[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction July 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Is it possible to have a world without moral values?
Or does lack of morality become a moral value, also?
The first angry rays of the sun--which, startlingly enough, still rose
in the east at 24 hour intervals--pierced the lacy tops of Atlantic
combers and touched thousands of sleeping Americans with unconscious
fear, because of their unpleasant similarity to the rays from World War
III's atomic bombs.
They turned to blood the witch-circle of rusty steel skeletons around
Inferno in Manhattan. Without comment, they pointed a cosmic finger at
the tarnished brass plaque commemorating the martyrdom of the Three
Physicists after the dropping of the Hell Bomb. They tenderly touched
the rosy skin and strawberry bruises on the naked shoulders of a
girl sleeping off a drunk on the furry and radiantly heated floor of
a nearby roof garden. They struck green magic from the glassy blot
that was Old Washington. Twelve hours before, they had revealed things
as eerily beautiful, and as ravaged, in Asia and Russia. They pinked
the white walls of the Colonial dwelling of Morton Opperly near the
Institute for Advanced Studies; upstairs they slanted impartially
across the Pharoahlike and open-eyed face of the elderly physicist and
the ugly, sleep-surly one of young Willard Farquar in the next room.
And in nearby New Washington they made of the spire of the Thinkers'
Foundation a blue and optimistic glory that outshone White House, Jr.
It was America approaching the end of the Twentieth Century. America
of juke-box burlesque and your local radiation hospital. America
of the mask-fad for women and Mystic Christianity. America of the
off-the-bosom dress and the New Blue Laws. America of the Endless War
and the loyalty detector. America of marvelous Maizie and the monthly
rocket to Mars. America of the Thinkers and (a few remembered) the
Institute. "Knock on titanium," "Whadya do for black-outs," "Please,
lover, don't think when I'm around," America, as combat-shocked and
crippled as the rest of the bomb-shattered planet.
Not one impudent photon of the sunlight penetrated the triple-paned,
polarizing windows of Jorj Helmuth's bedroom in the Thinker's
Foundation, yet the clock in his brain awakened him to the minute,
or almost. Switching off the Educational Sandman in the midst of the
phrase, "... applying tensor calculus to the nucleus," he took a
deep, even breath and cast his mind to the limits of the world and
his knowledge. It was a somewhat shadowy vision, but, he noted with
impartial approval, definitely less shadowy than yesterday morning.
Employing a rapid mental scanning technique, he next cleared his memory
chains of false associations, including those acquired while asleep.
These chores completed, he held his finger on a bedside button, which
rotated the polarizing window panes until the room slowly filled with a
muted daylight. Then, still flat on his back, he turned his head until
he could look at the remarkably beautiful blonde girl asleep beside him.
* * * * *
Remembering last night, he felt a pang of exasperation, which he
instantly quelled by taking his mind to a higher and dispassionate
level from which he could look down on the girl and even himself as
quaint, clumsy animals. Still, he grumbled silently, Caddy might have
had enough consideration to clear out before he awoke. He wondered
if he shouldn't have used his hypnotic control of the girl to smooth
their relationship last night, and for a moment the word that would
send her into deep trance trembled on the tip of his tongue. But no,
that special power of his over her was reserved for far more important
purposes.
Pumping dynamic tension into his 20-year-old muscles and confidence
into his 60-year-old mind, the 40-year-old Thinker rose from bed.
No covers had to be thrown off; the nuclear heating unit made them
unnecessary. He stepped into his clothing--the severe tunic, tights and
sockassins of the modern business man. Next he glanced at the message
tape beside his phone, washed down with ginger ale a vita-amino-enzyme
tablet, and walked to the window. There, gazing along the rows of newly
planted mutant oaks lining Decontamination Avenue, his smooth face
broke into a smile.
It had come to him, the next big move in the intricate game making
up his life--and mankind's. Come to him during sleep, as so many of
his best decisions did, because he regularly employed the time-saving
technique of somno-thought, which could function at the same time as
somno-learning.
He set his who?-where? robot for "Rocket Physicist" and "Genius Class."
While it worked, he dictated to his steno-robot the following brief
message:
Dear Fellow Scientist:
A project is contemplated that will have a crucial bearing on man's
future in deep space. Ample non-military Government funds are
available. There was a time when professional men scoffed at the
Thinkers. Then there was a time when the Thinkers perforce neglected
the professional men. Now both times are past. May they never
return! I would like to consult you this afternoon, three o'clock
sharp, Thinkers' Foundation I.