’t see how that—”

“Please, doctor. Let me hazard a series of guesses. Your funds are running low. You are at a critical and interesting stage in your experimentation. You have learned to apply new principles, apparently. The usual ways of getting funds are too slow. Maybe you’re so far off the beaten path no institution will give you a grant. Maybe they would if you showed them what progress you’ve made, but you’re not ready to do that yet. You contact Goth, manage in some way to give him a set of reflexes faster than any man ought to have, and then you bet all your funds and collect a small fortune. Then you were impractical enough to think you could come right back here, shut the door, and keep on with your work as if nothing had happened.”

Tomlinson’s shoulders sagged. He walked woodenly over to another chair and sat down listlessly. “I thought nobody would find out,” he said in a dulled voice. “I was careful that nobody would see Goth. I trained him so that he wouldn’t be — unusual.”

“You forgot that he might go and get himself drunk.”

Tomlinson looked up sharply. He compressed his lips. “I forgot to warn him about that!”

“You made a nice sum of money.”

“I’ll give you the tax, in cash. You figure it out for me, please.”

For a moment Sam was tempted. But that would be like burning down the house to cook the dinner.

“I’m not a tax man.”

“Then who are you?”

“Your new partner, doctor.”

“There’s no way you can force yourself on me, young man.”

“My name is Banth. Samuel Banth. We will now consider my possible courses of action. I could arrange for a detailed medical examination of Goth. I could get so much newspaper coverage that you’d never have a moment’s peace from now on. But I imagine that the way to make you unhappy the quickest would be to tell your daughter how much you made last night and how you made it.”

With each stated alternative Tomlinson’s gray head had sunk lower.

Sam laughed. “Come on, now. Cheer up.”

“How can I?” Tomlinson said angrily. “You’re intruding yourself on a most important work. I sense that you want to profit out of my — methods. My object, sir, is research, not profit.”

“You’re going about it in a funny way.”

“Are you competent to judge that?”

“How much land have you got here?”

“Twenty acres. Why?”

“You’ve been puttering around with these mice for so long that your plans are mouse size. I want to help you, not hinder you. First, can you do for any athlete what you did for Goth?”

“Yes, but—”

“All right. Listen. We’ll form two corporations. One will be called the Tomlinson Research Laboratories, Incorporated. That, for tax purposes, will be classed as a charitable educational institution. You will be the operating head of it. We’ll build some dream labs for you and we’ll staff them with bright young men from the best schools to handle the details of research. You’ll make as much progress that way in a week as you do now in six months. The other corporation will be called Champions, Incorporated. Half this property will become a training area. I’ll hold fifty percent of the stock in it. You and your daughter will hold the other fifty. No, I’ll hold forty-nine percent in both corporations. That gives you and your daughter control, you see.”

“But I don’t—”

“Simple. We contact a professional athlete. We guarantee, for the maximum percentage of his future gross that we can wangle, to make him the best in the world. We maintain a floating fund and bet heavily on him. If you can do for others what you did for Goth, we can make at the minimum ten million bucks.”

“The... the whole idea makes me dizzy, Banth. I don’t see how—”

“Let me handle all tax matters, business angles and so on. You just take care of the research angle. Our first job is to pay off Uncle Sam on what you made last night, incorporate, and put the rest of it into the new corporations. We’ll set ourselves a minimal salary to begin with and boost it as the money begins to come in.” Tomlinson was silent for a long time. He studied his folded hands.

“I must know that nothing will interfere with my work. It is important.”

“Maybe you could tell me in layman’s terms what the work is, Dr. Tomlinson. Then I could appreciate its importance.”

Eagerness crept into Tomlinson’s tone. “I began this line of research six years ago. As a pathologist the phenomenon of age has always fascinated me. I had done research in geriatrics, the study of old people, the study of how to help them physically. Take glandular secretions for example. We know that the flow of secretions from many organs diminishes in both quantity and quality as time passes. Once a duplicate of the flow from a young and healthy gland is injected into the aged patient there is often an almost miraculous increase in vitality. The endocrinologists have done a lot in that field. But basically it is superficial, as it does not get at the root cause of the slow degeneration of the glands and tissues and organs. It is a stopgap, the same way a salt-free diet is a stop-gap in treating — say — congestive heart failure. The books talk about the ravages of time, yet a single cell, according to all growth and regeneration theories, should be almost eternal. Say that there is a time stream. Must all of us be carried immutably along that stream? Do you know what entropy is?”

Banth shrugged. “The standard example. The gas in a divided container, and then remove the division and though each molecule moves independently, they will never regain, even for a fraction of a second, their original positions all at once on each side of the non-existent division.”

“In its broader sense it refers to the continual, supposedly unalterable progress from order to disorder. Thus we can call it an attribute of time, as we know it. Or a by-product of time. Thus my thinking began to be along the line of attempting to slow up that entropic progress in living tissue. I had no success. When you come up against a blank wall it is often good theory to try the exact opposite direction. Could entropy be speeded? I attacked that problem by an attempt to stimulate every gland and organ in a living organism to the same exact degree. I was clumsy at first. The interrelations are delicate. My laboratory animals died. Finally there was one experiment where there was quite a deviation from the control group. After the injection, what I term the master injection, the life span of the animals, which had the same hereditary and environmental factors, was decreased by one tenth. I performed the same experiment many times, keeping a frequency distribution on the life spans. The next step was pure accident. I was working with cats and by accident a tom from the injected group got into the control group cages. He killed two of the control group with apparent ease. I then began to test reaction time. Do you begin to see?”

Banth rubbed his heavy jaw with his fingertips. “Maybe I see. By increasing the rate of entropy, or by stimulating the organism or whatever you want to call it, you’ve shortened the life span, but telescoped all normal reactions into the reduced time period.”

“Exactly. Take the case of Goth. I selected him rather carefully. A boxer on the down-grade without any other skill or talent by which he could make a living. Inevitably a charity or institution case before long. I speeded him up at first in the ratio of a one tenth decrease in life span. The effect was to make him live sixty-six seconds in every sixty, thus speeding his reaction time by one tenth of a second. I rigged up a reaction time test and found that he was a shade below the norm. Thus the first tenth didn’t seem enough. I made it a fifth giving him two tenths of a second advantage. That brought him considerably above the norm and even above extreme cases that have been reported. The most amazing thing to me was the new impression of mental alertness that he gave after treatment, even though I knew that the myriad pinpoint concussions he had suffered had made him — ah—”

“Punchy.”

“Yes, that’s the word.”

“Suppose he was going to live eighty years before old age got him, doctor.”

“Now he’ll live to be seventy, and show, at seventy, an apparent age of eighty. Goth seemed to feel that it was a very good trade. He had not intended to die of old age anyway. He merely uses up six months of his life every five months.”

“How about his habits?”

“Habits? Oh, I see what you mean. He’ll get six hours’ sleep in five hours. There’ll be physiological phenomena— accelerated heartbeat, respiration and so on. And, unless there is a training period, the change will be too noticeable to intimates. I had to keep Goth here and coach him in how to walk, talk, eat and so on. I had to continually urge him to slow down, to make each gesture with a conscious slowness.”

“Doc, are we in business?”

“You can honestly do what you said for my research program?”

“Yes. You need more funds and more help.”

“Well — then it’s a bargain. Come in the house. I believe there is a bottle of fair sherry about somewhere.”

They went into the kitchen. The girt turned from the sink. Tomlinson said, “Ah, there you are, Linda. My dear, this is Mr. Banth. He is my new... uh... partner.”

“Him?” she said. “Sticking needles in mice?”

“Mr. Banth has ideas which are somewhat more expansive.”

“I should imagine,” Linda said dryly. She straightened up, drying her hands on the thighs of the jeans. She stared at Sam for a long, long second. “Keep a close watch on the gold in your teeth, Pop,” she said, still staring full into Sam’s eyes.

“He seems quite — straightforward, Linda,” Tomlinson said. “You know, he might resent such a—”

Linda smiled and nodded. “You win. Pop. He is straightforward. Like the way a snake strikes. Welcome to our happy rustic little group, Mr. Banth.”

“You’d better call me Sam, Linda.”

“Sraightforward Sam, the Confidence Man.”

“Do you young people dislike each other on sight?” Tomlinson complained.

Sam finally forced her to drop her eyes. “Not at all, doctor. We just talk like this because we each recognize a kindred spirit.”

“That I could resent.” Linda said.

“The truth is ever bitter.”

Chapter Three

School for Champions

Sam watched the kid in centerfield. He had the expert’s knack of starting at the crack of the bat. His name was Wally Christopher. It was the lower half of the eighth. The last man up slammed a hard one over the second baseman’s head. Christopher came in fast, took it expertly on the bounce, came around with a greased throwing motion to second, nailing the runner to first. He trudged back out to his position.

