Gridlock and Other Stories Part 11

I pointed back in the corner where the rest rooms are located.

He inched his way off his stool and steadied himself against the bar before staggering in the indicated direction. I bit my lip. What if R. J. Cowen, the richest man in the world, slipped and knocked his brains out against the urinal? I wondered how many lawyers he kept on retainer for just such an eventuality.

I breathed more easily when he reappeared after five minutes. This time he walked with the air of someone who is trying to appear sober. You know the too-too-careful walk. I had a bad premonition that he had just been sick all over my nice clean rest room.

"Doing better?" I asked when he had hoisted himself back onto a stool.

"Better, Joe. Thanks. What have you got back there that's fit to drink?"

"I think you've had enough, Mr. Cowen," I said, expecting him to explode. He obviously was not the type of man used to having people tell him no. However, he didn't. He just sat there and nodded sagely.

"I think you're right, Joe. I just want one to calm my nerves before my chauffeur arrives with the car. Called him from the screen in the hall outside the john. Besides, you want to hear the end of the story, don't you?'

"You mean there's more?"

"There's more," he said, nodding. "Now what have you got?"

"The owner keeps a bottle of forty year old brandy in the safe. He bought it for an investment, but says he'd open it if the right special occasion came along."

"I'm about to finish telling you the rather unique story of my life and that brandy will be the last liquor I ever drink. How much more special can an occasion get?"

"I don't know," I said, dubious. "Stuff's pretty expensive."

Cowen laughed aloud at that. After a few seconds, I had to join in. Considering whom I was talking to, it was pretty funny. I fetched the brandy from the back room and made a ceremony of opening it.

Then I poured him half a beer gla.s.s -- the El Dorado not being that high cla.s.s a bar, we do not stock brandy snifters -- and set one up for me."On with the story," I said.

"On with the story," he agreed, not touching the drink. His eyes got all misty and he continued talking in a quiet authoritative voice that was somehow different from his earlier speech pattern. Before he had just been a drunken b.u.m in expensive clothes. Now he seemed to have gotten some of the steel back into him. He looked more like the captain of industry he really was.

"Not much of interest happened to me for the next thirty years," he said. "Not until about three weeks ago, in fact."

I held my silence. In the last thirty years R. J. Cowen had been married and divorced four times, had half his stomach removed, developed chronically high blood pressure, and had his eldest son killed in a traffic accident. Another child -- a daughter, I think -- had joined a Provincialist commune somewhere in Alaska. Also, in that time his fortune had doubled, tripled, and doubled again. However, if he considered none of that to be of interest, then who was I to argue?

"What happened three weeks ago?" I asked.

"I was lying in bed with a throbbing headache. It was midnight and I lay in the dark, staring up at the ceiling, trying to drift off to sleep. I was just about to succeed after counting my thousandth sheep when a strangely familiar feeling came over me.

"At first I couldn't identify it. It was like seeing red and suffering from double vision at the same time. Except it was not only my eyes. It was as if my whole body had suddenly twinned. I could feel the cool night breeze on my skin at the same time as I seemed to be submerged in tepid water. I could hear the hoot of an old horned owl that lives out back, and yet there was a strange silence in my mind.

My mouth tasted of bile. Yet, somehow, I could taste the metallic bite of sulfur too. My thoughts took on a curiously echoic quality, like a telephone line that is not properly damped at the other end. "In spite of the strangeness of it all, I couldn't shake the feeling that this had happened to me before.

"Then it hit me," he said, his voice dropping to a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "It was Thing. He was back."

'What'd you do?"

"Do? I screamed 'Thing'at the top of my lungs -- both mentally and actually. He did not seem to hear me, which was strange. How was it that I could read him and he could not read me? He was the trained telepath, not I."

"Didn't he say you were a strong natural telepath?" I asked.

Cowen nodded. "I finally decided that was it. I have had these hunches all my life. Some people would call them intuition. Maybe that is my talent showing through. Anyway, whatever the reason, I found myself with a direct circuit to Thing's mind. It must have been his subconscious because I could hear what he heard, see what he saw, and he did not seem to notice me. Not that it was very clear, you understand. Mostly I felt sad at something. Only I could not quite figure out what I had to be sad about. I spent the rest of the night trying to contact him.

"By dawn I was exhausted and still hadn't had any luck. He was oblivious to my presence.

However, the effort had not been wasted. My link was stronger than ever. I could feel him tugging at me from somewhere to the west. So, I hopped out of bed at first light and fired up my private plane. If I couldn't get him to come to me, I decided I would go to him."

I chuckled. Cowen's private plane is a converted VTOL airliner that he keeps hangered on hisestate. Every time he revs up those lift fans, you can hear teeth gnas.h.i.+ng all over Williamsport, especially around dawn. However, Cowen owns this burg, and n.o.body complains too loudly about the noise if it is his or her landlord making it.

"How'd you find him?"

"I followed the mind touch," Cowen said. "I really can't explain it. It was like having a compa.s.s in my head. I would instantly recognize when I drifted off course. Eventually, I found myself headed for the Rockies. It was then that I knew where I was going."

