The Cosmic Charge Account



                                            C. M. Kornbluth




The Cosmic Charge Account



 TheLackawannawas still running one cautious morning train a day intoScranton, though the city was said
to be emptying fast. Professor Leuten and I had a coach to ourselves, except for a scared, jittery
trainman who hung around and talked at us.



 "The name's Pech," he said. "And let me tell you, the Peches have been around for a mighty long time in
these parts. There's a town twenty-three miles north ofScrantonnamed Pechville. Full of my cousins and
aunts and uncles, and I used to visit there and we used to send picture post cards and get them, too. But
my God, mister, what's happened to them?"



His question was rhetorical. He didn't realize that Professor Leuten and I happened to be the only two
people outside the miscalled Plague Area who could probably answer it.



"Mr. Pech," I said, "if you don't mind we'd like to talk some business."



"Sorry," he said miserably, and went on to the next car.



 When we were alone Professor Leuten remarked: "An interesting reaction." He was very smooth about
it. Without the slightest warning he whipped a huge, writhing, hairy spider from his pocket and thrust it at
my face.



I was fast on the draw too. In one violent fling I was standing on my left foot in the aisle, thumbing my
nose, my tongue stuck out. Gooseflesh rippled down my neck and shoulders.



 "Very good," he said, and put the spider away. It was damnably realistic. Even knowing that it was a
gadget of twisted springs and plush, I cringed at the thought of its nestling in his pocket. With me it was
spiders. With the professor it was rats and asphyxiation. Toward the end of our mutual training program
it took only one part per million of sulfur dioxide gas in his vicinity to send him whirling into the posture of
defense, crane-like on one leg, tongue out and thumb to nose, the sweat of terror on his brow.



 "I have something to tell you, Professor," I said. "So?" he asked tolerantly. And that did it. The
tolerance. I had been prepared to make my point with a dignified recital and apology, but there were two
ways to tell the story and I suddenly chose the second. "You're a phoney," I said with satisfaction.
"WhatT he gasped.



"A phoney. A fake. A hoaxer. A self-deluding crackpot. Your Functional Epistemology is a farce. Let's
not go into this thing kidding ourselves."



His accent thickened a little. "Led me remind you, Mr. Morris, that you are addressing a Doctor of
Philosophy of the University of Gottingen and a member of the faculty of the University of Basle."



"You mean a privat-dozent who teaches freshman logic. And I seem to remember thatGottingenrevoked
your degree."
He said slowly: "I have known all along that you were a fool, Mr. Norris. Not until now did I realize that
you are also an anti-Semite. It was the Nazis who went through an illegal ceremony of revocation."



 "So that makes me an anti-Semite. From a teacher of logic that's very funny." "You are correct," he said
after a long pause. "I with-



draw my remark. Now, would you be good enough to amplify yours?"



"Gladly, Professor. In the first place—"



 I had been winding up the rubber rat in my pocket. I yanked it out and tossed it into his lap where it
scrabbled and clawed. He yelled with terror, but the yell didn't cost him a split second. Almost before it
started from his throat he was standing one-legged, thumb to nose, tongue stuck out.



He thanked me coldly, I congratulated him coldly, I pocketed the rat while he shuddered and we went
on with the conversation.



 I told him how, eighteen months ago, Mr. Hopedale called me into his office. Nice office, oak panels,
signed pictures of Hopedale Press writers from our glorious past: Kipling, Barrie, Theodore Roosevelt
and the rest of the backlog boys.



 What about Eino Elekinen, Mr. Hopedale wanted to know. Eino was one of our novelists. His first,
Vinland The Good, had been a critical success and a popular flop; Cubs of the Viking Breed, the sequel,
made us all a little money. He was now a month past delivery date on the final volume of the trilogy and
the end was not in sight.



 "I think he's pulling a sit-down strike, Mr. Hopedale. He's way overdrawn now and I had to refuse him a
thousand-dollar advance. He wanted to send his wife to theVirgin Islandsfor a divorce."



"Give him the money," Mr. Hopedale said impatiently. "How can you expect the man to write when he's
beset by personal difficulties?"
"Mr. Hopedale," I said politely, "she could divorce him right here inNew YorkState. He's given her
grounds in all five boroughs and the western townships ofLong Island. But that's not the point. He can't
write. And even if he could, the last thing American literature needs right now is another trilogy about a
Scandinavian immigrant family." "I know," he said. "I know. He's not very good yet.



 But I think he's going to be, and do you want him to starve while he's getting the juvenilia out of his
system?" His next remark had nothing to dcTwith EleMnen. He looked at the signed photo of T.
R.—"To a bully publisher—" and said: "Morris we're broke."



I said: "Ah?"



"We owe everybody. Printer, papermill, warehouse. Everybody. It's the end of Hopedale Press.
Unless—I don't want you to think people have been reporting on you, Norris, but I understand you came
up with an interesting idea at lunch yesterday. Some Swiss professor."



 I had to think hard. "You must mean Leuten, Mr. Hopedale. No, there's nothing in it for us, sir. I was
joking. My brother—he teaches philosophy atColumbia—mentioned him to me. Leuten's a crackpot.
Every year or two Weintraub Verlag inBaslebrings out another volume of his watchamacallit and they sell
about a thousand. Functional Epistemology—my brother says it's all nonsense, the kind of stuff vanity
presses put out. It was just a gag about us turning him into a Schweitzer or a Toynbee and bringing out a
one-volume condensation. People just buy his books—I suppose—because they gojt started and feel
ashamed to stop.



