The Science Fiction of Mark Clifton, page 11
“I’ll do my best, Carl,” Jay answered.
“Just tell me what is keeping you from moving those ships,” the Secretary said firmly, almost grimly. Then he flashed them his famous smile. “Good day, Admiral.” He winked fondly at Jay, and said, “Thanks, boy. I know I can count on you.”
His face faded from the screen. Jay sat back down in his chair and faced the Admiral, who was no longer frosty. The Admiral’s face was pale, his lips bloodless and lined.
“As I was saying, Admiral,” Jay continued affably, “I need a good petty officer to assist in rounding up those parts. Do you think we might possibly find one?” The Admiral let a sigh escape him, and his shoulders relaxed visibly.
“I’m sure we can, Mr. Murray,” he answered.
“Thank you, Admiral,” Jay arose and started toward the door.
“Oh—er—Mr. Murray,” the Admiral called to his back. Jay turned and faced him. The Admiral rubbed his chin with his fingers, and then looked toward the window and the ships outside.
“Er—ah—in our zeal to make sure the line operated in shipshape fashion, I’m wondering if perhaps we may not—”
“Admiral Littlefield,” Jay interrupted him. “In my report to the Secretary of Space, and through him to World President and Congress, I shall have nothing but praise for the diligence of your organization to that effect.”
The Admiral whirled around from the window and looked sharply at Jay. He allowed a faint smile to wreath around his lips.
“Still,” he said, “I feel that somehow, somewhere, we may also have been at fault. Perhaps we may have been even too diligent.”
Jay grinned at him broadly from the door.
“Well, Admiral, in the interests of perfect operation, your officers have been pretty zealous with their directives.”
The Admiral grasped his chin again and rubbed it while he looked thoughtful.
“No doubt,” he mused, as if he had only now thought of it, “each branch and echelon of the service has felt its directives to be vital. But if we, of a higher echelon, with a broader grasp of the problem, should review them—it is possible we may find an occasional one, here and there, which could be suspended.”
Jay let his expression assume the proper gratitude.
“Would you be so kind, Admiral? I hesitated to ask, in view of all your responsibilities. And also, I did not wish to convey the impression that Intersol wished to do a haphazard job.”
“Not at all, sir,” the Admiral made a slight nod with his head. “I realize the conscientiousness of your Company, and its personnel. I wish to require that you, sir, feel free to call upon me at any time, for anything which may affect the good of our combined operation. Will you do that, Mr. Murray?”
“An honor, sir,” Jay answered and bowed slightly. “One which I do not merit.”
“Perhaps you do, Mr. Murray,” the Admiral said softly. “Perhaps you do.”
“Good day, sir,” Jay smiled. “Good day, Mr. Murray,” the Admiral answered, and also bowed slightly. His eyes were still a little frosty, but they were also wary. And deep within them, there was respect—and a faint amusement. Beneath the layers upon layers of training and discipline, the Admiral was still human.
Within three days all the ships were back in space again. Jay saw the last of them off, and headed for Earth.
It was ten o’clock in the morning, and his secretary was taking him to task again for filling his appointment book too full, when the intercom lit up.
“Mr. Hammond calling, Mr. Murray,” the operator announced, and there was light hearted music spread all over her voice. The pressure was off, and life was worth living again.
“Look, Jay,” Hammond said, as soon as his face had cleared on the screen. For the first time in months, the face showed evidence of rest. “What the hell happened out on Mars?”
“Didn’t you get my report?” Jay asked, deadpan.
“Sure. I got your report,” Hammond answered. “Here, I’ll read it back to you. ‘Am pleased to report all ships are spaceworthy and entire operation will shortly be back on schedule.’ End of report! Now Mister Murray, what kind of a report is that?”
Jay laughed loudly.
“Bill,” he chided. “You caught the report habit from Space Transport. We run a Space Line, not a paperwork factory, remember? ‘Results, not reports,’ remember when you used to say that?”
“All right, all right,” Hammond grumbled. “Not only that. Every department of Intersol is flooded with cancellations of directives. Damn near every hazard they threw under our feet has been cleaned away. What did you do?”
“It turned out to be a personnel matter, after all,” Jay answered. “A small psychological matter of knowing how to deal with the official mind.”
“Suppose you let me in on the secret,” Hammond asked resignedly. “I’ll give up trying to get a report, and be happy with results. But just tell me one thing. What the hell is the technique of dealing with the official mind?”
“Oh that,” Jay answered, and suppressed a smile. “Why, you bow down to them, Bill. You bow down low enough for them to see a club behind your back!”
SOLUTION DELAYED
with Alex Apostolides
Before you can solve a problem you must acknowledge the problem exists. To acknowledge it exists, you must acknowledge you don’t know the answer. But if you don t know the answer, then how can you solve it . . .?
The offices and buildings of Tech Control were not impressive. Impressiveness was still the prerogative of World Government, Political. Tech Control, the centers of actual world government, seemed to pride itself on offices which remained small, humble, almost shoddy. In that, at least, they were wise. As yet, human nature had not changed. The pomp and circumstance of political control was still mistaken for strength and power by the public. Tech Control was thus left free to concern itself with the things which really mattered.
