Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe Aug-Sept 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.
[_One of the most intriguing of all science fiction patterns
is that of the galactic sweep--the story which takes for granted human
travel between stars at speeds far faster than the speed of light. In
its most successful form, such a story combines cosmic action with a
wholly human plot. In this case Mr. Cox--but read it yourself._]
the instant of now
_by ... Irving E. Cox, Jr._
Revolution is not necessarily a noble thing. Unless shrewdly
directed, its best elements may fall victim to its basest
impulses.
* * * * *
Eddie Dirrul had destroyed the message seconds after reading it. Yet,
as he left the pneumotube from the University, he felt as if it were
burning a hole in his pocket. It had come to him from Paul Sorgel, the
new top-agent from the Planet Vinin. It had been written in High
Vininese.
For a moment the alien language had slowed Eddie's reaction to its
contents, as had the shocking nature of its words. It had read--
_Need your help. Glenna and Hurd in brush with Secret
Police--both hurt. Come at once._
Luckily old Dr. Kramer had asked no awkward questions when Eddie
excused himself from the balance of the lecture. If the kindly
bumbling professor had been inquisitive, Eddie had no idea how he
would have answered. Glenna was his fiancee, Hurd his best friend--and
their disaster meant disaster for the underground movement that had
become the guiding purpose of his entire life.
The night was still young when he emerged from the pneumotube and the
slanting ramp-lines of windows in the massive unit-blocks of the
Workers' Suburb rose about him within the darkness of the structural
frames that encased them.
Parks, recreation centers and gaudy amusement halls were aswirl with
the usual evening crowds. With a sort of angry heedlessness Eddie
forced his way among tall perpetually-youthful men in bright leisure
clothing--and consciously alluring women clad in filmy garments as
teasingly transparent as mist.
_Glenna hurt--and Hurd!_ Seriously, of course, or Paul Sorgel would
never have risked a hand-message. With quiet desperation he pushed
through the crowds--in his trim grey Air-command uniform he was one
with them, a nonentity like themselves.
He knew where to find the three he sought. Beyond the outdoor courts,
where his fellow-Agronians amused themselves with a variety of
racquet-games, lay a tiny park, wherein a state of wild disorder was
carefuly maintained in imitation of nature.
Few were attracted by its rugged growth, save in very warm weather,
when hardy souls ventured within its borders to relax in artificial
breezes created by silent concealed fans. In its center stood a small
stone building that housed the maintenance machinery. It was deserted,
except for once each year when the city engineering crews came to
check the machines and to make minor repairs. There the Libero-Freedom
Movement held its meetings, in the shadow of the whirring wheels.
Sorgel came out of the shadows as Dirrul pushed through the thicket of
brush that surrounded the stone building. In a hushed whisper he
asked, "That you, Eddie?"
"Yes--where are they?"
"Inside. I gave them a hypo--they're both under now. It makes it
easier."
"How did it happen, Paul?"
"I was to meet Glenna and Hurd at her apartment, to talk over the
details of the Plan. The police were there ahead of me but I broke up
the party before they could finish the job. Since they've got to do
this sort of thing unofficially, to be able to deny it later if any
questions are asked, I scared them off easily enough. I brought Glenna
and Hurd here in my Unicyl but I'll need your help to get them out."
"This is the second time it's happened, Paul!" said Eddie. "And the
Plan--we'll have to organize all over again. As soon as our people
hear about this most of them will run like scared rabbits."
"Not if they don't know, Eddie. That's where you come in. We've got to
get Glenna and Hurd away from Agron. If there's no evidence of a crime
there's no reason for an investigation."
"But what can I do?"
"Borrow one of the Air-command's surface jets for a while."
Paul Sorgel's plan was simple and efficient. The Air-Command field was
fenced with electronic paralysis barriers and the entrance was heavily
guarded. But no watch was kept inside the encampment except for a
daily inspection of the machines when the guard was changed at dawn.
Since Dirrul was a Captain of the Space-maintenance Division, 73rd
Air-Command Wing, he was able to enter the area at any time without
question. Among the scheduled night training flights for new cadets,
the departure of one more surface jet would pass unobserved.
"Come back here for Glenna and Hurd," Sorgel said, "and take them out
to the South Desert. If there's no hitch you should be back before
dawn, with time to spare. If not...." Sorgel shrugged. "Eddie, we
can't build a better universe without taking occasional risks."
Slowly Dirrul's body tensed with fear. In a cold dead voice he asked,
"Am I to leave them there, without help or medicine, to die of thirst
and hunger?"
"Many sacrifices are necessary for the good of the Movement."
"But Glenna and Hurd are our leaders!"