 Mr. Hopedale said: "Do it, Norris. Do it. We can scrape together enough cash for one big promotion
and then— the end. I'm going to see Brewster of Commercial Factors in the morning. I believe he will
advance us sixty-five per cent on our accounts receivable." He tried on a cynical smile. It didn't become
him. "Norris, you are what is technically called a Publisher's Bright Young Man. We can get seven-fifty
for a scholarly book. With luck and promotion we can sell in the hundred-thousands. Get on it." I
nodded, feeling sick, and started out. Mr. Hopedale said in a tired voice: "And it might actually be work
of some inspirational value."



 Professor Leuten sat and listened, red-faced, breathing hard. "You—betrayer," he said at last. "You with
the smiling face that came toBasle, that talked of lectures in
 America, that told me to sign your damnable contract. My face on the cover of the Time magazine that
looks like a monkey, the idiotic interviews, the press release-ments in my name that I never saw.America,
I thought, and held my tongue. But—from the beginning—it was_ a lie!" He buried his face in his hands
and muttered-"Ach! You stink!"



That reminded me. I took a small stench-bomb from my pocket and crushed it.



He leaped up, balanced on one leg and thumbed his nose. His tongue was out four inches and he was
panting with the terror of asphyxiation.



"Very good," I said.



"Thank you. I suchest we move to the other end of the car."



 We and our luggage were settled before he began to breathe normally. I judged that the panic and most
of his anger had passed. "Professor," I said cautiously, "I've been thinking of what we do when—>and
if—we find Miss Phoebe."



"We shall complete her re-education," he said. "We shall point out that her unleashed powers have been
dys-functionally applied."



"I can think of something better to do than completing her re-education. It's why I spoke a little harshly.
Presumably Miss Phoebe considers you the greatest man in the world."



He smiled reminiscently and I knew what he was thinking.



La Plume,Pa.WednesdayFour A.M. (!)



Professor Konrad Leuten
c/o The Hopedale Press



New York City,New York



My Dear Professor,



 Though you are a famous and busy man I do hope you will take time to read a few words of grateful
tribute



 from an old lady (eight-four). I have just finished your magnificent and inspirational book How to Live on
the Cosmic Expense Account: an Introduction to Functional Epistemology. x^



 Professor, I believe. I know every splendid word in your book is true. If there is one chapter finer than
the others it is No. 9, "How to Be In Utter Harmony With Your Environment." The Twelve Rules in that
chapter shall from this minute be my guiding light, and I shall practice them faithfully forever.



Your grateful friend, (Miss) Phoebe Bancroft



 That flattering letter reached us on Friday, one day after the papers reported with amusement or dismay
the "blackout" of La Plume,Pennsylvania. The term "Plague Area" came later.



"I suppose she might," said the professor.



"Well, think about it."



 The train slowed for a turn. I noticed that the track was lined with men and women. And some of them,
by God, were leaping for the moving train! Brakes went on with a squeal and jolt; my nose bashed
against the seat in front of us.
"Aggression," the professor said, astonished. "But that is not in the pattern!"



 We saw the trainman in the vestibule opening the door to yell at the trackside people. He was trampled
as they swarmed aboard, filling, jamming the car in a twinkling.



"Got toScranton," we heard them saying. "Zombies—"



"I get it," I shouted at the professor over their hubbub. "These are refugees fromScranton. They must
have blocked the track. Right now they're probably bullying the engineer into backing up all the way to
Wilkes-Barre. We've got to get off!"



 "Ja," he said. We were in an end seat. By elbowing, crowding and a little slugging we got to the vestibule
and dropped to the tracks. The professor lost all his lug-



 gage in the brief, fierce struggle. I saved only my briefcase. The powers of Hell itself were not going to
separate me from that briefcase.



 Hundreds of yelling, milling people were trying to climb aboard. Some made it to the roofs of the cars
after it was physically impossible for one more body to be fitted inside. The locomotive uttered a
despairing toot and the train began to back up.



"Well," I said, "we head north."



We foundU. S.6 after a short overland hike and trudged along the concrete. There was no traffic.
Everybody with a car had leftScrantondays ago, and nobody was going intoScranton. Except us.



 We saw our first zombie where a signpost told us it was three miles to the city. She was a woman in a
Mother Hubbard and sunbonnet. I couldn't tell whether she was young or old, beautiful or a hag. She
gave us a sweet, empty smile and asked if we had any food. I said no. She said she wasn't complaining
about her lot but she was hungry, and of course the vegetables and things were so much better now that
they weren't poisoning the soil with those dreadful chemical fertilizers. Then she said maybe there might
be something to eat down the road, wished us a pleasant good-day and went on.
"Dreadful chemical fertilizers?" I asked.



 The professor said: "I believe that is a contribution by the Duchess of Carbondale to Miss Phoebe's
reign. Several interviews mention it." We walked on. I could read his mind like a book. He hasn't even
read the interviews. He is a foolish, an impossible young man. And yet he is here, he has undergone a
rigorous course of training, he is after all risking a sort of death. Why? I let him go on wondering. The
answer was hi my briefcase.



"When do you think we'll be in range?" I asked.



"Heaven knows," he said testily. "Too many variables. Maybe it's different when she sleeps, maybe it
grows at different rates varying as the number of people affected. I feel nothing yet."



"Neither do I."



 And when we felt something—specifically, when we felt Miss Phoebe Bancroft practicing the Twelve
Rules of "How to be in Utter Harmony\ with Your Environment" —we would do something completely
idiotic, something that had got us thrown—literally thrown—out of the office of the Secretary of Defense.



