Clifford Simak - Ring Around the Sun

"I wouldn't know," said Vickers.

"I'm not so sure myself," said Crawford. "I'm not up on that sort of stuff. Maybe I gave the Cro-Magnon a bit too much and the Neanderthaler less than what he had. But that's not the point at all."

"I appreciate the point," said Vickers. "Where do we go from there?"

"The Neanderthaler fought back," said Crawford, "and what happened to him?"

"He became extinct."

"They may have died for many reasons other than the spear and arrow. Perhaps they couldn't compete for food against a better race. Perhaps they were squeezed out of their hunting grounds. Perhaps they crawled off and starved. Perhaps they died of an overpowering shame — the knowledge that they were outdated, that they were no good, that they were, by comparison, little more than beasts."

"I doubt," said Vickers dryly, "that a Neanderthaler could work up a very powerful inferiority complex."

"The suggestion may not apply to the Neanderthaler. It does apply to us."

"You're trying to make me see how deep the cleavage goes."

"That is what I'm doing," Crawford told him. "You can't realize the depth of hate, the margin of intelligence and ability. Nor can you realize how desperate we really are.

"Who are these desperate men? I'll tell you who they are. They're the successful ones, the industrialists, the bankers, the businessmen, the professional men who have security and hold positions of importance, who move in social circles which mark the high tide of our culture.

"They'd no longer hold their positions if your kind of men took over. They'd be Neanderthaler to your Cro-Magnon. They'd be like Homeric Greeks pitchforked into the complex technology of this century of ours. They'd survive, of course, physically. But they'd be aborigines. Their values would be swept away and those values, built up painfully, are all they have to live by."

Vickers shook his head. "Let's not play games, Crawford. Let's try to be honest for a while. I imagine you think I know a whole lot more than I really do. I suppose I should pretend I know as much as you think I do — act smart and make you think I know all there is to know. Fence with you. Get you to tip your hand. But somehow I haven't got the heart to do it."

"I know you don't know too much. That's why I wanted to reach you as soon as possible. As I see it, you aren't entirely mutant yet, you haven't yet shed the chrysalis of an ordinary man. There's a lot of you that still is normal man. The tendency is to shift toward mutation — more today than yesterday, more tomorrow than today. But tonight, in this room, you and I still can talk man to man,"

"We could always talk."

"No, we couldn't, said Crawford. "If you were entirely mutant, I'd feel the difference in us. Without equality there'd be no basis for discussion. I'd doubt the soundness of my logic. You'd look on me with a shade of contempt."

"Just before you came in," said Vickers, "I'd almost convinced myself it was all imagination…"

"It's not imagination, Vickers. You had a top, remember?"

"The top is gone."

"Not gone," said Crawford.

"You have it?"

"No," said Crawford. "No, I haven't got it. I don't know where it is, but it still is somewhere in this room. You see, I got here before you did and I picked the lock. Incidentally, a most inefficient lock."

"Incidentally," said Vickers, "a very sneaky trick."

"Granted. And before this is over, I'll commit other sneaky tricks. But to go back. I picked the lock and walked into the room and I saw the top and wondered and I — well, I —»

"Go on," said Vickers.

"Look, Vickers, I had a top like that when I was a kid. Long, long ago. I hadn't seen one in years, so I picked it up and spun it, see. For no reason. Well, yes, there may have been a reason. Maybe an attempt to regain a lost moment of my childhood. And the top…"

He stopped speaking and stared hard at Vickers, as if he might be trying to detect some sign of laughter. When he spoke again his voice was almost casual.

"The top disappeared."

Vickers said nothing.

"What was it?" Crawford asked. "What kind of top was that?"

"I don't know. Were you watching it when it disappeared?"

"No. I thought I heard someone in the hall. I looked away a moment. It was gone when I looked back."

"It shouldn't have disappeared," said Vickers. "Not without you watching it."

"There was some reason for the top," said Crawford. "You had painted it. The paint was still a little wet and the cans of paint are sitting on that table. You wouldn't go to all that trouble without some purpose. What was the top for Vickers?"

Vickers told him. "It was for going into fairyland." "You're talking riddles."

Vickers shook his head. "I went once — physically — when I was a kid."

"Ten days ago, I would have said the both of us were crazy, you for saying it and I for believing it. I can't say it now."

"We still may be crazy, or at best just a pair of fools."

"We're neither fools nor crazy," Crawford said. "We are men, the two of us, not quite the same and more different by the hour, but we still are men and that's enough of a common basis for our understanding."

"Why did you come here, Crawford? Don't tell me just to talk. You're too anxious. You had a tap on Ann's phone to find out where I'd gone. You broke into my room and you spun the top. And you had a reason. What was it?"

"I came here to warn you," Crawford said. "To warn you that the men I represent are desperate, that they will stop at nothing. They won't be taken over."

"And if they have no choice?"

"They have a choice. They fight with what they have."

"The Neanderthalers fought with clubs."

"So will _Homo sapiens_. Clubs against your arrows. That's why I want to talk to you. Why can't you and I sit down and try to find an answer? There must be some area for agreement."

"Ten days ago," said Vickers, "I sat in your office and talked with you. You described the situation and you said you were completely mystified, stumped. To hear you tell it then, you didn't have the ghost of an idea what was going on. Why did you lie to me?"

Crawford sat stolidly, unmoving, no change of expression on his face. "We had the machine on you, remember? The analyzers. We wanted to find out how much you knew."

"How much did I know?"

"Not a thing," said Crawford. "All we found out was that you were a latent mutant."

"Then why pick me out?" demanded Vickers. "Except for what you tell me of the strangeness that is in me, I have no reason to believe that I am a mutant. I know no mutants. I can't speak for mutants. If you want to make a deal, go catch yourself a real, honest-to-God mutant."

"We picked you out," said Crawford, "for a simple reason. You are the only mutant we could lay a finger on. You and one other — and the other one is even less aware than you."

"But there must be others."

"Certainly there are. But we can't catch them."

"You sound like a trapper, Crawford."

"Perhaps that's what I am. These others — you can pin them down only when they want to see you. Otherwise they are always out."

"Out?"

"They disappear," explained Crawford harshly. "We track them down and wait. We send in word and wait. We ring doorbells and wait. We never find them in. They go in a door, but they aren't in the room. We wait for hours to see them and then find out they weren't in the place where we'd seen them go at all, but somewhere else, maybe miles away."

"But me — me you can track down. I don't disappear."

"Not yet, you don't."

"Maybe I'm a moronic mutant."

"An undeveloped one."

"You picked me out," said Vickers. "In the first place, I mean. You had some reason to suspect before I knew, myself."

Crawford chuckled. "Your writings. Some strange quality in them. Our psych department spotted it. We found some others that way. A couple of artists, an architect, a sculptor, one or two writers. Don't ask me how the psych boys do it. Smell it out, maybe. Don't look so startled, Vickers. When you organize world industry you have, in terms of cash and manpower, a crack outfit that can perform tremendous jobs of research — or anything else that you put it to. You'd be surprised how much work we've done, the areas we have covered. But it's not enough. I don't mind telling you that we've been licked at every turn."