by Mark Clifton
"You have to do this regularly,” he said in a didactic voice. “I do it everytime I want to get a new perspective on things. That is why the Navy is pulling so far ahead of the Army, we practice getting a new point of view."
"The Navy is no better than the Air Force,” the pair of wings shouted in unison. “We're upside down most of the time!” The pair of them climbed up on the table and stood on their heads also.
They seemed to be enjoying themselves hugely. I felt a little sorry for the admiral. He was trying to crawl up on the table, but age was against him. He looked as if, for the first time, he might have to admit he had to face retirement. Couldn't even stand on his head any more!
Old Stone Face had pushed himself back from the table, and his hands were still upraised, as if it were a holdup. I looked down the table at Sanfordwaithe. His eyes met mine, and the horror in them dissolved into laughter. The explanation had occurred to both of us at the same time. He stood up, he roared with laughter, he gasped, he pounded futilely on his chest, trying to get air back into his lungs. Then a new horror spread over his face, a certainty that he would laugh himself to death. Abruptly, he stopped.
"No,” he gasped as soon as he could draw a breath. “Not me, too.” He gasped in another breath, and trusted himself to look at the squirming men in the center of the table. They were shoving, pushing one another like little boys in a rough and tumble game in a schoolyard.
"I can stand on my head longer than you can!"
"Can't either!"
"Can, too!"
"My ships can lick your ol’ airplanes any day!"
"Can't either!"
"Can, too!"
"Ol’ Army's no good for nothin'!” the admiral shouted.
"Yah, yah, yah,” agreed the Air Force.
"Is, too!” Backhead's major shouted. “Good for mopping up.” He crawled down off the table and started running around the conference room. “Where's the mop?” he whined plaintively.
I caught a glimpse of Backhead's face where he still huddled in the middle of the table, down toward our end. He was no longer caught up in the mob psychology. Like Henry, Sanfordwaithe, and myself, he was an observer. His face was sick with despair.
"Call off your dogs, Kennedy,” Sanfordwaithe shouted at me about the tumult. “I'm convinced."
I was, too. George was no longer confined to the five lads, not necessarily so. Now I knew why there had been no disruption of our organization when red tape had been bypassed. George had simply taken over.
And what George could take over, he could also let go.
The majestic military crumbled into a heap in the middle of the table, and began to slide off its edges onto the carpeted floor. Back in their own military mind framework again, they scrambled to their feet and stood at disheveled attention. Their faces were masks of horror, for like the participants in a mob, they remembered everything they had done, but with the guiding entity gone from their minds, they could find no excuse for it.
No one shouted “At Ease!” to them, and slowly they remembered that they were big boys now, far enough along in the Military hierarchy so that someone didn't have to tell them every little move to make. Sheepishly, they relaxed and slid back into their chairs. Furtively, they began to straighten their ties, button their tunics, rearrange their medals, preen themselves, recapture the impregnable Military attitude.
I recalled the caption to a cartoon. A dear little old lady was talking to a marine general. “I can understand why you must toughen them up for battle purposes,” she said. “But when you're through with them, how do you retenderize them so they'll be fit to mingle with human beings?"
Perhaps these men had now been tenderized to the point where they could think rationally. It would seem so.
"Perhaps, Mr. Kennedy,” General Sanfordwaithe said, with a twitch of his lips, “we should run over the explanation of George once more. I think we may have missed some of the fine points."
I turned to the five lads.
"You boys can go on back to your departments now. You won't be needed here any longer."
I looked at General Sanfordwaithe, and his nod of agreement seemed to contain a considerable measure of relief.
"Yes, sir,” one of the boys said. They stood up, not quite with the precision of a drill team, a move that I now knew was calculated disorder. They looked at me, as if wanting to be reassured that they had done well. I smiled, and so did they.
For one incredible instant George took control of me, and I shared the wondrous delight of being, belonging, the ecstasy of being something beyond human. Then he released me as the boys filed out the door, and was left grubby, incomplete, ineffectual, burribling-alone.
I turned around in my chair and faced the brass and braid again. All of them were looking at me, now without accusation, except Backhead and his major. Those two sat slumped in their chairs, with bent heads, staring fixedly at the center of the table.
"It's been coming for a long time,” I began. “The whole civilization has been trending in that direction. It had to come. With billions of human beings now inhabiting the world, there is simply no way that individualism can survive. This is just an advance flash of what may be commonplace before long. It is something new, gentlemen. We don't know how these boys are allied to produce a George. More important, perhaps, we don't know what to do with George.
"And we must think of something, for idle hands, gentlemen, you know-"
PART FOUR
REMEMBRANCE AND REFLECTION
"You know anything about hypnotism, Sara?” I asked my secretary when she brought in my share of the morning's memos.
She dropped the papers into my IN box and backed away from the desk as if it were a hot fire.
"Now Mr. Kennedy,” she began warily. “You're not going to start stirring things up again are you?” She looked as if she wanted to run right back to her own office, and maybe right on out of the plant.
"Isn't it about time?” I wondered.
