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Ebook has 123 lines and 7534 words, and 3 pages

Release date: September 14, 2023

Original publication: New York, NY: Royal Publications, Inc, 1957

Second Census

Illustrated by SCHOENHERR

Quintuplets alone would be bad enough, without a census taker who could count them in advance!

In addition to being a genius in applied atomics, Maitland Browne's a speedster, a practical joker, and a spare-time dabbler in electronics.

As far as speed's concerned, I had a very special reason for wanting to get home early tonight, and swift straight flight would have been perfectly okay with me. The trouble was that Browne decided that this was his night to work on Fitzgerald.

Browne lifted the three passenger jetcopter--his contribution to our commuterpool--from the flight stage at Brookhaven National Laboratories in a strictly prosaic manner. Then the flight-fiend in him came out with a vengeance. Suddenly and simultaneously he set the turbo-jets to full thrust and dived to treetop level; then he started hedgehopping toward Long Island Sound. His heavy dark features were sardonic in the rear-view mirror; his narrowed, speculative eyes flicked to it intermittently to scan Ed Fitzgerald beside me.

Browne's action didn't surprise, startle, or even frighten me at first. I'd seen the mildly irritated look in his eyes when Fitzgerald had come meandering up--late as usual!--to the ship back on the stage. I had rather expected some startling development; provoking Ed Fitzgerald to a measurable nervous reaction was one of Browne's burning ambitions. I also had a certain positive hunch that Fitzgerald's tardiness was deliberate.

In any event my mind was ninety per cent elsewhere. Tessie--my wife--had visifoned me from Doc Gardiner's office in New Canaan just before I'd left my office at the Labs and had told me with high elation that we were destined to become the proud parents of quintuplets! I was, therefore, now going back bewilderedly over our respective family trees, seeking a precedent in the genes.

I was shocked out of my genealogical pursuits when Browne skimmed between the tall stereo towers near Middle Island. I prayerfully looked at Fitzgerald for assistance in persuading Browne to cease and desist, but Fitzgerald was staring as imperturbably as ever at Browne's broad back, a faintly derisive smile on his face.

I should have expected that. Even a major cataclysm couldn't budge Fitzgerald. I've seen him damp an atomic pile only milliseconds from critical mass without batting an eye before, during or after.

Browne went from bad to worse and began kissing the 'copter's belly on the waves in Long Island Sound. The skipping stone effect was demoralizing. Then, trying to top that, he hedgehopped so low on the mainland that the jets blew the last stubbornly clinging leaves from every oak tree we near-missed crossing Connecticut to our destination on the Massachusetts border.

Fitzgerald was the only one who talked on the way. Browne was too intent on his alleged driving. I was, frankly, too scared for intelligible conversation. It wasn't until later, in fact, that I realized that Ed Fitzgerald's monologue had clearly solved a problem we were having on adjusting the new cosmotron at the Labs.

"We made good time tonight," Browne said, finally easing up as we neared home.

Fitzgerald grinned.

I found my voice after a moment and said, "It's a good thing radar doesn't pick up objects that low or C.A.A. would be breathing down your fat neck! As it is, I think the cops at Litchfield have probably 'cast a summons to your p. o. tray by now. That was the mayor's 'copter you almost clipped."

Browne shrugged as if he'd worry about it--maybe!--if it happened. He's top physicist at the Labs. In addition to his abilities, that means he has connections.

We dropped imperturbable Fitzgerald on his roofstage at the lower end of Nutmeg Street; then Browne dropped a relieved me two blocks up and proceeded the five blocks to his enormous solar house at the hill's summit.

I energized the passenger shaft, buttoned it to optimum descent and dropped to first. There was a note from Tessie saying she'd gone shopping with Fitzgerald's wife, Miriam. So I'd start celebrating alone!

I punched the servomech for Scotch-on-the-rocks. As I sat sipping it I kept thinking about Maitland Browne. It wasn't just the recollection of the ride from Brookhaven. It was also the Scotch. Association.

