The Last Master

by Gordon R. Dickson

  Maea and Carwell both stared at him.

  “You mean the EC has deliberately…? Oh, no,” said Maea. “That’s impossible. Government today’s an open book. It hasn’t any secrets for the same reason we individuals can’t have many secrets or privacy or freedom.”

  “God help us,” said Ett. “Rico, tell these fuzzy-minded idealists what their real enemy is.”

  “Certainly,” said Rico. “It’s the central office or the bureaucracy of the Earth Council. Not all the individuals in that bureaucracy, though they’re unconscious accomplices, but the movers and shakers—the top men and women of the bureaucratic system itself.”

  “But the failings of any bureaucratic system can only merely reflect the lack of good will among its workers…” Carwell began, and then trailed off.

  “Forget your rhetoric,” said Rico. “Look at the simple facts. Just one organization—the bureaucracy that’s grown up around the Earth Council and its hundreds of subsidiary organizations and services—is what puts the food before every human on this planet daily, and ensures the roof over his or her head every night. To be able to do that means to have the machinery of control, and the bureaucracy of the EC’s got it.”

  “But you can’t do away with that kind of human service,” said Carwell. “I mean, somebody’s got to do those jobs. All that’s necessary is to make those doing it ethically and morally responsible, so that they won’t take advantage of their power.”

  “Nonsense, doctor,” said Rico. “You’re missing the point. An ethical man survives in a bureaucratic post only if he puts his ethics in second place. A bureaucracy is like a living creature, with instincts of self-preservation and an urge to control all things for its own protection. The bureaucracy of the old Roman Empire didn’t die when the Empire died; it transferred its essence into the bureaucracy of the medieval Catholic Christian Church—remember that a bureaucracy lives on even when its members, individually, die. History is full of examples of bureaucratic continuity. So a bureaucrat who doesn’t serve the need of the bureaucracy itself, will be sloughed off like a diseased cell.”

  “Thanks to the amazing advances in the technology of communications and construction over the last fifty years, the bureaucracy of Earth’s new form of government has, in that short span, managed to become many times greater than anything dreamed of in the centuries immediately following the decay of the Roman Empire. And this new bureaucracy of ours wants to continue to exist, like any living creature, whether individual humans or human institutions survive its controls or not.”

  Carwell shook his head, opened his mouth as if to argue, and closed it again in silence. He looked appealingly across at Maea.

  “No,” said Maea. “They’re right. I began to run into it five years ago. It’s impossible to work up forecasts for any area or community without having to assume a steadily growing percentage of government workers among the population. The office organization of the EC is gradually taking over all activities on the planet, just as it wound up taking over all controls, even down on the civic level, some twelve years ago. My calculations show that within as little as another thirty years all possible decision-making apparatus will be in the hands of the EC organization, down through its local offices. From then on, we’ll be frozen into a pattern with some fourteen percent of the total population as an effective aristocracy, and the rest as—nothing.”

  “Nothing?” said Carwell. “What do you mean by nothing? People with no rights at all? Slaves?”

  “Not even that,” said Maea. “The other eighty-six percent will simply be an unnecessary excess, requiring feeding and taking care of, but having no purpose for existing at all. Slaves aren’t necessary in these days of modern technology; machinery is much more efficient and reliable.”

  “And what will happen to this excess, according to your calculations?” Rico asked.

  “I can’t calculate beyond that point,” Maea said. “I can only guess.”

  “Let me guess for you,” Rico said. “The excess of the population—your eighty-six percent—will be an encumbrance. Some means—undoubtedly humane means—will be found to allow it to disappear.”

  Carwell’s face sagged.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “No, no. I can’t believe that.”

  “The idea upsets you, Morgan?” said Rico. “That’s because your ethics are at work again. You’re trying to read your own moral code into the acts of the bureaucracy. But from where I sit, an end result like that isn’t only logical, it’s inevitable. I don’t find it particularly surprising at all. I wouldn’t think a Man of Good Will would be so shocked at this.”

  Carwell looked back at him without saying anything, and a small silence took over the group.

  “Well,” said Ett, breaking it. “How about it? Do all of you want to have a hand at trying to change that future?”

  Carwell, breathing raggedly, turned to confront Ett.

  “What does this have to do with you and us, then?” he demanded. “Why get us together to tell us these things?”

  “Because I can use you,” Ett said. “I told you what I want—security and safety for Wally and myself. I can only be sure of that if I have something to hold over the head of the bureaucracy. As a system it’s got one Achilles heel—its aim is stasis, the maintenance of the status quo. That means its members keep their position in its hierarchy by playing the rules. Only they can’t always have played by the rules, or they’d be idealists and angels themselves. And I don’t believe any of them are that. So that means that somewhere there’s information I can hold over their heads, in case they ever attempt to move against Wally and me. Help me get it, and any fallout—any information we find that I don’t need—you can have to put to your own use or MOGOW use, or whatever, and good luck to you.”

  “Why should we help you?” Maea said levelly. “Why not help ourselves to any information that’s available?”

  “Because it won’t be available to you without me,” said Ett. “I’m the R-Master, remember? I’ve already got an idea of what I’m after—and I’ll be keeping that idea to myself unless you work with me. How about it?”

