PAPA Knows Best
By WALLACE UMPHREY
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Thrilling Wonder Stories June 1952.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The morning telecast had told of more deaths, some natural but mostof them suicides. It wasn't news calculated to set at rest the humanspirit; but then, since the day disaster had struck, there had been nosuch thing as a peaceful mind.
It was so easy to remember how it all began, Steve Rushton wasthinking, as he suffered the indignity of the routine search. The trickwas in trying to forget. You rationalized your fears and anxieties;you slammed the door against an impossible enemy and then pretendedhe was gone. Out of sight, out of mind. And if that didn't work—killyourself.
This is how it was: one day the grass was green and the trees weresending out new leaf buds; a day later the grass was withering andturning yellow, and the tender new leaf buds were starting to drop offthe trees.
Hysteria reigned, recrimination following recrimination. A well-knowngossip columnist swore it was a ghastly plot by the Eastern Allianceto rule the world—overlooking the fact that the Eastern Alliance wasno better off. A cultist with a large following in California brayedthat mankind was reaping the fruit of its own evil. Some people triedto look into their own hearts and others tried to look into the future,and as a result death by suicide mounted in a dizzy spiral.
World leaders pleaded for sanity. Scientists sought feverishly for ananswer, and finally agreed that what had happened was due to a raywhich was coming from somewhere out in interplanetary space. And theenormity of the peril was fully realized when farmers reported theircrops were failing. All known stockpiles of food could support mankindfor only a limited time.
At first science tried to devise some sort of barrier against theray, but this was soon given up; nothing about the ray seemed to fitinto any pigeon-hole of human knowledge. Next science turned itsattention to the manufacture of synthetic food. And when this became anaccomplished fact, almost overnight, the world heaved a sigh of relief.
But the relief was short-lived. Mankind was suddenly finding it harderand harder to breathe. The secondary effect of the destruction of plantlife was becoming all too apparent.
So again the world looked toward Papa. Papa had saved mankind once. NowPapa would have to do it again....
Steve Rushton, except for a bad moment now and then, was relativelyfree of fear and anxiety. He had a complete and abiding faith,amounting to a childlike worship, in Papa's infallible ability to getthe world out of the horrible mess it was in. Papa had showed them howto synthesize carbon and hydrogen for food. Now Papa had to show themhow to make the air once more fit to breathe.
The routine search didn't take long. An electric eye, a geiger counter,and sundry other gadgetry turned Steve upside down and inside out andfound him clean. The security guard relaxed a little and said, "Okay,Steve. You can see Papa now. And don't do anything in there I wouldn'tdo."
Steve grinned politely and the guard, slapping a thigh, laughed withmaudlin abandon—and then suddenly began to wheeze. "This damned air—"he gasped.
"What do you expect for free—" Steve asked sourly—"pure oxygen?"
"It's getting worse.