The Star Read online

  ‘Proudly, General Smith led the visitors from cavern to cavern, from memory banks to selector networks to matrix analysers to input tables—and finally to the rows of electric typewriters on which Karl would print the results of his deliberations. The General knew his way around quite well: at least, he got most of the names right. He even managed to give the impression, to those who knew no better, that he was largely responsible for Karl.

  ‘“Now,” said the General cheerfully. “Let’s give him some work to do. Anyone like to set him a few sums?”

  ‘At the word “sums” the mathematicians winced, but the General was unaware of his faux pas. The assembled brass thought for a while: then someone said daringly, “What’s nine multiplied by itself twenty times?”

  ‘One of the technicians, with an audible sniff, punched a few keys. There was a rattle of gunfire from an electric typewriter, and before anyone could blink twice the answer had appeared—all twenty digits of it.’

  (I’ve looked it up since: for anyone who wants to know, it’s:

  12157665459056928801

  But let’s get back to Harry and his tale.)

  ‘For the next fifteen minutes Karl was bombarded with similar trivialities. The visitors were impressed, though there was no reason to suppose that they’d have spotted it if all the answers had been completely wrong.

  ‘The General gave a modest cough. Simple arithmetic was as far as he could go, and Karl had barely begun to warm up. “I’ll now hand you over,” he said, “to Captain Winkler.”

  ‘Captain Winkler was an intense young Harvard graduate whom the General distrusted, rightly suspecting him to be more a scientist than a military man. But he was the only officer who really understood what Karl was supposed to do, or could explain exactly how he set about doing it. He looked, the General thought grumpily, like a damned schoolmaster as he started to lecture the visitors.

  ‘The tactical problem that had been set up was a complicated one, but the answer was already known to everybody except Karl. It was a battle that had been fought and finished almost a century before, and when Captain Winkler concluded his introduction, a general from Boston whispered to his aide, “I’ll bet some damn Southerner has fixed it so that Lee wins this time.” Everyone had to admit, however, that the problem was an excellent way of testing Karl’s capabilities.

  ‘The punched tapes disappeared into the capacious memory units: patterns of lights flickered and flashed across the registers; mysterious things happened in all directions.

  ‘“This problem,” said Captain Winkler primly, “will take about five minutes to evaluate.”

  ‘As if in deliberate contradiction, one of the typewriters promptly started to chatter. A strip of paper shot out of the feed, and Captain Winkler, looking rather puzzled at Karl’s unexpected alacrity, read the message. His lower jaw immediately dropped six inches, and he stood staring at the paper as if unable to believe his eyes.

  ‘“What is it, man?” barked the General.

  ‘Captain Winkler swallowed hard, but appeared to have lost the power of speech. With a snort of impatience, the General snatched the paper from him. Then it was his turn to stand paralysed, but unlike his subordinate he also turned a most beautiful red. For a moment he looked like some tropical fish strangling out of water: then, not without a slight scuffle, the enigmatic message was captured by the five-star general who out-ranked everybody in the room.

  ‘His reaction was totally different. He promptly doubled up with laughter.

  ‘The minor officers were left in a state of infuriating suspense for quite ten minutes. But finally the news filtered down through colonels to captains to lieutenants, until at last there wasn’t a G.I. in the establishment who did not know the wonderful news.

  ‘Karl had told General Smith that he was a pompous baboon. That was all.

  ‘Even though everybody agreed with Karl, the matter could hardly be allowed to rest there. Something, obviously, had gone wrong. Something—or someone—had diverted Karl’s attention from the Battle of Gettysburg.

  ‘“Where,” roared General Smith, finally recovering his voice, “is Dr Milquetoast?”

  ‘He was no longer present. He had slipped quietly out of the room, having witnessed his great moment. Retribution would come later, of course, but it was worth it.

  ‘The frantic technicians cleared the circuits and started running tests. They gave Karl an elaborate series of multiplications and divisions to perform—the computer’s equivalent of “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” Everything seemed to be functioning perfectly. So they put in a very simple tactical problem, which a lieutenant, j.g. could solve in his sleep.

