The Addicts by Joseph Samachson (popular ebook readers txt) 📕

By WILLIAM MORRISON

Illustrated by ED. ALEXANDER

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction January 1952.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Wives always try to cure husbands of
bad habits, even on lonely asteroids!

You must understand that Palmer loved his wife as much as ever, or he would never have thought of his simple little scheme at all. It was entirely for her own good, as he had told himself a dozen times in the past day. And with that he stilled whatever qualms of conscience he might otherwise have had. He didn't think of himself as being something of a murderer.

She was sitting at the artificial fireplace, a cheerful relic of ancient days, reading just as peacefully as if she had been back home on Mars, instead of on this desolate outpost of space. She had adjusted quickly to the loneliness and the strangeness of this life—to the absence of friends, the need for conserving air, the strange feeling of an artificial gravity that varied slightly at the whim of impurities in the station fuel. To everything, in fact, but her husband.

She seemed to sense his eyes on her, for she looked up and smiled. "Feeling all right, dear?" she asked.

"Naturally. How about you?"

"As well as can be expected."

"Not very good, then."

She didn't reply, and he thought, She hates to admit it, but she really envies me. Well, I'll fix it so that she needn't any more. And he stared through the thick, transparent metal window at the beauty of the stars, their light undimmed by dust or atmosphere.

The stories told about the wretchedness of the lighthouse keepers who lived on asteroids didn't apply at all to this particular bit of cosmic rock. Life here had been wonderful, incredibly satisfying. At least it had been that way for him. And now it would be the same way for his wife as well.

He would have denied it hotly if you had accused him of finding her repulsive. But to certain drunks, the sober man or woman is an offense, and Palmer was much more than a drunk. He was a marak addict, and in the eyes of the marak fiends, all things and all people were wonderful, except those who did not share their taste for the drug. The latter were miserable, depraved creatures, practically subhuman.

Of course that was not the way most of them put it. Certainly it was not the way Palmer did. He regarded his wife, he told himself, as an unfortunate individual whom he loved very much, one whom it was his duty to make happy. That her new-found happiness would also hasten her death was merely an unfortunate coincidence. She was sure to die anyway, before long, so why not have her live out her last days in the peace and contentment that only marak could bring?

Louise herself would have had an answer to that, if he had ever put the question to her. He was careful never to do so.

She laid the book aside and looked up at him again. She said, "Jim, darling, do you think you could get the television set working again?"

"Not without a mesotron rectifier."

"Even the radio would be a comfort."

"It wouldn't do any good, any way. Too much static from both Mars and Earth this time of year."

That was the beauty of the marak, he thought. It changed his mood, and left him calm and in full command of his faculties, able to handle any problem that came up. He himself, of course, missed neither the radio nor the television, and he never touched the fine library of micro-books. He didn't need them.

A shadow flitted by outside the thick window, blotting out for a moment the blaze of stars. It was the shadow of death, as he knew, and he was able to smile even at that. Even death was wonderful. When it finally came, it would find him happy. He would not shudder away from it, as he saw Louise doing now at the sight of the ominous shadow.

He smiled at his wife again, remembering the six years they had lived together. It had been a short married life, but—again the word suggested itself to him—a wonderful one. There had been only one quarrel of importance, in the second year, and after that they had got along perfectly. And then, two years ago, he had begun to take marak, and after that he couldn't have quarreled with anyone. It was a paragon among drugs, and it was one of the mysteries of his existence that anybody should object to his using it.

Louise had tried to argue with him after she had found out, but he had turned every exchange of views into a peaceful discussion, which from his side, at least, was brimming over with good humor. He had even been good-humored when she tried to slip the antidote into his food. It was this attitude of his that had so often left her baffled and enraged, and he had a good chuckle out of that, too. Imagine a wife getting angry because her husband was too good-natured.

But she was never going to get angry again. He would see to that. Not after tonight. A big change was going to take place in her life.

She had picked up another book, and for the moment he pitied her. He knew that she wasn't interested in any books. She was merely restless, looking for something to do with herself, seeking some method of killing time before the shadows outside killed it for her for good and all. She couldn't understand his being so peaceful and contented, doing nothing at all.

She threw the second book down and snarled—yes, that was the word, "You're such a fool, Jim! You sit there, smug and sure of yourself, your mind blank, just waiting—waiting for them to kill you and me. And you seem actually happy when I mention it."

"I'm happy at anything and everything, dear."

