Someone in the place where Dunlop worked was an
agent of the World Bureau Investigation. But how
could they suspect him at a time like this? His tracks
were covered and tangled until even Julie had
no knowledge of them. Then the robot came....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Rocket Stories, July 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Arthur Dunlop busied himself over the blueprints as though he had a
deep and sincere interest in them, unmindful of the scurry of sounds in
the office. The incessant clicking of electronic typewriters, muffled
though they were, combined to form a hum of angry bees. Papers shuffled
that were important somehow to the welfare of the State, and men and
women sat and looked at them, checking and rechecking, checking and
rechecking, for it was important that nothing should go wrong, any
place, in even the slightest aspect.
The small square of paper had been dropped on his desk unobtrusively,
and for a brief moment he had stared at it in surprise. Then he covered
it with a casual hand and glanced up in apparent thoughtfulness. A
blonde girl was making her way down the space between rows of metalloid
desks, a bundle of vital-appearing documents in her hands. Arthur
studied the swaying body, as though that were the only thought on his
mind, but the paper burned curiously at his palm.
He returned quickly to his work of checking blueprints, for idleness
even in a trusted employee was looked upon with suspicion. He bent over
the three-dimensional diagram, feigning interest, and slowly opened the
folded square of paper. On it were written the words: "WBI. Careful."
The words leaped up at him in a green ink that would fade in seconds,
leaving no trace.
He crushed the paper in his hand, trying hard not to look around him.
WBI. World Bureau of Investigation. Did they suspect? he wondered. He
thrust the thought from his mind and made a conscious effort to study
the drawing on his desk.
Drawing 2b, one-tenth of the plan for a respirator, newly-designed and
improved, streamlined for the year 2108, Arthur could just imagine the
advertising they'd do on this model. But the other thought crowded it
aside: the underground knew there was a WBI man in the office.
And just why would there be a WBI man here? Routine? Possibly. Yet more
likely, somebody smelled a rat. This was no time for plans to go awry.
He looked up, glancing with apparent disinterest at the faces near
him hovering over their respective desks. They, too, were busy
with blueprints. Part 3d of a new atomic engine. Part 14c of a
three-dimensional television set designed to bring in bigger and better
commercials. Et cetera. Et cetera. For security reasons, no two worked
at the same project.
He scanned their faces, searching for something indefinable, something
that might outwardly betray hidden thoughts. There was Hawkins,
a middle-aged, eagle-faced person, been with the local office of
State Enterprises for more than twenty years--unquestionably loyal
to the government. Merker, a chubby person with shifting eyes behind
thin-lensed glasses; he was okay, for shifting eyes or not, they had
all been checked, even as _he_ had been checked. And Austen, the
newcomer, only twenty-five and fresh from college, a nervous; restless
type of person; he was the most likely suspect for a WBI man, although
some might think it would be too obvious--which might in turn tend to
prove the point.
Arthur shrugged mentally and returned to his work. He stared at the
design of coils and condensers and wires and felt a little sick, which
was strange for he should have become used to it by now. This design,
together with nine others, would form the complete pattern for printing
a mechanism on a thin disc which would be inserted in the watch-like
affair known as a respirator. It was somehow ironic, he thought that he
should be working on it.
His intercom buzzed and he reached to flick on the switch. A
business-like voice said: "Dunlop, this is Samson, can you come in for
a minute?"
"Of course," Arthur said calmly, but he wondered what his superior
wanted. First, the note about a WBI man; now this.
The big door marked "Charles L. Samson, Mgr., Dept. 40" confronted him.
As he neared it, electric eyes probed him, timed his approach, opened
the door automatically.
Charles L. Samson, Mgr., Dept. 40, graying and cleanly mustached, was
intently studying a sheet of paper on which were typewritten several
paragraphs. Arthur drew to a halt before the man's desk, unconsciously
fidgeting mentally and wondering if the item of interest on that paper
concerned him.
The manager carefully put the paper down and raised his eyes.
"Everything okay, Dunlop?"
