Transcribed from Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader, April 1953 (Vol. 1, no. 2).

Crack of Doom

by Milton Lesser

Sam’s little boy was only three years old. He stood there in his T-shirt and shorts, his hair messy, strawberry-jam stains all over his lips. He didn’t come up to Sam’s belt buckle. But he looked at his father sternly, and the words crackled coldly from his taut lips:

“Go to your room!”

Sam didn’t feel insane. Yet there was a frigidly adult gleam of righteous anger in little Henry’s eyes. And the world outside had become a topsy-turvy place where anyone over thirteen could be considered senile and a candidate for euthanasia.

It almost made one approve of infanticide....

Illustrator: Everett Raymond Kinstler

Sam Weber got his first shock early in the morning. He padded softly down the hall, past the door to Henry’s room, on his way to the bathroom. He heard Henry call:

“It’s all right, Pop, I’m up. Come on in.”

Little Henry sat up in bed, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. His hair was combed neatly, with plenty of stickum, and his scrubbed, shining face wore an earnest expression.

“Good morning,” he said. “For the present we’ll keep things unchanged to a certain extent. Much easier that way.”

Sam Weber’s mouth fell open. Henry was three.

“Of course,” Henry continued, “there’ll be minor changes here at the outset. I’ll want an allowance, for one thing. Nothing big, say, not for another year or so. Twenty dollars a week should suffice.” He stood up and waddled over to Sam, punching at his father’s kneecap playfully with a pudgy fist. “Don’t worry, Pop. We’ll get along fine. Just fine. Anything you want, let me know. I mean that: any little thing and I’ll be happy to oblige.”

Henry turned his back and reached for a book which was lying half-hidden under the coverlet. He opened it with a satisfied little sigh and proceeded to read. Sam peered over his shoulder and read the title. Arnold Toynbee’s A Study of History, Volume I.

Mechanically, Sam walked on into the bathroom. He took off his robe and pajamas, draped them over a towel rack, stepped out of his slippers and climbed into the shower stall. His attempt at whistling was only half-hearted, and he gave it up after a few bars, concentrating instead on the pleasant cascade of warm water.

Afterwards he shaved and dressed, then headed for the kitchen. Martha had orange juice, coffee, and a plate of golden pancakes waiting for him. “A little late this morning, Sam,” she observed.

“I—I had a talk with Henry.” It would be best simply to state the objective fact, to wait for further developments.

“How’d he take it, Sam?”

“Take what? Our talk?”

“No, silly. The trip. The strange orientation.”

Sam never answered a question unless he understood it. Now he asked one of his own. “Did you know that Henry’s been reading?”

“Certainly. It is a bit early in the morning, but he had me get Toynbee down from the shelf at about seven. He wants to do history this week, politics next week. Good idea, I think.”

Sam was getting nowhere. He drank his orange juice and buttered his pancakes, digging in with a definite lack of relish. “Where’s my bacon?” he said.

“You’re joking, of course.”

“No. No, I’m not. You know I don’t like pancakes without bacon.”

“Hah, hah. Actually, that’s going to be the biggest problem. A lot of the economy here depends upon meat and meat products, and millions of people will be thrown out of work. Well, they’ll get over it. In a few years everything will be fine.”

Sam’s household seemed on the brink of insanity, and he clung to the one thing which he could understand. “I want my bacon.”

“Now, Sam, that’s enough. I threw out all the bacon this morning. Steaks, too.”

Sam stood up from the table. “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll grab a bite downtown.” He left the pancakes in their plate, almost untouched.

“Well, suit yourself. Oh, Sam, do me a favor?”

“What?”

“On your way to the subway, stop in at the butcher’s and cancel our account with him. We owe him fifteen dollars. Of course, he may not even be opened, but if he is, you cancel our account. Okay?”

Sam said it was okay. He had always left such matters in Martha’s hands, and if she wasn’t satisfied with their present butcher, he’d take care of it for her.

On his way out, Sam couldn’t resist the impulse to peek into Henry’s room. His boy’s little head was still buried deep in Toynbee.

“Hello, Mr. Adams,” Sam said. There was a big crowd in the butcher shop and, Sam noticed with some surprise, no meat on any of the counters.

