Pythias Read online

  Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  PYTHIAS

  By FREDERIK POHL

  Illustrated by MEL HUNTER

  Sure, Larry Connaught saved my life--but it was how he did it that forced me to murder him!

  I am sitting on the edge of what passes for a bed. It is made of looselywoven strips of steel, and there is no mattress, only an extra blanketof thin olive-drab. It isn't comfortable; but of course they expect tomake me still more uncomfortable.

  They expect to take me out of this precinct jail to the District prisonand eventually to the death house.

  Sure, there will be a trial first, but that is only a formality. Notonly did they catch me with the smoking gun in my hand and Connaughtbubbling to death through the hole in his throat, but I admitted it.

  I--knowing what I was doing, with, as they say, maliceaforethought--deliberately shot to death Laurence Connaught.

  They execute murderers. So they mean to execute me.

  Especially because Laurence Connaught had saved my life.

  Well, there are extenuating circumstances. I do not think they wouldconvince a jury.

  Connaught and I were close friends for years. We lost touch during thewar. We met again in Washington, a few years after the war was over. Wehad, to some extent, grown apart; he had become a man with a mission.He was working very hard on something and he did not choose to discusshis work and there was nothing else in his life on which to form a basisfor communication. And--well, I had my own life, too. It wasn'tscientific research in my case--I flunked out of med school, while hewent on. I'm not ashamed of it; it is nothing to be ashamed of. I simplywas not able to cope with the messy business of carving corpses. Ididn't like it, I didn't want to do it, and when I was forced to do it,I did it badly. So--I left.

  Thus I have no string of degrees, but you don't need them in order to bea Senate guard.

  * * * * *

  Does that sound like a terribly impressive career to you? Of course not;but I liked it. The Senators are relaxed and friendly when the guardsare around, and you learn wonderful things about what goes on behind thescenes of government. And a Senate guard is in a position to dofavors--for newspapermen, who find a lead to a story useful; forgovernment officials, who sometimes base a whole campaign on onecareless, repeated remark; and for just about anyone who would like tobe in the visitors' gallery during a hot debate.

  Larry Connaught, for instance. I ran into him on the street one day, andwe chatted for a moment, and he asked if it was possible to get him into see the upcoming foreign relations debate. It was; I called him thenext day and told him I had arranged for a pass. And he was there,watching eagerly with his moist little eyes, when the Secretary got upto speak and there was that sudden unexpected yell, and the handful ofCentral American fanatics dragged out their weapons and began trying tochange American policy with gunpowder.

  You remember the story, I suppose. There were only three of them, twowith guns, one with a hand grenade. The pistol men managed to wound twoSenators and a guard. I was right there, talking to Connaught. I spottedthe little fellow with the hand grenade and tackled him. I knocked himdown, but the grenade went flying, pin pulled, seconds ticking away. Ilunged for it. Larry Connaught was ahead of me.

  The newspaper stories made heroes out of both of us. They said it wasmiraculous that Larry, who had fallen right on top of the grenade, hadmanaged to get it away from himself and so placed that when it explodedno one was hurt.

  For it did go off--and the flying steel touched nobody. The papersmentioned that Larry had been knocked unconscious by the blast. He wasunconscious, all right.

  He didn't come to for six hours and when he woke up, he spent the nextwhole day in a stupor.

  I called on him the next night. He was glad to see me.

  "That was a close one, Dick," he said. "Take me back to Tarawa."

  I said, "I guess you saved my life, Larry."

  "Nonsense, Dick! I just jumped. Lucky, that's all."

  "The papers said you were terrific. They said you moved so fast, nobodycould see exactly what happened."

  He made a deprecating gesture, but his wet little eyes were wary."Nobody was really watching, I suppose."

  "I was watching," I told him flatly.

  He looked at me silently for a moment.

  "I was between you and the grenade," I said. "You didn't go past me,over me, or through me. But you were on top of the grenade."

  He started to shake his head.

  I said, "Also, Larry, you fell _on_ the grenade. It exploded underneathyou. I know, because I was almost on top of you, and it blew you clearoff the floor of the gallery. Did you have a bulletproof vest on?"

  * * * * *

  He cleared his throat. "Well, as a matter of--"

  "Cut it out, Larry! What's the answer?"

  He took off his glasses and rubbed his watery eyes. He grumbled, "Don'tyou read the papers? It went off a yard away."

  "Larry," I said gently, "I was there."

  He slumped back in his chair, staring at me. Larry Connaught was a smallman, but he never looked smaller than he did in that big chair, lookingat me as though I were Mr. Nemesis himself.

