Clifford Simak - Ring Around the Sun

"So now you want to bargain."

"I do. Not the others. They'll never want to bargain. They're fighting, don't you understand, for the world they've built through many bloody years."

And that was it, thought Vickers. _Through many bloody years_. Horton Flanders had sat on the porch and rocked and the firefly of the lighted cigarette had gone back and forth and he had talked of war and why War III somehow hadn't happened and he had said that maybe someone or something had stepped in, time and again, to prevent it happening. Intervention, he had said, rocking back and forth.

"This world they built," Vickers pointed out, "hasn't been too good a world. It was built with too much blood and misery, it mixed too many bones into the mortar. During all its history there's hardly been a year when there wasn't violence — organized, official violence — somewhere on the earth."

"I know what you mean," said Crawford. "You think there should be a reorganization."

"Something like that."

"Let's do some figuring, then," Crawford invited. "Let's try to thrash it out."

"I can't. I have no knowledge and I have no authority. I haven't even contacted or been contacted by these mutants of yours — if they are really mutants."

"The machines say they are mutants. The analyzer said that you are mutant."

"How can you be sure?" asked Vickers.

"You don't trust me," said Crawford. "You think I'm a renegade. You think I see sure defeat ahead and have come running, waving the white flag, anxious to prove my non-belligerence to the coming order. Trying to make my individual peace and to hell with all the rest of them. Maybe the mutants will keep me as a mascot or a pet."

"If what you say is true, you and the rest of them are licked, no matter what you do."

"Not entirely licked," said Crawford. "We can hit back. We can raise a lot of hell."

"With what? Remember, Crawford, you only have a club."

"We have desperation."

"And that is all? A club and desperation?"

"We have a secret weapon."

"And the others want to use it."

Crawford nodded. "But it isn't good enough, which is why I'm here."

"I'll get in touch with you," said Vickers. "That's a promise. That's the best that I _can_ do. When and if I find you're right, I'll get in touch with you."

Crawford heaved himself out of the chair. "Make it quick as possible," he said. "There isn't much time. I can't hold them off forever."

"You're scared," said Vickers. "You're the most frightened man I ever saw. You were scared the first day I saw you and you still are."

"I've been scared ever since it started. It gets worse every day."

"Two frightened men," said Vickers. "Two ten-year-olds running in the dark."

"You, too?"

"Of course. Can't you see me shaking?"

"No, I can't. In some ways, Vickers, you're the most coldblooded man I have ever met."

"One thing," said Vickers. "You said there was one other mutant you could catch."

"Yes, I told you that."

"Any chance of telling who?"

"Not a chance," said Crawford.

"I didn't think there was."

The rug seemed to blur a little, then it was there, spinning slowly, flopping in wild wobbles, its hum choked off, its colors blotched with its erratic spinning. The top had come back.

They stood and watched it until it stopped and lay upon the floor.

"It went away," said Crawford.

"And now it's back," Vickers whispered.

Crawford shut the door behind him and Vickers stood in the cold, bright room with the motionless top on the floor, listening to Crawford's footsteps going down the hall.

WHEN he could hear the footfalls no longer, Vickers went to the telephone and lifted it and gave a number, then waited for the connection to be made. He could hear the operators along the line setting up the call, faint, tenuous voices that spoke with a reedy nonchalance.

He'd have to tell her fast. He couldn't waste much time, for they would be listening. He'd have to tell her fast and make sure she did the thing he wanted her to do. She must be out and gone before they could reach her door.

He'd say: "Will you do something for me, Ann? Will you do it without question, without asking why?"

He'd say: "You remember that place where you asked about the stove? I'll meet you there." -

Then he'd say: "Get out of your apartment. Get out and hide. Stay out of sight. Right this minute. Not an hour from now. Not five minutes. Not a minute. Hang up this phone and go."

It would have to be fast. It would have to be sure. It would have to be blind.

He couldn't say: "Ann, you're a mutant," then have her want to know what a mutant was and how he came to know and what it meant, while all the time the listeners would be moving toward her door.

She had to go on blind faith. But would she?

He was perspiring. Thinking of how she might want to argue, how she might not want to go without knowing the reason, he felt the moisture trickle down across his ribs.

The phone was ringing now. He tried to recall how her apartment was, how the phone sat on the table at the end of the davenport and how she would be coming across the room to lift the receiver and in a moment he would hear her voice.

The phone rang on. And on.

She did not answer.

The operator said, "That number doesn't answer, sir."

"Try this one, then," he said, giving the operator the number of her office.

He waited again and heard the ringing of the signal.

"That number doesn't answer, sir," the operator said.

"Thank you," said Vickers.

"Shall I try again?"

"No," said Vickers. "Cancel the call, please."

He had to think and plan. He had to try to figure out what it was all about. Before this it had been easy to seek refuge in the belief that it was imagination, that he and the world were half insane, that everything would be all right if he'd just ignore whatever might be going on.

That sort of belief was no longer possible.

For now he must believe what he had half believed before, must accept at face value the story that Crawford had told, sitting in this room, with his massive bulk bulging in the chair, with his face unchanging and his voice a flat monotone that pronounced words, but gave them no inflection and no life.

He must believe in human mutation and in a world divided and embattled. He must believe even in the fairyland of childhood, for if he were a mutant then fairyland was a mark of it, a part of the thing by which he might know himself and be known by other men.

He tried to tie together the implications of Crawford's story, tried to understand what it all might mean, but there were too many ramifications, too many random factors, too much he did not know.

There was a world of mutants, men and women who were more than normal men and women, persons who had certain human talents and certain human understandings which the normal men and women of the world had never known, or having known, could not utilize in their entirety, unable to use intelligently all the mighty powers which lay dormant in their brains.

This was the next step up. This was evolution. This was how the human race advanced.

"And God knows," said Vickers to the empty room, "it needs advancement now if it ever did."

A band of mutants, working together, but working undercover since the normal world would turn on them with fang and claw for their very differentness if they revealed themselves.

And what was this differentness? What could they do, what did they hope to do with it?

A few of the things he knew — Forever cars and everlasting razor blades and the light bulbs that did not burn out and synthetic carbohydrates that fed the hungry and helped to hold war at arm's length from the throat of humanity.