Simak, Clifford D - Sunspot Purge

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Title : Sunspot Purge

Author : Clifford D. Simak

Original copyright year: 1940

Genre : science fiction

Comments : to my knowledge, this is the only available e-text of this book

Source : scanned and OCR-read from a paperback edition with Xerox TextBridge Pro 9.0,

proofread in MS Word 2000.

Date of e-text : February 16, 2000

Prepared by : Anada Sucka

======================================================================

Sunspot Purge

Clifford D. Simak

I was sitting around, waiting for the boy to bring up the first batch of papers from the

pressroom. I had my feet up on the desk, my hat pulled down over my eyes, feeling pretty sick.

I couldn't get the picture of the fellow hitting the sidewalk out of my mind. Twenty storeys

is a long way to jump. When he'd hit he'd just sort of spattered and it was very messy.

The fool had cavorted and pranced around up on that ledge since early morning, four long

hours, before he took the dive.

Herb Harding and Al Jarvey and a couple of other _Globe_ photographers had gone out with me,

and I listened to them figure out the way they'd co-operate on the shots. If the bird jumped, they

knew they'd each have just time enough to expose one plate. So they got their schedules worked out

beforehand.

Al would take the first shot with the telescopic lens as he made the jump. Joe would catch him

halfway down. Harry would snap him just before he hit, and Herb would get the moment of impact on

the sidewalk.

It gave me the creeps, listening to them.

But anyhow, it worked and the _Globe_ had a swell sequence panel of the jump to go with my

story.

We knew the _Standard_, even if it got that sidewalk shot, wouldn't use it, for the _Standard_

claimed to be a family newspaper and made a lot of being a sheet fit for anyone to read.

But the _Globe_ would print anything - and did. We gave it to 'em red-hot and without any

fancy dressing.

'The guy was nuts,' said Herb, who had come over and sat down beside me.

'The whole damn world is nuts,' I told him. 'This is the sixth bird that's hopped off a high

building in the last month.

I wish they'd put me down at the obit desk, or over on the markets, or something. I'm all fed

up on gore.'

'It goes like that,' said Herb. 'For a long time there ain't a thing worth shooting. Then all

hell breaks loose.'

Herb was right. News runs that way - in streaks. Crime waves and traffic-accident waves and

suicide waves. But this was something different. It wasn't just screwballs jumping off high

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places. It was a lot of other things.

There was the guy who had massacred his family and then turned the gun on himself. There was

the chap who'd butchered his bride on their honeymoon. And the fellow who had poured gasoline over

himself and struck a match.

All such damn senseless things.

No newsman in his right mind objects to a little violence, for that's what news is made of.

But things were getting pretty thick; just a bit revolting and horrifying. Enough to sicken even a

hard-working legman who isn't supposed to have any feelings over things like that.

Just then the boy came up with the papers, and, if I say so myself, that story of mine read

like a honey. It should have. I had been thinking it up and composing it while I watched the bird

teetering around up on that ledge.

The pictures were good, too. Great street-sale stuff. I could almost see old J.R. rubbing his

hands together and licking his lips and patting himself on the back for the kind of a sheet we

had.

Billy Larson, the science editor, strolled over to my desk and draped himself over it. Billy

was a funny guy. He wore big, horn-rimmed spectacles, and he wiggled his ears when he got excited,

but he knew a lot of science. He could take a dry-as-dust scientific paper and pep it up until it

made good reading.

'I got an idea,' he announced.

'So have I,' I answered. 'I'm going down to the Dutchman's and take me on a beer. Maybe two or

three.'

'I hope,' piped Herb. 'that it ain't something else about old Doc Ackerman and his time

machine.'

'Nope,' said Billy, 'it's something else. Doc's time machine isn't so hot any more. People got

tired of reading about it. I guess the old boy has plenty on the ball, but what of it? Who will

ever use the thing? Everyone is scared of it.'

'What's it this time?' I asked.

'Sunspots,' he said.

I tried to brush him off, because I wanted that beer so bad I could almost taste it, but Billy

had an idea, and he wasn't going to let mc get away before he told me all about it.

'It's pretty well recognized,' he told me, 'that sunspots do affect human lives. Lots of

sunspots and we have good times. Stocks and bonds are up, prices are high. Trade is good. But

likewise, we have an increased nervous tension. We have violence. People get excited.'

'Hell starts to pop,' said Herb.

'That's exactly it,' agreed Billy. 'Tchijevsky, the Russian scientist, pointed it out thirty

years ago. I believe he's the one that noted increased activity on battle fronts during the first

World War occurring simultaneously with the appearance of large spots on the Sun. Back in 1937,

the sit-down strikes were ushered in by one of the most rapid rises in the sunspot curve in twenty

years.'

I couldn't get excited. But Billy was all worked up about it. That's the way he is -

enthusiastic about his work.

'People have their ups and downs,' he said, a fanatic light creeping into his eyes, the way it

does when he's on the trail of some idea to make _Globe_ readers gasp.

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