The Disappearance Read online

  Of the twenty men he had reached, seventeen had agreed to come at once. One was ill. Two had refused. Of the two, one was hysterical and didn’t believe he was talking to the President of the United States. The other was merely sarcastic.

  In Miami, Gaunt, who had waited for a long time, finally said, “Yes, Mr.

  President?”

  The reply was confident, courteous, even cheerful sounding. “Things getting under control in your area, doctor?”

  “Apparently.”

  “I suppose sympathy’s a poor offering—at such a moment. But I can imagine how you feel. Wife. Daughter.”

  “Thank you, Mr. President.”

  “You no doubt appreciate why I called—now, and personally. I’m trying to gather together—from every walk of life—top men—for a conference—starting tomorrow. I hope there’s nothing so urgent in your area that it wouldn’t be possible for you to join us?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Gaunt answered, “it’s very quiet out here. Miami’s a madhouse, of course. Not much real violence—and yet—”

  The interruption was curt. “Thank God for that! In other cities. . . !”

  “I’m alone. I’ve been trying to mull it over.”

  “Good man! Then you’ll be here? I can’t think of anything more effective than organized mulling, by all you experts.” The President hesitated and then asked, “You haven’t hit on a line of inquiry that might be profitable?”

  “I haven’t much data. May I ask—was it world-wide?”

  “Absolutely. I can’t go into it now, of course. And I’ll switch you to the transportation people working here. World-wide-and—if it’s any use to you while you fly, all the primates.”

  “All the primates!”

  “So I’m told. Apes. Not monkeys. Will you ride a two-seater P-38? That’s a fighter plane? In the morning?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thanks, doctor, and good night.” Gaunt heard the President say, “Switch him to Billings.” A minute later, he found himself making arrangements to be picked up in a fighter plane at Miami Airport at seven the next morning.

  He packed quickly and afterward walked down his drive to the Elliot house.

  Jim was alone in his front yard—reclining in a deck chair, his face turned toward the sky.

  Gaunt told him where he was going.

  The reaction was curt. “Futile!”

  Gaunt had felt stimulated by the invitation, the command—inasmuch as the situation most nearly resembled war and the President had the right to act in this crisis as the nation’s commander in chief. Now he was momentarily irritated by the Yankee lawyer’s skepticism. “Futile? Why? What else is there to do? It’s intelligent’ Even if nothing is learned—it will at least give the public the assurance that everything is being tried. That sort of assurance is vital!”

  Jim Elliot laughed hollowly. “How can you assure anybody after a catastrophe like this?”

  Gaunt’s vexation ebbed. He sat down facing his friend. “You’re right, Jim. You’re dead right! Still—it’s human to try to use such powers as we have, in any situation. See here! I want you to help us. I want you to outline and send me your own reflections.

  You’ve got an unusual mind, a background that’s almost unique, in America. Give us the benefit of it.”

  Jim stood up then. Perhaps he was human enough to be flattered. More likely, Gaunt thought, his humanity was touched by the mere knowledge that another person respected his ways of thinking. In either case, he too had softened—his mood of hopeless melancholy had lifted a little. “If I have any thoughts, I’ll mail them to you.” The practical man went on, “What address?”

  Gaunt shrugged in the darkness. “Care of the White House will do.”

  “Of course! What else? Anything I can take care of here?”

  “Yes, there is. I’m going back to get a little sleep, if I can. I’ll shut off the electricity in the morning. But keep an eye on my place. Have Byron stay there, if he will. He’s due again at eight and I’ll bet he shows up. Edwin keeps some rifles and ammunition down here. They’re in the closet off my study. You better bring them over here and lock them up. You might need firearms; and we certainly don’t want looters or roving teen-agers to get their hands on such stuff.”

  “I’ll hold the fort.”

  There was silence. “Gordon sleeping?”

  Jim nodded. “At last.”

  “Well—”

  They shook hands. The philosopher strode into the darkness under the live oaks.

  Jim sat again, alone.

