Well, these were highly personal satisfactions. He doubted very much if Garomma, for example, would be interested to know that he hailed, not from the Twentieth Agricultural Region of the Sixth District, but from a place called Canada, one of the forty-eight constituent republics of the ancient Northern United States of America. But he, Loob, was interested. Every additional bit of knowledge gave you additional power over your fellowmen, that some day, some way, would be usable.
Why, if Moddo had had any real knowledge of the transference techniques taught in the upper lodges of the Guild of the Healers of Minds, he might still be running the world himself! But no. It was inevitable that a Garomma should actually be no more than a creature, a thing, of Moddo. It was inevitable that a Moddo, given the peculiar forces that had informed him, should inexorably have had to come to Loob and pass under his control. It was also inevitable that Loob, with his specialized knowledge of what could be done with the human mind, should be the only independent man on Earth today. It was also very pleasant.
He wriggled a little bit, very satisfied with himself, gave his beard a final finger-comb, and pushed into the Bureau of Healing Research.
The chief of the bureau came up rapidly and bowed. “Nothing new to report today.” He gestured at the tiny cubicles in which the technicians sat at old books or performed experiments on animals and criminally convicted humans. “It took them a while to get back to work, after the Servant of All arrived. Everyone was ordered out into the main corridor for regulation empathizing with Garomma.”
“I know,” Loob told him. “I don’t expect much progress on a day like this. Just so you keep them at it. It’s a big problem.”
The other man shrugged enormously. “A problem which, as far as we can tell, has never been solved before. The ancient manuscripts we’ve discovered are all in terrible shape, of course. But those that mention hypnotism all agree that it can’t occur under any of the three conditions you want: against the individual’s will, contrary to his personal desires and best judgment, and maintaining him over a long period of time in the original state of subjection without need for new applications. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but—”
“But it’s very difficult. Well, you’ve had three and a half years to work on it, and you’ll have as much more time as you need. And equipment. And personnel. Just ask. Meanwhile, I’ll wander around and see how your men are doing. You needn’t come with me. I like to ask my own questions.”
The bureau chief bowed again and turned back to his desk in the rear of the room. Loob, the Healer of Minds, the Assistant to the Third Assistant Servant of Education, walked slowly from cubicle to cubicle, watching the work, asking questions, but mostly noting the personal quality of the psychological technician in each cubicle.
He was convinced that the right man could solve the problem. And it was just a matter of finding the right man and giving him maximum facilities. The right man would be clever enough and persistent enough to follow up the right lines of research, but too unimaginative to be appalled by a goal which had eluded the best minds for ages.
And once the problem was solved—then in one short interview with Garomma, he could place the Servant of All under his direct, personal control for the rest of his life and dispense with the complications of long therapeutic sessions with Moddo where he constantly had to suggest, and suggest in roundabout fashion, rather than give simple, clear and unambiguous orders. Once the problem was solved—
He came to the last cubicle. The pimply-faced young man who sat at the plain brown table studying a ripped and damp-rotted volume didn’t hear him come in. Loob studied him for a moment.
What frustrated, bleak lives these young technicians must lead! You could see it in the tightly set lines of their all-too-similar faces. Growing up in one of the most rigidly organized versions of the world state that a ruler had yet contrived, they didn’t have a thought that was in any way their own, could not dream of tasting a joy that had not been officially allotted to them.
And yet this fellow was the brightest of the lot. If anyone in the Bureau of Healing Research could develop the kind of perfect hypnotic technique Loob required, he could. Loob had been watching him with growing hope for a long time now.
“How is it coming, Sidothi?” he asked.
Sidothi looked up from his book.
“Shut the door,” he said.
Loob shut the door.
This was the day of complete control…
Sidothi, the Laboratory Assistant, Psychological Technician Fifth Class, snapped his fingers in Loob’s face and allowed himself to luxuriate in the sensation of ultimate power, absolute power, power such as no human being had even dared to dream of before this day.
