[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Magazine February 1960.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
There's just one way to disarm a bomb--be
at least a step ahead of it--but what if
it's always at least a step ahead of you?
Flinn took the seat that Wilmer indicated, dropped his overnight bag
beside it, and tried to relax. He'd had five hours of inactivity on
the plane, but the peremptory manner with which he had been routed out
of his California apartment and conveyed to Washington, D. C, had so
filled his mind with unanswered questions that he still found rest to
be impossible. He had been told simply that the government needed him;
and when federal wheels started turning, there wasn't much a private
citizen could do to stop them.
He watched the tall, lean, dark-haired man, who had been introduced as
Dr. Jackson Wilmer, nuclear physicist, disappear through a door.
Flinn looked around.
The room in which he sat--comparatively small, one of hundreds in the
vastness of the Pentagon--seemed to be a sort of minor office. At least
there were several desks and filing cabinets. Besides himself, there
were now only two other men in the room.
One, a complete stranger, sat at a desk across the room with his back
turned toward Flinn.
The other leaned against the wall near the door. All Flinn knew about
him, despite the fact that they had been as close as boy and dog for
the past seven hours, was that his name was Hayes and that he was a
special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. There was a
muscular hardness about this young man that betrayed an athletic
background. He was about thirty, had a craggy face beneath short brown
hair, hard gray eyes, and his nose had been broken at least once. There
was a light trace of beard beginning to show on the agent's face, but
his brown summer suit still looked neat, and the man himself seemed
something less than tired.
Looking at him, Flinn felt a sense of his own shabbiness. He needed a
shave as badly as his slacks and sports jacket needed pressing.
At forty-two, Flinn was somewhat taller than average and slightly
underweight from overwork and the irregularities of a bachelor
existence. His black hair, beginning to recede a little, was peppered
with silver, and his normally relaxed face was now tight, and the
whites of his hazel eyes were bloodshot.
* * * * *
The door beside Hayes opened and Wilmer entered, carrying a brown
folder. He was in his shirtsleeves, his necktie pulled down and his
collar open, and, as he approached, Flinn noted that the deeply tanned
face of the physicist was as stubbled and tired-looking as his own
felt. He was about the same age as Flinn.
Wilmer tossed the folder on the desk in front of Flinn and then perched
on one corner of the desk. He gazed at the parapsychologist for a long
few seconds, his eyes startingly ice-blue in his dark face.
"Well," he said presently, "I guess you're wondering what this is all
about."
"Yes, I guess I am," Flinn said wryly. "This bird dog--" he indicated
Hayes with a nod of his head, and the agent retaliated with a flash
of teeth--"hauls me away from an important experiment, loads me on an
Air Force jet, and, after a high-altitude flight at God only knows
what kind of fantastic speeds, I find myself in the holiest of holies,
surrounded by MPs and--yes, you might say I'm wondering what this is
all about."
Wilmer nodded patiently and rubbed one hand across his eyes.
"When you find out, you'll understand the reason for the secrecy." He
faced Hayes. "How long have we been on this thing now, Fred? It seems
like weeks."
"Ten days," the FBI man answered.
Wilmer shook his head slowly, then reached for the folder, opened
it, and took out several scientific journals that Flinn recognized
instantly. The physicist opened one of them.
"'Advanced Experiments in TP, by Patrick Flinn,'" he read. He laid
the publication aside and picked up another. "'A Monograph on the
Probabilities of TH,' same author."
He quoted at random from the introductory page: "'It is therefore
my belief, based upon recent preliminary experimentation, that not
only can one mind be used to scan the thoughts of another, but that
ideas and suggestions may be implanted upon another's mind without
the knowledge of the receptor. This is not to be confused with simple
telepathic 'sending,' where the receptor is completely aware of the
other's transmission. This to which I refer may, at least in one
phase, be described as hypnotic in effect. The possibilities of such
influence over the mind-matter of another are more than somewhat
considerable....'"
He paused, lowered the journal and gazed speculatively at Patrick
Flinn. "Telepathy, telehypnosis," he said, rolling out the words as if
they left a strange taste in his mouth. "Very interesting. Just how
much truth is there in all this stuff? I mean, how far along are you,
really?"
* * * * *
Flinn considered the question for a few seconds. It was one he had
heard often, especially from his colleagues at the small California
college where he held an assistantship in psychology. But after
twenty years of skepticism--he had first discovered his rudimentary
telepathic abilities just after graduating from college, and had been
experimenting and advancing ever since--he had become immune to
criticism.
