Far away from here there are free ones. Ones without masters. I hear
of them in the Birth Huts: they are elders who bring up their own in
hiding from the masters. They want to be free."
Cadnan felt a surge of hope. Marvor might leave, take away the
disturbance he always carried with him. "You will go and join them?"
"No," Marvor said. "I will go to them and bring them back and kill all
the masters. I will make the masters dead."
"You cannot do it," Cadnan said instantly, shocked.
"I can," Marvor said without raising his voice. "Wait and you will see.
Soon we will be free. Very soon now."
8
This is the end.
Dodd woke with the words in his mind, flashing on and off like a
lighted sign. Back in the Confederation (he had seen pictures) there
were moving stair-belts, and at the exits, at turnoffs, there were
flashing signs. The words in his mind were like that: if he ignored
them he would be carried on past his destination, into darkness and
strangeness.
But his destination was strange, too. His head pounded, his tongue was
thick and cottony in a dry mouth: drinking had provided nothing of an
escape and the price he had to pay was much too high.
_This is the end._
There was no escape, he told himself dimly! The party had resulted
only in that sudden appearance, the grim-mouthed old woman. Drinking
had resulted in no more than this new sickness, and a cloudy memory of
having talked to an Albert, some Albert, somewhere.... He opened his
eyes, felt pain and closed them again. There was no escape: the party
Albin had taken him to had led to trouble, his own drunkenness had led
to trouble. He saw the days stretching out ahead of him and making
years.
It was nearly time now to begin work. To begin the job of training,
with the Alberts, the job he was going to do through all those days and
years lying ahead.
_This is the end._
He found himself rising, dressing, shaving off the stubble of beard.
His head hurt, his eyes ached, his mouth was hardly improved by a
gargle, but all that was far away, as distant as his own body and his
own motions.
His head turned and looked at the clock set into his wall. The eyes
noted a position of the hands and passed the information to the brain:
8:47. The brain decided that it was time to go on to work. The body
moved itself in accustomed patterns, opening the door, passing through
the opening, shutting the door again, walking down the hallway.
All that was very distant. Dodd, himself, was--somewhere else.
He met his partner standing before a group of the Alberts. Dodd's eyes
noted the expression on his partner's face. The brain registered the
information, interpreted it and predicted. Dodd knew he would hear, and
did hear, sounds: "What's wrong with _you_ this morning?"
The correct response was on file. "Drinking a little too much last
night, I guess." It was all automatic: everything was automatic. The
Alberts went into their elevator, and Dodd and his partner followed.
Dodd's body did not stumble. But Dodd was somewhere else.
The elevator stopped, the Alberts went off to their sections, Dodd's
partner went to his first assignment, Dodd found his body walking away
down the hall, opening a door, going through the opening, shutting the
door. The Albert inside looked up.
"Today we are going to do the work together." Dodd heard his own
voice: it was all perfectly automatic, there were no mistakes. "Do you
understand?"
"Understand," the Albert said.
_This is the end._
* * * * *
At the end of the day he was back from wherever he had been, from the
darkness that had wrapped his mind like cotton and removed him. There
was no surprise now. There was no emotion at all: his work was over and
he could be himself again. In the back of his mind the single phrase
still flashed, but he had long since stopped paying attention to that.
He finished supper and went into the Commons Room, walking aimlessly.
She was sitting in a chair, with her back to the great window. As Dodd
came in she looked up at him. "Hello, there."
Dodd waved a hand and, going over, found a chair and brought it to
hers. "I'm sorry about the other night--"
"Think nothing of it," the girl said. "Anyhow, we're not in any
trouble, and we would have been by now, if you see what I mean."
"I'm glad." He was no more than polite. There was no more in him, no
emotion at all. He had reached a blank wall: there was no escape for
him or for the Alberts. He could see nothing but pain ahead.
And so he had turned off the pain, and, with it, everything else.
"Do you come here often?" the girl was saying. He had been introduced
to her once, but he couldn't remember her name. It was there, filed
away....
"Greta Forzane," he said involuntarily.
She smiled at him, leaning a little forward. "That's right," she said.
"And you're Johnny Dodd. And do you come here often?"
"... Sometimes." He waited. Soon she would stop, and he could leave,
and....
And?
"Anyhow, it was just as much my fault as yours," Greta was saying. "And
there's no reason why we can't be friends. All right?"