Complete control. Complete…
Still sitting, he snapped his fingers again.
He said: “Report.”
The familiar glazed look came into Loob’s eyes. His body stiffened. His arms hung limply at his sides. In a steady, toneless voice he began to deliver his report.
Magnificent. The Servant of Security would be dead in a few hours and the man Sidothi liked would take his place. For an experiment in complete control, it had worked out to perfection. That was all it had been; an attempt to find out if—by creating a feeling of vengefulness in Loob for the sake of a nonexistent brother—he could force the Healer to act on a level he always wanted to avoid; making Moddo do something that the Servant of Education had no interest at all in doing. That was to prod Garomma into an action against the Servant of Security at a time when Garomma was in no particular mental crisis.
The experiment had worked perfectly. He’d pushed a little domino named Loob three days ago, and a whole series of other little dominoes had begun to fall one right after the other. Today, when the Servant of Security was strangled at his desk, the last one would have fallen.
Yes, control was absolutely complete.
Of course, there had been another, minor reason why he had elected to conduct this experiment in terms of the Servant of Security’s life. He didn’t like the man. He’d seen him drink a liqueur in public four years ago. Sidothi didn’t believe the Servants of Mankind should do such things. They should lead clean, simple, abstemious lives; they should be an example to the rest of the human race.
He’d never seen the Assistant Servant of Security whom he had ordered Loob to have promoted, but he had heard that the fellow lived very narrowly, without luxury even in private. Sidothi liked that. That was the way it should be.
Loob came to the end of his report and stood waiting. Sidothi wondered whether he should order him to give up this bad, boastful idea of controlling Garomma directly. No, that wouldn’t do: that attitude led into the mechanism of coming down to the Bureau of Healing Research every day to check on progress. While a simple order to come in daily would suffice, still Sidothi felt that until he had examined all aspects of his power and become thoroughly familiar with its use, it was wise to leave original personality mechanisms in place, so long as they didn’t get in the way of anything important.
And that reminded him. There was an interest of Loob’s which was sheer time-wasting. Now, when he was certain of absolute control, was a good time to get rid of it.
“You will drop this research into historical facts,” he ordered. “You will use the time thus freed for further detailed examination of Moddo’s psychic weaknesses. And you will find that more interesting than studying the past. That is all.”
He snapped his fingers in Loob’s face, waited a moment, then snapped them again. The Healer of Minds took a deep breath, straightened and smiled.
“Well, keep at it,” he said, encouragingly.
“Thank you, sir. I will,” Sidothi assured him.
Loob opened the door of the cubicle and walked out, pompously, serenely. Sidothi stared after him. The idiotic assurance of the man—that once the process of complete control by hypnotic technique was discovered it would be given to Loob!
Sidothi had begun to re
ach the answer three years ago. He had immediately covered up, letting his work take a superficially different line. Then, when he had the technique perfected, he’d used it on Loob himself. Naturally.
At first he’d been shocked, almost sickened, when he found out how Loob controlled Moddo, how Moddo controlled Garomma, the Servant of All. But after a while, he’d adjusted to the situation well enough. After all, ever since the primary grades, the only reality he and his contemporaries had accepted completely was the reality of power. Power in each class, in each club, in each and every gathering of human beings, was the only thing worth fighting for. And you chose an occupation not only because you were most fitted for it, but because it gave the greatest promise of power to a person of your particular interests and aptitude.
But he’d never dreamed of, never imagined, this much power! Well, he had it. That was reality, and reality was to be respected above all else. Now the problem was what to do with his power.
And that was a very hard question to answer. But the answer would come in time. Meanwhile, there was the wonderful chance to make certain that everyone did his job right, that bad people were punished. He intended to stay in his menial job until the proper time came for promotion. There was no need at the moment to have a big title. If Garomma could rule as the Servant of All, he could rule Garomma at third or fourth hand as a simple Psychological Technician Fifth Class.
