EVEN STEPHEN
By CHARLES A. STEARNS
Illustrated by EMSH
It only takes one man to destroy a pacifist
Utopia—if he has a gun, and will use it!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Infinity July 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The henna-haired young man with the vermilion cape boarded Stephen'svehicle on the thirty-third air level, less than two whoops and aholler from a stationary police float, by the simple expedient ofgrappling them together with his right arm, climbing over into theseat beside Stephen, and allowing his own skimmercar to whisk off at athousand miles an hour with no more control than its traffic-dodgingmechanism afforded.
The peregrinator was barbarically splendid, and his curls showed theeffect of a habitual use of some good hair undulant. More to thepoint, he had a gun. It was one of those wicked moisture rifles whichcan steam the flesh off a man's bones at three hundred paces. Quiteillegal.
He smiled at Stephen. His dentures were good. They were stainlesssteel, but in this day and time that was to be expected. Most of hisgeneration, in embryo during the last Blow-down, had been born withoutteeth of their own.
"Sorry to inconvenience you, Citizen," he said, "but the police wereright on my brush that time. Please turn right at the next air corridorand head out to sea."
And when Stephen, entranced, showed no inclination to obey, he proddedhim with the weapon. Prodded him in a most sensitive part of hisanatomy. "I have already killed once today," he said, "and it is notyet eleven o'clock."
"I see," Stephen said stiffly, and changed course.
He might simply have exceeded the speed limit in the slow trafficstream and gotten them arrested, but he sensed that this would notdo. A half-memory, playing around in his cranium, cried out forrecognition. Somewhere he had seen this deadly young man before, andwith him there was associated a more than vague unpleasantness.
Soon the blue Pacific was under them. They were streaming southwestby south at an altitude of eighty miles. Stephen was not terrified atbeing kidnapped, for he had never heard of such a thing, but there wasone thing that did worry him. "I shall be late for work," he said.
"Work," the young man said, "is a bore."
Stephen was shocked. Work had always been the sacred principle of hislife; a rare and elevating sweetness to be cultivated and savoredwhenever it might be offered. He, himself, had long been allottedalternate Thursday afternoons as biological technician at MnemonicManufactures, Plant No. 103, by the Works Administration, and hehad not missed a day for many years. This happened to be one of hisThursdays, and if he did not arrive soon he would be late for thefour-hour shift. Certainly no one else could be expected to relinquisha part of his shift to accommodate a laggard.
"Work is for prats," the young man said again. "It encouragessteatopygia. My last work date was nine years ago, and I am glad thatI never went back."
Stephen now felt a surge of fear at last. Such unregenerates as thisman were said to exist, but he had never met one before. They were theshadowy Unemployed, who, barred from government dispensation, mustlive by their wits alone. Whimsical nihilists, they, who were apt torequisition human life, as well as property, at a breath's notice.
Small lightning sheeted in fro