Part 16 (1/2)

Harry called to him and there was no answer. And he cried out and he cursed and he paced his cell and he walked alone in the courtyard and he begged the impa.s.sive guards for information, and he sweated and he talked to himself and he counted the days and he lost count of the days.

Then, all at once, there was another prisoner in the adjacent cell, and his name was William Chang, and he was a biologist. He was reticent about the crime he had committed, but quite voluble about the crimes committed by others in the world outside. Much of what he said, about genes and chromosomes and recessive characteristics and mutation, seemed incomprehensible to Harry. But in their talks, one thing emerged clearly enough--Chang was concerned for the future of the race. ”Leffingwell should have waited,” he said. ”It's the _second_ generation that will be important. As I tried to tell my people--”

”Is that why you're here?”

Chang sighed. ”I suppose so. They wouldn't listen, of course.

Overpopulation has always been the curse of Asia, and this seemed to be such an obvious solution. But who knows? The time may come when they need men like myself.”

”So you were stockpiled too.”

”What's that?”

Harry told him about Richard Wade's remarks, and together they tried to puzzle out the theory behind them.

But not for long. Because once again Harry Collins awoke in the morning to find the adjoining cell empty, and once again he was alone for a long time.

At last a new neighbor came. His name was Lars Neilstrom. Neilstrom talked to him of s.h.i.+ps and shoes and sealing-wax and the thousand and one things men will discuss in their loneliness and frustration, including--inevitably--their reasons for being here.

Neilstrom had been an instructor under Vocational Apt, and he was at a loss to explain his presence at Stark Falls. When Harry spoke of the stockpiling theory, his fellow-prisoner demurred. ”It's more like Kafka than science fiction,” he said. ”But then, I don't suppose you've ever read any Kafka.”

”Yes, I have,” Harry told him. ”Since I came here I've done nothing but read old books. Lately they've been giving me microscans. I've been studying up on biology and genetics; talking to Chang got me interested. In fact, I'm really going in for self-education. There's nothing else to do.”

”Self-education! That's the only method left nowadays.” Neilstrom sounded bitter. ”I don't know what's going to become of our heritage of knowledge in the future. I'm not speaking of technological skill; so-called scientific information is carefully preserved. But the humanities are virtually lost. The concept of the well-rounded individual is forgotten. And when I think of the crisis to come--”

”What crisis?”

”A new generation is growing up. Ten or fifteen years from now we'll have succeeded in erasing political and racial and religious divisions. But there'll be a new and more dangerous differentiation; a _physical_ one. What do you think will happen when half the world is around six feet tall and the other half under three?”

”I can't imagine.”

”Well, I can. The trouble is, most people don't realize what the problem will be. Things have moved too swiftly. Why, there were more changes in the last hundred years than in the previous thousand! And the rate of acceleration increases. Up until now, we've been concerned about too rapid technological development. But what we have to worry about is social development.”

”Most people have been conditioned to conform.”

”Yes. That's our job in Vocational Apt. But the system only works when there's a single standard of conformity. In a few years there'll be a double one, based on size. What then?”

Harry wanted some time to consider the matter, but the question was never answered. Because Lars Neilstrom went away in the night, as had his predecessors before him. And in succeeding interludes, Harry came to know a half-dozen other transient occupants of the cell next to his. They came from all over, and they had many things to discuss, but always there was the problem of _why_ they were there--and the memory of Richard Wade's premise concerning stockpiling.

There came a time when the memory of Richard Wade merged with the memory of Arnold Ritchie. The past was a dim montage of life at the agency and the treatment center and the ranch, a recollection of lying on the river bank with women in att.i.tudes of opisthotonos or of lying against the boulders with a rifle.

Somewhere there was an image of a child's wide eyes and a voice saying, ”My name is Harry Collins.” But that seemed very far away.

What was real was the cell and the years of talking and reading the microscans and trying to find a pattern.

Harry found himself describing it all to a newcomer who said his name was Austin--a soft-voiced man who became a resident of the next cell one day in 2029. And eventually he came to Wade's theory.

”Maybe there were a few wiser heads who foresaw a coming crisis,” he concluded. ”Maybe they antic.i.p.ated a time when they might need a few nonconformists. People like ourselves who haven't been pa.s.sive or persuaded. Maybe we're the government's insurance policy. If an emergency arises, we'll be freed.”

”And then what would _you_ do?” Austin asked, softly. ”You're against the system, aren't you?”