She wanted to weep, but couldn't; she was dry-eyed and it was painful.
And then she began to giggle and couldn't stop. It was very funny. She had looked for the answers to so many questions and had found them all. She had even found the answer to the question she thought had no bearing on the subject.
She had finally learned why Drake had married her.
The dropping of the atomic bomb in 1945 made science fiction respectable. Once the horror at Hiroshima took place, anyone could see that science fiction writers were not merely dreamers and crackpots after all, and that many of the motifs of that class of literature were now permanently part of the newspaper headlines.
I suppose that science fiction writer and reader were, on the whole, pleased-if not at the effect of the atom bomb itself, then at least at the crystallization into fact of something that had been so science fictional.
I myself was ambivalent. Quite apart from the frightening aspects of nuclear explosions and the mildly irrational feeling that such things as atom bombs belonged to us and not to the real world, I also felt that reality might have a stultifying effect on the field.
And I think it did to a certain extent. There was a tendency for the new reality to nail the science fiction writer to the ground. Prior to 1945, science fiction had been wild and free. An its motifs and plot varieties remained in the realm of fantasy and we could do as we pleased. After 1945, there came the increasing need to talk about the AEC and to mold all the infinite scope of our thoughts to the small bit of them that had become real.
In fact, there was the birth of something I called "tomorrow fiction"; the science fiction story that was no more new than tomorrow's headlines.
Believe me, there can be nothing duller than tomorrow's headlines in science fiction. As an example, consider Nevil Shute's On the Beach. Surely to the science fiction fan-as opposed to the general public-this must seem very milk-and-watery. So there's a nuclear war to start the story with-and what else is new?
I resisted the temptation to base a story slavishly on the present until I could think of a way to do so without making myself a minion of the headlines and of topicality. I wanted to write a story that would deal with the things of tomorrow without becoming outdated the day after tomorrow.
The result was "Breeds There a Man…?" which, despite all its topicality, is as much science fiction now as it was in 1951 when it was written.
First appearance-Astounding Science Fiction, June 1951. Copyright, 1951, by Street amp; Smith Publications, Inc.
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 somethingological 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 psychos 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.