Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

it for the man who understands it, myself.” He tapped his chest.

“How are we to know that you have anything back of your wild claims?”

“So simple. You send a committee to watch me demonstrate. If it works, fine.

You admit it and tell the world so. If it does not work, I am discredited, and will

apologize. Even I, Pinero, will apologize.”

A slender stoop-shouldered man stood up in the back of the hail. The chair

recognized him and he spoke:

“Mr. Chairman, how can the eminent doctor seriously propose such a course?

Does he expect us to wait around for twenty or thirty years for some one to die and

prove his claims?”

Pinero ignored the chair and answered directly:

“Pfui! Such nonsense! Are you so ignorant of statistics that you do not know

that in any large group there is at least one who will die in the immediate future?

I make you a proposition; let me test each one of you in this room and I will name

the man who will die within the fortnight, yes, and the day and hour of his death.”

He glanced fiercely around the room. “Do you accept?”

Another figure got to his feet, a portly man who spoke in measured

syllables. “I, for one, can not countenance such an experiment. As a medical man, I

have noted with sorrow the plain marks of serious heart trouble in many of our elder

colleagues. If Doctor Pinero knows those symptoms, as he may, and were he to select

as his victim one of their number, the man so selected would be likely to die on

schedule, whether the distinguished speaker’s mechanical egg-timer works or not.”

Another speaker backed him up at once. “Doctor Shepard is right. Why should

we waste time on voodoo tricks? It is my belief that this person who calls himself

Doctor Pinero wants to use this body to give his statements authority. If we

participate in this farce, we play into his hands. I don’t know what his racket is,

but you can bet that he has figured out some way to use us for advertising for his

schemes. I move, Mister Chairman, that we proceed with our regular business.”

The motion carried by acclamation, but Pinero did not sit down. Amidst cries

of “Order! Order!” he shook his untidy head at them, and had his say:

“Barbarians! Imbeciles! Stupid dolts! Your kind have blocked the recognition

of every great discovery since time began. Such ignorant canaille are enough to

start Galileo spinning in his grave. That fat fool down there twiddling his elk’s,

tooth calls himself a medical man. Witch doctor would be a better term! That little

baldheaded runt over there – You! You style yourself a philosopher, and prate about

life and time in your neat categories. What do you know of either one? How can you

ever learn when you won’t examine the truth when you have a chance? Bah!” He spat

upon the stage. “You call this an Academy of Science. I call it an undertaker’s

convention, interested only in embalming the ideas of your red-blooded

predecessors.”

He paused for breath and was grasped on each side by two members of the

platform committee and rushed out the wings. Several reporters arose hastily from

the press table and followed him. The chairman declared the meeting adjourned.

The newspapermen caught up with him as he was going out by the stage door.

He walked with a light springy step, and whistled a little tune. There was no trace

of the belligerence he had shown a moment before. They crowded about him. “How about

an interview, doe?” “What dyu think of Modem Education?” “You certainly told ’em.

What are your views on Life after Death?” “Take off your hat, doe, and look at the

birdie.”

He grinned at them all. “One at a time, boys, and not so fast. I used to be

a newspaperman myself. How about coming up to my place, and we’ll talk about it?”

A few minutes later they were trying to find places to sit down in Pinero’s

messy bed-living-room, and lighting his cigars. Pinero looked around and beamed.