"Of course."
There was a brief silence, but he hardly noticed that.
"I'm sorry if I'm bothering you," she said.
"Not at all." His eyes were looking at her, but that made no
difference. There was nothing left, nothing.
He could feel himself tighten, as if he were truly waiting for
something. But there was nothing to wait for.
Was there?
"Is there something wrong?"
"Nothing. I'm fine."
"You look--"
She never finished the sentence. The storm broke instead.
Dodd found himself weeping, twisting himself in the chair; reaching
out with his hands, violently racked in spasms of grief: it seemed as
if the room shook and he grasped nothing until she put her hands on
his shoulders. His eyes were blind with water, his body in a continual
series of spasms. He heard his own voice, making sounds that had never
been words, crying for--for what? Help, peace, understanding?
Somewhere his mind continued to think, but the thoughts were powerless
and very small. He felt the girl's hands on his shoulders, trying to
hold him, and masked by the sounds of his own weeping he heard her
voice, too:
"It's all right ... calm down now ... you'll be all right...."
"... I ... can't...." He managed to get two words out before the
whirlpool sucked him down again, the reasonless, causeless whirlpool of
grief and terror, his body shaking, his mouth wide open and calling in
broken sounds, the tears as hot as metal marking his face as his eyes
squeezed shut.
"It's all right," the voice went on saying. "It's all right."
At last he was possessed by the idea that someone else might come
and see them. He drew in a breath and choked on it, and the weeping
began again, but after a time he was able to take one breath and then
another. He was able to stop. He reached into his pocket and found a
handkerchief, wiped his eyes and looked into her face.
Nothing was there but shock, and a great caution. "What happened?" she
asked. "Are you all right?"
He took a long time answering, and the answer, because it was true,
surprised him. He was capable of surprise, he was capable of truth. "I
don't know," he said.
PART TWO
9
"You will not tell me how to run my own division." The words were
spaced, like steel rivets, evenly into the air. Dr. Haenlingen looked
around the meeting-room, her face not even defiant but simply assured.
Willis, of Labor, was the first to recover. "It's not that we'd like to
interfere--" he began.
She didn't let him finish. "That's a lie." Her voice was not excited.
It carried the length of the room, and left no echoes.
"Now, Dr. Haenlingen--" Rogier, Metals chairman and head of the
meeting, began.
"Don't soft-soap me," the old woman snapped. "I'm too old for it and
I'm too tough for it. I want to look at some facts, and I want you to
look at them, too." She paused, and nobody said a word. "I want to
start with a simple statement. We're in trouble."
"That's exactly the point," Willis began in his thin, high voice. "It's
because we all appreciate that fact--"
"That you want to tamper," the old woman said. "Precisely." The
others were seated around the long gleaming table of native wood. Dr.
Haenlingen stood, her back rigid, at one end, facing them all with a
cold and knowing eye. "But I won't allow tampering in my department. I
can't allow it."
Rogier took a deep breath. The words came like marshmallow out of
his overstuffed body. "I would hardly call a request for information
'tampering'," he said.
"I would," Dr. Haenlingen told him tartly. "I've had a very good
reason, over the years, to keep information about my section in my own
hands."
Rogier's voice became stern. "And that is?"
"That is," Dr. Haenlingen said, "fools like you." Rogier opened
his mouth, but the old woman gave him no chance. "People who think
psychology is a game, or at any rate a study that applies only to
other people, never to them. People who want to subject others to the
disciplines of psychology, but not themselves."
"As I understand it--" Rogier began.
"You do not understand it," the old woman said flatly. "I understand
it because I have spent my life learning to do so. You have spent your
life learning to understand metals, and committees. Doubtless, Dr.
Rogier, you understand metals--and committees."
Her glance swept once more round the table, and she sat down. There was
a second of silence before Dward, of Research, spoke up. Behind glassy
contact lenses his eyes were, as always, unreadable. "Perhaps Dr.
Haenlingen has a point," he said. "I know I'd hate to have to lay out
my work for the meeting before I had it prepared. I'm sure we can allow
a reasonable time for preparation--"
"I'm afraid we can't," Rogier put in, almost apologetically.
"Of course we can't," the old woman added. "First of all, I wasn't
asking for time for preparation. I was asking for non-interference.
And, second, we don't have any time at all."
