* * * * *
The office door opened and a tall stranger entered. He had a strange
gait, one shoulder held considerably lower than the other, to the
point that Joe would have thought it the result of a wound hadn't the
other obviously never been a soldier. The newcomer, office pallor
heavily upon him, but his air of languor obviously assumed and
artificial, darted his eyes around the room, to Holland, Nadine, and
then to Joe where they rested for a moment.
He murmured some banality to Nadine, indicative of a long acquaintance
and then approached Joe, who had automatically come to his feet, and
extended a hand to be shaken. "I'm Frank Hodgson. You're Joe Mauser.
I'm not fracas buff, but I know enough about current developments to
know that. Welcome aboard, Joe."
Joe shook the hand offered, in some surprise.
"Welcome aboard?" he said.
Hodgson looked to Philip Holland, his eyebrows raised in question.
Holland said crisply, "You're premature, Frank. Dr. Haer and Mauser
have just arrived."
"Oh." The newcomer found himself a chair, crossed his legs and fumbled
in his pocket for a pipe, leaving it to the others to resume the
conversation he had interrupted.
Philip Holland said to Joe, "Frank is assistant to Wallace Pepper." He
looked at Hodgson and frowned. "I don't believe you have any other
title do you, Frank?"
"I don't think so," Frank yawned. "Can't think of any."
Joe Mauser looked from one to the other, confusion adding to confusion
within him. Wallace Pepper was the long time head of the North
American Bureau of Investigation, having held that position under at
least four administrations.
Nadine said dryly, "Which goes to show you, Joe, just how much titles
mean. Commissioner Pepper has been all but senile for the past five
years. Frank, here, is the true head of the bureau."
Frank Hodgson said mildly, "Why, Nadine, that's a rather strong
statement."
Joe blurted, "Head of the Bureau of Investigation! I had gathered the
impression I was being taken to meet some members of an underground,
organized for the purpose of, as it was put, changing the present
rules of government."
[Illustration]
Frank Hodgson grinned at Nadine and laughed softly, "That's a gentle
way of describing revolution."
Holland looked at Joe Mauser and said briskly, "I'll try to take you
off the hook as quickly as possible, Joe. Tell me, when you hear the
word revolution, what comes first to your mind?"
Joe, flustered, said, "Why, I don't know. Fighting, riots, people
running around in the streets with banners. That sort of thing."
"Um-m-m," Holland nodded, "The common conception. However, a social
revolution isn't, by definition, necessarily bloody. Picture a
gigantic wheel, Joe. We'll call it the wheel of history. From time to
time it makes a turn, forward, we hope, but sometimes backward. Such a
turn is a revolution. Whether or not there is anybody under the wheel
at the time of turning, is beside the point. The revolution takes
place whether or not there is bloodshed."
He thought a moment. "Or you might compare it to childbirth. The fact
that there is pain in childbirth, or, if through modern medical
science, the pain is eliminated, is beside the point. Childbirth
consists of a new baby coming into the world. The mother might even
die, but childbirth has taken place. She might feel no pain
whatsoever, under anesthetic, but childbirth has taken place."
Joe said carefully, "I'm no authority, but it seems to me that usually
if changes take place in a socio-economic system without bloodshed, we
call it evolution. Revolution is when they take place with conflict."
Holland shook his head. "No. Poor definitions. Among other things,
don't confuse revolts, civil wars, and such with revolution. They
aren't the same thing. You can have civil war, military revolts and
various civil disturbances without having a socio-economic revolution.
Let's use this for an example. Take a fertile egg. Inside of it a
chick is slowly developing, slowly evolving. But it is still an egg.
The chick finally grows tiny wings, a beak, even little feathers.
Fine. But so far it's just evolution, within the shell of the egg. But
one day that chick cannot develop further without breaking the shell
and freeing itself of what was once its factor of defense but now
threatens its very life. The shell must go. When that culminating
action takes place, you have a revolutionary change and we are no
longer dealing with an egg, but a chicken."
Joe, one by one, looked at the three of them. He said, finally, to
Nadine, rather than to the men, "What's this got to do with me?"
She leaned forward in her earnestness. "All your life you've revolted
against the _status quo_, Joe. You've beaten your head against the
situation that confronted you, against a society you felt didn't allow
you to develop your potentialities. But now you admit you've been
wrong. What is needed is to"--she shot a defiant glance at Frank
Hodgson, to his amusement--"change the rules if the race is to get
back onto the road to progress." She shrugged. "Very well. You can't
expect it to be done single handed. You need an organization. Others
who feel the same way you do. Here we are."
He was truly amazed now. When he had finally admitted interest in what
Nadine had hinted to be a subversive organization, he'd had in mind
some secretive group, possibly making their headquarters in a hidden
cellar, complete with primitive printing press, and possibly some
weapons. He most certainly hadn't expected to be introduced to the
secretary of the Foreign Minister, and the working head of the North
American Bureau of Investigation.
Joe blurted, "But ... but you mean you Uppers are actually planning to
subvert your own government?"