The Non-Statistical Man Read online

  He was immense and his eyes were almost hidden in the great roundness of his face. A dead cigar projected from between his fingers. The office was business-like, far removed from the glory that was visible from the apartment windows.

  “Sit down, John,” Dr. Wamock said.

  A second surprise lay in his voice, which was soft and kindly, and John found himself hastily changing his first estimates.

  “Have you ever done anything useful in your life?” said Wamock suddenly.

  John hesitated, flushing. “I—I don’t know—”

  “That’s good enough. I don’t know if I have, either.

  Some people have the most fantastic views of their own accomplishments. I wondered about you.

  “We were all pleased to learn you were coming. Papa Sosnic especially. He wants to hear you; hell be around this afternoon.”

  “Papa Sosnic?”

  “The dean of the group; claims to be the first member. He’s almost ninety years old. He’s looking for the Great Musician and the Great Music before he dies. He claims the colonies are sterile and have never produced any. But you’ll hear all of that from his own lips. Tell me about your music.”

  John shrugged. “It has been a living.”

  “Is that all? Don’t you like your music?”

  He smiled wanly and told Wamock about his childhood with Doris, who had a dream for them both. He told how she had beat him into submission and forced him to endless practice when he was little.

  “And so you hate your music,” said Wamock.

  “No.” John shook his head. “That’s the strange part of it. I should, but I don’t.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s hard to say. I’ve never tried to tell anyone, especially Doris; she would never understand why I go on playing.”

  “Can you tell me?” said Wamock.

  John found himself doing that, without understanding why. Wamock seemed to him as vast in comprehension as in physical body, and John’s feelings spilled.

  “The writers, the poets, and the artists have all been men,” he said. “The great ones, that is. A woman can’t be a great artist. But I could never tell Doris that. It’s a man’s way of crying and laughing, and saying that the world is a good and happy place; that’s why he makes music and writes books and paints pictures.

  “A woman doesn’t have to do that; she can’t. She has a thousand other ways. But a man is supposed to be a mute dumb animal who never thinks of these things. Some of us stumble onto the acceptable way of saying what we have inside.”

  “Your sister,” said Wamock, “why do you suppose she plays?”

  John shook his head and smiled. “She doesn’t understand music. She plays through her head—not her heart.”

  “She takes the lead in all your work. Why do you let her do that?”

  “I don’t know. She wouldn’t understand if I tried to tell her how I want to play; I guess I’m afraid that no one else would understand either.”

  “I think Papa Sosnic will understand,” said Wamock. He arose suddenly and extended a hand. “He will be around to see you and your housing-assignments are being made. We will let you know.”

  John felt guilty as He walked back to the apartment. He had said things that should not have been said; he had no right to speak of Doris as he had. But his regret faded before the recurring thought of Lora.

  He had almost burst out his problem to Wamock, so strongly had the director invited confidence. But he felt relief now that he had not. Wamock had received Bronson’s report of the incident, of course; but if he chose to ignore it, John could do no better.

  But it left him no one at all to speak with about Lora, and in this there was panic and loneliness. From the apartment window he contrasted the Elysian peace of the landscape with the hateful jungle beyond the dome. He had to get Lora out of there, and he had no idea how it might be done.

  Doris was out. Papa Sosnic came in the afternoon. He knocked once, birdlike, and entered without waiting for John to open the door.

  White-haired and white-bearded, he was a wispy little man as old as an elf. The skin of his hands was like webbing. There was a squeakiness in his voice, but it still held a patriarchal authority.

  He introduced himself. “I want to hear you play. I want to know if you are a musician, or just another babbler.”

  John smiled in friendly regard for the bustling little old man. “You’ve heard my records,” he said. “You know how I play.”

  “But I know nothing,” said Sosnic. “How much of a man’s soul can be put on plastic? And besides, all I’ve heard has been with your sister taking the lead. A wee, timid little boy walking in the shadows where the sun won’t scorch and the rain won’t wet. Sit down and let me hear you play.”

  All at once John found himself trembling, ever so slightly, as if a great secret had been found out and he had no place in which to hide.

  Then he sat at the keyboard and his fear was gone. He felt in the presence of a friend with whom he could talk as he had never talked before. He began playing softly, a Beethoven Sonata. But after a dozen measures Papa Sosnic threw up his hands.

  He almost screeched. “Play! Doris is not here now. Play the music.”

  John began again. He held nothing back; he did not play as if Doris were there with her cold, intellectual timing, criticizing his every stroke. He altered the timing, and modulated his touch so that the music no longer drew a diagram with mathematical precision.

  It painted a picture now, and told a story. And somehow it became the story of Lora. He sketched the fine sweet lines of her profile as he had seen her in the dim light of the engineer’s catwalk.

  He told Papa Sosnic all about it with his music. He told him what it meant to be lonely and what it meant to find an end to loneliness, if only for a moment.

  When he was through, there were tears in the old man’s eyes. He sat down and clapped John on the shoulders and kissed him on the cheek.

  “You can play, John,” he exclaimed. “You can play.”