  ‘Said Karl: “Go jump in a lake, General.”

  ‘It was then that General Smith realised that he was confronted with something outside the scope of Standard Operating Procedure. He was faced with mechanical mutiny, no less.

  ‘It took several hours of tests to discover exactly what had happened. Somewhere tucked away in Karl’s capacious memory units was a superb collection of insults, lovingly assembled by Dr Milquetoast. He had punched on tape, or recorded in patterns of electrical impulses, everything he would like to have said to the General himself. But that was not all he had done: that would have been too easy, not worthy of his genius. He had also installed what could only be called a censor circuit—he had given Karl the power of discrimination. Before solving it, Karl examined every problem fed to him. If it was concerned with pure mathematics, he co-operated and dealt with it properly. But if it was a military problem—out came one of the insults. After twenty minutes, he had not repeated himself once, and the WACs had already had to be sent out of the room.

  ‘It must be confessed that after a while the technicians were almost as interested in discovering what indignity Karl would next heap upon General Smith as they were in finding the fault in the circuits. He had begun with mere insults and surprising genealogical surmises, but had swiftly passed on to detailed instructions the mildest of which would have been highly prejudicial to the General’s dignity, while the more imaginative would have seriously imperiled his physical integrity. The fact that all these messages, as they emerged from the typewriters, were immediately classified TOP SECRET was small consolation to the recipient. He knew with a glum certainty that this would be the worse-kept secret of the Cold War, and that it was time he looked round for a civilian occupation.

  ‘And there, gentlemen,’ concluded Purvis, ‘the situation remains. The engineers are still trying to unravel the circuits that Dr Milquetoast installed, and no doubt it’s only a matter of time before they succeed. But meanwhile Karl remains an unyielding pacifist. He’s perfectly happy playing with the theory of numbers, computing tables of powers, and handling arithmetical problems generally. Do you remember the famous toast. “Here’s to pure mathematics—may it never be of any use to anybody”? Karl would have seconded that….

  ‘As soon as anyone attempts to slip a fast one across him, he goes on strike. And because he’s got such a wonderful memory, he can’t be fooled. He has half the great battles of the world stored up in his circuits, and can recognise at once any variations on them. Though attempts were made to disguise tactical exercises as problems in mathematics, he could spot the subterfuge right away. And out would come another billet-doux for the General.

  ‘As for Dr Milquetoast, no one could do much about him because he promptly had a nervous breakdown. It was suspiciously well timed, but he could certainly claim to have earned it. When last heard of he was teaching matrix algebra at a theological college in Denver. He swears he’s forgotten everything that had ever happened while he was working on Karl. Maybe he was even telling the truth….’

  There was a sudden shout from the back of the room.

  ‘I’ve won!’ cried Charles Willis. ‘Come and see!’

  We all crowded under the dartboard. It seemed true enough. Charlie had established a zigzag but continuous track from one side of the checkerboard to th
e other, despite the obstacles the machine had tried to put in his way.

  ‘Show us how you did it,’ said Eric Rodgers.

  Charlie looked embarrassed.

  ‘I’ve forgotten,’ he said. ‘I didn’t make a note of all the moves.’

  A sarcastic voice broke in from the background.

  ‘But I did,’ said John Christopher. ‘You were cheating—you made two moves at once.’

  After that, I’m sorry to say, there was some disorder, and Drew had to threaten violence before peace was restored. I don’t know who really won the squabble, and I don’t think it matters. For I’m inclined to agree with what Purvis remarked as he picked up the robot checkerboard and examined its wiring.

  ‘You see,’ he said, ‘this little gadget is only a simple-minded cousin of Karl’s—and look what it’s done already. All these machines are beginning to make us look fools. Before long they’ll start to disobey us without any Milquetoast interfering with their circuits. And then they’ll start ordering us about—they’re logical, after all, and won’t stand any nonsense.’