"Very few people bother to read my articles," Flinn said evenly, "and
still fewer understand them, and the _fewest_ believe. But I can tell
you I'm far enough along in my research to know that the human mind
has latent powers that are, to quote my article, more than somewhat
considerable."
Wilmer and Hayes exchanged glances.
"That's fine," Wilmer said, "but abstruse, wouldn't you say? What I'm
getting at is, I want to see a practical demonstration."
"Put up or shut up, eh?" Flinn said.
"I'd rather call it an examining of credentials," the physicist
countered.
"All right. I don't see any connection between my work and nuclear
physics, but what do you want me to do? First, though, I'd better
explain that I might fail. I'm really just on the threshold."
"Granted. So I'll make it easy. Suppose--" He looked over his shoulder,
faced Flinn again, and continued in a low voice: "Suppose you tell me
what the man at the far desk is thinking."
Flinn glanced past the physicist at the stranger across the room. The
man seemed completely unaware of the others. He was poring over some
papers that were spread out upon the desk.
Flinn focused his eyes upon the man's head. His mind was really too
steeped in fatigue for this sort of thing, but it was a chance not
to be missed, a chance to demonstrate his talents in the presence
of a responsible scientist, so he willed himself into a gradually
deepening concentration. His eyes seemed to go myopic, out of focus. A
gray, ethereal haze came into his consciousness, like swirling smoke.
_Easy?_ But presently a picture began to form, blurred at first, then
fragmentary, then coming into identifiable clarity.
Flinn held it for a moment, before snapping back into objective
consciousness. He was grinning slightly as his eyes refocused and came
to rest on Wilmer.
"Well?" the physicist asked.
"What's his name?" Flinn said.
"Barnes. Robert Barnes."
"Say, Bob!" Flinn called out. The smallish, partially bald man at the
far desk looked up and swiveled around to face him. "Tell me something,
Bob," Flinn went on. "Do you act that way with all women, or just
blondes?"
Barnes' placid face suddenly underwent a marvelous transformation.
First he blushed furiously. Then his jaw dropped open and the high
color began to drain away. He stared across the room, his face pallid.
"My God!" he managed to blurt in a stricken voice.
* * * * *
There was dead silence in the room as Wilmer and Hayes looked from
Barnes' shocked face to Flinn's smiling one.
"I think it's obvious--" Hayes started to say.
"Me, too," Wilmer agreed. He looked sharply at Flinn. "Can you tell
what I'm thinking at this moment?"
Flinn shrugged. "Not without a special effort, and I'm not going to
make that effort unless I have to."
The physicist sighed and his tanned face relaxed a little. He looked at
Flinn with a new respect. "I guess I'd better put you in the picture."
He reopened the folder and extracted several newspaper clippings. "What
I'm about to divulge is so unbelievable that--well, I'd best break it
to you gradually. You know my job. That fact and this tan--" he pointed
to his face--"should give you an inkling of what I've been up to the
last few weeks."
Flinn thought, and nodded. "I'm to assume that you've been out in the
Pacific, is that right?"
"Yes," Wilmer said. "Eniwetok. Have you been following our progress in
the papers?"
"Not really. I've been a little too busy, I'm afraid."
"No matter." The physicist handed the clippings to Flinn. "Read these."
Flinn scanned the first clipping. It bore a recent date.
"'... Reliable sources,'" he read aloud, "'report that a civilian,
believed to be a scientist, is being held incommunicado in the
Pentagon. All efforts on the part of newsmen to gain additional
information have been met with polite but firm rebuffs. Spokesmen
from the AEC have refused to confirm or deny theories that the man's
detention is in some way connected with the recent fiasco at Eniwetok
Atoll ...'"
He read the second. It was date-lined Honolulu, a week before the other.
"'Beyond the terse comment that there were "no casualties," all
official sources are silent today concerning the news leak of the
failure of a nuclear device in our Pacific Test Area. It has been
understood that this device, the third in a series of thermonuclear
test shots, failed to detonate. Since this test was scheduled to have
been a "tower shot," under rigid instrumental control, much speculation
has arisen ...'"
Flinn looked up hopelessly. "I don't understand. Does this concern you?
