The Stork Factor Read online

  «Well, it's just that, well, I don't feel faith,» Luke said. «I mean, I'm sorry but—» «I understand,» Wundt said. «Is there anyone here who would not, uh, inhibit you?» Luke thought. There was one person and one person only in the strange place of the doctors who didn't make him feel as if he were some kind of thing to be examined and tested. And she was a female. And that made it impossible. Go into the city with a female? Impossible. «Luke,» Wundt said, «do you realize how important this is?» Frankly, he didn't. Frankly, he didn't know why they were so interested in his power. They had their medicine. He'd learned a few things in his days in the underground place. For example. Miss Caster had told him that Dr. Wundt was over seventy years old. That was incredible. If a Lay lived to be forty, he was an old, old man. Only Brothers and high officials

  lived past thirty-five or forty. And it was the magic of medicine that did it. So, if they had that magic, why should they want his poor power? For,

  although he'd healed the Fare of his terrible cut, that Fare would still die before he was forty. He would die of the lung sickness or cancer or his heart would just stop one day. He tried to express it to them. Wundt nodded understanding. «But that's it, Luke, don't you see? That's exactly it. What we do is not magic. It's just sound science, based on a long history of medicine. There is hardly anything, except old age, that we doctors can't cure.» «Lung sickness?» Luke asked. «Yes. And cancer. And heart problems.» «Then why—» «Why don't we cure all the Lays?» Wundt smiled sadly. «Because there are just too damned many of them. Because the great influx and the population explosion drained this country down to nothing. Because people put more value on a new ground car than on medicine. Because the Brothers—» He paused. «Luke, did you read any history when you were at the University?» «Only a little,» Luke said. «Do you know that the life expectancy of everyone in this country used to be almost seventy years?» «No,» Luke said, shaking his head with disbelief. «Do you know that people used to choose their government by ballot?» «We still do,» Luke said. «Sure. You vote for men handpicked by the Christian Party. Have you ever bothered to vote, Luke?» Luke shook his head. «Why?» «I don't know,» Luke said. «Because it just doesn't seem to matter. I mean, my vote among all the millions—» «Have you ever been to a museum, Luke?» «Sure. I went to the Met once.» «And did you see the paintings?» «Yes.» «The huge ones by Rubens and Titian and others'» «Yes,» Luke said, «I saw lots of them.» «Did you see a single nude?» Luke blushed. «Of course not.» «That's because the Brothers had clothing painted on them,» Luke Wundt smiled at him reassuringly. «How is a baby made, Luke?» Luke shifted in his seat, embarrassed, bewildered by the doctor's dirty talk. «What books have you read?» Wundt asked. Relieved by the change of subject, Luke said, «Oh, the Bible. A few books like the life of Jesus and—» «Ever read a novel?» «A what?» «A novel. A story. Something that just tells about life, about love and living and adventure and the relationship of one human being to another.» «No!» Luke said. He didn't like being accused of being a pervert. Wundt sighed. «All right,» he said. «I'll drop that course. What does Freedom mean to you, Luke?» «Gee, I dunno—» «If you were going to change things, what would you like to be able to do?» «Well, I wish there wasn't so much red tape involved in getting a permit to preach on the streets,» Luke said. «Before the revolution you didn't have to have a permit to preach on the streets,» Wundt said. «Once men in this country could meet where and when they pleased to talk about anything, God, politics, anything. They could even talk about not believing in God.» «Not believe in God?» Luke was shocked. «But most importantly,» Wundt said, «there was the freedom to live one's life as one wanted to live it. A man could rise from poverty—-I mean, well, like a Fare could rise to be the President of the United States. And there was freedom to travel. A man could go anywhere he wanted to go. And freedom to be treated by a doctor for sickness. Freedom to practice medicine for the masses.» «Gee,» Luke said. He was sweating uncomfortably He didn't like the way the talk was going. First talking dirty, about babies and all. Then about practicing medicine. He remembered what he'd been given, shakeshock three-quarters full, for healing, and he hadn't even practiced medicine. God didn't want anyone practicing medicine. God didn't like such talk. The Brothers said— «I know this may come as a shock to you, Luke,» Wundt went on, as the young crisp men looked on with interest, «but there are people in this country who are working toward a second revolution.» «Heaven help us!» For he'd been fed stories about revolution since he was old enough to watch a screen. He'd been told, time and time again,

