Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume One

by Short Story Anthology

He got out of bed and went through the rituals of showering, shaving and clothing, of coffee, sausage, and eggs, toast and more coffee.

  What amazed Larry Woolford was the shrug-it-off manner in which the Boss seemed to accept this underground Movement and its admitted subversive goals—whatever they were. Carry the Boss' reasoning to its ultimate and subversion was perfectly all right, just as it didn't involve force and violence. If he was in his chief's position, he would have thrown the full resources of the department into tracking down these crackpots. As it was, he, Larry Woolford was the only operative on the job.

  He needed a new angle on which to work. Steve Hackett was undoubtedly handling the tracing down of the counterfeit with all the resources of the Secret Service. Possibly there was some way of detecting the source of the paper they'd used.

  He finished his final cup of coffee in the living room and took up the pipe he was currently breaking in. He loaded it automatically from a humidor and lit it with his pocket lighter. Three drags, and he tossed it back to the table, fumbled in a drawer and located a pack of cigarettes. Possibly his status group was currently smoking British briars in public, but, let's face it, he hated the confounded things.

  He sat down before the phone and dialed the offices of the Sun-Post and eventually got Sam Sokolski who this time beat him to the punch.

  Sam said, “You shouldn't drink alone. Listen, Larry, why don't you get in touch with Alcoholics Anonymous. It's a great outfit.”

  “You ought to know,” Larry growled. “Look, Sam, as science columnist for that rag you work for you probably come in touch with a lot of eggheads.”

  “Laddy-buck, you have said it,” Sam said.

  “Fine. Now look, what I want to know is have you ever heard—even the slightest of rumors—about an organization called the Movement?”

  “What'd'ya mean, slightest of rumors? Half the weirds I run into are interested in the outfit. Get two or three intellectuals, scientists, technicians, or what have you, together and they start knocking themselves out on the pros and cons of the Movement.”

  Larry Woolford stared at him. “Are you kidding, Sam?”

  The other was mystified. “Why should I kid you? As a matter of fact, I was thinking of doing a column one of these days on Voss and this Movement of his.”

  “Voss and this movement of his!”

  “Sure,” Sam said, “he's the top leader.”

  “Oh, great,” Larry growled. “Look, Sam, eventually there is probably a story in this for you. Right now, though, we're trying to keep the lid on it. Could you brief me a little on this Movement? What are they trying to put over?”

  “I seem to spend half my time briefing you in information any semi-moron ought to be up on,” Sam said nastily. “However, briefly, they're in revolt against social-label judgments. They think it's fouling up the country and that eventually it'll result in the Russkies passing us in all the fields that really count.”

  “I keep running into this term,” Larry complained. “What do you mean, social-label judgments, and how can they possibly louse up the country?”

  Sam said, “I was present a month or so ago when Voss gave an informal lecture to a group of twenty or so. Here's one of the examples he used.

  “Everybody today wants to be rated on a (1) personal, or, (2) social-label basis, depending on which basis is to his greatest advantage. The Negro who is a no-good, lazy, obnoxious person demands to be accepted because Negroes should not be discriminated against. The highly competent, hard working, honest and productive Negro wants to be accepted because he is hard-working, honest and productive—and should be so accepted.

  “See what I mean? This social-label system is intended to relieve the individual of the necessity of judging, and the consequences of being judged. If you have poor judgment, and are forced to rely on your own judgment, you're almost sure to go under. So persons of poor judgment support our social-label system. If you're a louse, and are correctly judged as being a louse, you'd prefer that the social dictum ‘Human beings are never lice’ should apply.”

  Larry said, “What in the devil's this got to do with the race between this country and the Russkies?”

  Sam said patiently, “Voss and the Movement he leads contend that a social-label system winds up with incompetents running the country in all fields. Often incompetent scientists are in charge of our research; incompetent doctors, in charge of our health; incompetent politicians run our government; incompetent teachers, laden with social-labels, teach our youth. Our young people are going to college to secure a degree, not an education. It's the label that counts, not the reality.

