Clifford Simak - A Death in the House - And Other Stories

“But what is Archie doing now?” exploded Garrison.

“He’s playing a game of nerves,” said Doc. “He’s softening us up. We’ll be ready to meet his terms when he’s ready to make them.”

“But why terms? What could Archie want?”

Doc’s cigar swished back and forth. “How should I know? We might not even recognize what Archie is fighting for—and, again, we might. He might be fighting for his existence. His life depends upon those radium beds. No more radium, no more radon, no more Archie.”

“Nonsense,” Chester broke in. “We could have dug those beds for a million years and not made a dent in them.”

“A million years,” objected Doc, “might be only a minute or two for Archie.”

“Damn you, Doc,” snapped Garrison, “what are you grinning for? What is so funny about it?”

“It’s amusing,” Doc explained. “Something I’ve often wondered about—just what Earthmen would do it they ran up against something that had them licked forty ways from Sunday.”

“But he hasn’t got us licked,” yelled Mac. “Not yet.”

“Anything that can keep radium from Earth can lick us,” Doc declared. “And Archie can do that—don’t you ever kid yourself.”

“But he’ll ruin the Solar System,” shouted Garrison. “Machines will have to shut down. Mines and factories will be idle. Spaceships will stop running. Planets will have to be evacuated—”

“What you mean,” Doc pointed out, “is that he’ll ruin Radium, Inc. Not the Solar System. The System can get along without Radium, Inc. Probably even without radium. It did for thousands of years, you know. The only trouble now is that the System is keyed to radium. If there isn’t any radium, it means the economic framework that was built on radium must be swept away or some substitute must be found. And if no substitute is found, we must start over again and find some other way of life—perhaps a better way—”

Chester leaped to his feet.

“That’s treason!” he shouted.

Silence struck the room like a thunderclap. Three pairs of eyes staying at the standing man. The air seemed to crackle with an electric aliveness.

“Sit down,” Doc snapped.

Chester sank slowly into his chair. Mac’s hands opened and closed, as if he kneaded someone’s throat.

Doc nodded. “One of R.C.’s agents. He didn’t smell quite like an Institute man to me. He said it was hard to believe radon could be alive. With an Institute man that wouldn’t be belief, it would be knowledge.”

“A dirty, snooping stooge,” said Mac. “Sent out to see what was wrong on Venus.”

“But not too good a one,” Doc observed. “He lets his enthusiasm for Radium, Inc., run away with him. Of course, all of us were taught that enthusiasm ourselves—in school. But we soon got over it.”

Chester ran his tongue over his lips.

“When Radium, Inc., can monkey with the Institute,” said Doc, “it means one of two things. R.C. is getting pretty sure of himself or he’s getting desperate. The Institute was the one thing that stood out against him. Up to now he hasn’t dared to lay a finger on it.”

Garrison had said nothing, but now he spoke: “By rights, Chester, we ought to kill you.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” said Chester thinly.

“What difference does it make?” asked Garrison. “If we don’t, another one of R.C.’s men will. You’ve slipped up. And R.C. doesn’t give his men a chance to slip a second time.”

“But you were talking treason,” Chester insisted.

“Call it treason,” snarled Garrison. “Call it anything you like. It’s the language that’s being talked up and down the System. Wherever men work out their hearts and strangle their conscience in hope of scraps thrown from Radium, Inc.’s table, they’re saying the same thing we are saying.”

The phone blared and Garrison put forth his hand, lifted the set and spoke.

“It’s R.C.,” Sparks yelled at the other end. “It’s sort of weak, but maybe you can hear. Mars and Mercury are relaying.”

“Hello, R.C.,” said Garrison.

Static screamed in deafening whoops, and then R.C.’s voice sifted through, disjointed and reedy.

“—sit tight. We’re sending men, ten shiploads of them.”

“Men!” yelped Garrison. “What will we do with men?”

“Machines, too,” scratched R.C.’s voice. “Manually operated machines—“ More howls and screeches drowned out the rest.

“But R.C., you can’t do that,” yelled Garrison. “The men will die like flies. It’ll be mass murder … it’ll be like it was before—in the early days, before Masterson developed the radon brains. Men can’t work in those radium pits—not work and live.”

“That’s a lot of damn tripe,” raved R.C. “They’ll work—”

“They’ll revolt!” shrieked Garrison.

“Oh, no, they won’t. I’m sending police along.”

“Police!” stormed Garrison. “Some of Streeter’s bloody butchers?”

“I’m sending Streeter himself. Streeter and some of his picked men. They’ll keep order—”

“Look, R.C.,” said Garrison bitterly, “you’d better send a new commander, too. I’ll be damned if I’ll work with Streeter.”

“Take it easy, Garrison. You’re doing all right. Just a bunch of bad breaks. You’ll make out all right.”

“I won’t work those men,” snapped Garrison. “Not the way they’ll have to work. Radium isn’t worth it.”

“You will,” yelled R.C., “or I’ll have Streeter sock you down in the pits yourself. Radium has to move. We have to have it.”

“By the way,” said Garrison, suddenly calm, his eyes on Chester, “you remember that Institute chap who came to replace Boone?”

“Yes, I seem to remember—”

“He’s lost,” said Garrison. “Walked out into the hills. We’ve combed them, but there’s no sign of him.”

Chester rose from the chair in a smooth leap, hurling himself at Garrison, one hand snatching at the phone. The impact of his body staggered Garrison, but the commander sent him reeling with a shove.

“What was that you said, R.C.? I didn’t hear. The static.”

“I said to hell with him. Don’t waste time looking for him. There are more important things.”

Chester was charging in again on Garrison, intent on getting the phone. Mac moved with the speed of lightning, one huge fist knotted and pulled far back. It traveled in a looping, powerful arc, caught the charging man flush on the chin. Chester’s head snapped back, his feet surged clear of the floor, his body smashed against the wall. He slid into a heap, like a doll someone had tossed into a corner.

Doc crossed the room and knelt beside him.

“You hit too hard,” he said.

“I meant to hit hard,” growled Mac.

“He’s dead,” said Doc. “You broke his neck.”

Outside, the eternal snowstorm howled, sweeping the jagged hills and lamp-lighted pits.

Doc stood in front of a port and watched the scurrying activity that boiled within the mine. Hundreds of armored men and hundreds of laboring machines. Three spaceships, stationed beside the stock pile, were being loaded. Streeter’s police, with ready guns, patrolled the sentry towers that loomed above the pits.

The door opened and Garrison came in with dragging feet.

“How many this shift?” asked Doc.

“Seven,” Garrison answered hoarsely. “A screen blew up.”

Doc sucked at the dead cigar.

“This has to stop, Johnny. It has to stop or something is bound to crack. It’s a death sentence for any man to be sent out here. The last replacements were criminals, men shanghaied off the street.”

Garrison angrily sloshed the liquor in his glass.

“Don’t look at me,” he snapped. “It’s out of my hands now. I’m acting only in an administrative capacity. Those are the exact words. Administrative capacity. Streeter is the works out here. He’s the one that’s running the show. He’s the one that’s working the men to death. And when they start to raise a little hell, those babies of his up in the towers open up on them.”