 He had thundered at us: "Are you two trying to make a fool of me? Are you proposing that soldiers of
the United States Army undergo a three-month training course in sticking out their tongues and thumbing
their noses?" He was quivering with elevated blood pressure. Two M.P. lieutenants collared us under his
personal orders and tossed us down the Pentagon steps when we were unable to deny that he had stated
our proposal more or less correctly.



And so squads, platoons, companies, battalions and regiments marched into the Plague Area and never
marched out again.



Some soldiers stumbled out as zombies. After a few days spent at a sufficient distance from the Plague
Area their minds cleared and they told their confused stories,. Something came over them, they said. A
mental fuzziness almost impossible to describe. They liked it where they were, for instance; they left the
Plague Area only by accident. They were wrapped hi a vague, silly contentment even when they were
hungry, which was usually. What was life like in the Plague Area? Well, not much happened. You
wandered around looking for food. A lot of people looked sick but seemed to be contented. Farmers in
the area gave you food with the universal silly smile, but their crops were very poor. Animal pests got
most of them. Nobody seemed to eat meat. Nobody quarreled or fought or ever said a harsh word in the
Plague Area. And it was hell on earth. Nothing conceivable could induce any of them to return.



 The Duchess of Carbondale? Yes, sometimes she came driving by in her chariot wearing fluttery robes
and a golden crown. Everybody bowed down to her. She was a



big, fat middle-aged woman with rimless glasses and a pinched look of righteous triumph on her face.



 The recovered zombies at first were quarantined and doctors made their wills before going to examine
them. This proved to be unnecessary and the examinations proved to be fruitless. No bacteria, no
rickettsia, no viruses. Nothing. Which didn't stop them from continuing in the assumption embodied hi the
official name of the affected counties.



Professor Leuten and I knew better, of course. For knowing better we were thrown out of offices,
declined interviews and once almost locked up as lunatics. That was when we tried to get through to the
President direct. The Secret Service, I am able to testify, guards our Chief Executive with a zeal that
borders on ferocity.



"How goes the book?" Professor Leuten asked abruptly.



"Third hundred-thousand. Why? Want an advance?"



 I don't understand German, but I can recognize deep, heartfelt profanity in any language. He spluttered
and crackled for almost a full minute before he snarled in English: "Idiots! Dolts! Out of almost one-third
of a million readers, exactly one has read the book!"



I wanted to defer comment on that. "There's a car," I said.



"Obviously it stalled and was abandoned by a refugee from Scranton."
 "Let's have a look anyway." It was a battered old Ford sedan halfway off the pavement. The rear was
full of canned goods and liquor. Somebody had been looting. I pushed the starter and cranked for a
while; the motor didn't catch.



 "Useless," said the professor. I ignored him, yanked the dashboard hood button and got out to inspect
the guts. There was air showing on top of the gas hi the sediment cup.



 "We ride, professor," I told him. "I know these babies and their fuel pumps. The car quit on the upgrade
there and he let it roll back." I unscrewed the clamp of the carburetor air filter, twisted the filter off and
heaved it into



 the roadside bushes. The professor, of course was a "mere-machinery" boy with the true European
intellectual's contempt for greasy hands. He stood by haughtily while I poured a bottle of gin empty,
found a wrench in the toolbox that fit the gas tank drain plug and refilled the gin bottle with gasoline. He
condescended to sit behind the wheel and crank the motor from time to time while I sprinkled gas into
the carburetor. Each time the motor coughed there was less air showing in the sediment cup; finally the
motor caught for good. I moved him over, tucked my briefcase in beside me, U-turned on the broad,
empty highway and we chugged North into Scranton.



 It was only natural that he edged away from me, I suppose. I was grimy from working under the gas
tank. This plus the discreditable ability I had shown in starting the stalled car reminded him that he was,
after all, a Herr Doktor from a red university while I was, after all, a publisher's employee with nebulous
qualifications from some place called Cornell. The atmosphere was wrong for it, but sooner or later he
had to be told.



"Professor, we've got to have a talk and get something straight before we find Miss Phoebe."



He looked at the huge striped sign the city fathers of Scranton wisely erected to mark that awful
downgrade into the city. WARNING! SEVEN-MILE DEATH TRAP AHEAD SHIFT INTO LOWER
GEAR. $50 FINE. OBEY OR PAY!



 "What is there to get straight?" he demanded. "She has partially mastered Functional
Epistemology—even though Hopedale Press prefers to call it 'Living on the Cosmic Expense Account.'
This has unleashed certain latent powers of hers. It is simply our task to complete her mastery of the
ethical aspect of F.E. She will cease to dominate other minds as soon as she comprehends that her
behavior is dys-functional and in contravention of the Principle of Permissive Evolution." To him the
matter was settled. He mused: "Really I should not have let you cut so drastically my exposition of
Dyadic Imbalance; that must be the root of her difficulty. A brief inductive explanation—"



"Professor," I said. "I thought I told you in the train that you're a fake."



He corrected me loftily. "You told me that you think I'm a fake, Mr. Morris. Naturally I was angered by
your duplicity, but your opinion of me proves nothing. I ask you to look around you. Is this fakery?"



 We were well into the city. Bewildered dogs yelped at our car. Windows were broken and goods were
scattered on the sidewalks; here and there a house was burning brightly. Smashed and overturned cars
dotted the streets, and zombies walked slowly around them. When Miss Phoebe hit a city the effects
were something like a thousand-bomber raid.



