He found himself staring into department store windows at the gay decorations.
A pair of shimmering, nearly invisible nylons caught his eye. They were the most impalpable of substances, only their bare outline visible against the white background.
He thought of Phyllis and, on impulse, went into the store and bought a pair. The clerk had to pick a size at random for him. Outside, on the sidewalk, he stared at the prettily gift-wrapped package and finally acknowledged the tremor, the tension and the old ache in the region of his diaphragm.
Relapse!
He plodded three slushy blocks up a side-street before he found a cab. He gave Phyllis Sutton’s address to the driver and sank back in the taxi as a wave of weakness overcame him. What if she weren’t home? It was Christmas Eve. She would probably be visiting friends or relatives.
But she wasn’t. She opened the door under his impatient knock, and her eyes widened cordially.
“Sylvester!” she exclaimed. “Merry Christmas! Is that for me?” She pointed to the package, clutched forgotten in his hands.
“Merry, hell!” he said dispiritedly. “I came to warn you to look out for a relapse. Mine’s been coming on all day.”
She drew him inside, made him take off his coat and sit down before she acknowledged his remark. The apartment was cozy, with a tiny Christmas tree decorated in the window. She returned from the hall closet and sat beside him.
“Look what I did—on impulse,” he said and tossed the package on her lap. “That’s what really turned it on.”
She opened the nylons and looked up at him sideways.
He continued unhappily, “I saw them in a window. Made me think of you, and about that time the seizure began. I tried to kid myself that I was just getting you a little token of—of my esteem, but the symptoms are almost as bad as before already.”
Apparently she refused to accept the seriousness of the situation. Her smile was fatuous, he thought, kissably fatuous.
“Don’t you realize what this means?” he demanded. “Peterson and Feldman turned up a very distressing fact. Sulfa-tetradine deposits out in the endocrines, so a single dose is all a person can take. This relapse of mine means we have it all to do over again.”
“Think, Dr. Murt! Just think a minute,” she urged.
“About what?”
“If the sulfa deposits out in the very glands it’s there to protect, how could you be suffering another attack?”
His arms ached to reach out and emphasize his argument. “I don’t know. All I know is how I feel. In a way, this is even worse, because—”
“I know,” Phyllis said and perversely moved close to him. “My relapse came last Tuesday when I bought you a tie for Christmas. I sent a blood sample over to Ebert Labs right away. And do you know what?”
“What?” Murt asked in a bewildered fog.
“It was negative. I don’t have Murt’s Virus.” She slipped an arm around his waist and put her head on his shoulder. “All I’ve got is Murt himself.”
THE UNLEARNED
By Raymond F. Jones
The scientists of Rykeman III were conceded by all the galactic members to be supreme in scientific achievement. Now the Rykes were going to share their vast knowledge with the scientists of Earth. To any question they would supply an answer—for a price. And Hockley, of all Earth’s scientists, was the stubborn one who wanted to weigh the answers with the costs….
The Chief Officer of Scientific Services, Information and Coordination was a somewhat misleading and obscure title, and Dr. Sherman Hockley who held it was not the least of those whom the title misled and sometimes obscured.
He told himself he was not a mere library administrator, although he was proud of the information files built up under his direction. They contained the essence of accumulated knowledge found to date on Earth and the extraterrestrial planets so far contacted. He didn’t feel justified in claiming to be strictly a research supervisor, either, in spite of duties as top level administrator for all divisions of the National Standardization and Research Laboratories and their subsidiaries in government, industry, and education. During his term of supervision the National Laboratories had made a tremendous growth, in contrast to a previous decline.
Most of all, however, he disclaimed being a figurehead, to which all the loose strings of a vast and rambling organization could be tied. But sometimes it was quite difficult to know whether or not that was his primary assignment after all. His unrelenting efforts to keep out of the category seemed to be encountering more and more determination to push him in that direction.
Of course, this was merely the way it looked in his more bitter moments—such as the present. Normally, he had a full awareness of the paramount importance of his position, and was determined to administer it on a scale in keeping with that importance. His decision could affect the research in the world’s major laboratories. Not that he was a dictator by any means, although there were times when dictation was called for. As when a dozen projects needed money and the Congress allotted enough for one or two. Somebody had to make a choice—
His major difficulty was that active researchers knew it was the Congressional Science Committee which was ultimately responsible for their bread and butter. And the Senators regarded the scientists, who did the actual work in the laboratories, as the only ones who mattered. Both groups tended to look upon Hockley’s office as a sort of fulcrum in their efforts to maintain balance with each other—or as referee in their sparring for adequate control over each other.
At that, however, things research-wise were better than ever before. More funds and facilities were available. Positions in pure research were more secure.
And then, once again, rumors about Rykeman III had begun to circulate wildly a few days ago.
Since Man’s achievement of extra-galactic flight, stories of Rykeman III had tantalized the world and made research scientists sick with longing when they considered the possible truth of what they heard. The planet was rumored to be a world of super-science, whose people had an answer for every research problem a man could conceive. The very few Earthmen who had been to Rykeman III confirmed the rumors. It was a paradise, according to their stories. And among other peoples of the galaxies the inhabitants of Rykeman III were acknowledged supreme in scientific achievement. None challenged them. None even approached them in abilities.
What made the situation so frustrating to Earthmen was the additional report that the Rykes were quite altruistically sharing their science with a considerable number of other worlds on a fee basis. Earth scientists became intoxicated at the mere thought of studying at the feet of the exalted Rykes.
Except Dr. Sherman Hockley. From the first he had taken a dim view of the Ryke reports. Considering the accomplishments of the National Laboratories, he could see no reason for his colleagues’ half-shameful disowning of all their own work in favor of a completely unknown culture several hundred million light years away. They were bound to contact more advanced cultures in their explorations—and could be thankful they were as altruistic as the Rykes!—but it was no reason to view themselves as idiot children hoping to be taught by the Rykes.
He had kept his opinions very much to himself in the past, since they were not popular with his associates, who generally regarded his attitudes as simply old-fashioned. But now, for the first time, a Ryke ship was honoring Earth with a visit. There was almost hysterical speculation over the possibility that Earth would be offered tutelage by the mighty Ryke scientists. Hockley wouldn’t have said he was unalterably opposed to the idea. He would have described himself as extremely cautious. What he did oppose wholeheartedly was the enthusiasm that painted the Rykes with pure and shining light, without a shadowy hue in the whole picture.