He started running, away from Pinario, down the gravel road. Grasshoppers leaped away, ahead of him. Gasping, he ran faster and faster.
“Leon!” Mr. Pinario called after him. “You might as well give up! Stop running!”
“I’ve got business in those hills,” Wiseman panted, still jogging along. Suddenly something struck him full force; he sprawled on his hands, tried to get back up. In the dry midday air, something shimmered; he felt fear and pulled away from it. A shape formed, a flat wall…
“You won’t get to those hills,” Mr. Pinario said, from behind him. “Better stay in roughly one place. Otherwise you collide with things.”
Wiseman’s hands were damp with blood; he had cut himself falling. In bewilderment, he stared down at the blood…
Pinario helped him out of the cowboy suit, saying, “It’s as unwholesome a toy as you could want. A short period with it on, and the child would be unable to face contemporary reality. Look at you.”
Standing with difficulty, Wiseman inspected the suit; Pinario had forcibly taken it from him.
“Not bad,” he said in a trembling voice. “It obviously stimulates the withdrawal tendencies already present. I know I’ve always had a latent retreat fantasy toward my childhood. That particular period, when we lived in the country.”
“Notice how you incorporated real elements into it,” Pinario said, “to keep the fantasy going as long as possible. If you’d had time, you would have figured a way of incorporating the lab wall into it, possibly as the side of a barn.”
Wiseman admitted, “I—already had started to see the old dairy building, where the farmers brought their market milk.”
“In time,” Pinario said, “it would have been next to impossible to get you out of it.”
To himself, Wiseman thought, If it could do that to an adult, just imagine the effect on a child.
“That other thing you have there,” Pinario said, “that game, it’s a screwball notion. You feel like looking at it now? It can wait.”
“I’m okay,” Wiseman said. He picked up the third item and began to open it.
“A lot like the old game of Monopoly,” Pinario said. “It’s called Syndrome.”
The game consisted of a board, plus play money, dice, pieces to represent the players. And stock certificates.
“You acquire stock,” Pinario said, “same as in all this kind, obviously.” He didn’t even bother to look at the instructions. “Let’s get Fowler down here and play a hand; it takes at least three.”
Shortly, they had the Division Director with them. The three men seated themselves at a table, the game of Syndrome in the center.
“Each player starts out equal with the others,” Pinario explained, “same as all this type, and during the play, their statuses change according to the worth of the stock they acquire in various economic syndromes.”
The syndromes were represented by small, bright plastic objects, much like the archaic hotels and houses of Monopoly.
They threw the dice, moved their counters along the board, bid for and acquired property, paid fines, collected fines, went to the “decontamination chamber” for a period. Meanwhile, behind them, the seven model soldiers crept up on the citadel again and again.
“I’m tired of that,” the child-dummy said. “Do something else.”
The soldiers regrouped. Once more they started out, getting nearer and nearer the citadel.
Restless and irritable, Wiseman said, “I wonder how long that damn thing has to go on before we find out what it’s for.”
“No telling.” Pinario eyed a purple-and-gold share of stock that Fowler had acquired. “I can use that,” he said. “That’s a heavy uranium mine stock on Pluto. What do you want for it?”
“Valuable property,” Fowler murmured, consulting his other stocks. “I might make a trade, though.”
How can I concentrate on a game, Wiseman asked himself, when that thing is getting closer and nearer to—God knows what? To whatever it was built to reach. Its critical mass, he thought.
“Just a second,” he said in a slow, careful voice. He put down his hand of stocks. “Could that citadel be a pile?”
“Pile of what?” Fowler asked, concerned with his hand.
Wiseman said loudly, “Forget this game.”
“An interesting idea,” Pinario said, also putting down his hand. “It’s constructing itself into an atomic bomb, piece by piece. Adding until—” He broke off. “No, we thought of that. There’re no heavy elements present in it. It’s simply a five-year battery, plus a number of small machines controlled by instructions broadcast from the battery itself. You can’t make an atomic pile out of that.”
“In my opinion,” Wiseman said, “we’d be safer getting it out of here.” His experience with the cowboy suit had given him a great deal more respect for the Ganymedean artificers. And if the suit was the benign one …
Fowler, looking past his shoulder, said, “There are only six soldiers now.” Both Wiseman and Pinario got up instantly. Fowler was right. Only half of the set of soldiers remained. One more had reached the citadel and been incorporated.
“Let’s get a bomb expert from the Military Services in here,” Wiseman said, “and let him check it. This is out of our department.” He turned to his boss, Fowler. “Don’t you agree?”
Fowler said, “Let’s finish this game first.”
“Why?”
“Because we want to be certain about it,” Fowler said. But his rapt interest showed that he had gotten emotionally involved and wanted to play to the end of the game. “What will you give me for this share of Pluto stock? I’m open to offers.”
He and Pinario negotiated a trade. The game continued for another hour. At last, all three of them could see that Fowler was gaining control of the various stocks. He had five mining syndromes, plus two plastics firms, an algae monopoly, and all seven of the retail trading syndromes. Due to his control of the stock, he had, as a byproduct, gotten most of the money.