“I’d, uh....”

“Like to cancel your business here? Naturally. I guess it will be interesting, looking for some other kind of work.”

Sam felt dizzy. “Yes, that’s it. We owe you fifteen dollars, Martha said. Umm-mm, why are you giving up the meat business? I always thought it was good....”

“Well, have your little joke, Mr. Weber. Fifteen, that’s right. You know, I’m thinking of joining the police. I was an M.P. over in Korea. That is, if my son doesn’t mind.”

Sam thought it was nice, the way Mr. Adams would consult his son before he took any new job. He said so.

Mr. Adams smiled. “Nice of him to let me make my own choice, you mean. After all, he’s only five, Mr. Weber. You know what that means.”

Sam blanched. Maybe he had had the wrong idea on kids all these years. Maybe they grew up a lot faster than he realized in this modern generation. “Your boy read much?” he demanded.

“Read? Don’t be silly.”

Sam liked the butcher’s answer. It made the world come spinning back, a little closer to reality.

“Of course he doesn’t read, Mr. Weber. He doesn’t have the time. He’s started writing a book this morning, showing what’s wrong with Einstein’s unified field theory. It’s a good theory, but not particularly sound. But I guess you know its flaws as well as my son Jerry. Thinks he can make a best seller out of it....”

Sam mumbled something which was a cross between “Good luck” and a confused gurgle, took his receipt, and trudged out the door. He headed slowly for the subway entrance, but he changed his mind. He had seen enough of people, for a while at least, and although the taximeter would register a dollar fifty downtown, he could afford the luxury this one time.

It was a bright yellow cab with a little fat man at the wheel. “Where to, friend?”

“Bartlett Building,” said Sam, and the cab purred out into the early morning traffic.

“It takes my breath away,” the driver said.

“What does?”

“All these growing green things. What a beautiful world, so young and fresh. And the way those flowers smell! Man, I could sniff them all day.”

Sam thought the man had missed his vocation. He should have been a poet, or at least a gardener. “Yes,” Sam agreed. “I always liked late May....”

“No. That ain’t what I mean. It’s everything, the whole world. What a change: couldn’t be more than two billion years old, I’d say.”

Sam didn’t understand, but he’d be polite. “What couldn’t be more than, uh, two billion years old?”

“This planet, stupid. This planet. Say, how old are you? You don’t look more than thirty, not much more.”

“I’m thirty-two,” Sam said, mildly annoyed.

“Well, the way you talk, you could be past seventy. Me, I’m pushing forty-five, but I understand. My mother’s a little confused, but even she can understand if I explain things to her real slow. Maybe you’re sick. They said some people might get sick....”

“I am not sick,” Sam assured him. But he wasn’t too sure: he felt as if the whole world was crushing in on him from all directions, making it difficult for him to breathe. Perhaps the radio would help. Sam always liked to listen to the radio when he was feeling blue. “Why don’t you turn on the news?” he suggested. “Should be able to catch the eight-thirty over W—”

“Sure,” the driver said, and Sam heard the click of the radio button.

It would be his favorite commentator, Harry Groton, and already the prospect of hearing the man’s familiar voice made him feel better. He listened.

“...Sorry that there can be no commercial this morning, folks, but our sponsor was a producer of canned meat products. At any rate, let’s get on with the news. The big item, of course—” Sam liked Harry Groton because he was so informal, just as if he sat next to you, chatting pleasantly about the doings of the day. “—is the fact that the transfer has been achieved so successfully. There have been reported a few isolated instances in which the subject’s mind was temporarily deranged, and scientists even expect one or two cases in which there has been no transfer at all, although until now none has been reported.

“Also, we’ll have to get used to the fact that our children are our mental superiors. But naturally, it makes good sense. The best minds should last the longest, especially in these difficult times....”

“Turn it off!” Sam cried.

“Hunh? You just asked me to put it on. Better make up your mind, mister. On, then off, then—aw, I think I’m gonna change my work. Well, here’s the Bartlett Building. Better take it easy, friend. You heard what he said about deranged minds.”