  “I’m with you, of course,” said Rico.

  Al did not say anything, but just matched glances with Ett for a second. He did not need to say anything.

  “Yes,” said Maea, after a fraction of a moment. “Of course I’ll help.”

  “My God, yes,” said Carwell. “You realize,” said Ett, “it means that you follow my lead, not that of your local chapter of the MOGOWs?”

  Maea and Carwell nodded.

  “Fine,” said Ett. He turned to the secretary. “Rico, will you get in touch with Lee Malone again? Tell him I’d like to bring some friends to see him tonight.”

  Rico stood up. In the process of standing, he lost the air of authority that had enfolded him while he sat, and appeared once more merely the obliging secretary.

  “Yes, Mr. Ho,” he said.

  He went inside the building. In a few moments he was back. “I’m sorry, Mr. Ho,” he said. “Master Malone said ‘Tell him he’s got to give me a good reason first’ and hung up.”

  “Call him back,” said Ett. “Tell him I already know everything he can tell me, and I’ve got a few things he doesn’t know, to tell him.”

  Rico went back inside. This time, he did not come out again. But after perhaps three minutes the phone built into the table beside Ett chimed and spoke in the secretary’s voice. “Mr. Ho,” it said, “Master Malone says he’ll expect you and your friends at seven p.m., San Diego time.”

  “In that case, I think I’ll fold up for a bit,” Ett said. “Make the arrangements, please, Rico—but leave out the security people this time.”

  ***

  This time, the southern California evening was milder; the last flush of sunset was still alive in the western sky, if barely so, as the five of them walked up the driveway toward Malone’s front door.

  “I want him to talk to us alone,” Ett said to Rico
. “Has he gotten a new secretary or staff yet, do you know?”

  “Not yet,” said Rico. “I checked on that. He makes do with a maintenance team which comes in during the day, but it leaves before 5 p.m. The whole house is automated, and unless he has house guests Lee Malone should be totally alone evenings.”

  “He’s a real hermit,” said Ett.

  “No, Mr. Ho. He’s known to often have house guests, and he always goes to places where they know him and where EC security has been provided—rather frequently, I think. He’s very different from most R-Masters.”

  A sudden shiver passed through Ett. Borne up on the excitement of the last few days, he had been able to shove his bodily ill feelings into the background. But now a small night breeze out of the warm evening made him shake, and all at once the new discomforts and weaknesses that were always with him made themselves noticed. Suddenly, he was keenly conscious of his own mortality.

  “That’s right,” he said to Rico, “I remember now you saying something about there always being the one crazy individual, the psychotic assassin, to worry about. I didn’t pay much attention at the time; is it really a danger?”

  “Yes,” said Rico. “At least to some extent. Any R-Master can be the peg on which such a mind can hang an irrational hatred or an irrational need for vengeance.”

  Ett’s own secret feelings toward Maea came uncomfortably to the front of his mind. These, like his physical troubles, had been pushed out of the forefront of his thoughts during the last few days. Now he found them back, and himself forced to look at them in close detail.

  They were all at the front door now. It opened before they could knock, and Malone looked out at them from the doorway, whiskers bristling.

  “Brought a whole crowd, did you?” he said. “All right, all right, bring them in!”

  They passed into the interior of the structure, and Malone led them to the room with the fireplace, where he had talked to Ett before.

  “Well, then,” he said, when they had all been introduced to him and were seated in a rough circle before the now-cold fireplace. “What’s this all about, Ho?”

  “To begin with,” said Ett, “can you tell me how long you were out, after you had your RIV injection?”

  “Oh, no!” crowed Malone. “No you don’t! You got in here to see me by promising to tell me things, not ask me questions.”

  “Well, then, I’ll answer that question myself,” Ett said. “The answer is, you don’t know. But it was a long time—a matter of days and perhaps weeks.”

  Malone glared at him.

  “What makes you think so?”

  “The same thing that makes me think you’re a lousy biochemist.”

  Malone continued to glare, but this time he said nothing. Ett turned to Dr. Carwell.

  “Morgan,” he said, “RIV has been under research, constantly, since it was first discovered, hasn’t it?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Carwell. “What I laid out for you to read from the library machine wasn’t a fraction of the work that’s been done on it.”

  “Still, even with that, the work of one man with RIV isn’t to be found in the library machines at all.”

  Carwell blinked.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “Master Malone, here,” said Ett, turning back to face the other R-Master, “has been studying RIV, mainly at night, for nearly forty years. Somewhere in or under this house there’s a laboratory that would make your eyes bug out—aren’t I right, Malone? The only problem has been that, as I say, he’s a lousy biochemist.”

  Maea, seated on a floor cushion next to Malone, stared up at the old man.

  “Etter Ho,” said Malone grimly, “you’ve got the kind of tongue that cuts the throat below it.”

  “I’m not worried,” Ett said. “If there’s one thing you’ll have made sure of, it’s that this place of yours is completely bug-proof as far as the EC’s concerned. The only way what I say could get carried beyond these walls is if you or any of these others with me were to repeat it, and they won’t. I’m sure of that.”