  “Voss contends that it's getting progressively worse. That we're sinking into an equivalent of a ritual-taboo, tribal social-like situation. This is the system the low-level human being wants, yearns for and seeks. A situation in which no one's judgment is of any use. Then his lack of judgment is no handicap.

  “According to members of the Movement, today the tribesman type is seeking to reduce civilization back to ritual-taboo tribalism wherein no one man's judgment is of any value. The union wants advancement based on seniority, not on ability and judgment. The persons with whom you associate socially judge you by the amount of money you possess, the family from which you come, the degrees you hold, by social-labels—not by your proven abilities. Down with judgment! is the cry.”

  “It sounds awfully weird to me,” Larry grumbled in deprecation.

  Sam shrugged. “There's a lot of sense in it. What the Movement wants is to develop a socio-economic system in which judgment produces a maximum advantage.”

  Larry said, “What gets me is that you talk as though half the country was all caught up in debating this Movement. But I haven't even heard of it, neither has my department chief, nor any of my colleagues, so far as I know. Why isn't anything about it in the papers or on the TriD?”

  Sam said mildly, “As a matter of fact, I took in Mort Lenny's show the other night and he made some cracks about it. But it's not the sort of thing that's even meant to become popular with the man in the street. To put it bluntly, Voss and his people aren't particularly keen about the present conception of the democratic ideal. According to him, true democracy can only be exercised by peers and society today isn't composed of peers. If you have one hundred people, twenty of them competent, intelligent persons, eighty of them untrained, incompetent and less than intelligent, then it's ridiculous to have the eighty dictate to the twenty.”

  Larry looked accusingly at his long-time friend. “You know, Sam, you sound as though you approve of all this.”

  Sam said patiently, “I listen to it all, Larry my boy. I think Voss makes a lot of sense. There's only one drawback.”

  “And that is?”

  “How's he going to put it over? This social-label system the Movement complains about was bad enough ten years ago. But look how much worse it is today. It's a progressive thing. And, remember, it's to the benefit of the incompetent. Since the incompetent predominates, you're going to have a hard time starting up a system based on judgment and ability.”

  Larry thought about it for a moment.

  Sam said, “Look, I'm working, Larry. Was there anything else?”

  Larry said, “You wouldn't know where I could get hold of Voss, would you?”

  “At his home, I imagine, or at the University.”

  “He's disappeared. We're looking for him.”

  Sam laughed. “Gone underground, eh? The old boy is getting romantic.”

  “Does he have any particular friends who might be putting him up?”

  Sam thought about it. “There's Frank Nostrand. You know, that rocket expert who was fired when he got in the big hassle with Senator McCord.”

  ***

  When Sam Sokolski had flicked off, Larry stared at the vacant phone screen for a long moment, assimilating what the other had told him. He was astonished that an organization such as the Movement could have spread to the extent it evidently had through the country
's intellectual circles, through the scientifically and technically trained, without his department being keenly aware of it.

  One result, he decided glumly, of labeling everything contrary to the status quo as weird and dismissing it with contempt. Admittedly, that would have been his own reaction only a week ago.

  Suppose that he'd been at a cocktail party, and had drifted up to a group who were arguing about social-label judgments and the need to develop a movement to change society's use of them. The discussion would have gone in one ear, out the other, and he would have muttered inwardly, “Weirds,” and have drifted on to get himself another vodka martini.

  Larry snorted and dialed the Department of Records. He'd never heard of Frank Nostrand before, so he got Information.

  The bright young thing who answered seemed to have a harried expression untypical of Records employees. Larry said to her, “I'd like the brief on a Mr. Frank Nostrand who is evidently an expert on rockets. The only other thing I know about him is that he recently got in the news as the result of a controversy with Senator McCord.”