Sam paid his fare, then watched a middle-aged woman get into the cab with a little tot who could not have been two years old. Sam heard the child’s voice quite distinctly:

“Museum of Art, please. What? Yes, Grandmother, we might as well see their art first hand. Only way to really understand their culture, and it’s our culture now, you know.”

Sam wasn’t particularly hungry, but he thought that some sizzling bacon strips fresh from the griddle, toast, and coffee might make him feel better. He entered the revolving doors and walked through the lobby of the Bartlett Building, past the newsstand, the elevators, the shoeshine booth, all the way across the lobby to the little luncheonette in the rear. He even began to hum a little.

The sign stopped him cold. It was done crudely, in big red letters, but he couldn’t miss it. It said:

Don’t worry! Come right in!

We serve no meat or meat products.

Sam almost ran back to the elevators. He waited for the express that would take him to the eighteenth floor, watched the little knot of people gather, waiting with him. They all seemed normal—if any of them had heard or seen any of the fantastic, impossible things Sam had witnessed, they didn’t look it. Sam suppressed a sob. What was it Harry Groton had said about deranged minds?

He didn’t make up his mind until the elevator door opened. The little crowd of people began to enter, but Sam hung back, and finally the starter spread his arms across the entrance. “Sorry, sir. No more room. Next car, please.”

Sam nodded absently. He didn’t care. He didn’t feel that he could take Mr. Southerton’s shenanigans today, anyway. Martha’s uncle Gregory (on her father’s side, as he remembered it) was a psychiatrist, and perhaps the man might be able to help him. Nothing like psychoanalysis, of course—he didn’t need anything as thorough as that. But perhaps he had been working too hard lately—Mr. Southerton had a way of driving him. Just a little talk, Sam thought, because he’d understand this thing much better.... Perhaps all he needed was a little vacation.

He stepped into a phone booth, dialed home. The receiver buzzed three times in his ear, then it clicked. He heard Henry’s childish treble.

“Hello?”

“It’s me, your pop.” Sam felt mildly ridiculous.

“Good morning again, Pop. What’s on your mind?”

“I’d—I’d like to speak with your mother, please, Henry.”

“Can’t. She’s out. Maybe I can help you. Say, this Toynbee is fascinating reading. Really helps to explain the culture, on all levels. I’ll show you when you get home. Meanwhile, Mom went to the library to get me some more books—sent her after some history source material. Well, can I help?”

Sam began to sweat in the confined quarters of the phone booth. “I doubt it, Henry. I wanted your great uncle Gregory’s address, but....”

“Where’s the address-book?”

Numbly, Sam told him. There was a brief silence, then Henry’s little-boy voice again:

“That’s Gregory Thorne?”

“Yes.”

“One-two-five West End, Pop. What do you want with a psychiatrist? Trouble?”

“No. No, nothing like that. Just some business.” Sam felt more ridiculous all the time. “I’ll see you tonight, son. And, uh, thanks.”

Sam heard the boy say something about not mentioning it, then there was a little click, Sam hung up the receiver, and left the booth on unsteady feet. He wondered how long a thorough psychoanalysis took, wondered further if he could afford it.

Dr. Gregory Thorne was a small, balding man, with a small red spot on each cheek which almost looked like it was painted there. “Sam!” he said. “Sam Weber. Long time no see. Very long. Won’t you come in?” Sam said thanks and came in. He smiled weakly, but knew it was worse than not smiling at all.

“Hey, Sam, what’s the trouble? You look scared to me—mighty scared. Go ahead, talk: I haven’t got a patient coming in for about an hour. Anyway, I’m just the receptionist now—my granddaughter’s taking over this mind business. Ever meet her? Cute little trick.”

Sam groaned. “That’s the trouble, Doc. Your granddaughter.”

“Eh, what’s that? What did she do?”

“How old is she, Doc?”

“Umm-mm, I don’t know exactly. Around seven, I’d say. Yes, Jack and Mary got married in forty-two, then they waited a couple of years. Yes, about seven. Why?”

