Part 25

"What is your name?" I inquired, not believing it would jog my memory, but out of a natural politeness toward inferiors who always feel flattered by such attention.

"Dinkman," he muttered. "Adam Dinkman."

... That incredibly dilapidated frontlawn, overrun with sickly devilgrass and spotted with bald patches. Mrs Dinkman's mean bargaining with a tired man who was doing no more than trying to make a living and her later domineering harshness toward someone who was in no way responsible for the misfortune which overcame her. I wondered if she were still alive or had lost her life in the Grass while an indigent on public charity. It is indeed a small world, I thought, and how far we have both come since I humbled myself in order to put food in my stomach and keep a roof over my head.

"Thank you, Dinkman," I said, turning away.

A warm feeling for a fellow American caused me to call in my steward and bid him give Dinkman £100, a small fortune to an undergardener, and let him go. Though he might not realize it immediately, I was doing him a tremendous favor, for an American with £100 in England was bound to do better for himself in some small business than he could hope to do as a mere servant.

Looking back upon this too brief time of tranquillity and satisfaction I cannot help but sigh for its passing. Preceded and followed by periods of turbulence and stress, it stands out in my life as an incredible moment, a soothing dream. Perhaps a faint defect, so small as to be almost unnoticed, was a feeling of solitariness--an inevitable concomitant of my position--but this was so slight that I could not even define it as loneliness and like many another defect it merely heightened the charm of the whole.

I had wealth, power, the respect of the world. The unavoidable detachment from the mob was mitigated by simple pleasures. My estate was a constant delight; the quaint survivals of feudalism among the tenantry amused me; and though I could not bring myself to pretend an interest in the absurd affectation of foxhunting, I was well received by the county people, whose insularity and aloofness I found greatly exaggerated, perhaps by outsiders not as cosmopolitan as myself.

Excursions to London and other cities where my presence was demanded or could be helpful afforded me a frequent change of scene and visits by important people as well as more intimate ones by Preblesham and the Tharios prevented The Ivies--for so my place was called--from ever becoming dull to me.

The general fell in love with a certain ale which was brewed on the premises and declared, in spite of his lifelong rule to the contrary, that it could be mixed with Irish whisky to make a drink so agreeable that no sane man would want a better. The girls, particularly Winifred, were enchanted with my private woods, the gardens and the deerpark; but Mama, throughout their visits, remained almost entirely silent and aloof except for the rare remarks which seemed to burst from her as though by an inescapable inward compulsion. These were always insulting and always directed at me, but I overlooked them, knowing her to be deranged.

_79._ Perhaps one of the things I most enjoyed about The Ivies was wandering through its acres, breathing through my pores, as it were, the sense of possession. I was walking through the cowslips and violets punctuating the meadow bordering one of the many little streams, when I came upon a fellow roughly dressed, the pockets of his shootingjacket bulging and a fishingline in his hand. For a moment I thought him one of the gamekeepers and nodded, but his quick look and furtive gestures instantly revealed him as a poacher.

"Youre trespassing, you know," I said with some severity.

"I know, guvner," he admitted readily, "but I wasnt doing no harm; just looking at this bit of water here and listening to the birds."

"With a fishingline in your hands?"

"Well, now, guvner, that's by way of being a precaution. You see, when I go out on a little expedition like this, to inspect the beauties of nature--which I admit I have no right to do, they being on someone else's land--I always say to myself, 'Suppose you run into some gent looking at a lovely fat trout in a brook and he hasnt got no fishline with him? What could be more philanthropic than I produce my bit of string and help him out?' Aint that a proper Christian attitude, guvner?"

"Possibly; but what, may I ask, makes your pockets bulge so suspiciously? Is that another philanthropy?"

"Accident, guvner, sheer accident. Walking along like this with my head down I always seem to come upon two or three dead hares or now and then a partridge or grouse. Natural mortality, you understand. Well, what could be more humane than to stuff them in my pockets and take them home for proper burial?"

"You know in spite of all the Labour Governments and strange doings in Parliament, there are still pretty strict laws against poaching."

"Poaching, guvner? I wouldnt poach. I respect what's yours, just as I respect what's my own. Trespassing maybe. I likes to look at a little bit of sky or hear a meadowlark or smell a flower or two, but poaching--! Really, guvner, you hadnt ought to take away a man's character."

I thought it a shame so sturdy and amusing a fellow should have to eke out his living so precariously. "I'll tell you what I'll do," I said. "I'll give you a note right now to my head gamekeeper and have him put you on as an assistant. Thirty shillings a week I think it pays."