I mean--"
"It concerns _all_ of us," Wilmer said grimly. "But I know what you're
getting at. No, I'm not the man they mention. I was in charge of that
particular test."
Hayes cleared his throat abruptly and Wilmer nodded.
"I want you to understand, Mr. Flinn, before we go any further, that
everything you hear and see, and have heard and seen from the time Fred
first contacted you, is to be held in the strictest confidence. Is that
clear?"
"Yes."
"All right. How much do you know about atomic physics?"
* * * * *
Flinn spread his hands. "I'm somewhat past the Democritus stage, but I
don't claim to be an expert."
"Well, basically, in a thermonuclear explosive device, hydrogen is
transformed into helium," said Hayes. "In the process there is a loss
of mass. This loss results in a tremendous and sudden release of
energy. Are you familiar with the energy-mass relationship, E = MC^2?"
Flinn nodded.
"Okay. In other words, the nuclei of hydrogen atoms are fused under the
influence of great heat, resulting in a different element, less mass, a
release of energy, and an explosion."
"I'm with you so far," Flinn said.
"Then you realize that once this fusion process commences, nothing in
God's great universe can stop it?"
"Yes."
"And that after certain things are done, fusion _must_ result?"
"Surely."
"Well, so all of us believed, too. But we were wrong about it."
"I don't understand. You just said--"
"So I _said_. But let me try to describe to you the situation as it
happened." He paused, not for dramatic effect, but to take a moment
to force himself to recall what Flinn could see must have been a very
painful experience.
"We are on the command ship," Wilmer continued, "at a safe distance
from the atoll. Everything is in readiness, checked and double-checked
by me, personally. The automatic firing process is in progress. The
last countdown has commenced. Five, four, three, two, one, zero.
_Nothing happens._
"I'll simplify the subsequent chain of events. After a reasonable
interval, a volunteer pilot and myself and one other man fly by
helicopter to the atoll. We climb the tower. I'm sweating and so are
the others. We're standing beside a _live hydrogen bomb_. I disconnect
the power sources and do various things to render the device safe.
Then we check. Everything--_everything_--is in working order. There is
absolutely no reason why the thing failed to detonate. Yet it did fail.
"We fly back to the command ship. We hold an emergency conference.
We're sitting there staring at each other. Then this--this man, Dobbs,
starts to laugh. We think it is hysterics, due to the tremendous
strain that everyone has been under. But apparently it isn't. He laughs
and laughs and laughs. Finally he manages to say: 'You can't figure
it out, can you? Well, I know. Old Dobbsie knows. _It didn't explode
because I willed it not to!_'"
Flinn's mind was almost too tired to accept what he had heard. "Are you
trying to tell me--"
"Figure it out for yourself," Wilmer said flatly. "It's your field.
Telepathy, telehypnosis, and what's left?"
"_Psychokinesis_," Flinn said in a stifled voice.
"Right. Psychokinesis. Mind over matter."
* * * * *
Ordinarily, Patrick Flinn would have used the morning ride over
Washington's broad avenues to good advantage--this was his first visit
to the nation's capital--but his mind was too filled with the preceding
day's revelations to permit anything save minimal sightseeing.
"I hate to keep repeating myself," Wilmer was saying, "but I must be
certain you understand what's at stake here."
"I know," Flinn answered with some impatience. "I'm not to reveal,
under any circumstances, the fact that I have telepathic powers."
"Correct." The physicist sat in the seat beside Flinn, and Hayes was in
front beside the driver. "Your job is to find out just how much this
man can do. We'd like to know the _way_ he does it, too, but that's
secondary."
"It strikes me," Flinn mused, "that anyone who can influence a fusion
bomb can do anything."
"That's what we're afraid of." Wilmer looked soberly at the
parapsychologist. "I think I can understand what's going on in your
mind. This is your special love and you're finding it difficult to
divorce yourself from pure clinical investigation. You want, really,
to talk to Dobbs as one scientist to another. But I must warn you that
this is impossible. If he gets the least inkling that you're a special
mind, something disastrous may result. As long as he gets what he
wants, fine, but rub him the wrong way and--"
"And yet you have him a virtual prisoner and he doesn't object?"
"Well, at least not strenuously," Wilmer said. "I don't profess to
understand a warped mind, but apparently Dobbs realizes that his
confinement is mostly protective custody. It's to his own advantage.