  When Gaunt had checked what he had packed and put aside shaving things and a toothbrush for morning, and when he had set Paula’s little gold alarm clock, he hunted in the medicine chest. Paula had some seconal somewhere; and he probably would have to be up all the next night. He found the red capsules in a bottle marked “Aspirin,”

  wondered why women so frequently changed pills around, took a grain and a half of the barbiturate and lay down in his pajamas. He thought that probably he would not sleep at all. A heavy slumber overcame him before the drug could work but owing, no doubt, to the psychological effect of it. Once, during the night, he half woke with the awareness that it was raining thunderously. He thought of open windows and recollected that rain did not blow in through the awning type with which his house was fitted. He slept again. .

  . .

  The pilot had a black mustache and small, dancing eyes. He spotted Gaunt on the fringe of the multitude at the airport and hurried up. Gaunt had been told to carry identification. The pilot asked for it, although he had recognized his man from the description given him. He took the philosopher’s single, heavy suitcase and led him toward the baggage rooms.

  A stranger snatched Gaunt’s arm. “You got transportation?”

  Gaunt, taken by surprise, said, “Yes.”

  The man held on firmly. A fattish man. ‘“I have to make Meridan today! Three boys there! Mother gone! I’ve only got eleven-fifty in cash—but I’ll make it ten thousand-check. I’m Armstrong—Armstrong Copper and Brass—”

  The pilot had turned. “As you were, bud,” he said. ‘This gent is going on a special plane to Washington—”

  “Twenty thousand!” the man said in a shrill voice.

  Gaunt pulled away.

  It was neither a comfortable nor a revealing flight. The plane’s extra seat was painfully small for a man of Gaunt’s size; visibility, although excellent for the pilot, was poor for his passenger; and they flew at a great altitude.

  Gaunt had glimpses of the green and white metropolis of Miami as they climbed and of smoke rising here and there. Two or three times, later on, he caught sight of other cities with similar pillars of smoke. But for the most part he could see only the pilot’s head, instruments, blue sky, and stratified white clouds.

  He did not think of snow until they wheeled down over Washington, but he had thought of his overcoat. He’d put it on, at the pilot’s suggestion, before climbing aboard.

  The warm morning of Miami had become the chill of altitude almost within seconds.

  Snow lay upon Washington, snow on the hard ground around the Capitol, snow on ice in the reflecting pool in front of the Monument and on the frozen rims of the brown Potomac. They came straight in; traffic was not stacked up here. The airport waiting rooms were almost empty. As Gaunt was escorted to a limousine he saw why: soldiers were intercepting cars at the airport approaches, asking for credentials, turning back slow, angry streams of men.

  He was taken to a large hotel where room-and-bath were reserved for him. A clerk, pale and distracted, presented him with a letter; a bellboy, no more composed than the clerk, carried his bag.

  “You’re in the conference?” the boy asked.

  “I guess I am.”

  “You help make the atom bomb?”

  “Not directly—no.”

  “You think they’ll get the girls back?”

  Elevator, carpeted hall, door, key, room. “I don’t kn
ow.”

  “You gotta!” the boy said in a strained voice.

  Gaunt tipped him and sat down. He slit the letter. It was signed by the presidential secretary and asked him to present himself at two P.M. in the lobby of the hotel from which he would be driven to the opening assembly. That gave him time for a substantial breakfast, and since room service was functioning, Gaunt ate alone.

  The meeting was held in Constitution Hall, as the auditorium of the D.A.R.

  obviously was not needed at the time by its owners. Limousines and private cars were discharging the conferees when Gaunt arrived. Inside, standards had been placed at various points among the seats so that the “delegates” could assemble by professions and trades. There were signs for biologists, physicians, surgeons, physicists, chemists, mathematicians, psychologists, economists, sociologists, industrialists of various sorts, federal and state officials, and so on. There were no signs for philosophers. But Gaunt’s letter had told him to sit with the Co-ordination and Evaluation group. He located that sign and started down an aisle. On every seat, he noticed, was a pad, a number of sharp pencils, and a printed leaflet.

