The Year's Best Science Fiction 11

PROJECT INHUMANE ALEXANDER B. MALEC

Biev wasn’t exactly made into a laughing stock. The ones in power, the Directorates of Financing, weren’t quite sure whether to limit his funds altogether on the experiment in question, therefore killing any future efforts, or to extend to him the fiat of a blank check, or simply to liquidate him, his associates, and the whole endeavor on the contention that the project was mad, fruitless, pointless, undecipherable, a waste of the People’s money, and ... a mite dangerous to all.

Said the Prime Factor on the Directorate of Financing, “It would appear that Friend Biev has a tiger by the tail.”

Biev was the kind of person that in a Western society would be termed a screwball and doomed to menial garbage-emptying and ditchdigging chores, since he didn’t conform to the proper behavior-personality-interest pattern of an overlaid, rectangular-hole-punched pasteboard computer card. Instead, Biev was in a society where his kind were looked upon as crude ore to be assayed and appreciated. A tongue-in-cheek appreciation, it was true, but appreciation nonetheless, with a bit of eyebrow-raising and tongue-wagging as kind of a price to pay for being unorthodox. And more than just different, he was the epitome of the Different. Persons less individual than Biev cast envious eyes upon him—where in a Western society they threw stones—and thanked their gods that they didn’t have to be like him since the world already had a Biev. If homage was in the coin of envy, you might say Biev was the Unorthodox’s Unorthodox.

The education of Biev had been a tossed salad of unrelated subjects, from Sanskrit to what’s the bee really saying when it buzzes, from refractory properties of the Ionosphere in January to the PSI pressure in Mindanao Deep. All these having the sole commonality of being contained in the cranium of one Pierre Biev, scientist.

How Biev climbed up the technological hierarchy was by methods as random as the subjects he had studied. A piece of work published in Pro-Scientific, a bit of hornblowing here, a bit of pushing there, a child’s tantrum now and then when he didn’t get his way, and a bit of fawning and flattering of superiors—the latter method, while useful to his move upward, also showed chinks in his personality, the very human happenstance of a shoddy character trait or two. He was something of a salesman too, a one-track salesman, who managed to make his point of view prevail over the doubts and resistance of those who held the purse strings. Little could these exchequers be blamed, however, for their stone-hard reluctance being transmuted into semi-rotten squash before the freshness of approach, the originality of the man, which left them agog.

So he got his money, his work sites, and personnel.

And he succeeded. Not often; more like one out of five tries in any given project, which in scientific circles is a batting average close to astonishing.

It was enough to assure him of a larger allocation of money, more technicians at his disposal, of a say in the exclusive Presidium Scientific.

Biev couldn’t say how many projects he was at any instant conducting. Some were in the idea stage, some in seminar discussion, some already in fund endowment, and the early data of some were even now being correlated by computer. At any time he was immersed in at least six projects in full swing, and at any time projects were being phased out due to utter failure; some were phased out prior to a wait-and-see unsureness of results, and there were the hang-fire ones that couldn’t as yet be labeled anything and that awaited some new light cast upon them either through independent inspiration or a new approach to appraisal of their data.

So Biev was busy. And happy, too. That is, until Project SC 109A PB exploded and fragmented the whole of his scientific circle into a round of arguing, philosophizing, and what have you. SC 109A PB, incidentally, stood for Scientific, the 109th such try, the first change or addition to that try (A), and the Projecteer’s initials—Biev’s own conceit and insistence.

For scientists argue. They love to argue. The meat and gist of any question scientific is just a plain lot of discourse, a good chunk of disagreement, some quarreling, and maybe even a clipboard thrown in a rage. This is the method. And they argued anywhere; at lunch, in the corridors, even in the men’s room. Time was, some recalcitrant—Biev’s opinion—wrote a chemical formula of impossible structure on the bathroom mirror in soap. In turn, Biev wrote his own notation below, also in soap, which said in effect: go refer to your high school chemistry primer. A little later that day, that same formula was reproduced at the tail-end of a string of equations proving that that same formula could indeed occur. The author even took the trouble to mark down some bibliography. After some looking through this bibliography in the local library, Biev made his way back to the men’s-room mirror and wrote—in small print—congratulations!

They argued anytime, over almost anything, even unrelated topics, which included one time a preposterous discourse from an impish biochemist named Gargarin that beer was conceivably better than milk for children. What’s more, the others believed it

Among some forty technicians, engineers, and scientists who were in Biev’s domain was a running argument about each one’s pet topic, and, depending upon what chance combination brought who together, wills and opinions would clash constantly.

In this manner they kept their mental faculties honed down fine, though privately Biev had to admit he had a headache sometimes at the end of the day.

They argued anywhere, as was happening right now, near the conclusion of Project SC 109A PB.

“The wonderful adaptability of a human being,” said Biev and held up the hand-woven shirt.

“Yes, but the subject died,” said Gargarin.

“How’s that?”

“I said, ‘Yes, but the subject died.’”

“Oh.”

“Why don’t you leave your hood down so you can hear me?”