"Where?"

"As I flew over Kansas I got a brief flash of Thing's surroundings. I recognized the clearing where the saucer had landed to rescue him. I had been there enough times to recognize it, even after thirty years.

"I landed the plane about a quarter mile away in another, bigger clearing. Thing must have heard me because I felt his questing thought as I was hovering for a landing.

"--Robert! --" Thing said as he recognized Cowen's mind touch.

"h.e.l.lo, Thing," Cowen said. "Didn't you hear me calling?"

("He was surprised, Joe. He had not heard me until I was practically on top of him. It was his mind. It was not as fast as it had been. His thoughts were not as sharp either. He was old, Joe. Time had aged him.") "You're an old man now, Thing," Cowen said as he hiked toward the clearing where the alien sat.

"--Yes, Robert, I am old and nearly past the time when I can be of use to my race. I perceive that you too have aged since last we met. --"

"Why did you come back, Thing?"

"--I am on a pilgrimage. This was the scene of my first great triumph. I have returned to see the effect of my efforts, and perhaps to beg your forgiveness. --"

"Forgiveness, Thing?" Cowen redoubled his speed toward the clearing. Soon he was trotting among tall pines, panting from the unaccustomed exertion and alt.i.tude. "Forgiveness for what?"

"--For our terrible ruse. --"

At that moment, Cowen burst into the clearing. There, sitting quietly on a log facing him was a familiar figure. The oily black hair was the same, but the purple skin had a distinct greenish tinge to it.

The figure was stooped. All effects of age, Cowen knew without knowing how he knew. The red eyes gazed at him, unblinking as always.

"--h.e.l.lo, Robert. It is nice to see you again. --"

"h.e.l.lo, Thing. What ruse?"

"-- Why the sunscreen, of course. --"

"I don't understand.""-- It is simple. My race has long dominated this arm of the galaxy. We have done so by denying access to the stars for any race we feel we cannot control. It was decided thirty years ago that humans are such a race. I was the agent a.s.signed to lock you in your cage. That was my mission here. --"

"Locked into our cage?" Cowen asked, "How did you do that?"

"-- By giving you the sunscreen. --"

"That's silly, Thing. The sunscreen was my idea. It was the answer to all of humanity's prayers."

"-- Can you truly say that something was your idea when your mind was under my control at the time? --"

"Okay, so maybe you planted the idea there. It was still the best thing to happen to us in the last thousand years."

"--No, it was not," Thing said, sitting quietly and gazing into Cowen's eyes. "You have been tricked. I find that as I grow older and wiser, I have come to regret my part in the affair. I suppose you might say that I have developed a conscience. --"

"But it has been good!" Cowen insisted. "All the benefits you predicted have come true, and more.

We have taken the miracle of fire and placed it in the hands of the common man. There has not been an electric bill paid in the United States in twenty years. The sunscreen has given us economic independence."

"--How is your s.p.a.ce program, Robert? It was quite a booming thing when last I was here. --"

"It's booming bigger than ever, Thing. We have ion drive s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps powered by huge sunscreen sails dozens of kilometers on a side. They routinely travel to the scientific outposts on the Jovian moons.

That is something no mere rocket could ever do. The radiation s.h.i.+elding to protect the instruments and crew from Jupiter's radiation belts alone ma.s.ses enough that a rocket couldn't get it out of orbit."

"--Have your s.h.i.+ps gone farther out than Jupiter?" Thing asked.

"They launched the Ura.n.u.s expedition two years ago. That's about it. We are concentrating on the inner planets at the moment. Besides..."

"--Besides, your existing designs are inefficient at that range from the sun because of power limitations. You are marking time until you can design s.h.i.+ps with larger collector sails to operate in the outer solar system. True? --"

"True," Cowen answered. "How did you know that?"

"--Because that is the nature of the great ruse. In your own idiom, you were suckers. You were concerned about the shortcomings of your existing energy supplies. You perceived coal as being too dirty, nuclear power as being too dangerous, and oil as being too expensive. What you needed was a source of energy that is clean, safe, cheap and inexhaustible. In effect, Robert, you told me your fondest wish and I made it come true.--"

'So?" Cowen asked.

"--So in spite of all their shortcomings, your traditional power sources have evolved along a path of which you are painfully ignorant. Your whole history has been one of developing energy sources of ever-greater density and efficiency. Each time a breakthrough was made, it was in the direction ofpacking more kilowatts into each cubic meter. -- "--Left to itself that process would have continued to its inevitable conclusion. Animals gave way to steam; first wood fired, later coal and oil fired. Fission was in the process of supplanting the fossil fuels, and fusion would have followed fission. Finally, at the end of the chain you would have developed total ma.s.s-energy conversion and won free to the stars. --"

"I don't understand."

"--A hyperwave generator gulps many billions of ergs in order to warp s.p.a.ce around a stars.h.i.+p. It must be powered by a miniature sun. What we have done, Robert, is divert you from the path that culminates in the development of that tiny captive star. Instead, we have sidetracked you into the low-density dead end of solar energy. -- "--Getting power for your industry is simple. If you need more, just unroll a few more acres of sunscreen. However, the solar flux is a constant at any given distance from the sun. That is easy to forget unless you are designing a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p to explore Pluto. Once you have collected the energy that falls on a given area, there is not any more to harvest. --"

"So we just roll out more sunscreen," Cowen said with more optimism than he felt.