“I’m out,” Pinario said. All he had left were minor shares which controlled nothing. “Anybody want to buy these?”
With his last remaining money, Wiseman bid for the shares. He got them and resumed playing, this time against Fowler alone.
“It’s clear that this game is a replica of typical interculture economic ventures,” Wiseman said. “The retail trading syndromes are obviously Ganymedean holdings.”
A flicker of excitement stirred in him; he had gotten a couple of good throws with the dice and was in a position to add a share to his meager holdings. “Children playing this would acquire a healthy attitude toward economic realities. It would prepare them for the adult world.”
But a few minutes later, he landed on an enormous tract of Fowler holdings, and the fine wiped out his resources. He had to give up two shares of stock; the end was in sight.
Pinario, watching the soldiers advance toward the citadel, said, “You know, Leon, I’m inclined to agree with you. This thing may be one terminal of a bomb. A receiving station of some kind. When it’s completely wired up, it might bring in a surge of power transmitted from Ganymede.”
“Is such a thing possible?” Fowler asked, stacking his play money into different denominations
“Who knows what they can do?” Pinario said, wandering around with his hands in his pockets. “Are you almost finished playing?”
“Just about,” Wiseman said.
“The reason I say that,” Pinario said, “is that now there’re only five soldiers. It’s speeding up. It took a week for the first one, and only an hour for the seventh. I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest go within the next two hours, all five of them.”
“We’re finished,” Fowler said. He had acquired the last share of stock and the last dollar.
Wiseman arose from the table, leaving Fowler. “I’ll call Military Services to check the citadel. About this game, though, it’s nothing but a steal from our Terran game Monopoly.”
“Possibly they do
n’t realize that we have the game already,” Fowler said, “under another name.”
A stamp of admissibility was placed on the game of Syndrome and the importer was informed. In his office, Wiseman called Military Services and told them what he wanted.
“A bomb expert will be right over,” the unhurried voice at the other end of the line said. “Probably you should leave the object alone until he arrives.”
Feeling somewhat useless, Wiseman thanked the clerk and hung up. They had failed to dope out the soldiers-and-citadel war game; now it was out of their hands.
The bomb expert was a young man, with close-cropped hair, who smiled friendlily at them as he set down his equipment. He wore ordinary coveralls, with no protective devices.
“My first advice,” he said, after he had looked the citadel over, “is to disconnect the leads from the battery. Or, if you want, we can let the cycle finish out, and then disconnect the leads before any reaction takes place. In other words, allow the last mobile elements to enter the citadel. Then, as soon as they’re inside, we disconnect the leads and open her up and see what’s been taking place.”
“Is it safe?” Wiseman asked.
“I think so,” the bomb expert said. “I don’t detect any sign of radioactivity in it.” He seated himself on the floor, by the rear of the citadel, with a pair of cutting pliers in his hand.
Now only three soldiers remained. “It shouldn’t be long,” the young man said cheerfully. Fifteen minutes later, one of the three soldiers crept up to the base of the citadel, removed his head, arm, legs, body, and disappeared piecemeal into the opening provided for him. “That leaves two,” Fowler said.
Ten minutes later, one of the two remaining soldiers followed the one ahead of him.
The four men looked at each other. “This is almost it,” Pinario said huskily.
The last remaining soldier wove his way toward the citadel. Guns within the citadel fired at him, but he continued to make progress.
“Statistically speaking,” Wiseman said aloud, to break some of the tension, “it should take longer each time, because there are fewer men for it to concentrate on. It should have started out fast, then got more infrequent until finally this last soldier should put in at least a month trying to—”
“Pipe down,” the young bomb expert said in a quiet, reasonable voice. “If you don’t mind.”
The last of the twelve soldiers reached the base of the citadel. Like those before him, he began to dissemble himself.
“Get those pliers ready,” Pinario grated.
The parts of the soldier traveled into the citadel. The opening began to close. From within, a humming became audible, a rising pitch of activity.
“Now, for God’s sake!” Fowler cried.
The young bomb expert reached down his pliers and cut into the positive lead of the battery. A spark flashed from the pliers and the young bomb expert jumped reflexively; the pliers flew from his hands and skidded across the floor. “Jeez!” he said. “I must have been grounded.” Groggily, he groped about for the pliers.
“You were touching the frame of the thing,” Pinario said excitedly. He grabbed the pliers himself and crouched down, fumbling for the lead. “Maybe if I wrap a handkerchief around it,” he muttered, withdrawing the pliers and fishing in his pocket for a handkerchief. “Anybody got anything I can wrap around this? I don’t want to get knocked flat. No telling how many—”
“Give it to me,” Wiseman demanded, snatching the pliers from him. He shoved Pinario aside and closed the jaws of the pliers about the lead.
Fowler said calmly, “Too late.”
Wiseman hardly heard his superior’s voice; he heard the constant tone within his head, and he put up his hands to his ears, futilely trying to shut it out. Now it seemed to pass directly from the citadel through his skull, transmitted by the bone. We stalled around too long, he thought. Now it has us. It won out because there are too many of us; we got to squabbling…
Within his mind, a voice said, “Congratulations. By your fortitude, you have been successful.”