"Well, now, thank you, guvner, but really, I don't want it. Thirty bob a week! What should I do with it? Nothing but go down to the Holly Tree and get drunk every night. I'm much better off as I am--total abstinence, in a manner of speaking. No, no, guvner, I appreciate your big heart, but I'm happy with my little bit of fish and a rabbit in the pot--why should I set up to be an honest workingman and get dissatisfied with my life?"

His refusal of my wellintentioned offer did not irk me. In a large and tolerant view you could almost say we were both parasites upon The Ivies and it would not hurt me if he stole a little of my game to keep himself alive. I gave him a note to protect him against any of the keepers who might come upon him as I had, and we parted with mutual liking; I remembering for my part that I was an American and all men, poacher and landlord alike, were created equal, no matter how far each had come from his beginnings.

_80._ Shortly after, Miss Francis ended her long sojourn at Mount Whitney and returned to England. The ordeal of living surrounded by the Grass, which had destroyed her assistants, seemed to have made no other change in her than the fading of her hair, which was now completely white, and a loss of weight, giving her a deceptive appearance of fragility at variance with the forthrightness of her manner.

I put down her immunity to agoraphobia as just another evidence that she was already mad. Her refusal to accept the limitations of her sex and her complete indifference to our respective stations were mere confirmations. With her usual disregard of realities she assumed I would go on financing her indefinitely in spite of the hundreds of thousands of pounds I had paid out without visible result.

"Ive really got it now, Weener," she assured me in a tone hardly befitting a suppliant for funds. "In spite of the incompetents you kept sending, in spite of mistakes and blind alleys, the work on Whitney is done--and successfully. The rest is routine laboratory work--a matter of quantities and methods of application."

"I don't know that I can spare you any more money, Miss Francis."

She laughed. "What the devil's the matter with you, Weener? Are your millions melting away? Or do you think any of the spies you set on me capable of carrying on--or are you just trying to crack the whip?"

"I set no spies and I have no whip. I merely feel it may not be profitable to waste any more money on fruitless experiments."

She snorted. "Time has streamlined and inflated your platitudes. When I am too old to work and ready for euthanasia I shall have you come and talk me to death. To hear you one would almost think you had no interest in finding a method to counter the Grass."

Her egomania and impertinence were really insufferable; her notion of her own importance was ludicrous.

"Interested or not, I have no reason to believe you alone are capable of scientific discovery. Anyway, the world seems pretty well off as it is."

She tugged at her hair as if it were false and would come off if she jerked hard enough. "Of course it's well enough off from your pointofview. It offers you more food than you could eat if you had a million bellies, more clothes than you could wear out in a million years, more houses than you could live in if the million contradictions which go to make up any single human were suddenly made corporeal. Of course youre satisfied; why shouldnt you be? If the Grass were to be pushed back and the world once more enlarged, if hope and dissatisfaction were again to replace despair and content, you might not find yourself such a big toad in a small puddle--and you wouldnt like that, would you?"

I had intended all along to give her a small pension to keep her from want and allow her to putter around, but her irrational accusations and insults only showed her to be the kind from whom no gratitude could be expected.

"I'm afraid we can be of no further use to each other."

"Look here, Weener, you can't do this. The life of civilization depends on countering the Grass. Don't tell me the world can go on only half alive. Look around you and notice the recession every day. Outside of your own subservient laboratories what scientific work is being done? Since Palomar and Mount Wilson and Flagstaff went what has happened in astronomy? If you pick up the shrunken pages of your _Times_ or _Tatler_, do you wonder at the reason for their shrinkage or do you realize there are fewer literates in the world than there were ten years ago?

"The Americas were upstart continents, werent they? I am not speaking sarcastically, my point is not a chauvinistic one, not even hemispherically prideful. And the Old World the womb of culture? But how much culture has that womb borne since the Americas disappeared? Without a doubt there are exactly the same number of composers and painters, writers and sculptors alive on the four continents today as there were when there were six, but in this drowsy halfworld how many books of importance are being produced?"

"There are plenty of books already in existence; besides, those things go by cycles."

"God give me patience; this is the man who has humanity prostrate."

"Humanity seems quite content in the position you ascribe to it."

"Of course, of course--that's the tragedy. It's content the same way a man who has just had his legs cut off is content; suffering from shock and loss of blood he enters a merciful coma from which he may never emerge. The legs do not write the books or think the thoughts, whether these activities wait for the cyclical moment or not, but the brain, dependent on the circulation of the blood and the wellbeing of the rest of the body for proper functioning. And who are you, little man, to stand in the way of assisting the patient?"

"I shall not argue with you any further, Miss Francis. If mankind is really as subject to your efforts as your conceit leads you to believe then I am sure you will find some way to continue them."

"I'm sure I will," she said, and we left it at that.