“I don’t like the cold.”

Gargarin gave him an odd look and looked down. “Neither did he.”

“He was adapting though, wasn’t he? Ahh, what do you think got him?”

“Cold probably. Though if he had better leaves or more head hair, he might’ve wove himself a better shirt.” Biev didn’t answer. “Or more food. You could have left him more food.” Gargarin said this with censure, not being as professionally detached as his superior.

“Ahh,” said Biev with a sneer, “more food. Then what do we learn? When a man survives what do we learn? It’s when he almost makes it that we learn; we learn the uttermost limits of his adaptability.”

“The cold,” said Gargarin. “He couldn’t find enough protein to keep his metabolism going. All the bugs and insects go into hiding when it gets cold.”

“This we know,” said Biev. “But look here . . . and here. His system learned to metabolize cellulose. See there. He was living on grass, too.”

“The other ones died.”

“Yes, the other ones died,” said Biev with some vigor and in cadence to his stomping feet, “but do you know why they died, do you know why? Here we placed them out under ideal conditions, in the spring of the year, and they died quickly. In less than a month. All of them. This one went admirably well.” He was staring down with professional detachment at the smooth sculptured features of a frozen man.

“What I told you at the beginning,” said Gargarin. He had the little eyes and ruddy complexion of the prairie tribes. “We should have given them some indoctrination.”

Biev waved the thought away, “As I told you at the beginning, he would have survived longer. We first seek out the limits of a common, ordinary man. Then we build our army, our shock troops. There’s a frontier here,” his eyes shone, “a frontier that’s just beginning to be explored.”

Gargarin felt a little exercise would go good now, so he said before Biev got himself wound up, “We still have one more man.”

They strode off across the sparse, rocky landscape, scuffing the tufts of grass showing through the snow.

Biev continued with his monologue, as he had to continue with his monologue; not even a river to swim across would have interfered with his monologue; such matter lay coiled and ready in his brain, every dot and comma in place, only waiting to be reeled out. “Man is lazy. He does only what is required of him, not much more. What I mean is guilt, fear, love, honor, what have you, are the drives that get him off his dead behind. Every one of us, if we dared, would do nothing but sleep and drink all day. But we don’t; we produce the minimum that we or our society sets for us. It’s a rare one that drives himself past that minimum.

“So we wonder, what would a man do if he were forced to drive himself further, I mean to the ultimate limit of his physical endurance and the limit of his mental capacity.

“What do we do: We put him out in the field, no food, no water, no shelter. Nothing. We first, of course, allow ourselves the requisite of an intelligent being so incarcerated. Hell, you wouldn’t use an animal and you wouldn’t use a moron. You use an intelligent man, not necessarily college-trained but commonsensical and the like.

“Animals do not thrive in alien environments. Some refuse to eat in captivity, some refuse to breed. Some simply die from the sheer despair of being confined. But man, ah, man. So much has history proven about man. He is almost universally adaptable to any bad environment. He adjusts well.

“Now thrust him into an environment hitherto intolerable to him, and he will find himself embracing one of three alternatives. He can escape. He can accept his lot and do his best to survive. Or, he can die. In our experiment one of the three alternatives allowed the subject was eliminated: escape was made impossible.

“And what do we learn? Ah, what do we learn. Already so much do we learn. So much. Ah, Pavlov, if he only knew what he began.”

“Pavlov!” said Gargarin. He said it as an oath.

“Already we know the thought processes by which man can cut out the unpleasantness of reality and paint a rosy glow to his world.”

“Could use some of that rosy glow about now,” said Gargarin, a little out of breath in the poor footing in going up the hill. “A half kilo would do.”

Biev went on as if the other hadn’t spoken. “And parapsychology. Ah, the fields of parapsychology. Did you know that two of them, two of them, students—” Biev was in the habit of lecturing—”were able by sheer mind power to bring crows down to within a stone’s throw, within the radius of the chain? What would Rhine have thought, what would he have said?”

“Rhine,” said Gargarin, who was proud, haughty, and kowtowed to no one, “is a cardsharp charlatan.”

“These two,” continued Biev, “were able to bring crows down because they wanted to bring those crows down, because they wanted to so badly, because they wanted to so very badly. Because their very survival depended upon it.”

“We’re almost there,” said Gargarin. He meant the top of the hill.

“Some beings are able, by sheer will, to bring a victual animal within their jaws, whereas man is lazy; he’d earn his bread by his back rather than think for a few minutes a day. Imagine then, if man, superior man, were thus forced to survive? What could he do? What could he do above and beyond the animals? It would be ... it would be just . . . just fantastic! Already we’ve learned so much .. . and maybe we’ll learn more.”

Gargarin pointed over the crest of the hill. “If he’s still alive, you mean.”

“We’ll still learn,” said Biev. Gargarin knew from the direct reply that the other had left the lecture hall and was in the here-now, puffing up a hill with him through the ankle-deep snow.

They were now at the top of the hill, looking at the clearing below. Instead of a wide arc of tramped down snow that had been expected there was just a white, virtually undisturbed blanket.

