Man Who Sold the Moon / Orphans of the Sky Read Free Page B

for that purpose.”
    Pinero arose. “So true. So very true. But was I wise to come? Is there anyone here who has an open mind, who can stare a bare fact in the face without blushing? I think not. Even that so beautiful gentleman who asked you to hear me out has already judged me and condemned me. He seeks order, not truth. Suppose truth defies order, will he accept it? Will you? I think not. Still, if I do not speak, you will win your point by default. The little man in the street will think that you little men have exposed me, Pinero, as a hoaxer, a pretender. That does not suit my plans. I will speak.
    “I will repeat my discovery. In simple language I have invented a technique to tell how long a man will live. I can give you advance billing of the Angel of Death. I can tell you when the Black Camel will kneel at your door. In five minutes time with my apparatus I can tell any of you how many grains of sand are still left in your hourglass.” He paused and folded his arms across his chest. For a moment no one spoke. The audience grew restless. Finally the chairman intervened.
    “You aren’t finished, Doctor Pinero?”
    “What more is there to say?”
    “You haven’t told us how your discovery works.”
    Pinero’s eyebrows shot up. “You suggest that I should turn over the fruits of my work for children to play with. This is dangerous knowledge, my friend. I keep it for the man who understands it, myself.” He tapped his chest.
    “How are we to know that you have anything back of your wild claims?”
    “So simple. You send a committee to watch me demonstrate. If it works, fine. You admit it and tell the world so. If it does not work, I am discredited, and will apologize. Even I, Pinero, will apologize.”
    A slender stoop-shouldered man stood up in the back of the hall. The chair recognized him and he spoke:
    “Mr. Chairman, how can the eminent doctor seriously propose such a course? Does he expect us to wait around for twenty or thirty years for someone to die and prove his claims?”
    Pinero ignored the chair and answered directly:
    “Pfiii! Such nonsense! Are you so ignorant of statistics that you do not know that in any large group there is at least one who will die in the immediate future? I make you a proposition; let me test each one of you in this room and I will name the man who will die within the fortnight, yes, and the day and hour of his death.” He glanced fiercely around the room. “Do you accept?”
    Another figure got to his feet, a portly man who spoke in measured syllables. “I, for one, cannot countenance such an experiment. As a medical man, I have noted with sorrow the plain marks of serious heart trouble in many of our elder colleagues. If Doctor Pinero knows those symptoms, as he may, and were he to select as his victim one of their number, the man so selected would be likely to die on schedule, whether the distinguished speaker’s mechanical egg-timer works or not.”
    Another speaker backed him up at once. “Doctor Shepard is right. Why should we waste time on voodoo tricks? It is my belief that this person who calls himself Doctor Pinero wants to use this body to give his statements authority. If we participate in this farce, we play into his hands. I don’t know what his racket is, but you can bet that he has figured out some way to use us for advertising for his schemes. I move, Mr. Chairman, that we proceed with our regular business.”
    The motion carried by acclamation, but Pinero did not sit down. Amidst cries of “Order! Order!” he shook his untidy head at them, and had his say:
    “Barbarians! Imbeciles! Stupid dolts! Your kind have blocked the recognition of every great discovery since time began. Such ignorant canaille are enough to start Galileo spinning in his grave. That fat fool down there twiddling his elk’s tooth calls himself a medical man. Witch doctor would be a better term! That little bald-headed runt over there—You! You style yourself a philosopher,