To say her accusations had been gravely unjust would be to defend myself where no defense is called for. I merely remark in passing that I gave orders to set aside a still greater fund toward finding a reagent against the Grass, and to put those who had lately assisted Miss Francis in charge. I did this, not because I swallowed her strained analogy about a sufferer with his legs cut off, but for purely practical reasons. The world was very well as it was, but an effective weapon against the Grass might at last make possible the neverdiscarded vision of utilizing it beneficially.

_81._ Meanwhile life went on with a smoothness strange and gratifying to those of us born into a period of strife and restlessness. No more wars, strikes, riots, agitation for higher wages or social experiments by wildeyed fanatics. Those whose limitations laid out a career of toil performed their function with as much efficiency as one could expect and we others who had risen and separated ourselves from the herd carried our responsibilities and accepted the rewards which went with them. The ships of the World Congress continued patrolling the coasts of the deserted continents and restrictions were so far relaxed as to permit planeflights over the area to take motionpictures and confirm the Grass had lost none of its vigor. Beyond this, the generality of mankind forgot the weed and the regions it covered, living geographically as though Columbus had never set forth from Palos.

It was at this time a new philosophic idea was advanced--giving the lie to Miss Francis' dictum that no new thoughts were being thought--which was, briefly, that the Grass was essentially a good thing in itself; that the world had not merely made the best of a bad situation, but had been brought to a beneficent condition through the loss of the Western Hemisphere. Mankind had desperately needed a brake upon its heedless course; some instrumentality to limit it and bring it to realization of its proper province. The Grass had acted as such an agent and now, rightly chastised, man could go about his fit business.

This concept gained almost immediate popular support, so far as it filtered down to the masses at all; prominent schoolmen endorsed it wholeheartedly; statesmen gave it qualified approval--"in principle"--and the Pope issued an encyclical calling for a return of Christian resignation and submission. Hardly was the ink dry upon the expressions of thanksgiving for the punishment which had brought about a new and better frameofmind than the philosophy was suddenly and dramatically tested by events.

The island of Juan Fernandez, Robinson Crusoe's island, a peak pushed out of the waters of the Pacific 400 miles west of Chile, densely populated with refugees and a base for patrolboats, was overrun by the Grass. It was an impossible happening. Every inhabitant had had personal experience of the Grass and was fearfully alert against its appearance. The patrols covered the sea between it and the mainland constantly; the distance was too far for windborne seeds. The tenuous hypothesis that gulls had acted as carriers was accepted simply for want of a better.

But the World Congress wasted no time looking backward. Although between Juan Fernandez and the next land westward the distance was three times greater than between it and South America, the Congress seized upon the only island to which it could possibly spread, Sala-y-Gomez, and made of it a veritable fortress against the Grass. Not only did ships guard its waters by day and keep it brilliantly lit with their searchlights at night, but swift pursuitplanes bristling with machineguns brought down every bird in flight within a thousand miles.

The island itself was sown with salt a halfmile thick after being mined with enough explosives to blow it into the sea. The world, or that portion of it which had not fully accepted all the implications of the doctrine of submission, watched eagerly. But the ships patrolled an empty sea, the searchlights reflected only the glittering saline crystals, the migrant birds never reached their destination. The outpost held, impregnable. Again everyone breathed easier.

Five hundred miles beyond this focalpoint, its convict settlement long abandoned, was Easter Island, Rapa Nui, home of the great monoliths whose origin had ever been a puzzle. Erect or supine, these colossal statues were strewn all over the island. Anthropologists and archaeologists still came to give them cursory inspection and it was on such a visit an unmistakable clump of Grass was found.

Immediately the ships were rushed from Sala-y-Gomez, planes carrying tons of salt took off from Australia and the whole machinery of the World Congress was swiftly put in operation. But it was too late; Easter Island was swamped, uninhabited Ducie went next, and Pitcairn, home of the descendants of the _Bounty_ mutineers followed before even the slightest precautions could be taken. The Grass was jumping gaps of thousands of miles in a breathless steeplechase.

On Pitcairn there was nothing to do but rescue the inhabitants. Vessels stood by to carry them and their livestock off. The palebrown men and women left for the most part docilely, but the last Adams and the last McCoy refused to go. "Once before, our people were forced to leave Pitcairn and found nothing but unhappiness. We will stay on the island to which our fathers brought their wives."

There was no stopping the Grass now, even if the means had been to hand. The Gambiers, the Tuamotus and the Marquesas were swallowed up. Tahiti, dwellingplace of beautiful if syphilitic women, disappeared under a green blanket, as did the Cook Islands, Samoa and the Fijis. The Grass jumped southward to a foothold in New Zealand and northward into Micronesia. Panic infected the Australians and a mass migration to the central part of the country was begun, but with little hope the surrounding deserts would offer any effective barrier.