  that the Brothers made it the best of all possible worlds, that the Brothers and the Christian Party kept away the horrors of atomic war, of sinful excess, of evil. «There are people who want to throw the Brothers out of power,» Wundt said carefully. Luke was too shocked to speak. «Because all over the Western Hemisphere people are dying when they should be in the prime of their lives. Our natural resources, what's left of them, are being squandered in an endless flow of billions of ground cars, of senseless waste. There are people who want to change the government because once man was moving into space, Luke. Do you remember that?» «I've seen the old films,» Luke said. «We went to the moon. We went to Mars and Venus. We were ready to move out past Mars, and research showed promise of developing the means to go farther, showed promise of opening up the universe to man. Space promised to be the overflow valve for the Earth. Somewhere out there in space there are worlds like this, Luke, worlds which could accept our surplus, fresh worlds unspoiled by nuclear waste, worlds of fresh, running water and grass and trees. But we squander what remains of our wealth in making ground cars, gadgets, dumping our wealth in huge loads to the already littered bottom of the sea.» There was silence for a moment. Then Wundt continued. «I've digressed. Let me ask this, Luke. Would you like to live, in health, to be seventy, eighty years old?» «Anyone would,» Luke said. «Everyone can,» Wundt said. «If we could divert our resources into the proper programs, birth control, medicine, science—» «I don't see what this has to do with me,» Luke said. «Maybe nothing,» Wundt said. «I'll be that frank with you. Maybe we're pushing you into a wild-goose chase. But you're not the first man who has shown unusual powers of the mind, Luke. All over the country in places like this, people like us are looking into the mind. We've got people who can make things move without touching them. People who can read thoughts. Oh, not completely, but they can read them well enough to make us think that something is happening to the race. There just may be a change taking place. People have been thrown into incredible, crowded, miserable conditions for decades now, Luke, and we knew way back in the twentieth century that overcrowding does things. You show signs of it yourself in your oversized heart and adrenals and in your perpetually irritated stomach. We can see physical changes and we suspect, and have some scientific basis to suspect, mental changes, too. To get to the point, as far as you're concerned, we have reason to think that you caused a severe stomach wound to close, that you, without actual scientific knowledge of the proper placement of the intestines, put them back into place. We can't come out into the open and practice medicine. The Brothers, the millions of them, while still only a minority of the population, are numerous enough so that the meager facilities of the profession are scarcely enough to keep them healthy. But what would happen if we could isolate this, uh, power of yours? What if you could control that power, heal anyone anywhere? What if we could teach this power to others?» «I don't know,» Luke said. «There is going to be a revolution, Luke. Sooner or later there will be revolution. A billion people will not stay in subjection forever. We want that revolution to be an orderly one, as orderly as possible under the circumstances. We want to be able to offer a sensible program to the millions when the revolution comes. One of our greatest weapons would be the ability to heal, with medicine or with the mind. If we could show the masses that we could offer them the same health and long life which is now enjoyed by the Brothers, they would follow us.» «I don
't know,» Luke said. «I just don't know. I don't understand all this.» «All right, Luke,» Wundt said. «We have time. We'll give you time to think.» CHAPTER EIGHT Luke was walking the brightly lit corridors with the nurse, Irene Caster. She was dressed in white. He wore a comfortable set of coveralls, also white. He had been moved from the room they called a hospital room to a beautiful room with comfortable chairs, a bed which, when not in use, hid away in the wall. There was music to be had at the touch of a button. A viewscreen uncovered itself at the pressing of another button And there was a shelf filled with books. The books worried Luke. For two days after his last conference with Dr. Wundt and all the crisp young men, he'd spent the time alone in his room, listening to the music, watching the viewscreen, thumbing through the disturbing books. Some of them were called histories They had pictures. He saw ancient pictures of the country before the revolution. He saw men working in open fields, families eating on rustic tables in scenes of outdoor splendor. One section of the book showed before and after scenes. A bright mountain stream would be shown cascading over rocks. Then the same stream was shown,