"It's not fakery," I said, steeririg around a smiling man in a straw hat and overalls. "It isn't Functional
Epistemology either. It's faith in Functional Epistemology. It could have been faith hi anything, but your
book just happened to be what she settled on."



"Are you daring," he demanded, white to the lips, "to compare me with the faith healers?"



 "Yes," I said wearily. "They get their cures. So do lots of people. Let's roll it up in a ball, professor. I
think the best thing to do when we meet Miss Phoebe is for you to tell her you're a fake. Destroy her
faith in you and your system and I think she'll turn back into a normal old lady again. Wait a minute! Don't
tell me you're not a fake. I can prove you are. You say she's partly mastered F.E. and gets her powers
from that partial mastery. Well, presumably you've completely mastered F.E., since you invented it. So
why can't you do everything she's done, and lots more? Why can't you end this mess by levitating to La
Plume, instead of taking the Lackawanna and a 1941 Ford? And, by God, why couldn't you fix the Ford
with a pass of the hands and F.E. instead of standing by while I worked?"



His voice was genuinely puzzled. "I thought I just explained, Norris. Though it never occurred to me
before, I suppose I could do what you say, but I wouldn't dream of it. As I said, it would be
dys-functional and in com-



plete contravention of The Principle or Permissive—"
I said something very rude and added: "In short, you can but you won't."



 "Naturally not! The Principle of Permissive—" He looked at me with slow awareness dawning in his
eyes. "Morris! My editor. My proofreader. My by-the-pub-lisher-officially-assigned fidus Achates.
Norris, haven't you read my book?"



 "No," I said shortly. "I've been much too busy. You didn't get on the cover of Time magazine by blind
chance, you know."



He was laughing helplessly. "How goes that song," he finally asked me, his eyes damp, " 'God Bless
America'?"



I stopped the car abruptly. "I think I feel something," I said. "Professor, I like you."



"I like you too, Norris," he told me. "Norris, my boy, what do you think of ladies?"



"Delicate creatures. Custodians of culture. Professor, what about meat-eating?"



"Shocking barbarous survival. This is it, Norris!"



We yanked open the doors and leaped out. We stood on one foot each, thumbed our noses and stuck
out our tongues.



 Allowing for the time on the tram, this was the l,962d time I had done it in the past two months. One
thousand, nine hundred and sixty-one times the professor had arranged for spiders to pop out at me from
books, from the television screen, from under steaks, from desk drawers, from my pockets, from his.
Black widows, tarantulas, harmless (hah!) big house spiders, real and imitation. One thousand, nine
hundred and sixty-one times I had felt the arachnophobe's horrified revulsion; Each time I felt I had
thrown major voluntary muscular systems into play by drawing up one leg violently, violently swinging my
hand to my nose, violently grimacing to stick out my tongue.
My body had learned at last. There was no spider this time; there was only Miss Phoebe: a vague,
pleasant feeling something like the first martini. But my posture of



defense this l,962d time was accompanied by the old rejection and horror. It had no spider, so it turned
on Miss Phoebe. The vague first-martini feeling vanished like morning mist burned away by the sun.



 I relaxed cautiously. On the other side of the car so did Professor Leuten. "Professor," I said, "I don't
like you any more."



"Thank you," he said coldly. "Nor do I like'you."



 "I guess we're back to normal," I said. "Climb in." He climbed in and we started off. I grudgingly said:
"Congratulations."



 "Because it worked? Don't be ridiculous. It was to be expected that a plan of campaign derived from the
principles of Functional Epistemology would be successful. All that was required was that you be at least
as smart as one of Professor Pavlov's dogs, and I admit I considered that hypothesis the weak link in my
chain of reasoning. . . ."



 We stopped for a meal from the canned stuff in the back of the car about one o'clock and then chugged
steadily north through the ruined countryside. The little towns were wrecked and abandoned. Presumably
refugees from the expanding Plague Area did the first damage by looting; the subsequent destruction
just—happened. It showed you what would just happen to any twentieth-century town or city in the
course of a few weeks if the people who wage endless war against breakdown and dilapidation put aside
their arms. It was anybody's guess whether fire or water had done more damage.



 Between the towns the animals were incredibly bold. There was a veritable army of rabbits eating their
way across a field of clover. A farmer-zombie flapped a patchwork quilt at them, saying affectionately:
"Shoo, little bunnies! Go away, now! I mean it!"



But they knew he didn't, and continued to chew then-way across his field.
I stopped the car and called to the farmer. He came right away, smiling. "The little dickenses!" he said,
wav-



ing at the rabbits. "But I haven't the heart to really scare them."



"Are you happy?" I asked him.



"Oh, yes!" His eyes were sunken and bright; his cheekbones showed on his starved face. "People should
be considerate," he said. "I always say that being considerate is what matters most."



"Don't you miss electricity and cars and tractors?"



 "Goodness, no. I always say that things were better in the old days. Life was more gracious, I always
say. Why, I don't miss gasoline or electricity one little bit. Everybody's so considerate and gracious that it
makes up for everything."



"I wonder if you'd be so considerate and gracious as to lie down hi the road so we can drive over you?"



He looked mildly surprised and started to get down, saying: "Well, if it would afford you gentlemen any
pleasure—"



"No; don't bother after all. You can get back to your rabbits."



