Andre Norton - The Science Fiction anthology

“After he did what ?”

Johnny smiled tiredly and rested his head on one hand. “He had to remake me chemically, you know. How could I spread change without being changed myself? I couldn’t have two generations to adapt to it naturally like you, Ric. It had to be done artificially. It took years. You understand? I’m a community, a construction. The cells that carry on the silicon metabolism in me are not human. Dad adapted them for the purpose. I helped, but I can’t remember any longer how it was done. I think when I’ve been badly damaged, organization scatters to the separate cells in my body. They can survive better that way, and they have powers of regrouping and healing. But memory can’t be pasted together again or regrown.”

John Drake rose and looked around the laboratory with something like triumph. “They’re too late. I made it, Ric. There’s the catalyst cooling over there. This is the last step. I don’t think I’ll survive this plague, but I’ll last long enough to set it going for the finish. The police won’t stop me until it’s too late.”

Another plague!

The last one had been before Alcala was born. He had not thought that Johnny would start another. It was a shock.

Alcala walked over to the cage where he kept his white mice and looked in, trying to sort out his feelings. The white mice looked back with beady bright eyes, caged, not knowing they were waiting to be experimented upon.

A timer clicked and John Delgados-Drake became all rapid efficient activity, moving from valve to valve. It lasted a half minute or less, then Drake had finished stripping off the lab whites to his street clothes. He picked up the square metal box containing the stuff he had made, tucked it under his arm and held out a solid hand again to Alcala.

“Good-by, Ric. Wish me luck. Close up the lab for me, will you?”

Alcala took the hand numbly and mumbled something, turned back to the cages and stared blindly at the mice. Drake’s brisk footsteps clattered down the stairs.

Another step forward for the human race.

God knew what wonders for the race were in that box. Perhaps something for nerve construction, something for the mind—the last and most important step. He should have asked.

There came at last a pressure that was a thought emerging from the depth of intuition. Doctor Ricardo Alcala will die in the next plague, he and his ill wife Nita and his ill little girl.... And the name of Alcala will die forever as a weak strain blotted from the bloodstream of the race....

He’d find out what was in the box by dying of it!

He tried to reason it out, but only could remember that Nita, already sickly, would have no chance. And Alcala’s family genes, in attempting to adapt to the previous steps, had become almost sterile. It had been difficult having children. The next step would mean complete sterility. The name of Alcala would die. The future might be wonderful, but it would not be his future!

“Johnny!” he called suddenly, something like an icy lump hardening in his chest. How long had it been since Johnny had left?

Running, Alcala went down the long half-lit stairs, out the back door and along the dark path toward the place where Johnny’s ‘copter had been parked.

A light shone through the leaves. It was still there.

“Johnny!”

John Osborne Drake was putting his suitcase into the rear of the ‘copter.

“What is it, Ric?” he asked in a friendly voice without turning.

It would be impossible to ask him to change his mind. Alcala found a rock, raised it behind Syndrome Johnny’s back. “I know I’m being anti-social,” he said regretfully, and then threw the rock away.

His fist was enough like stone to crush a skull.

Before them the ball took a savage turn toward the player in white. Around Grant the crowd stood up and roared, and he felt suddenly tense and doubting. Then the player ducked, the ball shot through above him to smash against the court wall, and he controlled the rebound to send the sphere once more into erratic, darting flight.

“Again!” Grant felt his muscles suddenly relax with release of anxiety. He turned to the girl. “Bee, I’m worried. It’s not like Tony—does he want to get killed? He should stop those shots, not dodge them. Are you sure he’s all right?”

“Now, Granny.” The girl kept her eyes fixed on the court. “Remember, Tony took this match for charity. He wants the crowd to have a show, that’s all. He is in splendid shape.”

“No sleep,” Grant went on worriedly. “I’m sure it must be that. If his brain were alert, he’d control that ball until Slag went crazy. Without sleep, you can’t focus prop—”

“Please, Granny, stop !” In that instant her throbbing mind touched his, and he caught a glimpse of the alarm in her face. She, too, felt that something was wrong. But she tugged at his sleeve and pointed through the screen at the oval below. “Look!”

Slag’s feet were set wide apart, and his black-robed body stood square. But his head had begun a sort of slow wobble, from side to side, as the ball lanced in perihedral swings about the court.

“Praise Allah!” whispered Grant. “A beautiful dance! Tony’s thinking that gangster, into a coma.”

The white player was in concentration, using his eyes only rarely in shifting ever more complex movements to the sphere. Then the rhythmic pattern had become a wild corondo , with Slag as its center, and the dark figure stood hypnotized, with only spasmodic jerks of his brutal features to mark the fear in his mind.

“Now,” said Grant. His voice seemed loud in the awed silence of the spectators. “Now, Tony! Call it a day!”

“Just touch him,” whispered Bee. “Don’t hurt him, Tony.”

It was as if they had signaled the player, even through the tele-proof screen. Gradually the wild swings of the ball slowed. It circled Slag gently, dropped closer, and poised above him. Tony’s mind was clearly in full control of the sensitive sphere.

In a seat behind Grant, an excited man suddenly yelled, “Thumbs down, hard!” Obviously the crowd was ready to sacrifice its erstwhile hero.

Then—the ball moved, a small movement, and there was a roar. Uninfluenced, the ball dropped and rolled to the center court, and Tony stood in bewilderment as Slag shook himself awake.

Grant leaped up and tried to push through to the box exit. Behind him, Bee clung. “Granny, what will you do? What can you....”

He shook her off and answered her with his mind as he struggled on. “Stop them, that’s what! End the match.”

“How? You know you cannot!”

But he felt her mind cling at the hope, and sent back reassurance. “ I can. They may not like it, but I can stop these matches. Don’t worry, I’ll get your brother safely out of there.”

She was relieved. Knowledge of his position—his relation to the sport—he felt her memory produce the reasons. Sport , thought Grant. I invented a sport. Oh, Allah! What has my sport become?

And then her mind shrieked at him, stabbed at his brain: “Tony—Tony darling!”

Dazedly he heard the moan and fought a path to the transparent screen. Out on the court lay a white figure, outspread, and the ball rolled slowly past the dripping head.

“Too late!” sobbed Bee. “Too late! Tony....”

Somehow she was down there before Grant. He saw her, huddled over Tony’s body, as he finally reached an open gate in the domed screen. On the opposite edge of the court, Psycho-sport Commissioner Woods was in conversation with the referee, Harmon. A flash bulb glowed. Three reporters looked at the fallen player and spoke casually to each other. Towering above the group was Slag, staring down as if surprised.