After all, he doesn't have to stand up at a public forum and shout
threats. All he has to do is contact the few to reach the many. And if
he has the powers he says he has, full use of them would result in his
own destruction. And he doesn't want that. He's too interested, right
now, in satisfying his own animal appetites. But faced with losing
everything--"
"Our biggest immediate worry," Hayes said from the front seat, "is
keeping all this from the public. That's why we put Dobbs out of sight
in a hurry. There have been some leaks already, but so far most people
consider the papers' theories as just so much wild speculation. And
thank God for that. You can understand why all recognizable public
figures are keeping as far away from Dobbs as possible."
* * * * *
Flinn nodded; it was self-evident. There were other phases of the
problem that bothered him more. He was still vaguely and, as it seemed,
illogically worried about the several questions he had raised the day
before.
The fact that Dobbs might have read his articles and hence might put
two and two together, despite a cover identity, was the least of
them. Flinn had never lectured in public, his efforts had received no
publicity except in specialized psychological circles, and his latest
monograph on TH had been published when Dobbs was working at the atoll.
Wilmer, Hayes, and others had managed to assuage reasonable fears on
the other point. Flinn had always assumed that psychokinesis would be
the logical result of advanced telepathy, that they were links in
the same chain. Now it seemed that a person could be one without the
other. Either you possessed a latent ability to scan mind-matter, or an
affinity for material substance, but not necessarily both.
Earlier, Wilmer and Hayes had devised a test to check the possibility
that Dobbs was an advanced telepath. They had mentally vilified him
beyond the ability of even an accomplished actor to resist, over
prolonged periods of time, and yet Dobbs had shown not the least
indication that he had intercepted their thoughts. But there was one
additional point.
"You used the expression 'warped mind' in describing Dobbs," Flinn said
to Wilmer. "Is it your opinion then that he is definitely psychopathic?
The reason I ask is that scanning a confused mind may prove to be more
than I can handle."
"I used that expression for want of a better," Wilmer answered
cautiously. "Put it this way--suppose you suddenly found you were able
to control, even in a minor way, the stuff of the universe; would you
use those powers for the benefit of mankind, or would you leap over the
traces and reach for all the things that had been denied you over the
years for moral, or legal, or whatever reasons?"
"You paint a lurid picture," Flinn said.
They turned down a side street in a residential district and drew up in
front of what appeared to be a large two-story private home.
Flinn took a deep breath. He was rested now, but still uncertain
whether he was up to what lay ahead.
After the preliminary discussion with Wilmer, Hayes, and Barnes--the
latter had proved to be a military intelligence man--the previous
afternoon, Flinn had been closeted immediately with a number of
generals, admirals, and high-ranking civilians from both houses of
Congress, the Defense Department, the Department of State, and various
security agencies.
There had been the usual skepticism until he had performed some simple
but histrionic "mind-reading" feats, and then there had been much talk
about the responsibilities that had now become incumbent upon him and
how perhaps even the fate of the nation was in his hands. It had left
him wandering in a jungle of doubts and fears. Yet he had managed to
sleep.
"The wonderful ability of the human mind to reject unpleasantness," he
had told himself.
As a matter of fact, he had fallen into deep, untroubled
unconsciousness within an hour of the time his head had first touched
the pillow in the comfortable hotel room the government had provided.
Hayes had been with him. "Security," Hayes had said.
And now, clean-shaven, his clothes neatly pressed, the substantial
breakfast still warm in his stomach, and fatigue no longer in his
muscles and nerves, Flinn told himself that he was as ready as he would
ever be.
* * * * *
They got out of the conservative, unmarked sedan and approached the
house. There was a man mowing the lawn, another clipping hedges, and
still another polishing a car that was parked in the driveway just
outside the spacious garage.
"How's it going?" Hayes said to the hedge trimmer.
"All quiet," the man answered without looking up.
They went around the house and entered unchallenged through a side
door. It was all very casual, yet Flinn did not have to be told that
they were under constant scrutiny.
The room in which he found himself was just off the kitchen. Three men
in working clothes sat around a table, drinking coffee. They looked
up and nodded. They seemed to be cut from much the same cloth as Fred
Hayes, even to the expression.
"Well, well," one of them said, "the brain trust." He surveyed Flinn
with frank interest, then faced Hayes. "Say, buddy, how does a man get
a transfer out of this outfit?"
Hayes grinned his wolfish grin. "All in good time, partner." He pointed
with his chin upstairs and raised his eyebrows.