  They sat at die piano until it grew dark outside. And then, because he could keep it within him no longer, John told Papa Sosnic the real story of Lora, how they had met aboard the ship and separated again without hope of ever seeing each other again.

  The old man groaned. “You mean you let her go?” he said. “That you have done absolutely nothing?”

  “What could I do? I haven’t given up. I’ll find a way to make them send us back to Earth. But that seems so far away now and so completely hopeless.”

  “Why did you let her get away? You could have gone with her. Didn’t you know that? You could have changed your membership from experimental to Control-colony. That’s always the privilege of any who get tired of conditions here; didn’t they tell you?”

  John nodded through a numbing haze. “I guess they did,” he said slowly. “I guess it was somewhere in the contract. But you can’t mean that we should have given up and both lived in primitive savagery the rest of our lives! That’s ridiculous!”

  Ah,” said Papa Sosnic, “is love ridiculous? And is there anything else that matters? Even your music—that would not matter because it would be with you always in your heart.”

  “No,” whispered John. “It wouldn’t work; it would never work. It would destroy us both.”

  So far to go,” murmured Papa Sosnic sadly. “You have so far to go, Johnny, before you get out of the shadow. Play for me again, Johnny; let me hear you play again.”

  6

  John and Doris selected living-quarters near Papa Sosnic’s apartment, from the possible assignments offered them. Doris liked the old musician immediately, and John was pleased. Somehow it seemed very important that she should like him.

  John’s quarters were a green-and-gold luxury, in which he was served with robotic precision. Gadgetry in profusion that he had never imagined served his every need. Meal panels served his every taste whim. Silently, and during his absence the place was kept in order and his c
lothing refreshed. He never saw a single human servant.

  It was something of a novelty at first, but it became breathtaking after a few days to realize that this was his for the rest of his life. It was like going to the carnival every day.

  He tried to work; he tried to think; he tried to fight his own emotions and plan their solution. And he tried to smother any consideration of the terrible answer that Papa Sosnic had proposed.

  To accept that proposal would be to abandon hope forever. The Colonies existed for the fine, high purpose of developing a Man who could survive his own ingenuity. John liked to think that he was beginning to sense that purpose. But the Controls were no more than mere animal standards, by which to measure the progress of Man.

  They were necessary to the experiment, perhaps, but there was no escaping the fact that no single Control could think of himself as anything but a blind and obedient sacrifice—his life an utter waste with respect to creation and fulfillment.

  He would accuse himself every day of his life, John thought, if he gave up in order to live with Lora in the jungle, only to watch her dwindle and fade, to watch that light in her eyes die away.

  Through the years of incessant struggle against the wet and the mold and the night-terrors their love would diminish; it would be replaced by indifference and then by hate. He would rather never see her again than experience that.

  He had time now for composition, which had been denied him almost completely by the rigorous concert-schedules on Earth. With whirlwind energy he hovered over the keyboard and writing table, but his mind never forgot the problem of escape. He studied the colony, the administration of it, the schedule of incomings and outgoings. And at last he knew what he could do.

  His first composition left him exhausted emotionally and physically. In it he said some of the things he had yearned all his life to say, and now he didn’t know whether he had said them or merely made a fool of himself.

  He invited Papa Sosnic over to hear the work when it was finished. The old man was delighted. “I hadn’t supposed you would finish anything so quickly,” he said. ‘‘Perhaps it will do for the Fall concert. Let me hear the piece, Johnny.”

  It was dusk again, but he scarcely needed to see the keyboard. His hands moved as if with them he was saying what he had wanted to say all his life.

  He started with somber tones of bewilderment and loss. Then the music grew wild with fear and shot through with terror. Suddenly, in the midst of it he felt a thrust of panic. He knew it was bad; he stopped, his hands collapsed on his thighs.

  Out of the darkness the voice of Papa Sosnic came softly. “Go on, Johnny—”

  After a moment he raised his hands wearily and picked up the music where he had stopped. He went on with a tie of awesome creation. He told of being alive and aware of space and time and planets and suns and of cold and of darkness. He told what it was like to be lonely and what it was like to be glad.

  When he finished, he heard no sound at all from the other side of the room. Then there was an abrupt rustling beside him and the figure of Papa Sosnic was sitting beside him on the piano seat.

  “It will do, Johnny,” he whispered. “I think it will go very well at our concert. I will schedule it, if I may.”

  John shook his head. “I don’t think so. It’s pretty bad, isn’t it?”

  “It’s what’s in. your heart, Johnny; and the heart of a man is never bad.”

  John got up suddenly and stood at the window, watching the mock twilight, with his back to Papa Sosnic. “Good or bad, I can’t do any more like that. It has kept me from going crazy the last month, but I won’t be here for the Fall concert.”

  “Where will you be? Are you going to Lora?”

  “Can I trust you? Will you help me?”

  “Of course. If it is to see Lora, there is nothing in the world too much to ask. Music is a trifle; Human Developments Project is a puff in the wind compared with the affairs of a man in love. What is it you plan, Johnny’”

  “I’m going back to Earth. I’ve got it figured out how to get back on the ship next time it’s in dock. I know it well enough so that I can stow away during the trip. They’ll never find me until it’s too late to turn back anyway.