“Oh, no,” said Biev in a disappointment that excluded any trace of humane pity. “Oh, no. He died.”

“Let’s get closer.” They walked down the hill. And stopped. “He didn’t die,” said Gargarin, and they walked to the chain.

Biev’s jaw almost dropped, he was that surprised.

“No, I guess he didn’t die,” continued Gargarin, and he kicked at the chain. “Guess your man had three alternatives after all.” He said this last in a chaffing tone.

Biev squatted down in the snow and scrutinized the chain. “The shackle...it’s not cut!”

Gargarin had a look too. “Sometimes an animal would prefer disfigurement. As would a man.”

“But there’s no blood.”

“And no foot.”

The men stood up and looked at one another. Biev was stunned; first, by the fact of the escape and, then, by some other thing not yet shaped in his consciousness.

Gargarin began by bringing the something to the forefront. “Not counting ours, there’s only two sets of tracks.”

Biev made a definite count of the fact and nodded, “He must’ve returned and left.”

“You mean,” answered Gargarin, “he must’ve left and returned!” Biev’s eye caught him the instant the other realized the illogic of his statement.

“Do you see it?” Biev asked.

“Yes.”

“If he escaped and didn’t return—one set of tracks.” Gargarin regarded him with the clear animal eyes of the prairie tribes. “If he escaped, returned, and left again...”

“Three sets of tracks.”

“If he escaped,” continued Biev, “returned, and we caught him just then. . . .”

“Two sets of tracks. But we didn’t catch him, did we?”

Biev ignored the other’s statement. “If there was no one here, ever, then a being could have made the tracks to the site and left. Only if there never had been a prisoner here.” Gargarin didn’t have to answer. “But,” said Biev, as if further trying to confirm fact, “we know he was here. In these four theorems of logic, none can apply. Do you see that, Gargarin, none can apply!”

Gargarin nodded, pursed his lips in thought, and said, “What you are looking for, my dear Biev, is a prisoner here with an even number of tracks. Or ... a prisoner gone . . . with an odd number of tracks.”

Biev looked like he could use a double shot of something, or maybe the whole bottle for that matter.

A red sun shone a scant hairline above this dreary, bleak scene. A crow called en route to its night bivouac. A faint wind stirred the black locks of one biochemist Gargarin. “We’d better get back to the vehicle,” he said.

Biev only contemplated the point where the two sets of tracks intersected.

“I said, we’d better get back to the vehicle.”

Biev didn’t look up. Gargarin knew the other to be a man of the sole thought, meaning he didn’t hear him. Then Gargarin saw it too. “What is this?” And he picked it up. It was a small flaxen bag of peasant manufacture, easily fitting into the palm of the man’s hand. He took a sampling from the bag. “Seeds of some sort.”

“Must’ve been the reason he returned,” said Biev. “Ah, returned and left,” he corrected himself, still disconcerted over the wrong number of tracks.

Biev, always the boldest of men, took one of the seeds, sniffed at it. Then he bit it in two. And made a face.

“Allow me,” said Gargarin and also bit one in two. He also made a face. “Oh, I know what these are. Our escapee is a bit of a wit, a clown. Came back to show us he could come back.”

“But why seeds?”

“I don’t know,” said Gargarin. “Some symbolic meaning, maybe.”

“Maybe someone back there can tell us. Or maybe something in Western literature.”

“Western literature?”

“The man here, the escapee who caused to happen the wrong number of tracks, was a strong reader of Western literature. Not only a strong reader—that didn’t satisfy him—he was also a strong proponent of Western literature. And Western ways. But that wasn’t enough for him. We here are tolerant enough to allow a man to believe what he will, but that wasn’t freedom enough for him. He had to go around and expound his feelings. He went around preaching his views . . . and soon he had a lot of others cackling the same bosh. The thing got out of hand, and the man who wasn’t content to leave well enough alone became a political prisoner.” Biev cleared his throat. “He was a farmer, and talkative farmers are of no use to anybody. A good reason among others that he was chosen for this project. Does this, ah, does this anticipate your question?”

Gargarin nodded. “Let’s get back.”

Biev didn’t move. He had one more question. “Wonder how he got away?”

“It’s obvious.”

“Good god, man. You aren’t saying he disappeared from that chain.”

Gargarin shrugged. “Two tracks. No prisoner. The logic of it. . .”

“Nonsense!” Biev yelled. “Sheepdip and nonsense. There must be an explanation. There must always be an explanation.”

“We’ll ask around when we get back. Let us go. It is getting cold.”

Biev and the biochemist started back up the hill.

“Ask about what?” said Biev.

“Those seeds. They have a meaning, a symbolic meaning. They’ll explain the whole question. I’m sure of it.”

Biev was the kind of person that should never play poker; his face the kind that showed what he was thinking. This time he showed doubt. “This I’ve got to see. This I really have got to see. The connection between a man’s impossible escape . . .” he looked at the broken grain in his hand “... and a grain of mustard seed.”