The man who had spoken, a large, broad-shouldered youngster with an
affably homely face, got up, stepped back from the table, and went into
a vaudevillian travesty of a bow. "The great man has been prepared and
awaits your presence." Then his expression changed. "What a party! I
never saw so much liquor in my life! It's a lucky thing the rumpus room
is soundproof."
"And girls!" one of the seated men said. "Man, oh, man!"
Flinn looked at Wilmer, and Wilmer shrugged as if to say, "That's the
way it is."
"Just don't forget what you're here for," Hayes said harshly.
"Don't fret," the big man said. "None of us touched a drop."
"Neither did Dobbs," one of the seated men interjected. "I guess that's
the only reason he's alive today." He guffawed loudly and suggestively.
Hayes leading, they entered a hallway and turned toward a flight of
stairs.
"Your boys seemed very off-hand about all this," Flinn said to the
government agent.
"Don't kid yourself," Hayes replied. "They're as nervous as cats."
* * * * *
"Come in, gentlemen," Dobbs called amiably from the rear of the
spacious bedroom. There was an unobtrusive man in a dark suit with him,
but he left immediately.
Now that he was face to face with the enigmatic Mr. Dobbs, Flinn felt a
momentary sense of disappointment.
Malcolm Dobbs sat in a straight-backed chair beside the large bed.
Next to him was a table laden with empty breakfast dishes. Dobbs was
dressed in an ordinary bathrobe. He appeared to be in his mid-forties
and had a full head of dark hair, slightly gray at the temples. His
mild, undistinguished face was only slightly less tanned than Wilmer's,
and he was of average size and weight. His dark eyes were the only
things that belied the man's composed exterior; they were intelligent,
interested, and intently watchful. A tiny smile lingered upon Dobbs'
lips, as if he were sharing only with himself some form of immensely
funny but eminently private joke.
Flinn's total impression of the man was that he was not the sort one
would look at twice in a crowded room--under different circumstances.
"Another delegation?" Dobbs asked. "Hello, Jack, Hayes."
"Mal this is Mr. Dugan," Wilmer said, indicating Flinn. "He's from the
government."
Even as he acknowledged the introduction, Flinn paused momentarily
over the casual familiarity between the physicist and the apparent
psychokinetic, until he was reminded that they were both nuclear
physicists and had been together for weeks at the atoll. Flinn found
himself wondering how close they had been and what thoughts must
be going through Wilmer's mind at the moment. But he squelched his
curiosity. He was here to scan Dobbs' mind, nobody else's.
"Be unobtrusive," he had been warned. "Stay in the background as much
as possible and let Wilmer and Hayes carry the ball. And do the job
quickly."
Dobbs looked Flinn over carefully, then seemed to dismiss him from his
mind, as if he had decided Flinn was of no particular importance--or no
immediate threat.
"You boys should have been here last night," Dobbs smiled. "We had
quite a party." His smile faded and he added petulantly: "The only
thing--some of the girls weren't as cooperative as I had hoped."
"We'll be more selective next time," Hayes promised quickly.
"See to it," Dobbs said.
They seated themselves, Hayes and Wilmer close to Dobbs, and Flinn just
far enough away to seem deferential without raising suspicion.
"Now, what can I do for you?" Dobbs queried. "Another demonstration, I
assume?"
"That's right," Wilmer said. "How about that disappearance thing again?"
* * * * *
Dobbs sighed. "You boys just can't get it through your skulls that what
I do isn't some sort of trick, can you? Even faced with the evidence of
the bomb."
Wilmer raised his hands. "It's not that so much, although what you can
do, you'll have to admit, is rather unbelievable. It's the fact that
Mr. Dugan here has never seen any evidence of your powers, and the
report he will deliver to his superiors may cause even more commotion
in high places--to your advantage."
Flinn was amazed that such a flimsy appeal to the appetites and ego of
a man as intelligent as Malcolm Dobbs could be successful. Yet it not
only could, it was.
Dobbs looked again at Flinn, the strange smile playing upon his lips;
then he reached across the table, picked up an opaque glass water
carafe, poured out its remaining liquid into an empty cereal bowl, and
replaced it on the table.
"We don't want water spilled over everything, do we?" he said.
Wilmer slipped one arm behind the back of his chair and signaled
urgently to Flinn.