  And on every hand, it seemed, a single word was being uttered. The word was,

  “Doctor!” “Hello, doctor!” “How are you, doctor?” “Fine to see you, doctor!” “Tragic moment, doctor!”

  These remarks began to be addressed to him, and he began to utter them. He saw many men he knew, some he knew well, others he knew merely through reputation and press photographs. Mobley, Ascott, Tretter and Findlein were among those he recognized under the Co-ordination and Evaluation placard.

  Gaunt greeted them and took a seat amidst the hubbub.

  The printed leaflet proved to be a brief description of the aims of the conference along with a collection of miscellaneous information compiled for the “presidential guests”—information about eating places in Washington, a street map, a list of the hotels, the categories of guests assigned to each, and the names of the men who had been invited to the conference along with their professions, principal achievements, and home addresses.

  Tretter, the anthropologist, leaned back and grinned. “Fine job! Fast organization, eh, Gaunt?”

  “First rate.”

  “Got any ideas?”

  “Nothing I’m proud of.”

  “Radley says they’re going to ask for suggestions from the floor.”

  “Damned foolishness, if they do.”

  “Right! We’ll see.”

  The din rose to a pitch higher than any, Gaunt thought, but that of a cocktail party.

  Then rapidly it tapered off. On the flag-draped platform a band began to play a march.

  The President entered quickly, with the Vice-President and Dr. Robert Blake, whose tweed suit looked slept in and whose boyish face wore a slightly abashed grin.

  The band was silent for an instant and then began the National Anthem. The men—Gaunt thought there were five hundred by that time, not counting those in the area marked “Press-Radio-TV”—rose and began to sing.

  Afterward, the President stepped briskly to the center of the stage, looked at the audience, peered momentarily at the microphones, and began to talk, without a manuscript.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” he said, “for coming. For coming on such short notice, from such far places under such painful circumstances. Many of those invited will arrive later. I thought it best to convene you who have reached Washington at the earliest possible time. What is said here and whatever may be accomplished here now will be given to the rest in printed form. In a few minutes”—he looked at his watch—”I am to address a joint session of the Congress. What I have to suggest will be brief. Dr. Blake will take charge of this meeting, following my departure. Many of you know him, all of you know of him, and his contributions to atomic energy, to the fission bombs, and to theoretical science.”

  The President paused and gazed at the men before him as if he could see them one by one. “You know,” he continued at last, lithe problem. Yours are the best minds of the nation. I have no more knowledge of our situation than any other layman. If science has any particular information about it, I am unaware of that. The few details with which you may be unacquainted will be given to you by Dr. Blake. It is not necessary for me to tell you that I pray God you will find the reason for, and the solution of, this august catastrophe. As a man, as a husband, as a father, I can only wish you Godspeed in your efforts. As the President of this nation, I can and do offer you any and every facility at our disposal for such research as you shall embark upon. Each of your groups will presently elect a chairman. I shall be accessible, I assure you, to any of you who feels I may be of assistance.”

  Again he paused. He went on in a lower tone: “I, like the seventy-three million remaining Americans, wish you luck!”

  Abruptly he bowed his head. He prayed briefly. Then, to applause, he walked from the rostrum—walked quickly and disappeared through a tall doorway.

  Robert Blake took charge of the meeting. He stood at a lectern, his weight on one foot, his other foot turned edgeways on a relaxed ankle. He leaned on an elbow. He coughed. He seemed not like a great scientist but like any college junior, with a crew haircut, standing in mild self-consciousness before a class. For a while he said nothing.

  Presently, absently, he fished in a pocket and produced a battered package of Chesterfields. He lighted one. The men before him laughed a little and several of them followed suit, Gaunt among them.

  “Look!” Blake eventually began. The men laughed again and he grinned at them.