It had taken six weeks to locate this boy and Sam Banth liked what he saw. He went over the statistics. Age nineteen, five foot eleven, a hundred and sixty-five pounds. Errors for the season, none. Batting average 166.

Christopher was up in the top of the ninth. He went down swinging after a ball, two foul tips and a called strike. He walked disconsolate from the batter’s box. Banth grinned. He’d been pulling for a hitless day for the kid, to yank the average down a little further.

This was bush-league ball, and even with Christopher’s outfield talent, he was slowly but very certainly slipping out of baseball because of that powderpuff batting average.

He left before the inning was over, confident that his note would bring Christopher to the hotel room in this small Pennsylvania city.

“Come right up and knock,” he had said in the note.

A few minutes after six there was a hesitant knock on the door. “Come on in,” Banth called.

Christopher came in. He was heavy-jointed with good hands and wrists, a reddened complexion, clear eyes and a diffident manner. “You Mr. Banth?”

“Sit down, Christopher. This is just a friendly little chat.”

The boy seemed despondent. “Sure.”

“You didn’t look so sharp out there today.”

“I knew that without coming up here, mister. Nothing for four. I’ve had other news. They’re letting me go the end of the week.”

Banth felt an inner excitement. This was better than he’d hoped. He sat down facing the boy. “What do you want to do with your life?”

“Play baseball. Ever since I was six years old that’s all I ever wanted to do. Fat chance I’ve got now.”

“This is the end of the road. Once they let you out here, you’re all done.”

Christopher squinted at him. “You trying to make me feel good?”

“How long do you expect to live?”

“Now that’s a damn-fool question.”

“Okay. We’ll try another one. Suppose you played baseball and maintained the best batting average in the country. How long would you last in the game?”

“Hell, up into my forties I suppose. Some do.”

“When they let you go, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. Go back home. Gel a job. Bread truck or something.”

“Here’s my card. I’m the president of a concern called Champions, Incorporated It’s a very hush-hush organization. We run a training course.”

“I can’t afford anything like that.”

“It won’t cost you a dime. All you have to do is sign a contract stating that you will pay us fifty percent of all your future earnings in baseball.”

“Fifty percent of nothing is nothing.”

“We’ll take that chance, provide free transportation, give you your training course and give you a chance to show your stuff to a good club after you’re trained.”

“What’s the catch?”

“We think you’ve got what it takes. But there is one thing. Our training course is very, very strenuous. It won’t cut short your active playing career, Christopher, but it may shorten your life a little. We want that understood.”

The boy frowned. “But you’ll take a chance on me just when I’m getting the can?”

“Yes.”

“If you want to be soft in the head, Mr. Banth, I guess I can be crazy too.”

“Have you got to finish out the week?”

“I think they’d rather I wouldn’t.”

“Then clear with them, pack up and meet me in the lobby tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. Here’s fifty. Put that against your expenses. There’s plenty more coming.”

With Christopher beside him Banth slowed the powerful convertible for Kingston traffic, then opened it up again. He came around the last bend.

“There’s the layout,” he said.

The twenty acres had been enclosed with hurricane fence topped by barbed wire and electrified wire. Two trucks loaded with building materials were just turning in at the gate. The gate guard, uniformed in slate blue, saw Banth approaching and yelled to the truckers to move along. A new white stone building stood a hundred yards back of the barn. Two foundations for other buildings were taking shape. Amidst the bustle of activity the sagging farmhouse looked forlorn, forgotten.

Sam pulled up beside it, gave a blast on the horn and said, “End of the line, Christopher.”

The boy got out. He looked puzzled. “That sign says Tomlinson Research Foundation.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ve got the right place.”

As they reached the foot of the porch steps Linda came out the door. She smiled warmly. “Welcome home, Sam.” She wore a soft gray dress that matched her eyes. Her black hair had been done in the latest fashion and her fingernails were long and the color of blood.

“Miss Tomlinson, this is Wally Christopher.”

“Nice to meet you, Wally.”

“Same here.”

“Bring your bag along and I’ll show you your room. I’m sorry the new dormitory isn’t ready yet. That will be another month.”

Sam was waiting at the foot of the stairs when Linda came back down. She paused two stairs from the bottom. He reached up, took her by the waist with his big hands and lifted her lightly down. “Miss me?”

“Mmmm. Hard to tell.”

“Was I right in calling you Miss Tomlinson?”

“It came through yesterday. Restoration of maiden name and all.”

“Like the looks of our boy Christopher?”

“Poor little lost sheep.”

“Poor little lost gold mine. Inside a year he’ll be trying to find a lawyer smart enough to find a hole in that contract. But there won’t be any. He signed in the city before we came out. Next year they’ll be paying him at least sixty thousand. Thirty thousand for us, darling.”

“Fifty percent!” Her eyes widened. “You weasel, you!”

“I better go out and pay my respects to the esteemed Doctor Tomlinson. How did that fuddy get a kid like you?”

“Throwback. My great, great, great, great grandfather was a pirate.”

“I’ll tell him about the Christopher boy. I want this one fixed up fast so he can start bringing in the dough. Expenses are high.”

She held him close. “And they’re going to be higher, man.”

“Acapulco?”

“And the emerald too. I’m holding you to that.” She was warm against him. “I missed you, you thief,” she whispered. “Oh, how I’ve missed you!”

“This much?”

“Even more than that, Sam. More than that. You’ve got cold eyes, Sam. Pale eyes. What goes on behind them?”

“Ideas.”

“With me in them?”

“With you in them. I think it’s you. A big girl. Black hair, soot on her eyelashes. Eyes the color of campfire smoke.”

“Where there’s smoke—”

Wally Christopher sat on the edge of the bed. The tall dark girl had explained the schedule. Pretty girl. Wise looking. Made him uncomfortable somehow, as if she was laughing at him inside herself. Lots of girls like that in the world. Get in the big time and all you got to do is whistle. The big time!

She said to come down and eat at six. He looked at his watch. She hadn’t said anything about wandering around for a while. It was close to five. He went downstairs and out without seeing anyone. A swarm of men were working on the new buildings. He watched them for a while, wondering what time they’d quit, and then he saw them rigging floodlights so the masons could work at night.

From a distance he saw Mr. Banth coming out of the white stone building beyond the barn. Mr. Banth had his arm around the shoulders of an older man, a small man with gray hair that was nearly white. Mr. Banth was talking excitedly. Quite a guy, that Sam Banth. Convincing.

Banth waved to him casually so Wally guessed that it was all right to wander around the place. Diagonally off to the left beyond the white stone building he saw a tennis court. A girl and a fellow were talking over the net. The fellow turned and walked away toward the rear of the white stone building. Wally ambled toward the tennis court. She came walking rapidly toward him, slim brown legs twinkling. She wore white shorts and a halter. She was a striking tan, particularly in contrast to her carrot-red hair.

She stopped and stared at Wally. He saw that her small, pert-featured face was older than he had realized. The weather wrinkles were deep at the corners of her eyes, and the lines were stark from snub nostrils to the corners of her mouth.

“You play tennis?” she asked in a remarkably high-pitched voice. She spoke very rapidly.

“Play at it,” he said grinning. The grin faded. “Say!” he said. “I’ve seen you someplace. Wait a minute. Allison? No. Anson. That’s it. Barbara Anson.”

“Give the boy a cookie,” she said.

“I thought you quit tennis a long time ago.”

Her voice became slower and dropped in pitch. “I didn’t quit on purpose, son. My legs gave out.” They walked side by side. She kept getting a few steps ahead and then slowing down.

He gave her a bashful smile. “Gave out? They look good from here.”

“Listen to him! What’s your name? How old are you? What’s your sport?”

“Wally Christopher. Nineteen. Baseball.”

“Nineteen, eh? Then I am just barely old enough to be your mother.”

“Don’t kid me, Miss Anson.”

She gave him an odd smile. “What’s your trouble in baseball?”

“Can’t hit. Do you think they’ll be able to straighten me out?”

“You don’t know how it’s done?”

“Nobody’s told me a thing yet.”

“I’ll let them tell you, Wally. Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about a thing. Every little kid in the country will know your name inside of two years.”

At nine o’clock in the morning Miss Tomlinson sent Wally to the white stone building. The old man he had seen Banth talking to was there. And some young men in white coats with high collars.

He was told to strip and then they had him climb onto a table and lie down. There was a long and uncomfortable period of tubes and needles and a thing wrapped around his arm. Then they had him breathing into a tube while a pen drew lines on a piece of graph paper wrapped around a cylinder, behind glass. They took all sorts of samples. They used words to each other that were strange. Wally had heard a few of them but he couldn’t remember what they meant. They put gunk on his temples, stuck metal things into the gunk and another pen drew a different sort of line. After he came back from lunch they waited thirty minutes and then pumped the lunch out of his stomach. It made him sick for a little while and then he was famished again. Another gadget, once it was fastened onto him, made a pen line that had a peak for every time his heart beat.

