John D. MacDonald

The Pendans Box

Now that Professor Aldous Pendaniels is dead, and in a way you might say hoist with his own whatever-you-call-it, but at least beyond the reach of any of the patients he treated by fastening the Pendans Boxes on them, it is only fair to the memory of a man who was nothing if not eager, to tell the world the story behind his death. To some it must have looked like an ordinary death, but it was really shot through with drama — and that is why, with the help of Marg, who is at least talking to me again, though many of the words she says are unkind, I am setting down here the history of Professor Aldous Pendaniels and the Pendans Boxes which he expected would alter the course of civilization — and damn’ near did.

Mr. Genesee Miller is my boss, and a Captain of Industry and a millionaire and a right guy in spite of it all. I drive for him; usually the custom sedan, but once in a while the town car, which I don’t care much for as it leaves me out in the open and sort of out of things. Mr. Miller owns the estate at Little Palms, Florida, the model farm in Handy, Connecticut, he house in Westchester, and rents the triplex on Central Park West. In addition, of course, there is Miller Construction, Miller Motors, Miller Oil, Miller Distributors and the Miller Foundation.

Now I am a man with the firm belief that a chauffeur, provided he is the right type, can be a lot closer to the boss than even the heads of his various plants and organizations. Ten years ago, when I was thirty-three, I went to work for Mr. Genesee Miller, and for nearly a year I drove him around while he sat in the back seat, in the right corner, shuffling papers and moving his lips...

Then, in January, Mrs. Miller wanted the sedan in Florida, and Mr. Miller decided to ride down with me. Frankly, I was getting tired of him and tired of the job. I was sick of being treated like some kind of attachment to the motor. I kept glancing at him in the rear-view mirror from time to time, wondering what made him tick. Mr. Miller looks like you could give him a harp and wings, and he could stand in for an elderly cherub.

I was tired and hot and irritated, and when I saw a big neon sign ahead that said, BEER, it was the end — really the end.

I slammed on the brakes and slid the crate over onto the shoulder in front of the joint. I leaned over the back of the seat and looked at him.

He said: “What’s the trouble... er... Jones?”

That bothered me somewhat, as my name is Bill Smith. So I said: “I’m tired and thirsty, and I would be delighted to buy you a beer.”

He sort of jumped and tried to look annoyed, but at the same time he was licking his lips. While he was trying to make up his mind, I helped him along by saying: “I am going in and get myself a beer anyway.”

Halfway to the door, I looked back. Mr. Genesee Miller was trudging along behind me. It was a quiet dark place that smelled of beer and varnish. I bought a round, and he bought a round, and I bought a round, and he bought a round.

As I sipped the fourth, he said: “You know, Jones—”

“The name is Bill Smith.”

“What I was trying to say, Smith, is that I should consider this as insubordination and undue familiarity. I should give you notice.”

“Why don’t you? I can get a job driving a milk-wagon. At least I could talk to the horse.”

He choked on his beer and I beat on his back. When he could talk, he said: “You know, I’ve had lots of chauffeurs, and they all make me uncomfortable. I look at the backs of their necks and think how they’re sneering at me and at everything I represent. They frighten me, and they embarrass me.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I’ve got too much money. They have to open doors for me, when I’m perfectly capable of opening my own. Take yourself. You resent me, don’t you?”

“Nuts!” I said politely. “I only resent you because you sit back there like a frog on a lily pad, and I get lonesome with nobody to talk to. I’m a gregarious type, and this job has me about nuts, and that is why I say you can go ahead and give me notice.”

He pointed a finger at his chest, his eyes wide, and said, like a little kid: “You want to talk to me?”

He needed a lot of reassurance, and I hung around while he had two more beers, which I skipped because of the driving I had to do. As we walked out, he said: “Bill—”

“Yes, Mr. Miller?”

“Would you mind if I rode up in the front seat?”

That started it. Ten miles farther along we were deep in a discussion of the social responsibilities of having money, and the possible effects on individual personality. Then I told him about the time I busted both arms on a freighter in the North Sea. All this is necessary, because it opened the door for Professor Aldous Pendaniels.

After that trip, whenever he was alone, Mr. Miller sat up beside me and talked about his problems.