Thing sat there for a moment, his red eyes cast down at the ground beneath his feet. "--You quickly reach the point of diminis.h.i.+ng returns in s.p.a.ce. The extra energy collected is not sufficient to offset the extra ma.s.s of the collector. --"

"So, we use sunscreens on Earth and develop mobile sources of power for s.p.a.ce."

"--No, Robert. You will not be able to interest anyone else in such a plan. The sunscreen is too cheap, too easy. Why would anyone invest in a new power source when you now have all the power you could ever want at one-millionth the cost? Face it, Robert. We have chained you to a single star and here you will remain. One day humanity will destroy itself, and the problem that you represent will be solved. --"

Cowen sat quietly, not sure what to say. Finally, he spoke. "And you did this to us, Thing?"

A great sadness flowed over him as Thing considered his answer. "--Alas, old friend, I did. I was young and ... you might say idealistic, I suppose. I was much filled with the greatness of my race and our rightful place as masters of the galaxy. I have seen much since that time. I have come to regret my actions, but as I told you so many years ago, I cannot change that which has already taken place."

"Of course you can," Cowen said.

"--No, my s.h.i.+p will return for me shortly after dark. I go home with it, to live out my last days with my guilt. I fear my remaining years will not be many, for it weighs heavily on me. --"

"That was the last word he said to me, Joe," Cowen said, tears once more in his eyes. "We sat in silence all day, just feeling each other's presence, remembering a time when we were both much younger. The saucer came shortly after dark as he said it would, and he was gone."

For some reason, I found I had tears in my own eyes. Must have been something in the air. I wiped them clean as un.o.btrusively as I could. "Jeez, Mr. Cowen, you sure know how to end a story on the downbeat."

"Why do you think I've been on a three week bender, Joe? I have mortgaged the human race'sfuture. Thing was right. With the perfect energy source already in hand, who is going to invest in some other technology? Look at the government. They have spent their entire energy research budget for twenty-five years perfecting ever better storage devices to smooth out the day/night cycle of sunscreen power production. The world runs on sunscreen produced electricity or cryogenic hydrogen electrolyzed from sea water by that same sunscreen produced electricity."

"Maybe you could convince them, Mr. Cowen. Tell them the story like you told it to me."

He got a little smile on his face. He looked happier than at any time since he came in the place. He glanced down and seemed to see the brandy for the first time in about fifteen minutes. He picked up the brandy, holding it up for a toast. I picked mine up as well.

"To the human race, Joe," he said. "We're not licked yet!"

"Right!" I said, letting the forty-year-old brandy slide smoothly across my palate.

There was the crash of two gla.s.ses. .h.i.tting the floor, just like in the movies.

The mood was quickly interrupted by the arrival of a big, black turbo limousine out front. Cowen looked at it through the grimy front window and sighed. "Looks like it's back to the old grindstone, Joe.

How much do I owe you?"

I hit the total b.u.t.ton on the computer and his bill for the regular drinks flashed on the screen. I hesitated about the brandy. Finally, I decided to charge him $2000 for the bottle. He did not even bat an eye, just peeled off three bills and handed them to me. I gave him his change, which he slipped into the right hand pocket of his jacket. Then he reached into his wallet, and extracted a tenner note. He handed it across the bar to me.

"This is for you, Joe," he said. "For being such a good listener."

I dropped my hands to my sides and shook my head slowly. "No thanks, Mr. Cowen. It is not that I couldn't use ten thousand, because I could. That is more than I make tending bar in a couple of months. However, if I took that tip I would just be your bartender again. I would rather think of myself as your friend. If you do not mind, that is.

He nodded and put the bill back into his wallet. "I understand, Joe. And thanks. I could use a friend." He turned to leave and got halfway to the door before turning back. "I do leave a tip for you, though. A friend's tip."

"Friend's tip?"

"Hot insider news about the stock market. You do play the market don't you?"

"Sure," I said. "Doesn't everybody?"

"It's not common knowledge yet, Joe. In fact, I just made up my mind in your john back there.

Sunscreen Labs is going to start a crash program to develop both a total ma.s.s-energy converter and a stars.h.i.+p hyperwave generator come Monday morning. Thing forgot something. When I was rummaging around in his mind, I picked up a h.e.l.luva lot of miscellaneous facts. One of them might be just the clue we need. And you can bet your last dollar on one thing, Joe."

"What's that, Mr. Cowen?"

"Sunscreen Labs will be a lot more efficient at finding the answer than the government would. Wewill make the Manhattan Project and the Apollo Project look like they were run by anarchists. After all, I know where I am going and I am anxious to get there. I want to get out among the stars while both Thing and I are still alive. I want to see the expression on his face when he discovers how I've outsmarted him."

"Right you are, Mr. Cowen."

And right he was!