  “Just a moment, sir,” the bright young thing said.

  She touched buttons and reached into a delivery chute. When her eyes came up to meet his again, they were more than ever harried. They were absolutely confused.

  “Mr. Franklin Howard Nostrand,” she said, “currently employed by Madison Air as a rocket research technician.”

  “That must be him,” Larry said. “I'm in a hurry, Miss. What's his background?”

  Her eyes rounded. “It says ... it says he's an Archbishop of the Anglican Church.”

  Larry Woolford looked at her.

  She looked back, pleadingly.

  Larry scowled and said, “His university degrees, please.”

  Her eyes darted to the report and she swallowed. “A bachelor in Home Economics, sir.”

  “Look here, Miss, how could a Home Economics degree result in his becoming either an Archbishop or a rocket technician?”

  “I'm sorry, sir. That's what it says.”

  Larry was fuming but there was no point in taking it out on this junior employee of the Department of Records. He snapped, “Just give me his address, please.”

  She said agonizingly, “Sir, it says, Lhasa, Tibet.”

  A red light flicked at the side of his phone and he said to her, “I'll call you back. I'm getting a priority call.”

  He flicked her off, and flicked the incoming call in. It was LaVerne Polk. She seemed to be on the harried side, too.

  “Larry,” she said, “you better get over here right away.”

  “What's up, LaVerne?”

  “This Movement,” she said, “it seems to have started moving! The Boss says to get over here soonest.”

  ***

  The top of his car was retracted. Larry Woolford slammed down the walk of his auto-bungalow and vaulted over the side and into the seat. He banged the start button, dropped the lift lever, depressed the thrust pedal and took off at maximum acceleration.

  He took the police level for maximum speed and was in downtown Greater Washington in flat minutes.

  So the Movement had started moving. That could mean almost anything. It was just enough to keep him stewing until he got to the Boss and found out what was going on.

  He turned his car over to a parker and made his way to the entrance utilized by the second-grade department officials. In another year, or at most two, he told himself all over again, he'd be using that other door. He had an intuitive feeling that if he licked this current assignment it'd be the opening wedge he needed and he'd wind up in a status bracket unique for his age.

  LaVerne looked up when he hurried into her anteroom. She evidently had two or three calls going on at once, taking orders from one phone, giving them in another. Something was obviously erupting. She didn't speak to him, merely nodded her head at the inner office.

  In the Boss' office were six or eight others besides Larry's superior. Their expressions and attitudes ran from bewilderment to shock. They weren't the men you'd expect to have such reactions. At least not those that Larry Woolford recognized. Three of them, Ben Ruthenberg, Bill Fraina and Dave Moskowitz were F.B.I. men with whom Larry had worked on occasion. One of the others he recognized as being a supervisor with the C.I.A. Walt Foster, Larry's rival in the Boss' affections, was also present.

  The Boss growled at him, “Where in the heavens have you been, Lawrence?”

  “Following our leads on this so-called Movement, sir,” Larry told him. “What's going on?”

  Ruthenberg, the Department of Justice man, grunted sour amusement. “So-called Movement, isn't exactly the correct phrase. It's a Movement, all right.”

  The Boss said, “Please dial Records and get your dossier, Lawrence. That'll be the quickest way to bring you up on developments.”

  Mystified, but already with a growing premonition, Larry dialed Records. Knowing his own classification code, he had no need of Information this time. He got the hundred-word brief and stared at it as it filled the screen. The only items really correct were his name and present occupation. Otherwise his education was listed as grammar school only. His military career had him ending the war as a General of the Armies, and his criminal career record included four years on Alcatraz for molesting small children.

  Blankly, he faded the brief and dialed his full dossier. It failed to duplicate the brief, but that was no advantage. This time he had an M.D. degree from Johns Hopkins, but his military career listed him as a dishonorable discharge from the navy where he'd served in the steward department. His criminal record was happily nil, but his religion was listed as Holy Roller. Political affiliations had him down as a member of the Dixiecrats.