"Why don't you let sleeping dogs lie, Mr. Kennedy?"’ she asked plaintively. “It's been so nice these last few months."
"Can't think of anything more useless than a sleeping dog lying around,” I grumbled. “That's the trouble. Trouble with everybody. Everybody's massively fed, massively diverted, massively tranquilized-"
"Peace, it's wonderful,” she murmured.
"Most dangerous condition this country ever faced,” I said. “Want to know something, Sara? Even the usually discontented intellectuals have gone over to this happy-happy kick where anybody who views-with-alarm is a you-know-what. Scares me, Sara, when all the rest of the world-"
"Every time you get like this things happen around Computer Research,” Sara complained. “Why can't you be just an ordinary Personnel Director? Why can't you be contented just doing an ordinary job like everybody else?"
"What, for instance, am I neglecting in my ordinary job?"
"There's enough in those memos to keep you busy-"
"I'll tell you what's in those memos even before I look at them,” I interrupted. “There'll be one from Safety Engineering complaining that a certain supervisor fishes bits of metal out of the machinery with his hands without shutting down the whole production line first, and that's the way fingers get smashed. There'll be a companion piece from the supervisor asking me to tell Safety Engineering to keep its nose out of his department, and if he wants to smash his fingers they're his fingers. Big challenge to Personnel, Sara."
"You know what accidents do to our insurance rates,” she reminded.
"I know what overprotection does to production,” I reminded back. “Then there'll be a memo,” I went on, “from the Chief of Security Guards complaining that the Maintenance Supervisor refuses to stop for positive identification when he passes through security check points. The companion to that will be from the Maintenance Supervisor complaining that he passes every one of those unprintable security guards twenty times a day and if they don't know who his great grandmother kisse
d on her first date by now they never will and the whole thing is a bunch of nonsense anyhow-everybody playing Junior G-Man."
"That was yesterday's memos,” Sara said loftily.
"All right,” I answered. “Idea's the same. For instance I haven't had a complaint for quite a while from Office Supply that the design engineers refuse to turn in old pencil stubs when they want new ones-and you can't tell me they're really doing it."
"I'll keep an eye out for it, and rush it right in to you when it comes,” Sara promised, and tossed her long bob of red hair.
"You know what worries me the most of all, Sara?” I asked.
She looked wary again.
"The Pentagon,” I said. “More specifically the Poltergeist Division. I haven't heard from the Poltergeist Division of the Pentagon in over a year."
"Well, you know these government bureaus,” Sara tried to console me. “They start out going to do big things. Everybody in them rushes around designing forms and reports and statistics to impress people. First thing, they get so snowed under with filling out those forms, making those reports, and compiling those statistics there just isn't any time left to do anything. You should try it, Mr. Kennedy. Nothing like big charts and graphs and engineering curves done in colored inks to impress people with how important you are. Cover your desk and your walls with those, and you won't need to do anything at all. Except, maybe, keep them dusted."
I ignored her.
"Even General Sandfordwaithe has stopped hounding me,” I said. “Ever since the George incident, he's left me strictly alone."
"You should be glad."
"It worries me, Sara. It worries me a lot. When our own Pentagon gets so massively ... well massively something that it stops hounding us scientists-"
"You scientists!” she scoffed. Then, lest she had gone too far, “All his hounding didn't help you to produce more antigrav units."
"That's something else,” I said. “That fake Swami sits over there in his plush laboratory, holding hands with the female production line workers, and so far he hasn't learned a thing about how to activate antigrav cylinders on any kind of a dependable schedule."
"So what can you do about it?” she asked, not with curiosity but with a tone telling me I should accept the inevitable, like everybody else.
"Maybe hypnotism...” I began.
"This is where I came in,” she answered. And went out.
I got up and followed her to the connecting door between our offices. She had already sat down back of her own desk, and now couldn't very well escape without making a point of it. I leaned against the doorjamb.
"Do you think you'd have time to run over to the UCLA library this morning,” I asked, “to see if you can pick up anything on the relationship of hypnosis to psi-if any?"
She looked at her own IN box pointedly. It was stacked up a foot thick, a mute reminder that she tried to take over all the detail work and leave me with only the creative.
Creative! As, for example, I should go over to Design Engineering and say, “Please, fellows, would you mind trying to cooperate a little with Industrial Engineering's ideas and save up your pencil stubs?” I already knew what Industrial Engineering could do with pencil stubs. I didn't need Design Engineering to tell me.
Or maybe go over to Industrial Engineering and say, “Look, fellows, did it ever occur to you that it might not be maximum efficiency to bring Design Engineering minds down to the level of saving up pencil stubs?” I already knew their answer, too, about what the creative geniuses really designed and passed around when they thought nobody was looking, and how it would be raising, not lowering, their mind level to get them considering costs. This was creative personnel.
"Never mind,” I said. “I'll find time during the morning to go over to the library. Maybe that would be better, because I know what I want.” I stood there for a moment. “I think I know what I want,” I amended.