"Surely matters aren't that serious," Willis put in.
"Matters," the old woman said, "are a good deal more serious than that.
Has anyone but me read the latest reports from the Confederation?"
"I think we all have," Rogier said calmly.
"Well, then," the old woman asked, "has anyone except myself understood
them?" The head turned, the eyes raked the table. "Dr. Willis hasn't,
or he wouldn't be sounding so hopeful. The rest of you haven't, or you
wouldn't be talking about time. Rogier, you haven't, or you'd quit
trying to pry and begin trying to prepare."
"Preparations have begun," Rogier said. "It's just for that reason that
I want to get some idea of what your division--"
"Preparations," she said. The word was like a curse. "There's been a
leak, and a bad leak. We may never know where it started. A ship's
officer, taking metals back, a stowaway, anything. That doesn't matter:
anyone with any sense knew there had to be a leak sooner or later."
"We've taken every possible precaution," Willis said.
"Exactly," Dr. Haenlingen told him. "And the leak happened. I take it
there's no argument about that--given the figures and reports we now
have?"
There was silence.
"Very well," she went on. "The Confederation is acting just as it has
always been obvious they would act: with idealism, stupidity and a
gross lack of what is called common sense." She paused for comment:
there was none. "Disregarding the fact that they need our shipments,
and need them badly, they have begun to turn against us. Against what
they are pleased to call slavery."
"Well?" Rogier asked. "It is slavery, isn't it?"
"What difference do labels make?" she asked. "In any case, they have
turned against us. Public opinion is swinging heavily around, and there
isn't much chance of pushing it back the other way. The man in the
street is used to freedom. He likes it. He thinks the Alberts ought to
be free, too."
"But if they are," Willis said, "the man in the street is going to lose
a lot of other things--things dependent on our shipments."
"I said they were illogical," Dr. Haenlingen told him patiently.
"Idealism almost always is. Logic has nothing to do with this--as
anyone but a fool might know." She got up again, and began to walk
back and forth along the end of the table. "There are still people who
are convinced, God knows why, that minds work on logic. Minds do not
work on anything resembling logic. The laws on which they do work are
only now beginning to be understood and codified: but logic was thrown
out the window in the days of Freud. That, gentlemen, was a long time
ago. The man in the Confederation street is going to lose a lot if
he insists on freeing the Alberts. He hasn't thought of that yet, and
he won't think of it until after it happens." She paused, at one end
of her walk, and put her hands on her hips. "That man is suffering
from a disease, if putting it that way makes it easier for you to see.
The disease is called idealism. Its main symptom is a disregard for
consequences in favor of principles."
"But surely--" Willis began.
"Dr. Willis, you are outdoing yourself," the old woman cut in. "You
sound as if you are hopeful about idealism resting somewhere even in
us. And perhaps it does, perhaps it does. It is a persistent virus. But
I hope we can control its more massive outbreaks, gentlemen, and not
attempt to convince ourselves that this disease is actually a state of
health." She began to pace again. "Idealism is a disease," she said.
"In epidemic proportions, it becomes incurable."
"Then there is nothing to be done?" Dward asked.
"Dr. Rogier has his preparations," the old woman said. "I'm sure they
are as efficient as they can be. They are useless, but he knows that as
well as I do."
"Now wait a--" Rogier began.
"Against ships of the Confederation, armed with God alone knows what
after better than one hundred years of progress? Don't be silly, Dr.
Rogier. Our preparations are better than nothing, perhaps, but not much
better. They can't be."
Having reached her chair again, she sat down in it. The meeting was
silent for better than a minute. Dr. Rogier was the first to speak.
"But, don't you see," he said, "that's just why we need to know what's
going on in your division. Perhaps a weapon might be forged from the
armory of psychology which--"
"Before that metaphor becomes any more mixed," Dr. Haenlingen said, "I
want to clear one thing up. I am not going to divulge any basic facts
about my division, now or ever."
"But--"
"I want you to listen to me carefully," she said. "The tools of
psychology are both subtle and simple. Anyone can use a few of them.
And anyone, in possession of only those few, will be tempted to put
them to use. That use is dangerous, more dangerous than a ticking bomb.
I will not run the risk of such danger."
"Surely we are all responsible men--" Rogier began.
"Given enough temptation," Dr. Haenlingen said, "there is no such thing
as a responsible man. If there were, none of us would be here, on
Fruyling's World. None of us would be masters, and none of the Alberts
slaves."
