“Thanks, John,” said Max.
Was it wrong? he wondered. Was it too much of a chance?
Perhaps he didn’t have the right to take any chance at all.
But you couldn’t sit forever, simply fending off the Punks. For if that was all you did, they’d keep on coming back. But hit back hard at them and they might get a belly full. You might end it once for all. The trouble was, he thought, you could strike back so seldom. You could never act except defensively, for if you took any other kind of action, the police were down on you like a ton of bricks.
He licked his lips.
It was seldom one had a chance like this—a chance to strike back lustily and still be legally defensive.
IV
He got up quickly and walked to the rear of the basement, where he found the heavy flexible mesh. He carried out three rolls of it and a loop of heavy wire to hang it on. He’d have to use some trees to stretch out the wire. He really should use some padding to protect the trees against abrasion by the wire, but he didn’t have the time.
Working swiftly, he strung the wire, hung the mesh upon it, pegged the bottom of the mesh tight against the ground, tied the ends of it in with the auxiliary fence.
He was waiting at the gates when the truck pulled up. He used the control box to open the gates and the truck came through. Hennessey got out.
“Outside is swarming with Punks,” he told Max. “What is going on?”
“I got troubles,” said Max.
Hennessey went around to the back of the truck and lowered the tail gate. Three large boxes, with mesh inserts, rested on the truck bed.
“They’re in there?” asked Max.
Hennessey nodded. “I’ll give you a hand with them.”
Between them they lugged the boxes to the mesh curtain, rigged behind the oak.
“I left one place unpegged,” said Max. “We can push the boxes under.”
“I’ll unlock the lids first,” said Hennessey. “We can reach through with the pole and lift the lids if they are unlocked. Then use the pole again to tip the boxes over.”
They slid the boxes underneath the curtain, one by one. Hennessey went back to the truck to get the pole. Max pegged down the gap.
“Can you give me a bit of light?” asked Hennessey. “I know the Punks are waiting out there. But probably they’d not notice just a squirt of it. They might think you were making just a regular inspection of the grounds.”
Max flashed the light and Hennessey, working with the pole thrust through the mesh, flipped back the lids. Carefully, he tipped the boxes over. A dry slithering and frantic threshing sounds came out of the dark.
“They’ll be nasty customers,” said Hennessey. “They’ll be stirred up and angry. They’ll do a lot of circulating, trying to get settled for the night and that way, they’ll get spread out. Most of them are big ones. Not many of the small kinds.”
He put the pole over his shoulder and the two walked back to the truck.
Max put out his hand and the two men shook.
“Thanks a lot, John.”
“Glad to do it, Max. Common cause, you know. Wish I could stay around …”
“You have a place of your own to watch.”
They shook hands once again and Hennessey climbed into the cab.
“You better make it fast the first mile or so,” said Max. “Our Punks may be laying for you. They might have recognized you.”
“With the bumpers and the power I have,” said Hennessey, “I can get through anything.”
“And watch out for the cops. They’d raise hell if they knew we were helping back and forth.”
“I’ll keep an eye for them.”
Max opened the gates and the truck backed out, straightened in the road and swiftly shot ahead.
Max listened until it was out of hearing, then checked to see that the gates were locked.
Back in the basement he threw the switch that fed current into the auxiliary fence—and now into the mesh as well.
He sighed with some contentment and climbed the stairs out to the yard.
A sudden flash of light lit up the grounds. He spun swiftly around, then cursed softly at himself. It was only a bird hitting the fence in flight. It happened all the time. He was getting jittery and there was no need of it. Everything was under control—reasonably so.
He climbed a piece of sloping ground and stood behind the oak. Staring into the darkness, it seemed to him that he could see shadowy forms out beyond the fence.
They were gathering out there and they would come swarming in as soon as the tree went down, smashing the fences. Undoubtedly they planned to use the tree as a bridge over the surging current that still would flow in the smashed-down fence.
Maybe it was taking too much of a chance, he thought. Maybe he should have used the guy-wires on the tree. That way there would have been no chance at all. But, likewise, there would have been no opportunity.
They might get through, he thought, but he’d almost bet against it.
He stood there, listening to the angry rustling of a hundred rattlesnakes, touchy and confused, in the area beyond the mesh.
The sound was a most satisfying thing.
He moved away, to be out of the line of blast when the bomb exploded, and waited for the day of truce to end.
Unsilent Spring
Clifford D. Simak and Richard S. Simak
Originally published in 1976 in the anthology Stellar Science Fiction Stories 2, which was edited by Judy-Lynn del Rey, this is one of only two published stories in which Clifford Simak worked with a coauthor. This time, his coauthor was his son, a chemist who at one time worked for the U.S. government. The title of the story is, of course, a reference to Silent Spring, Rachel Carson’s well-known book that controversially warned about environmental pollution and disinformation campaigns allegedly spread by certain industries, and ultimately led to the banning of the pesticide known as DDT (although Carson never actually called for that action), and the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
—dww
1
Robert Abbott was a well-known man, so Dr. Arthur Benton had saved two hours for him in the middle of an afternoon of an ordinarily busy day. When Abbott had phoned ten days before, he had insisted that his visit was important.