_82._ My first thought when I heard the Grass for the second time had broken its bounds, was that I had perhaps been a little hasty with Miss Francis. It was not at all likely she would succeed where so many better trained and better equipped scientists had so far failed, but I felt a vicarious sympathy with her, as being out of the picture when all her colleagues were striving with might and main to save the world; especially after the years she had spent on Mount Whitney. It would be an act of simple generosity on my part, I thought, to give her the wherewithal to entertain the illusion of importance. When all was said and done, she was a woman, and I could afford a chivalrous gesture even in the face of her overweening arrogance.

I am sorry to say she responded with complete illgrace. "I knew youd eventually have to come crawling to me to save your hide."

"You mistake the situation entirely, Miss Francis," I informed her with dignity. "I am conferring, not asking favors. I have every confidence in my research staff--"

"My God! Those guineapig murderers; those discoveryforgers; those whitesmocked acolytes in the temple of Yes. You value your life or your purse at exactly what theyre worth if you expect those drugstoreclerks to preserve them for you."

"I doubt if either is in the slightest danger," I assured her confidently. "Hysterics have lost perspective. Long before the Grass becomes an immediate concern my drugstoreclerks, with less exalted opinions of their talents than you, will have found the means to destroy it."

"A soothing fairytale. Weener, the truth is not in you. You know the reason you come to me is that youre frightened, scared, terrified. Well, strangely enough, I'm not going to reject your munificence. I'll accept it, because to do God's work is more important than any personal pride of mine or any knowledge that one of the best things _Cynodon dactylon_ could do--if I do not take too much upon myself in judging a fellowcreature--would be to bury Albert Weener."

I remained unmoved by her tirade. "When you returned from Whitney you told me there remained only details to be worked out. About how long do you think it will be before you have a workable compound?"

She burst into a laugh and took out her toothpick to point it at me. "Go and put your penny in another slot if you want an answer to an idiot question like that. How long? A day, a month, a year, ten years."

"In ten years--" I began.

"Exactly," she said and put away the toothpick.

_83._ I phoned Stuart Thario to fly over right away for a conference. "General," I began, "we'll have to start looking ahead and making plans."

He hid his mustache with the side of his forefinger. "Don't quite understand, Albert--have details here of activities ... next three years ..."

I pressed the buzzer for my secretary. "Bring General Thario some refreshment," I ordered.

The command was not only familiar on the occasion of his visits, but evidently anticipated, for she appeared in a moment with a trayful of bottles.

"Bad habit of yours, Albert, teetotalism ... makes the brain cloudy ... insidious." He took a long drink. "Very little real bourbon left ... European imitation vile ... learning to like Holland gin." He drank again.

"To get back to the business of making plans, General," I urged gently.

"Not one of those people getting worried about the Grass?"

"Not worried. Just trying to look ahead. I can't afford to be caught napping."

"Well, well," he said, "can't pull another South American this time."

"No, no--and besides, I'm not concerned with money."

"Now, Albert, don't tell me youve finally got enough."

"This is not the time to be avaricious," I reproved him. "If the Grass continues to spread--and there seems to be little doubt it will--"

"All of New Zealand's North Island was finished this morning," he interrupted.

"I heard it myself; anyway, that's the point. As the Grass advances there will be new hordes of refugees--"

He was certainly in an impatient mood this morning, for he interrupted me again. "New markets for concentrates," he suggested.

I looked at him pityingly. Was the old man's mind slipping? I wondered if it would be necessary to replace him. "General," I said gently, "with rare exceptions these people will have nothing but worthless currency."

"Goods. Labor."

"Have you seen the previous batches of refugees foresighted enough to get out any goods of value before starting off? And as for labor, all our workers are now so heavily subsidized by the dole that to cut wages another cent--"

"Ha'penny," corrected General Thario.

"Centime if you like. --would be merely to increase our taxes."

"Well, well," he said. "I see I have been hasty. What did you have in mind, Albert?"

"Retrenchment. Cut production; abandon the factories in the immediate path of the Grass. Fix on reasonably safe spots to store depots of the finished concentrates, others for raw materials. Or perhaps they might be combined."

"What about the factories?"

"Smaller," I said. "Practically portable."

"Hum." He frowned. "You do intend to do business on a small scale."

"Minute," I confirmed.

"What about the mines? The steelmills, the oilfields, the airplane and automobile factories? The shipyards?"

"Shut them down," I ordered. "Ruthlessly. Except maybe a few in England."

"The countries where theyre located will grab them."

"There isnt a government in existence who would dare touch anything belonging to Consolidated Pemmican. If any should come into existence our individualistic friends would take care of the situation."

"Pay gangsters to overturn governments?"