Asimov, Isaac - Breeds There a Man

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2024-11-24 0 0 84.14KB 22 页 5.9玖币

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"Breeds There a Man?"

Police Sergeant Mankiewicz was on the telephone and he wasn't enjoying it. His

conversation was sounding like a one-sided view of a firecracker.

He was saying, "That's right! He came in here and said, 'Put me in jail,

because I want to kill myself.'

"... I can't help that. Those were his exact words. It sounds crazy to me,

too.

". . . Look, mister, the guy answers the description. You asked me for

information and I'm giving it to you.

". . . He has exactly that scar on his right cheek and he said his name was

John Smith. He didn't say it was Doctor anything-at-all.

". . . Well, sure it's a phony. Nobody is named John Smith. Not in a police

station, anyway.

". . . He's in jail now.

". . . Yes, I mean it.

"... Resisting an officer; assault and battery; malicious mischief. That's

three counts.

"... I don't care who he is.

". . . All right. I'll hold on."

He looked up at Officer Brown and put his hand over the mouthpiece of the

phone. It was a ham of a hand that nearly swallowed up the phone altogether.

His blunt-featured face was ruddy and steaming under a thatch of pale-yellow

hair.

He said, "Trouble! Nothing but trouble at a precinct station. I'd rather be

pounding a beat any day."

"Who's on the phone?" asked Brown. He had just come in and didn't really care.

He thought Mankiewicz would look better on a suburban beat, too.

"Oak Ridge. Long Distance. A guy called Grant. Head of somethingo-logical

division, and now he's getting somebody else at seventy-five cents a min . . .

Hello!"

Mankiewicz got a new grip on the phone and held himself down.

"Look," he said, "let me go through this from the beginning. I want you to get

it straight and then if you don't like it, you can send someone down here. The

guy doesn't want a lawyer. He claims he just wants to stay in jail and,

brother, that's all right with me.

"Well, will you listen? He came in yesterday, walked right up to me, and said,

'Officer, I want you to put me in jail because I want to kill myself.' So I

said, 'Mister, I'm sorry you want to kill yourself. Don't do it, because if

you do, you'll regret it the rest of your life.'

"... I am serious. I'm just telling you what I said. I'm not saying it was a

funny joke, but I've got my own troubles here, if you know what I mean. Do you

think all I've got to do here is to listen to cranks who walk in and-

". . . Give me a chance, will you?" I said, 'I can't put you in jail for

wanting to kill yourself. That's no crime.' And he said, 'But I don't want to

die.' So I said, 'Look, bud, get out of here.' I mean if a guy wants to commit

suicide, all right, and if he doesn't want to, all right, but I don't want him

weeping on my shoulder.

". . . I'm getting on with it. So he said to me. 'If I commit a crime, will

you put me in jail?" I said, 'If you're caught and if someone files a charge

and you can't put up bail, we will. Now beat it.' So he picked up the inkwell

on my desk and, before I could stop him, he turned it upside down on the open

police blotter.

". . . That's right! Why do you think we have 'malicious mischief tabbed on

him? The ink ran down all over my pants.

". . . Yes, assault and battery, too! I came hopping down to shake a little

sense into him, and he kicked me in the shins and handed me one in the eye.

". . . I'm not making this up. You want to come down here and look at my face?

". . . He'll be up in court one of these days. About Thursday, maybe.

". . . Ninety days is the least he'll get, unless the psychoes say otherwise.

I think he belongs in the loony-bin myself.

". . . Officially, he's John Smith. That's the only name he'll give.

". . . No, sir, he doesn't get released without the proper legal steps.

", . . O.K., you do that, if you want to, bud! I just do my job here."

He banged the phone into its cradle, glowered at it, then picked it up and

began dialing. He said "Gianetti?", got the proper answer and began talking.

"What's the A.E.C.? I've been talking to some Joe on the phone and he says-

". . . No, I'm not kidding, lunk-head. If I were kidding, I'd put up a sign.

What's the alphabet soup?"

He listened, said, "Thanks" in a small voice and hung up again.

He had lost some of his color. "That second guy was the head of the Atomic

Energy Commission," he said to Brown. "They must have switched me from Oak

Ridge to Washington."

Brown lounged to his feet, "Maybe the F.B.I, is after this John Smith guy.

Maybe he's one of these here scientists." He felt moved to philosophy. "They

ought to keep atomic secrets away from those guys. Things were O.K. as long as

General Groves was the only fella who knew about the atom bomb. Once they cut

in these here scientists on it, though-"

"Ah, shut up," snarled Mankiewicz.

Dr. Oswald Grant kept his eyes fixed on the white line that marked the highway

and handled the car as though it were an enemy of his. He always did. He was

tall and knobby with a withdrawn expression stamped on his face. His knees

crowded the wheel, and his knuckles whitened whenever he made a turn.