  He sighed. ‘When that happens, there won’t be a thing we can do about it. We’ll just have to say to the dinosaurs: “Move over a bit—here comes Homo sap!” And the transister shall inherit the earth.’

  There was no time for further pessimistic philosophy, for the door opened and Police Constable Wilkins stuck his head in. ‘Where’s the owner of CGC 571?’ he asked testily. ‘Oh—it’s you, Mr Purvis. Your rear light’s out.’

  Harry looked at me sadly, then shrugged his shoulders in resignation. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘it’s started already.’ And he went out into the night.

  The Reluctant Orchid

  First published in Satellite, December 1956

  Collected in Tales from the White Hart

  One might expect a story about a carnivorous orchid to have only one possible ending, but when the storyteller is Harry Purvis, and the venue is the White Hart, nothing is quite as it seems, and thus it proves with this story, which first saw the light of day in Satellite.

  Though few people in the ‘White Hart’ will concede that any of Harry Purvis’s stories are actually true everyone agrees that some are much more probable than others. And on any scale of probability, the affair of the Reluctant Orchid must rate very low indeed.

  I don’t remember what ingenious gambit Harry used to launch this narrative: maybe some orchid fancier brought his latest monstrosity into the bar, and that set him off. No matter. I do remember the story, and after all that’s what counts.

  The adventure did not, this time, concern any of Harry’s numerous relatives, and he avoided explaining just how he managed to know so many of the sordid details. The hero—if you can call him that—of this hothouse epic was an inoffensive little clerk named Hercules Keating. And if you think that is the most unlikely part of the story, just stick round a while.

  Hercules is not the sort of name you can carry off lightly at the best of times, and when you are four foot nine and look as if you’d have to take a physical-culture course before you can even become a ninety-seven-pound weakling, it is a positive embarrassment. Perhaps it helped to explain why Hercules had very little social life, and all his real friends grew in pots in a humid conservatory at the bottom of his garden. His needs were simple and he spent very little money on himself; consequently his collection of orchids and cacti was really rather remarkable. Indeed, he had a wide reputation among the fraternity of cactophiles, and often received from remote corners of the globe parcels smelling of mould and tropical jungles.

  Hercules had only one living relative, and it would have been hard to find a greater contrast than Aunt Henrietta. She was a massive six-footer, usually wore a rather loud line in Harris tweeds, drove a Jaguar with reckless skill, and chain-smoked cigars. Her parents had set their hearts on a boy, and had never been able to decide whether or not their wish had been granted. Henrietta earned a living, and quite a good one, breeding dogs of various shapes and sizes. She was seldom without a couple of her latest models, and they were not the type of portable canine which ladies like to carry in their handbags. The Keating Kennels specialised in great Danes, Alsatians, and Saint Bernards….

  Henrietta, rightly despising men as the weaker sex, had never married. However, for some reason she took an avuncular (yes, that is definitely the right word) interest in Hercules, and called to see him almost every weekend. It was a curious kind of relationship: probably Henrietta found that Hercules bolstered up her feelings of superiority. If he was a good example of the male sex, then they were certainly a pretty sorry lot. Yet, if this was Henrietta’s motivation, she was unconscious of it and seemed genuinely fond of her nephew. She was patronising, but never unkind.

  As might be expected, her attentions did not exactly help Hercules’ own well-developed inferiority complex. At first he had tolerated his aunt; then he came to dread her regular visits, her booming voice and her bone-crushing handshake; and at last he grew to hate her. Eventually, indeed, his hate was the dominant emotion of his life, exceeding even his love for his orchids. But he was careful not to show it, realising that if Aunt Henrietta discovered how he felt about her, she would probably break him in two and throw the pieces to her wolf pack.