Sam spilled all of it, in a rush of words. He didn’t know that kids matured so fast, he said, but all of a sudden, today, they seemed as intelligent—more intelligent ... Also meat. What the devil was wrong with meat? He couldn’t get it anywhere. Not even a couple of strips of bacon. Not even at home from Martha. The butcher was going out of business. And everyone acted so—peculiar. The news broadcast made less sense than a scrambled jigsaw puzzle, and Henry Groton....

“Whoa, Sam. Take it easy. I get the general drift. Care to answer a few questions?”

Sam said certainly, he’d like to. He took out a handkerchief and mopped his brow as Dr. Thorne flicked a switch and called into the interoffice phone on his desk. “Betty? Want to come in, please?”

Sam heard the door open, and a scrawny little girl with freckles and buck teeth entered the room. Dr. Thorne was right—about seven. And she had the most earnest look on her face....

“Betty, this is Sam Weber, sort of a cousin’s husband. I’d like you to listen for a while, and then see what can be done.”

The little girl nodded, put her lollipop down in an ashtray. “Hi, Sam,” she said. “It’s funny how strong physical habit can be sometimes—like this lollipop thing. I like it. Well, go ahead with it, gentlemen.”

Dr. Thorne cleared his throat, lit a cigarette and puffed nervously. “Now, then, Sam, you say you like meat? You have a strong desire for it?”

“You bet, Doc. Just bacon, that’s all I’d want for now. A couple of sizzling strips....”

“Uh-oh,” Betty mumbled, taking her lollipop out of the ashtray and sucking on it furiously. “Better go ahead, Grandpa Gregory.”

“And children, Sam. You think it’s peculiar that they’re so intelligent for, ah, their years? Impossibly so, all of a sudden?”

Sam nodded. “Yes. Something like that. Sounds silly, I know. But all you have to do is look at Betty. Go ahead, look at Betty. I’m not crazy—it’s the truth.”

The girl put down her lollipop. “I’ll take over from this point, Grandpa Gregory. Take it down in shorthand, please.”

Dr. Thorne rummaged through a desk drawer and came up with a pad and pencil. “Go ahead,” he said.

Betty’s voice was just right for the part of Goldilocks in a school play. “Sam,” she said, “what do you remember of your life on Alpha Centauri Gee?”

“I—uh. Hey, Doc, cut it out! If this is a gag, please get on with your questions.”

“It isn’t a gag,” Dr. Thorne said, suddenly very serious. “Answer her questions as well as you can.”

“Well, I—oh, this is stupid.”

“Answer me,” Betty told him. “Please.” She worked the melting lollipop back and forth from cheek to cheek inside her mouth.

“Well—I don’t remember a thing. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. What is Alpher Century G?”

“Never mind,” Betty told him. “Another question. Do you resent children being your mental superiors?”

Dr. Thorne said, “It was necessary, you know. There’s bound to be some difficulties the first generation or so, Sam, and we figured the longer our better minds lasted, the better off we’d be. Those poor Earthmen—suddenly transferred to our bodies, on a cold, dry desert of a world. I wonder what they think....”

“Please be quiet, Grandpa,” Betty said. “I’m asking the questions, and you’ll only confuse him. I think I know what happened, too.” She shook her head sadly, took the white stick from her mouth and put it in the ashtray. “I think I’ll take up smoking,” she said.

“Please,” Sam said, not without difficulty. “I think I’ll go home.” He stood up.

“In a little while,” Betty told him. “We’d like to do something first; only take a minute, Sam. Okay?”

Sam nodded vaguely, and they led him into the next room. “Lie down on that couch, please,” Betty said. “We’ll give you a quick temporal EEG.”

Dr. Thorne nodded. “Electroencephalogram, eh? And then you’ll....”

“Please get him ready, Grandpa.”

Dr. Thorne dabbed the area in front of Sam’s ears with something wet and slimy, then he placed something over Sam’s head which looked like a couple of sturdy, curving wires with a small antenna for each temple. From this a wire ran to a drum covered with graph paper.

Sam felt nothing, but in a few moments it was over. Dr. Thorne took the antennae from his head, and then he was busy bending over the graph paper with his granddaughter.