I got one of my shocks when he climbed in one day to be taken up to Connecticut, and said: “Bill, you re member my telling you about Jonas-burger, the glib article who was running the refinery for me, and about the labor problems.” I told him I remembered. “Well, you said that it sounded to you as though Jonasburger wasn’t the type of guy to have any dealings with labor. I transferred him over to the Foundation, and now the refinery is back on schedule. You get a bonus of one hundred dollars this week.”

I could have fallen out of the car. It had never occurred to me that Mr. Miller would take anything I said seriously. After that, he constantly referred problems in human relations and personnel to me, and if I was stumped, I told him so, and if I was pretty sure of my ground, I gave him suggestions. I started paying an income tax that was almost as big as my salary had been before I bought him the beer.

All this is necessary to work up to Professor Aldous Pendaniels.

About two years ago I drove Mr. Miller down into lower Pennsylvania to look over some property, and he acted very moody and upset. I knew that he’d tell me what it was after a while, so I sat tight and waited.

At last he said: “Bill, I couldn’t sleep last night. It seems that everything I touch makes me more money. I’m putting every bit of energy I’ve got into this War Production Program, and I’m paying big taxes, and I’m donating hundreds and hundreds of thousands to charity, but it still isn’t enough. Somehow, I need more justification for my existence. What do you think I ought to do?”

I kicked some ideas around for about a hundred miles, and then I said: “Research.”

He stared at me. “Bill, I’ve got research laboratories connected with each one of my industries. That’s smart business. And if you mean medical research, that’s one of the main functions of the Foundation.”

“No, Mr. Miller, I got something else in mind: Those laboratories connected with the industries — they’re fine, and smart business: but they’re slanted. They’re supposed to develop stuff to help the specific business. What I mean is for you to set up an independent research laboratory, and collect a bunch of screwballs that are working on stuff that has no apparent commercial application. They turn their studies over to you for commercial development. When there’s any money in their ideas, you make the dough and plow all the profits back into the research foundation so as to employ more screwballs. Give them perfect surroundings, freedom from all outside worries, and make sure that they understand that you don’t give a damn what they work on — so long as there is the possibility of an eventual improvement in everyday living.”

He didn’t like it at first, but by the time we got back to New York he was sold, and he was even making additions to the plan.

I got a bonus of five hundred for the idea. He bought a big hunk of land north of Albany, and then the war ended so he felt free to divert a lot of materials up there. When construction was completed, he showed me an aerial photograph. Very pretty! Sprawling concrete laboratories, and one whole section full of little houses for the screwballs to live in. There was a huge fence around the whole thing, and he told me that already his people were contacting the lunatic fringe of research all over the country.

But I couldn’t drum up any real interest. I had too much on my mind — personal worries. Marg’s no-good brother was out of the Army with no desire except to sponge off me. My eldest kid, jimmy, was getting tough to control. Marg herself was getting pretty erratic and nervous, and I suspected that her health wasn’t so good, without knowing just what was wrong with her. Also, the neighborhood where I had bought a house was on the way down. They had re-zoned it, and set up a saloon next door.

During the next eight months my problems grew worse instead of better. Then one day I got a call to go up to Research and bring a Professor Aldous Pendaniels back to New York. Let me make clear that if I hadn’t bought Mr. Genesee Miller the beer, I would never have had to go and pick up Pendaniels.

The guy who met the car, who I thought was the bouncer, turned out to be this Pendaniels. I got a good look at him as he climbed into the front seat before I could get the rear door open. He was built on the general lines of an ape, and his thick skull was covered with very short curly red hair, like copper wire. He had little faded blue eyes, and a jaw that you could use to plow snow. He grinned at me and bobbed his head nervously as he climbed in. He held a small box in his thick hands, and he treated it as though it would blow up in his face if he jarred it.

A raspy little tenor voice came out of the big hulk, startling me. “I presume you are my transportation?” I said that I was, and he continued: “You are having a small share then in what is the most important journey of modern times. Please drive with the utmost care. Should anything happen to this box and to me simultaneously, civilization will be set back ten thousand years.”

“You’re sure it’s exactly ten?” I asked. “Not nine or eleven?”

