Hex Read online

  Produced by Greg Weeks, Bruce Albrecht, Mary Meehan andthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttps://www.pgdp.net

  HEX

  BY LARRY M. HARRIS

  Illustrated by Summers

  [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding ScienceFiction May 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

  _She was a young, enthusiastic worker for the Welfare Department. She liked helping people ... only she really-but-good helped them!_

  The office wasn't very bright or sunny, but that didn't matter. In thefirst place, if Gloria really wanted sun, she could always get some bytuning in on a mind outside, someone walking the streets of downtown NewYork. And, in the second place, the weather wasn't important; whatmattered was how you felt inside. Gloria took off her beret and crammedit into a drawer of her desk. She sat down, feeling perfectly ready forwork, her bright eyes sparkling and her whole twenty-one-year-old bodyeager for the demands of the day.

  It was ten minutes to nine in the morning.

  On the desk was a mass of reports and folders. Gloria looked at them andsighed; the cleaning woman, she thought, must have upset everythingagain.

  But neatness was the keystone of good, efficient work in any field.Gloria set to work rearranging everything in a proper order. The jobtook her nearly twenty minutes and, by the time she was finished, theoffice was full.

  Mr. Fredericksohn hadn't arrived yet, naturally. He always came inaround nine-thirty. But all of the case workers were ready for the day'swork. Gloria looked around the office at them, beaming. It was good tobe able to help people and to know that what you were doing was right.

  She remembered wondering how you could be sure you were right aboutsomebody else, if you couldn't read minds. But, then, there were rulesto go by, and all of the fine classes and textbooks that a social caseworker had to have. If you paid attention, and if you really wanted tohelp people, Gloria supposed, it was all right. Certainly everything inher own office seemed to run smoothly.

  Not that she would ever do anything about another worker, no matterwhat. Gloria remembered what Mr. Greystone, a teacher of hers had said,a year or so before: "Never interfere with the case load of anotherworker. Your sole job is represented by your own case load."

  That was good advice, Gloria thought. And, anyhow, her assistance didn'tseem to be too badly needed, among the others. She had quite enough todo in taking care of her own clients.

  And here she was, wasting time! She shook her head and breathed a littlesigh, and began on the first folder.

  Name: GIRONDE, JOSE R.

  * * * * *

  _Name: Wladek, Mrs. Marie Posner._ She was no fool. She knew about thereports they had to make, and the sheets covered with all the details ofyour very own private life; she had seen them on a desk when she hadcome to keep her appointment. Mrs. Wladek was her name, and that was howthe report would look, with her name all reversed in order right on thetop. And underneath that there would be her address and her story, allthat she had told the case workers, set right down in black and whitefor anybody at all to read.

  When you were poor, you had no privacy, and that was the truth. Mrs.Wladek shook her head. A poor old woman, that was all that she was, andprivacy was a luxury not to be asked for. Who said the United States wasdifferent from the old country?

  _Cossacks_, she thought. In the old country, one still heard the oldstories, the streets paved with gold and the food waiting for such asyourself; oh, the war had not changed that in the least. Now the Voiceof America was heard in the old country--she had a letter, smuggled out,from her own second-cousin Marfa, telling her all about the Voice ofAmerica--and that was only another trap. They wanted to make you leaveyour own land and your own country, and come far away to America and tothe United States, so that you would have no friends and you would bedefenseless.

  Then you could not help yourself. Then you had to do what they askedyou, because there was no other way to eat. There were no friends tofeed you dinners or to allow you room in a good house. No. There wasonly the case worker with her reports that took the last bit of privacyaway from an old woman, and left her with barely enough money to remainalive.

  "Get a job," they said. "Tell your son to get a job. He is young andstrong and healthy."

  Certainly! But the United States is not a place in which to work. TheUnited States will give you money. This fact she had from her uncleBedrich, who had come to the new country years before, and who hadwritten many letters back to his family before his death in an accident.

  Should she, then, work? Should her own son, her own Rudi, be forced towork out his time of youth? Surely a little privacy was a small enoughthing to surrender for freedom and ease?

  But that they should ask for you to surrender it ... _Cossacks!_

  Mrs. Wladek stood up carefully--her old bones creaked, and she couldfeel them creaking. She looked around the tiny living room, covered withdust. One should have the money to hire a maid. But the case workers hadnever understood that. Young things, of course they knew nothing of thetroubles facing an old woman.

  An old woman needed a maid.

  She laughed briefly to herself at the idea, and realized at the sametime that she had been hiding her own thoughts from herself.

  Today was her appointment day, and the new one would be there, blond andyoung and smiling at her with the innocent face. There was somethingwrong with the new one; she could see that. In the old country therewere stories--

  _Are you, Marie Wladek, afraid of a young woman? Does your age count fornothing? Does your experience and knowledge count for nothing?_

  And yet, she had to admit to herself that she was afraid, and that shewas afraid of giving a name to her fear. Only a fool could mock at thestories told in the old country, and Mrs. Wladek knew of such a fool; hehad died with mockery on his lips, but all had known what had killedhim.

  _Can you not battle a young woman, and win, Marie Wladek?_

  And yet the young woman had something strange about her, and Mrs. Wladekremembered the old stories, and thought of witchcraft.

  Who could fight witchcraft?

  Even when the witch was a young girl without experience, and with aninnocent face and blond hair--

  Mrs. Wladek looked at the mantel clock she had brought with her acrossthe ocean. It told perfect time; it was as good as everything from theold country. Here in America they had no such clocks. Here everythingran by electricity, and when you touched it there was a shock, which wasunnatural.

  The old clock told the time: nine-thirty. Appointment hour wasapproaching. Mrs. Wladek did not want to leave the house. She did notwant to face this new case worker.

  But, all the same, one had to have money to live.

  That they should force an old woman to travel across the city and tospeak with a girl, by appointment, solely in order to get the moneywhich should have been hers by right!

  Cossacks! Monsters!

  _Name:_ GIRONDE, JOSE R.

  _Address:_ 1440 Hamilton Street

  _Borough:_ New York

  _Phone:_ None

  _Complaint:_ Client is over fifty, without work for eight months--lastworked in October--due to recurrent difficulty regarding back. Solesupport wife and wife's sister. One child (Ramon, 27), living on WestCoast. Preliminary inquiries fail to locate child.

  _Remarks:_ NPH. Examination needed. Is back injury chronic?

  There was a great deal of paper work needed, Gloria realized. At firstshe hadn't liked the paper work at all, but she could see now hownecessary it was. After all, everybody wasn't like her; the otherworkers, she knew, didn't have her particular talent, a
nd they had towrite things down for fear they'd forget.

  Sometimes Gloria felt very sorry for the other case workers. But sheknew they were doing their very best, and they were, after all, helpingpeople. That was the only important thing: to help people, to make thembetter members of society.

  Now, Jose Gironde's back injury was certainly chronic. Gloria tried toremember the medical term for it: it was something to do with alordosis. She'd paid no attention to that, since she had been trying tofix up the back instead.

  But now a doctor had to be called, and a thorough examination had to begiven, all so that the records would show what Gloria knew already. Acase worker couldn't fill out a medical report; you had to be a doctorto do that.

  And it didn't matter, Gloria knew, if you had all the information atyour fingertips, and even knew more than the doctor. (Gloria could havecured Jose Gironde's back easily; a doctor couldn't do that.)Examination was the doctor's job.

  It was like being a member of a team, Gloria thought.

  That felt good.

  She got out the list of