“Gran seems to be quite a gal.”
“She made this contrascreen, too,” Ann said, indicating the little box. “Don’t ask me how. It taps our power beam and reorganizes the atomic structure of a tiny bit of Baltex. Then it projects a screen of energy which will destroy almost anything that touches it.”
Cameron was ready. His questions were answered.
“Your council wants a sure plan of conquest, without violence?”
“Do you have an idea?” she asked eagerly.
“Listen,” Cameron said.
He talked for nearly an hour, outlining each step in detail. She listened tensely, and gradually her face began to glow. When he had finished she was beaming.
“Josh! It’s foolproof. Hurry! We must tell them!”
“This is it, Cameron thought. This is the test. If they only believe me I’ll be back in uniform within twelve hours.
She ran ahead into the elevator. As her back turned to him, Cameron scooped up the contrascreen box, slipped it under his shirt. He bulged a little, but he thought that they would be so busy with other things that it would escape notice.
They went almost at a run through the forest to the council chamber.
~ * ~
When they had explained artificial crop culture to him, Cameron stood at his place on the rim of the council table and swept the dozen men and women with earnest dark eyes. He willed himself to think as an outlaw, to believe what he said while he said it. They wouldn’t believe him if he didn’t believe himself, and he had to convince them before he could achieve his ends.
“Your entire theory,” he said, “is based on the proposition that a person accepts without question what he has learned to live by. All I have ever known is the culture of the Centers, and I have accepted it. But you, you say, see it objectively and find certain unacceptable factors. All right, I’ll grant that for the time being.”
He paused for what he felt was the right amount of time to gain their undivided attention.
“But I can look at your own situation equally objectively, and I find a certain blind idealism which cannot see weapons already at hand. Your problem of bloodless conquest is simple to me. The battle is economic in nature.”
They stirred restlessly at this, but Cameron held up a hand. “Sure, you know that. You’ve just told me. But let me go through the project all the way to the end. That’s been your trouble. You’ve run up against a wall before you reached the end. You’ve heard the first part of this a hundred times, but let me say it once more. All right?”
Gran, at the chairman’s seat, nodded shortly.
Cameron boiled it down as much as he could. He merely stated that the first step was to break down the centralization of the culture. He did not go into detail, for they had explained the procedure to him shortly after he and Ann burst into the meeting.
He reviewed the details in his mind, however, as he mentioned it, and felt once more that they advocated sound logic. If Plastic Center had a power unit and manufacturing units plus the outlaws’ secret of artificial crop culture, it would be completely self-supporting and independent of the other Centers.
Each Center could be divorced from the others and could be attacked one at a time and conquered by the outlaw contrascreen. That was the simplest solution. But, Cameron reflected, thousands, perhaps millions, would die, and the outlaws did not want that.
“Very well,” he said. “It’s simple to break down the general culture and form subsidiary cultures. These will probably become armed camps, each bent on conquest of the remainder. That is, of course, if we stopped there. You have stopped there until now.”
“Where else can we go ?” Gran demanded. “How can we take over the governments and establish a system in which each citizen has an equal voice—without killing?”
“That,” Cameron said—with a trace of smugness to make it natural—”is where you’ve overlooked your most obvious ally. Before I go into that, though, I’d like to ask something. You have your own power units, but you need Baltex? Right? You can’t manufacture power otherwise?”
“Right.”
“Then the first step in any negotiations must be a trade with Martin Grueter. The process of Baltex for power and manufacturing units. We must begin with Plastic Center before we can offer Textile and Food independence from Power Center. Right?”
“We know all that,” Gran said impatiently.
“But you hadn’t mentioned your need for Baltex,” Cameron said. “I thought I’d get it clear in my own head. Now. We have the Centers operating independently, say. Our problem is to overthrow the dictatorships and substitute a democracy—without violence. Not without force, but without violence. Right?”
“Right!” Gran snapped. “Heaven’s sake, sonny, quit stallin’.”
“Have you ever considered the councils?” Cameron asked softly.
Blank silence. Brows furrowed, but nobody said anything.
“I can see you haven’t,” Cameron went on. “You’ve called them useless. You’ve said the dictators allowed them and the useless congress to remain so that the people would believe they had a democracy. They’ve been weapons of the dictators to keep down rebellion. They’ve been allowed to do nothing but criticize. But remember that power of criticism is powerful. Look what happened to me,” he said with a rueful smile.
They still didn’t see it, and Cameron felt an honest glow of accomplishment on his face. The hell of it is, he reflected, it’ll work. I’d better keep the whip hand.
“What happens,” he asked, “when the council lodges a criticism against the head of the military? I’ll admit that’s a rare event, but it has happened and can happen again. You know what happens. He is demoted to the status of ordinary citizen, and his subordinate succeeds. Now listen.”
