"The Labor Party _is_ conservative," said Dalgetty. "As proof of which
it's in coalition with the Republicans and the Neofederalists as well
as some splinter groups. No, I don't care if it stays in, or if the
Conservatives prosper or the Liberals take over. The question is--who
shall control the group in power?"
"Its membership, I suppose," said the man.
"But just who is its membership? You know as well as I do that the
great failing of the American people has always been their lack of
interest in politics."
"What? Why, they vote, don't they? What was the last percentage?"
"Eight-eight-point-three-seven. Sure they vote--once the ticket has
been presented to them. But how many of them have anything to do with
nominating the candidates or writing the platforms? How many will
actually take time out to _work_ at it--or even to write their
Congressmen? 'Ward heeler' is still a term of contempt.
"All too often in our history the vote has been simply a matter of
choosing between two well-oiled machines. A sufficiently clever and
determined group can take over a party, keep the name and the slogans
and in a few years do a complete behind-the-scenes _volte-face_."
Dalgetty's words came fast, this was one facet of a task to which he
had given his life.
"Two machines," said the stranger, "or four or five as we've got now,
are at least better than one."
"Not if the same crowd controls all of them," Dalgetty said grimly.
"But--"
"'If you can't lick 'em, join 'em.' Better yet, join all sides. Then
you _can't_ lose."
"I don't think that's happened yet," said the man.
"No it hasn't," said Dalgetty, "not in the United States, though in
some other countries--never mind. It's still in process of happening,
that's all. The lines today are drawn not by nations or parties, but
by--philosophies, if you wish. Two views of man's destiny, cutting
across all national, political, racial and religious lines."
"And what are those two views?" asked the stranger quietly.
"You might call them libertarian and totalitarian, though the latter
don't necessarily think of themselves as such. The peak of rampant
individualism was reached in the nineteenth century, legally speaking.
Though in point of fact social pressure and custom were more
strait-jacketing than most people today realize.
"In the twentieth century that social rigidity--in manners, morals,
habits of thought--broke down. The emancipation of women, for
instance, or the easy divorce or the laws about privacy. But at the
same time legal control began tightening up again. Government took
over more and more functions, taxes got steeper, the individual's life
got more and more bound by regulations saying 'thou shalt' and 'thou
shalt not.'
"Well, it looks as if war is going out as an institution. That takes
off a lot of pressure. Such hampering restrictions as conscription to
fight or work, or rationing, have been removed. What we're slowly
attaining is a society where the individual has maximum freedom, both
from law _and_ custom. It's perhaps farthest advanced in America,
Canada, and Brazil, but it's growing the world over.
"But there are elements which don't like the consequences of genuine
libertarianism. And the new science of human behavior, mass and
individual, is achieving rigorous formulation. It's becoming the most
powerful tool man has ever had--for whoever controls the human mind
will also control all that man can do. That science can be used by
anyone, mind you. If you'll read between the lines you'll see what a
hidden struggle is shaping up for control of it as soon as it reaches
maturity and empirical useability."
"Ah, yes," said the man. "The Psychotechnic Institute."
Dalgetty nodded, wondering why he had jumped into such a lecture.
Well, the more people who had some idea of the truth the
better--though it wouldn't do for them to know the whole truth either.
Not yet.
"The Institute trains so many for governmental posts and does so much
advisory work," said the man, "that sometimes it looks almost as if it
were quietly taking over the whole show."
Dalgetty shivered a little in the sunset breeze and wished he'd
brought his cloak. He thought wearily, _Here it is again. Here is the
story they are spreading, not in blatant accusations, not all at once,
but slowly and subtly, a whisper here, a hint there, a slanted news
story, a supposedly dispassionate article.... Oh, yes, they know their
applied semantics._
"Too many people fear such an outcome," he declared. "It just isn't
true. The Institute is a private research organization with a Federal
grant. Its records are open to anyone."
"All the records?" The man's face was vague in the gathering twilight.
Dalgetty thought he could make out a skeptically lifted brow. He
didn't reply directly but said, "There's a foggy notion in the public
mind that a group equipped with a complete science of man--which the
Institute hasn't got by a long shot--could 'take over' at once and, by
manipulations of some unspecified but frightfully subtle sort, rule
the world. The theory is that if you know just what buttons to push
and so on, men will do precisely as you wish without knowing that
they're being guided. The theory happens to be pure jetwash."
"Oh, I don't know," said the man. "In general terms it sounds pretty
plausible."
