A Stone and a Spear
BY RAYMOND F. JONES
Illustrated by JOHN BUNCH
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction December 1950.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Given: The future is probabilities merging into one certainty.
Proposition: Can the probabilities be made improbables
so that the certainty becomes impossible?
From Frederick to Baltimore, the rolling Maryland countryside lay undera fresh blanket of green. Wholly unaware of the summer glory, Dr.Curtis Johnson drove swiftly on the undulating highway, stirring cloudsof dust and dried grasses.
Beside him, his wife, Louise, held her blowing hair away from her faceand laughed into the warm air. "Dr. Dell isn't going to run away.Besides, you said we could call this a weekend vacation as well as abusiness trip."
Curt glanced at the speedometer and eased the pressure on the pedal. Hegrinned. "Wool-gathering again."
"What about?"
"I was just wondering who said it first—one of the fellows at Detrick,or that lieutenant at Bikini, or—"
"Said what? What are you talking about?"
"That crack about the weapons after the next war. He—whoever itwas—said there may be some doubt about what the weapons of the nextwar will be like, but there is absolutely no doubt about the weapons ofWorld War IV. It will be fought with stones and spears. I guess any oneof us could have said it."
Louise's smile grew tight and thin. "Don't any of you ever think ofanything but the next war—any of you?"
"How can we? We're fighting it right now."
"You make it sound so hopeless."
"That's what Dell said in the days just before he quit. He said wedidn't have to stay at Detrick producing the toxins and aerosols thatwill destroy millions of lives. But he never showed us how we couldquit—and be sure of staying alive. His own walking out was no morethan a futile gesture."
"I just can't understand him, Curt. I think he's right in a way, butwhat brought him to that viewpoint?"
"Hard to tell," Curt said, unconsciously speeding up again. "Afterthe war, when the atomic scientists were publicly examining theirconsciences, Dell told them to examine their own guts first. Thatwas typical of him then, but soon after, he swung just as stronglypacifist and walked out of Detrick."
"It still seems strange that he abandoned his whole career. The world'sforemost biochemist giving up the laboratory for a truck farm!"Louise glanced down at the lunch basket between them. In it weretomatoes that Dr. Hamon Dell had sent along with his invitation tovisit him.
For nearly a year Dr. Dell had been sending packages of choice fruitand vegetables to his former colleagues, not only at the biologicalwarfare center at Camp Detrick but at the universities and otherresearch centers throughout the country.
"I wish we knew exactly why he asked us to come out," said Louise.
"Nobody claims to have figured him out. They laugh a little at him now.They eat his gifts willingly enough, but consider him slightly off hisrocker. He still has all his biological talents, though. I've neverseen or tasted vegetables like the ones he grows."
"And the brass at Detrick doesn't think he's gone soft in the head,either," she added much too innocently. "So they ordered you to takeadvantage of his invitation and try to persuade him to come back."
Curt turn