“Come back here at three in the afternoon the day after tomorrow,” Dr. Tomlinson said. “Your time is your own until then.”

During the two days he played tennis with Barbara. She was amazing; she seemed to know where the ball was going to go the instant he hit it. Banth had gone away again. The buildings were roofed, both of the new ones, and interior work had begun. The dark girl, Miss Tomlinson, wandered around looking glum. There was a lake ten miles away. He drove Barbara’s car and they went swimming. Later he kissed her and she pretended to think it was funny and called him a silly kid, but he guessed from the way her eyes looked that she enjoyed it all right. She didn’t kick the second time or from then on.

He went back at the time Tomlinson had said and they gave him two capsules with a glass of water. The room swung slowly back and forth and darkened and was gone.

When he woke up it was night. He was back in his room. He was very sleepy. He tried to think and remember, but his head hurt. He went back to sleep.

In the morning he got dressed and went downstairs. It was the same as any other morning except that he managed to break the laces in both shoes and that annoyed him. Miss Tomlinson was the only one in the dining room.

“Come and sit with me, Wally,” she said. Her voice was deep and slow.

“Have you got a cold?” he asked.

“That’s what Barbara Anson asked the first morning. No, I’m just as I’ve always been, Wally.”

“You’re different. You act sleepy and slow.”

“Look at the clock, Wally. Look at the pendulum.”

“It’s running down, isn’t it? About to stop?”

“No. It’s just the same. You’re different, Wally. The world is the same. You’re speeded up. Do you know how you’ve changed?”

“What is this?”

“Your voice is so high that you sound almost like a girl, Wally. Every move you make is too fast. You look and act like a man with a bad case of jitters.”

“What’s happened to me? What is this?”

“Everything in the world will look as though it has slowed down, Wally. So will that baseball floating down toward the batter’s box.”

Slowly he began to understand. “They — Dr. Tomlinson, he speeded me up?”

“That’s right. Now don’t look so upset. It will work out just the way you want it. But now your real work starts. You must learn to walk and talk and smile all over again. You must learn how to eat and how to drive a car. Then you’ll have to learn how to play baseball. You must start all over again and learn timing from the ground up. You can start right now. Keep saying to yourself every moment, ‘Slowly, slowly.’ See, you’re stirring your coffee right over the sides of the cup. Now move at the same speed I do. That’s right. Slow your hand down as you raise the cup. When you speak to me pretend you’re imitating a slow deep western drawl. Pitch your voice as low as you can. Only fair, Wally. Try again.”

It was a difficult ten days. They made him stay away from Barbara. Those who had been treated had to associate with people who had normal timing. That way it came faster. At the end of ten days his slips were very infrequent. His habits changed. Each night, at ten, he was exhausted and his body yearned for sleep. Yet by six in the morning he was slept out. He was ravenous an hour before lunch, an hour before dinner. And slowly he learned always to walk as though he were wasting an idle hour in a park, move his hands like a sleepwalker.

One of the young men took movies of him standing, sitting, talking, walking. He found that his head movements were too rapid, too jerky, and he had to learn that when he heard a sound behind him he must give himself a slow count as he turned around.

Banth came back with two glum young recruits. Wally found out later that one of them was a discouraged pro basketball player, the other a pro hockey player who had slowed down to the point where none of the top teams would have anything to do with him.

That night, at dinner, Sam Banth said, “Wally, you’ve done well. Tomorrow morning you and I have an appointment at Yankee Stadium. I want to get some bids for you. I’ve wangled three top managers into being there. I guess curiosity is bringing them around. Paul Paris will pitch to you.”

“Paris! Mr. Banth, he’s the hottest arm in the game right now! He’s hanging up new records. How about that no-hitter out in Cleveland?” Even in his excitement he managed to keep his voice pitched low and say the words slowly.

“I don’t think he’ll worry you any. I’m paying him five hundred to pitch ten times. That’s fifty a pitch. If I was worried, Wally, I wouldn’t pay out that much.”

“Yes, but—”

“Now you’ve got some memorizing to do. He’ll throw ten pitches. I want the first one lined out of the park. I want a clean miss on the second one. I want the next two hit deep. Another miss, another homer, two more strikes and then another one out of the park. That’s nine. Then see if you can bang the last one for a long foul.”

“Mr. Banth, nobody can call their shots that way when—”

“Now tell me what you’re going to do on each pitch.”

“It doesn’t work that way. He won’t throw the whole ten right across the sack.”

“His control is good. If he throws a wild one, it won’t count. But if they’re a little bit outside, go after them.”

It was a misty morning. Wally felt the sweat running down his sides. He wore spikes, but Mr. Banth hadn’t wanted him to put on a uniform. There was a fill-in catcher. Lean Paul Paris, with a smirk on his face, was warming up. Banth stood over at the side laughing and joking with the three managers. One of them had remembered seeing a scout’s report on Wally and had wanted to leave right away, but Sam Banth had talked him out of it.

The vast empty stadium was filled with a hard silence. When Banth laughed an echo came back from centerfield. The ball thwacked against the mitts. Wally sweated and swung the bat a few times.

“Okay,” Paris shouted. “I’m ready. Let’s get this screwball deal over with.”

Banth said quietly, “Okay, Wally.”

Wally walked to the box, tapped the dirt out of his spikes. The catcher pulled the mask down over his face and said, “Now I seen everything.”

Paris went into a windup that looked very slow to Wally. His long arm slanted down and the ball came down the groove. It was a fine, fat pitch. Wally tightened and swung. Usually the ball disappeared completely when it was within six feet of the bag. But this time he watched it the whole way and he saw the bat swinging to meet it. He saw that the swing was too fast and too soon and a shade high. He pulled the swing a little and moved the bat down a trifle. There was a fine deep-throated crack and the ball soared away. Paris turned and put his hands on his hips and watched it. It went into the left-field stands, fair by inches.

“Lucky,” the catcher grunted. Paris put a new ball into play. It was another fat pitch. The temptation was too strong. The bat stung his hands. Paris ducked after the ball was already beyond him. Wally glanced guiltily over at Banth. Sam was scowling at him. He looked back in time to see the ball hit the centerfield wall hard enough to rebound half way back to second base.

He made himself miss the third one. It was an outside pitch, but he swung anyway. Banth looked relieved. Paris was wild on the next one. Wally slammed the next into deep right center, then swung and missed, put the next into the rightfield stands, racked up two strikes, dropped the next into the left-field stands and banged the last one high and foul into the right-field stands. Paul Paris looked seriously shaken. He tore his glove off and glared toward Wally.

“Brother,” the catcher said with deep sincerity, “some of those were the best hit balls I seen in a long time.”

Wally moved over toward the three managers and Banth. Banth told him to go take the spikes off. When he came back out only one of the managers was left. He had a smug look and a happy gleam in his eyes. He slapped Wally on the shoulder. “Welcome aboard, son.”

Chapter Four

Empire of the Damned

The meeting was held in a room so new that it still smelled of damp plaster. Dr. Tomlinson walked briskly in, pushing the door open. Linda looked quickly over her shoulder and pushed herself away from Sam Banth. Her eyes had a heavy-lidded look. Her lips were parted and her face and throat were flushed. It troubled Tomlinson to sec her like that. Banth gave him an impudent grin.

“Prader’ll be along any minute, doc,” Sam said. Prader was the combination lawyer and accountant hired by Sam when the two corporations were being formed.

The three of them sat at the board table. Linda kept her smoky eyes on Sam Banth. Dr. Tomlinson sorted his papers.

Prader came in with a short mincing stride, his briefcase under his arm. He apologized profusely for the delay. He found his chair, unbuckled the briefcase and took out a minute book. He was a giant of a man down to the waist, but his legs were absurdly short. Once he sat down he had a commanding presence, emphasized by a jutting jaw and black, unwinking eyes. Afoot he merely looked absurd.

“Let’s take Dr. Tomlinson’s pet first,” Sam said. “The meeting of the Board of the Tomlinson Research Foundation, Incorporated, will please come to order. We better take the financial report first, doctor.”

Tomlinson found the proper page. “Ah, yes. The donation this month from Champions, Incorporated was thirty-seven thousand, five hundred. Twenty-six hundred and ten went for salaries and wages. Twenty-four thousand was applied against the building. Eighteen thousand, three hundred of new equipment was ordered. The total comes to forty-four thousand nine hundred and ten. There was thirteen hundred and three on hand from the previous month. Thus the deficit to date is six thousand one hundred and seven, plus, of course, the additional fourteen thousand outstanding on the lab. I’ve given the figures to the nearest dollar for simplicity’s sake.”