"The freedom of the universe means a little more, I think, than the
temporary safety of two individuals." Sorgel lit a cigarette. In the
faint pink reflection of the Glo-Wave lighter his face was emptily
placid, a faint smile twisting the corners of his lips. "Suppose I say
it's a command, Dirrul--a Vininese command, calling for Vininese
discipline."
After a moment Dirrul replied in a choked whisper, "I'll take them,
sir."
Sorgel smiled and the crisp tone of authority edged out of his voice.
"As a matter of fact, Eddie, I was curious to see what you would do.
The Vininese Confederacy practises neither cruelty nor deception.
You'll find one of our Space-dragons hidden in a gorge of the Katskain
Range. It's the ship I came in a week ago.
"The pilot was instructed to wait fifteen planetary revolutions in the
event that I might have a report to send back to Headquarters. You
must learn to trust me, Eddie. From the first, you see, I intended to
send Glenna and Hurd to Vinin. If they get there in time there's a
chance our Medical Corps can pull them through. They may even be back
here with us for the day when we carry out the Plan."
Dirrul was in no real danger. Much as it benefited the Movement the
laxity of Agronian security was one of the chief reasons why Dirrul
scorned the Planetary Union. The space-wide patrols of the
Air-Command, the city guards and the electronic paralysis barricades
created a feeling of internal control--but it was all a glittering
sham. If it were not for the Nuclear Beams the whole system would long
since have crumbled under the first pressure from outside.
With no difficulty he picked up Glenna and Hurd and took them to the
South Desert, where he put them aboard the sleek Vininese space-ship.
It was one of the new Dragon design--compact, efficient, faster than
anything built by the Planetary Union, protected by sixteen circular
batteries and yet small enough to be handled by one man.
Dirrul had seen only one other Vininese Space-dragon and that from a
distance at the Agronian commercial airport, when the last Vininese
ambassador arrived. Technically there was no reason why Paul Sorgel
could not have landed there as well, except that the Customs
questionnaire might have proved embarrassing.
Twenty years earlier, when Dirrul was still a schoolboy, the Galactic
War had ended. Since that time relations between the Planetary Union
and the Vininese Confederacy had steadily improved--at least in
appearance. Undoubtedly there were commercial interests on both sides
anxious to maintain peace and in recent years the quantity of goods in
trade had grown enormously. But it was a truce, not a peace--a
compromise, rather than a victory--forced on the galaxy when the
scientists of the Planetary Union discovered the Nuclear Beams.
Pain shot through Dirrul's mind as he carried Glenna into the
pressurized chamber under the control room. She and Hurd were still
unconscious but Glenna turned in his arms and her eyes fluttered open.
She looked at him and screamed in terrible agony before the pilot of
the Space-dragon plunged a hypodermic sedative into her arm.
"It is better," he said to Dirrul in throaty Vininese. "So beautiful a
one should not feel the pain." Carefully he fastened the needlepoint
of a wall tube into Glenna's vein and another into Hurd's.
"Synthetic blood feeding," he said with a smile. "It will keep them
alive, perhaps even permitting minor wounds to heal, until I deliver
them to the authorities on Vinin. You see, sir, my little ship is
well-equipped." He slammed the round door of the hospital room shut
and led Dirrul to the control blister.
"How long will it be, this trip to Vinin?" Dirrul asked, speaking very
slowly in classical Vininese. Like everyone in the Movement he had
studied the language of Vinin as a sort of courtesy and duty but he
had no illusion about his small ability to handle it.
"In terms of your time," the pilot said, "about thirty days."
"Only thirty? The Planetary Union hasn't a ship that could make it
under sixty!"
"But this is a Space-dragon." The words were self-explanatory.
Proudly the pilot showed Dirrul the controls, as functional and as
uncomplex as the cool clean lines of the ship herself. The design was
so logical, so basically simple, that within a few minutes Dirrul
understood enough of the mechanism to have driven the ship himself.
"Your scientists could do as well," the pilot suggested, "if they
wished."
"Not mine," Dirrul said.
"Pardon--the scientists of the Planetary Union. On Vinin we create for
the future, for the progress of the Confederacy. We have no patience
with petty argument, tedious experimentation or the pointless
splitting of hairs that seems to occupy so much of your time here. For
us a scientist is a producer, like everyone else. If he fails to do
his job we replace him."
Pleased with the comparison the pilot chuckled over his dials as he
turned on the power. Above the roar he said to Dirrul, "We must talk
again one day, sir. If you ever have the good fortune to come to Vinin
be sure to look me up."
