The Whole Man
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7 vfe/Tf ¥ mt i WS&m$eB%L > ?:•!( Ty iV, \Li/ 3 I y n i/. 1 “Brunner writes about future as iWe 4nd the reabet were alreacMiving in it. The New York Times •7 // Book' Review Powers of the Mind Giddy with pain, panicking because the richness of this communication was so casual and so far beyond his own untrained competence, Howson came to the top of the pile of debris and swayed in the opening of the half- window. There was a drop of twelve feet beyond, into what had been a basement level. Horrified, he thought of jumping down. I can protect you from fear and pain. Let me. NO NO NO LEAVE ME ALONE! The contact wavered; the telepathist seemed to gather his strength. He “said”: All right, you deserve this for being a fool. Hold still! A grip like iron closed on the motor centers of Howson ’s brain. His hands clutched the frame of the old window, his feet found a steady purchase on its sill, and after that he could not move; the telepathist had frozen his limbs. He could not even scream his terror at discovering that this was possible. Then images appeared. Science Fiction and Fantasy by John Brunner Age of Miracles Not Before Time The Atlantic Abomination Now Then The Avengers of Carrig Out of My Mind Bedlam Planet A Planet of Your Own The Book of John Brunner Players at the Game of People Bom Under Mars Polymath Catch a Falling Star The Productions of Time The Compleat Traveller in Black Quicksand The Crucible of Time The Repairmen of Cyclops Day of the Star Cities The Rites of Ohe Double, Double Sanctuary in the Sky The Dramaturges of Yan The Sheep Look Up The Dreaming Earth The Shockwave Rider Enigma From Tantalus The Skynappers Entry to Elsewhen The Squares of the City The Evil That Men Do Stand on Zanzibar Father of Lies The Stardroppers Foreign Constellations The Stone That Never Came Down From This Day Forward The Super Barbarians Give Warning to the World Threshold of Eternity The Infinitive of Go Time-Jump Interstellar Empire Timescoop Into the Slave Nebula Times Without Number The Jagged Orbit To Conquer Chaos The Long Result Total Eclipse Manshape The Traveller in Black Meeting at Infinity The Webs of Everywhere More Things in Heaven The Whole Man No Future in It The World Swappers No Other Gods But Me The Wrong End of Time COLLIER NUCLEUS FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION Consulting Editor, James Frenkel Man in His Time by Brian W. Aldiss The Compleat Traveller in Black by John Brunner The Whole Man by John Brunner Eye in the Sky by Philip K. Dick Solar Lottery by Philip K. Dick Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison Davy by Edgar Pangbom The Steps of the Sun by Walter Tevis The Year of the Quiet Sun by Wilson Tucker Darker Than You Think by Jack Williamson The Legion of Space by Jack Williamson Star Bridge by Jack Williamson and James E. Gunn OL UU ML John Brunner COLLIER BOOKS Macmillan Publishing Company New York Collier Macmillan Canada Toronto Maxwell Macmillan International New York Oxford Singapore Sydney This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used ficti- tiously. Any resemblance to events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Copyright © 1964 by John Brunner Previously published by Del Ray/Ballantine Books All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechani- cal, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher. Collier Books Macmillan Publishing Company 866 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022 Collier Macmillan Canada, Inc. 1200 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 200 Don Mills, Ontario M3C 3N1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brunner, John, 1934- The whole man/John Brunner. — 1st Collier Books ed. p. cm. ISBN 0-02-030275-4 I. Title. PR6052.R8W48 1990 823'. 