COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 313
Hoag said, "We're agreed on the main point, though. I want you to listen to this closely. You play chess with Carolyn Kohl. You don't want her to lose."
Breden frowned. "I don't quite agree with that. It's natural to want to win, isn't it?"
"Normally. But in the past Carolyn Kohl has showed herself a far better chess player than you. Lately, these tests of yours show, you've found her easier to beat. But you haven't won many games. Now why is that?"
"I don't know," Breden said politely.
"Because you haven't let yourself win. You'd rather make an obviously fatal move for one of your own men than prove to yourself something you've been trying to ignore. The fact that Carolyn Kohl has become inefficient. She is sixty-eight years old. She is slowing down. The earliest beginnings of senility are beginning to affect her brain. And she holds one of the most responsible positions in the world. She guards the uranium pile."
Breden said, "But ... Carolyn—"
"Am I right?"
Breden didn't answer.
Dr. Hoag said, "You know what depends on the safety of keeping this unit below CM. And critical mass is something you can't play with. The physicists who are selected for this duty are very carefully chosen. And once a month they're given a psych check. The efficiency of the organization must be perfect. If it isn't, if the human factor fails at one point, there's the danger of an atomic blast. And that can mean the end of civilization."
It would. That, too, was axiomatic. That had been dinned in the ears of the world for a hundred years. Safety lay in only one thing; keeping the uranium piles and civilization below critical mass.
"All right," Hoag said, leaning back. "Naturally you're afraid. You don't dare let yourself realize that the human factor, represented by Carolyn Kohl, is failing. So you try to assure yourself that she's not failing. The symbol is chess. As long as she can beat you at chess, you can feel safe in assuming that she's not weakening. That explains your deviation from the norm. So. Now look at these."
He pushed a card and a tape toward Breden, who took them and looked inquiringly at the psychiatrist.
Hoag said, "Latest report on Carolyn Kohl. I've had some of it put into language you can understand. It should reassure you. She's still at par. Your phobia is imaginary. It can be eliminated. There is no trace of approaching senility in her mind or body."
One of the medics said, "Dr. Hoag—"
"Just a moment, please. Breden, please study those reports. We'll be back soon."
Hoag rose and went out with the others.
-
It had worked, then. There would be another routine test tomorrow night, when he came back on duty, but he was safe for the nonce. And, after all, Carrie hadn't suffered. His momentary twinge of guilt died; he hadn't hurt her by passing the buck. And he had saved himself.
Nevertheless conscience stirred. As far as he knew, there had been no question till now of Carolyn Kohl's capabilities. He had implanted the first doubt. Nothing would come of it as yet, but the psychiatrists, he felt certain, would from now on watch her tests with a more stringent eye. But that wasn't his affair! Anybody who became really incapable shouldn't be on the staff here.
His heart lightened almost tangibly as the elevator rose through the enormous ziggurat.
The ziggurat. The coping stone. The keystone of the arch. Uranium Pile One. The one thing that now, quite strangely, after a hundred years, the security of the world depended on—more than merely a symbol, it was the Power itself.
A protective thought came: is it more than a symbol, after all?
A hundred years ago, fifty years ago, even, the human factor was more important. Now there were the machines. He and Carolyn Kohl and the other nuclear physicists—weren't they purely ornamental, by this time? For if the terror ever reached CM, what could the human factor do that the protective machines could not do better?
Was the human guard merely a guard of honor—an anachronistic symbol? Or worse—now? What had once been a strength might have become a weakness. The machines were enough. They could never turn traitor.
But he could.
-
His orders were checked; he was cleared; and in the pearly gray dawn the helicopter rose aslant along the air channels. Unseen radar watched him. He instinctively reached for the controls, but any deviation from the robot-charted course would be dangerous. He forced himself to relax, fumbling out a cigarette, type-sedative, and sucking it alight. He looked down, watching the patterns on the sea.
Too much time! He snapped open the small bookshelf and tried to find something there. Technical books, a few novels, a western—left by Carrie, of course, he realized—and a stack of wire-tape book reels. He did not even glance at the titles of these. He sank back again, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply on the half-narcotic smoke.
He tried to make plans.
There was no use worrying about this delay; no jet planes were allowed in the vicinity of the island that based Uranium Pile One. It was forbidden area, clearly marked as such on the aerial maps. Radar intercepters would have done their best to open the batteries at any unexpected intruder. It wasn't infallible; in a barrage of rockets, some would have got through, but where on earth could be based such weapons? GPC—Global Peace Commission—made certain that there could be no base that might threaten security.
In 1950 that would have been impossible. In the ancient rivalry between ballistics and armor the balance has gone back and forth as new weights have been placed in the scales. Build a better mousetrap, and eugenics will breed a better mouse—more adaptive, perhaps.