Since entering the room, Flinn had been gathering all his resources
for a quick and powerful effort, and, at the sight of Wilmer's waving
fingers, he began.
He was startled that, despite the interaction and interference of
the other thought patterns in the room, he was able to make so quick
a contact. Just before reaching Dobbs' mind, the thought impressed
itself upon Flinn that the reason was the immense mental power that was
building within, and generating from, Dobbs. It was the simplest piece
of telepathic scanning with which Flinn had ever been involved.
For a matter of seconds, nothing happened. Then the water carafe
abruptly disappeared, its passage into apparent nothingness coincident
with a faint "pop" as the air of the room rushed in to fill the vacuum.
Dobbs turned triumphantly and saw Flinn still in the trancelike stupor
of the telepath-in-contact. Hayes stood up to screen him, but Flinn
shook his head and managed to clear his mind quickly.
"Your friend seems somewhat astounded," Dobbs chuckled.
"My God!" was all Flinn could say.
Wilmer and Hayes looked at him questioningly, and Hayes muttered: "I
think he's seen enough. Let's get out of here."
"Come back anytime, gentlemen," Dobbs said.
His laughter followed them as they retreated through the door and down
the hall to the stairs.
* * * * *
"Well?" Wilmer said.
They sat around the table in the room just off the kitchen, steaming
cups of coffee in front of them. The three security agents who had been
in the room were gone now to their respective duties.
Flinn gazed down into the dark depths of the coffee, trying to organize
his thoughts; trying to interpret and evaluate what he had seen.
Wilmer and Hayes sipped their coffee, waiting with forced patience for
the parapsychologist to speak.
Presently, Flinn shivered and looked up at them. "If he says he can
control a critical mass, or erase Washington, D. C., or destroy the
nation, you'd better believe him."
"He's telling the truth then," Hayes said grimly.
"Yes," Flinn answered. "Here are my findings. Somehow Dobbs has
established rapport with the atom. Any atom. Probably any number
of atoms. I doubt if he can move one single mass in the ordinary
conception of psychokinesis. That is, I doubt if he can cause a pebble,
say, to shift one millimeter. What he _can_ control are the forces that
bind atoms into molecular structures, or that hold nuclei together. Do
you understand what I mean? For example, what he did up there just
now was to get rid of the space between atoms in the molecules of that
water carafe. I saw it clearly; there's no mistake. The space ceased to
exist, the atoms crashed in upon each other, and the carafe seemed to
disappear. The mass is the same. It's simply in a different form."
He paused and scanned the numb faces of the government agent and the
nuclear physicist beside him.
"Let's get down to specifics," he continued. "What's his trump card?
What is it he's holding over our heads?"
"The atmosphere," Wilmer said painfully.
"Oxygen," Flinn mused. "Suppose Dobbs concentrated upon the oxygen
atoms all around us and caused their nuclei suddenly to fuse. What
would happen?"
"Nobody on the face of the Earth would know what hit him," Wilmer said.
"The Moon would probably be blasted out of its orbit. And if there is
any intelligent life on Mars, they'd be treated to a sight they'd never
forget--if they survived it."
"Well, then," Flinn said, "we've done what we came here to do. What's
the answer?"
Hayes' face set into a hard mask. "There'll be a meeting of the brass,
of course. But I can tell you what the result will be. I'll be assigned
to kill him."
* * * * *
A buzz of excited conversation filled the Pentagon conference room.
Flinn sat in one of the several dozen chairs between Wilmer and Hayes
and looked at a glass ashtray that lay on the part of the long table
just in front of him. One day perhaps he, too, might be able to
influence the molecular structure of such an object. Or, more likely,
one of his descendants, because he would never be able to discover the
short-cuts now.
Planned murder. All the resources and brains of the government, the
champion of the rights and dignity of the individual, gathered together
to plot the deliberate destruction of one man.
It filled Flinn with sadness. It was inevitable. It had to be done. No
one had the right to put himself above the rules of social conduct and
the welfare of several billion innocent souls. And yet--
He found himself wondering what the Founding Fathers would think of
such a move. "... all men are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights ... Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Executions of criminals were the result of lengthy legal processes,
during which all the rights of the individual were scrupulously
observed. But this--was he also one of the judges? Let the punishment
fit the crime. What about the judging?
"Isn't there some other way?" Wilmer broke into his thoughts. "That's
what you're thinking, correct?"