 He touched his straw hat and went away, beaming. We drove on. I said to the professor: "Chapter Nine:
'How to be in Utter Harmony With Your Environment.' Only she didn't change herself, Professor Leuten;
she changed the environment. Every man and woman hi the Area is what Miss Phoebe thinks they ought
to be: silly, sentimental, obliging and gracious to the point of idiocy. Nostalgic and all thumbs when it
comes to this dreadful machinery."



"Norris," the professor said thoughtfully, "we've been associated for some tune. I think you might drop
the 'professor' and call me 'Leuten.' In a way we're friends—"



 I jammed on the worn, mushy brakes. "Out!" I yelled, and we piled out. The silly glow was enveloping
me fast. Again, thumb to nose and tongue out, I burned it away. When I looked at the professor and was
quite sure he was a stubborn old fossil I knew I was all right again. When he glared at me and snapped:
"Naturally I withdraw my last remark, Norris, and no chentleman would



hold me to it," I knew he was normal. We got in and kept going north.



 The devastation became noticeably worse after we passed a gutted, stinking shambles that had once
been the town of Meshoppen, Pa. After Meshoppen there were more bodies on the road and the flies
became a horror. No pyrethrum from Kenya. No DDT from Wilmington. We drove hi the afternoon heat
with the windows cranked up and the hood ventilator closed. It was at about Me-shoppen's radius from
La Plume that things had stabilized for a while and the Army Engineers actually began to throw up barbed
wire. Who knew what happened then? Perhaps Miss Phoebe recovered from a slight cold, or perhaps
she told herself firmly that her faith -in Professor Leuten's wonderful book was weakening; that she must
take hold of herself and really work hard at being hi utter harmony with her environment. The next
morning—no Army Engineers. Zombies in uniform were glimpsed wandering about and smiling. The next
morning the radius of the Plague Aea was growing at the old mile a day.



 I wanted distraction from the sweat that streamed down my face. "Professor," I said, "do you remember
the last word in Miss Phoebe's letter? It was 'forever.' Do you suppose ... ?"



 "Immortality? Yes; I think that is well within the range of misapplied F.E. Of course complete mastery of
F.E. ensures that no such selfish power would be invoked. The beauty of F.E. is its conservatism, hi the
kinetic sense. It is self-regulating. A world in which universal mastery of F.E. has been achieved—and I
now perceive that the publication of my views by the Hopedale Press was if anything a step away from
that ideal—would be hi no outward wise different from the present world."



 "Built-in escape clause," I snapped. "Like yoga. You ask 'em to prove they've achieved self-mastery,
just a little demonstration like levitating or turning transparent but they're all ready for you. They tell you
they've achieved so much self-mastery they've mastered the de-



sire to levitate or turn transparent. I almost wish I'd read your book, professor, instead of just editing it.
Maybe you're smarter than I thought."
He turned brick-red and gritted out: "Your insults merely bore me, Norris."



 The highway took a turn and we turned with it. I braked again and rubbed my eyes. "Do you see them?"
I asked the professor.



"Yes," he said matter-of-factly. "This must be the retinue of the Duchess of Carbondale."



 They were a dozen men shoulder to shoulder barricading the road. They were armed with miscellaneous
sporting rifles and one bazooka. They wore kilt-like garments and what seemed to be bracelets from a
five-and-ten. When we stopped they opened up the center of the line and the Duchess of Carbondale
drove through in her chariot—only the chariot was a harness-racing sulky and she didn't drive it; the
horse was led by a skinny teen-age girl got up as Charmian for a high-school production of Antony and
Cleopatra. The Duchess herself wore ample white robes, a tiara and junk jewelry. She looked like your
unfavorite aunt, the fat one, or a grade-school teacher you remember with loathing when you're forty, or
one of those women who ring your doorbell and try to bully you into signing petitions against fluoridation
or atheism in the public schools.



The bazooka man had his stovepipe trained on our hood. His finger was on the button and he was
waiting for the Duchess to nod. "Get out," I told the professor, grabbing my briefcase. He looked at the
bazooka and we got out.



"Hail, O mortals," said the Duchess.



 I looked helplessly at the professor. Not even my extensive experience with lady novelists had equipped
me to deal with the situation. He, however, was able to take the ball. He was a European and he had
status and that's the starting point for them: establish status and then conduct yourself accordingly. He
said: "Madame, my name is Konrad Leuten. I am a doctor of philosophy of the



 University of Gottingen and a member of the faculty of the University of Basle. Whom have I the honor
to address?"



 Her eyes narrowed appraisingly. "O mortal," she said, and her voice was less windily dramatic, "know
ye that here hi the New Lemuria worldly titles are as naught. And know ye not that the pure hearts of my
subjects may not be sullied by base machinery?"
"I didn't know, madame," Leuten said politely. "I apologize. We intended, however, to go only as far as
La Plume. May we have your permission to do so?"



 At the mention of La Plume she went poker-faced. After a moment she waved at the bazooka man.
"Destroy, O Phraxanartes, the base machine of the strangers," she said. Phraxanartes touched the button
of his stovepipe. Leuten and I jumped for the ditch, my hand welded to the briefcase-handle, when the
rocket whooshed into the poor old Ford's motor. We huddled there while the gas tank boomed and cans
and bottles exploded. The noise subsided to a crackling roar and the whizzing fragments stopped coming
our way after maybe a minute. I put my head up first. The Duchess and her retinue were gone,
presumably melted into the roadside stand of trees.



Her windy contralto blasted out: "Arise, O strangers, and join us."



 Leuten said from the ditch: "A perfectly reasonable request, Norris. Let us do so. After all, one must be
obliging."



