The Planet of the Blind Read online

  THE PLANET OF THE BLIND

  Dr. Thur Stone, the powerful head of Terra-Testing, becomes the first Earthman to land on the planet Grenda when his pleasure cruiser malfunctions. Understanding the eagerness of the sightless Grendans to learn all they can about him, he cooperates with an extensive series of tests—one of which proves he has eyes.

  On Grenda, people don’t have eyes.

  Animals have eyes.

  If Dr. Stone can’t convince the Grendans that their definition of humanity is wrong, he will wind up a prize specimen in a Grendan zoo . . . if they let him live that long.

  PAPERBACK LIBRARY EDITION

  First Printing: July, 1969

  Copyright © 1968 by Paul Corey

  For

  CHARLES ADDAMS

  a black and white cat

  Paperback Library is a division of Coronet Communications, Inc, Its trademark, consisting of the words "Paperback Library” accompanied by an open book, is registered in the United States Patent Office. Coronet Communications, Inc., 315 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  ONE

  It wasn’t exactly a pleasure cruise I was on out there in the Galaxy. Call it therapy. I was alone, I ate and I slept. I relaxed. I was experiencing a sort of regeneration.

  My spacerover flew on automatic. It followed a pattern set when I lifted from the Space Port at Tejon Sands.

  But somewhere out there, the awareness of deceleration forced itself on me. In a very short time the ship slowed to a speed that made its own gravity device unnecessary. Obviously we had come out of our space-pattern. The fact sobered me.

  I moved to the control panel and began testing buttons. Not one single control responded. At last I pressed the distress button. It stayed down.

  From the viewport I saw a planet around which my ship had apparently gone into orbit. It looked like a pale green-blue bubble floating in the orange-yellow light of its sun.

  I felt completely helpless but quite calm. Here was a situation that demanded an intelligent reaction.

  Several centuries ago a Dr. David Wechler defined intelligence as a person’s ability “to act purposefully, to think rationally and to deal effectively with his environment.”

  It wasn’t unnatural for that definition to pop into my mind at the moment, and with it the memory of Talcott Jones.

  I could hear him say, “But where is creativity in all that? Has the ability to create no part in intelligence?”

  Good questions? Perhaps.

  The case of the World v. Jones was over and he was on Mars paying for his crime.

  But Jones had followers. The Creativists might have been stronger than the World Bureau of Investigation led me to believe. Could my predicament out here in space be the work of some terrorist group? Was it possible that in spite of all precautions, Talcott Jones, millions of miles away, might succeed in destroying me?

  That was a ridiculous thought of course. Jones never wanted to destroy me. But I couldn’t admit it right then. All I could think was: When Karen finds out, she’ll realise that I was right about that fellow.

  It was Karen, my daughter, who got the Jones case to the World Supreme Court. I could have ended the whole affair with the first trial, but I believe in letting events run their full course.

  As Director of TERRA-TESTING, LTD. I devise and give tests—with the help of my staff, naturally. The lives of all Earth people are determined from creche to crematory by tests.

  Not all people on Earth take tests willingly or accept the findings of tests without muttering. It is quite natural, statistically, that there should be dissident groups.

  Lower courts handle most such cases. A conviction gets the malefactor a stretch in some regional hospital especially set up to treat such retarded individuals. Treatment? More tests.

  But this case went all the way.

  Karen is a wonderful girl. A very determined type. I should have insisted, probably, that she stay in my field—TESTING—and not go into Social Welfare after she graduated from Stanet-Benford University. But I let her have her way. I was too permissive, I guess . . . And in Social Work she came into contact with low-score groups. That’s how she met Talcott Jones.

  He called himself a Creativist. That really meant that he was a testnik. That was office slang for his type. He refused to take tests or have anything to do with testing. When forcibly tested, his score was 79, which put him just inside the moron class. That closed to him automatically all our institutions of higher education.

  But our libraries are open to everyone. Because of his low score, Jones could get only menial jobs. He was unable to maintain any sort of decent living quarters, so he practically lived in libraries. He used their washrooms. He took advantage of their weather-conditioning winter and summer. He slept in them when he could get away with it.

  It was my opinion that to cover up for such misuse of our public facilities he used the Tri-dees and Microreaders, and even old printed stuff that no one had bothered to film or tape. Probably he would have lived all his life that way if he hadn’t met Karen.

  It was about then that he started haranguing the public to the effect that our so-called genius group, with its score of 200 or over, had constricted Earth mentality to a mere manipulation of past-established facts. In his view, Earth had become a many-levelled cage for test-scored humans controlled by brain-pickers picking the brains of other brain-pickers.

  “Brain-picker,” was a favourite word of his.

  He was arrested for “attempted subversion”.

  I never could understand how Karen could think that she was in love with Jones. Pity, yes—the normal reaction of any normal social welfare worker—but not love.

  Oh, he was a handsome masculine type. He made a fine appearance in the courtroom. I could have hated him, but I didn’t. At least that’s what I told myself. All I wanted was to keep my daughter from making a fool of herself over a Score-79.

