[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Magazine October 1960.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Staghorn dared tug at the veil that hid the
future. Maybe it wasn't a crime to look ...
maybe it was just that the future was ugly!
I
Dr. Clarence Peccary was an objective man. His increasing irritation
was caused, he realized, by the fear that his conscience was going to
intervene between him and the vast fortune that was definitely within
his grasp. Millions. Billions! But he wanted to enjoy it.
He didn't want to skulk through life avoiding the eyes of everyone he
met--particularly when his life might last for centuries. So he sat
glowering at the rectangular screen that was located just above the
control console of Roger Staghorn's great digital computer.
At the moment Peccary was ready to accuse Staghorn of having no
conscience whatsoever. It was only through an act of scientific
detachment that he reminded himself that Staghorn neither had a fortune
to gain nor cared about gaining one. Staghorn's fulfillment was in
Humanac, the name he'd given the electronic monster that presently
claimed his full attention. He sat at the controls, his eyes luminous
behind the magnification of his thick lenses, his lanky frame arched
forward for a better view of Humanac's screen. Far from showing
annoyance at what he saw, there was a positive leer on his face.
As well there might be.
On the screen was the full color picture of a small park in what
appeared to be the center of a medium-sized town. It was a shabby
little park. Rags and tattered papers waggled indolently in the breeze.
The grass was an unkempt, indifferent pattern of greens and browns, as
though the caretaker took small pains in setting his sprinklers. Beyond
the square was a church, its steeple listing dangerously, its windows
broken and its heavy double doors sagging on their hinges.
Staghorn's leers and Dr. Peccary's glowers were not for the scenery,
however, but for the people who wandered aimlessly through the little
park and along the street beyond, carefully avoiding the area beneath
the leaning steeple. All of them were uniformly young, ranging from
perhaps seventeen at one extreme to no more than thirty at the other.
When Dr. Peccary had first seen them, he'd cried out joyfully, "You
see, Staghorn, all young! All handsome!" Then he'd stopped talking as
he studied those in the foreground more closely.
Their clothing, to call it that, was most peculiar. It was rags.
Here and there was a garment that bore a resemblance to a dress or
jacket or pair of trousers, but for the most part the people simply had
chunks of cloth wrapped about them in a most careless fashion. Several
would have been arrested for indecent exposure had they appeared
anywhere except on Humanac's screen. However, they seemed indifferent
to this--and to all else. A singularly attractive girl, in a costume
that would have made a Cretan blush, didn't even get a second glance
from, a young Adonis who passed her on the walk. Nor did she bestow one
on him. The park bench held more interest for her, so she sat down on
it.
Peccary studied her more closely, then straightened with a start.
* * * * *
"I'll be damned," he said. "That's Jenny Cheever!"