Of Stegner's Folly.

by Richard S. Shaver.

[Sidenote: _When a twenty-foot G.o.ddess walked out of the jungle, they knew Stegner wasn't kidding._]

Old Prof Stegner never foresaw the complications his selective anti-gravitational field would cause. Knowing the grand old man as I did, I can say that he never intended his "blessing" should become the curse to mankind that it did. And the catastrophe it brought about was certainly beyond range of all prophecy.

Of course, anyone who lived in 1972 and tried to get inside Stegner's weird life-circle must agree that you can get too much of a good thing.

Even a pumpkin can get too big--and that's what happened when the Prof turned on his field--things got big; and too darned healthy!

I was there the day Stegner announced the results of ten year's research on his selector. Nearly everyone present had read the sensational articles concerning his work in the feature sections of the big town newspapers. Like the rest, I had a vague idea of what it was about. It seemed the Prof had developed a device that repelled various particles of matter without effecting others. In short, if he turned on his gadget, gravity reversed itself for certain elements, and they went away in a hurry. Like this: he could take oxide of iron, turn on his selective repellor, and the rust rather magically turned to pure iron without the oxygen. Or, he could take a pile of mixed chemicals, turn his control k.n.o.bs to the elements known to be present in the mixture, and presto! Only certain ones, of his choosing remained. The atoms of the other elements conveniently left the vicinity.

All of which was interesting and extremely useful. The Prof promptly got rich selling patent rights to the device, tuned to certain frequencies which refined heretofore unrefinable ores. His device made an improvement over most known methods of refining, costing far less in operation than the standard and often complicated methods previously in use.

Money gave the old man his opportunity. He fitted out a big research lab in California, not too far from civilization, but secluded enough for secrecy. Then he set about to try his selective repellor on living tissues. His suspicion, that wonderful things could be discovered if he tuned his anti-gravitational field to the undesirable elements in the body, was confirmed. Like lead poisoning--something no doctor can cure if it is severe. He found that he could cure a case of lead poisoning merely by making the lead go away from there via the field. More wonderful things began to come out of the Stegner laboratory, and he made a lot more money.

Which was all very well indeed, only the Prof couldn't leave well enough alone--he had to delve and pry. He had his own theories about disease and its cause, old age, and so on--all nuttier than a fruit cake. He was something of a crank on various health foods and diets that left out foods raised with chemical fertilizers. He had an organic garden, a garden where no chemical fertilizer or poison spray was ever used. And after all, who knew better than the Prof--who could isolate them in a trice--how many poisons could be found acc.u.mulating in the average human body, consumed along with perfectly harmless foods during a lifetime?

Anyway, when the Prof called in the press, myself among them, he was really excited. "Gentlemen," he said, "I have solved the greatest medical puzzle of all time. Before me, no medical man knew the cause of old age. I have proved what the deterioration factor is, and I have provided a remedy--a sure and immediate remedy! The golden age of mankind is here! Our life span can be greatly extended!"

I looked at Jake Heinz, my cameraman. Jake winked at me, but I didn't respond. I liked the Prof. Such a fine old gentleman, to go whacky from so much success....

Jake took a few shots of the Prof's rabbits and guinea pigs, of the Prof himself, and of the apparatus he had constructed which he claimed drove out the causative poison of age; a poison he called a radioactive isotope of Pota.s.sium. The other reporters, not having the soft hearts Jake and I toted around, wrote him up as a joke; said right out they thought the old boy was blowing his top. Immortality! Hah! They presented the whole thing as a farce.

No reporters were ever more wrong than those smart buckos.

Some months after the Prof's little news conference was over and forgotten, an item of vast importance turned up. It seemed that around Stegner's secluded retreat there was a line where things started. What kind of things? Well, up to that line, things were normal; but beyond it, gra.s.s got enormous, the ground was higher and softer. Trees forgot to shed their leaves. Animals flocked there to eat the lush gra.s.s, so the Prof erected a ten-foot electrified fence around his land to keep out the hordes of rabbits, deer, mice and what have you that came to feast off the new supply of better forage.

That was only the beginning. Some months later there came items about houseflies the size of walnuts hatching out around the Prof's retreat.

Now a swarm of houseflies the size of walnuts is news, and Jake and I got up there on the jump.

It was terrific! The flies were there all right, but so were a good many other oversized creatures. Roosting in the trees were robins, bluebirds, and doves as large as turkeys. King-sized ducks waddled about importantly, displaying pouter-pigeon crops from overeating. It was as if some G.o.d had drawn a line and said: "This is the new Eden, where all living things will prosper terrifically."

You never saw a sight like it! Or did you? Were you one of the horde who started camping around the Prof's magic circle trying to get permission to enter?

It was then we got proof that it pays to be kind. Of all the news-grabbers who surrounded the Prof's big wire gate, Jake and I were the only ones who got in. The old man had not forgotten who had taken him seriously and who had made fun of him.