  When she asked me to have the charge against him dropped, I refused.

  We were in the study at my villa. She had a hard time keeping back tears. The harder she tried, the more unhappy and more beautiful she looked. It twisted me inside, feeling sorry for her. I had to keep telling myself that I was doing this for her own good. I knew what was best for her. She was too young to love anybody but her own father—and certainly not a low-score like Jones.

  But Talcott Jones convicted himself when he spoke in his own defense at the first trial. He had a strong, compelling voice. He let himself get carried away by it and spewed forth such crackpot ideas as, “We are become a puppet people. Tests determine our entire lives. However, these tests are devised by brain-pickers to find and recognise other brain-pickers. The creative mind, the original thinker, has been permanently relegated to the mental midden of society.”

  Once he paused in his ranting to get maximum effect, indicating some native capabilities as a speaker. After a deep breath, he went on:

  “But the prosecution asserts that we have tests for creativity.”

  “Have we now? How is that possible? How can a brain-picker, who of necessity must be completely ignorant of creativity, devise tests to discover a capability he cannot even know? It is the blind leading the blind.”

  That was a jibe at me, I knew.

  He finished his harangue by turning to the crowded but silent courtroom. He flung up his arms and his voice swelled, filling the place.

  “Creators of the world,” he yelled. “Unite! You have nothing to lose but your brains.”

  That finished him. I was quite willing to admit that he had made a good speech in a lot of ways. There was many a Batten-Barton Avenue touch in it. But his message never got through to the jury. Everyone of those veniremen had been tested. All h
ad scored in the 95-105 range, the most tractable group. They all knew that Jones was only Score-79.

  In fifty minutes they found him guilty. The judge sentenced him to life on Mars and the ceranium mines.

  TWO

  Appeals followed. I accompanied Karen to hear the decision of the World Supreme Court, which unanimously upheld the verdict of the lower courts.

  She broke then, her last hope gone. Without making any attempt to hide her emotions, she rushed into Jones’ arms, and accompanied him back to his cell.

  I made no effort to stop her. But it was hard to hide the hurt I felt. I assured myself that I had won. She would come to her senses in time and turn back to me.

  To avoid meeting the communications corps, I slipped out through the judges’ chambers. My aero-car was parked on the top deck of the court building. I got in it, punched the “home” button and let the automatic chauffeur take over.

  The first thing I did when I got to my villa was to elbow a dry nova at my self-service bar. Then I paced my study waiting for Karen to return.

  Into the passing minutes came a hazy recollection that just about ten years ago, Rezla, Karen’s mother, had left me.

  For another man? I didn’t try to find out.

  We had only been keeping up appearances for a year or more. She just went away. I never knew where. It’s fairly easy to get lost in the stars.

  At the time she left I was in a desperate struggle at TERRA-TESTING. When it was over, I was Director.

  After her mother left, Karen took over the running of the house. That ten-year-old youngster handled robots and low-score help with amazing ease and efficiency. She looked after me with love and care and concern.

  Those were wonderful years. I watched her grow up, busy with her home, her learning, her life with me. I watched her become a young woman, a beautiful, well-poised person of genius score.

  She was never very demanding, but whatever she asked for I gave her. Always—until Talcott Jones.

  She met Jones in a space-harbour dive in Quanling, where she did her practice social welfare work. When her term was up he followed her to Intersteller City. She insisted that she had persuaded him to come. I never believed it. I’m sure he pursued her, expecting to use her, knowing that I was her father.

  Of course, I wasn’t aware of anything between them at all for quite some time. Fact was, I didn’t even know that Jones existed. But Karen’s attitude towards me changed. She no longer seemed as affectionate. She began talking about getting an apartment of her own.

  “I must start living my own life, Father,” she told me.

  “There’ll be plenty of time for that, baby,” I said. “When you’re grown up.”

  “Father, I’m a big girl now.”

  I just laughed at that.

  Then one night she brought Jones home to meet me. Instantly I realised the threat. I saw him for what he was: a low-score, a trouble-maker, a man without a future trying to cadge one from this unsuspecting child.

  I became determined not to let him take my daughter from me. Every father who loves his daughter will understand my feelings. I’m quite ready to admit that I initiated the action that got Jones arrested.

  Our usual dinner hour came and went. I finished my fifth dry nova—three more than my customary quota.

  At last Karen came. She was so lovely. She stood like a strong young tree, beautiful. I knew that she was miserably unhappy but it only made her the more attractive. Her eyes almost glittered, they were so bright.

  “I’ve waited dinner,” I said.

  She walked to the bar but didn’t punch out a drink. She just leaned there, tired and defeated.

  “They’re taking him on the Mars ship tonight,” she said.

  I went to her quickly and put my arm around her.

  “It’s for the best, baby. Believe me.”

  “Will you stop them, Father? You can, you know. Just a quick call.”

  It was such a pathetic appeal. A shiver went through her and tore at me but I knew I had to be firm.