II
As the Vininese ship shot smoothly out into the night sky, Dirrul's
surface jet slashed back toward the Agronian capital. A synthetic
tension, which he deliberately fed with nightmare improbabilities,
kept him reasonably alert until he had safely returned the jet to its
place in the compound. Then weariness engulfed him. Groggily he
staggered to the pneumotube and within five minutes he was asleep in
the small two-room worker's apartment where he lived.
The insistent _ping_ of the door visiscope woke him. Dirrul glanced at
his wall clock and saw that it was still early morning. He had slept
less than three hours. Swearing angrily he turned down the visiarm.
Dr. Kramer's serene aging white-bearded face was mirrored on the
grey-tinted screen.
"Good morning, Edward," Kramer said with excessive cheerfulness. "For
a moment I was afraid I had missed you. I've brought a transcription
of the lecture you missed yesterday."
Dirrul swung out of bed and pushed the entry release. Soundlessly the
thin metal door slid into the wall and the little professor bounced
into the room. The door shot back into place.
"But you're not dressed!" the professor exclaimed without the
slightest regret. "I always supposed you Air-Command men had to report
for work at eight."
"Yesterday I was out on emergency call," Dirrul said dully. "For
twelve hours, so I've the morning off. I had planned to pound the
pillow until--"
"Good! We can talk, then. I don't have a class until ten and I always
like to make the personal acquaintance of my students." Dr. Kramer
made himself comfortable in Dirrul's Cloud-foam lounge, clasping his
small, white hands over the little bulge of his belly. "Nice apartment
you have here, Edward--excellent taste in furnishing."
"You don't mind if I shave and dress and have a bite of breakfast, Dr.
Kramer?" Dirrul's sarcasm was quite lost on the professor.
"Do, by all means," Kramer said. "And you might order a pot of coffee
for me."
Dirrul touched a button and the bed rolled up into the wall--another
and the gleaming metal shower-room slid open. He stripped and bathed,
setting the aquadial so that his body was pounded by a sharp rain of
icy water. When he snapped it off the massage arms shot out, rubbing
him dry with soft, plastic puffs. He sprayed the newly patented
No-Beard Mist on his face and, after waiting the required three
seconds, wiped it off with a disposable fiber towel. The skin was
pink and clean, refreshingly invigorated. When he took a fresh uniform
out of the wall-press and put it on he felt very much himself again,
scarcely annoyed by his lack of sleep.
He pushed the button and the bathroom rolled out of sight. The whole
process had taken less than five minutes.
At his panel-control Dirrul dialed a sizable breakfast for himself and
coffee for the professor. Before he could draw up chairs the
grey-topped table had rolled from its wall slot, the steaming food
containers fixed to it.
"The marvels of invention!" Dr. Kramer said. "When I was young we had
nothing like this. Many times, Edward, I had to prepare my own
meals--and mighty skimpy ones they were too, some of them. A young
teacher in those days wasn't paid very much."
"You survived, Dr. Kramer," Dirrul reminded him dryly. "A little work
now and then wouldn't hurt us, either."
"That's the old argument, Edward. How we frothed and stewed over it
when this new system was in its infancy! That was before your time, of
course." Kramer poured a cup of coffee and after a thoughtful
hesitation quietly took a slice of toast from Dirrul's platter. "They
said we'd create a race of helpless children--defenseless lazy
softies. They said if the individual wasn't forced to fight for his
own survival, for the small comforts of life, he would die of boredom,
drown initiative in luxury."
Dr. Kramer smiled--and took another slice of toast. "Like so many of
the terrifying predictions of the Cassandras none of it came to pass.
Today we're stronger and more vigorous than ever. Today we have more
new inventions, more new discoveries, more fine philosophical insight
than ever before in our entire history.
"Actually what we did was save time on the trivial routines so we
could spend our work-potential where it mattered. After all, what was
gained by a social system that forced me to spend so much of my energy
feeding and housing and clothing myself? Weigh the loss against the
greater contribution I might have made if I had spent the same time in
research."
"Why, yes, Dr. Kramer--you could have given us the Cloud-foam lounge a
generation earlier," Dirrul said bitterly, "or perhaps the Safe-sweet
candy."
Again his sarcasm lost its savor, for the professor simply beamed and
said, "Possibly, if that had been my field of interest. As it happens
I'm a psychologist specializing in emotive linguistics--the
symbologies for conveying meanings." The professor smiled.
"Our present vigor and strength, no doubt, is reflected in the sort of
thing we do with all this extra time our gadgets give us--the
scholarly research in the Arena or the Phonoview."
"You're being very uncritical, Edward. Under any social form a great
majority of the people would spend everything on personal pleasures.
Why not? Each generation produces only a few leaders--we simply
recognize that fact and adjust to it."