"Simply great," he answered automatically.
The older man leaned back in his chair. "Dunlop," he said, "you've been
here for some time now, I believe."
"Five years this month," Arthur supplied, trying to put pride in his
voice.
"Precisely," Samson agreed. "And because you have been a loyal and
dependable worker," he smiled blandly, "you'll find a little something
extra in your pay envelope from now on."
Arthur breathed a sudden sigh of relief. So that was it, the automatic
pay increase. It meant no financial gain, of course, since he would
also automatically be put in a higher tax bracket which would just
offset the increase. Pay raises were for "morale" purposes only.
"Thank you, sir," Arthur said, hoping he sounded as though he meant it.
"Quite all right," Samson said, turning once more to his papers.
"Yes, sir." Arthur strode, relieved, from the office.
* * * * *
The rest of the workday passed uneventfully and it was time to leave.
The soft hum of preparations testified to that. Plans were folded,
locked securely into desks, and workers filed past probing mechanical
eyes that scanned them for anything hidden. Doors whirred open
electrically, and humanity poured through them into tubecars which
hissed with sickening speed to the helibus terminal.
Arthur flowed into a helibus with the others, and his heart gave a
sudden jump as he saw a familiar blonde form ahead of him. Julie! He
wormed his way forward and sank onto the air-cushion beside her. She
did not look at him. The helibus lurched skyward.
She was staring out the window, at the blue sky and the cloudfaces and
the sun beginning to dip low at the horizon. The building they had
left glowed with the million setting suns reflected from its great bank
of windows. After awhile, her fingers moved restlessly. Arthur Dunlop
watched them idly. The movements were swift, seemingly random but
actually precise and predetermined.
They said: "I couldn't hesitate at your desk; I had to take a chance
with the note."
Arthur glanced complacently about him, stifling a yawn. His fingers
rippled: "Who is the WBI agent?"
"Underground doesn't know--yet," she told him silently. "Meet me
tonight."
"Will I see the leader?" he asked.
"Meet me tonight," was all she would reply.
He nodded, as though to himself, and stared at the signs adorning the
inside of the bus. Names made familiar by television leaped at him.
There was Ronson, Franklin, Stallman, Eliot, names of all kinds to give
the impression of existence to a long-dead free enterprise; all were
government owned, competing to enhance the illusion.
Who was the leader, he wondered, and why the secrecy? Some government
bigwig probably, who kept his secret from all but a few. Well, time
would tell.
He glanced out the window at the countryside rushing below. Trees.
Green fields. The beginnings of the city of small square dwellings. A
man got up, went to the rear of the helibus. After awhile, Arthur rose,
went down the aisle to the exit platform. He paused for a minute, and
then he stepped into space.
The air whirled about him; twin rotors, appearing from his clothing,
churned and scraped the air, lowering him gently through the five
hundred feet to the ground. Overhead, the helibus continued its
prescribed journey, discharging passengers who resembled fluttering
insects. He came to rest gently atop his roof, and the rotors ceased
and folded invisibly beneath his coat.
The moon had risen well into the twilight sky, that moon which only a
few hundred years before had furnished lovers with inspiration. Now,
looking at it, one thought inevitably of the Lunar Prison Colony that
occupied its entire surface, of the persons who had been sentenced to
spend years on its ugly barren wasteland. Inspiration came possibly,
but it was of a different nature.
He descended into the house, into the single room that was bedroom,
living room, parlor. Helen, brunette and beautiful, attired in the
semi-transparent slacks that were the decreed style, rose from the
couch and gave him a wifely peck on the cheek.
"Everything okay?" she asked, not appearing particularly interested.
The standard question.
"Simply great," he said.
He settled into a hard plastic chair, uncomfortable but designed to
improve posture.
* * * * *
The television set was blaring: "Nothing could be greater than to have
a respirator made by Fra-a-a-a-nklin!" On the 40-inch screen a happy
couple, Franklin respirators on their happy wrists, were bouncing
happily across a miniature solar system, using planets for stepping
stones.