  There was no way, then, in which Hercules could express his pent-up feelings. He had to be polite to Aunt Henrietta even when he felt like murder. And he often did feel like murder, though he knew that there was nothing he would ever do about. Until one day…

  According to the dealer, the orchid came from ‘somewhere in the Amazon region’—a rather vague postal address. When Hercules first saw it, it was not a very prepossessing sight, even to anyone who loved orchids as much as he did. A shapeless root, about the size of a man’s fist—that was all. It was redolent of decay, and there was the faintest hint of a rank, carrion smell. Hercules was not even sure that it was viable, and told the dealer as much. Perhaps that enabled him to purchase it for a trifling sum, and he carried it home without much enthusiasm.

  It showed no signs of life for the first month, but that did not worry Hercules. Then, one day, a tiny green shoot appeared and started to creep up to the light. After that, progress was rapid. Soon there was a thick, fleshy stem as big as a man’s forearm, and coloured a positively virulent green. Near the top of the stem a serious of curious bulges circled the plant: otherwise it was completely featureless. Hercules was now quite excited: he was sure that some entirely new species had swum into his ken.

  The rate of growth was now really fantastic: soon the plant was taller than Hercules, not that that was saying a great deal. Moreover, the bulges seemed to be developing, and it looked as if at any moment the orchid would burst into bloom. Hercules waited anxiously, knowing how short-lived some flowers can be, and spent as much time as he possibly could in the hothouse. Despite all his watchfulness, the transformation occurred one night while he was asleep.

  In the morning, the orchid was fringed by a series of eight dangling tendrils, almost reaching to the ground. They must have developed inside the plant and emerged with—for the vegetable world—explosive speed. Hercules stared at the phenomenon in amazement, and went very thoughtfully to work.

  That evening, as he watered the plant and checked its soil, he noticed a still more peculiar fact. The tendrils were thickening, and they were not completely motionless. They had a slight but unmistakable tendency to vibrate, as if possessing a life of their own. Even Hercules, for all his interest and enthusiasm, found this more than a little disturbing.

  A few days later, there was no doubt about it at all. When he approached the orchid, the tendrils swayed towards him in an unpleasantly suggestive fashion. The impression of hunger was so strong that Hercules began to feel very uncomfortable indeed, and something started to nag at the back of his mind. It was quite a while before he could recall what it was: then he said to himself, ‘Of course! How stupid of me!’ and went along to the local library. Here he spent a most interesting half
hour rereading a little piece by one H. G. Wells entitled ‘The Flowing of the Strange Orchid’.

  ‘My goodness!’ thought Hercules, when he had finished the tale. As yet there had been no stupefying odour which might overpower the plant’s intended victim, but otherwise the characteristics were all too similar. Hercules went home in a very unsettled mood indeed.

  He opened the conservatory door and stood looking along the avenue of greenery towards his prize specimen. He judged the length of the tendrils—already he found himself calling them tentacles—with great care and walked to within what appeared a safe distance. The plant certainly had an impression of alertness and menace far more appropriate to the animal than the vegetable kingdom. Hercules remembered the unfortunate history of Doctor Frankenstein, and was not amused.

  But, really, this was ridiculous! Such things didn’t happen in real life. Well, there was one way to put matters to the test….

  Hercules went into the house and came back a few minutes later with a broomstick, to the end of which he had attached a piece of raw meat. Feeling a considerable fool, he advanced towards the orchid as a lion tamer might approach one of his charges at mealtime.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Then two of the tendrils developed an agitated twitch. They began to sway back and forth, as if the plant was making up its mind. Abruptly, they whipped out with such speed that they practically vanished from view. They wrapped themselves round the meat, and Hercules felt a powerful tug at the end of his broomstick. Then the meat was gone: the orchid was clutching it, if one may mix metaphors slightly, to its bosom.

  ‘Jumping Jehosophat!’ yelled Hercules. It was very seldom indeed that he used such strong language.

  The orchid showed no further signs of life for twenty-four hours. It was waiting for the meat to become high, and it was also developing its digestive system. By the next day, a network of what looked like short roots had covered the still visible chunk of meat. By nightfall, the meat was gone.