  Then he laughed. He surprised me; he sounded almost happy. He said,"Well, hell, Dick--I had to tell somebody about it sooner or later. Whynot you?"

  I can't tell you all of what he said. I'll tell most of it--but not thepart that matters.

  I'll never tell _that_ part to _anybody_.

  Larry said, "I should have known you'd remember." He smiled at meruefully, affectionately. "Those bull sessions in the cafeterias, eh?Talking all night about everything. But you remembered."

  "You claimed that the human mind possessed powers of psychokinesis," Isaid. "You argued that just by the mind, without moving a finger orusing a machine, a man could move his body anywhere, instantly. You saidthat nothing was impossible to the mind."

  I felt like an absolute fool saying those things; they were ridiculousnotions. Imagine a man _thinking_ himself from one place to another!But--I had been on that gallery.

  I licked my lips and looked to Larry Connaught for confirmation.

  "I was all wet," Larry laughed. "Imagine!"

  I suppose I showed surprise, because he patted my shoulder.

  He said, becoming sober, "Sure, Dick, you're wrong, but you're rightall the same. The mind alone can't do anything of the sort--that wasjust a silly kid notion. But," he went on, "_but_ there are--well,techniques--linking the mind to physical forces--simple physical forcesthat we all use every day--that can do it all. Everything! Everything Iever thought of and things I haven't found out yet.

  "Fly across the ocean? In a second, Dick! Wall off an exploding bomb?Easily! You saw me do it. Oh, it's work. It takes energy--you can'tescape natural law. That was what knocked me out for a whole day. Butthat was a hard one; it's a lot easier, for instance, to make a bulletmiss its target. It's even easier to lift the cartridge out of thechamber and put it in my pocket, so that the bullet can't even be fired.Want the Crown Jewels of England? I could get them, Dick!"

  I asked, "Can you see the future?"

  He frowned. "That's silly. This isn't supersti--"

  "How about reading minds?"

  * * * * *

  Larry's expression cleared. "Oh, you're remembering some of the things Isaid years ago. No, I can't do that either, Dick. Maybe, some day, if Ikeep working at this thing-- Well, I can't right now. There are things Ican do, though, that are just as good."

  "Show me something you can do," I asked.

  He smiled. Larry was enjoying himself; I didn't begrudge it to him. Hehad hugged this to
himself for years, from the day he found his firstclue, through the decade of proving and experimenting, almost alwaysbeing wrong, but always getting closer.... He _needed_ to talk about it.I think he was really glad that, at last, someone had found him out.

  He said, "Show you something? Why, let's see, Dick." He looked aroundthe room, then winked. "See that window?"

  I looked. It opened with a slither of wood and a rumble of sash weights.It closed again.

  "The radio," said Larry. There was a _click_ and his little set turneditself on. "Watch it."

  It disappeared and reappeared.

  "It was on top of Mount Everest," Larry said, panting a little.

  The plug on the radio's electric cord picked itself up and stretchedtoward the baseboard socket, then dropped to the floor again.

  "No," said Larry, and his voice was trembling, "I'll show you a hardone. Watch the radio, Dick. I'll run it without plugging it in! Theelectrons themselves--"

  He was staring intently at the little set. I saw the dial light go on,flicker, and hold steady; the speaker began to make scratching noises. Istood up, right behind Larry, right over him.

  I used the telephone on the table beside him. I caught him right besidethe ear and he folded over without a murmur. Methodically, I hit himtwice more, and then I was sure he wouldn't wake up for at least anhour. I rolled him over and put the telephone back in its cradle.

  I ransacked his apartment. I found it in his desk: All his notes. Allthe information. The secret of how to do the things he could do.

  I picked up the telephone and called the Washington police. When I heardthe siren outside, I took out my service revolver and shot him in thethroat. He was dead before they came in.

  * * * * *

  For, you see, I knew Laurence Connaught. We were friends. I would havetrusted him with my life. But this was more than just a life.

  Twenty-three words told how to do the things that Laurence Connaughtdid. Anyone who could read could do them. Criminals, traitors,lunatics--the formula would work for anyone.

  Laurence Connaught was an honest man and an idealist, I think. But whatwould happen to any man when he became God? Suppose you were toldtwenty-three words that would let you reach into any bank vault, peerinside any closed room, walk through any wall? Suppose pistols could notkill you?

  They say power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Andthere can be no more absolute power than the twenty-three words that canfree a man of any jail or give him anything he wants. Larry was myfriend. But I killed him in cold blood, knowing what I did, because hecould not be trusted with the secret that could make him king of theworld.

  But I can.

  --FREDERIK POHL

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from _Galaxy Science Fiction_ February 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.