Jake snapped a series of startling pics of the oversized animals and birds. I interviewed the Prof again, even got his maid, Tilda's opinions, and wrote it up as unsensationally as possible, playing down the tremendous potential for trouble, playing up the really effective method the old scientist had discovered for "eliminating the deterioration factor" in life. I could see where the world was in for some changes, and the going was going to be rough enough for the old man without making it worse. But my efforts came to naught when the pics Jake had taken reached the editor's desk. He hit the ceiling, called me on the carpet, wanted to know where my news sense had gotten lost. Then he sent out three other smart boys to do a _good_ job on it.

The paper got out a special edition--and the troubles I had foreseen began. First, the government stepped in, trying to hush-hush the whole thing; but too late. The rush had started. For miles around the poor Prof's fenced-in hideaway, cars and trailers parked in a mad senseless jumble. People crowded against the fences and the electricity had to be shut off. Some smart aleck produced wire cutters and made an opening.

The invasion of the new Eden had begun.

Stegner took flight, taking his secret apparatus and files with him. He declined police escort, and vanished from his mad Eden. Where he went was impossible to learn, but I supposed the government knew.

The area he had revitalized with his selective field was a nine days wonder, and after just about that long it was a tramped over, paper strewn, garbage littered wreck. The oversized animals and birds drifted away, the huge houseflies perished or were eaten by the birds.

Apparently that was the end of the thing. Humanity had triumphed over its savior with its usual stupid interference.

A few of us remembered, could not put out of our minds the significance of what the old man had done. He had pointed the way to a lush immortality, and he had been shoved aside and pawed over and written about like some freak. If he had been a notorious criminal, he would have gotten far better journalistic treatment.

But the years went by--four, five of them. And nothing more was heard of Stegner and his work. Until, one day coming home from a night shift on the paper, I found a letter in my box. It was a rather plain looking envelope, but much larger than the ordinary. The handwritten address was quite legible, but very big, as if a giant hand had cramped itself to produce ordinary script:

_Dear old friend:_

_You may have forgotten me, but I do not forget you. If you would like to join me for a time, insert a notice to Harry F in the personal column to that effect. I am trusting you to keep my secret._

_Stegner_

Needless to say, I inserted the notice.

A limousine, driven by a noncommittal chauffeur, picked me up off a street corner, whisked me to the airfield. I boarded a plane piloted by a man I used to know as a fading stunt pilot--Harry Fredericks. The plane lifted and took a southerly course which presently changed to an easterly bearing. I looked below and saw we were over water.

We came down somewhere in South America and I got out of the plane as mystified as I'd entered it. Secrecy? Fredericks wouldn't even discuss the weather!

I had expected another Eden, hidden away from the world. But the land of brobdignags I found staggered me. Gra.s.ses, trying to be trees, and trees....

There were no words for the bigness, the health and vitality of Stegner and the government bigwigs who had welcomed him here in South America.

But Stegner hustled me aside before I had time to do more than goggle at the mammoth layout of this new Eden under government supervision. He took me to his house, a huge thing built with huge hands, big enough to accommodate a man ten feet tall! Yes, Stegner was a giant! _Everybody_ in that fantastic hideaway was a giant.

The second floor of the house overlooked a great, wide valley. Stegner pointed one great finger to the horizon and I looked. There was an endless fence out there. The same as in California, only more so. The natives of the valley, the Indios, the rancheros, the more intelligent animals, were trying to get in to the wonders they saw beyond that fence. And some of them were dying against the killing electric charges in its wires. Through a pair of gla.s.ses the Prof handed me, I saw that some of the dead were human.

"That's murder!" I gasped.

Stegner's voice held the sadness of a great and sorrowful G.o.d. "I am in a trap, my friend. I have pretended to acquiesce, but my cohorts are not fully deluded as to my loyalty to the thing they plan. These government men had gone mad with power. And the problem that now faces me seems insurmountable. The peoples of this world are too small, morally, for so big a life. I fear chaos. I thought that perhaps you, with your native shrewdness, might help me unlock this prison I am in, reconcile this Eden and its growth to the world that it must eventually overrun. It _will_ overrun the planet, but I would prefer it not to be by violence as these mad men plan it. They have selfishly taken my gift to mankind to themselves, for their own aggrandizement."

I gulped. He thought I had the savvy to answer that one! "h.e.l.l, Prof. I thought you saw that from the first. I've often wondered when the blow-off would come. I'm a newspaperman; I know what goes on in the world. It isn't ready for such a life as you can give it--too much selfishness. This thing has so many angles, so many ways it can give private groups power."

"Then what can I do?"

"As long as this is going to be a fight, let's make it an even one, so that the chips aren't all on one side of the table. Then maybe there'll be a balance of power, a stalemate--such as existed between Russia and the U. S. A. for so long."

"You mean...?"

"I mean let me get the h.e.l.l out of here in a hurry, with the details of your processes, and let me spread them all over the world. Publicity can lick this thing. Your mistake was in building fences. Put up a fence, and somebody'll bust it."

"You are a wise man, my friend," he said.

"Then I'm making a run for it right now. They won't expect me to be dashing off before I've even taken off my hat. Give me your formulae, and show me the back door."

"You can only leave by plane...."

"Okay, I can fly one. I had my own crate for several years until the finance company took it away from me. The airfield's right next to the house...."

He gave me the papers.