  in color, foamed, dirty, dead fish floating. A typical family dwelling of the late twentieth century was shown. It was a beautiful building with large windows and rock on the front. Inside there were, unbelievably three bedrooms, a large area called an entrance hall—this was the most incredible waste of living space Luke had ever seen—a vast living room with a fireplace for burning wood. There was an entirely separate room reserved only for eating! A tremendous kitchen with gleaming appliances. A thing they called a family room with comfortable chairs and a bookcase and rugs on all the floors. But the books which disturbed Luke most had no pictures. They had names like Of Mice and Men, War and Peace, Gone With the Wind, Catch 22. They were things that Dr. Wundt had mentioned. Novels. Stories. Thumbing through the one called Catch 22 he saw, and he cringed as he saw it, the word «whore.» Blushing, feeling soiled and degraded, he read a few sentences. Men and women were naked in a room. He could read no more. He was sure that he was in league with anti-Christ devils. He was frightened. After that he left the novels alone, avoiding them as if they were poison, as if they were, indeed, the devil's work. Alone in his luxurious room he prayed for forgiveness for reading the vile material. He prayed for release. He prayed to be allowed to go back to

  his life. At least, in Old Town, he'd helped slightly to do God's work. There he'd preached and he had healed. What was he doing in this hidden, underground place. Was it God's will? Had he been sent to do something about the godless conditions here? Was he to preach to these strange doctor people? He felt helpless. Food was delivered to him. Caster came and took his pulse and temperature and gave him capsules. And, as usual, she talked cheerfully about many things. She would ask him how he felt and what he was doing to entertain himself. She asked if there were anything in particular he'd like to hear in the way of music. She would ask if she could get him something special in the way of food and if he'd seen a particular program on the screen and if he'd read any of the books. He blushed at the mention of the books, wondering if she read the obscene novels. He didn't think she did. She seemed wholesome. But she knew books. She went to the shelf and handed him a book and suggested he might enjoy it. After she was gone he opened the book suspiciously It was called A Brief History of the

  United States. It, at least, was not dirty. It told about people in an ancient time who rebelled against a country called England, probably one of those countries which had been destroyed in the great Godless Communist nuclear war. Those people had fought because of something called taxes. It was all strange to Luke, but, having nothing else to do, he struggled through the text. And was fascinated by the overwhelming fact that once the country had been a wilderness. Once the population had been concentrated along the eastern coast in the area which was now covered by East and South Cities. West of that were mountains and forest—trees, hundreds of miles of trees and open land where Middle City now sprawled. And animals. Huge herds of things called buffalo and people killing them for meat and for their hides and— «Do you believe this stuff?» he asked Caster. «Don't you?» «I don't know.» He frowned. «Why didn't they have ground cars? It says here it took months to go from the East to a place called California by a thing called a wagon train pulled by animals. Why didn't they go by ground car?» «They didn't have roads,» Caster said, smiling. «Oh,» Luke said. That was reasonable. He lost himself in the book. He read how the country fought over slavery, and the concept was shocking to him. People owning other people. Why had God allowed it? And why did those ancient people think people with black skin were bad? According to the book, people thought people with black skins were worse than—than—well, worse than Fares, probably. He read about more wars and he talked with Caster about it when she came to check his pulse. She was nice, after all. She was a cheerful woman who said she was forty-two years old. She had nice brown hair cut short and a good smile and she was just a little bit shorter than him, but built solidly in contrast to Luke's thinness. They talked. Then she suggested that it was time for him to start exercising. She took him to a place they called a gym. The crisp young men were there riding things with pedals and lifting things and wearing baggy, thick suits. Luke tried the pedals things and saw no future in sitting on a sharp seat pushing pedals with his feet and going nowhere. Besides, he became tired easily. His exercise in the past had consisted of walking around the sidewalks of Old Town and climbing the stairs to his room. They walked. Caster showed him places called laboratories with fantastic arrays of glass and smoking, steaming things. Men worked and smiled and waved and talked and Luke wondered who they all were. «Doctors, scientists,» Caster said. «Buy why are they here? If the Brothers need Doctors so badly, how can they all stay here?» «They're all dead,» Caster said. Luke looked at her blankly. «You're dead,» she said. «Oh. You mean like that.» «Like that,» she said. «I don't understand,» Luke said. «Why—» «Some of them were brought here because they were being given shakeshock by the Brothers for some offense.» «Healing?» Luke asked, since he knew that healing, for some reason, was frowned on by the Brothers. «Well, practicing medicine, maybe. Or for questioning things. Some of them choose to come here.» «They must be crazy.» Luke said. «I don't know why they'd choose to live here. Never seeing the sun. Never being out in the fresh air—» «Fresh air?» Caster laughed. «Don't talk to me about fresh air. I'm from West City. When I was brought here I was terminal with the lung sickness.» Since she had opened the subject, Luke felt free to ask, «Why are you here, Caster?» She shrugged. «I smuggled medicine out of a Brother house I was working as a maid. I knew I had the lung sickness and I heard the Brother talking with his doctor and when I heard that there was something that could be done, I took medicine. I didn't know what medicine I was taking.