Benton, watching the clock as the hour approached and trying to hurry Abby Clawson, who regarded a visit to a doctor’s office as a social occasion, wondered once again what could be so important as to bring Abbott to this little Pennsylvania town. Abbott was a medical writer with two best sellers to his credit, one a book on cancer and the other an expose of faddy dieting. The doctors he consulted were important people, eminent medical researchers or lofty specialists; and Benton knew, with a twinge of honest envy, he was neither eminent nor lofty. He was just an old fuddy-duddy country doctor—a pusher of pills, a dispenser of liniments and salves, a setter of broken legs and arms, a wrapper-on of bandages, a deliverer of babies—who never had written a learned paper, conducted a research program, or been involved in medical studies, and who never would. He had not, in more than thirty years, done a single thing or uttered a single word that could be of the slightest interest to a man like Robert Abbott.
He had been wondering ever since the phone call why in the world Abbott should want to talk with him; and over the past few days he had evolved an elaborate theory that there were two Dr. Arthur Bentons and Abbott had confused him with the other Benton. He had been so haunted by the idea that he had looked through a medical directory in search of the other Arthur Benton. Although he had not found him, the idea still clung to his mind, for it seemed the only explanation.
He found himself glad that the hour of Abbott’s visit had arrived, for once he knew what it was all about—if indeed Abbott really wanted him—he could quit his worrying and get down
to business. The worry and the wonderment, he knew, had interfered with business—like that matter of Ted Brown’s symptoms that had shouted diabetes but had turned out finally not to be diabetes. That had been damned embarrassing, even though Ted, an old and valued friend, had been nice about it. Nice, perhaps, because he was so relieved he was not diabetic.
That was the trouble, he told himself, sitting behind his desk and listening with only half an ear to Abby’s departing chatter: all his patients were old and valued friends. He could no longer be objective; he bled for all of them. They came in, sick to death, and looked at him with trusting eyes because they knew in their secret hearts that good old Doc could help them. And when he couldn’t help them, when there was no one on God’s green earth who could help them, they died, forgiving him with the trust still in their eyes. That was the hell of family practice, that was the torture of being a country doctor in a little town—holding the trust of people who had no reason to trust you.
“I’ll be coming in again,” Abby said. “I been coming here for years and you always help me. I tell all my friends that I am lucky in my doctor.”
“That’s kind of you to say.”
If they were all like Abby, it wouldn’t be so bad. For with her, there was nothing wrong at all. She was a tough old woman who would outlive them all. The only thing wrong with her was a tendency to secrete an enormous amount of ear wax which required occasional irrigation. But the evident fact of sound, good health did not in the least deter the imaginary ills which brought her regularly to the office.
Rising to open the door for her, Benton wondered what she got from her regular visits, and thought he knew: fuel for conversation with her friends at the bridge table or with her neighbors across the backyard fence.
“Now you take care of yourself,” he told her, putting into his voice a medical concern for which there was no need.
“I always do,” she chirped in her bird-like old woman’s voice. “If there’s anything wrong, I’ll come straight to you.”
“Doctor,” said Nurse Amy, hastening to guide Abby out, “Mr. Abbott has been waiting for you.”
“Please send him in,” said Benton.
Abbott was younger than Benton had expected him to be and not half as handsome. He was, in fact, a rather ugly-looking man—which explained, Benton thought, why the dust jackets of his books had not flaunted his photograph.
“I’ve looked forward to meeting you,” Benton said, “and I don’t mind telling you I’ve done some wondering at what brought you here. Surely there are other men.”
“Very few,” said Abbott, “like Dr. Arthur Benton. Surely you are aware that you are one of a dying breed. Not many medical men today are willing to devote their lives to a small community such as this.”
“I’ve not regretted it,” Benton replied. “The folks are good to me.”
He waved Abbott to a chair and pulled another for himself from against the wall, not going back behind his desk.
“When I phoned you,” Abbott said, “I couldn’t very well explain. This is something that calls for face-to-face talk. Over the phone what I have to say would have made no sense at all. And I’m anxious that you understand what I am getting at because I’ll be seeking your cooperation.”
“Certainly. If I can help, I will.”
“I came here for several reasons,” Abbott explained. “You’re in family practice and must work with a broad spectrum of the population. You must deal with a variety of illnesses and disabilities, unlike the specialist, who sees only certain cases and usually only those patients who can afford his fees. One other matter—at one time you were in epidemiology. And then there is a matter of geography, as well.”
Benton smiled. “You have done a good workup on me. For several years, early on, I was an epidemiologist with the National Health people. But I came to realize the field was all too theoretical for me. I wanted to work with individuals.”
“You came to the right place to do it,” said Abbott.
“What’s this business about geography?” Benton asked. “What’s geography got to do with it?”
“I’m trying to track down an epidemic,” Abbott said. “There may be a lot of factors involved.”
