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  MUTANTS

  Eleven Stories of Science Fiction Edited by Robert Silverberg THOMAS NELSON INC., PUBLISHERS

  Nashville, Tennessee I New York, New York No character in this book is intended to represent any actual person; all the incidents of the stories are entirely fictional in nature.

  Copyright ©1974 by Robert Silverberg All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Conventions. Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson Inc., and simultaneously in Don Mills, Ontario, by Thomas Nelson & Sons (Canada) Limited. Manufactured in the United States of America.

  Acknowledgments

  Tomorrow’s Children, by Poul Anderson and F. N. Waldrop, copyright 1947 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. (now Conde Nast Publications, Inc.) Reprinted by permission of the authors’ agents, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.

  It’s a Good Life, by Jerome Bixby, copyright 1953 by Ballantine Books, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  The Mute Question, by Forrest J Ackerman, copyright 1950 by Clark Publishing Company. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Let the Ants Try, by Frederik Pohl, copyright 1949 by Love Romances Publishing Co. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  The Conqueror, by Mark Clifton, copyright 1952 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. (now Conde Nast Publications, Inc.). Reprinted by permission of Forrest J Ackerman.

  Liquid Life, by Ralph Milne Farley, copyright 1936 by Beacon Magazines, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Forrest J Ackerman.

  Hothouse, by Brian W. Aldiss, copyright ©1960 by Mercury Press, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agents, A. P. Watt & Son.

  Ozymandias, by Terry Can*, copyright ©1972 by Harlan Ellison. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  The Man Who Never Forgot, by Robert Silverberg, copyright ©1957 by Fantasy House, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agents, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.

  Ginny Wrapped in the Sun, by R. A. Lafferty, copyright ©1967 by Galaxy Publishing Corp. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Virginia Kidd.

  Watershed, by James Blish, copyright 1955 by Quinn Publishing Co., Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Robert P. Mills, Ltd.

  Introduction

  The Latin word mutate means “to change,” and from it, late in the nineteenth century, the Dutch botanist-geneticist Hugo de Vries coined the terms “mutation” and “mutant.” De Vries, experimenting with breeding evening primroses, had observed sudden striking changes in his flowers as he crossed and recrossed different strains. His research led him to the conclusion that all living things are subject to such changes or mutations, and that mutant forms frequently pass their altered traits on to later generations; thus the evolutionary process itself can be viewed as a succession of mutations.

  De Vries’s theories have long since been confirmed by modern genetic research. We know now that the physical appearance of living organisms is determined by bodies known as genes, within the nuclei of cells; the genes themselves are composed of complex molecules arranged in elaborate patterns, and any change in the pattern (or “code”) of the genetic material that substitutes one molecule for another will produce a mutation. Mutations arise spontaneously in nature, induced by chemical processes in the nucleus or by temperature conditions or by cosmic rays striking a gene; they can also be produced artificially by subjecting the nucleus to X rays, ultraviolet light, or other hard radiation.

  Mutations seldom are spectacular. Those mutants that are startlingly different from their parents tend not to survive long, either because the mutation renders them unable to function normally or because they are rejected by those who sired them. The mutants that succeed in passing their mutations along to their descendants are generally only slightly altered forms, and large evolutionary changes result from an accumulation of small mutations rather than from any one startling genetic leap.

  Of course, writers of science fiction take certain liberties with prosaic scientific truth, or else there would be no science fiction. The mutant theme has long been one of science fiction’s favorites—especially since the development of the atomic bomb turned a productive source of new mutations loose in everyday life. Though some of the mutants of science fiction differ from their parents only in one relatively inconspicuous (but startling) trait, others show immense and fantastic degrees of variation, and both sorts are represented in this book. Thus we have some stories in which the mutant looks normal but has extraordinary mental powers, and others populated by two-headed people, giant insects, plants with teeth, and other wonders. They all demonstrate science fiction’s marvelous diversity. Science fiction is primarily a literature of change, a literature of infinite possibility—and, I think, the mutant theme shows those infinite possibilities to particularly good advantage.