"At the thought of dying too?"

"Living or dying—it doesn't make any difference. Whatever happens, I'm incapable of being unhappy."

"If it weren't for the drug, we'd both live. You'd think of a way to kill them before they killed us."

"There is no way."

"There must be. You just can't think of it while the drug has you in its grip."

"The drug doesn't have you, dear." He asked without sarcasm, "Why don't you think of a way?"

"Because I lack the training you have. Because I don't have the scientific knowledge, and all the equipment scattered around means nothing to me."

"There's nothing to be done."

Her fists clenched. "If you weren't under the influence of the drug—"

"You know that it doesn't affect the ability to think. Tests have shown that."

"Tests conducted by addicts themselves!"

"The fact that they can conduct the tests should be proof enough that there's nothing wrong with their minds."

"But there is!" she shouted. "I can see it in you. Oh, I know that you can still add and subtract, and you can draw lines under two words which mean the same thing, but that isn't really thinking. Real thinking means the ability to tackle real problems—hard problems that you can't handle merely with paper and pencil. It means having the incentive to use your brain for a long time at a stretch. And that's what the drug has ruined. It has taken away all your incentive."

"I still go about my duties."

"Not as well as you used to, and even at that, only because they've become a habit. Just as you talk to me, because I've become a habit. If you'd let me give you the antidote—"

He chuckled at the absurdity of her suggestion. Once an addict had been cured, he could not become addicted again. The antidote acted to produce a permanent immunization against the effects of the drug. It was the realization of this fact that made addicts fight so hard against any attempt to cure them. And she thought that she could convince him by argument!

He said, "You talk of not being able to think!"

"I know," she replied hotly. "I'm the one who blunders. I'm the fool, for arguing with you, when I realize that it's impossible to convince a marak addict."

"That's it," he nodded, and chuckled again. But that wasn't quite it. For he was also chuckling at his plan. She had thought him unable to tackle a real problem. Well, he would tackle one tonight. Then she would simply adopt his point of view, and she would no longer be unhappy. After she had accepted the solution he had provided, she would wonder how she could ever have opposed him.

He fell into one of his dozes and hardly noticed her glaring at him. When he came out of it at last, it was to hear her say, "We have to stay alive as long as possible. For the sake of the lighthouse."

"Of course, my dear. I don't dispute that at all."

"And the longer we stay alive, the more chance there is that some ship will pick us up."

"Oh, no, there's no chance at all," he asserted cheerfully. "You know that as well as I do. No use deceiving yourself, my love."

That, he observed to himself, was the way of non-addicts. They couldn't look facts in the face. They had to cling to a blind and silly optimism which no facts justified.

He knew that there was no hope. He was able to review the facts calmly, judiciously, to see the inevitability of their dying—and to take pleasure even in that.

He reviewed them for her now. "Let us see, sweetheart, whether I've lost my ability to analyze a situation. We're here with our pretty little lighthouse in the middle of a group of asteroids between Mars and Earth. Ships have been wrecked here, and our task is to prevent further wrecks. The lighthouse sends out a standard high-frequency beam whose intensity and phase permit astrogators to estimate their distance and direction from us. Ordinarily, there's nothing for us to do. But on the rare occasions when the beam fails—"

"That will be the end."

"On those occasions," he continued, unruffled by her interruption, "I am supposed to leave my cosy little shelter, so thoughtfully equipped with all the comforts of Earth or Mars, and make repairs as rapidly as possible. Under the usual conditions, lighthousekeeping is a boring task. In fact, it has been known to drive people insane. That's why it's generally assigned to happily married couples like us, who are accustomed to living quietly, without excitement."

"And that," she added bitterly, "is why even happily married couples are usually relieved after one year."

"But, darling," he said, his tone cheerful, "you mustn't blame anyone. Who would have expected that a maverick meteor would come at us and displace us from our orbit? And who would have expected that the meteor would have collided first with the outer asteroids, and picked up a cargo of—those?"

He gestured toward the window, where a shadow had momentarily paused. By the light that shone through, he could see that the creature was relatively harmless-looking. It had what appeared to be a round, humorous face whose unhumorous intentions would be revealed only at the moment of the kill. The seeming face was actually featureless, for it was not a face at all. It had neither eyes, nor nose, nor mouth. The effect of features was given by the odd blend of colors. Almost escaping notice because of their unusual position and their dull brown hue were the stomach fangs, in neat rows which could be extended and retracted like those of a snake.