But in what way exactly did he want to rule Garomma? What important things did he want to make Garomma do?
A bell rang. A voice called out of a loudspeaker set high in the wall. “Attention! Attention, all personnel! The Servant of All will be leaving the Center in a few minutes. Everyone to the main corridor to beg for his continued service to mankind. Everyone—”
Sidothi joined the mob of technicians pouring out of the huge laboratory room. People were coming out of offices on both sides of them. He was swept up with a crowd constantly enlarging from the elevators and stairways to the main corridor where the Service of Education guards prodded them and jammed them against the walls.
He smiled. If they only knew whom they were pushing! Their ruler, who could have any one of them executed. The only man in the world who could do anything he wanted to do. Anything.
There was sudden swirling movement and a cheer at the far distant end of the corridor. Everyone began to shuffle about nervously, everyone tried to stand on tiptoe in order to see better. Even the guards began to breathe faster.
The Servant of All was coming.
The cries grew more numerous, more loud. People in front of them were heaving about madly. And suddenly Sidothi saw him!
His arms went up and out in a flashing paroxysm of muscles. Something tremendous and delighted seemed to press on his chest and his voice screamed, “Serve us, Garomma! Serve us! Serve us! Serve us!” He was suffused with heaving waves of love, love such as he never knew anywhere else, love for Garomma, love for Garomma’s parents, love for Garomma’s children, love for anything and everything connected with Garomma. His body writhed, almost without coordination, delicious flames licked up his thighs and out from his armpits, he twisted and turned, danced and hopped, his very stomach seeming to strain against his diaphragm in an attempt to express its devotion. None of which was very strange, considering that these phenomena had been conditioned in him since early childhood.
“Serve us, Garomma!” he shrieked, bubbles of saliva growing out of the corner of his mouth. “Serve us! Serve us! Serve us!”
He fell forward, between two guards, and his outstretched fingertips touched a rustling flapping rag just as the Servant of All strode by. His mind abruptly roared off into the furthest, most hidden places of ecstasy. He fainted, still babbling. “Serve us, O Garomma.”
When it was all over, his fellow-technicians helped him back to the Bureau of Healing Research. They looked at him with awe. It wasn’t every day you managed to touch one of Garomma’s rags. What it must do to a person!
It took Sidothi almost half an hour to recover.
THIS WAS THE DAY OF COMPLETE CONTROL.
Rite of Passage
Chad Oliver
* * *
I
The ship was named the Juarez.
Outside, all was well. A tiny white bubble of flame played about the stern jets and the Juarez, one hundred light-years distant from the planet Earth, picked its graceful way through the system of Carinae.
Inside, it was different. The Juarez was a death ship. Someone, somehow, on one of the outer planets, had taken a chance with a germ. Perhaps he had been in a hurry, perhaps he had forgotten, perhaps it was just one of those things.
It didn’t really matter now.
The Juarez carried a crew of fifty-four. Six were still alive. Of the remaining six, three were clearly dying.
It was a long way home.
Martin Ashley wiped the cold sweat from the palms of his hands. He handed the doctor a glass of water. “Here you go, Doc,” he said quietly.
Doc Slonsky managed to control his trembling long enough to hurl the water against the wall in a gesture of supreme contempt. “A dying man asks for a drink,” he said acidly, “and you bring him water. I have told you, Martin—there is no time for jokes. Not anymore.” The trembling stopped and beads of colorless sweat popped out on his forehead. “Get me a drink.”
Martin Ashley walked shakily across the dimly-lit room, picked his way between two silent, sheet-covered figures and retrieved a half-empty bottle of bourbon from a table. It couldn’t do any harm now, he knew. When they reached that stage, nothing made any difference. He went back to the doctor, poured out a glassful, and handed it to him. Slonsky downed it at one prodigious draft, shuddered from a new cause, and managed to prop himself up on one elbow.
“Bourbon,” the little man said unhappily, “you’d give a dying man bourbon.”
