Free A Stone & a Spear by Raymond F. Jones Page B

tired now. The ageless, leathery hide of Dell's face seemed to have collapsed before some overpowering decay, its bronze smoothness shattered by deep lines that were like tool marks of pain.
     
    Curt spoke in a subdued voice. "It's hard to get away from Detrick. Always one more experiment to try — "
     
    " — And the brass riding you as if they expected you to win another war for them tomorrow afternoon," said Dell. "I remember."
     
    "We wondered about this truck," Louise commented brightly, trying to change the subject. "We finally gave up on it."
     
    "Oh, that. It brings liquid fertilizer to pump into my irrigation water, that's all. No mystery. Let's go on to the house. After you're settled we can catch up on everything and I'll tell you about the things I'm doing here."
     
    "Who's the man we saw?" asked Curt. "He looks as if his health is pretty precarious."
     
    "That's Brown. He came with the place — farmed it for years for my uncle before I inherited it. He could grow a garden on a granite slab. In spite of appearances, he's well enough physically."
     
    "How has your own health been ? You have — changed — since you were at Detrick."
     
    Dell raised a lock of steel-gray hair in his fingers and dismissed the question with a wan smile. "We all wear out sometime," he said. "My turn had to come."
     
    INSIDE, some of the oppressiveness vanished as the evening passed. It was cool enough for lighting the fireplace, and they settled before it after dinner. While they watched the flickering light that whipped the beamed ceiling, Dell entertained them with stories of his neighbors, whose histories he knew clear back to Revolutionary times.
     
    Early, however, Louise excused herself. She knew they would want privacy to thresh out the purposes behind Dell's invitation — and Curt's acceptance.
     
    When she was gone, there was a moment's silence. The logs crackled with shocking pistol shots in the fireplace. The scientist moved to stir the coals and then turned abruptly to Curt.
     
    "When are you going to leave Detrick?"
     
    "When are you coming back?" Curt demanded instead of answering
     
    "So they still want me, even after the things I said when I left."
     
    "You're needed badly. When I told Hansen I was coming down, he said it would be worth five years of my own work to bring you back."
     
    'They want me to produce even deadlier toxins than those I gave them," Dell said viciously. 'They want some that can kill ten million people in four minutes instead of only one million — "
     
    "Any man would go insane if he looked at it that way. It would be the same as gun -makers being tormented by the vision of torn men destroyed by their bullets, the sorrowing families — "
     
    "And why shouldn't the gunmakers be tormented?" Dell's voice was low with controlled hate. "They are men like you and me who give the t^r-makers new tools for their trade."
     
    "Oh, Dell, it's not as simple as that." Curt raised a hand and let it fall wearily. They had been over this so many times before. "Weapon designers are no more responsible than any other agents of society. It's pure neurosis to absorb the whole guilt of wars yet un fought merely because you happened to have developed a potential weapon."
     
    Dell touched the massive dome of his skull. "Here within this brain of mine has been conceived a thing which will probably destroy a billion human lives in the coming years. D. triconus toxin in a suitable aerosol requires only a countable number of molecules in the lungs of a man to kill him. My brain and mine alone is responsible for that vicious, murderous discovery."
     
    "Egotism! Any scientist's work is built upon the pyramid of past knowledge."
     
    "THE weapon I have described exists. If I had not created it, it would not exist. It is as simple as that. No one shares my guilt and my responsibility. And what more do they want of me now? What greater dream of mass slaughter and destruction have they dreamed?"
     
    "They