Noncommittally, "Up to a point. How about some island somewhere? Or in
the States? Cold or warm? How, for instance, would you feel about Guam
or--"
"Watched by the whole Mounted Police?" He nodded.
I didn't care. "Just someplace where no one will bother me; some place
where I can play some records of the Boston Pops or Victor Herbert;"
(and I guess the nervous strain of all that mental effort in all the
noise and smoke was fighting a delaying action) "someplace where I can
get all the beer I want, because it looks like I'm going to need
plenty. Someplace where I can sit around and take things easy and have
someone to--" I cut it short.
He was one of the understanding Smiths, at that. "Yes," he nodded, "we
can probably arrange that, too. It may not be...." What else could he
say, or what other way was there to say it?
"One more thing," he went on; "one more ... demonstration. This will
take some little time to prepare." That, to me, meant one thing, and I
liked it not at all. He beat me to the punch.
* * * * *
"This should be what is called the pay-off, the final edition. Come
through on this one, and you'll be better off than the gold in Fort
Knox. Anything you want, anything that money or goodwill can buy,
anything within the resources of a great--and, I assure you, a
grateful--nation. Everything--"
"--everything," I finished for him, "except the right to go down to
the corner store for a magazine. Everything except what better than
me have called the pursuit of happiness."
* * * * *
He knew that was true. "But which is more important; your happiness,
or the freedom and happiness of a hundred and seventy millions? Peter,
if things political don't change, perhaps the freedom and happiness of
over two billion, which, I believe, is the population of this backward
planet."
"Yeah." The cigarette was dry, and I stubbed it in an ashtray. "And
all this hangs on one person--me. That's your story." My mouth was
dry, too.
His smile, I'm afraid, was more than just a little forced. "That's my
story, and we're all stuck with it; you, me, all of us. No, you stay
here, Stein. Let's see if we can get this over once and for all."
Lines came and went on his forehead, as he felt for words.
"Let's try it this way: for the first time in written history as we
know it one single deadly new weapon can change the course of the
world, perhaps even change the physical course of that world, and the
people who in the future will live in it. Speaking personally, as a
man and as a reasonable facsimile of a technician, I find it extremely
hard, almost impossible, to believe that at the exact psychic moment
an apparent complete nullification of that weapon has appeared."