Sam said harshly, “The purpose of the large donation was to build up a cash reserve. Instead you spent every dime of it and more too. I don’t know as I care for that. What’s that eighteen thousand three hundred for equipment?”

“Let’s take things in order, Mr. Banth,” Prader said smoothly. “I see you have the progress sheets on your phase of construction, Dr. Tomlinson. If you’ll pass them over I’ll enter the pertinent data in the minute book. I — ah — believe that we can dispense with the reading of the minutes of the previous meeting. Any new business?”

Tomlinson interrupted Sam. “Yes. We’re on the track of a new method of excitation. Rather than go into detail I’ll merely say that rather than the concocting of the precise stimulants for the secretion pattern of the individual, it is based on placing the individual at the focal point of a vibrating magnetic field. Nerve tissue so stimulated has shown an almost incredible impulse speed. Our barrier in the injection method was a speed-up of fifty percent. So far we cannot determine the barrier in the new method.”

“I don’t see any particular excuse for any new method,” Banth said.

Tomlinson gave him a surprised look. “But this is a research group! There is always a reason for research, Banth.”

Sam looked down at his big fists for a moment. He looked up quickly. “I would like the privilege, as a large stockholder, to countersign all checks issued by the Tomlinson Research Foundation, and approve all orders for materials.”

“I was told I would have a free hand.”

“To milk Champions, Inc., of every dime, eh?” Banth said. “Not so fast, doc. Not quite so fast. Maybe it was agreed, but it can be put to a vote.” He looked meaningfully at Linda. “So let’s vote on it, doc. My forty-nine percent votes that one Sam Banth be dealt into your financial picture.”

“And my forty-one percent,” said Tomlinson “is, of course, against such a change in our picture. Really, you disappoint me, Banth.”

Both men looked at Linda. She had turned a bit pale. She looked quickly at Sam and then, more shyly, at her father. “Some compromise, maybe,” she said weakly.

“Vote, baby,” Sam said.

She gave him a look of anger. “Don’t try to tell me what to do! I’ll vote with my father. Against you.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed dangerously. Then he grinned. “Good girl. I like a good loyal girl. You win, doc. But let’s have a gentleman’s agreement. Let’s turn over the same amount this month and you see if you can hang onto some of it.”

“That will suit me,” Tomlinson said quietly.

“That should wind up the foundation,” Prader said. “Now, Mr. Banth. How did your enterprise function? Financial report first, of course.”

“Our cut of the wages of all eleven employed graduates came to seventy-eight hundred. That end is chicken feed so far. Eventually it’ll be the big end of the stick. Income from wagers amounted to one hundred nine thousand, three hundred and five.”

Prader whistled involuntarily. Tomlinson’s eyebrows went up.

“Now think it out for a minute,” Banth said. “This month was the end of the gravy train on wagers. The boys are on guard now. I’m going to have to bet through dummies. The bets will have to be smaller. At the beginning of month there was eight thousand two hundred in the kitty, after turning over the thirty-seven five to the foundation. That, plus income, equals one hundred twenty-five thousand, three hundred and five. Another thirty-seven five to the foundation leaves eighty-seven, eight oh five. Expenses were fourteen two. Reserve for taxes twenty, leaving fifty-three, six oh five. I suggest a twenty buck dividend on each of the thousand outstanding shares. It will take us down to thirty-three, six oh five, enough to cover operating expenses for the coming month. Eighty-two hundred bucks for the doctor, ninety-eight hundred for me and two thousand for Linda. Shall we vote? Hands up? Done,

“Now for the progress report. As I said before we have eleven ‘graduates’. There are twelve in training and we ought to have four of those out bringing in income by the end of the month and an additional six or seven lined up. The twelve consist of three boxers in three different weight divisions, a professional magician whose hand wasn’t quicker than the eye, a pro miler — his income will be peanuts but the side bets might be all right on a four-minute mile, one golfer whose trouble was not enough distance on the drives, a baseball pitcher who had lost his fast stuff, a team of three circus acrobats, and two pro footballers who were about through.

“Every one of them and also our ‘graduates’ understand that if they do any talking we can flood their particular speciality with graduates and put them right back where they started. We’ve kept the press from finding out anything. Sooner or later they’ll suspect and track it down, of course. Then we’ll have to throw up some smoke screens. As to future plans, I want to go down to Mexico and grab a couple of bullfighters. Headliners in that trade make thousands for an afternoon’s work and reflexes are pretty important. Collections and accounting may be a problem, but I think we can handle it all right. I have — some experience in making collections.”

Prader organized the minutes into proper form. The dividend checks were drawn up and distributed. Salaries were given an upward boost.

The meeting broke up and Tomlinson went back to his research in the labs.

Sam and Linda walked slowly down toward the farmhouse. She held the folded check in her hand.

“You’re the girl who wanted to be smothered with money,” he said, giving her a crooked smile.

“Two thousand isn’t going to smother me, Sam.”

“There’s a lot more in the picture.”

“How do you mean that?”

“Take those two payments to the foundation. They total seventy-five thousand. Ten percent of that is seventy-five hundred, plus what you’ve got in your hand would make your take for two months total ninety-five hundred.”

She stopped. He turned and faced her. “What are you trying to tell me, Sam? What are you trying to get across? The whole agreement was made because you showed dad how it would help his work. If you cut off all funds—”

“Let’s not get sentimental, Linda honey.”

“I’m being practical. He treats the people you bring here. If he didn’t get the agreed money, he might stop treatments, and then where would you be?”

Sam scuffed the ground with his toe. “Have you taken a look at the kids he hired? Have you seen that one named Howard Dineen? Have you seen him looking at you?”

She flushed. “I guess I have.”

“He’s a big dumb-looking towhead and his red ears stick out but the doc says he’s the keenest one in the group. And if you told Dineen to jump up in the air and land on his head, he’d knock himself out.”

“Sam, darling, you’re — frightening me.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know why. I was just showing you that if we’re smart and if your old man should decide to walk out on the deal, Dineen could be made to go along with us. You’d just have to smile at him every Tuesday. That’s all.”

“Why would dad walk out?”

“If you should vote with me a few times, honey, he might get sore. But that would be a shame because he’d walk out with forty-one percent of the stock and forty-one percent of the profits. You’d inherit. I suppose. Eventually.”

“Don’t talk like that!” she whispered. “Don’t!”

He gave an elaborate shrug. “Now why act like that? I didn’t say a word. I was just thinking that if you ever did inherit we could keep Dineen working for peanuts. You’d take fifty-one percent each month of the total. Our target is one hundred ‘graduates.’ After we get to that point, we won’t treat any more of them. Some will make a lot, some won’t make much. They will average a gross of twelve thousand a year. And we’ll average forty percent of that. Call it an even half million a year. And little Linda would he getting a quarter million a year, all her very own before Uncle Sugar’s cut. I’m just thinking out loud. Would that smother you?”

She laughed nervously. “It might bring on shortness of breath.”

“He’s an old guy. What is he? Close to seventy?”

“Don’t, Sam. Don’t!”

“You act like I might be trying to talk you into something, kid.”

“Sam! Are you?”

He shut the kitchen door behind them, swung her around and backed her against the closed door. His mouth was an inch from hers. He said softly, “How do I know whether I’m talking you into anything? Can you be talked into anything?”

“I’m frightened, Sam. Scared green. Hear my heart. It’s pounding.”

He took a small box out of his pocket, opened it with his thumbnail. The stone was a living and perfect green. “Remember that dream I tried to sell you? Will you buy it?”

“Oh, Sam!”

“There was no more to the dream. I got to go line up a couple of bullfighters. Acapulco is maybe an hour and a half, two hours, by air from Mexico City.”

“But I couldn’t leave with you,” she whispered.

“Go visit a girl friend. A girl friend in Seattle, or New Orleans. You got two thousand. Take yourself a vacation.”

She bit her lip. “I might do that.”

“If you want to write me or anything, I’ll be at a hotel called the Del Prado in Mexico City. I’ll get there next Tuesday.”

“I’ll send you a special delivery.”

“You do that.”

Howard Dineen crouched and looked moodily in at the cage of white mice. One would stop for a moment and he could see it. Then it would completely disappear and reappear on the opposite side of the cage. He knew that this group had been speeded to a point where the eye could not follow their normal movements. Dr. Tomlinson had fretted about the possible structural damage that would be self-inflicted by the mice through their mere velocity of movement, but it was beginning to appear that the new vibration-born acceleration also caused a compensation in the structural qualities of bone and tissue so that the expected damage did not result.

Dineen was moody about the changes which this past seven months had made in him. Before coming here there had been nothing but the work, the intense, almost feverish devotion to the work of research. And now another factor had intruded. Linda Tomlinson. Even as he stared into the cage he seemed to see her walking toward him.

