“Then tell you to get stuffed.”
“It happened yesterday, though, according to your theory. What’s different?”
Butty sighed. He had to use his handkerchief again. “That chimney isn’t smoking. The wind isn’t swinging a down draught on to the High Street.”
The publisher had lost all interest. He snapped, “Stop playing detectives. This is something far above your head. Leave police work to the police.”
Deliberately Butty said, “This is science fantasy on a vastly higher plane than anything you publish.” He would probably get fired for that. Butty knew he had been asking for the boot for some days past. But, the hell with this job.
He said, “Every day we see protestors go by to picket USUK Chenucal Company’s premises. Why? Why do they do it? Because USUK are known to be researching in chemicals for use in warfare. They’ve a number already on the market, some used by police in uncivilized countries. I mean by that, in the United States, Germany, France, Japan, Northern Ireland.
“What these young people are picketing against, however, is YOG 45, the Eunuch Drug, as the popular press have called it. Used against an enemy and it makes them as docile, as unaggressive as eunuchs are supposed to be.” Butty was thoughtful. “Not that castration does make all eunuchs unaggressive — history gives the lie to that.”
The publisher was getting tizzier because time was going on. Now, rather like a spoilt child, he had to say, “I thought you approved of drugs that made people content, unwarlike, un-aggressive?”
“Not if they are employed by war-like people seeking to hurt and to dominate.” Butty could dispose of the publisher any time he liked.
Dickie was startled at the idea. “You think some YOG 45 escaped into the High Street.” His mind jumped on to it eagerly. This was rich, real SF. He frowned. There were snags to the theory.
“Not necessarily YOG 45, probably not that at all. But something, something else they manufacture. Something that went up in smoke yesterday morning — probably by accident. Right at the time I saw white vapor—” He pointed to one of the chimneys on the industrial estate. “I remember wondering about it — smokeless zone, you know. Seemed to last too long for steam. And it blew down, down towards us. Down on to the High Street.”
Dickie was on edge. He got up and walked two or three irresolute steps across the office. Plainly he wanted to run out and discuss excitedly this theory.
“Just a whiff,” said Butty. “Probably affected only this part of the High Street and nowhere else. A whiff, but it created conditions fertile for hallucinations. A hundred or so people affected. And between you, building up this mass hallucinatory effect.”
Dickie said, “That’s it, that’s it. A hallucinatory drug, then…imagination.”
“Yours,” grinned Butty. “Master of space Bug science Fiction professional sensational man, harborer of way-out ideas.”
The publisher finally exploded. He stood up, almost raving. “You go on and on, yacking. You think because you handle SF you’ve got a superior insight into things. But you haven’t. You’re too clever by half, that’s your trouble.”
They blinked at him. He was really in a paddy, but much more so, his sarcasm rasped like a power-tool saw. The publisher was well and truly worked up. Butty experienced a spasm of unease.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, YOG 45. You’re just carried away with absurd theories when you know they don’t stand the test at all. Think, man, think.” He was unpleasant to Butty, leering at him.
Butty went stiff-faced, thinking, “Think what?” His mind racing to see what he might have overlooked. Dickie just stood there, motionless.
The publisher. He troweled on his sarcasm. “You say a gust of wind came down, blowing some hallucinatory drug on to the High Street and into this office?”
Butty caught on. Too late. The publisher pounced for the kill.
“All right, Superior Intellect, if it affected Armstrong and me, why didn’t it affect you?”
And Butty hadn’t a word to say to that. So curious, the weakness in his theory just hadn’t occurred to him. He could only look at the publisher, staring, helpless. And Dickie was looking at him, pleading for support, wanting now to believe in this YOG 45, or whatever it was theory.
Butty went to his desk and sat down. He didn’t say anything, because he had nothing to say. Right back to the beginning? was his thought. He’d had no hallucinations.…
The boss wasn’t a man to leave things alone. This was his moment of triumph. “I tell you, you can’t see wood for trees. You’re so damned sure of yourself. you won’t believe what others tell you. Nothing on earth will you convince me that what I saw yesterday was a hallucination. Nothing.” A resolute, no=-nonsense-about-me businessman. He jerked his chin up, that little gesture to show independence, toughness, down-to-earth qualities,
“Nothing.” Dozy old Dalrymple was in the doorway. The publisher ignored him. “I know my own mind, and the sooner you stop talking your fanciful theories, the sooner we’ll be in business again. Look at all the work.” He gestured towards a swollen in-tray.
Butty sat and thought. Old Dalrymple cleared his throat and said. “About those remainders.” His voice globby with catarrh.
The publisher was irritable, though it meant a pound or two of spending money. “Look, Dal, have I had time to do anything with all that happening out there, and Butteridge off with cold — and a bit off his head this morning, too,” he added maliciously.
Dalrymple honked, “Damn’ fools.”
The publisher sad, “Who? Damn’ fools?”
Dal husked, “Hysterical people, seeing corpses when there were none!”
The publisher looked huffed. Dickie turned his eyes on Butty. And Butty was getting to his feet, beginning to smile.
He said, “Mr. Dalrymple, so you weren’t affected yesterday. You didn’t see any…accident?”
Dalrymple gave a quick, birdlike look over the tops of his glasses. Very short, his answer. “Too busy putting that table up. Damned man. Hope he never comes near my shop again.”
Butty was beaming. “Blame the damp Merseyside air,” he said. Dalrymple grunted and looked surprised. “Catarrh,” said Butty. “That’s it.”
The publisher and Dickie were looking at him as if he was daft. Butty snapped his fingers. “Two of us weren’t affected. Now, why? I’m just going to make a guess. I had a cold in my head — nasal passage blocked — Mr. Dalrymple has permanent catarrh, same effect. Something to do with the nose, don’t you see? The gas affected healthy people, not people with bunged-up hooters. Dickie, don’t you see, the theory’s right, after all.”
He went out into the street. It didn’t matter what the publisher thought. This was better than reading science fiction — crap stuff, that is — and anyway he was firmly in sympathy with young people who gave their time to protesting against new weapons of war.
Butty went down the street until he found the superintendent. Then he spoke to him for quite a time, and they watched him from the door of the shop that was an unsuitable editorial premise. The superintendent spotted the local Medical Officer of Health and signaled him to stop, and then Butty talked again.
The M.O. said. “I’m grateful to you. Mr. Butteridge. I think your theory is worth testing. It hangs together. Yes, I’m really grateful.” He’d been getting nowhere. Now, this.… The M.O. began to feel excited. “Look, I’ll go round to the factory and do some checking. If I need you again, Mr. Butteridge?”