“You can’t be serious. There’s no epidemic here or anywhere else I know of. Not even in India or the underdeveloped countries. Hunger, of course, but …”
“I’m fresh from months of burrowing through statistics,” said Abbott, “and I can assure you there is an epidemic. A hidden epidemic. You’ve seen it yourself. I am sure you have. But it’s been coming on so gradually and so undramatically that it has made no impression on you. A lot of little things that slipped by unnoticed. More people gaining weight—in some cases, very rapidly. That, by the way, may explain some of the faddish diets that are popping up. Wide variance in blood sugar levels—”
“Wait a minute,” said Benton. “I had a patient just last week, and would have sworn he had diabetes.”
Abbott nodded. “That’s part of what I’m talking about. If you go back in your records, you’ll probably find similar instances, perhaps not so dramatic as to suggest diabetes. But you’ll find minor symptoms. I can tell you what else you’ll find: More people feeling groggy, irritable, looking bleary-eyed. An increase in obesity. A lot of complaints about sore and aching muscles. People not feeling well—nothing specifically wrong with them, nothing you can put your finger on, but just not feeling well. A lot of people with no pep, a general tiredness, a loss of interest. Fifty years ago, you would have been prescribing tonic or sulfur and molasses to clear up the blood—thinning out the blood, I believe, was how they put it.”
“Well, I don’t know … the symptoms somehow sound familiar. But an epidemic?”
“If you’d seen the statistics I have seen,” Abbott said, “you’d agree it’s an epidemic. It’s happening all over the country, perhaps all over the world.”
“Okay, granting you are right—which I don’t—why did you come here? You said you wanted my cooperation. How could I possibly help?”
“By keeping your eyes open. By thinking about what I’ve just told you. You’re not the only one I’m seeing. I am talking to a number of other doctors, most of them in family practice. I will be asking them to do the same thing as I am asking you—observe, think about it, perhaps pick up a clue here and there.”
“But why us? There are specialists.”
“Look, Doctor,” said Abbott, “how many people go to a specialist because they’re feeling all beat out or have aching muscles or for most of the other things we have been talking about?”
“Not many, I would suppose.”
“That’s right. But they come running to good old Doc, bellyaching because they aren’t up to par, figuring he’ll pull a miracle out of his hat and fix them up.”
“How about the disease-prevention people in Atlanta?” Benton asked.
“That’s where I got some of my statistics,” Abbott told him. “Some of the people there agree with me that there may be an epidemic, although I don’t think any of them take it too seriously. Most of them think I’m trying to cook up another sensational book. Not that any of my books were sensational, but there are some doctors who think they are. The trouble with Atlanta is that they deal solely with data. What this job takes is field work. I need people like you, aware of the situation, looking at their patients and asking themselves questions, trying to see patterns. Not spending a lot of time at it, of course, for none of you will have the time, but keeping the problem there in the back of the mind. What I should like some months from now, if you are willing, are your impressions. Maybe then, with some input from a number of family doctors who see a lot of people representing a broad socio-economic range, it will be possible to pull together some sort of general picture of what is happening.”
“I am afraid,” said Benton, “that you contacted me because of my wor
k in epidemiology. It is only fair to tell you I’ve forgotten most of what I ever knew in that particular field.”
“Well, if it doesn’t help, it certainly won’t hurt. I might have come here anyhow. You may remember I said something about geography. Geography often is an epidemiological factor. Here you are located in a broad, fertile valley, while on either side of the valley lie rugged hills, an almost primitive area. I would assume that you have patients among both hill and valley people.”
“That is true,” Benton answered. “I guess most of the hill people figure I’m their doctor, although I don’t see them often. Either they don’t get sick as often as the valley people, or when they do they manage to tough it out. Some of them may have an ingrained reluctance to submit to doctoring. A lot of them, I suspect, use folk medicine, old-time recipes handed down through the years. That is not to say there is anything wrong with that. Much as we may hate to admit it, some of those old cures work.”
“Geography may have nothing to do with it,” said Abbott, “but it’s a factor we can’t cancel out until we’ve had a look at it.”
“And there’s a possibility you are wrong. There may be nothing to look for.”
Abbott shook his head. “I don’t think so. Doctor, you will go along with me? You’ll walk that extra mile?”
“Yes, of course,” said Benton. “I’ll keep it all in mind. I’ll be seeing you again, you said, or hearing from you, a few months from now.”
“I can’t tell you exactly when. I have a lot of ground to cover. But I promise I’ll be in touch again.”
They talked a while longer, then Abbott left.
Benton followed him out to his car, thinking as he walked along with him that it had been a long time since he had met a man he liked so instinctively. Here was a man whose name in the last few years had become a household word and, yet, there was about him none of the self-importance that so many eminent men wore as a cloak wrapped about themselves. He found himself looking forward to that day, some months from now, when they would be in touch again. Here was a sincere man you did not brush off automatically, even if his ideas seemed a bit offbeat. Thinking of it, Benton had to admit that Abbott’s idea did seem a bit offbeat.