* * * * *
"I'll give you an example," she said after a little time. "The Psych
division has parties, parties which are rather well-known among other
divisions. The parties involve drinking and promiscuous sex, they get
rather wild, but there is no great harm done by these activities.
Indeed, they provide a useful, perhaps a necessary release." She
paused. "Therefore I have forbidden them."
Willis said: "What?" The others waited.
"I have forbidden them," she said, "but I have not stopped them. Nor
will I. The fact that they are forbidden adds a certain--spice to
the parties themselves. My 'discovery' of one of them does shake the
participants up a trifle, but this is a minor damage: more important,
it keeps alive the idea of 'forbidden fruit'. The parties are extremely
popular. They are extremely useful. Were I to permit them, they would
soon be neither popular nor useful."
"I'm afraid I don't quite see that," Dward put in.
Dr. Haenlingen nodded. For the first time, she put her arms on the
table and leaned a little forward. "Many of the workers here," she
said, "are infected by the disease of idealism. The notion of slavery
bothers them. They need to rebel against the establishment in order to
make that protest real to them, and in order to release hostility which
might otherwise destroy us from the inside. In my own division this has
been solved simply by creating a situation in which the workers fear
me--fear being a compound of love, or awe, and hatred. This, however,
will not do on a scale larger than one division: a dictatorship complex
is set up, against which rebellion may still take place. Therefore, the
parties. They serve as a harmless release for rebellious spirits. The
parties are forbidden. Those who attend them are flouting authority.
Their tension fades. They become good workers, for us, instead of
idealistic souls, against us."
"Interesting," Rogier said. "May we take it that this is a sample of
the work you have been doing?"
"You may," the old woman said flatly.
"And--about the current crisis--your suggestions--"
"My suggestion, gentlemen, is simple," Dr. Haenlingen said. "I can
see nothing except an Act of God which is going to stop the current
Confederation movement against us. The leak has occurred: we are done
for if it affects governmental policy. My suggestion, gentlemen, is
just this: pray."
Unbelievingly, Willis echoed: "Pray?"
"To whatever God you believe in, gentlemen," Dr. Haenlingen said. "To
whatever God permits you to remain masters on a slave world. Pray to
him--because nothing less than a God is going to stop the Confederation
from attacking this planet."
* * * * *
PUBLIC OPINION TWO
Being an excerpt from a conversation between Mrs. Fellacia Gordon,
(Citizen, white female, age thirty-eight, occupation housewife,
residence 701-45 West 305 Street, New York, U. S. A., Earth) and
Mrs. Gwen Brandon (Citizen, oriental female, age thirty-six,
occupation housewife, residence 701-21 West 313 Street, New York,
U. S. A., Earth) on a Minimart bench midway between the two homes,
in the year of the Confederation two hundred and ten, on May
sixteenth, afternoon.
MRS. GORDON: They've all been talking about it, how those poor things
have to work and work until they drop, and they don't even get paid for
it or anything.
MRS. BRANDON: What do you mean, don't get paid? Of course they get
paid. You have to get paid when you work, don't you?
MRS. GORDON: Not those poor things. They're slaves.
MRS. BRANDON: Slaves? Like in the olden times?
MRS. G.: That's what they say. Everybody's talking about it.
MRS. B.: Well. Why don't they do something about it, then, the ones
that are like that? I mean, there's always something you can do.
MRS. G.: They're just being forced to work until they absolutely drop,
is what I hear. And all for a bunch of people who just lord it over
them with guns and everything. You see, these beings--they're green,
not like us, but they have feelings, too--
MRS. B.: Of course they do, Fellacia.
MRS. G.: Well. They don't have much education, hardly know anything. So
when people with guns come in, you see, there just isn't anything they
can do about it.
MRS. B.: Why are they let, then?
MRS. G.: Who, the people with guns? Well, nobody lets them, not just
like that. It's just like we only found out about it now.
MRS. B.: I didn't hear a word on the news.
MRS. G.: You listen tonight and you'll hear a word, Gwen dear.
MRS. B.: Oh, my. That sounds like there's something up. Now, what have
you been doing?
MRS. G.: Don't you think it's right, for these poor beings? I mean, no
pay and nothing at all but work, work, work until they absolutely drop?