  Robert Silverberg

  Tomorrow’s Children

  Paul Anderson and F. N. Waldrop

  The atomic bombs that brought World War II to a sudden and frightful close had, as might be expected, a powerful impact on the imaginations of science-fiction writers. For years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the pages of science-fiction magazines were filled with stories describing in grim detail the horrifying human mutations that would come into the world after the atomic devastation of World War HI. There were so many of these stories that readers wearied of them and editors stopped buying them; most of them are altogether forgotten today.

  But in all that glut of mutant-horror stories one stood out above the others: taut, dramatic, vivid, human, it said everything that needed to be said about the genetic damage an atomic war might wreak. Its authors were a pair of unknown young men, barely old enough to vote, making their debuts as professional authors. So far as we know, no further stories have come from the pen of F. N. Waldrop; but Poul Anderson has gone on to become one of the grand masters of science fiction, and his long and productive career has more than fulfilled the promise of this, his first story.

  On the world’s loom Weave the Norns doom, Nor may they guide it nor change.—Wagner, Siegfried Ten miles up, it hardly showed. Earth was a cloudy green and brown blur, the vast vault of the stratosphere reaching changelessly out to spatial infinities, and beyond the pulsing engine there was silence and serenity no man could ever touch. Looking down, Hugh Drummond could see the Mississippi gleaming like a drawn sword, and its slow curve matched the contours shown on his map. The hills, the sea, the sun and wind and rain, they didn’t change. Not in less than a million slow-striding years, and human efforts flickered too briefly in the unending night for that.

  Farther down, though, and especially where cities had been… • The lone man in the solitary stratojet swore softly, bitterly, and his knuckles whitened on the controls. He was a big man, his gaunt rangy form sprawling awkwardly in the tiny pressure cabin, and he wasn’t quite forty. But his dark hair was streaked with gray, in the shabby flying suit his shoulders stooped, and his long, homely face was drawn into haggard lines. His eyes were black-rimmed and sunken with weariness, dark and dreadful in their intensity. He’d seen too much, survived too much, until he began to look like most other people of the world. Heir of the ages, he thought dully.

  Mechanically, he went through the motions of following his course. Natural landmarks were still there, and he had powerful binoculars to help him. But he didn’t use them much. They showed too many broad shallow craters, their vitreous smoothness throwing back sunlight in the flat blank glitter of a snake’s eye, the ground about them a churned and blasted desolation. And there were the worse regions of—deadness. Twisted dead trees, blowing sand, tumbled skeletons, perhaps at night a baleful blue glow of fluorescence. The bombs had been nightmares, riding in on wings of fire and horror to shake the planet with the death blows
of cities. But the radioactive dust was worse than any nightmare.

  He passed over villages, even small towns. Some of them were deserted, the blowing colloidal dust, or plague, or economic breakdown making them untenable. Others still seemed to be living a feeble tomorrow’s children half-life. Especially in the Midwest, there was a pathetic struggle to return to an agricultural system, but the insects and blights—

  Drummond shrugged. After nearly two years of this, over the scarred and maimed planet, he should be used to it. The United States had been lucky. Europe, now—

  Der Utiter gang des Ahendlandes, he thought grayly. Spengler foresaw the collapse of a top-heavy civilization. He didn’t foresee atomic bombs, radioactive-dust bombs, bacteria bombs, blight bombs—the bombs, the senseless inanimate bombs flying like monster insects over the shivering world. So he didn’t guess the extent of the collapse.

  Deliberately he pushed the thoughts out of his conscious mind. He didn’t want to dwell on them. He’d lived with them two years, and that was two eternities too long. And anyway, he was nearly home now.