He frowned. “This is not the time or place for levity. You do not understand. Maybe if, in the language of a layman, I tell you what we have here in the car—”

“I’d like to know, brother.”

“In this box is a small bit of electrical apparatus which is worn in the pocket. In the opposite pocket goes a small powerful battery of my own design. Two wires connect the apparatus and the battery, and terminate in small clamps that fit on the mastoid bones behind each ear. I call it the Pendans Box.”

“Cures deafness?”

“An absurdity! It will be difficult to make you understand. Have you a knowledge of Freud?”

“Just that he was the joker who developed theories of the subconscious.”

“Good that you have that much! The subconscious is the most powerful, majestic part of the mind. It sees all, and remembers all. It thinks with a cold and careful calculation. But the mind of man, the conscious mind, is cluttered with emotions — stupid, unthinking emotions which clutter it up so that all decisions of the entire mind are conditioned by this emotional effect. The subconscious knows the proper course of action, but the emotional conscious mind prevents the perfect course of action from being carried out. We are creatures of whim, of vanity, moving through life in gay idiocy, while all the time we contain within ourselves the subconscious, the perfect reasoning tool — the cold intelligence — the superman!”

“What does the box do? Strengthen the subconscious?”

“The subconscious needs no strengthening. I have devised an electrical means of shunting off, sidetracking, the conscious mind, of paralyzing the censor that always stands between the conscious and subconscious minds. This box enables you to act with cold reason. In other words, while wearing it, your every decision will be unaffected by emotions. Every man will have within himself all of the answers to all of his problems, and the means of putting those answers into effect.”

That hit home. I was a man with problems. I began to wonder what the subconscious would do on my affairs.

He said softly: “Think of peace conferences where every representative wears a Pendans Box. No false patriotism. No greedy grabbing of rights and territory. The affairs of the world settled with the impact of one hundred perfect thinking-machines, uncluttered with nationalistic emotions! Think of the president of this country wearing a Pendans Box! Overnight he could shatter bureaucratic structure and bring efficiency to government. No emotional party ties. The selection of underlings on the basis of ability rather than friendship.

“Also, remember that the subconscious mind forgets nothing. With this attachment you would be able to repeat every word of conversation you have ever heard, every book or paper you have ever read. Think of the simplification in education. You could put a Pendans Box on a child, and have it through college by the time it was ten years old. Think of all the misfits in the world that will benefit.”

He didn’t talk for the rest of the trip down. I was too busy thinking to want to talk to him or listen to him. Maybe the guy was right! Maybe this was the proper next step in civilization, and if Pendaniels hadn’t invented it, some other joker would have. Freedom from war, murder, theft, everything that was nasty in the human race and sprung from emotions like greed, hate, envy, lust... Oh, I had a lot to think about!

I didn’t see Mr. Miller until the next day. He seemed a bit preoccupied. He sat beside me with his chin on his chest and stared at the dashboard. I said: “How about this invention by Professor Pendaniels? What is going to happen with it?”

He looked at me — startled. “You know about it?”

“Yeah, the Professor ran off at the mouth on the way down, and wouldn’t let me go over thirty.”

“You want to know what I’m going to do with it? Frankly, I don’t know. Either the man is wrong, and I’m silly to worry about his gadget — or he’s right, and I have a tremendous responsibility. You see, up to now, he has only tried it on animals. He has proved that a rat, with a variation of his apparatus, can find its way through a maze on the second attempt — a maze that takes the normal rat fifty attempts to master. With it, he has taught dogs tricks in five minutes that usually take months to learn. But of course, with the apparatus detached, both the dog and the rat go back to normal.”

“What does the Professor want?”

“He wants it manufactured in quantity. He’s trying to rush me. He has the gadget fastened to himself, and he’s up in the offices right now dictating to one of the girls a complete book that he read when he was seventeen and hasn’t seen since. I feel that the gadget needs further tests before I can go ahead.”

We rode along silently for a time. Then I said: “Mr. Miller, I haven’t mentioned it, but I have a lot of problems. I’d sure like to see what my subconscious could do with them. If you want some tests, I’d like to try the thing out.”