Inspector Darrity sat beside him with his legs crossed so that the sole of his

left shoe came up hard against the door. It would leave a sandy mark when he

took it away. He tossed a nut-brown penknife from hand to hand. Earlier, he

had unsheathed its wicked, gleaming blade and scraped casually at his nails as

they drove, but a sudden swerve had nearly cost him a finger and he desisted.

He said, "What do you know about this Ralson?"

Dr. Grant took his eyes from the road momentarily, then returned them. He

said, uneasily, "I've known him since he took his doctorate at Princeton. He's

a very brilliant man."

"Yes? Brilliant, huh? Why is it that all you scientific men describe one

another as 'brilliant'? Aren't there any mediocre ones?"

"Many. I'm one of them. But Ralson isn't. You ask anyone. Ask Oppen-heimer.

Ask Bush. He was the youngest observer at Alamogordo."

"O.K. He was brilliant. What about his private life?"

Grant waited. "I wouldn't know."

"You know him since Princeton. How many years is that?"

They had been scouring north along the highway from Washington for two hours

with scarcely a word between them. Now Grant felt the atmosphere change and

the grip of the law on his coat collar.

"He got his degree in '43."

"You've known him eight years then."

" "That's right."

us "And you don't know about his private life?"

"A man's life is his own, Inspector. He wasn't very sociable. A great many of

the men are like that. They work under pressure and when they're off the job,

they're not interested in continuing the lab acquaintanceships."

"Did he belong to any organizations that you know of?"

"No."

The inspector said, "Did he ever say anything to you that might indicate he

was disloyal?"

Grant shouted "No!" and there was silence for a while.

Then Darrity said, "How important is Ralson in atomic research?"

Grant hunched over the wheel and said, "As important as any one man can be. I

grant you that no one is indispensable, but Ralson has always seemed to be

rather unique. He has the engineering mentality."

"What does that mean?"

"He isn't much of a mathematician himself, but he can work out the gadgets

that put someone else's math into life. There's no one like him when it comes

to that. Time and again, Inspector, we've had a problem to lick and no time to

lick it in. There were nothing but blank minds all around until he put some

thought into it and said, 'Why don't you try so-and-so?' Then he'd go away. He

wouldn't even be interested enough to see if it worked. But it always did.

Always! Maybe we would have got it ourselves eventually, but it might have

taken months of additional time. I don't know how he does it. It's no use

asking him either. He just looks at you and says 'It was obvious', and walks

away. Of course, once he's shown us how to do it, it is obvious."

The inspector let him have his say out. When no more came, he said, "Would you

say he was queer, mentally? Erratic, you know."

"When a person is a genius, you wouldn't expect him to be normal, would you?"

"Maybe not. But just how abnormal was this particular genius?"

"He never talked, particularly. Sometimes, he wouldn't work." • "Stayed at

home and went fishing instead?"

"No. He came to the labs all right; but he would just sit at his desk.

Sometimes that would go on for weeks. Wouldn't answer you, or even look at

you, when you spoke to him."

"Did he ever actually leave work altogether?"

"Before now, you mean? Never!"

"Did he ever claim he wanted to commit suicide? Ever say he wouldn't feel safe

except in jail?"

"No."

"You're sure this John Smith is Ralson?"

"I'm almost positive. He has a chemical bum on his right cheek that can't be

mistaken."

"O.K. That's that, then I'll speak to him and see what he sounds like." The

silence fell for good this time. Dr. Grant followed the snaking line as

Inspector Darrity tossed the penknife in low arcs from hand to hand.

The warden listened to the call-box and looked up at his visitors. "We can

have him brought up here, Inspector, regardless." "No," Dr. Grant shook his

head. "Let's go to him." Darrity said, "Is that normal for Ralson, Dr. Grant?

Would you expect him to attack a guard trying to take him out of a prison

cell?" Grant said, "I can't say."

The warden spread a calloused palm. His thick nose twitched a little. "We

haven't tried to do anything about him so far because of the telegram from

Washington, but, frankly, he doesn't belong here. I'll be glad to have him

taken off my hands." "We'll see him in his cell," said Darrity.

They went down the hard, barlined corridor. Empty, incurious eyes watched

their passing.

Dr. Grant felt his flesh crawl. "Has he been kept here all the time?" Darrity

did not answer.

The guard, pacing before them, stopped. "This is the cell." Darrity said, "Is

that Dr. Ralson?"

Dr. Grant looked silently at the figure upon the cot. The man had been lying

down when they first reached the cell, but now he had risen to one elbow and

seemed to be trying to shrink into the wall. His hair was sandy and thin, his

figure slight, his eyes blank and china-blue. On his right cheek there was a

raised pink patch that tailed off like a tadpole. Dr. Grant said, "That's

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