Bruce Elliott

“ At least Comstock found it so. Despite the traps, the violence, the hurts, the fear, they were now where they wanted to be.
They sat quietly, their hands folded, and if any feeling of triumph was in them, it was so muted as not to be observable. At that precise moment, when they sat in the ante-room, waiting for their reward, if reward it were to be, the only common emotion they shared was that they had fought a good fight. Fought as hard as it is in a person to fight for what they consider right. ”

“ Pat said, "But The Grandfather is only a man and therefore has made mistakes. He has frozen our culture at the same point for so long that humanity is in danger of drying up and dying out."
If, Comstock thought, The Grandfather had been only a man, then all this trouble would not have started, but there was no point in frightening Pat, she was too happy, too bubbling over with excitement, with the news of what a brave new world they were soon to have under the direction of Bowdler, Helen, Grundy, the philosopher, Pat and Comstock. ”

“ The man who was a criminal in spite of himself observed the way Pat looked down at Comstock and his harshly handsome face softened.
"My dear, perhaps it is better that he be the way he is, if what you have told me is true and you are both rebels against the bonds that chain all of us on this sorry world of ours. I fear what the Board of Fathers or The Grandfather may decide may be much worse than this condition that my question has caused."
"To die is hard, but to die without knowing that you are dying, is horrible," Pat said through clenched teeth. ”

“ Pat sat on the side of the road being of no help to Comstock at all, since she was busy being convulsed by giggles. The sight of the long-legged madman, his no longer jaunty cape entangled in his thrashing limbs, while Comstock wildly snapped things on and off on the control board, and the unguided car veered and yawed as it ran backwards up the steep hill was a little more than she could stand. ”

“ Struggling to get his attention on to this new vagary of The Grandfather, Comstock said, "But fat people die sooner than skinny ones."
"Certainly," The Grandfather nodded, "but what's that got to do with it? That's reality. The statistic that obesity shortens life is hard and true. But that reality only comes once, at the end of the line. To the fat person the important thing to hide from is the ever-present reminder that the day he is born he begins to die. That's the big trick they try to employ. ”

“ Taking a deep breath and setting his heavy jaw, Bowdler said, "If The Grandfather is a fake as I am beginning to believe, and the Fathers a pack of self-seeking sybarites who stay in power just because they are the most direct descendants from the original Thirty, and if the Elders are doddering fossils whose intellectual powers are supposed to befuddle us and keep us in place, than I say with Grundy, the time has come to overthrow this foul regime." ”

“ Not knowing what a philosopher might be did not prevent her from feeling sorry that the bound man had been the last of whatever it was that he had been.
Comstock never knew about the conversation that the quondam Picaroon had with Pat, for all the while that the girl and the bound man talked, Comstock was in a little world of his own trying to chase down the reality of his own existence.
Sitting on the ground next to the man who called himself the Picaroon and the last philosopher, Pat found herself involved in a discussion of what the man spoke of as the eternal verities. ”

“ Comstock could not tell if the R.A. had fired and missed, or had held his fire, for of course a stun-gun is silent as the grave, and only affects the human nervous system.
Careening along the quiet streets Comstock found time to feel deep and real sorrow for Bowdler. It still did not seem possible that anyone could have been as brave as all that. Aloud he said, "Bowdler sacrificed himself for us, didn't he?"
Grundy nodded, his eyes alert, scanning the road ahead, for what? Comstock wondered.
"When you are daring what we are, you must be prepared for instant sacrifice," Grundy said. ”

“ Much worse, for what Grundy was intimating was at variance with what his father had taught him. It was worse.
"Maybe," Grundy said broodingly, "just maybe there is a damn good reason why the Fathers are called the Fathers!"
There are moments in life so terrifying that the very ground seems to shift beneath one's feet. That was the sensation that Comstock was experiencing. All was alien. He clung to the tattered copy of Father Goose as the only tangible thread that held his reeling sanity together. Averting his eyes from Grundy's and Bowdler's faces he hurriedly read ”

