Pat Frank - Mr. Adam

Gradually, very gradually, for the mind cannot absorb so much at once, the full import and meaning of what had happened began to penetrate. For no good reason I began to shake Tommy’s hand. “Congratulations,” I told him. “You did it!”

He didn’t seem to be listening. He said, as if talking to himself, “I wonder whether it was giving him the whole bottle at once, or whether it was mixing it with the rye, or whether it was mixing it with the coffee. I wonder whether it wasn’t a freak, a phenomenon that won’t be repeated. I wonder whether it wouldn’t have happened spontaneously anyway. I wonder whether any of the guys at the hospital—”

“You can start figuring all that out tomorrow,” Maria told him. “Right now, it’s just wonderful.”

Marge asked me whether I wasn’t going to kiss her, and I kissed her for such a long time that Maria and Tommy stood by, fascinated, and watched, and Marge said she supposed she had been acting like a fool for a month or two, but she couldn’t help it and now that she knew what was the matter I didn’t have to worry any more.

“I ought to call the office,” I said, “and give them a flash.”

“I wouldn’t—not yet,” Maria warned. “Both Tommy and I are absolutely certain, and yet there’s always that infinitesimal possibility of a mistake. We’ll have a rabbit test made tomorrow, and then you can write your story.” That sounded reasonable.

I do not remember much about the rest of that evening. But just before Maria left she asked Tommy, as if it were a matter of no importance, whether he himself had been taking the seaweed stuff, and Tommy said yes, of course, and as she tucked a hand under his elbow she said, “Tommy, I think we ought to get married, right away. I’m a little worried.”

Isuppose the rest is history, rather than a personal narrative.

The positive reports on the rabbit test came through Wednesday night, and I called J.C. Pogey and said I had a flash, and he said it was about time that somebody produced a flash, because the world was rotting, and for the first time in his life he was getting bored with his job. I said that from now on he wouldn’t be bored, because the flash was that I was going to have a baby.

“ You are going to have a baby,” said J.C. “If that happens I quit.”

“Well, Marge is,” I said.

“Whose?” he demanded sharply, no doubt thinking the same thing that I had thought when I first heard the news.

“Mine,” I told him, and I told him how.

J.C. Pogey is a great newspaperman. He immediately foresaw all the possibilities that Tommy Thompson had foreseen—principally that it was just an isolated accident. He said, “We’re not going overboard on this story. We’ll just present it factually as it has happened thus far. We will not speculate.”

But of course the world went quite mad, in spite of J.C. Pogey.

It turned out that the world was justified. Tommy Thompson discovered that his seaweed tonic, given in a dose not quite lethal and without the aid of alcohol or caffeine, jolted the paralyzed male germ into activity. In hardly any time all the internes at Polyclinic, and all Tommy’s friends, were potent and careful.

The government immediately took over all production, and Phelps-Smythe, now a general, was entrusted with security. This was a most important post, because there was no doubt that the Russians were trying to steal the secret. They actually admitted it themselves.

There are plans, not entirely approved, for making Thompson’s tonic available to every male in all the world, even the Outer Mongolians. But as things stand now the program is moving along like a boxcar with flat wheels being jostled into a siding.

All these plans have not been put into effect, because of the complications. At first the Thompson tonic was placed in the hands of N.R.C., but later N.R.P. was revived, combining all the best men of both organizations, under Abel Pumphrey.

While matters are not proceeding with great speed, it is quite understandable. After all the domestic issues are ironed out, there is the foreign problem. There is a group that believes that the UN should handle a good deal of it. But the Administration has decided that it is of much too vital importance for the UN. Being a young organization, perhaps the UN can handle things like the Transylvania boundary dispute, but certainly should not be entrusted with the secret of Thompson’s tonic. All the commentators agree that Thompson’s tonic is dynamite.

The Frame has abandoned her screen career, and is racing around the country presenting, in lectures, her proposals for founding a perfect race.

Homer Adam has resumed commuting to New York from Tarrytown. Suddenly he has become no more famous than Wrong Way Corrigan, Jess Willard, or Papa Dionne. Poor Homer is indeed a has-been, for he sterilized himself so thoroughly that not even Thompson’s tonic can help him. This, he does not seem to mind.

It was eighteen months after our twins were born that J.C. Pogey made his last visit to us. It was the same day that Turkey announced it would fight if Russia tried to take the Straits; the Atlantic fleet set out for maneuvers near Iceland; Britain announced it was backing up the fortifications of Gibraltar; and France announced her expansion of bases in North Africa. It was just an ordinary day.

J.C. watched the twins playing in the play pen. Little Abel (I don’t know why Marge insisted on naming him after Abel Pumphrey) was sitting down, playing with his blocks, and minding his own business. Little Stephen had found a tack hammer somewhere, and with it in his hand he was advancing on Abel as if to scalp him.

J.C. watched, fascinated, and he said, “This is where I came in,” and left. We never saw him again.

PAT FRANK(1908–1964) is the author of the classic postapocalyptic novel Alas, Babylon , as well as the Cold War thriller Forbidden Area . Before becoming an author, Frank worked as a journalist and also as a propagandist for the government. He is one of the first and most influential science fiction writers to deal with the consequences of atomic warfare.

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An Affair of State

Alas, Babylon

Forbidden Area

Hold Back the Night

Mr. Adam

COVER DESIGN BY GREGG KULICK

This book was originally published by J. B. Lippincott in 1946.

MR. ADAM. Copyright © 1946 by Pat Frank. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.