Games

  Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Robert Cicconetti, and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from the March 1953 issue of Galaxy. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  games

  By KATHERINE MacLEAN

  It is a tough assignment for a child to know where a daydream ends and impossibility begins!

  Illustrated by ASHMAN

  * * * * *

  Ronny was playing by himself, which meant he was two tribes of Indianshaving a war.

  "Bang," he muttered, firing an imaginary rifle. He decided that it wasa time in history before the white people had sold the Indians anyguns, and changed the rifle into a bow. "Wizz_thunk_," he substituted,mimicking from an Indian film on TV the graphic sound of an arrowstriking flesh.

  "Oof." He folded down onto the grass, moaning, "Uhhhooh ..." andrelaxing into defeat and death.

  "Want some chocolate milk, Ronny?" asked his mother's voice from thekitchen.

  "No, thanks," he called back, climbing to his feet to be another man."Wizzthunk, wizzthunk," he added to the flights of arrows as the bestarcher in the tribe. "Last arrow. Wizzzz," he said, missing one enemyfor realism. He addressed another battling brave. "Who has morearrows? They are coming too close. No time--I'll have to use myknife." He drew the imaginary knife, ducking an arrow as it shotclose.

  * * * * *

  Then he was the tribal chief standing somewhere else, and he saw thatthe warriors left alive were outnumbered.

  "We must retreat. We cannot leave our tribe without warriors toprotect the women."

  Ronny decided that the chief was heroically wounded, his voicewavering from weakness. He had been propping himself against a tree toappear unharmed, but now he moved so that his braves could see he waspinned to the trunk by an arrow and could not walk. They cried out.

  He said, "Leave me and escape. But remember...." No words came, justthe feeling of being what he was, a dying old eagle, a chief ofwarriors, speaking to young warriors who would need advice of seasonedhumor and moderation to carry them through their young battles. He hadto finish the sentence, tell them something wise.

  Ronny tried harder, pulling the feeling around him like a cloak ofresignation and pride, leaning indifferently against the tree wherethe arrow had pinned him, hearing dimly in anticipation the sound ofhis aged voice conquering weakness to speak wisely of what they neededto be told. They had many battles ahead of them, and the battleswould be against odds, with so many dead already.

  They must watch and wait, be flexible and tenacious, determined andpersistent--but not too rash, subtle and indirect--not cowardly, andabove all be patient with the triumph of the enemy and not maddenedinto suicidal direct attack.

  His stomach hurt with the arrow wound, and his braves waited to hearhis words. He had to sum a part of his life's experience in words.Ronny tried harder to build the scene realistically. Then suddenly itwas real. He was the man.

  _He was an old man, guide and adviser in an oblique battle againstgreat odds. He was dying of something and his stomach hurt with aknotted ache, like hunger, and he was thirsty. He had refused to letthe young men make the sacrifice of trying to rescue him. He washostage in the jail and dying, because he would not surrender to theenemy nor cease to fight them. He smiled and said, "Remember to livelike other men, but--remember to remember."_

  And then he was saying things that could not be put into words,complex feelings that were ways of taking bad situations that madethem easier to smile at, and then sentences that were not sentences,but single alphabet letters pushing each other with signs, with afeeling of being connected like two halves of a swing, one side movingup when the other moved down, or like swings or like cogs andpendulums inside a clock, only without the cogs, just with the push.

  It wasn't adding or multiplication, and it used letters instead ofnumbers, but Ronny knew it was some kind of arithmetic.

  And he wasn't Ronny.

  He was an old man, teaching young men, and the old man did not knowabout Ronny. He thought sadly how little he would be able to convey tothe young men, and he remembered more, trying to sum long memories andmuch living into a few direct thoughts. And Ronny was the old man andhimself, both at once.

  * * * * *

  It was too intense. Part of Ronny wanted to escape and be alone, andthat part withdrew and wanted to play something. Ronny sat in thegrass and played with his toes like a much younger child.

  Part of Ronny that was Doctor Revert Purcell sat on the edge of aprison cot, concentrating on secret unpublished equations of biogenicstability which he wanted to pass on to the responsible hands of youngresearchers in the concealed-research chain. He was using the way ofthinking which they had told him was the telepathic sending of ideasto anyone ready to receive. It was odd that he himself could nevertell when he was sending. Probably a matter of age. They had startedtrying to teach him when he was already too old for anything sodifferent.

  The water tap, four feet away, was dripping steadily, and it was hardfor Purcell to concentrate, so intense was his thirst. He wondered ifhe could gather strength to walk that far. He was sitting up and thatwas good, but the struggle to raise himself that far had left himdizzy and trembling. If he tried to stand, the effort would surelyinterrupt his transmitting of equations and all the data he had notsent yet.

  Would the man with the keys who looked in the door twice a day carewhether Purcell died with dignity? He was the only audience, and hisexpression never changed when Purcell asked him to point out to theauthorities that he was not being given anything to eat. It was funnyto Purcell to find that he wanted the respect of any audience to hisdying, even of a man without response who treated him as if he werealready a corpse.

  Perhaps the man would respond if Purcell said, "I have changed mymind. I will tell."

  But if he said that, he would lose his own respect.

  At the biochemists' and bio-physicists' convention, the reporter hadasked him if any of his researches could be applied to warfare.

  He had answered with no feeling of danger, knowing that what he didwas common practice among research men, sure that it was anunchallengeable right.

  "Some of them can, but those I keep to myself."

  The reporter remained dead-pan. "For instance?"

  "Well, I have to choose something that won't reveal how it's done now,but--ah--for example, a way of cheaply mass-producing specificantitoxins against any germ. It sounds harmless if you don't thinkabout it, but actually it would make germ warfare the most deadly andinexpensive weapon yet developed, for it would make it possible toprevent the backspread of contagion into a country's own troops,without much expense. There would be hell to pay if anyone ever letthat out." Then he had added, trying to get the reporter to understandenough to change his cynical unimpressed expression, "You understand,germs are cheap--there would be a new plague to spread every timesome pipsqueak biologist mutated a new germ. It isn't even expensiveor difficult, as atom bombs are."

  The headline was: "Scientist Refuses to Give Secret of Weapon toGovernment."

  * * * * *

  Government men came and asked him if this was correct, and on havingit confirmed pointed out that he had an obligation. The researchfoundations where he had worked were subsidized by government money.He had been deferred from military service during his early years ofstudy and work so he could become a scientist, instead of having tofight or die on the battlefield.

  "This might be
so," he had said. "I am making an attempt to servemankind by doing as much good and as little damage as possible. If youdon't mind, I'd rather use my own judgment about what constitutesservice."

  The statement seemed too blunt the minute he had said it, and herecognized that it had implications that his judgment was superior tothat of the government. It probably was the most antagonizing thingthat could have been said, but he could see no other possiblestatement, for it represented precisely what he thought.

  There were bigger headlines about that interview, and when hestepped outside his building for lunch the next day, several smallgangs of patriots arrived with the proclaimed purpose of persuadinghim to tell. They fought each other for the privilege.

  The police had rescued him after he had lost several front teeth andhad one eye badly gouged. They then left him to the care of the prisondoctor in protective custody. Two days later, after