  “I can’t interfere with justice, darrling.”

  She moved away from me.

  “Justice,” she said. “A dead word. Your brain-picking judges have in-bred it to death, and they refuse to give up the incestuous dream of it. Yes, Father, I think I understand you, now.”

  Her eyes came up for one brief, scornful look at me; then she walked out of the room. After waiting half an hour for her return, I realised that she had left the villa.

  It was several days before the police found the small hotel she had moved into. She refused to see me. She wouldn’t even talk to me on the visaphone.

  Meanwhile the Mars ship was days gone—with Jones on it. I could have started action to get him pardoned, but I would not. I believed firmly that I had done the right thing. She would get over this infatuation in time. She would come back to me if I held out long enough.

  But she remained away and silent.

  My world seemed to be falling apart although it had never been more firm. I took to haunting the neighbourhood of her hotel like a lovesick boy, hoping to see her. That was how badly I missed my daughter. And that was a completely ridiculous action for the Director of TERRA-TESTING, Ltd.

  My staff began to murmur. I told myself they were concerned for my health. But they might have been saying, “Mr. TEST himself needs to be tested.”

  When I thought that, I realised that I had become a yoyo between TERRA-TESTING and Talcott Jones. I was on the verge of cracking up.

  That was my problem. I could see it clearly. A man in my position has few confidants and fewer friends. I didn’t need them. I knew I could find the solution to my trouble where I had found it before: in a cruise alone somewhere out in the Galaxy. The solitude of space would heal my wounds.

  Once I make a decision, I act upon it. I got the head of the WBI on the visaphone and instructed him to keep Karen under surveillance. Then I got into my aerojet-coupe and punched out a course to the space port at Tejon Sands.

  My spacerover, the Wingul, was based in a special section at the port and always ready for immediate flight.

  I filed my space-pattern with the Space Tower for a two-week cruise and went aboard.

  THREE

  Without meaning to boast, I want to say simply that the Wingul is one of the finest sports spacerovers ever built. It was custom-made of course. It cost a cool three million credits. I stinted on nothing.

  The cabin is sixteen feet in diameter, covered wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling with the finest annis-hide from Venus. It is equipped with a wardrobe fully accoutred for every known space occasion, a complete toilet and bath, an automatic galley and bar, a foam couch upholstered in soft green capuri, a desk of quirina wood, an elaborate control and communications panel, and a lounge chair, also upholstered in capuri, facing the viewport.

  Karen had selected the colours for me. They were in the best of taste.

  Around the cabin, forming the outside of the ship, was a shell of ceranium. The shape resembled an old-fashioned hockey puck. The space between shell and cabin housed the anti-grav engines, and other mechanisms that made the ship function.

  I know nothing really about such things. I’ve never even been inside the hull. That’s a job for low-score help. If anything went wrong in flight, all I had to do was punch a button—the distress button—and the Spacerover dub would send out a tow-ship to fix it or bring me back safely.

  And if any low-score was responsible for the trouble he would find himself in the ceranium mines on Mars.

  But to relate further my present predicament to the memory of Doctor Wechler’s definition of intelligence: I had acted purposefully. I had punched buttons until I knew that all the controls were dead. To have acted more purposefully, I would have had to know something about the workings of the ship. The extent of my knowledge in this field was my ability to aim the point of a digit at a irrepressible nub. I had exhausted that knowledge.

  So, having acted as purposefully as
possible, I now attacked my predicament rationally. I knew that in spite of the ceranium shell, the ship would probably burn up in the atmosphere of this planet if entry were made too fast. In that event, death would be quick. That would be the flaming unknown end of the Director of TERRA-TESTING, Ltd.

  My breathing quickened. Getting enough air seemed a problem. Perhaps the hull was heating up already, I thought. But a rational answer came instantly: I was scared. That was all. My body was tightening up, constricting muscles in chest and abdomen. No wonder breathing was difficult.

  Deliberately, I took a couple of deep breaths. That got my body under control. I behaved with exceptional rationality.

  However, how does one deal effectively with an environment of waiting for sudden death? There was one thing I could do, I realised. I moved over to the lounge chair and stretched out. The situation seemed to call for something more. I hesitated a moment. Then, just to be on the safe side, I strapped myself in for a rough landing, should the ship get through the atmosphere and land.

  I waited. Not long, but it seemed long. And my good spacerover came down gently enough on the edge of a wide green plain at the base of a high green hill.

  Judging by the soft impact I guess that not all the controls were dead. It was obvious that the retractable landing legs had come out and assured support of the ship.

  I slipped my restraint belts and sprang to the controls. It took only a punch or two to tell me they were dead again. At least I was down safely, I told myself. But what in the name of all Space was going on?

  A further glance at the communications panel showed me that the distress button was still depressed. That could mean that my SOS was being sent. It was my understanding that the call would give my position to Space Rescue. This data would be repeated at short intervals for half an hour. Then a half-hour would lapse and the call would go out again.