914—dc20 90-2062 CIP First Collier Books Edition 1990 10 987654321 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BOOK ONE WoLem BOOK TWO BOOK THREE Wens Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet. Vergil: Aeneid, VI, 726-7 Book One WoLn fter the birth they put her in a bed, a large woman wasted by worry and hunger, so that it was not S* only over her emptied belly that her skin hung old-clothes fashion. In spite of her wide pelvic girdle she had had a difficult labor; the tired-faced doctor had judged her a few per cent worse off than those others who competed for space in the hospital ward, so she had been allotted the bed. She showed no sign of appreciation. She would have shown no sign of resentment, either, if she had been treated the same as most other women passed through the delivery room that day, and taken to an armchair to rest for a mere couple of hours while they scrubbed down the floor with a solution of caustic soda, for lack of disinfectant, burned the kraft paper off the delivery table and put on fresh, for lack of laundry fa- cilities. The “crisis” had been gestating just about as long as the child. It had culminated a week or two ahead of him. There were two panes out from the window next to her bed, and the gaps had been covered with newspaper and adhesive tape. The woman in the bed on the right had a gunshot wound and lay with puzzled eyes staring at the ceiling. In one corner of that ceiling was the trace left by a licking tongue of greasy smoke, exactly the same shade of black-edged-with-gray as would have been left by a candle, but two feet wide. From the street noise came, unfamiliar, disturbing. Last month there would have been the drone of traffic, a buzz of people wandering in sunlight, a predictable, com- forting background with commonplace associations. Now 7 8 The Whole Man there was the occasional hoarse shout, grossly am- loud- plified, but blurred by the direction of the portable that speaker so that it was impossible to tell more than orders were given. Also there was the growl-rumble- clank of a heavy tracked vehicle; the acid bite of police whistles; the stamping of unison feet. Automatically the mind tensed, wondering whether there would follow the stammer of guns. An hour or so after the birth a woman in olive-green battle dress came to the door of the ward. Her hair was cut man-short and there was a belt with a shiny brown holster strapped around her waist. She looked about her curiously and went away. Another hour, and an old man came pushing a squeaky trolley with two urns on it, one containing watery soup and one containing watery coffee. There was also bread. A nurse hurried in directly after and distributed bowls and mugs to those patients who could eat. And a little later still another nurse came, her face drawn and her mouth downtumed, with the doctor who had supervised the delivery. Every available bed was in use; only the fact that there weren’t more beds had ensured that floor space was left between patient and patient. Awkwardly, sometimes hav- ing to sidle, the nurse and doctor came to the new mother. .” “You . uh . The doctor changed his mind about putting it that way, cleared his throat, tried again. “You ?” •haven’t seen your baby yet, Mrs. • “Miss,” said the woman in the bed. Her eyelids rolled down like blinds over her lackluster eyes. Her hair tan- gled untidily on the pillow, dark and greasy. “Miss Sarah Howson.” “I see.” The doctor wasn’t sure if he did or didn’t, but the remark filled a silence even though the silence was subjective, already occupied in reality by the clang- ing of empty tin bowls as they were collected after the patients’ meal. The nurse whispered something to the doctor, show- ing him a roneotyped form: square gray lines on gray paper. He nodded. “I’m sorry about the delay, Miss Howson,” he said. “But things are difficult at the moment. Have you — Molem 9 chosen a name for him yet?” And, catching himself be- cause he was never sure under present circumstances how far the normal routine had actually deteriorated: “You were told you have a boy, weren’t you?” “I guess so. Yes, somebody did say.” The woman rolled her heavy head from side to side as though seeking an impossible position of comfort. “If you’ve chosen a name, we can enter it on the record of the birth,” the doctor prompted. ” “I . She rubbed her forehead. “I guess . Say, are you the doctor who was there?” Her eyes opened again, searched his face. “Yes, you’re the one. Doc, it was bad, wasn’t it?” “Yes, it was pretty bad,” the doctor agreed. ?” “Did it . ? I mean, is there permanent . “Oh, no, there’s no permanent damage,” the doctor cut in, hoping to sound reassuring in spite of his splitting headache and gut-souring exhaustion. He wasn’t sure of anything any more, it seemed—no one was, currently but it was a habit to be reassuring. Where had it all gone? How? The safe calm world of a few weeks back had split apart, and they said “crisis” without explaining anything.