“See?” she said. “See. Plenty of low magnitude, quick stuff, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. But you don’t see any Delta waves, do you. Look, there isn’t a wave here with a frequency of less than ten a second, and most of them are more.”

“Tch-tch,” Dr. Thorne shook his head. “A shame.”

“Umm-mm. It’s simple to see what happened. Actually, the transfer experts expected this. Probably there are a few hundred of them all over the planet, men like Sam here, who haven’t been transferred. He’s still an Earthman, Grandpa.”

“So? So what can be done about it?”

“Unfortunately, he can’t be helped. The transfer is a finished product now. Nothing can be done. Of course, he can’t be permitted to remain. Look at the simplest things, Grandpa. He eats meat. Meat. He eats it. Probably a hundred other little things. He couldn’t be happy now, ever.”

“Well what can we do?”

“Nothing. It’s not up to us at all. There are the authorities. Elimination probably will be painless ... Has he got a child, Grandpa?”

“Yes. A son, about three, I think.”

“Obviously, a brilliant mind. You can send Sam home now, but notify his son by telephone. Poor Sam.”

Sam didn’t know what was going on. He had a few drinks first, and then he took a long walk in the park. He bought a bag of peanuts and fed the pigeons for a time, and then he grew tired of it. He’d take Martha and little Henry to the country. Although Dr. Thorne hadn’t prescribed anything in particular, Sam knew he needed a vacation, a long vacation. But that girl, Betty. It was eerie. And Sam didn’t relish the idea of going home to his suddenly brilliant little son.

He entered their house by the side door, and he heard Martha in the kitchen, weeping. “Hallo!” he called. “I’m home.”

Martha ran into his arms and hugged him for a moment. “My Sam,” she cried. “My poor, poor Sam.”

“Easy, Martha. Nothing’s wrong with me. Nothing that a little vacation won’t fix. By the way, I stopped in at Adams’ and canceled your orders there.”

“Thank you, Sam. Thank you....” And then she was crying again.

Henry came into the room, looking ludicrously grim for his three years. “Hello, Pop. I’m sorry,” he said.

Martha wailed, “It isn’t fair....”

“One of those unfortunate things,” Henry told her. “You’ll get over it. It’s just too bad that the only way we’d get the transfer in this way—with the memories of these Earth people, with their emotions. But you’ll get over it, Mother. Stop sniffling. It will all be over soon.”

Sam stood by, saying nothing, balancing on one foot and then the other. Henry looked at him. “Pop, you’ll have to go to your room now. Please go to your room.”

The boy still wore his tee shirt and shorts. His hair was messy and he had strawberry-jam stains all over his lips. The top of his head didn’t come up to Sam’s belt buckle. He said, again, “Go to your room.”

Sam turned and walked from the room. He heard Martha sobbing again, but he did not wheel about to face her. He continued on up the stairs, entered his bedroom, and closed the door behind him. He sat for a long time on the edge of the bed, looking out into the bright sunshine, watching the very old men and women playing with their mudpies in the street.

He must have dozed. When he awoke, he saw two green and white cars pulling over in front of the house. Police. They were very grim.

Sam heard voices. “Does Henry Weber live here?”

“I’m Weber,” Henry told them.

“Your father is....”

“Yes. Still human. No transfer, unfortunately. The EEG clearly shows it. I’m afraid he’ll have to be....”

“Of course, sir. He will be eliminated as painlessly as possible. Downtown, a bullet in the brain at point-blank range. Quite painless, I’m told.”

“The best way,” Henry said in his childish treble.

Sam heard them coming up the stairs, slowly, with their measured steps. Something told him, quite suddenly, that this was more than a hideous joke. Much more....

There was silence. They stood outside his door a long time, and then the door opened, just a thin crack. Sam saw an eye peer within the room.

The crack opened wider and he saw his son Henry’s little face. Behind the face he could see some uniformed blue figures.

Sam smiled bravely. He pushed at the door and the crack opened all the way, admitting Henry and the policemen.

Henry looked just like a little man.

Transcriber’s note:

This etext was produced from Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader, April 1953 (Vol. 1, no. 2).

Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but minor inconsistencies have been retained as printed.

Table of Contents

Crack of Doom

Transcriber’s note: