In the Control Tower
Page 2
II
There was an unholy Friday restlessness upon Dewforth. To make mattersworse, it was the last Friday in March. Logically, perhaps, thisshould not have made any difference because Dewforth worked in one ofa number of identical windowless rooms in a building from which allnatural rhythms had been rigorously excluded. From skylights high inthe ceilings of the drafting rooms came a light which had beenpasteurized and was timeless. It could have been artificial.
His work provided no refuge for his thought. It was demanding, butonly mechanically so. Strictly speaking, he did not know what he wasdoing. No one did, apparently. He did not have the satisfaction ofknowing that what he did was real. He filled large sheets of plasticwith tracings of intricate, interconnected schematic hieroglyphs. Buthe knew that in another place a template would be laid over his work.An irregular portion like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle would be cut outof it and the rest, perhaps more than half of his work, would bedestroyed.
It was even possible that all of it was destroyed.
Dewforth worked for a firm which made components. Of what, no onesaid, no one asked. _Components, Inc._, the firm was called. He knewthat the finished products were small, heavy and very complicated.Their names were mute combinations of letters and numbers, joined byhyphens or separated by virgules. Some said that these componentsperformed no functions. Others said that they worked, but theiroperations corresponded to no known human need. It was known that someof the finished products themselves were destroyed. Some maintainedthat they were dissolved in vats of hydrofluoric acid. Others arguedthat they were encased in cement, then taken out to sea in speedboatson moonless nights and jettisoned. The favorite rumor was that theentire firm was a decoy to bewilder agents of foreign powers andpre-empt their espionage efforts. There was neither proof of this norevidence to the contrary.
The penalty for circulating this last rumor was immediate dismissalwith prejudice.
In another place, another time, Dewforth might have spread the burdenof his mood by confiding in other workers, but not under thecircumstances so painstakingly arranged by _Components, Inc._ in theinterest of what was called _The Inter-loathing Index_, or I.I. It wasan axiom of modern industry that a high I.I. meant high productivityand also tighter security. The latter was as much the measure of theimportance of an industry as what it made or how much. That there wasdesign in the egg-box compartmentation of workspaces, for example, wasobvious enough. Less overt were the lengths to which Personnel hadgone to discourage the exchange of information, or confidences, amongemployees.
Under the guise of aptitude testing, the psychologists had been ableto select and organize teams consisting entirely of mutuallyincompatible individuals. So well had they succeeded that most workerscould barely stand the sight of one another, and so were driven backupon themselves and their work. Only by practicing an almost egg-likeself-containment could a draftsman or other worker hope to get throughthe day without open conflict and disaster.
Latent antipathies among workers were further intensified by means ofthe Annual Proficiency Competitions. At the conclusion of these testsall employees save two were given Proficiency Stars. Of the remainingtwo, one was invariably a person who had shown signs of becoming toopopular among his fellows. He was given a Leadership Star, and becausean affable man was usually less rather than more efficient than therest, this made of him a lonely little air-bubble in a sea ofresentment.
The second of the two workers was always discharged. Thus a dash ofanxiety was added to the proceedings.
* * * * *
The visible manifestations of high I.I. were hectic color, acharacteristic ferocity of eye and throbbing jaw-hinges. Often thejaw-hinges of an entire team would be pulsating at once, sometimeseven in unison. This spectacle emanated an overwhelming feeling ofearnestness and purpose. Executives were fond of pointing out thisphenomenon to visiting dignitaries. "Observe their jaw-hinges," theywould say.
Another factor which isolated employees from one another was thepeculiarly virulent form of halitosis which afflicted all workerswithout exception. The company cafeteria was the source of thismalady.
Thus, if Dewforth had been the only employee in that vast complex ofbuildings, or in the world, he could not have been restlessness. Addto this the fact that it had been his misfortune to win the LeadershipStar in the Proficiency Competitions only three days earlier. He didnot have to trace the bitter stream of his mood any farther back thanthat to find the bile-source.
The object of the contest had been to draw a single line 28-5/8 incheslong and 1/15,000 of an inch thick, a feat which is starkly simple inconception but only theoretically feasible. The draftsmen had spenthours preparing the surfaces of paper, straining ink through filters,honing drawing pens with emery and polishing them with rouge, drawingpractice lines and scrutinizing them with powerful bench microscopes.They did Balinese finger exercises, Chinese body coordinationexercises, Hindu breathing exercises and Tibetan spiritualcalisthenics to dispel their incipient shakes. When the great momentcame, a solemn little group of executives entered the drafting roomand stood about in attitudes of grave ceremonial courtesy.
The draftsmen then drew their lines.
When it was over, the judges examined and graded the lines and thescores were announced by Mr. Shrank, the foreman. The better scoresprompted little flutters of restrained applause from the executives.This moist and muted sound had reminded Dewforth of a hippopotamusventing its wind under water, and in a moment of thoughtlessexhilaration he had even thought of sharing this bizarre notion withhis wife. He never did so, as it happened.
* * * * *
Why had he ever told his wife about that wretched Leadership Star? Herlaughter persisted through his dreams, or through his dream. He onlyhad one. In this dream she was always a massive machine which ingestedsongbirds between steel rollers and stamped them into pipe-flangegaskets at a rate of one hundred and twenty per minute.
And the prize-winning line he had drawn--it revealed its true naturein the perspective of days. There was no mistaking what it was. It wasThe Abyss. It could widen and it could engulf. How much light would aLeadership Star cast in that bottomless inkiness?
Acute restless had the effect of sending Dewforth frequently to thelavatory, not so much for physiological reasons as because there wasno other place to go and he had to go somewhere when the white wallsof the drafting room threatened to crush him. He went as often as hethought he could without attracting the attention of Mr. Shrank oreliciting ponderous jocosities from the other workers. After severalvisits, however, he did begin to question himself. What drew him tothat bleak refuge again and again? He was not aware of bladderirritation. He had no infantile obsession about such facilities. Washe driven by an aggregation of petty forces, each too small to makesense by itself? Or was there one reason hiding behind a cloud ofsmall rationalizations? There was a difference in the air in thelavatory, and in the sound--the undifferentiated background soundwhich came from nowhere. Nowhere?
It came through a window.
He had been staring at a window--probably the only one in thebuilding--and it had failed to register on his mind at the timebecause he had not expected it to be there. It was not part of thehabitual pattern. He had seen a window. He had, moreover, lookedthrough a window. What had he seen? He thought about this, and at thesame time he thought about being sick--administratively sick. Hesucceeded in working up a palpable fever and a windy yawning beneaththe diaphragm. Before taking any action he would have to confirm whathe had seen through the window of the lavatory.
On his last trip to the lavatory he climbed up onto the slipperywashbasin and looked through the high window. His position there wouldbe impossible to explain, of course, if anyone should come in. He waspast caring about that. The unpasteurized air made him a little drunkand the sound--the immense distant sighing groan like a giant'swhisper--filled his brain. It made him want to expand to meet itsomehow.
Only on
e immense skeleton foot was visible, but there was no questionabout exactly what it was.
No conventional structure would curve upward in that way. There was nopoint of reference by which to determine how far away it was, and theair was blue with haze, giving everything an appearance of remotenessand of unreality. He had never seen the city from that angle before,but if what he saw was what he thought it was, how could it have beenso close without his knowing about it before this time? It was a thingwhich belonged to vast distances--spatial distances and other kinds ofdistance as well. Now it was close, or he was closer to it than he hadever imagined he would be in his life.
It was accessible.
Dewforth left at half past three when the somnolence of afternoon washeaviest on the heads of the other draftsmen. He did not speak to Mr.Shrank about it. He did not clear with Miss Plock in the dispensary,nor with Mr. Fert in Personnel, nor with Miss Yurt in WageReadjustment, nor with Miss Bort in Sick Leave Subdivision, nor withMiss Vibe in Special Problems, nor with Mr. Pfister in Sick Claims,nor with Miss Grope in Employee Grievances, nor with Miss Rupnick inCompany Grievances, nor with Miss Guggward in Allowance Reductions,nor with Mr. Droon in Privilege Curtailment, nor with Miss Tremulo inPsychological Counseling, nor with Dr. Schreck in Spiritual AidSubdiv.
He did not even trouble to see Miss Nosemilker who kept the time book.
He just left.