"And gracious," I added.



 Good old Duchess! I thought. Good old Leuten! Wonderful old world, with hills and trees and bunnies
and kitties and considerate people ...



Leuten was standing on one foot, thumbing his nose, sticking out his tongue, screaming: "Norris! Norris!
Defend yourself!" He was slapping my face with his free hand. Sluggishly I went into the posture of
defense, thinking: Such nonsense. Defense against what? But I wouldn't hurt old Leuten's feelings for the
world—



Adrenalin boiled through my veins, triggered by the



 posture. Spiders. Crawling^hairy, horrid spiders with purple, venom-dripping fangs. They hid in your
shoes and bit you and your feet swelled with the poison. Their sticky, loathsome webs brushed across
your face when you walked in the dark and they came scuttling silently, champing their jaws, winking
their evil gem-like eyes. Spiders!
 The voice of the duchess blared impatiently: "I said, join us, O strangers. Well, what are you waiting
for?"



 The professor and I relaxed and looked at each other. "She's mad," the professor said softly. "From an
asylum."



"I doubt it. You don't know America very well. Maybe you lock them up when they get like that in
Europe; over here we elect them chairlady of the Library Fund Drive. If we don't, we never hear the end
of it."



 The costumed girl was leading the Duchess's sulky onto the road again. Some of her retinue were
beginning to follow; she waved them back and dismissed the girl curtly. We skirted the heat of the
burning car and approached her. It was that or try to outrun a volley from the miscellaneous sporting
rifles.



"O strangers," she said, "you mentioned La Plume. Do you happen to be acquainted with my dear friend
Phoebe Bancroft?"



 The professor nodded before I could stop him. But almost simultaneously with his nod I was dragging
the Duchess from her improvised chariot. It was very unpleasant, but I put my hands around her throat
and knelt on her. It meant letting go of the briefcase but it was worth it.



She guggled and floundered and managed to whoop: "Don't shoot! I take it back, don't shoot them.
Pamphil-ius, don't shoot, you might hit me!"



"Send 'em away," I told her.



"Never!" she blared. "They are my loyal retainers."



"You try, professor," I said.
I believe what he put on then was his classroom man-



ner. He stiffened and swelled and rasped towards the shrubbery: "Come out at once. All of you."



 They came out, shambling and puzzled. They realized that something was very wrong. There was the
Duchess on the ground and she wasn't telling them what to do the way she'd been telling them for weeks
now. They wanted to oblige her in any little way they could, like shooting strangers, or scrounging canned
food for her, but how could they oblige her while she lay there slowly turning purple? It was very
confusing. Luckily there was somebody else to oblige, the professor.



 "Go away," he barked at them. "Go far away. We do not need you any more. And throw away your
guns."



 Well, that was something a body could understand. They smiled and threw away their guns and went
away in their obliging and considerate fashion.



I eased up on the Duchess's throat. "What was that guff about the New Lemuria?" I asked her.



"You're a rude and ignorant young man," she snapped. From the corner of my eye I could see the
professor involuntarily nodding agreement. "Every educated person knows that the lost wisdom of
Lemuria was to be revived in the person of a beautiful priestess this year. According to the science of
pyramidology—"



Beautiful priestess? Oh.



 The professor and I stood by while she spouted an amazing compost of lost-continentism, the Ten
Tribes, anti-fluoridation, vegetarianism, homeopathic medicine, organic farming, astrology, flying saucers,
and the prose-poems of Khalil Gibran.



The professor said dubiously at last: "I suppose one must call her a sort of Cultural Diffusionist. . . ." He
was happier when he had her classified. He went on: "I think you know Miss Phoebe Bancroft. We wish
you to present us to her as soon as possible."



"Professor," I complained, "we have a roadmap and we can find La Plume. And once we've found La
Plume I don't think it'll be very hard to find Miss Phoebe."



"I will be pleased to accompany you," said the Duch-



a



ess. "Though normally I frown on mechanical devices, I keep an automobile nearby in case of—in case
of—-well! Of all the rude—I"



 Believe it or not, she was speechless. Nothing hi her rich store of gibberish and hate seemed to fit the
situation. Anti-fluoridation, organic farming, even Khalil Gi-bran were irrelevant in the face of us two each
standing on one leg, thumbing our noses and sticking out our tongues.



 Undeniably the posture of defense was losing efficiency. It took longer to burn away the foolish glow. . .
.



"Professor," I asked after we warily relaxed, "how many more of those can we take?"



 He shrugged. "That is why a guide will be useful," he said. "Madame, I believe you mentioned an
automobile."



"I know!" she said brightly. "It was asana yoga, wasn't it? Postures, I mean?"



 The professor sucked an invisible lemon. "No, ma-dame," he said cadaverously, "It was neither
siddhasana nor padmasana. Yoga has been subsumed under Functional Epistemology, as has every other
working philosophical system, Eastern and Western—but we waste time. The automobile?"
"You have to do that every so often, is that it?"



"We will leave it at that, madame. The automobile, please."



 "Come right along," she said gaily. I didn't like the look on her face. Madam Chairlady was about to
spring a parliamentary coup. But I got my briefcase and followed.



 The car was in a nearby barn. It was a handsome new Lincoln, and I was reasonably certain that our fair
cicerone had stolen it. But then, we had stolen the Ford.



I loaded the briefcase in and took the wheel over her objections and we headed for La Plume, a dozen
miles away. On the road she yelped: "Oh, Functional Epistemology—and you're Professor Leuten!"