But if the geneticists are on the other side—
The experiments of UNO had culminated, after the abortive start of World War III, in GPC. Not at once. That had taken time, after the riots, the mutinies, the intrigues and the detonations had died down. There was chaos for a while. From 1946 on, the nations had been, naturally, afraid of one another. Power politics hadn't halted when Japan and Germany capitulated. Social postwar problems worried a neurotic, convalescent world. Unemployment, strikes, famine, the old labor vs. capital rivalry, economic fights between countries, blocs, and areas—the merry-go-round was still whirling.
Then the merry-go-round broke down.
International espionage was a highly developed art, squared by the new achievements of the technicians. The race for atomic power went on underground. True, the atom blast had been developed, but there must be easier ways—deadlier ways. There were!
One nation began it. But before the bombardment had really started, six other nations were unloosing their atomic power. Some of them couldn't help it. The atomic bombs secretly planted in their vital areas and key centers had been detonated by other bombs they themselves were sending up.
It was an abortive war, because no one had really counted the cost. The politicians, demagogues, and war makers had simply not comprehended what atomic power meant. To them, it had been just another weapon.
That was when GPC took—or was given—power.
It had been stronger than the League of Nations and stronger than UNO. But not strong enough. That was proved; it could not cope with an aggressor country. However, paradoxically, it could cope with a dozen aggressors, and it could do that efficiently.
For the merry-go-round had broken down. The world was partly paralyzed. Nearly every key area was crippled. But GPC remained mobile, and it was, being international, decentralized. It was a loosely integrated unit physically, but a very tight one in all other respects.
Civil war helped, too. Take a typical nation—any one. It used its atomic bombs in an attack on its neighbor, and the secretly planted blasts within its own geographic body had detonated. The centers were smashed. They could be repaired, but not instantly, and meanwhile its neighbors threatened. A general seized power; he was defied by a politician; both of them were killed by a demagogue. Meanwhile there were riots. In the military, there was mutiny.
And all of this—it took no time at all. This was an era of fast communication and transportation.
-
Only GPC remained functioning, and only GPC, with its specialized membership, had the knowledge and training for the necessary instantaneous social integration. The demagogue, seeing rivals rising, declared his country under the temporary jurisdiction of GPC. He did that to save his own hide, but that did not prevent him from being shot later. In the meantime, two other nations had fled to GPC. That gave the organization aircraft and the beginnings of a military.
It proclaimed an enforced peace. The balance shivered. Then it moved. It moved in the right direction.
For the war makers had found out, now, the true meaning of atomic power, and that global murder had been psychically contagious. The riots raging across the world had perhaps never been equaled in ferocious violence. When a man is in an ammunition dump that is on fire, he will have less hesitancy in firing a gun. The aim didn't matter. The administrators the people had depended on to save them had betrayed them, instead, and in blind fury the mobs turned on the nearest symbols that they could destroy. They had atomic power, so it was not safe to rule.
It was not safe—except for GPC. GPC was the champion. It was the only tool that could steer the world away from the vicinity of the proximity fuse.
Most nations gave up their power willingly, although only temporarily. The others were whipped into line. Or else smashed. No nation could stand against a world organization that had a policy and power to enforce it. There were no party politics in GPC.
A policy and a power. But such power had never been known or used before. It was, in the true sense of the word—unlimited!
After World War III, in sheer, blind panic and a fury for self-preservation, the globe stripped itself of weapons and armor. It gave GPC its military secrets, and if any were reserved, GPC took them too, and that made it possible for the organization to reach out and secure the hundred-year stranglehold that had maintained peace.
It was the only possible way.
But there was the inevitable danger that such a peace could not last.
GPC took stock, weighed the chances, and made its decision. It eliminated that peril. As long as the status quo held, there would be no war and atomic power could be controlled safely.
The scale had tipped in the right direction.
GPC reached out and gripped the scale. It held it motionless.
For a hundred years the grip had not relaxed.
-
IV
Naturally there were changes. This wasn't the New York of 1947. But, on the other hand, it wasn't the lovely, strange metropolis it might have been with utilization of paragravity, antigravity, and contraterrene material. The new alloys made city engineering a pleasure, and the Old Districts had been razed decades ago—the areas that had escaped atomic-blasting, that is—but a few familiar things still lingered. Nobody called Way Six anything but Broadway; place-names are harder to change than topography.
The copter had taken Breden to the Pacific sea base, and from there a jet plane raced him across ocean and land to the eastern coast. He hadn't lost much time by going from west to east; the jet plane had been nearly fast enough to equalize the time lag. Still, it was morning in New York, early morning, and he wasn't sure whether or not Louis would be in his office yet.
He was.
The dark, impassive face showed on the televisor. Louis said, "Hiya, Joe. Off duty already?"