  “The President has told you that I will brief you on such details as you may be unaware of. They’re skimpy—and skimpy is a generous adjective under the circumstances. We do know the event was universal. We do know it extended through the primates including gorillas, chimpanzees, and so on.” That caused a murmur among those who had not heard it. “We have already gathered a considerable body of negative information, also. By that I mean, so far as instruments show, so far as science is aware, no unusual physical phenomenon occurred either before, at the time of, or after the Disappearance. No change in solar or cosmic radiation, for example. No observed electromagnetic disturbances of any kind. Nothing noted astronomically. So—”

  He had tapped his ashes on the floor while he spoke. Now he looked about in vain for an ash tray, shrugged, dropped his cigarette and stepped upon it. “I hardly need to outline the sorts of work upon which we are expected to engage. The broad problems of economic adjustment and social organization will be submitted to the proper groups. The matter of research into causes, of probability study, and so on: the general attack on the mystery of why one sex of one family of terrestrial life should be eradicated in what appears to have been a period of time so short it was not measured—and here we have some interesting information from film and photographic plates of women, girls and female infants, exposed at the critical moment—will be the principal undertaking of us all. You have been divided into groups and before we adjourn today each group will elect its own chairman-spokesman. I suggest that each group meet separately tonight for discussion and that, at a joint conference, tomorrow morning, recommendations be made by each chairman of topics for general consideration.

  “It was my thought that we should proceed directly to the election of chairmen, to separate discussion, and to framing reports. The President, however, has asked me to call for suggestions from the Boor at this time. I have nothing to add and the meeting will therefore presently be open for such suggestion. Let us appreciate, however, that what is said here will be broadcast to the world and printed in the newspapers. That very fact is, doubtless, the reason the President wanted suggestions made now. By that, gentlemen, I intend to remind you it is our duty as scientists, as experts, as leaders, as citizens of a great and free nation, to display whatever keenness we have—and whatever common sense and courage we possess. The world is listening to us. Your suggestions?”

  Men stood. Hands went up. Blak
e waited awhile and finally chose. “Dr.

  Wendley?” He addressed the audience in general. “Dr. Wendley is a physicist—known to most of you—who has served United Electric Corporation, and this government, brilliantly for many years.”

  The old man had a straggling goatee, he wore half-moon spectacles; his voice showed his years. “As a Christian,” he began agitatedly, “I suggest this meeting, and all others like it, be permanently adjourned and that we return to our homes for continuous prayer! We are dealing with the Lord’s punishment—and not any working of nature!”

  He sat down. The advice was followed by a slight, and slightly stunned silence, a mark both of respect and of surprise, and then by rising sound that was a mixture of protest, mirth, hissing and a few low-pitched boos.

  But Blake took the old man’s suggestion gracefully. “I’m sure,” he said, “that feeling is shared by millions. In a sense, I share it myself. Unfortunately, we were assembled here not to pray, but to think. Yes? Dr. Averyson? Dr. Averyson, gentlemen, is professor of economics at Princeton University.”

  A flabby man in a gray suit with a dark-green corduroy waistcoat.

  Pencils were ranked like miniature organ pipes in his breast pocket and numerous papers, folded lengthwise, bulged in his side pockets. He was clean-shaven, brown-haired, and he spoke in a high, important voice. “At Princeton University, gentlemen, we have found that the most satisfactory approach to the unknown is the pragmatic and the statistical. My eminent colleague, Peter Frehenfals, in Association with”—he cleared his throat—”myself, offered in the year 1946 a treatise on the subject, entitled ‘The Social Parallax,’ which is regarded in, may I say, perhaps with undue immodesty, very authoritative quarters as the standard development of the procedure which I am about to recommend. The female sex has vanished from the face of the earth. Now, then. We ask ourselves, is this true? Do we know it to be true? Can we prove it? . . .”

  Obviously, Gaunt thought, the jackass would continue in that vein for hours if allowed to do so. He watched Blake’s sensitive face change from attention to an irritation which was the more evident because of the smile disguising it.