Nor do tech engineers require gilt and glitter to get their work done. They remain impatient with enormous systems which exist for the sake of their own complexity. Engineers, unlike synthesist administrators, seem to feel it is the bare essentials which count. As such, even the most complex engineering project becomes relatively easy to handle—say such a project as governing an entire world.
Even the Southwestern Division Offices of Tech Control shared the custom of obscurity rather than follow the custom of Greater Los Angeles for the glorification of front. Only two blocks away from the vast buildings of Intersol, manufacturers of interplanetary ships, there on the edge of the Mojave Desert, Div Tech occupied a squat four-story building. It sought no attention, nor got it from the public.
Yet it was from this office that the entire program of colonization of planets and satellites stemmed. In every major city throughout the world there were World Government, Political buildings, with thousands of clerks and administrators to interview the thousands of families who thought they might like to colonize—if conditions were made quite comfortable, comparable to those on Earth, you understand. And still more clerks and administrators to answer the hundreds of thousands of questions, feeding the spurious movies and news releases to the general public.
But World Government, Political knew no more what families were finally chosen, or what really happened on the planets than did the general public.
Strangest of all, considering such a thing of tremendous import, there was comparatively little more than apathy. For Earth was a comfortable and comforting place to live. The great problem had been solved. Man was learning to live with himself and took the indolent attitude of an overgrown lazy lad, “Who wants to buck reality when the beds at home are so soft, the food so good, and the treatment so indulgent?” Nor was there anything in the contrived films and releases to excite the spirit of adventure.
Spot checks revealed that, as with the old propaganda films released on TV, ninety-nine and 33/100ths per cent of the people immediately punched irritably at video-control buttons to pick up something interesting instead.
Little of all this filtered back to the squat building of Div Tech, and that which did, received most attention from the heat-control engineer who complained of burning so much paper
in his furnaces.
Seeming to match the squat building of Div Tech, and the sparse offices, Business Agent Follette Langley, a man insignificant in appearance, sat behind his desk in an office equally insignificant. With apparent indolence, face tending to flabbiness, hair beginning to thin, eyes mild and expressionless, his attitude toward his visitor was one of patient tolerance. He would waste time hearing his visitor’s grievance; but without supporting curves and charts, without math formulae, without trajectories of slide-rule calculated plots, Langley’s attitude seemed to imply that the conversation was no more than that—a waste of time.
Arthur Cameron sat in his chair across the desk from Langley, but he was neither relaxed nor indolent. Involuntarily his dark eyes flashed in hostility at the reception he was obtaining. But as with a long line of Labor Relations men before him, when dealing with Business Agents, Cameron kept his voice under control.
“These restrictions, inspections, red tape tie-ups in the selection and training of workers are ruining us,” he said forcefully. “You’ve got a shop steward over at Intersol who thinks he’s a dictator. I tell you Langley, it’s come to a showdown. Either you get him out of there, or I get out. We can’t both be Labor Relations Director. We’re simply grinding down to a halt with his constant interference in my work.”
“Seems to me you’ve just completed Interplanetary Ship#, haven’t you?” Langley answered mildly. “That doesn’t look as if Intersol is grinding to a stop.” He took an old-fashioned tobacco cigarette from a case and held the tip of it against an infrared lighter. His entire gesture was one of boredom.
“But in spite of Slater and his spies,” Cameron said more bitingly than he had intended. Every time he talked to this man, Langley, he grew furious in spite of himself.
“Slater is all right,” Langley said soothingly. “Perhaps a little over-zealous at times. He’s just making sure that the covenants of Tech Control are not being violated. It would be very simple, you know, for your company to start manufacturing weapons under the guise of something else, or make an undue profit on these ships at the expense of the public.”
“Nonsense,” Cameron exploded, and leaned forward in his chair. “Do you think we’re foolish enough to buck the Union of Physical Scientists? How could we make such things without accredited engineers, your own members, knowing about it? Who would there be to design them? Design the machinery to make them, design the production flow to turn them out, except members of the Union of Physical Scientists? And who would use weapons if we made them? The entire world runs on technology. Nothing can happen in it without the knowledge of technologists, members of UPS. What earthly purpose does it serve to have Slater and his crowd eternally spying, sneaking in microphones, tapping intercom videos, hiding in dark corners—”
“Your sermon is showing, Cameron,” Langley said quietly, and made no effort, to hide the amusement in his eyes. “Didn’t you once write a book on human tensions?” he switched the topic suddenly, “And wasn’t it your central theme that there was a productive and self-satisfying place for every member of our society, regardless of the warp of his tensions?” He sat up a little straighter and seemed to take a greater interest in his theme.
“It has been better than fifty years now since UPS delivered its ultimatum. You remember that ultimatum, Cameron. Every schoolboy knows it. No technologist will work on an implement of war. No technologist will work on a project where graft for a few men will be at the expense of the many.”
“I’ll not deny it was a great dream,” Cameron conceded. “In principle.”