They did. They were barely breathing.
“Somewhere along the line of officers we can get to one. Convert him if possible, otherwise bribe him. His men will obey without question. On The Day, he will imprison all executives who are not with us and we shall move in. We shall begin an immediate program of education—by example. All citizens shall be declared equal. Since the majority are inferiors of a minority, we’ll have the mass support immediately. We’ll have Luxury Center broadcast plays demonstrating the beauties of pure Democracy as compared to the present system. We’ll make speeches. We’ll hold elections. We’ll establish a merit system of promotion.”
“What happens,” Pier Duvain asked, his dark face still skeptical, “if we have objections?”
Cameron pounced on this. He’d overlooked the point but the pressure of his arm against the little box suggested the obvious answer.
“Our first step, after taking over the government, is to demonstrate the contrascreen. After that there won’t be any objections that can’t be mediated. Now don’t tell me that this is government by force, because it need not be. No government, however powerful, will ever need to use force if it administrates for the greatest good of the greatest number. I understand that’s our slogan.”
“Shut up, all of you!” Gran snapped. “Of course he’s right. Thought maybe he had some brains. We never thought of using the councils. All we got to do now is figure a way to make the criticisms stick. Got any suggestions, sonny?”
“That’s simple,” Cameron said. “Ann is your executive in Plastic. She can ask that certain criticisms be lodged.”
“On what grounds?” Ann asked. “We didn’t cover that.”
“Let’s see,” Cameron pondered.
“I’ve got it!” Ann interrupted. “Look. We give the secret of Baltex to Textile Center, and accuse the commanding general of allowing it to be stolen. Inefficiency. Then, if we don’t own his successor, we frame him in the same way. It’s a temporary humiliation, and it’s cheating, but they’ll be restored to a political status equal to everyone else, so it won’t matter.”
“That just about wraps it up,” Cameron said. “Now I—”
“Wait a minute,” Pier Duvain
put in. “I’ll admit this sounds all right as far as we go. But what about the other Centers? We can’t frame the military there in the same way.”
“Don’t have to, Pier,” Gran said. “Didn’t he say Luxury would broadcast plays? When those conditions are actually in force in Plastic, and other Centers can see on-the-spot proof of it, what do you think the citizens will do? What would you do? You’d hightail it over to Plastic first time you could sneak through your Center’s Shield. So they’ll be forced to let us in, or become depopulated.”
So, Cameron thought, the artist is functional after all. What a laugh!
“Well?” Gran said. “Are we with him?”
Their vote was hearty and unanimous. Not a single skeptical face remained in the circle. These faces were alight. They saw the end of a system they had fled, and the beginning of one they had conceived. Where no man should call another master, where all men ranked equally on the sociological scale. This was the end of their dream, the beginning of their task.
Cameron’s emotions were somewhat mixed. Not that he had any intention of aiding in the overthrow of civilization as he knew it, but his ruse was so logical, so clear, and had so many qualities that were desirable that he was shaken to a certain degree. Not his faith. That was not shaken. But his belief was not as clear, as strong, as logical.
These outlaws were merely men and women who considered others as well as themselves. They were not brutal, they did not eat their young, they were not illiterate savages. These things he had been taught, had believed. These things were false. He did not ask himself if other “facts” as he knew them were also false. He did not want to ask himself that.
“May I make another suggestion?” he asked.
“Sonny,” Gran chuckled. “You can do any darn thing you’re a mind to.”
“I think it would be sound psychology if I went to Grueter and offered him a power unit. I’d say I’ve been captured by outlaws and got away. I was chief of police, you know. If I turn up with a surefire formula for Plastic Center independence I’d probably get my job back and be doubly valuable.”
“There’s sense to that,” Gran said. “What do you want, a plane?”
“No-o. I thought somebody could take me in. Pier, maybe.”
They thought this over. Cameron cursed himself silently. He must not, must not make them suspicious.
“You see,” he said glibly, “I’m not a pilot.”
Their faces relaxed. “Surely,” Pier Duvain said. “I’ll take you.”
“Under these conditions,” Ann said, “I’ll go back. There won’t be any more spy hunt. And I’m necessary.”
Cameron dared not object. He didn’t want Ann in this for reasons not quite clear to him. He didn’t know why; he only knew that he didn’t want her involved. But he said nothing.
“I think I’ll go, too “ Harvey Willis said. “I’d like to watch the fireworks.”
“I’ll just go along, too, for the ride,” Gran said. “Well, let’s get a vote on this proposition.” She spoke to a young man with a high forehead. “Shoot it to all the camps. Insist on an immediate vote. Let us know.”
Cameron’s jaw dropped. “You mean we may not go through with it?”
