A little faster and a little quicker. A mental shortcut here and there.
And you scarcely know, yourself, that you are any different. That's how
the race develops. A mutation here and another there and in a thousand
years or two a certain percentage of the race is not what the race had
been a thousand years before.
Maybe it was a mutation back in the Old Stone Age who struck two flints
together and made himself a fire. Maybe another mutant who dreamed up a
wheel and took a stoneboat and changed it to a wagon.
Slowly, he said, it would have to be slowly. Just a little at a time.
For if it were too much, if it were noticeable, the other humans would
kill off each mutation as it became apparent. For the human race cannot
tolerate divergence from the norm, even though mutation is the process
by which the race develops.
The race doesn't kill the mutants any more. It confines them to mental
institutions or it forces them into such dead-ends of expression as art
or music, or it finds nice friendly exiles for them, where they will
be comfortable and have a job to do and where, the normal humans hope,
they'll never know what they are.
It's harder to be different now, he thought, harder to be a mutant and
escape detection, what with the medical boards and the psychiatrists
and all the other scientific mumbo-jumbo the humans have set up to
guard their peace of mind.
Five hundred years ago, thought West, they would not have found me out.
Five hundred years ago I might not have realized the fact myself.
Controlled mutation? Now that was something different. That was the
thing the government had in mind when it sent the commission here to
Pluto, taking advantage of the cold conditions to develop hormones that
might mutate the race. Hormones that might make a better race, that
might develop latent talents or even add entirely new characteristics
calculated to bring out the best that was in humanity.
Controlled mutations, those were all right. It was only the wild
mutations that the government would fear.
What if the members of the commission had developed a hormone and tried
it on themselves?
His thought stopped short, pleased with the idea, with the possible
solution.
Upon the bedpost the little monstrosity fingered its mouth, slobbering
gleefully.
A knock came on the door.
"Come in," called West.
The door opened and a man came in.
"I'm Belden," said the man. "Jim Belden. They told me you were here."
"I'm glad to know you, Belden."
"What's the game?" asked Belden.
"No game," said West.
"You got those two downstairs sold on you," Belden said. "They think
you're another great mind that has discovered the outside."
"So they do," said West. "I'm very glad to know it."
"They pointed out Annabelle to me," said Belden. "Said that was proof
you were one of us. But I recognized Annabelle. They didn't, but I did.
She's the one that Darling took along. You got her from Darling."
* * * * *
West stayed silent. There was no use in playing innocent with Belden,
for Belden had guessed too close to the truth.
Belden lowered his voice. "You have the same hunch as I have. You
figure Darling's hormone is worth more than all this mummery going on
downstairs. And you're here to find it. I told Nevin that Darling's
hormone was the thing for us to find instead of messing around outside,
but he didn't think so. After we took Darling to the moon, Nevin
smashed the ship's controls. He was afraid I might get away, you see.
He didn't trust me and he couldn't afford to let me get away."
"I'll trade with you," West told him quietly.
"We'll go to the moon in your ship and see Darling," said Belden.
"We'll beat it out of him."
West grinned wryly. "Darling's dead," he said.
"Did you search the hut?" asked Belden.
"Of course not. Why should I have searched it?"
"It's there, then," said Belden, grimly. "Hidden in the hut somewhere.
I've turned this place upside down and I'm sure it isn't here. Neither
the formula nor the hormones themselves. Not unless Darling was
trickier than I thought he was."
"You know what this hormone is," said West smoothly, trying to make it
sound as if he himself might know it.
"No," said Belden shortly. "Darling didn't trust us. He was angry at
what Nevin was trying to do. And once he made a crack that the man who
had it could rule the Solar System. Darling wasn't kidding, West. He
knew more about hormones than all the rest of us put together."
"Seems to me," West said drily, "that you would have wanted to keep a
man like that here. You certainly could have used him."
"Nevin again," Belden told him. "Darling wouldn't go along with the
program that Nevin planned. Even threatened to expose him if he ever
had the chance. Nevin wanted to kill him, but Cartwright thought up a
joke ... he's jovial, Cartwright is."
"I've noticed that," said West.
"Cartwright thought up the exile business," Belden said. "Offered
Darling any one thing he wished to take along. One thing, you
understand. Just one thing. That's where the joke came in. Cartwright
expected Darling to go through agonies trying to make up his mind. But
there wasn't a moment's hesitation. Darling took the whisky."
"He drank himself to death," said West.
"Darling wasn't a drinking man," Belden told him, sharply.
"It was suicide," said West. "Darling took you fellows down the line,
neatly, all the way. He was away ahead of you."
A soft sound like the brushing of a bird's wing swung West around.
Rosie was coming through the door, her wings half-raised, exposing
the hideousness of the furry, splotched body beneath the furry,
death's-head face.
"No!" screamed Belden. "No! I wasn't going to do anything. I wasn't--"
He backed away, arms outthrust to ward off the thing that walked toward
him, mouth still working, but no sound coming out.
Rosie brushed West to one side with a flip of a furry wing and then
the wings spread wider and shielded Belden from West's view. The wings
clapped shut and from behind them came the muffled scream of the man.
Then nothing; silence.
West's hand dropped to the holster and his gun came sliding out.
His thumb slammed down the activator and the gun purred like a
well-contented cat.
The ermine of Rosie's wings turned black and she crumpled to the floor.
A sickening odor filled the room.
"Belden!" cried West. He leaped forward, kicked the charred Rosie to
one side. Belden lay on the floor and West turned away retching.
For a moment West stood in indecision, then swiftly he knew what he
must do.
Showdown. He had hoped that it could be put off a little longer, until
he knew a little more, but the incident of Belden and Rosie had settled
it. There was nothing else to do.
He strode through the door and down the winding staircase toward the
darkened room below.
The painting, he saw, was lighted ... lighted as if from within itself.
As if the source of light lay within the painting, as if some other
sun shone upon the landscape that lay upon the canvas. The picture was
lighted, but the rest of the room was dark and the light did not come
out of the painting, but stayed there, imprisoned in the canvas.
Something scuttled between West's feet and scuttered down the stairs.
It squeaked and its claws beat a tattoo on the steps.
As West reached the bottom of the stairway a voice came out of the
darkness:
"Are you looking for something, Mr. West?"
"Yes, Cartwright," said West. "I am looking for you."
"You must not be too concerned with what Rosie did," Cartwright said.
"Don't let it upset you. Belden had it coming to him for a long time.
He was scarcely one of us, really, never one of us. He pretended to go
along with us because it was the only way that he could save his life.
And life is such a small thing to consider. Don't you think so, Mr.
West?"