"Yes, madame," he wearily agreed.



"I've read your book, of course. So has Miss Bancroft; she'll be so pleased to see you."



"Then why, madame, did you order your subjects to murder us?"



 "Well, professor, of course I didn't know who you were then, and it was rather shocking, seeing
somebody in a car. I, ah, had the feeling that you were up to no, good, especially when you mentioned
dear Miss Bancroft. She, you know, is really responsible for the re-emergence of the New Lemuria."



"Indeed?" said the professor. "You understand, then, about Leveled Personality Interflow?" He was
beaming.



"I beg your pardon?"
"Leveled Personality Interflow!" he barked. "Chapter Nine!"



"Oh. In your book, of course. Well, as a matter of fact I skipped—"



"Another one," muttered the professor, leaning back.



 The Duchess chattered on: "Dear Miss Bancroft, of course, swears by your book. But you were
asking— no, it wasn't what you said. I cast her horoscope and it turned out that she is the
Twenty-Seventh Pen-dragon!"



"Scheissdreck," the professor mumbled, too discouraged to translate.



 "So naturally, professor, she incarnates Taliesin spiritually and"—a modest giggle—"you know who
incarnates it materially. Which is only sensible, since I'm descended from the high priestesses of Mu.
Little did I think when I was running the Wee Occult Book Shoppe in Carbon-dale!"



 "/a," said the professor. He made an effort. "Madame, tell me something. Do you never feel a certain
thing, a sense of friendliness and intoxication and goodwill enveloping you quite suddenly?"



 "Oh, that," she said scornfully. "Yes; every now and then. It doesn't bother me. I just think of all the
work I have to do. How I must stamp out the dreadful, soul-destroying advocates of meat-eating, and
chemical fertilizer, and fluoridation. How I must wage the good fight



 for occult science and crush the materialistic philosophers. How I must tear down our corrupt and
self-seeking ministers and priests, our rotten laws and customs—"



 "Lieber Gott," the professor marveled as she went on. "With Norris it is spiders. With me it is rats and
asphyxiation. But with this woman it is apparently everything in the Kosmos except her own revolting
self!" She didn't hear him; she was demanding that the voting age for women be lowered to sixteen and
for men raised to thirty-five.
 We plowed through flies and mosquitoes like smoke. The flies bred happily on dead cows and in sheep
which unfortunately were still alive. There wasn't oil cake for the cows hi the New Lemuria. There wasn't
sheep-dip for the sheep. There weren't state and county and township and village road crews constantly
patrolling, unplugging sluices, clearing gutters, replacing rusted culverts, and so quite naturally the
countryside was reverting to swampland^ The mosquitoes loved it.



 "La Plume," the Duchess announced gaily. "And that's Miss Phoebe Bancroft's little house right there.
Just why did you wish to see her, professor, by the way?"



"To complete her re-education . . ." the professor said in a tired voice.



Miss Phoebe's house, and the few near it, were the only places we had seen hi the Area which weren't
blighted by neglect. Miss Phoebe, of course, was able to tell the shambling zombies what to do in the
way of truck-gardening, lawn-mowing and maintenance. The bugs weren't too bad there.



 "She's probably resting, poor dear," said the Duchess. I stopped the car and we got out. The Duchess
said something about Kleenex and got hi again and rummaged through the glove compartment.



"Please, professor," I said, clutching my briefcase. "Play it the smart way. The way I told you."



"Norris," he said, "I realize that you have my best interests at heart. You're a good boy, Norris and I like
you—"



"Watch it!" I yelled, and swung into the posture of defense. So did he.



Spiders. It wasn't a good old world, not while there were loathsome spiders in it. Spiders—



 Arid a pistol shot past my ear. The professor fell. I turned and saw the Duchess looking smug, about to
shoot me too. I sidestepped and she missed; as I slapped the automatic out of her hand I thought
confusedly that it was a near-miracle, her hitting the professor at five paces even if he was a standing
target. People don't realize how hard it is to hit anything with a hand-gun.
 I suppose I was going to kill her or at least damage her badly when a new element intruded. A little old
white-haired lady tottering down the neat gravel path from the house. She wore a nice pastel dress which
surprised me; somehow I had always thought of her hi black.



"Bertha!" Miss Phoebe rapped out. "What have you done?"



The Duchess simpered. "That man there was going to harm you, Phoebe, dear. And this fellow is just as
bad—"



 Miss Phoebe said: "Nonsense. Nobody can harm me. Chapter Nine, Rule Seven. Bertha, I saw you
shoot that gentleman. I'm very angry with you, Bertha. Very angry."



The Duchess turned up her eyes and crumpled. I didn't have to check; I was sure she was dead. Miss
Phoebe was once again In Utter Harmony With Her Environment.



 I went over and knelt beside the professor. He had a hole hi his stomach and was still breathing. There
wasn't much blood. I sat down and cried. For the professor. For the poor damned human race which at
a mile per day would be gobbled up into apathy and idiocy. Goodby, Newton and Einstein, goodby
steak dinners and Michelangelo and Tenzing Norkay; goodby Moses, Rodin, Kwan Yin, transistors,
Boole and Steichen. . . .



 A redheaded man with an adam's apple was saying gently to Miss Phoebe: "It's this rabbit, ma'am." And
indeed an enormous rabbit was loping up to him. "Every time I find a turnip or something he takes it away
from me



 and he kicks and bites when I try to reason with him—" And indeed he took a piece of turnip from his
pocket and the rabbit insolently pawed it from his hand and nibbled it triumphantly with one wise-guy eye
cocked up at his victim. "He does that every time, Miss Phoebe," the man said unhappily.