I closed the door and went back to my desk. I picked up the stack of interoffice memos. The top one was from Old Stone Face, Mr. Henry Grenoble, the General Manager. He mentioned, rather gently I thought, that I hadn't been caught trying to wreck the company for quite a while now, and what was I doing? Just sitting around drawing my paycheck.
I felt better. I had seen the evidence of George taking over more and more of the production functions of Computer Research, and the workers getting more and more like ants who knew exactly what they were supposed to do from some central source that had no corporeal identity. Marvelously efficient, and I was afraid Old Stone Face had let it soothe him into tranquility. Apparently he hadn't. I didn't feel so alone now.
My drive to the UCLA library turned out to be a waste of time. Oh, there had been a few half-hearted attempts to rouse psi through hypnotism, with results about as indecisive as other experiments. It looked as if I'd have to do my own experiments. As I leafed through the few references, I wondered how I'd be as a hypnotist.
Of course I might get the Swami to help me, but the habit of faking was so deeply ingrained in his character one couldn't tell when he was being honest because he didn't know, himself.
I managed to snag a couple of profs in the psych department, but my questions on the subject were met with much the same disdain as if I'd asked for the real truth about Unidentified Flying Objects. I should have known. There is a breed who calls himself a scientist but is really concerned only with maintaining a reputation for esoteric knowledge. As soon as the layman picks up the idea, he drops it like a hot coal, for to be identified with it now would associate him with the untouchables. Bridey Murphy and various television programs had vulgarized hypnotism until these men, whose only real concern was their own prestige, wouldn't touch it. They had the same attitude toward psi-and for the same reason.
As I climbed back into my car, I reflected that fortunately there were a few, not many but some, who were more concerned with knowledge than with REPUTATION. Lucky mankind! Otherwise...
* * * *
When I got back to the plant, Sara had a surprise waiting for me in my office. Another colonel from the Pentagon.
"Logart,” he identified himself. To his credit he did not add and emphasize, “Colonel Logart.” He let the eagles on his collar speak for themselves. He did add, “Poltergeist Division, Pentagon,” but his face broke into a broad grin when he said it.
Out of his uniform he would have been more or less nondescript, displaying none of that rugged, masculine handsomeness of the fair-haired career men in the services and denoting a possible latent something-or-other in high places. I nodded, shook hands perfunctorily, and waved him to the crying chair in front of my desk.
"Know anything about mass hypnotism?” I asked as an opener.
"After fifteen years in the service?” he countered. “What do you think basic training and all that comes after it might be?"
I'd been looking at him, but now I did a sort of double take and really saw him for the first time.
"Well now,” I grinned as broadly as he. “How have you managed to survive?"
He took my question at face value.
"One of the more or less valid facts about hypnotism is that you can't be hypnotized if you don't want to be. Of course that presupposes you know what is happening-as most don't. But I knew. And I also knew that the only way to survive that, or any other mass hypnotism framework, was to become so completely imitative that no one would realize I knew I was imitating."
"Well now,” I said again. “You and I might be able to work together. We've had a series of stuffed pouter pigeons, and-"
"I know,” he interrupted. “You've got yourself quite a reputation back at the Pentagon, Kennedy. For bringing an end to fine, promising careers, that is. We've got plenty of brave men who can stand up under bullets, or bombs, or even ridicule when it comes in from the outside. But when a man becomes ridiculous in his own eyes ... You've got quite a nasty faculty for that, Kennedy.” He'd stopped grinning, but his eyes were still twinkling with real mirth. Yet a man who
could consciously learn to be so imitative as to give the illusion he thought he was being creative could succeed in simulating almost anything. So I could only hope the mirth was real.
"That's why it was relatively easy for me to get assigned to this Company. General Sanfordwaithe was in a hole. He could order men to their death under fire without a twinge, because that's part of the hypnosis. But to order career suicide is something else. So I expect he was pretty relieved when I volunteered, or rather when I begged for the assignment."
He stopped and looked at me.
"Of course there's more,” I said, and pushed a box of cigarettes across the desk to him. He took one, lit it, and so did I.
"Yes,” he said. “There's more. Considerably more."
"Naturally."
"I'm interested in George,” he said. “I've always known that sooner or later a George would come on the scene. That is, if I got the story straight. Would you mind..."
I repeated the story of George for him. How these five young college grads came to me with the yarn that through mental identification, interplay and feedback, they had succeeded in creating a superentity, an incorporeal being for which they were merely body, hands and feet. Unlike the fleeting entity that comes into being in a mob, or other gathering of people with mental feedback and interplay, George was a permanent, an enduring-ah-personality? quality? being?-anyhow, whatever.
I told him how I had tried for months to find something that only a George could do, something that five unconnected guys couldn't do, something that required instant communication and coordination. I told him how I'd failed to think of anything because science and industry are both constructed to compensate for the lack o instant communication and coordination. I told him how George had gradually reached out and begun to take over the operation of the production planning functions of the plant; the furor caused by getting contracts out on time, for a change-I the investigation and demonstration to the Pentagon officers of his reality as an entity. And the demonstration of his power.