  I just took medicine. It happened to be a mild opiate. That's a sort of drug. I got high—» «High?» «Know how you felt when you were having all the tests? All woozy and kinda floating and not caring about anything?» «Yes.» «I got higher than that. You've had Soul Lifter?» Luke smiled in agreement. «I was high, like you get high on Soul Lifter. I went in to work and they spotted it. They put me on the rack and I talked my head off. I told them about stealing the medicine. They sentenced me to therapeutic shock until my memory was cleansed of the knowledge of medicine. You know what that means.» Luke shuddered. «You walk around blank.» Yes, he'd seen those who had been cleansed of evil by shakeshock. «A doctor 'killed' me. With the drug. I woke up here.» «But you know medicine now,» Luke said. «Hah! I'm a nurse. I know how to talk to a sick man and how to take his

  pulse and temperature. I'm still under training. I'll learn more. But I don't know medicine. Not like the doctors.» «You mean they teach you that stuff?» «If you want to learn,» she said. «Do you want to learn, Luke?» «I don't know.» «This is a good place, Luke. They're good people. They want to help. They want to help everyone, not just the Brothers.» «But they don't believe in God,» Luke
said, remembering the cynical remarks he'd heard from Wundt and some of the others. «They don't tell you not to believe in God, do they?» «No.» «They believe in freedom,» she said. «I don't think I know exactly what freedom is,» Luke said. Then there was another book. She brought it in from outside. «Dr. Wundt thinks you're ready for this,» she said. It was called The Revolution, Its Causes and Effects. And it was written by Dr. Zachary Wundt. «To understand the revolution,» the book began, «one must understand the condition of the country in the late decades of the twentieth century.» And then, the man who said he believed in freedom, wrote that, perhaps, there was too much freedom in that ancient time. He wrote about the country being in a war and how some people thought it was wrong. He said that most of those people were «liberals» and were «victims» of the victory of Communist propaganda. He said the liberals were free to talk against the government because of a thing called the guarantee of freedom of speech and that they abused this freedom by giving aid and comfort to an enemy who wanted to control the world by violent means. He wrote about the freedom to take drugs and a gradual breakdown in law and order. He said that the culture of the entire country was influenced by a subculture who worshiped a drug called LSD, how the users of this drug created an entirely new music form and now, because it was fashionable to be «young,» the entire country accepted this so-called music. He said that the drug-using minority also influenced the country in many other ways, in dress, for example. And there were pictures of dirty-looking young people in rags, with long hair and beads and strange decorations. He said that the drug users also contributed to a breakdown in morality. And (Luke blushed and started to put the book away, but didn't) how sex became one of the new freedoms, how girls and boys lived together and did sex indiscriminately. He wrote about how nudity became acceptable, how Broadway shows were performed with the cast naked, how the screen was filled with nude bodies, how books were allowed to be