  The capital of the United States was below him, and he sent the stratojet slanting down in a long thunderous dive toward the mountains. Not much of a capital, the little town huddled in a valley of the Cascades, but the waters of the Potomac had filled the grave of Washington. Strictly speaking, there was no capital. The officers of the government were scattered over the country, keeping in precarious touch by plane and radio, but Taylor, Oregon, came as close to being the nerve center as any other place.

  He gave the signal again on his transmitter, knowing with a faint spine-crawling sensation of the rocket batteries trained on him from the green of those mountains. When one plane could carry the end of a city, all planes were under suspicion. Not that anyone outside was supposed to know that that innocuous little town was important. But you never could tell. The war wasn’t officially over. It might never be, with sheer personal survival overriding the urgency of treaties.

  A light-beam transmitter gave him a cautious: “O.K. Can you land in the street?”

  It was a narrow, dusty track between two wooden rows of houses, but Drummond was a good pilot and this was a good jet. “Yeah,” he said. His voice had grown unused to speech.

  He cut speed in a spiral descent until he was gliding with only the faintest whisper of wind across his ship. Touching wheels to the street, he slammed on the brake and bounced to a halt.

  Silence struck at him like a physical blow. The engine stilled, the sun beating down from a brassy blue sky on the drabness of rude “temporary” houses, the total-seeming desertion beneath the impassive mountains—home! Hugh Drummond laughed, a short harsh bark with nothing of humor in it, and swung open the cockpit canopy.

  There were actually quite a few people, he saw, peering from doorways and side streets. They looked fairly well fed and dressed, many in uniform; they seemed to have purpose and hope. But this, of course, was the capital of the United States of America, the world’s most fortunate country.

  “Get out-quick!”

  The peremptory voice roused Drummond from the introspection into which those lonely months had driven him. He looked down at a gang of men in mechanics’ outfits, led by a harassed-looking man in captain’s uniform. “Oh—of course,” he said slowly. “You want to hide the plane. And, naturally, a regular landing field would give you away.”

  “Hurry, get out, you infernal idiot! Anyone, anyone might come over and see—”

  “They wouldn’t go unnoticed by an efficient detection system, and you still have that,” said Drummond, sliding his booted legs over the cockpit edge. “And anyway, there won’t be any more raids. The war’s over.”

  “Wish I could believe that, but who are you to say? Get a move on!”

  The grease monkeys hustled the plane down the street. With an odd feeling of loneliness, Drummond watched it go. After all, it had been his home for—how long?

  The machine was stopped before a false house whose whole front was swung aside. A concrete ramp led downward, and Drummond could see a cavernous immensity below. Light within it gleamed off silvery rows of aircraft.

  “Pretty neat,” he admitted. “Not that it matters any more. Probably it never did. Most of the hell came over on robot rockets. Oh, well.” He fished his pipe from his jacket. Colonel’s insignia glittered briefly as the garment flipped back.

  “Oh…sorry, sir!” exclaimed the captain. “I didn’t know—”

  “‘S O.K. I’ve gotten out of the habit of wearing a regular uniform. A lot of places I’ve been, an American wouldn’t be very popular.”

  Drummond stuffed tobacco into his briar, scowling. He hated to think how often he’d had to use the Colt at his hip, or even the machine guns in his plane, to save himself. He inhaled smoke gratefully. It seemed to drown out some of the bitter taste.

  “General Robinson said to bring you to him when you arrived, sir,” said the captain. “This way, please.”

  They went down the street, their boots scuffing up little acrid clouds of dust. Drummond looked sharply about him. He’d left very shortly after the two-month Ragnarok which had tapered off when the organization of both sides broke down too far to keep on making and sending the bombs, and maintaining order with famine and disease starting their ghastly ride over the homeland. At that time, the United States was a cityless, anarchic chaos, and he’d had only the briefest of radio exchanges since then, whenever he could get at a long-range set still in working order. They’d made remarkable progress meanwhile. How much, he didn’t know, but the mere existence of something like a capital was sufficient proof.