"Yes. Till tonight. What about breakfast?"
"I've had it hours ago," Louis said. "I'll take a sandwich and coffee, though; I'm about ready for that. Hard work today! Let's see—where are you?" He looked up, reading the map light on the screen of his own visor. "O.K., at the Murray Hill. That suit you?"
"Why not," Breden said, and broke the connection. The thought of breakfast made his stomach feel queasy. He lit another sedative-cigarette and went into the nearest pneumo-tube terminal, trying to blank out his mind by studying the advertising placards.
At the Murray Hill it was difficult to open the subject. Besides, Breden didn't know how much he wanted to say. He talked idly, playing with his food, while Louis cheerfully gossiped and went into detail about his work. He was a bacteriologist; many mutants had gone into medicine of one kind or another.
"It's an atypical virus," Louis said, drawing a picture on the table top. "That doesn't mean a thing, of course. Still, it definitely puts it on the wrong side of the ledger. No research allowed. It's a pity, I suppose, but unless it develops into an epidemic, one can have only abstract interest in it. And if there should be an epidemic, the ban would be lifted, and we'd be assigned to research so we could give the little devil a label."
Breden looked at his brother. Not his brother, really, he thought. They'd had the same parents, but the same blood didn't run in their veins. How can you be kin to a mutant? And, as usual, Louis was the same casual, imperturbable success. You'd think he'd be a little self-conscious about being a freak!
Breden checked himself with a small start. What was going wrong between himself and Louis? This ... feeling ... was something new. He'd never disliked Louis before. He didn't really dislike him now. It was only that his brother made him feel gauche, embarrassed, self-conscious. But why? He was certainly as much of a success in his own field as Louis was in bacteriology.
Yes—but he'd had to work a lot harder at it! It was as though they'd both been born typists, and Louis' mutation had included a pair of extra hands. There was a hint of unfairness in it. Men were supposed to be created equal. Though, of course, they never were. The blind, precise rearrangement of genes took care of that thoroughly.
Suddenly he ached to surpass his brother in something—anything!
Louis' dark, friendly stare studied Breden. "What's on your mind?" he demanded. "I just told you there was a bubonic plague germ crawling up your arm and you nodded and said 'Sure, sure.' Is there trouble?"
Breden said, "Trouble? No. Why should there be?"
"I don't know. I don't even know why you came to see me, instead of stopping off in Colorado. After all, Margaret's there, not here. There's nothing wrong between you two, is there?"
There could never be that, Breden thought. He managed a smile.
"Relax," he said. "I'm just anxious for my week off, that's all. Overwork. It could happen to anybody."
"Yeah," Louis said, unconvinced. "I suppose those doctors out there—they know their stuff?"
"I'm healthy."
"Well, I'm no medico. But medicine's just a little too conservative these days. I know it has to be. But I always thought more of old Springfield than anybody else. He was a witch-doctor in a lot of ways. Just the same, a man like that—" Louis hesitated. "Efficiency is a wonderful thing. But the human organism isn't efficient. A slightly unorthodox GP with psychiatric leanings might be a good guy to balance your aseptic robot medics at your base."
Breden said stubbornly, "There's nothing wrong with me, Louis. The minute you see a man, you start looking for bacilli and taking his blood count."
"Not me. I'm a bacteriologist. People are just cultures to me. That babe over there." He indicated a handsome wench at a nearby table. "A hyperthyroid type. I can't help thinking what a wonderful broth she'd make for some nice germs. That's my first instinct. Luckily I have secondary reactions." He eyed the girl speculatively, but she ignored him. Louis sighed and turned back to his brother.
-
"Some nonpolitical group tried to get me to join 'em this morning," he said. "The Neoculturalists. Ever heard of 'em?"
Breden shook his head. "Should I know what they are?"
"Not necessarily. There've been a lot of these blocs lately, though. People always want to scratch. When they haven't got an itch, they imagine it. But there's no cure, I guess. There isn't any cure for shingles, though there could be. Itches in the body politic. Maybe it's some social virus. Do you suppose there could be any trouble, Joe?"
Breden, startled, said, "Of course not! Who'd make trouble?"
"People who itch," Louis said. "Not that they could do much. The minute a bloc gets too big, GPC steps in. But I can't help wondering—I'm no physicist. And I'm not asking questions; I know your work is top secret. I'm just idly asking if you've heard anything."
"Such as?"
"That's what I don't know. Call it trouble. I suppose you'd know if there were any extra precautions being taken?"
"I'd know, of course," Breden said. "I think you're the one who had better relax now. Nobody's going to drop an atomic bomb on our base."
Louis looked startled. "Lord, I hadn't considered ... I merely thought there was a little more unrest than usual. More organizations and blocs. These boys were sounding me out about interplanetary travel."