  “I’ve watched the schedule of busses to the terminal. I can get through the gates during the night opening, and I ought to be able to make it on foot to the spaceport in a day at most. But there is one thing I’ll need and that is your help in making an alibi for the following days here, until the ship is well on its way.”

  Papa Sosnic nodded. “Of course; I could say that you had gone into the forest to live alone in one of the huts to do some work. That is common, and would not be noticed—if I could keep Doris from guessing. You will not tell her?

  “No. I’ll count on you to keep her from knowing. She seems so busy, anyway, that I don’t think she’ll notice.” “And what will you do when you are on Earth?” said Papa Sosnic. “How will that put you closer to Lora?”

  “I’ll tell them what Human Developments Project is like. I’ll tell them of the imprisonment and slavery of those who do not bow to the whims of the Project’s managers. I’ll tell the whole world a story it cannot ignore.”

  “Slavery?” Papa Sosnic turned his hands upward in a gesture of inquiry. “I see no slavery here. Earth was never so good as this.”

  “It’s slavery when you can’t do as you wish—but there’s no use arguing that term. I’ll tell them what I know!”

  “Yes,” sighed Papa Sosnic. “You’ll tell them; you’ll spend months and years hammering on official doors with wild accusations that will never get you a hearing. Your life and energy will dwindle away. You will be upon Earth, and Lora will be here. Perhaps when you are both dried husks, with youth and beauty gone, they will let you see each other again. Perhaps.”

  John slumped before the shattering logic of the old man. “And so you would have me become a savage, too, and have Lora and I regard each other daily with increasing bitterness while we fight the jungle merely to stay alive.” “There is one other answer,” said Papa Sosnic, slowly. “I have not suggested it because it is such a slim hope. But I would have you try it before taking this wild, stowaway flight to Earth.”

  “What is it?” demanded John.

  “Was Lora tested for the various Colony qualifications?” “I don’t know. She said she volunteered as a Control.” “Then it might just be possible that she could pass the tests for Alpha Colony. If she could, it would be permissible for her to re-apply and she would probably be admitted—i/ she could pass.”

  “She would never do it. For some crazy reason, she hates the thought of the experimental Colonies. The only answer for us is something in between. And the only place to find it is on Earth.”

  “She has been in the jungle for a month now. Perhaps she has changed her mind; perhaps it is not so romantic as she thought.”

  John turned sharply, decision in his voice. “What can I do?”

  “She could be brought here for a period of visiting, and she could be given the examination. It’s worth trying.” “Yes—yes, it’s worth trying.”

  John approached Dr. Wamock early the next morning. He laid before the director the entire story, holding back only his own desperate plan to return to Earth—which he still intended to keep as a final resort.

  When he was through, Warnock glanced up and smiled crookedly. “And Papa Sosnic told you this would be possible, this bringing Lora here to visit and inspect Alpha Colony to see if she liked it well enough to stay?”

  “Provided she could pass the tests. And I’m sure she can do that!”

  “I sometimes wonder who runs this colony—me or Papa Sosnic,” said Warnock.

  John felt a cold shock traveling slowly upwards from his feet. He realized then that what Papa Sosnic had said could be done was true only in the old man’s own opinion.

  “It has never been done before,” said Wamock, confirming John’s sudden fear. “To do so now would come close to sh
attering the whole plan of the Colony. You don’t understand, and neither does Papa Sosnic, that it must be kept in isolation.”

  “Imprisonment,” whispered John, “that’s the word you mean.”

  Wamock smiled a little sadly. “It is quite difficult to put over, to you who come here, the basic reasoning behind our experiments. The moment a man becomes a member of our Colonies it is almost impossible to keep him from adopting a sort of persecution-complex; he develops a prisoner’s psychology.”

  “Perhaps that is more than a trivial comment on the methods of your experiments.”

  “We have rules, yes—but we also realize we are dealing with human beings. I suppose you think I am going to turn down your request. Well, you are wrong. I am going to let Lora come here—if she will, of course; the decision must be hers.

  “I am aware of your potentiality as a productive member of the Colony. We already have a dossier on you an inch thick. We want to know what a man like you can do for the future of mankind when given the freedom to develop all that is in him.”

  “Freedom!”

  Wamock nodded slowly. “You haven’t understood, John. There is freedom here on Planet 7; all you have to do is reach out and take it.”

  “But you said the kind of thing I have asked has never been done before.”

  “It has never been requested.”

  John suddenly relaxed and slumped in the chair and laughed uncontrollably, in spite of the conviction that he felt more like crying. “What is the matter?” Wamock demanded.

  John told him then about the wild plan to stow away aboard the starship and return to Earth to conduct a campaign against the Project.

  “You couldn’t have gone without our knowing,” said Wamock, “but we wouldn’t have stopped you. You would never have seen Lora again.”

  “Did Papa Sosnic know this?”

  “Papa knows a great many things which we wonder about. Yes, I think he probably understood this very well. He knew how it would be; Papa Sosnic has done you a great service.”