“I hate to take the risk, Bill. You don’t know what you might do.”

“I’d like to take the risk.”

He sighed. “Okay, Bill. Turn around, and we’ll go on back to the offices and get the gadget from the Professor.”

I was excited as we drove back. Who wouldn’t be, at the prospect of becoming a mental superman?

The Professor was excited too. His pale eyes glittered as he fitted the whosis in my right pocket and the battery in my left. To make the thing inconspicuous, he made little holes inside my pockets and ran the wires up my back, under my coat, and out my collar. The ends of the wires and the fastenings were flesh-colored.

He clamped one on behind my left ear, and I didn’t feel a thing. When he fastened the other one behind my right ear, it was as though a balloon was being slowly blown up inside my head. There was a mist in front of my eyes. When it cleared, everything seemed to be much sharper, more clearly outlined than ever before. I felt no alarm. Only a quiet cold confidence. I felt about nine feet tall.

I heard Mr. Miller say: “How does it feel?”

I turned toward him and said: “You ask that question out of curiosity. Our language is too vague, too indefinite in terminology for me to give you an adequate idea of the physical sensation. I see on your face a certain fear of the unknown. Fear is the emotion of a child.”

“How about your memory?”

I stared at him coldly. I said: “I can remember everything. Memory in itself is a poor term. It implies the possibility of error. There is no such possibility. All that has happened to me, all that my senses have touched, is available in my mind. Do you wish to make a test?”

“I’m wearing an old tie, Bill. When have you seen it before?”

“I saw it first on the afternoon of January eleventh, nineteen forty-one. I have seen it twenty-one times since that date. In 1942 I saw in a shop window, a duplicate of it. It retailed for four dollars and fifty cents.”

I could see Mr. Miller was looking at me with respect, also with dislike. His opinion of me made no difference whatsoever. The Professor was looking proud. That also is a foolish human emotion.

Mr. Miller said: “You’re off duty, Bill. Come back here tomorrow at this time, and we’ll take a reading on what’s happened.”

“I will be here,” I said, looking at their stupid animal faces, making the mental reservation that I would come back provided there was an adequate reason. I knew that it was the height of absurdity to do anything without reason.

I went down in the elevator. The car was still in front of the building in Mr. Miller’s personal parking place. Foolish-looking people scuttled by me. I didn’t dislike them. They didn’t amuse me. They were simply and obviously foolish — a fact to be recorded. Their faces mirrored their haste, greed, irritation. I was not irritated. I got into Mr. Miller’s car and drove off. It was an obvious decision. I knew that it would be far simpler than taking the subway. I also knew that Mr. Miller would not report it as theft. There would be too many questions.

At each light I glanced around, looking for traffic policemen. When there were none, I drove through the red lights, ignoring the silly fist-waving and shouts of the pedestrians. How foolish to waste my time waiting for a symbol to change when I knew that my driving skill was adequate to go through the red lights without accident.

I stopped in front of my house and looked at the barroom next door. Certain economic facts were obvious. I had paid a certain amount of money for my house. The bar next door reduced the value. It had been purchased with the money for which I had labored. Hence the barroom was making an ex-post-facto reduction of the value of my labor, without any recompense to me. Thus, it was up to the owner of the barroom to pay me the difference between the two values of my house. It was a clear line of reasoning. There was no greed in it. It was an equation, with all the terms written out in my head. A rapid calculation was made. The bar should pay me twelve hundred dollars.

I walked in. I noticed that it was small, the new decorations already tarnished, and it had that air of failure which is so recognizable.

I asked the owner if I could have a word with him, and I identified myself as the chauffeur for Mr. Genesee Miller. I lowered my voice and said that I had a proposition for him whereby we could both make some money. It was interesting to see the gleam come into his close-set eyes, the licking of the dry lips.

I said: “I overheard, by accident, Mr. Miller’s plan to take over this entire block and build a hospital. It is going through, and in a week they will start buying the titles to the various pieces of property in this block. It is obvious that if I were to hold out for a high price, Mr. Miller would fire me. I own the house next door. I could sell it today for fifty-six hundred dollars. If someone else owned it, they could hold out for eight thousand. You look like a man who knows the angles. Suppose you buy the house from me for sixty-eight hundred, and then we both stand to make twelve hundred dollars.”

