Appointment in Tomorrow
BY FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by ED ALEXANDER
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction July 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Is it possible to have a world without moral values?
Or does lack of morality become a moral value, also?
The first angry rays of the sun—which, startlingly enough, still rosein the east at 24 hour intervals—pierced the lacy tops of Atlanticcombers and touched thousands of sleeping Americans with unconsciousfear, because of their unpleasant similarity to the rays from World WarIII's atomic bombs.
They turned to blood the witch-circle of rusty steel skeletons aroundInferno in Manhattan. Without comment, they pointed a cosmic finger atthe tarnished brass plaque commemorating the martyrdom of the ThreePhysicists after the dropping of the Hell Bomb. They tenderly touchedthe rosy skin and strawberry bruises on the naked shoulders of agirl sleeping off a drunk on the furry and radiantly heated floor ofa nearby roof garden. They struck green magic from the glassy blotthat was Old Washington. Twelve hours before, they had revealed thingsas eerily beautiful, and as ravaged, in Asia and Russia. They pinkedthe white walls of the Colonial dwelling of Morton Opperly near theInstitute for Advanced Studies; upstairs they slanted impartiallyacross the Pharoahlike and open-eyed face of the elderly physicist andthe ugly, sleep-surly one of young Willard Farquar in the next room.And in nearby New Washington they made of the spire of the Thinkers'Foundation a blue and optimistic glory that outshone White House, Jr.
It was America approaching the end of the Twentieth Century. Americaof juke-box burlesque and your local radiation hospital. Americaof the mask-fad for women and Mystic Christianity. America of theoff-the-bosom dress and the New Blue Laws. America of the Endless Warand the loyalty detector. America of marvelous Maizie and the monthlyrocket to Mars. America of the Thinkers and (a few remembered) theInstitute. "Knock on titanium," "Whadya do for black-outs," "Please,lover, don't think when I'm around," America, as combat-shocked andcrippled as the rest of the bomb-shattered planet.
Not one impudent photon of the sunlight penetrated the triple-paned,polarizing windows of Jorj Helmuth's bedroom in the Thinker'sFoundation, yet the clock in his brain awakened him to the minute,or almost. Switching off the Educational Sandman in the midst of thephrase, "... applying tensor calculus to the nucleus," he took adeep, even breath and cast his mind to the limits of the world andhis knowledge. It was a somewhat shadowy vision, but, he noted withimpartial approval, definitely less shadowy than yesterday morning.
Employing a rapid mental scanning technique, he next cleared his memorychains of false associations, including those acquired while asleep.These chores completed, he held his finger on a bedside button, whichrotated the polarizing window panes until the room slowly filled with amuted daylight. Then, still flat on his back, he turned his head untilhe could look at the remarkably beautiful blonde girl asleep beside him.
Remembering last night, he felt a pang of exasperation, which heinstantly quelled by taking his