  “I’m not,” said Malone.

  “No. And that’s why you’ve made the mistake of keeping your secret all these years.” Ett turned to the others. “Let me tell you a story, one that Master Malone had planned to tell me next year. There was a time when the research being done on RIV was serious investigation.”

  “Was a time?” said Maea.

  “That’s right. But for nearly forty years,” Ett went on, “the reams of reports turned out by the researchers on RIV have been mainly a reworking of old efforts, old efforts that were already known to lead nowhere. What wasn’t a reworking of lost causes was nothing-work, simply a going through the motions of research to justify grants, salaries, and appointments.”

  “I can’t believe that!” exclaimed Carwell. “Are you sure? Have you read all the work that’s been done on RIV in the last forty years? And if so, when did you get the time to do it during the last week?”

  “No,” said Ett, “I haven’t read it all. I’ve read enough to see the pattern. Let me remind you again that we’re dealing with a human tyranny and down-to-earth causes and effects. It’s not hard to point research into a blind alley and keep it there, if you have authority and control of the funds. For forty years the EC has simply subsidized the incompetent and venal among RIV researchers. Anyone with ability found himself or herself crowded out.”

  “Why?” It was Maea who made the demand. “What makes you think so?”

  “I’ll tell you why I think they’ve done it—and the fact they’ve done it is a matter of record, if you only look at the record closely—they had to do it because something about that particular research scared the bureaucracy. It must have turned up something they thought was a threat to their system. And so effective research was stopped, even though the appearance of research was allowed to continue.”

  “You realize,” said Maea crisply, “that you’re talking about the sort of conspiracy that would be too large to keep under wraps.”

  “Not necessarily,” broke in Rico. “Bureaucrats in a working system don’t need to conspire. They’re like spiders sitting at points on a community web. If one of them starts doing something for the good of the web, it’s because conditions seem to call for it—and those same conditions will also move other bureaucrats, whether they know the whole story or not. It’s as if the vibrations travel along the strands of the web, and the rest of them, following their nature, start doing what must be done—all without any direct spider-to-spider communication whatsoever.”

  Malone jerked his head about to look at Rico.

  “Who’re you?” the older man demanded. “I thought he said you were his secretary, his EC-assigned secretary.”

  “That too,” said Rico. “But at the moment, the post is only a cover for the more important issues at hand.”

  “The point is,” said Ett, looking at Malone, “you were out of action for several weeks; but when you came completely to yourself, you were different from other R-Masters up until that time. You didn’t have any of the uncomfortableness all the others complained about. You got curious about that later on and found out you’d been kept under longer than any other R-Master then alive. Then you began to find out that R-Masters after you were acting—feeling—just like the earlier ones had. And they weren’t being kept under for days following their injection and reaction. So you guessed that something new had been tried out on you, and it had worked.”

  He paused. Malone said nothing.

  “That was a good guess. But then,” said Ett, “you tried to find out on your own what had been done to you—and that was a bad decision.”

  “Why?” said Maea.

  “Because RIV doesn’t change anyone, as far as his basic character goes,” Ett said. He was still holding his gaze steady on Malone. “That’s why we haven’t had any great creative geniuses among the R-Masters. Whatever RIV does to a human, it can’t make bricks without straw. None of t
he people who’ve become R-Masters so far were creative geniuses to begin with, so they haven’t become such as Masters, either. Malone never had any flair for biochemical research. He was a hard-engineering-type tinkerer. But he tried to duplicate a breakthrough in RIV biochemistry all by himself. It’s no wonder he’s gotten nowhere in forty years.”

  “Do you think one other—even one other person—could be involved in something like that,” demanded Malone, “and the EC wouldn’t find out?”

  “Of course they’d find out—sooner or later. But I think we’d have time to find what we’re after if we had the right people doing the searching,” said Ett. He waved his hand at the others he had brought with him. “That’s why I put this team together. Of course, it’s necessary to move fast, if a team is going to be involved. The trick will be not to duplicate research but rather to find out where the results of the original research went, and get hold of it.”

  “But what good will that do anyone?” Carwell asked.

  “The EC buried that knowledge,” Ett said. “It had to be highly dangerous to them for some reason, and if we find out the knowledge we can find the reason. The one thing that’s certain about R-Masters is that we’re good problem solvers; and we’ve got two R-Masters here.”

  “EC has sixty more,” gibed Malone.

  “Doped to the eyes or harnessed to other problems,” said Ett. “Besides, can you see the EC trusting any of the other Masters with the same knowledge we’ve got? For some reason they’re scared stiff of RIV graduates like you and me having a clear mind in a comfortable body.”

  He paused, as if waiting, but Malone sat silent.

  “Come on,” said Ett. “You’ve tried it forty years your way. What have you got to lose? Try it my way for forty days.”

  “You expect your results in that short a time?” Carwell asked Ett.

  “Yes,” he replied. “What I’m planning is a crash program, one that’ll put all our efforts into solving this thing. We can’t do that without leaving traces the Auditors can follow up, eventually, to find us. But I want to move fast enough that we succeed before they have time to do it.”