It was interesting to watch his cluttered mind at work on the proposition. He didn’t know whether to trust me or not. I was certain of my ground, because I had overheard talk of just such a proposition — except that it wasn’t my block that Mr. Miller was interested in.

It had been in the newspapers, too.

I said: “If you’re in doubt, check Page Four, Column Three of the News for June eighteenth. The headline says: ‘Philanthropist to Endow Hospital.’ ”

“I seen that,” he said, and licked his lips some more. “It’s this block, huh?”

I waited while he went into the back and made several phone-calls. Two hours later we sat in the back room with a lawyer and two other parties, and made out the transfer papers. Then we went to the bank, and I deposited a certified check to my account for sixty-eight hundred. That was exactly what I had paid for the house. I wrote a check clearing the balance of the mortgage, and with thirty-nine hundred cash, through the bank’s officers, I purchased, sight unseen, a nearly new bungalow in a better section with one less bedroom than the house which I had sold.

I had no fear of reprisal. When the owner of the bar and his friends found out that I had told them lies, they might attempt to be difficult. In fact, they might arrange to give me a beating. I had no fear. I knew that they would stop short of making serious trouble.

When I arrived home at five, Gerald, Marg’s lazy brother, was asleep on the couch. Marg came in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel.

I jabbed Gerald in the stomach with my finger. He awakened.

“What’s the matter, Bill?” he asked. “You look sort of grim.”

“I’m not the least bit grim,” I said. “I merely have some information for you. Today I sold this house and bought another. There is no room in the new house for you. You will have to leave.”

Marg gasped: “Sold this house! Sold it! And you never even asked me—”

“I knew you wanted to leave the neighborhood.”

“But Bill, we’ve always done this sort of thing together — talked it over, I mean.”

“I have talked things over with you because you are my wife and it is expected that I do so. You have never contributed any sound ideas to such discussions, and it was merely to salve your vanity that I included you in the past. I no longer have any desire to salve your vanity.”

“Are you drunk, Bill Smith?”

“Drinking is a foolish adjustment designed to reduce inhibitions. The proper mind is not inhibited. You heard my words to your brother? He is lazy, selfish and emotionally a child. He has few abilities which he could sell in order to earn a living. He suspects that the world owes him a living. Well, I am disabusing him of that notion.”

“Bill Smith,” she said, “you can’t talk that way to me, and you can’t talk that way to my brother.”

“You are irritable and upset,” I said calmly, “and you refuse to recognize the irrefutable workings of pure intelligence. Of late you have been a nagging, irritable woman, and you have had a fear in your mind that something is wrong with you physically. Since I am expected to live with you, I intend to send you to the best available clinic to determine if your irritability and nervousness has a physical basis. Naturally, you are afraid to go, just as, before I found the way to use my intelligence, I was afraid to send you.”

She stood staring at me, and Gerald sat on the couch edge, looking as though someone had hit him on the head. At that moment the door was flung open and a policeman came in holding James, my eldest, firmly by the upper arm. James was struggling to get free, and his face was white. In it I could read fear, hate and resentment of authority.

The policeman said: “Mr. Smith, I told your wife that I wasn’t going to give this hellion many more chances. He was caught stealing fruit. Now you punish him good, and don’t let me catch him again or it means Juvenile Court.”

“Why wait for the next time?” I asked.

The policeman said, “Huh?” and left his mouth open.

“Why wait for the next time? The child has disobeyed one of the rules of society, and thus the matter should be handled by one of the duly constituted organizations. Moreover, he was caught, and should pay the penalty of being caught. I see no reason for leniency, particularly since leniency will only serve to encourage future trespasses.”

The policeman opened his notebook and scribbled a note. “Okay, Mister. He’s your kid. Have him at Juvenile Court at nine o’clock on Saturday morning.” He left.

They all looked at me, Marg with shock and loathing, Gerald with hurt pride, James with fear and surprise. All of their emotions were childish. I stared back at them and permitted myself a small smile.

Marg said: “I am leaving this house, leaving this instant — as soon as I pack. And I’m taking Gerald and Jimmy and Georgie with me. You’re a... a monster! I hate you! I hate you!” She fled from the room.