Dalgetty shook his head. "Suppose I were an engineer," he said, "and
suppose I saw an avalanche coming down on me. I might know exactly
what to do to stop it--where to plant my dynamite, where to build my
concrete wall and so on. Only the knowledge wouldn't help me. I'd have
neither the time nor the strength to use it.
"The situation is similar with regard to human dynamics, both mass and
individual. It takes months or years to change a man's convictions and
when you have hundreds of millions of men...." He shrugged. "Social
currents are too large for all but the slightest, most gradual
control. In fact perhaps the most valuable results obtained to date
are not those which show what can be done but what cannot."
"You speak with the voice of authority," said the man.
"I'm a psychologist," said Dalgetty truthfully enough. He didn't add
that he was also a subject, observer and guinea pig in one. "And I'm
afraid I talk too much. Go from bad to voice."
"Ouch," said the man. He leaned his back against the rail and his
shadowy hand extended a pack. "Smoke?"
"No, thanks, I don't."
"You're a rarity." The brief lighter-flare etched the stranger's face
against the dusk.
"I've found other ways of relaxing."
"Good for you. By the way I'm a professor myself. English Litt at
Colorado."
"Afraid I'm rather a roughneck in that respect," said Dalgetty. For a
moment he had a sense of loss. His thought processes had become too
far removed from the ordinary human for him to find much in fiction or
poetry. But music, sculpture, painting--there was something else. He
looked over the broad glimmering water, at the stations dark against
the first stars, and savored the many symmetries and harmonies with a
real pleasure. You needed senses like his before you could know what a
lovely world this was.
"I'm on vacation now," said the man. Dalgetty did not reply in kind.
After a moment--"You are too, I suppose?"
Dalgetty felt a slight shock. A personal question from a
stranger--well, you didn't expect otherwise from someone like the girl
Glenna but a professor should be better conditioned to privacy
customs.
"Yes," he said shortly. "Just visiting."
"By the way, my name is Tyler, Harmon Tyler."
"Joe Thomson." Dalgetty shook hands with him.
"We might continue our conversation if you're going to be around for
awhile," said Tyler. "You raised some interesting points."
Dalgetty considered. It would be worthwhile staying as long as
Bancroft did, in the hope of learning some more. "I may be here a
couple of days yet," he said.
"Good," said Tyler. He looked up at the sky. It was beginning to fill
with stars. The deck was still empty. It ran around the dim
upthrusting bulk of a weather-observation tower which was turned over
to its automatics for the night and there was no one else to be seen.
A few fluoros cast wan puddles of luminance on the plastic flooring.
Glancing at his watch, Tyler said casually, "It's about
nineteen-thirty hours now. If you don't mind waiting till twenty
hundred I can show you something interesting."
"What's that?"
"Ah, you'll be surprised." Tyler chuckled. "Not many people know about
it. Now, getting back to that point you raised earlier...."
The half hour passed swiftly. Dalgetty did most of the talking.
"--and mass action. Look, to a rather crude first approximation a
state of semantic equilibrium on a world-wide scale, which of course
has never existed, would be represented by an equation of the form--"
"Excuse me." Tyler consulted the shining dial again. "If you don't
mind stopping for a few minutes I'll show you that odd sight I was
talking about."
"Eh? Oh-oh, sure."
Tyler threw away his cigarette. It was a tiny meteor in the gloom. He
took Dalgetty's arm. They walked slowly around the weather tower.
The men came from the opposite side and met them halfway. Dalgetty had
hardly seen them before he felt the sting in his chest.
_A needle gun!_
The world roared about him. He took a step forward, trying to scream,
but his throat locked. The deck lifted up and hit him and his mind
whirled toward darkness.
From somewhere will rose within him, trained reflexes worked, he
summoned all that was left of his draining strength and fought the
anesthetic. His wrestling with it was a groping in fog. Again and
again he spiraled into unconsciousness and rose strangling. Dimly,
through nightmare, he was aware of being carried. Once someone stopped
the group in a corridor and asked what was wrong. The answer seemed to
come from immensely far away. "I dunno. He passed out--just like that.
We're taking him to a doctor."
There was a century spent going down some elevator. The boat-house
walls trembled liquidly around him. He was carried aboard a large
vessel, it was not visible through the gray mist. Some dulled portion
of himself thought that this was obviously a private boat-house, since
no one was trying to stop--trying to stop--trying to stop....
Then the night came.