He had tried all manner of things to chase her out of his mind. He lay at night picturing her in the embrace of that crude Banth person, and instead of making it better, it made it worse so that he heard himself groan aloud. He had walked the nearby roads and fields until he was exhausted, and still he dreamed of Linda. He had forced himself into an intrigue with one of the new lab girls who had recently reported, but it had been awkward and tawdry and utterly disappointing.

She had been gone for ten days now. And so had Banth. He tortured himself with conjectures about whether they were together. Dr. Tomlinson bad said that Linda was visiting a school friend. Dr. Tomlinson did not seem to be worried.

Howard Dineen knew that it was hindering his work, his powers of concentration. He made mistakes in timing and in recording and found it necessary to repeat an awkward number of experiments. He told himself a thousand times that she was a tramp, Banth’s girl, a divorced woman. Nothing worked.

“Hello, Howard,” her voice said, close behind him. He thought how odd it was that his imagination could consistently give him such convincing impressions of her.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Linda asked.

He spun around awkwardly, rapping his elbow smartly against the side of the cage. He rubbed it and said vacuously, “You’re back!”

She wore a dark suit, so severely tailored that it accented rather than concealed the intense femaleness of her. Her dark hair had been cropped fashionably short. Her eyes puzzled him. They had lost a certain awareness while she had been away. They had an almost glazed look, as though she were an automaton set in motion by a superior force for a specific purpose.

“Yes, I’m back, Howard. How has the work been going?”

“The work? Oh, fine. Great. How was your trip, Miss Tomlinson?”

“Do you have to be so formal? My name is Linda. It was a nice trip.”

“I’m glad — Linda.” He flushed, knowing that the way he had said her name, the way he had mouthed it so gently had told her too much.

“I’m glad to see you again, Howard. Dad is always so engrossed, and Mr. Banth is so busy. It seems like you’re the only real friend I have here ”

The suspicions of Sam Banth melted like snow in a furnace. He grinned. “I want to be your friend, Linda. Your — good friend.”

“I don’t see any reason why you can’t be, Sam. Dad says you’re ever so clever.”

He flushed again. “He overrates me, Linda.”

“I don’t want you to think I’m too bold.”

“I won’t.”

“I have a new car and I’m timid about driving it into New York at night. I wondered if tonight you and I could — I mean it would be nice to—”

“I’d love it, Linda!”

“At seven, then. No, make it six, so the evening will be long.”

“At six, then,” he said reverently. She left. Howard turned back to the cage and spoke tender words to the uncomprehending mice who flitted back and forth like rays of soft white light.

Sam arrived the next day, in the afternoon. He sought out Linda. He spoke a few words to her and later she came to his room. He shut the door.

“How did the kid react?”

“How did you expect?” she said bitterly. “He’s nice, Sam. Too nice for what we’re doing to him.”

He held her shoulders. “Come on, now! Don’t go soft on me. We’ve got to keep the kid in line and know he’s going to stay in line before we do — the other thing.”

“You’re cold, Sam. You’re cold and hard and cruel.”

His hands tightened on her shoulders and his mouth curled. “Duckling, I was protecting your sensibilities. I used nice words. I could have said before we kill your father. I was being delicate.”

Her eyes half closed. She swayed. “Sam, maybe I... can’t—”

“I made you a promise in Acapulco, duckling. I told you that you’d follow through — all the way — or you’d never see me again. It still stands that way.”

“Please, Sam.”

“Don’t forget we’re married, duckling. We’re gay newlyweds. Remember? I’m your staunch and loyal husband. Between us we’ll own a hundred percent of this business. You said you wanted that.”

“All right, Sam. All right,” she said wearily. “I’ll be all right — afterward.”

“You better be. Now get out of here.”

Chapter Five

The Iron Maiden

It was a most unfortunate accident. Lieutenant Klatsa of the state police, who handled the investigation, saw how it had happened. The daughter — a nice item, that one, even with her tear-puffed eyes — told how Tomlinson had left the dinner table saying that he wanted to take a look at progress on the small addition to the main lab building. It was dusk, a fool time of day for an old duffer like that to be out climbing ladders.

The ladder had been tilted up against the cinderblock wall, with the legs in soft sand. It was clear how the ladder had shifted and slid. It came down with the old boy and he would have survived the fall had it not been for the cinderblock. The edge of it caught him at the temple.

The man named Banth was pretty up set about the whole thing. And odd setup; the old man working with rabbits and cats and rats right on the same property where this Banth operated a health camp or something.

He made his report and the body was taken to a Kingston funeral home and buried two days later in a local cemetery, at a service attended by the weeping daughter, a grim-faced Sam Banth and the entire staff.

After dark, as Howard was heading back to the dormitory, he passed Linda’s car in the drive. He did not notice her sitting in it. “Howard!” she called. He turned back and she said, “Get in, Howard. Sit beside me for a little while.” He sensed the tears behind her words.

She began to sob softly as he got in. She leaned against his shoulder. A scalding tear fell on the back of his hand, and her helplessness turned his heart over and over.

“There, there,” he said. He held her in his arms. He wished she would keep crying forever so that he could hold her.

At last she was under control. She sat up and moved away from him.

“What is it? Anything I can do, Linda?”

“I don’t think so. Howard. There was a board meeting today. That horrible Mr. Prader and Mr. Banth and me. I thought things were going so well. I thought dad had left me a little money. But it doesn’t look that way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mr. Prader says that we’re overextended. We expanded too fast. Notes have to be met. The only thing to do, they say, is disband the staff and close the labs.”

“They can’t do that!” Howard said hotly.

“But we can’t afford to keep them up. No one man could handle the treatments, you know. I guess it’s all over.”

“But that’s silly! I could handle them by myself. The big staff was for research.”

“You could do it by yourself. Would you do that for me? I think we could keep on paying you the same amount.”

“They should have had me in that meeting. What do they know about what Dr. Tomlinson was doing? In another three days I’ll have the new equipment set up so that an idiot child could operate it. Dr. Tomlinson and I were working on making the outfit both portable and equipped with fool-proof controls. I don’t know why he wanted it that way, but now maybe I understand.”

“Oh, Howard! If you’ll only stay there’s a chance that the gamble will pay off. After all dad did, it seems a shame to give it all up.”

“I thought Banth was making a good thing out of all this. I thought those athletes were bringing in a good return. I don’t approve of what you people were using Tomlinson’s discoveries for, but I thought that it was at least profitable. To me it has always seemed like monkeying with people’s life spans, which could be a second cousin to murder. What’s the matter? Did I say something wrong?”

“No. Go on.”

“You keep giving athletes miraculous reaction times and they automatically become tops in each sport. It destroys the basic idea of competition. When the world knows, and some day it will, they’ll either outlaw the ‘graduates’ of this place, or competitive sport will be dead.”

“But in the meantime it’s profitable, Howard. But not profitable enough. The return hasn’t been big enough to cover the investment.”

“That surprises me. It doesn’t seem logical the way Banth tosses the coin around. But I guess that’s none of my business. I’d do anything in the world to help you. Fire the rest of the research staff and I’ll stay on and run the new gismo once I get it hooked up. If you have to cut down even further, I could show you how to operate it in twenty minutes.”

Her arms slipped around his neck and her lips were insistent. It was not the sort of tender kiss that he had expected. In some obscure way it disappointed him.

“Thank you, darling,” she whispered.

Sam Banth walked into the smallest lab building, the only one that was not closed when the rest of the staff departed. Howard looked up and nodded distantly.

“That the works?” Banth asked, pointing at the apparatus. It was a framework sarcophagus, an iron maiden formed of metal tubes, hinged to open and admit the patient. Affixed to the tubing at what appeared to be random points were cup-sized discs. The back of each disc was an exposed maze of wiring and tiny tubes.

“That’s it,” Dineen said absently.

“How does it work?”

“We don’t know. Dr. Tomlinson abandoned his previous line of conjecture a few weeks before he died. If it was pure stimulation, the body structure could not withstand the increased speed. We were working on the theory that in some unknown way it put the individual out of phase with normal time. In other words it creates for each individual an entire universe of accelerated time in which he is the sole example.”

“I don’t mean why does it work, Dineen,” Banth said. “I mean how do you make it work?”

“Here’s the control box. You can see that the wiring passes through it before leading to the discs. Note that there are two dials, calibrated, on the slanted side of the box. You translate the subject’s weight into kilograms and set the left-hand dial carefully. There’s a mass problem involved. The right-hand dial works much the same way as a rheostat control. You can see that it is calibrated with a diminishing interval between markings. Those markings are in percentages. The dial must be turned slowly. It is geometric. The first centimeter gives you a ten percent acceleration, the next centimeter twenty. Then forty, eighty, one sixty, three twenty and so on. It goes so high because we used it on lab animals. For humans this little stop should be slid over so that there is no chance of the acceleration going beyond twenty per cent. Anything beyond that and the individual cannot be trained to simulate normalcy.”