Gerald took a step toward me, his t fists clenched. He said: “This is certainly a fine way to treat my sister after all the years she’s been cooking and scrubbing and washing.”

I said: “It is odd to hear you speak of physical effort when you avoid it so assiduously. I see that you are giving way to anger. That is the emotion of a savage. I am, for the first time in my life, doing and saying what is absolutely logical and necessary. And your mind is too small for you to see it. You would find a release in striking me — a savage release. If you strike me, I will be forced to defend myself. I outweigh you and I am quicker. You may hit me if you wish.”

He too left the room. James looked up at me and said: “Pop, you’re going to let them send me to jail!”

“If your actions have been such as to warrant a sentence, they will undoubtedly send you to jail.” I didn’t tell him that it was much more probable that he would be reprimanded and given a suspended sentence — discharged in my custody.

He walked slowly toward the door, his hands crammed deeply into his pockets, scuffing at the rug. When they were all gone, I looked around the room and it struck me that the decorative aspects of the room were very foolish. Why have pictures when you can remember clearly everything you have ever seen? Why have colors in the rugs and the furniture? Rugs are to walk on and chairs are to sit on. Colors have no part in the scheme. And the silly colored paper on the wall. I remembered instantly what I had paid for it. A purposeless use of money. To what end? It seemed that once I had liked it... I couldn’t remember why. I heard, with no interest, the sound of Marg weeping as she packed. I sensed that she expected me to go in to her and apologize. For what?

If the exercise of intelligence drove her out of the house, who was the loser? Certainly not I. It was essential that I be housed and clothed and fed. That I could do without her assistance, and possibly more adequately than with her assistance. It was immaterial to me whether she left or stayed. I knew that with my newfound powers I could secure an adequate living. She had nothing to offer that was necessary to me. There was a word they used. What was it? Love. A complete rationalization. The expression of the emotional loneliness of the human spirit, anxious to identify itself with another spirit also lonely. A foolishness! Without emotions there can be no loneliness, and thus no spiritual need for identification with another. Let her go. Let them all go. My duty is to care for and protect my body, as it is a vehicle for my mind. With my mind I can acquire the things of this world necessary to protect the body. All else is a supreme ridiculousness.

After they had gone, I went to a restaurant. I found that when I looked at the menu, I could remember the exact vitamin, calorie and protein content of each dish. I made a rapid calculation of the meals I had consumed earlier in the day, added up the ingredients consumed, and estimated that one slice of bread, a glass of milk and an apple would round out the necessary sustenance for the day. I ordered those items.

When I left, the cashier stood with his back turned. I walked out without paying. Surely it is the height of emotional nonsense to think of the matter as an ethical problem. There is no such thing as honesty and dishonesty to the pure intelligence. It is all a matter of reasoning. Pay only when the fact of not paying will work a greater inconvenience.

After I ate, I went to the movies — a stupid film about gangsters. One of them was interesting up to the point when he permitted fear to betray him and he was captured by the police. He used his intelligence to acquire great wealth right up to the point where he foolishly allowed his fear to cloud his judgment. As I drove back to my house, I thought of my future. It was obviously senseless to go back and permit them to remove from me the one factor which differentiated me from the stupid mass of humanity. Without emotions, without pity, or anger, or fear, or hate, and with a perfect memory, it was obvious that there were several promising fields. Murder, for one. To remove the lives of those stupid, yammering masses of emotion! To do it cleverly, with perfect coldness! My memory for detail would prevent my making mistakes. I would be unsuspected! Such an occupation would give me leisure time for thought — pure thought — and would provide the highest reward for the minimum amount of effort.

Before I went to sleep, without removing the apparatus, I decided that I would not go back to the offices — unless I found it politic to kill Mr. Miller.

I woke in the morning with a foul taste in my mouth and a sharp memory of nightmares. I reached out to awaken Marg and tell her about the nightmares, but she wasn’t there. I sat up in bed. Something brushed against my arm. I looked down. It was the flesh-colored clamp that should have been fastened behind my right ear. The other one was still attached behind my left ear.

