Danton shrugged. "First I dropped enough atomic fire to finish
destroying the Oligarch fortress completely, and to get any ships that
might have been left inside the mountain. There's nothing there now but
a big black crater. I don't think there will ever be any need to worry
about the Oligarchs anymore. I landed the ship in the Pacific in as
isolated a spot as I could find--midway between New Zealand and Cape
Horn. Then I contacted you by short wave. And here I am and here you
are. And I guess that's all there is."
"Why did you bring Rhone back?"
"I had no choice," Danton said. "I guess when I killed her and put her
in the refrigeration bank, that saved her life. Some surgeon did a
quick job on her." Danton leaned toward Seers. "If all of it, or any of
it, really happened."
"What makes you think it didn't?"
"For one thing, I'm back here alive, an impossible mission
accomplished. For another--I--well, this time I _want_ to be
reconditioned."
"Your experience has changed your outlook, Danton?"
"Considerably. I--want to be changed. I want to be someone else,
anything else. I've seen things too horrible to remember anyway.
I'd rather forget everything. It could all have been delusion,
hallucination rigged up in your psyche labs. As Keith said--you boys
are good at that sort of thing. If that's how it was--it was good
therapy. There's a doubt in my mind, you see. It _might_ have happened,
and just the bare possibility that it did happen is enough to make me
gladly volunteer for reconditioning."
Seers nodded. "I'm very glad you're approaching it this way. It will
make the processing easier to perform, and the new personality easier
to maintain. We probably will never need your kind again, Danton. Now
that the Oligarchs are gone, the last threat to our new system is gone
with them. The chance of some other intelligent life-form being in the
universe at all is remote, and the further chance that they would take
aggressive action against Earth makes the whole thing something we can
logically ignore."
"That's fine," Danton said.
"You've seen where the psychology of war would lead, inevitably. If you
can justify killing human beings at all, the final result is bound to
be, in some form or another, what you saw on Mars."
"If I actually saw it. If I was on Mars at all."
Seers signaled through the intercom. A door opened. Rhone stood there,
a tablet in her hand, and a pencil. She sat down and crossed attractive
legs. Very attractive legs, Danton thought.
"Miss Tannon, this is Richard Danton. Mr. Danton, my new secretary,
Miss Tannon."
She nodded, turned her nose down once more, very business-like, into
the tablet.
Danton thought, It's Rhone all right. A reconditioned Rhone. They must
be good at their reconditioning to change an Oligarch mind into that
of an efficient secretary. Danton said, "What about the others up there
on Mars?"
"We'll take care of them, peacefully of course," Seers said. "We have
plenty of time. We won't bring them back. We will set up our new system
there."
Danton listened to Seers' dictation. "To Chief Psyche-adjustment
Administrator. From Seers, Department of Social Security. Subject:
Voluntary reconditioning of Richard Danton. To take place at once under
the jurisdiction of...."
There was more. Danton didn't hear it ... and later they injected
something into his veins and he sat there, feeling Richard Danton
dying, for the last time, going away. Richard Danton, fading out, all
around him bit by bit, cell by cell, dying, never to awaken again. And
remembering what he had experienced on Mars, Danton thought: It's as
good a reward as anyone could ask. Goodbye, Richard Danton. It was nice
knowing you, but Goodbye....
* * * * *
_His name was Burton. John R. Burton._
_He was as happy as anyone could expect to be. His wife loved him and
he loved his wife. Their children were very well adjusted, as was
everyone of course in the New World System._
_Burton worked ten hours a week in a coal mine, though the job was
merely one demanding the overseeing of machines. The rest of the week
was one of leisure devoted to gardening, hobbies, play, music. There
was no more hate, no violence, no feelings of insecurity. It wasn't
that everyone loved everyone else particularly. It was just that no one
was afraid of the future anymore._
_And Burton was no longer bothered by bad dreams either, and so he was
what one might consider perfectly happy, perfectly adjusted._
_The perfect happiness of one who does not remember._