“ Bowdler's voice went on, striking ever more harshly at the roots of Comstock's being.
"What a mockery all of our lives would be if what Grundy and I think is true. Suppose everything we have been taught is a lie. What then little man? What then?"
From some unknown and previously untapped reservoir of strength Comstock managed to dredge up the ability to say, "That's ridiculous. There would be no reason under the two suns for that to be true. The truth is mighty and will prevail." ”

“ When he deliberated so long that their nerves were jangling, Bowdler said, "Look, Jimmy, do you want to have to live and die as a drunk, just because it's the only known cure for your disease?"
Things were popping too fast for Comstock to be able to grapple with them intelligently. He mumbled, "Nothin' wrong with being a drunk. I like it fine."
Grundy sprang to the attack. "That's too bad, old man, because it means the cure won't work. You should know that, the doc should have told you! The vice must be distasteful or the cure doesn't work!" ”

“ Comstock asked, "can you sit under the menace of the guns that surround us? Aren't you afraid that one of the gunners may shoot you?"
"You see," the lean, bearded face was full of envy, "You see, you think like a brave man and that is why you will never be able to overcome me. Only a brave man could sit under the guns ... unless, he had the foresight to have done what I have. Behind the gunners of which you are aware, there is another set of gunners, each of whom has a gun pointed at the head of the gunner who has been honored by being my guard." ”

“ Comstock was aware in the lengthening silence of the immobility of the single-eyed muzzles of the stun-guns which surrounded him. Not since he had opened his eyes in that singular room had one of the guns so much as twitched.
"Surely," Comstock said. "For instance, there is no one behind any of the guns that seem to menace me."
Lean fingers were busy caressing the silken hairs of the beard that cascaded down The Grandfather's chest. The gaunt face surrounded by the aureole of hair was intent. "How?" he asked, "could you tell that?"
"Because I am really a coward." Comstock said almost boldly. ”

“ I must be a man." He shook his head dolefully. "It wasn't about my family at all. It was about the Gantrys ... and you know how powerful that blood line is. I don't have to tell you! Ever since Elmer the First, they've been on top of the heap!"
Comstock nodded. As if any sane person would even question the qualifications of the Gantrys to be leaders! These two men were even more dangerous than he had suspected. It was up to him to keep his mouth shut and his ears open, by The Grandfather it was!
The furrows in Grundy's forehead were deeper now. ”

“ Seeing this, the last philosopher said, "There is one chance, and only one that I can think of that may revive him. Perhaps love, an emotion of which I know very little, may be strong enough to pull him out of that place to which he has run for safety."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"To me," the man said, "as a philosopher, the charms of love and sex were never very strong. But I should imagine, just as pure speculation, that the two must be very tightly entwined."
Deep, deep down inside the thing that Comstock had become he felt a stirring of some kind of interest. ”

“ When Bowdler and Grundy had first sounded out Comstock and had asked him the questions that had led him so far from the normal law-abiding life that had been his, one of the mainsprings of his conduct had been envy mixed with disgust that the Fathers whom formerly he had so revered had become monsters in his mind. Monsters who had used the whole planet as a breeding ground for their harems. ”

“ How far could a man be pushed? What did he have to lose now that he knew that membership on the Board of Fathers meant a lingering death by heart disease? A wave of adrenaline shot through his system as anger burned brightly.
He almost snarled as he asked, "Suppose you do some answering? Suppose I ask the questions for a change?"
Leaning back in his chair The Grandfather's face reflected no emotion at all.
Comstock snapped. "Suppose you tell me how you've stayed in power so long! Some of those earth books I read in Bowdler's library made me wonder about a lot of things, Grandfather. ”

“ Comstock looked down at his own beginning paunch and wondered if this was why the Grandfather had brought up the subject of fat, then he said, "I was saying that the reason you rule is because you have no fears."
"Yes. That was the subject under discussion, wasn't it?" Again The Grandfather stroked his beard. "Now then, just how did you arrive at that rather startling idea? Remember I don't agree with you, for as I said, every human being fears something."
"I am sure you are right," Comstock said tensely. "I am sure that every human being fears something ... or someone." ”