"But without the incentive of personal gain, Dr. Kramer...."
The professor laughed uproariously. "Incentive! You amaze me, Edward.
I haven't heard the word used in just that context since I was a boy.
You're a throwback--an anachronism. You sound like one of the elderly
prophets of doom. I thought the breed had died out generations ago."
The professor laughed again. "So our system creates no incentives.
Tell me, Edward, why are you spending your Work-Equivs to take my
night course?"
"Because, when I've passed enough university hours I can take the
promotional test and become a full-fledged space-pilot."
"And still you say there's no incentive?"
"For myself, yes--but all of us ought to have the same kind of drive,"
said Dirrul.
"Such a condition never existed, Edward. Always there have been a few
to make the inventions and the discoveries, a few to create the new
dreams and frame the new ideas. Our people are no different. Incentive
comes from within the individual--it cannot be imposed from the
outside.
"The poorest sort of incentive, therefore, is economic need. Our
system provides all our people with the basic necessities for everyday
living. Some few of us are content with these and never want anything
else. But the great majority work to earn Work-Equivs, which they can
spend as they please--on amusement, luxury, education or the races at
the Arena.
"Whatever the goal, it is a personal goal, set by each individual for
himself. It's the only kind of incentive that makes any sense. Take
yourself as an example--you spend your share of Work-Equivs on
additional education because you want to become a space-pilot. By the
time you've earned the promotion you'll have lifted yourself to a
position of leadership.
"As you are well aware the space-pilot is the politician--statesman is
a better word--of the Planetary Union. Through his ingenuity, his
skill with languages, his psychological understanding of diverse
racial groups, he holds our planets and peoples together, in one union
with a common social philosophy. Think how frustrating it would be if
you could never move toward your goal, Edward, because everything you
earned had to be spent on trivialities--food, clothing, a place to
live."
"All right," said Eddie doubtfully, "I have an apartment given to me
but it has to be here in a worker's block. If our system provides for
us all alike, as you imply, how is it you have accommodations in the
Scientist's Center? Why should you be set apart? Or the poets and
writers? Or the space-pilots, for that matter?"
"But there's no difference in the way we live, Edward. In general
people who do similar work and have similar interests are happier if
they share the same social environment. The average person, living in
a worker's block, would feel terribly out of place in a scientist's
center, just as I would develop terrific frustrations if I had to live
with the mystics or the religious orders."
Dirrul deftly snatched the last piece of toast as the professor
reached for it. "I'll dial some for you if you like," he offered.
"Oh, no, Edward! I'm dieting, you see, and I like to think--well, as
I've told you so often in class, we all practise self-deception of a
sort. Usually it's harmless--and almost always we symbolize it in
words. For me the symbol is diet.
"I set up a specialized definition and convince myself that I am
dieting if I never directly order fattening food. That gives me an
escape hatch. If food is offered to me or if it happens to--ah--to
fall into my hands, I can take it and still keep a clear conscience."
"Perhaps you practise more self-deception than you know, Dr. Kramer,"
said Eddie. "For instance, all your fine words about the strength and
vitality of our new system--when I was a boy we licked the Vininese
Confederacy. We couldn't do it today."
"That's a matter of opinion. We're at peace now and we'll remain so."
"Only because we have the Nuclear Beams. And look how we've botched
that mess! Our scientists gave the process to the Vininese in order to
patch together a peace when we could have destroyed their civilization
completely."
"And our own too--with the weight of such a crime on our group
conscience. There's one thing you still must learn, Edward--scientific
progress is made by the sharing of ideas, not the concealment of them.
We build the future upon the truths of the past and the present. If
some of those truths are hidden away we create falsely on utterly
false foundations."
Dr. Kramer pulled a manila envelope from his pocket and laid it on the
table, pushing back his chair. "I must go, Edward; these are the notes
on my lecture. As I told you before, I really came here for something
else. I wanted to talk to you, to get to understand you better. I
think I've learned a great deal."
The little professor was no longer smiling and the gentle touch of
banter was gone from his voice. Dirrul felt a creeping fear rise
within him. How much had he unconsciously revealed? How many of his
own beliefs had Dr. Kramer been able to read between the lines?
Knowing them, would he guess Dirrul's connection with the Movement?
The professor's bland naivete could be the mask of a police informer.
Dirrul shivered, remembering the sudden punishment that had overtaken
Glenna and Hurd.
At the door Dr. Kramer paused and said, "I'm entertaining two or three
of the university faculty this evening, Edward. They've read some of
the papers you have written for my class. I'd like to have you meet
them. My apartment--eight-thirty."
It was a command rather than an invitation. Dirrul accepted.