Nightmares? Not for a minute. I realized with horror that it had all been true. I sat in bed and chewed on my fingers as I remembered the things I had done, the things I had said. With a shock, I remembered that I didn’t even own the house I had slept in. I clawed the gadget from behind my left ear and jumped out of bed to stand trembling in the middle of the room, staring at it. The wires were like vicious snakes. One had been pulled off in my sleep. I shuddered to think of what might have happened if they had been more securely fixed in place.

I dressed, dropped the thing in a paper bag and drove down to the offices. I sat trembling in the waiting-room until Mr. Miller arrived. He was surprised to see me. He said: “You got the thing off already? What’s the matter? You look terrible!”

“Mr. Miller, I feel terrible. This gadget, this Pendans Box, it’s Pandora’s Box, that’s what it is! It’s full of the most horrible—” I couldn’t go on. I could only gulp.

He said: “Sit tight, Bill, and I’ll call you in as soon as Professor Pendaniels arrives. He’s due in a few minutes.”

It was nine-fifteen when he called me in. He sat behind his huge conference table that filled a mammoth alcove of his office. I sat on his right and Pendaniels on his left. The brown paper bag with the devilish contrivance in it rested on the dark polished table. Mr. Miller motioned to me to go ahead.

I said: “It’s going to be a little tough to remember all of this—”

Pendaniels reached for the bag. “We’ll put on the Box, and you’ll remember.”

“No!” I yelled, putting both hands up. “I’m scared of the damn’ thing.” Then I told the story, and I included everything. Mr. Miller had no expression at all on his face. The Professor nibbled at his lower lip, and his pale eyes shifted restlessly.

At last I was through, and my voice was hoarse. Mr. Miller said: “Hmm! Interesting! In other words, the pure intelligence has no time for beauty, love, happiness — no time for any of the mad and miserable things of this world. The pure intelligence will only obey those rules forced upon it. The pure intelligence would be like a cold beast let loose in the world. Murder! An extreme selfishness that is the essence of self-preservation rather than a type of emotion.” He was silent for a few minutes. He turned to the Professor. “I’m afraid, Professor Pendaniels, that you must destroy this thing and make no more. You are playing with the end of civilization — the death of the race. Those foolish emotions of ours are the only plausible bases for action.”

Pendaniels snatched up the bag, tipping his chair over. He backed away from the table, holding the bag against his chest. “You cannot order me to do so! I refuse. I resign from your research organization. This item is the fruit of my career, the height of my research. No foolish old man can order me to throw away my life. Should you destroy this one, I will build another, and another. This is the hope of civilization, not the death of it.” He looked at us steadily, sneered and ran from the office.

Mr. Miller did the right thing. I told you that he’s a right guy. He rebought my house for eight thousand from the pub keeper, and then sold it on the open market, taking a twenty-five-hundred-dollar loss. I kept the bungalow, and at the present date Gerald seldom sees us. He is driving a truck, and he likes it. Marg got back from the hospital a few weeks ago, sans tumor, and she is her old self again. Mr. Miller himself explained to her about the Pendans Box. Jimmy got a terrific scare at court, and he has settled down a great deal. You see, some of the things the Box did for me were good.

Oh, about Professor Aldous Pendaniels. He dropped out of sight for quite a few months, and then he hit the headlines with that business up in Michigan. You see, the Box wasn’t capable of keeping the Professor out of all kinds of trouble.

He was wearing the Box when they brought him out of the woods. The newspapers didn’t mention the Box. And they didn’t say anything about his having the hatchet in his hand — nor about the fact that he was headed toward a lonesome house where an old guy lives who keeps his dough under a loose brick in the fireplace. Lots of dough!

You see, this young fellow saw the gleam of that coppery hair in the brush, and he let fly. The slug went right through the Professor’s head. He thought he was drawing a bead on a deer.

Oh, sure, it was labeled a tragic accident and all that, and up until now only Mr. Miller and I have known what it meant to the world when that shot was fired.

Of course, Mr. Miller contends that since the Professor was able to invent it, it’s only a question of time until some other goof discovers the theory and makes one.

Seen anybody with clamps behind their ears lately?

Content

John D. MacDonald
The Pendans Box