The Mind Spider and Other Stories by Fritz Leiber Read Free Book Online Page A

dynamite.”
    “I’m not talking about plotted outbreaks. I’m talking about mass hysteria. If it can infect the sane, it can infect the insane. And I know the situation at Serenity Shoals has become very difficult—very difficult for you, Andy—with the overcrowding. I’ve been keeping in closer touch with that than you may know. I’m aware that you’ve petitioned that lobotomy, long-series electroshock, and heavy narcotics be reintroduced in general treatment.”
    “You’ve got that wrong,” Snowden said sharply. “A minority of doctors—a couple of them with political connections—have so petitioned. I’m dead set against it myself.”
    "But most families have given consent for lobotomies.”
    “Most families don’t want to be bothered with the person who goes over the edge. They’re willing to settle for anything that will ‘soothe’ him.”
    “Why do you headshrinkers always have to sneer at decent family feelings?” Wisant demanded stridently. “Now you’re talking like Cruxon.”
    “I’m talking like myself! Cruxon was right about too much soothing syrup—especially the kind you put in with a needle or a knife.”
    Wisant looked at him puzzledly. “I don’t understand you, Andy. You’ll have to do something to control your patients as the overcrowding mounts. With this epidemic mass hysteria you’ll have hundreds, maybe thousands of cases in the next few weeks. Serenity Shoals will become a ... a Mind Bombl I always thought of you as a realist, Andy.”
    Snowden answered sharply, “And I think that when you talk of thousands of new cases, you're extrapolating from too little data. ‘Dangerous maniacs’ and ‘mind bombs’ are theater talk—propaganda jargon. You can’t mean that, Joel.”
    Wisant’s face was white, possibly with suppressed anger, and he was trembling very slightly. “You won’t say that, Andy, if your patients erupt out of Serenity Shoals and come pouring over the countryside in a great gush of madness.” Snowden stared at him. “You’re afraid of them,” he said softly. “That’s it—you’re afraid of my loonies. At the back of your mind you’ve got some vision of a stampede of droolers with butcher knives.” Then he winced at his own words and slumped a little. “Excuse me, Joel,” he said, “but really, if you think Serenity Shoals is such a dangerous place, why did you let your daughter go there?”
    “Because she is dangerous,” Wisant answered coldly. “I’m a realist, Andy.”
    Snowden blinked and then nodded wearily, rubbing his eyes. “I’d forgotten about this morning.” He looked around. “Did it happen in this room?”
    Wisant nodded.
    “Where’s the pillow she chopped up?” Snowden asked callously.
    Wisant pointed across the room at a box that was not only wrapped and sealed as if it contained infectious material, but also corded and the cord tied in an elaborate bow. “I thought it should be carefully preserved,” he said.
    Snowden stared. “Did you wrap that box?”
    “Yes. Why?”
    Snowden said nothing.
    Harker came in asking, "Been in touch with the Station the last five minutes, Joel? Two new outbreaks. A meeting of the League for Total Peace Through Total Disarmament reports that naked daggers appeared from nowhere and leaped through the air, chasing members and pinning the speaker to his rostrum by his jerkin. One man kept veiling about poltergeists—we got him. And the naked body of a man weighing 300 pounds fell spang in the middle of the Congress of the SPECP—that’s the Society for the Prevention of Emotional Cruelty to People. Turned out to be a week-old corpse stolen from City Hospital Morgue. Very fragrant. Joel, this mass-hysteria thing is broadening out.”
    Wisant nodded and opened a drawer beside his bed.
    Snowden snorted. “A solid corpse is about as far from mass hysteria as you can get,” he observed. “What do you want with that hot-rod, Joel?”
    Wisant did not answer. Harker showed