“Have you turned the dial over all the way on an animal?”

“Once. It was a bit — terrifying. We filled a cage with ample food for the lifetime of a mouse. The mouse disappeared for the smallest fraction of a second and then reappeared, quite dead on the bottom of the cage. Most of the food and the water was gone. We were able to tell that it had died of old age. There was a distinct malformation of the nostrils and lungs that had not been there before, showing that in the first part of its accelerated life span it had trouble sucking the air into its lungs with sufficient speed to maintain life. You see, it had to overcome the inertia of the air.”

“Almost anybody could operate the thing the way it’s set up, eh?”

Howard smiled. “If you’re thinking of firing me, I’d advise against it. I’m committing a criminal act using this process on human beings, even with their consent. You don’t know yet what the potential after-effects may be. I’m trying to find out. If you block me, I’ll go directly to the authorities. You see, I’m the only person with the exception of Dr. Tomlinson among the research staff who knew what you’ve been doing here.”

Banth pursed his lips. “That’s pretty big talk. Feeling tough, eh?”

“No sir. Just practical. My salary is small. I think you’ll see that it’s best to keep me around. I’ll even be frank with you. If it weren’t for Miss Tomlinson I would have quit six months ago when I first found out what was really happening here.”

Banth looked back at the apparatus for a long moment. It looked absurdly like some skeletal robot.

“Keep working, Dineen,” he said. “Any after-effects you can isolate will be helpful. I’ll send two more boys around this afternoon. They’re young enough so that ten per cent ought to do it.”

Wally Christopher caught the signal and shifted left. He adjusted his sun glasses. He saw the pitch go down and the lusty swing. The ball was an upslanting streak. He gauged it and moved over, careful not to move too fast. It came down, ridiculously slow. He moved toward it, as slowly as he dared, then dived, gloved hand outstretched. The ball smacked into the pocket and stuck. He rolled over and over, hearing the full-throated roar of the crowd. In days gone by it would have given him a lift. Now it was just too easy. He jogged in toward the dugout and he realised with something close to fear that baseball just wasn’t very much fun any more.

The girl across the net from Barbara Anson was playing with taut despair. They were into the second set after Barbara’s 6–1 win in the first. It was four games to one, Barbara’s favor and she had this game at deuce. Barbara’s serve. She softened the serve and let the opponent return it. She forced herself to place her own return within easy reach of the younger woman’s powerful forehand. Barbara made herself lose the return, smacking it into the net. She walked back to serve. It would have looked silly to win without giving up a single point in any game. Yet she knew she could do it. She had always loved the tense competition of the game. Now it was like playing with children, humoring them along, encouraging them. She wondered if she should give up the game — for good. The old thrill was gone.

The seventeenth had always bothered him. Four hundred and sixty-five yards, par four. Before, it had been a case of getting the second wood close enough so that the approach could be played up to one putt the green for a possible par. The only chance of a birdie was to sink the approach. Now he was alone on the hole in the graying dusk. He teed the ball, took a limbering swing and then addressed it. He swung with every ounce of effort and speed at his command, breaking his wrists at the right point for that final snap. Club head against ball made the deepest, heaviest crack he had ever heard on a golf course. The ball went out and it looked slow to him, but it rose, floating, fading. When at last he walked up to it he saw that he was not more than thirty yards from the edge of the green. He looked at it for a long time and then picked the ball up and trudged back in the direction of the clubhouse.

And all over the country, sports figures, doing at last, with ease, the things of which they had so long dreamed, became discontented. Now the ability was there, and yet it had been gained too easily, with too little effort. It was suspect, as are all gifts. Records were broken. The sports writers talked about ‘the new crop of immortals’ and when they talked among each other they marveled at the comebacks that had been made. They speculated. They did not guess the answer. There were new champions. Bored champions. Wealthy, yawning champions. Restless and lonely. They were the new strangers in a strange land. There was no need to train, to practice. The only goal was to refrain from winning too flagrantly. There was no competition for them. And thus all the games became work.

Sam Banth spent less and less time on the property and more time in the city. Linda’s devotion bored him. He would not have said that he was in any way a moralist, and yet he was oddly troubled that Linda was so unaffected by the death of her father. She had planned it with him and had correctly given her testimony which made it all the more obvious that it had been an accident.

Sam felt no special guilt at having committed the crime with his own hands. It bad been absurdly easy, once the plan had been made. And Tomlinson, at best, had very few years left to him. It was not like killing a young person — hardly, to Sam, like killing a person at all.

Yet there was something almost obscene about the placid and untroubled way that Linda treated it, as though it were an unfortunate incident.

When she was — unattainable she had been an excitement to him. Now she cloyed and stated and smothered him.

Two factors entered into his planning. The apparatus was portable and could just as well be set up in New York. Without Linda the entire take would be his. He woke up often in the middle of the night thinking about those two factors. The puzzling additional factor was Howard Dineen. How would Dineen react if he and Linda made their marriage public? Linda wanted it made public. Sam had demurred with the reason that to do so would alienate Dineen. But now Linda knew how to run the apparatus. In fact, she had treated two “students” with almost no supervision from Dineen. She was growing more insistent in her demands.

From a practical point of view it would be wise to publicize their relationship before Linda met with an “accident.” Then the marriage licence, reposing in his safe deposit box, would not be in the least suspect. It would be accepted as a legitimate document, which it was.

But to alienate Dineen might mean his running to the newspapers with the full account. It might cut the throat of the golden goose. “Graduates” might be barred from competition.

He worried the problem around in his mind for several weeks. The golden flow of money from the “graduates” increased. Instead of sating his needs it merely seemed to increase his itch to gather in all of it, not forty-nine percent.

And at last he had his plan, and it pleased him. It depended on how trusting Linda was. He covered his motive by a confusing monologue on tax structure.

“If you say so, dear,” Linda said. There was no suspicion in her now. She signed over her own stock and that which she had inherited from her father for the consideration of one dollar. The forms were duly notarized and recorded. Prader wore a wise look. Sam made a private vow to unload Prader and take on a new accountant-attorney.

The next day he went to a cheap rooming house and paid in advance for a room. That night, at dinner, he said to Howard and Linda, “I’ve got a pretty special customer who doesn’t want to be seen coming out here. It’s a profitable deal. Maybe we could take the thing into town. You said you could make it run on a house circuit.”

“It will take a few hours’ work.”

“Could you do that tonight? Then we can take it in in the morning.”

“Okay with me.” Dineen said.

Linda said just what Sam had hoped and expected. “Oh, can I come along?”

“If you want to, Linda. Sure.” He smiled at her. Inside he was laughing.

The furnished room was on East Ninety-third. It was dismal, with rug, walls, one overstuffed chair in varying shades of dirty brown. The two windows looked out onto an airshaft. No sun ever reached it. The low-wattage bulbs had to he kept on at all times.

“Charming setup,” Linda said.

Sam carried the iron maiden over by the table He unwrapped the blankets from around it. Howard busied himself with the connections. Sam sat on the bed and smoked until at last Howard sighed and backed away “All set.”

“When will this Important Person be along?” Linda asked.

“Any minute now.”

He put his hand in his pocket and, as he stepped close to Howard Dineen. he pulled out a worn leather sap. Back in hungrier days he had taken it away from a recalcitrant bookie customer. He planted the lead weight delicately behind Howard Dineen’s ear. Dineen sagged and fell.

Linda stood, her mouth open, her eyes wide. Horror and realization replaced surprise as Sam swung at her. The lead struck the corner of her jaw. He caught her as she fell.

It was awkward getting her inside the tubular iron maiden. He shut the hinged front of it and she slumped down inside it until her knees struck the front and she remained partially propped up. He pulled the control box toward him, set it at an approximation of her weight and twisted the other dial. As he did so he leaned against the front of the case to keep her from bursting it open. She began to move around inside so rapidly that she was blurred. He could not focus on her. If Dineen had not been lying it should take only a few moments before she became still, dead of thirst. At times he could see her and he guessed that she slept. When he was certain she was dead he would haul her out and put Dineen in there. It would be a mystery the police would never solve. Two people dead of thirst after a dozen witnesses had seen them alive earlier the same day.

He was totally unprepared for Dineen’s heavy step behind him, for the smashing blow against his jaw that drove him down into blackness.

Chapter Six

The Endless Twilight

He stirred and shook his head. He was looking out through the tubing at Howard Dineen. Dineen stood like a man carved of stone, thumb and forefinger on the right-hand dial. Tears seemed to be frozen on his face.

In panic Sam Banth pushed against the front of the iron maiden. He could barely lift his arm. It was as though he were imbedded in sticky oil. His arm seemed to take interminable seconds to reach the tubing. He pushed hard and nothing happened. He leaned his whole weight against it. He could look down and see that it wasn’t latched, that the hinges seemed free. He pushed mightily, panting with the effort. It was enormously difficult to breathe. The air felt like a solid substance. Yet when he tried to breathe the hardest, the air seemed to scorch his lips and nostrils.