A vast feeling pervaded him then, a sense of accomplishment.
“The odds against you were tremendous,” the voice inside his mind continued. “Anyone else would have failed.”
He knew then that everything was all right. They had been wrong.
“What you have done here,” the voice declared, “you can continue to do all your life. You can always triumph over adversaries. By patience and persistence, you can win out. The universe isn’t such an overwhelming place, after all…”
No, he realized with irony, it wasn’t.
“They are just ordinary persons,” the voice soothed. “So even though you’re the only one, an individual against many, you have nothing to fear. Give it time—and don’t worry.”
“I won’t,” he said aloud.
The humming receded. The voice was gone.
After a long pause, Fowler said, “It’s over.”
“I don’t get it,” Pinario said.
“That was what it was supposed to do,” Wiseman said. “It’s a therapeutic toy. Helps give the child confidence. The disassembling of the soldiers”—he grinned—“ends the separation between him and the world. He becomes one with it. And, in doing so, conquers it.”
“Then it’s harmless,” Fowler said.
“All this work for nothing,” Pinario groused. To the bomb expert, he said, “I’m sorry we got you up here for nothing.”
The citadel had now opened its gates wide. Twelve soldiers, once more intact, issued forth. The cycle was complete; the assault could begin again.
Suddenly Wiseman said, “I’m not going to release it.”
“What?” Pinario said. “Why not?”
“I don’t trust it,” Wiseman said. “It’s too complicated for what it actually does.”
“Explain,” Fowler demanded.
“There’s nothing to explain,” Wiseman said. “Here’s this immensely intricate gadget, and all it does is take itself apart and then reassemble itself. There must be more, even if we can’t—”
“It’s therapeutic,” Pinario put in.
Fowler said, “I’ll leave it up to you, Leon. If you have doubts, then don’t release it. We can’t be too careful.”
“Maybe I’m wrong,” Wiseman said, “but I keep thinking to myself: What did they actually build this for? I feel we still don’t know.”
“And the American Cowboy Suit,” Pinario added. “You don’t want to release that either.”
“Only the game,” Wiseman said. “Syndrome, or whatever it’s called.” Bending down, he watched the soldiers as they hustled toward the citadel. Bursts of smoke, again … activity, feigned attacks, careful withdrawals…
“What are you thinking?” Pinario asked, scrutinizing him.
“Maybe it’s a diversion,” Wiseman said. “To keep our minds involved. So we won’t notice something else.” That was his intuition, but he couldn’t pin it down. “A red herring,” he said. “While something else takes place. That’s why it’s so complicated. We were supposed to suspect it. That’s why they built it.”
Baffled, he put his foot down in front of a soldier. The soldier took refuge behind his shoe, hiding from the monitors of the citadel.
“There must be something right before our eyes,” Fowler said, “that we’re not noticing.”
“Yes.” Wiseman wondered if they would ever find it. “Anyhow,” he said, “we’re keeping it here, where we can observe it.”
Seating himself nearby, he prepared to watch the soldiers. He made himself comfortable for a long, long wait.
At six o’clock that evening, Joe Hauck, the sales manager for Appeley’s Children’s Store, parked his car before his house, got out, and strode up the stairs.
Under his arm he carried a large flat package, a “sample” that he had appropriated.
“Hey!” his two kids, Bobby and Lora, squealed as he let himself in. “You got something for us, Dad?” They crowd
ed around him, blocking his path. In the kitchen, his wife looked up from the table and put down her magazine.
“A new game I picked for you,” Hauck said. He unwrapped the package, feeling genial. There was no reason why he shouldn’t help himself to one of the new games; he had been on the phone for weeks, getting the stuff through Import Standards—and after all was said and done, only one of the three items had been cleared.
As the kids went off with the game, his wife said in a low voice, “More corruption in high places.” She had always disapproved of his bringing home items from the store’s stock.
“We’ve got thousands of them,” Hauck said. “A warehouse full. Nobody’ll notice one missing.”
At the dinner table, during the meal, the kids scrupulously studied every word of the instructions that accompanied the game. They were aware of nothing else.
“Don’t read at the table,” Mrs. Hauck said reprovingly.
Leaning back in his chair, Joe Hauck continued his account of the day. “And after all that time, what did they release? One lousy item. We’ll be lucky if we can push enough to make a profit. It was that Shock Troop gimmick that would really have paid off. And that’s tied up indefinitely.”
He lit a cigarette and relaxed, feeling the peacefulness of his home, the presence of his wife and children.
His daughter said, “Dad, do you want to play? It says the more who play, the better.”
“Sure,” Joe Hauck said.
While his wife cleared the table, he and his children spread out the board, counters, dice and paper money and shares of stock. Almost at once he was deep in the game, totally involved; his childhood memories of game-playing swam back, and he acquired shares of stock with cunning and originality, until, toward the conclusion of the game, he had cornered most of the syndromes.
He settled back with a sigh of contentment. “That’s that,” he declared to his children. “Afraid I had a head start. After all, I’m not new to this type of game.” Getting hold of the valuable holdings on the board filled him with a powerful sense of satisfaction. “Sorry to have to win, kids.”
The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories Page 24