“You’re not dying, Doc,” Martin told him, stuffing a pillow behind him for support. You’re indestructible.”
“Garbage,” the doctor said, dropping the glass on the floor and taking the bottle instead. “Many men have been indestructible—Caesar, Hannibal, Bluebeard. Where are they today? Dead, all dead.” He took a long pull from the bottle.
“You’ll come through, Doc,” Martin lied. “You’re not the same as the others, you don’t have quite the same thing, you see, and—”
“Martin.”
The room was very quiet around them. No one talks in a graveyard, Martin thought coldly. No one but the caretaker.
Slonsky let his head fall back and Martin took the bottle out of his limp hand. Slonsky closed his eyes as though the effort of keeping them open was too much for him. “Martin,” he said again, his voice very weak.
“Yes, Doc.”
“Martin, Gallen has a prayer to pull through; he passed the crisis hours ago and is still alive. He has a chance. You seem to be immune; it is because you have lived an evil life, although that particular remedy didn’t work in my case. The Chavez boy never came down either. That makes three of you, two for sure. You’d better get the rest of us out of the ship, Martin.”
“Now, Doc—”
“Give me a drink, Martin.”
Martin Ashley put the bottle in Slonsky’s hand, but the hand didn’t respond. It was very quiet. Doc Slonsky’s eyes opened for the last time, unseeing, and Martin pulled the sheet up to cover his face.
He was alone again.
“Good luck, Doc,” he said.
He walked slowly through the silent room, not thinking about anything. He had seen it happen too many times. He was numb. He took a drink out of the bottle himself, being long past the stage where sanitary precautions concerned him. If he didn’t have it now, he wasn’t going to get it, and maybe that was too bad. The bourbon burned a little in his stomach but failed to warm him. He set the bottle down on a convenient table and left it there.
He stepped out into the corridor and closed the door behind him. He stood for a long minute, listening to the faint throbbing hu
m of the mindless atomics, and then he began to walk down the empty corridor, not sure where he was going or why.
As he had so many times before when he was confused, or just lonesome, he wound up with Carol. He had carried her to her room a long time ago, when there still had been hope, and he went there now, needing a word, a look, anything.
He didn’t get it.
Her blond hair was lifeless on the pillow, and one slim arm hung down by the side of the bed, rocking slightly with the vibrations of the ship. She had no make-up on, as usual, and her blue eyes were closed. She was still breathing, faintly.
Martin Ashley looked at her for a long time. He remembered. Mostly, he remembered the long talks they had had, and the laughs, while most of the Juarez slept around them. Carol had been one of the navigators, and Martin had always thought of her as a potentially beautiful woman. She could have been beautiful, and more than that, but she didn’t let herself be. She had lost her man, a long time ago, and Martin had never been able to take his place. He had only kissed her once, and never tried again.
But they had had a closeness between them. They had understood one another, and they needed that. They had cheered each other up when they were low, and when they both felt good they had fun. They had both known that someday—
Well, someday wouldn’t come now. Maybe it never would have anyway, but they had both liked to think that it would.
There wasn’t anything he could say to Carol. He left her where she was, because he couldn’t watch, and went out again into the empty corridor.
Martin Ashley needed life. He needed to see a living thing, even a dog or a fish or a plant. The Juarez was like a tomb. It was a tomb.
He walked through the tunnels to the senior’s cabin, listening to the click and echo of his heels on the metal floor. Long before he got there, he heard sobbing that filled the corridor.
That would be Bob Chavez, the senior’s son, he knew. Probably it meant that old Alberto Chavez was dead. He smiled a little, sadly. Al Chavez had only been fifty-five, twenty years older than himself, but that was old for space. He caught himself wishing that Al could have pulled through, instead of his son. He didn’t even dislike himself for the thought; he was past caring very much. It wasn’t that Bob was no good, of course, but simply that he probably wasn’t good enough.
Seven Come Infinity Page 24