  The others were looking at him, most of them blankly, although there were grins on the faces of Moskowitz and the C.I.A. man.

  Moskowitz said, “With a name like mine, yet, they have me a Bishop of the Orthodox Greek Catholic Church.”

  Larry said, “What's it all about?”

  Ruthenberg said unhappily, “It started early this morning. We don't know exactly when as yet.” Which didn't seem to answer the question.

  Larry said, “I don't get it. Obviously, the Records department is fouled up in some manner. How, and why?”

  “How, we know,” the Boss rumbled disgustedly. “Why is another matter. You've spent more time than anyone else on this assignment, Lawrence. Perhaps you can tell us.” He grabbed up a pipe from his desk, tried to light it noisily, noticed finally that it held no tobacco and threw it to the desk again. “Evidently, a large group of these Movement individuals either already worked in Records or wriggled themselves into key positions in the technical end of the department. Now they've sabotaged the files.”

  “We've caught most of them already,” one of the F.B.I. men growled, “but damn little good that does us at this point.”

  The C.I.A. supervisor made a gesture indicating that he gave it all up. “Not only here but in Chicago and San Francisco as well. All at once. Evidently perfectly rehearsed. Personnel records from coast to coast are bollixed. Why?”

  Larry said slowly, “I think I know that now. Yesterday, I wouldn't have but I've been picking up odds and ends.”

  They all looked at him.

  ***

  Larry sat down and ran a hand back through his hair. “The general idea is to change the country's reliance on social-label judgments.”

  “On what,” the Boss barked.

  “On one person judging another according to social-labels. Voss and the others—”

  “Who did you say?” Ruthenberg snapped.

  “Voss. Professor Peter Voss from the University over in Baltimore section. He's the ring leader.”

  Ruthenberg snapped to Fraina, “Get on the phone and send out a pick-up order for him.”

  Fraina was on his feet. “What charge, Ben?”

  Ben Ruthenberg snorted. “Rape, or something. Get moving, we'll figure out a charge later. The guy's a fruitcake.” />
  Larry said wearily, “He's evidently gone into hiding. I've been trying to locate him. He managed to slip me some knockout drops and got away yesterday.”

  The Boss looked at him in disgust.

  Ruthenberg said evenly, “We've had men go into hiding before. Get going, Fraina.”

  Fraina left the office and the others looked back to Larry.

  The Boss said, “About this social-label nonsense—”

  Larry said, “They think the country is going to pot because of it. People hold high office or places of responsibility not because of superior intelligence, or even acquired skill, but because of the social-labels they've accumulated, and these can be based on something as flimsy—from the Movement's viewpoint—as who your grandparents were, what school you attended, how much seniority you have on the job, what part of town you live in, or what tailor cuts your clothes.”

  Their expressions ran from scowls and frowns to complete puzzlement.

  Walt Foster grumbled, “What's all this got to do with sabotaging the country's Records tapes?”

  Larry shrugged. “I don't have the complete picture, but one thing is sure. It's going to be harder for a while to base your opinions on a quick hundred-word brief on a man. Yesterday, an employer, considering hiring somebody, could dial the man's dossier, check it, and form his opinions by the status labels the would-be employee could produce. Today, he's damn well going to have to exercise his own judgment.”

  LaVerne's face lit up the screen on the Boss' desk and she said, “Those two members of the Movement who were picked up in Alexandria are here, sir.”

  “Send them in,” the Boss rumbled. He looked at Larry. “The F.B.I. managed to arrest almost everyone directly involved in the sabotage.”

  The two prisoners seemed more amused than otherwise. They were young men, in their early thirties—well dressed and obviously intelligent. The Boss had them seated side by side and glared at them for a long moment before speaking. Larry and the others took chairs in various parts of the room and added their own stares to the barrage.