MRS. B.: What have you been doing? I mean, what can any one person do?
Of course it's terrible and all that, but--
MRS. G.: We talked it over. I mean the group I belong to, you know. On
Wednesday. Because all of us had heard something about it, you see, and
so we brought it up and discussed it. And it's absolutely true.
MRS. B.: How can you be sure of a thing like that?
MRS. G.: We found out--
MRS. B.: When it isn't even on the news or anything.
MRS. G.: We found out that people have been talking from other places,
too. Downtown and even in the suburbs.
MRS. B.: Oh. Then it must be--but what can you do, after all? It's not
as if we were in the government or anything.
MRS. G.: Don't you worry about that. There's something you can do and
it's not hard, either. And it has an effect. A definite effect, they
say.
MRS. B.: You mean collecting money? To send them?
MRS. G.: Money won't do them any good. No. What we need is the
government, to do something about this.
MRS. B.: It's easy to talk.
MRS. G.: And we can get the government to do something, too. If there
are enough of us--and there will be.
MRS. B.: I should think anybody who hears about these people, Fellacia--
MRS. G.: Well, they're not people, exactly.
MRS. B.: What difference does that make? They need help, don't they?
And we can give them help. If you really have an idea?
MRS. G.: We discussed it all. And we've been writing letters.
MRS. B.: Letters? Just letters?
MRS. G.: If a Senator gets enough letters, he has to do something,
doesn't he? Because the letters are from the people who vote for him,
you see?
MRS. B.: But that means a lot of letters.
MRS. G.: We've had everybody sending postcards. Fifteen or twenty each.
That mounts up awfully fast, Gwen dear.
MRS. B.: But just postcards--
MRS. G.: And telephone calls, where that's possible. And visits. And
starting even more talk everywhere. Just everywhere.
MRS. B.: Do you really think it's going to work? I mean, it seems like
so little.
MRS. G.: It's going to work. It's got to.
MRS. B.: What are they working at? I mean the--the slaves.
MRS. G.: They're being forced, Gwen dear. Absolutely forced to work.
MRS. B.: Yes, dear, but what at? What do they do?
MRS. G.: I don't see where that makes any difference. Actually, nobody
has been very clear on the details. But the details don't matter, do
they, Gwen dear? The important thing is, we have to do something.
MRS. B.: You're right, Fellacia. And I'll--
MRS. G.: Of course I'm right.
MRS. B.: I'll start right in with the postcards. A lot of them.
MRS. G.: And don't forget to tell other people. As many as you can
manage. We need all the help we can get--and so do the slaves.
10
The days passed and the training went on, boring and repetitious as
each man tried to hammer into the obdurate head of an Albert just
enough about his own particular section of machinery so that he could
run it capably and call for help in case of emergencies. And, though
every man on Fruyling's World disliked every moment of the job, the
job was necessary, and went on: though they, too, were slaves to a
great master, none thought of rebelling. For the name of the master was
necessity, and economic law, and from that rule there are no rebels.
The days passed evenly and the work went slowly on.
And then the training was finished. The new Alberts went on a daily
work-schedule, supervised only by the spy-sets and an occasional,
deliberately random visit from a master. The visits were necessary,
too: the Alberts had not the sophistication to react to a spy-set,
and personal supervision was needed to convince them they were still
being watched, they still had to work. A master came, a master saw them
working: that, they could understand.
That--and the punishments. These went under the name of discipline, and
had three grades. The Belbis beams administered all three, by means of
a slight readjustment in the ray. It was angled as widely as possible,
and the dispersed beam, carefully controlled, acted directly on the
nervous system.
Cadnan, troubled by Marvor's threats and by his own continuing
thoughts of Dara, was a trifle absent-minded and a little slower than
standard. He drew punishment twice, both times in the first grade only.
Albin administered both punishments, explaining to his partner Derbis
that he didn't mind doing it--and, besides, someone had to.
Sometimes Dodd thought of Albin giving out discipline, and of all of
his life on Fruyling's World, in terms of a sign he had once seen. It
had been a joke, he remembered that clearly, but it was no more a joke
now than the words which flashed nearly ignored at the back of his
mind. Once or twice he had imagined this new sign hanging luridly over
the entire planet, posted there in the name of profit, in the name of
necessity, in the name of economic law.
EVERYTHING NOT COMPULSORY IS FORBIDDEN