He pushed again and saw a tiny gap. No matter how hard he thrust he could not hasten the speed of its opening. Howard stood there, completely motionless. No man could stand like that for so long. Sam wondered if he were dead. There was no question about Linda’s being dead. He could see her on the floor. Her body was shrunken and cracked, swollen lips protruded. Her eyes were sunk back into her head.

Time after time he was forced to stop and rest. He had no idea how many hours passed before the door was opened wide enough for him to squirm through. The room was changeless and eternal. He tried to move toward the door, but it was a prolonged struggle to take each step. He tried harder and saw that both pants legs had split completely down the front. It was then that he realized the constriction of his clothes.

When he pulled at his Clothes the material came apart, with agonizing slowness, in his hands. Hunger and thirst began to torture him. He knew that he had been in that room for the passing of an entire day and a night. He began to grow weak. The shoes were the last. And finally he stood naked; he could move once more. He went to the door with quick steps and found that he couldn’t turn the knob. He gave a fearful look at Howard Dineen. During the past hours the position of his head had changed a bit. Sam went into the small bathroom. The window was open. He eeled through, knowing that public nakedness was preferable to the sure and certain charge of murder should he be captured in the room. He dropped twelve feet to the alley level, falling with a lightness that surprised him, as though something had cushioned his drop through the air.

He trotted cautiously down the alley with a half-made plan to grab someone and strip him of clothing. He came out and peered cautiously at the street. At that moment he realized, for the first time, the complete and utter soundlessness of the city. Pedestrian’s feet were frozen in mid-stride. All traffic was halted. An absurd pigeon hung motionless in the air. Across the street a woman had tripped. She was falling forward, her hands outstretched, a startled look on her face. Sam looked at her narrowly. He could detect no movement.

The fear of pursuit, of being captured and convicted of murder, faded and died in the face of this newer, greater fear. His sensations, except for the breathing difficulty and an odd heat against his body when he moved quickly, seemed normal to him. Yet the world had changed in some grotesque way. Howard Dineen had turned the dial...

Sam Banth was not an emotional man. He forced himself to stand very still despite thirst and hunger and weakness. He would have to weigh his own situation from the point of view of the outside normal world. If he could detect no movement then undoubtedly his own movements would be too fast to be detected by the naked eye.

He puzzled over the problem of the clothes. Evidently it had been inertia. He was capable of moving at a vastly greater speed than the clothes could be moved. Thus they would split and, while clinging, hinder every movement. And that explained why he could not force the door of the iron maiden open except with an agonizing slowness.

He looked back at the falling woman. He narrowed his eyes. Her angle of inclination seemed subtly different. The city was soundless, a vast tomb. The thing was to find something he could measure, some way he could find out just how far he had been speeded up, just how far he was out of phase. A falling woman seemed an inadequate yardstick. He stepped onto the sidewalk. No eye turned toward him. He realized how fortunate he was that it happened to be a warm day. A man was poised a few feet away, frozen in the process of taking a step. Sam walked up to him and hit him in the stomach with all his strength. It was like hitting marble. The painful shock ran up his arm. The inertia of the flesh prevented it from giving under the force of the blow. Yet Sam knew how terrible that blow had been. He went behind the man, bent and wedged his finger between the angle of shoe sole and sidewalk. In several long minutes he sensed that the pressure was increasing. Yes, the man was being driven backward by the force of the blow. It seemed likely that he would eventually end up a dozen feet from the point where he had been struck. Sam went around and looked into the man’s open eyes. There was a subtle change in the expression. He knew that the man was dead where he stood.

Suddenly Sam Banth had a wild sense of power. He turned and touched the bare arm of a girl. It was warm, yet marble-hard. He kissed her lips. They were like sun-wanned stone. He laughed wildly in the silent city and his voice soared shrill in the stone canyon and was gone.

He remembered his hunger. And with it came caution. If hours passed for him at the rate of seconds for the rest of the world, then it would be wise not to be trapped in any closed place. He trotted down the sidewalk to Park Avenue and turned south. In the second block he found a cafeteria with the door wedged open because of the heat of the day. Two men were emerging, fixed in stasis, one grinning back over his shoulder at the other. Just inside a fat woman was reaching for the punch slip. Sam ducked under her extended arm. Thirst was the most pressing need. A girl was filling a water glass from the fountain. The stream of water looked like ice. A few drops that had spattered were perfect spheres hanging in the air.

There were long moments of panic until he found a way that he could drink. It had to be done in precisely one way, and no other. He had to turn so that he was looking straight up and then force his cheek against the still column of water. By exerting a long steady pressure he could move his head through the column. Then, with the end of the broken column directly above his mouth he pushed upward, thrusting the column down to the back of his throat. He bit a length off and it was like biting through a stick of rubbery taffy. He swallowed, gagging at its solidity, but feeling it change in his throat to the fluid he needed so badly. He went to four other fountains and did the same. It seemed to him that an hour passed before his thirst was partially satisfied.

Eating was a simpler problem. At first the method gave him a moment of nausea. There were at least a hundred persons eating. The process was to find forks that were raised halfway to lips. He could fold his mouth over the food and taking what seemed to be a full three minutes in each case, pull it away from the fork. It came reluctantly as though it were frozen to the fork and his action melted it slowly. He found that attempting to chew the food was too prolonged a process, and thus he was forced to find those morsels that he could swallow whole.

It seemed to take hours. When he left he saw that the man who had been smiling over his shoulder had turned his head a full inch. The fat woman had pulled the slip almost free of the machine.

He was enormously weary, his body starved for sleep. Weariness drugged him so that he staggered as he walked. He found an alley, a small dim corner near a barred window. He curled up like a dog and went to sleep.

Sam Banth awakened with a great start. He jumped to his feet, knowing at once where he was, remembering what had happened. He was hungry. He went furtively to the alley mouth and saw the sunlit street still in its frozen state. He trotted hack to the cafeteria.

He stopped suddenly and sobbed aloud. The two men were still emerging. The man in front had turned his head so that he faced straight ahead and he had taken one more step. The fat woman was another step closer to the pile of trays and the slip was free of the machine.

Panting to suck the solid air into his lungs, he walked rapidly back to the street he had first seen. The pigeon had moved a full thirty feet and, feet outstretched, it was frozen in the act of landing on the pavement. The man he had struck had taken two steps backwards. His eyes bulged and his mouth was open and he had lifted his arms.

Sam walked back to the cafeteria. The streams of water that he had bitten off had replaced themselves and the same persons stood filling the water glasses. The forks be had emptied seemed not to have moved and be realized that they had been carried up to the lips and were now on the return journey to the plates.

He spent long hours satisfying thirst and hunger, and then he was face to face with the problem of finding some measuring stick to compare his time with outside time. He walked all the way down to Fortieth Street, seeking some method he could use. No motion was perceptible to his naked eye. He leaned in at the window of a cab and saw that according to the speedometer it was traveling at twenty-four miles an hour. He figured out that, in outside time, it would go thirty-five feet a second. He found that the left rear wheel was resting directly on a small crack in the asphalt. For a moment he thought he had a method of computation and then he realized that he had no certain way of keeping track of his own time. He could go only by “sleep times.” He memorized the license plate of the cab.

After he slept again, this time in the back seat of the empty cab after worming his way in at the open window, he climbed out and paced off the distance that had been traveled. He estimated it at thirty feet. He looked at the speedometer again. The cab was traveling twenty-eight miles an hour now. The variables had defeated him.

But after he ate another idea came to him. He found a penny arcade on Seventh. A young boy had a.22 rifle at his shoulder, the trigger depressed. Sam climbed over the counter and searched down the line of fire until he found the tiny slug, suspended in mid-air. He knew from the loads on the counter that the boy was firing a,22 short. The slug was a dozen feet from the muzzle and he estimated that it was traveling at a thousand feet per second according to outside time.

The most precious thing about it was that he could see the slug move. He could touch it very lightly with his finger and feel it move. He lined it up with an object on the side wall, shut his eyes and counted off a minute — “one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand four...” He opened his eyes. The little lead pellet had moved what appeared to he a good two feet. He measured it more carefully. Less than two feet. He rechecked, using longer intervals. For a little time it ceased to be such an intensely personal matter and became an abstract problem.

He said, aloud, with satisfaction, “Close enough. One second outside time equals ten hours subjective time.” He carried it further. “Let me see. Five of my minutes equal one hundred twentieth of a second for Them. Conversely, thirty-six hundred seconds in an hour, eighty-six thousand, four hundred seconds in a twenty-four hour day, multiplied by ten to give the number of subjective hours — divided by twenty-four is thirty-six thousand days, or—”

He fell to his knees as the full import struck him. He beat his thighs with his fists. He shouted at the deathly stillness of the city and at the frozen people. He ran through the streets then, cursing them and the motionless sun and the unseeing, unknowing faces.

