The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert Read Online Free PDF Page B

constant vigilance. ”
    He signed it, “Cordially, Mirsar Wees, Chief Indoctrinator, Sol Sub-prefecture.”
    Someday, he thought, it will be “Coordinator.”
    Rising from the mechano-secretary, Mirsar Wees moved over to the “incoming” tube of his report-panel and noticed a tube which his new assistant had tabbed with the yellow band of “extreme importance.”
    He inserted the tube into a translator, sat down, and watched as it dealt out the report:
    â€œA Hindu creature has seen itself as it really is,” the report said.
    Mirsar Wees reached over and put a tracer-beam on his new assistant to observe how that worthy was meeting this threat.
    The report buzzed on: “The creature went insane as per indoctrination command, but most unfortunately it is a member of a sect which worships insanity. Others are beginning to listen to its babblings.”
    The report concluded: “I make haste.”
    Mirsar Wees leaned back, relaxed and smiled blandly. The new assistant showed promise.

 
    OPERATION SYNDROME
    Honolulu is quiet, the dead buried, the rubble of buildings cleaned away. A salvage barge rocks in the Pacific swell off Diamond Head. Divers follow a bubble trail down into the green water to the wreck of the Stateside skytrain. The Scramble Syndrome did this. Ashore, in converted barracks, psychologists work fruitlessly in the aftermath of insanity. This is where the Scramble Syndrome started: one minute the city was peaceful; a clock tick later the city was mad.
    In forty days—nine cities infected.
    The twentieth century’s Black Plague.
    Seattle
    First a ringing in the ears, fluting up to a whistle. The whistle became the warning blast of a nightmare train roaring clackety-clack, clackety-clack across his dream.
    A psychoanalyst might have enjoyed the dream as a clinical study. This psychoanalyst was not studying the dream; he was having it. He clutched the sheet around his neck, twisted silently on the bed, drawing his knees under his chin.
    The train whistle modulated into the contralto of an expensive chanteuse singing “Insane Crazy Blues.” The dream carried vibrations of fear and wildness.
    â€œA million dollars don’t mean a thing—”
    Hoarse voice riding over clarion brass, bumping of drums, clarinet squealing like an angry horse.
    A dark-skinned singer with electric blue eyes and dressed in black stepped away from a red backdrop. She opened her arms to an unseen audience. The singer, the backdrop lurched into motion, revolving faster and faster and faster until it merged into a pinpoint of red light. The red light dilated to the bell mouth of a trumpet sustaining a minor note.
    The music shrilled; it was a knife, cutting his brain.
    Dr. Eric Ladde awoke. He breathed rapidly; he oozed perspiration. Still he heard the singer, the music.
    I’m dreaming that I’m awake, he thought.
    He peeled off the top sheet, slipped his feet out, put them on the warm floor. Presently, he stood up, walked to the window, looked down on the moontrail shimmering across Lake Washington. He touched the sound switch beside the window and now he could hear the night—crickets, spring peepers at the lakeshore, the far hum of a skytrain.
    The singing remained.
    He swayed, gripped at the windowsill.
    Scramble Syndrome —
    He turned, examined the bedside newstape; no mention of Seattle. Perhaps he was safe—illness. But the music inside his head was no illness.
    He made a desperate clutch for self-control, shook his head, banged his ear with the palm of his hand. The singing persisted. He looked to the bedside clock—1:05 A.M. , Friday, May 14, 1999.
    Inside his head the music stopped. But now—Applause! A roar of clapping, cries, stamping of feet. Eric rubbed his head.
    I’m not insane … I’m not insane —
    He slipped into his dressing gown, went into the kitchen cubicle of his bachelor residence. He drank water,