I must be an atavist, he thought. How can people actually put up with
this stuff. He could not subdue the grimace that rose automatically,
but he managed to turn it into a grin as he saw Helen looking at him
curiously.
"Something funny?"
"Nothing in particular." He couldn't very well tell her he thought a
government-sponsored commercial was amusing. That was the equivalent of
treason, for which the Lunar Prison Colony had been constructed.
Not that Helen wasn't understanding. Their marriage had been lacking in
many things, true, but she was inclined to be fair and broadminded on
most issues which were not controlled. But when it came to things like
the State and its directives, most people got emotionally patriotic. It
was something like trying to discuss religion a century earlier, except
that in the present case arguments could be easily won by sending the
"treasonous" person to the prison satellite. The law made plain what
was right and what was not.
"I was just thinking," he said, hoping to explain the grimace, "about a
fellow at the office. He suggested that we should get a rebate on the
airtax, because we don't utilize all the air we breathe in."
"You reported him, of course."
"Worse than that. We told him if he didn't like it he could stop
breathing. Crime doesn't pay anymore."
"I should hope not," she said, and she seemed perfectly serious.
There was no point in arguing with Helen, so he didn't. She apparently
had little interest in politics other than a layman's desire to see
justice prevail, and if the government wanted to tax the air they
breathed, why--let them; they were taxing everything else.
That's why he found himself drawn irresistibly to Julie; she wasn't a
slave to convention. That's why he liked to meet her in the darkness
of the outside, when the curfew forbade anyone venturing into the
night--at least, that was one reason. She was part of the forbidden
fruit he secretly desired and vowed would have.
A government official's benign face appeared on the television screen
to announce the Super State program. The World Flag materialized,
waving in a studio-inspired breeze, and a chorus chanted: "Super State,
Super State, Simply great is Super Sta-a-ate!"
"Sixty minutes of uninterrupted commercial," Arthur Dunlop thought with
distaste. Plays and songs subtly presented to show that contemporary
living was equivalent to a golden age. He was careful, however, not to
let his face reveal his mind's opinion.
"The airtax man will be around to read the meter tonight," Helen
reminded him.
"Fine," he murmured, but already he was only half-aware of the world
around him as he dozed while appearing outwardly alert.
There was a time, he remembered vaguely, when there were no such
things as respirators, when the air you breathed was free. For twenty
of his thirty-four years he had known that golden era. There were
taxes, of course, but only on the food you ate, the money you earned,
the entertainment you saw, et cetera, almost ad infinitum. Air, it
seemed--much to the government's evident dissatisfaction--was an
untaxable commodity, a luxury which even the poor could enjoy without
restriction.
Then came the war. The war that caused all peoples to finally unite
under one government to insure peace. Arthur Dunlop knew of the war,
for he was a part of it. He fought back to preserve his life, and they
gave him a medal for it, a piece of cloth and metal which indicated
that he was lucky enough to survive. It was another war to make the
world safe for something or other, and he still recalled with a shudder
the Battle of Boston, the Siege of New York, the great topplings of
great cities into greater dust.
To counteract the poisonous by-products of civilized weapons, the
respirators had been developed--small watch-like mechanisms that
enabled the wearers to breathe in practically any atmosphere. After the
war, they had been adapted to a new use.
"What?" Arthur Dunlop said.
Helen was extending a carton marked "6-C." "Mealtime," she declared.
He took the box, another development of the Last War, and opened it.
Standardization was the keynote, he remembered, for in that there is
unity. Standardization of clothing, of living, of eating, of thinking.
He plopped a pill marked "steak" into his mouth, nibbled absently at
the ones labeled "bread" and "potatoes and gravy," and then followed
with a pill called "coffee." It might have been funny had he been able
to view the scene objectively, but the time when he had been able to
do that had long passed. They were the best government-made pills and
tasted not a bit like their labels.
From the television set, an enthusiastic voice declared: "Ronson Rotors
are the best, Try the thousand foot drop test, Be convinced it'll break
your fall, Ronson Rotors are the best of all!"