The Best of Fritz Leiber by Fritz Leiber Read Free Book Online Page B

Service are insane. That’s why you’re having us replaced with those men you’ve been training for ten years in your Institute of Political Leadership—ever since, with my help and connivance, you became World manager.”
    Carrsbury retreated before the finality of the statement. For the first time his smile became a bit uncertain. He started to say something, then hesitated and looked at Phy, as if half hoping he would go on.
    But that individual was once again staring rigidly at the floor.
    Carrsbury leaned back, thinking. When he spoke it was in a more natural voice, much less consciously soothing and fatherly.
    “Well, all right, Phy. But look here, tell me something, honestly. Won’t you—and the others—be a lot happier when you’ve been relieved of all your responsibilities?”
    Phy nodded somberly. “Yes,” he said, “we will… but”—his face became strained—“you see—”
    “But—?” Carrsbury prompted.
    Phy swallowed hard. He seemed unable to go on. He had gradually slumped toward one side of the chair, and the pressure had caused the green gasoid to ooze from his pocket. His long fingers crept over and kneaded it fretfully.
    Carrsbury stood up and came around the desk. His sympathetic frown, from which perplexity had ebbed, was not quite genuine.
    “I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you all about it now, Phy,” he said simply. “In a queer sort of way I owe it all to you. And there isn’t any point now in keeping it a secret… there isn’t any danger—”
    “Yes,” Phy agreed with a quick bitter smile, “you haven’t been in any danger of a
coup d’etat
for some years now. If ever we should have revolted, there’d have been”—his gaze shifted to a point in the opposite wall where a faint vertical crease indicated the presence of a doorway—“your secret police.”
    Carrsbury started. He hadn’t thought Phy had known. Disturbingly, there loomed in his mind a phrase
The cunning of the insane
. But only for a moment. Friendly complacency flooded back. He went behind Phy’s chair and rested his hands on the sloping shoulders.
    “You know, I’ve always had a special feeling toward you, Phy,” he said, “and not only because your whims made it a lot easier for me to become World manager. I’ve always felt that you were different from the others, that there were times when—” He hesitated.
    Phy squirmed a little under the friendly hands. “When I had my moments of sanity?” he finished flatly.
    “like now,” said Carrsbury softly, after a nod the other could not see. “I’ve always felt that sometimes, in a kind of twisted, unrealistic way, you
understood
. And that has meant a lot to me. I’ve been alone, Phy, dreadfully alone, for ten whole years. No companionship anywhere, not even among the men I’ve been training in the Institute of Political Leadership—for I’ve had to play a part with them too, keep them in ignorance of certain facts, for fear they would try to seize power over my head before they were sufficiently prepared. No companionship anywhere, except for my hopes—and for occasional moments with you. Now that it’s over and a new regime is beginning for us both, I can tell you that. And I’m glad.”
    There was a silence. Then—Phy did not look around, but one lean hand crept up and touched Carrsbury’s. Carrsbury cleared his throat. Strange, he thought, that there could be even a momentary rapport like this between the sane and the insane. But it was so.
    He disengaged his hands, strode rapidly back to his desk, turned.
    “I’m a throwback, Phy,” he began in a new, unused, eager voice. “A throwback to a time when human mentality was far sounder. Whether my case was due chiefly to heredity, or to certain unusual accidents of environment, or to both, is unimportant. The point is that a person had been born who was in a position to criticize the present state of mankind in the light of the past, to diagnose its condition, and to begin