The little old lady said: "I'll think of something, Henry. But let me take care of these people first."
 "Yes, ma'am," Henry said. He reached out cautiously for his piece of turnip and the rabbit bit him and
then went back to its nibbling.



"Young man," Miss Phoebe said to me, "what's wrong? You're giving in to despair. You mustn't do that.
Chapter Nine, Rule Three."



I pulled myself together enough to say: "This is Professor Leuten. He's dying."



 Her eyes widened. "The Professor Leuten?" I nodded. "How to Live on the Cosmic Expense Account?"
I nodded.



"Oh, dear! If only there were something I could do!"



Heal the dying? Apparently not. She didn't think she could, so she couldn't.



"Professor," I said. "Professor."



He opened his eyes and said something hi German, then, hazily: "Woman shot me. Spoil her—racket,
you call it? Who is this?" He grimaced with pain.



 "I'm Miss Phoebe Bancroft, Professor Leuten," she breathed, leaning over him. "I'm so dreadfully sorry;
I admire your wonderful book so much."



His weary eyes turned to me. "So, Norris," he said. "No time to do it right. We do it your way. Help me
up."



 I helped him to his feet, suffering, I think, almost as much as he did. The wound started to bleed more
copiously.
"No!" Miss Phoebe exclaimed. "You should lie down."



The professor leered. "Good idea, baby. You want to keep me company?"



"What's that?" she snapped.



"You heard me, baby. Say, you got any liquor in your place?"



"Certainly not! Alcohol is inimical to the development pf the higher functions of the mind. Chapter
Nine—"



"Pfui on Chapter Nine, baby. I chust wrote that stuff for money."



 If Miss Phoebe hadn't been in a state resembling surgical shock after hearing that, she would have seen
the pain convulsing his face. "You mean. . .. ?" she quavered, beginning to look her age for the first time.



 "Sure. Lotta garbage. Sling fancy words and make money. What I go for is liquor and women. Women
like you, baby."



The goose did it.



Weeping, frightened, insulted and lost she tottered blindly up the neat path to her house. I eased the
professor to the ground. He was biting almost through his lower lip.



 I heard a new noise behind me. It was Henry, the redhead with the adam's apple. He was chewing his
piece of turnip and had hold of the big rabbit by the hind legs. He was flailing it against a tree. Henry
looked ferocious, savage, carnivorous and very, very dangerous to meddle with. In a word, human.



"Professor," I breathed at his waxen face, "you've done it. It's broken. Over. No more Plague Area."
He muttered, his eyes closed: "I regret not doing it properly . . . but tell the people how I died, Norris.
With dignity, without fear. Because of Functional Epistemol-ogy."



I said through tears: "I'll do more than tell them, professor. The world will know about your heroism.



"The world must know. We've got to make a book of this—your authentic, authorized, fictional
biography— and Hopedale's West Coast agent'll see to the film sale—"



"Film?" he said drowsily. "Book . . . ?"-



"Yes. Your years of struggle, the little girl at home who kept faith in you when everybody scoffed, your
burning mission to transform the world, and the climax—here,



now!—as you give up your life for your philosophy."



"What girl?" he asked weakly.



"There must have been someone, professor. We'll find someone."



"You would," he asked feebly, "document my expulsion from Germany by the Nazis?"



 "Well, I don't think so, professor. The export market's important, especially when it comes to selling film
rights, and you don't want to go offending people by raking up old memories. But don't worry, professor.
The big thing is, the world will never forget you and what you've done."



He opened his eyes and breathed: "You mean your version of what I've done. Ach, Norris, Norris!
Never did I think there was a power on Earth which could force me to contravene The Principle of
Permissive Evolution." His voice became stronger. "But you, Norris, are that power." He got to his feet,
grunting. "Norris," he said, "I hereby give you formal warning that any attempt to make a fictional
biography or cinema film of my life will result in an immediate injunction being—you say slapped?—upon
you, as well as suits for damages from libel, copyright infringement and invasion of privacy. I have had
enough."



"Professor," I gasped. "You're well!"



He grimaced. "I'm sick. Profoundly sick to my stomach at my contravention of the Principle of
Permissive—"



 His voice grew fainter. This was because he was rising slowly into the air. He leveled off at a hundred
feet and called: "Send the royalty statements to my old address in Basle. And remember, Norris, I
warned you—"



He zoomed eastward then at perhaps one hundred miles per hour. I think he was picking up speed when
he vanished from sight.



I stood there for ten minutes or so and sighed and rubbed my eyes and wondered whether anything was
worth-while. I decided I'd read the professor's book tomorrow without fail, unless something came up.



 Then I took my briefcase and went up the walk and into Miss Phoebe's house. (Henry had made a twig
fire



on the lawn and was roasting his rabbit; he glared at me .most disobligingly and I skirted him with care.)



This was, after all, the payoff; this was, after all, the reason why I had risked my life and sanity.



 "Miss Phoebe," I said to her taking it out of the briefcase, "I represent the Hopedale Press; this is one of
our standard contracts. We're very much interested in publishing the story of your life, with special
emphasis on the events of the past few weeks. Naturally you'd have an experienced collaborator. I
believe sales in the hundred-thousands wouldn't be too much to expect. I would suggest as a title—that's
right, you sign on that line there —How to be Supreme Ruler of Everybody. . . ."