The Science Fiction Crime Megapack® by Mack Reynolds

Author:Mack Reynolds
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, mystery, crime, detective, murder
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2017-04-10T04:00:00+00:00

THE VOICES, by Edward Wellen

Originally published in Universe, March 1954.

When he was fifteen he sat one evening over his homework studiously ignoring it for the moment. With his pencil he drummed a hollow-sounding descending and ascending scale on his cheek by opening and closing his mouth. His elbow, which was resting on the table, suddenly slid. The point of the pencil drove into the center of his left palm and broke off. He pressed a finger on the gash to stem the flow of blood and ran to the bathroom to mercurochrome and bandage the wound. He didn’t think to pry out the point and the flesh healed over it. When the scab fell away there was a faint grayish speck visible under the small white scar. Through the years the currents of his body washed the speck along, at the rate of one-billionth of an inch per second.

When he was eighteen he lost an incisor on the football field by tripping and landing on his water bucket. His dentist screwed a tooth of chromium-cobalt alloy into his jawbone. As time went by, further visits to the dentist weighed him down with twenty-three fillings.

When he was twenty-one and working for his Ph. D., ploughing through acres of small print blurred his vision. His optometrist fitted him with a pair of steel-rimmed glasses.

When he was twenty-four he held a good job as a chemical engineer. He loved his work and grudged the time he spent away from it. And so he got into the habit of nibbling a salt-sprinkled tomato for lunch every day. This caused an acid imbalance in his body. It showed in the blackgreening of the steel rims of his glasses and of his face where they touched.

When he was twenty-six his glasses fogged and he misread a dial. The explosion that followed ruined his hearing. He began wearing a hearing aid.

When he was twenty-seven he married. It was a double ring ceremony and the bride firmly slipped a gold band over the trembling third finger of his left hand. He had a habit of tapping the ring against his teeth whenever he became lost in thought. It seemed to help him find his way. But his wife said, time after time, “Must you do that?” (It wore on her nerves, like so many other habits of his.) “Are you doing it only to drive me mad?” And she would angrily step up the tempo of her gum-chewing.

When he was thirty—

* * * *

It was 10 a.m.

Nicholas Kane, Ph. D., sat at his desk. A problem was facing him and he absently clicked his wedding band against his teeth.

In that second the bit of graphite, which in fifteen years had marched a half inch along his palm toward his fingers, was moving one-billionth of an inch.

Dr. Kane froze. He was beginning to hear voices in his head.

The first was a woman’s voice, and even through the metallic distortion Dr. Kane sensed a suggestive sleepiness furring her speech.

“Bill?”

A pause. Then the woman spoke again.

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