“Not too difficult to achieve, either,” Langley said reflectively. “No more difficult than the early days of trade unions generally. Easier, in fact. What uneducated and often unthinking men could do was not too difficult for the trained technologists.”
“Incompatible though, with the very training and education they had,” Cameron commented.
“Oh no. We had just one hurdle to overcome. Prior to UPS it was the contention of technologists throughout the world that theirs was not the field of sociology, that they had no responsibilities to mankind for the use to which their work was put. Until they realized, almost simultaneously all over the world, that sociology is every man’s job; that man could never solve his Great Problem by not letting his right hand know what his left hand was doing; that the making and using of an implement is all one continuous flow of cause-effect-sequence, and cannot be separated by any arbitrary line of responsibility evasion. When that hurdle was passed, UPS became a spontaneous reality.” He paused significantly, as if there were no more to be said.
“I’m not so sure it was a wise thing,” Cameron said slowly.
“Not wise?” Langley asked curiously, and leaned forward. “Not wise to take the simplest, most direct, infallible means of keeping mankind from destroying himself? But even if there had been nothing else, no other reason at all, UPS still had to come into existence for the very guarantee of the continued life of science itself. What kind of scientist would it be who would take no means to protect himself and the world against the results of his research? Scientists may be many things, Cameron, but they are not irrational.”
“I’m not so sure,” Cameron repeated stubbornly. “Perhaps your very logic, in the end, will be the destruction of man.”
“That’s a curious statement,” Langley opened his eyes wider.
“To me there is something ominous about this slide rule, cybernetic kind of thinking,” Cameron leaned forward and placed his clasped hands on the desk top. “It’s thin, too thin; as if equations were being substituted for wisdom. I feel it all about me, a sort of stasis, a frozen mold; as if nothing but technology can develop, and even that frozen into molded patterns of thinking. The capacity of man for unlogic, illogic, may yet be his only solution.”
“Oh now, now,” Langley leaned back in his chair and shook his head in mild exasperation. “Coming from a man of some intelligence—Look, man,” he interrupted himself, “for the first time in history we are governed by reason, instead of superstition and power madness. In these fifty years there has been no war, or threats of war, or persecution of minorities, or graft, or profiteering—”
“I consider the social force which funnels the best of our young men into just such thought patterns, to be a subtle form of persecution,” Cameron interrupted quietly.
“Anybody been throwing stones at you lately,” Langley asked as if he were talking to a small child in a tantrum. “Or calling your children nasty names?”
“I think neither of us will ever understand the other,” Cameron said hopelessly, as if to end the conversation. “You think man has found the solution—the beneficent rule of technology. I think your control system is no superior to any other that man has ever devised, in that it is equally narrow in outlook to all the others. All have come eventually to a dead end. And I see the dead end here, already, in this tension that there is no future except technology and the slide rule is its prophet.” Then angrily, “But even that will grind to a halt if you fill our shops with Slaters!”
“What would you have us do with the Slaters of the world?” Langley asked curiously. “Crime, as such, has been virtually eliminated. People are too comfortable to get themselves into such messes. You know as well as I that our police forces have been reduced to a minimum. They don’t even need to help old ladies across the street any more. Traffic servomechanisms handle that. There is no need in general society now for the kind of talents, or tensions, you seem to think Slater has.”
“Think he has!” Cameron exploded and stood up suddenly. “That nasty, spying, Peeping Tom—”
“But as a shop steward,” Langley put the tips of his fingers together and ignored Cameron’s outburst, “he is productive. He is using his tensions for the benefit of society. Turn him loose upon his community, without productive direction for the satisfaction of his tensions—No Cameron, you are quite typical of those without the engineering brand of trained thinking. You contradict yourselves so much, and so wildly.”
“I take it you refuse to do anything about Slater.” Cameron held onto the back of his chair with white knuckles.
“When you get back to the plant, you might send him over. Apparently he hasn’t been very clever,” Langley conceded, and obviously suppressed a grin.
Cameron glared at him, and then laughed bitterly. His thin, strong face was a study in frustrations.
“I see,” he said with finality. “That’s all I’ve gained.”
“And Cameron,” Langley said placating, “don’t worry about it. Just go ahead as you always have, smoothing out the little tensions, allowing people to blow off steam to you, arbitrating the little grievances. You’re a valuable man, Cameron, with that bedside manner of yours. And you talk the language of the ordinary people who can’t, and don’t want to learn to think. But let us worry about the production of spaceships. That’s really our job, you know. We are the technologists.”
He watched Cameron walk angrily through the door. There was a speculative look in Langley’s eyes, and he pressed his finger down upon a signal button.
In another office a clerk caught the signal, and stopped stalling.
“Why yes, Miss Hills,” he said suddenly and flashed her a smile. “I think I can arrange for your inspection party of the new ship. As the plant’s dietician, you’ll be most interested. It’s all fitted and stocked, you know; ready for the take-off. Of course we will seal the control room, that’s classified. But the men on this list, with their wives and families are welcome to make an inspection of the rest of the ship. Nice public relations. Tomorrow evening? Will that be all right?”