“Not if the people don’t like it,” Gran said. “What do you think a democracy is, anyway?”
~ * ~
Inside the long black plane, Cameron took a secluded chair aft on the excuse that he wanted to study the proposition to Grueter. Shielded by the seat in front, he examined the contrascreen box.
It’s face was covered with clear directions and a large warning: HANDLE WITH CARE! He found the formula he wanted—how to form a dome one hundred yards in diameter and fifty feet high. The plane would fit comfortably inside that. He set the control dial at points indicated by the formula and slipped the box back into his shirt.
They were high in the dark night above the channel between the island and mainland, and Cameron could see nothing through the observation ports but stars and far lights on the shore which probably indicated Luxury Center.
He was thankful that the vote had taken so little time, for Gran had not returned to her sentry shack after unanimous agreement of outlaw camps had been announced. Of course, she might have overlooked the absence of the box, but, on the other hand—
He strained eager eyes as the plane fled silently through the night. Plastic Prime was yet three hours away, and these began to drag. Some inner compulsion prevented his fraternizing with the outlaws, some uneasiness. He did not attempt to define this. When he became too uncomfortable, he caught Ann’s eye and was made all the more uneasy, but pleasantly so, by the warmth that flooded him.
When the klystron announced Plastic’s Shield ahead, Ann called out the collapse combination to Pier, and they were inside.
Now it begins, Cameron thought, and paced the floor in an anxiety which brought sweat to every inch of his body. It couldn’t go wrong, of course. His plan was certain to succeed. Nevertheless, he heaved a great sigh when Pier dropped into a wide, deserted field at the edge of Plastic Prime.
Two tasks remained now inside the plane. To get through the good-byes without incident, and to convince Ann that she should remain aboard. If she insisted on accompanying him he’d have to slug her again. He didn’t want to do that. He was not even sure he could force himself to it.
She was tractable, however.
“You’d better let me find out if you’re suspect,” he said. “Then I’ll let you know.”
Her eyes deepened in color as she shook hands. “Thanks for the thought, Josh. I’ll wait—for you.”
“Good luck,” they wished him, and he was off.
He paced one hundred fifty yards, turned, pressed the activisor on the box and set it under a small bush out of sight. A tiny streak of flame circled around the plane as grass tops perished under the contra-screen.
Cameron hailed the plane and Pier Duvain answered.
“I’ve set a screen around you,” Cameron said. “The dome. You’ll be here when I get back, I think.”
Pier came silently toward Cameron, a slim silhouette in the dark. He stopped ten yards away.
“What now, Cameron?”
“I’m going to turn you over to the authorities, Pier.”
Duvain said nothing. The silence became painful.
“Did you think I’d stand by and see you destroy what we live by?” Cameron demanded. “This is my world you want to overturn. I can’t let you do that.”
Duvain said nothing.
“Naturally,” Cameron said, “I feel bad about it on personal grounds. I like you and I think you’re honest. But you’re wrong, Pier, So I have no alternative.”
The others had joined Pier. They said nothing.
“I’m sorry,” Cameron said uncomfortably. “I’ll make it as easy on you as possible. But you see, don’t you, that I had no choice? It was no fault of mine that I was removed from a position in which I had a great deal of pride. Self-preservation, if nothing else, was a strong enough motive for my action. But in addition I was fighting for my world. My fight is as honest as yours, and has the added weight of majority approval.”
Nobody answered him.
“You make me feel like a first-class son of an actor,” Cameron said. “Pardon the profanity. But I’m acting according to my rights. No man can do more.”
When the silence became unbearable, Cameron wheeled and marched away. Martin Grueter’s home was not far, but it was too far for Cameron, for he didn’t like the figures who accompanied him.
These were four, close packed in the dark, immobile, silent. Ann, Duvain, Harvey and Gran. They were with him, almost realities. Everywhere he looked he saw them, motionless, silently accusing him of treachery.
Ann. She didn’t betray friends. She proved it. He had been dangerous to the world she wanted, but she hadn’t turned him in. She’d pretended to be unconscious, so that he could take her coagulator and a makeshift star. Friends.
Stop it! he commanded hims
elf silently. You’ll be turning back, first thing you know. You’ll be an outlaw, equal under their code with all men. Their system would work, too, he reflected, but look what it would do to things as they are. Even an artist would have a vote in civic affairs.
He hurried, pushing these thoughts away, and presently stood on Grueter’s identification plate. The door slid up, and Cameron entered.
Martin Grueter, big, square-faced, stood in the doorway to his bedroom and leveled a coagulator at Cameron.
“I am happy to see you,” he said in level, sneering tones. “May I be of service?”
This, more than anything that happened later, shocked Cameron. During the few hours he spent with the outlaws, he had forgotten the formalities of the Centers. Suddenly he found them empty.
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