Those were the early years. The sunlit years, the years when his beard grew full and tangled and his belly was gaunt and his legs knotted and stringy from trotting through the city.

As he grew more adept at eating it took up less of his time, and he estimated that he cut it down to half his waking hours. He learned craft. If he saw someone in the act of pushing a door open, a heavy door, he knew that before the door swung shut again he could spend long hours inside the building. It became a dangerous game.

Once he barely slid through in time and he was afraid, because if ten objective seconds passed before the door was opened again, it would be one hundred hours for him. Thus he learned caution.

He got a childlike pleasure from the department stores.

He roamed all over the city. In the city were many women. He saw the fresh young faces, the skirts sculptured and frozen by the breeze, the legs striding. He found them in the dressing rooms of the department stores, on the rubbing tables, in the beauty salons, and their flesh was to him like the stone of a garden bench in the sun. He found one girl warm-eyed, smiling into the face of her beloved, and he returned to that girl many times to put his face in the line of her vision and imagine that she smiled at him rather than at the stone man behind him. But he tired of that.

Several years later, it seemed, he found himself in a neighborhood that looked vaguely familiar. A shattered man lay on the sidewalk, crumpled in death and the blood around him was like a dark red mirror. Tt took a long time to remember. He seemed to remember having struck that man a long time ago, and yet he did not know why. People stood around the fallen man. with horror fixed on their faces.

Once he heard a deep sustained sound. It took four “sleep times” before he found it. It was a subway train. A woman had fallen on the tracks in front of it. Frozen sparks fanned out from the steel wheels and it was from those wheels that the sound came. He listened to it with pleasure for a long time. He went back many days until the sound died away.

He discovered that If he went to enough bars he could find hard brown streams of liquor that could be bitten off. On those day he went singing through the streets, smiling and nodding at the thousands of statues.

For many years he slept in one of the department stores, one that had a door blocked open. The bed he found was like stone but he discovered that after what seemed like an hour or two of sleep he sank into it, into a hollow that made sleep more comfortable. Once, when he was very tired, he slept in that bed for a very long time.

He awakened and sat up to see a woman who had been looking toward the bed when he had climbed in. Her expression had changed to one of incredulous surprise. He knew that if he had slept for ten subjective hours, she would have had a whole second to see him there. It would look to her as though he had appeared by magic. This pleased him. He ate and returned to the bed. He lay very still and watched her. Over the long hours her face slowly turned brick red. Then he tired of the game.

But it gave rise to other experiments. He found a fire escape and climbed it one day to find a woman sunbathing on the flat roof. He lay beside her and went to sleep, directly within her line of vision. When he awakened, her mouth was wide in a scream he could not hear. He did not know how many days passed before he thought of her again. He went up and found her, eyes bulging, towels left behind, frozen in the act of running toward the small penthouse.

The dark years came. The sun faded slowly over a period of many sleeps and he saw the cloud that crept across it. It was during those years that he ceased his wandering. He went only as far as was necessary to find food that could be obtained without the danger of being trapped. He slept, when he was weary, on a pile of rags in a protected corner of an alley. He talked a great deal to himself. He measured the time of sleep by the people who walked by the alley mouth. One step, a step and a half, sometimes two steps.

The world slowly darkened. Each time he awoke more lights would be on. For weeks they came on, for months.

He was constantly cold and yet he had discovered that many of the doors, once open, were closing, and he dared not sleep inside.

Once he awoke in the darkness and he remembered that he had dreamed. He had dreamed of a girl and people who moved as he moved, and a shining network of tubes and a place a long way off. He had to go to that place. He was feeble and he walked slowly. But he knew he would reach it.

The district man was Lieutenant Mareno. He folded his hands on top of the desk with exaggerated patience. “Dineen,” he said, “if it takes a year, you’re going to give me a story I can get through my thick head. Now try it again.”

Howard said angrily, “You could understand it if you’d just concede one point, lieutenant. I smashed the apparatus because I hated it, because it had killed Linda. Or rather Sam Banth killed her. But when the thing was working it made time go very quickly for the person inside it. Sam Banth was using it to decrease the reaction time of athletes, professional athletes. You’ve heard of Wally Christopher, I imagine.”

“Who hasn’t? Four eighty-three batting average.”

“He couldn’t hit until we treated him. We used a different method on him but it amounts to the same thing. Banth collects fifty percent of his gross. You grab him and he’ll help prove what I’m trying to say. Now try to understand. From something Linda said I think Banth got her to sign over her stock in Champions, Incorporated, to him. He took us to that room to kill us by putting us in that apparatus and making time go very quickly for us. When we were dead he was going to leave with the apparatus, I’m sure. The police would find two people dead of thirst and starvation.”

“I want to know how.”

“Look, lieutenant. What if you were locked in this office for ten days?”

“I’d die, naturally.”

“Then suppose I could fix you so that while you were living ten days, the rest of the world was living two or three minutes. It would only take you two or three minutes to die, wouldn’t it?”

Mareno scratched his gray head. “I don’t quite figure it.”

“Then, dammit, how come Miss Tomlinson is dead of what your own medical examiner calls dehydration? And how come we both can prove she was in perfect health at nine o’clock this morning, twelve hours ago? Answer it some other way, lieutenant. I wouldn’t be wearing this bandage if I hadn’t been slugged by Banth, would I?”

“Look, Dineen. My job is to turn enough over to the prosecuting attorney so he can make a case. What the hell!”

“Banth killed her.”

“Look. Could you rig up some kind of gadget and come into court, provided we catch Banth, and prove maybe with an animal how it works? The S.P.C.A. will crucify us, but I don’t see any other way.”

“I could do that.”

“Okay. Now what happened to Banth? What did he do after you slugged him and took Miss Tomlinson’s body out of that machinery?”

Howard looked away for a moment. He said easily, “I hit Banth and he fell. I took Miss Tomlinson’s body out. I was examining her and then I found that she was dead. I looked around the room and I saw that Banth had escaped from me.”

“I don’t see where the hell he went,” Mareno said. “He’s an easy guy to spot. We’ll pick him up sooner or later. What a hell of a day this has been for the department!”

“How so?”

“A guy is killed thirty feet from the place where the Tomlinson girl was killed. Nobody knows what killed him. Something hit him and broke him almost into two pieces. The whole town goes crazy all at once. We get calls that a cafeteria is serving disappearing food. Can you tie that?”

Howard Dineen wore an odd expression. “It sounds strange.”

“And that ain’t half of it, brother. Hysterical women phoning in about seeing ghosts in the daytime. They call in from all over the city and always it’s the same ghost, an old nekkid guy with a bushy beard that appears suddenly and then disappears just as they yell We combed a department store for him where three people seen him. No dice. Two bars or maybe it was three phone in that somebody is stealing liquor. Sergeant Rausch, a friend of mine covers one case. The bartender shows him. lie pours liquor into a shot glass. He pours out half the bottle before He can fill the glass. Rausch is quitting the force. Then we got maybe fifty, sixty cases of people all banged up, nobody knowing what hits ‘em. Busted arms, shoulders, legs, heads, backs. Two dead already and maybe two more going to be. A hell of a day. The witnesses say these people were walking along and all of a sudden they take a big dive onto the sidewalk or out onto the street,”

The phone rang. Mareno picked it up. He listened, replied in monosyllables and then hung up. He wiped one big hand slowly down his face.

“I quit,” he said weakly. “I resign.”

“What now?”

“They got a call to go back to that same address. Where you were. There is an old naked guy there with a white bushy beard and hair halfway to his waist. He was on the steps and nobody knows how he got there. The ambulance boys say he died of old age and pneumonia. It isn’t the ghost those women saw because they said the naked guy had a dark beard. I was sworn in by Valentine and he never told me there’d be days like this.”

Howard stood up. “Would it be all right if I left now?”

“It will suit me fine. Don’t plan on moving away or joining the army, though.” Mareno looked up suddenly. “Say, would you know anything about that old guy — no, that’s a silly question. We’ll be in touch with you. When we locate Banth you’ll have some work to do for us.

Howard Dineen walked out into the night city. The cool breeze that had come with the fading day chilled the perspiration on his forehead and upper lip. Around him was the sound of traffic, fragments of sentences, subterranean roar of the trains.

Above him the timeless stars moved in infinite orbits.

Content

John D. Macdonald
Half-Past Eternity

Chapter One Stolen Lives

Chapter Two Elixir of Death

Chapter Three School for Champions

Chapter Four Empire of the Damned

Chapter Five The Iron Maiden

Chapter Six The Endless Twilight