  Robinson—His lined face twisted into a frown. He didn’t know the man. He’d been expecting to be received by the President, who had sent him and some others out. Unless the others had—No, he was the only one who had been in eastern Europe and western Asia. He was sure of that.

  Two sentries guarded the entrance to what was obviously a converted general store. But there were no more stores. There was nothing to put in them. Drummond entered the cool dimness of an antechamber. The clatter of a typewriter, the Wac operating it … He gaped and blinked. That was—impossible! Typewriters, secretaries—hadn’t they gone out with the whole world, two years ago? If the Dark Ages had returned to Earth, it didn’t seem—right—that there should still be typewriters. It didn’t fit, didn’t—

  He grew aware that the captain had opened the inner door for him. As he stepped in, he grew aware how tired he was. His arm weighed a ton as he saluted the man behind the desk.

  “At ease, at ease.” Robinson’s voice was genial. Despite the five stars on his shoulders, he wore no tie or coat, and his round face was smiling. Still, he looked tough and competent underneath. To run things nowadays, he’d have to be.

  “Sit down, Colonel Drummond.” Robinson gestured to a chair near his and the aviator collapsed into it, shivering. His haunted eyes traversed the office. It was almost well-enough outfitted to be a prewar place.

  Prewar! A word like a sword, cutting across history with a brutality of murder, hazing everything in the past until it was a vague golden glow through drifting, red-shot black clouds. And-only two years.

  -

  Only two years! Surely sanity was meaningless in a world of such nightmare inversions. Why, he could barely remember Barbara and the kids. Their faces were blotted out in a tide of other visages-starved faces, dead faces, human faces become beast-formed with want and pain and eating throttled hate. His grief was lost in the agony of a world, and in some ways he had become a machine himself.

  “You look plenty tired,” said Robinson.

  “Yeah … yes, sir—”

  “Skip the formality. I don’t go for it. We’ll be working pretty close together, can’t take time to be diplomatic.”

  “Uh-huh. I came over the North Pole, you know. Haven’t slept since … Rough time. But, if I may ask, you—” Drummond hesitated.

  “I? I suppose I’m President. Ex officio
, pro tern, or something. Here, you need a drink.” Robinson got bottle and glasses from a drawer. The liquor gurgled out in a pungent stream. “Prewar Scotch. Till it gives out I’m laying off this modern hooch. Gambai”

  The fiery, smoky brew jolted Drummond to wakefulness. Its glow was pleasant in his empty stomach. He heard Robinson’s voice with a surrealistic sharpness:

  “Yes, I’m at the head now. My predecessors made the mistake of sticking together, and of traveling a good deal in trying to pull the country back into shape. So I think the sickness got the President, and I know it got several others. Of course, there was no means of holding an election. The armed forces had almost the only organization left, so we had to run things. Berger was in charge, but he shot himself when he learned he’d breathed radiodust. Then the command fell to me. I’ve been lucky.”

  “I see.” It didn’t make much difference. A few dozen more deaths weren’t much, when over half the world was gone. “Do you expect to—continue lucky?” A brutally blunt question, maybe, but words weren’t bombs.

  “I do.” Robinson was firm about that. “We’ve learned by experience, learned a lot. We’ve scattered the army, broken it into small outposts at key points throughout the country. For quite a while, we stopped travel altogether except for absolute emergencies, and then with elaborate precautions. That smothered the epidemics. The microorganisms were bred to work in crowded areas, you know. They were almost immune to known medical techniques, but without hosts and carriers they died. I guess natural bacteria ate up most of them. We still take care in traveling, but we’re fairly safe now.”

  “Did any of the others come back? There were a lot like me, sent out to see what really had happened to the world.”

  “One did, from South America. Their situation is similar to ours, though they lacked our tight organization and have gone further toward anarchy. Nobody else returned but you.”

  It wasn’t surprising. In fact, it was a cause for astonishment that anyone had come back. Drummond had volunteered after the bomb erasing St. Louis had taken his family, not expecting to survive and not caring much whether he did. Maybe that was why he had.