I thought back to the night Tessie and I had gone up to Browne's to spend the evening, and Browne invited me to sit in a new plush chair. I sat all right, but promptly found that I was completely unable to rise despite the fact that I was in full possession of my faculties. He'd then taken our respective wives for a midnight 'copter ride, leaving me to escape the chair's invisible embrace if I could. I couldn't.

Luckily he'd forgotten that his liquor cabinet was within arm's reach of the chair; I'd made devastating inroads on a pinch bottle by the time they'd returned. He switched off his psionic machine but fast then, and didn't ever try to trap me in it again!

The visifone buzzed and I leaped to it, thinking of Tessie out shopping in her delicate condition--

I felt momentary relief, then startlement.

"Now, wait a second!" I said in amazement. "Calm down, for Heaven's sake! What's this about a census?"

"Not to my knowledge. They took it only last year. Won't do it again until 1970. Why?"

"As I was trying to tell you, a fellow who said he was a census taker was just here and damn it, Jim, he wanted to know my considered ideas of natural resources, birth control, immigration, racial discrimination, UFO's and half a dozen other things. He threw the questions at me so fast I became thoroughly confused. What with me still thinking about the cosmotron, wondering if Brownie will stop riding me before I do break down, and wondering where Miriam is, I just had to slow him down so that I could piece together the answers.

"Just about then he staggered as if a fifth of hundred-proof bourbon had caught up with him and reeled out without a fare-thee-well. I didn't see which way he went because Jim Moran--he's the new fellow in the house just down the hill--Jim called to see if the fellow had been here yet and what I thought of him. If he hit Jim's before me, that means he should be getting to you within the next half-hour or so."

My front door chimed.

"Sorry, Fitz," I said. "This must be Tessie. She was coming home on the surface bus. Miriam's with her, so that's one worry off your mind. Take it easy. I'll call you back."

But it wasn't Tessie. It was a man, dressed in a dark brown business suit that was tight on his big frame. His face was a disturbing one, eyes set so wide apart you had trouble meeting them up close and felt embarrassed shifting your gaze from one to the other.

"Mr. James Rainford?" he asked rhetorically.

"Yes?"

"I'm from the Bureau of the Census," he said calmly.

This couldn't be the same fellow Fitzgerald had encountered. There must be a group of them covering the neighborhood. In any event, this man was cold sober. Further, the fastest Olympic runner couldn't have made the two long blocks from Fitzgerald's house in the time that had elapsed and this fellow wasn't even breathing hard.

"Let's see your credentials," I said.

I wasn't sure whether he hesitated because he couldn't remember which pocket they were in or for some other reason; anyway, he did produce credentials and they were headed U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, and looked very proper indeed.

But I still couldn't quite believe it. "But the census was taken last year," I said.

"We have to recheck this area," he said smoothly. "We have reason to believe that the records are inaccurate."

His eyes were harder to meet than ever.

"Excuse me," I said and stepped out on the stoop, looking down the hill toward Fitzgerald's house.

Not only was Fitzgerald standing on his tropic forelawn, but so were the dozen household heads in between, each and every one of them staring fixedly at the pair of us on my stoop.

"Come in," I said perplexedly and led the way.

When I turned to face him I found that he'd swung a square black box which resembled a miniature cathode ray oscilloscope from behind his back and was busily engaged in punching multi-colored buttons tinging the dim raster. I'm a gadget man--cybernetics is my forte--but I'm afraid I stared. The most curious wave-forms I have ever seen were purple-snaking across the 'scope.

"It's a combination memory storage bank and recorder," he explained. "Electronic shorthand. I'm reading the data which your wife gave to us and which I'll ask you to verify."

"Married," he said. "Ah, yes, expecting!"

"Now will you stop right there!" I cried. "That couldn't be on your records! A year ago we certainly weren't expecting! Now, look--"

But he kept on with most peculiar enthusiasm. "Quintuplets! Sure! Three boys and two girls! My congratulations, Mr. Rainford. Thank you for your time!"

I stood there dazed. Nobody but Doctor Gardiner, Tessie and myself--well, maybe Miriam Fitzgerald by this time--knew we were expecting. Even Gardiner couldn't know the division of sexes among the foetal group at this early stage of development!

I had to find a way to delay this strange man.

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