“ Crossing his arms, he dared the thunderbolts of The Grandfather's wrath. "I don't think you are a human being, grandpa."
The silence that followed his pronouncement seemed to last for all the years of Comstock's life.
When The Grandfather spoke, his words came as a withering shock to Comstock.
"You are a very brave man, Comstock. The bravest this world of ours has produced in five centuries...."
It was, after all, one thing to have an hypothesis, it was an astrobat of a far different color to have that hypothesis substantiated. And right from the astrobat's mouth at that! ”

“ Considerably shaken, Grundy came back into the library. Helen said, "What do you suppose it is, darling?"
"Bowdler has told me about robots ... machines that act almost like we do, but I never, ever, thought that one could run a whole house this way!"
Comstock was willing to accept the robot as he would have the word fairy when he was a child and he was even more inclined to confuse the two things, when at Grundy's mention of being hungry, the door swung open and a wheeled cart entered loaded down with food the like of which none of the three had ever seen. ”

“ I was told, just before the death of the scientist who finished me, that the reason all our people were driven from earth was because they were vestigial hangovers from what he called an inner-directed culture. An inner-directed culture is always the result of an historical period when the death rate is higher than the birth rate. This kind of culture possesses certain attributes which serve pioneers well, because these inner-directed people have a strong sense of right and wrong, they believe implicitly in black and white evils and virtues. ”

“ Grundy's face set. His mouth set in thin lines of derision. "I know for a fact, that the Elders are just that. Elder. There's no magic in old age no matter what they taught us in school or what they keep yelling and yammering at us all the time. Old people are just old...."
Was there no end to the men's blasphemies? Comstock shook his aching head wearily. ”

“ Across the street Comstock saw a curtain being pulled slightly to one side. Then a frightened eye stared out. The Grandfather or his representatives would have to answer Grundy's challenge, he realized with a little thrill of pride.
The powers-that-be dared not allow the people to see a man defy The Grandfather.
It was, Comstock thought, rather a wonderful thing to be a rebel. ”

“ Seeing that Comstock was baffled, Grundy brought the edge of his hand down in the same chopping motion on Helen's neck. Then he pointed at the black garbed man who was leading the way into ... death....
Once the idea penetrated Comstock's considerably bemuddled mind he sprang into action as though he had been trained in violence all his life. Leaping closer to the emissary he whacked the edge of his hand down on the nape of the man's neck.
As he did so, Grundy and Bowdler ran to join him. They caught the man before he hit the ground. ”

“ When their bodies had been removed, Comstock said, "There's nothing to be afraid of. The Grandfather says that He is something that used to be called a robot."
Then rapping on the table with a gavel, he sat back and waited. Down at the far end of the table he could see Pat eyeing the head with awed fascination. The others were equally pop-eyed.
The philosopher, the man of words, could not be restrained. Before the Grandfather could speak, the philosopher asked incredulously, "Do you mean to say that we have been obeying the dictates of a machine?" ”

“ All that I can say with any assurance, is that if something is not done and done quickly, our world will go down the road to static death, never knowing what has toppled it from the high estate it held."
Comstock's mind was almost incapable of digesting what The Grandfather was saying. It had all happened much too quickly. To be raised in a matter of moments from a position where death seemed imminent first to a position on the Board of Fathers, and now, if he understood correctly, to be told that the future of the world was somehow his responsibility, was just too much. ”

“ So successful has been the regime that I have caused to come into being, that no longer can we hope to recruit new Fathers from amongst those brave souls who rebel against the government we have set up. Not for fifty years has a new rebel appeared to challenge our power. Therefore, as you all know, Father Bowdler, because he is the healthiest appearing of any of you, was empowered to go out into the world and find rebellious souls whom we may be able to use as leaders. ”