Read Online The Wonder Effect by Frederik Pohl - Free Book Online Page A

with all my heart, not needing the stories of twenty-year-old mathematicians and infant Mozarts to lay a proof.
    “ ‘In the course of my work I have been given great material rewards. I wish that this money be spent for those I love. I have worked with the heart, but perhaps my money can help someone to work with the mind, in this great new science of psychology which I do not understand, in all of the other sciences which I understand even less. I must hire other eyes.
    “ ‘I direct, then, that all of my assets other than my books and my homes be converted into cash, and that this money be used to further the study of the child, with the aim of releasing him from the corrupt adult cloak that smothers him, of freeing him for wisdom, tenderness and love.’”
    “That,” said DeBeckett sadly, “was forty years ago.”
    He started at a sound. Overhead a rocket was clapping through the sky, and DeBeckett looked wildly around. “It’s all right, Mr. DeBeckett,” comforted little Pat. “It’s only a plane.”
    He allowed her to soothe him. “Ah, leveling,” he said. “And can you answer my question?”
    “What it says in the ‘Cyclopedia, Mr. DeBeckett?”
    “Why- Yes, if you know it? my dear.”
    Surprisingly the child said, as if by rote: “The Institute was founded in 1976 and at once attracted most of the great workers in pediatric analysis, who were able to show Wiltshanes’s Effect in the relationship between glandular and mental development. Within less than ten years a new projective analysis of the growth process permitted a reorientation of basic pedagogy from a null-positive locus. The effects were immediate. The first generation of-“
    She stopped, startled. The old man was up on his elbow, his eyes blazing at her in wonder and fright. ‘Tm-“ She looked around at the other children for help and at once wailed, “I’m sorry, Mr. DeBeckett!” and began to cry.
    The old man fell back, staring at her with a sort of unbelieving panic. The little girl wept abundantly. Slowly DeBeckett’s expression relaxed and he managed a sketchy smile.
    He said, “There, sweetest. You startled me. But it was charming of you to memorize all that!”
    “I learned it for you,” she sobbed.
    “I didn’t understand. Don’t cry.” Obediently the little girl dried her eyes as DeBeckett stretched out a hand to her.
    But the hand dropped back on the quilt. Age, surprise and the drug had allied to overmaster the dwindling resources of Elphen DeBeckett. He wandered to the plantoms on the wall. “I never understood what they did with my money,” he told Coppie, who smiled at him with a shy, painted smile. “The children kept coming, but they never said.”
    “Poor man,” said Will absently, watching him with a child’s uncommitted look.
    The nurse’s eyes were bright and wet. She reached for the hypodermic, but the doctor shook his head.
    “Wait,” he said, and walked to the bed. He stood on tiptoe to peer into the dying man’s face. “No, no use. Too old. Can’t survive organ transplant, certainty of cytic shock. No feasible therapy.” The nurse’s eyes were now flowing. The doctor said to her, with patience but not very much patience, “No alternative. Only kept him going this long from gratitude.”
    The nurse sobbed, “Isn’t there anything we can do for him?”
    “Yes.” The doctor gestured, and the lights on the diagnostic dials winked out. “We can let him die.?*
    Little Pat hiked herself up on a chair, much too large for her, and dangled her feet. “Be nice to get rid of this furniture, anyway,” she said. “Well, nurse? He’s dead. Don’t wait.” The nurse looked rebelliously at the doctor, but the doctor only nodded. Sadly the nurse went to the door and admitted the adults who had waited outside. The four of them surrounded the body and bore it gently through the door. Before it closed the nurse looked back and wailed: “He loved you!”
    The children did not appear to notice.