But he knew that inaction led down a short path to disaster. And whatever the truth or falsehood behind the allegations that cigarettes killed, Daniel knew a more important truth.
He remembered his mother, on her broken-down farm in West Virginia, discing the soil with her broken-down tractor. That tractor had already taken two of her fingers in payment during half-successful attempts at repair. He remembered the hardness of living poor. He remembered how old she had looked at the age of 35—older than Kira Evans would look when she was 50.
Cigarettes were a minor part of the dangers of life. Poverty was the real horror. Poverty killed. Looking down upon the world from his steel-and-glass fortress, Daniel swore that never again would one he loved suffer from that kind of poverty.
The Zetetic Institute would fall before him, as the others had fallen in the past. As for the uncertainties of Kira, he felt little concern. He had already set in motion some of the types of plans they had discussed. His reporters were already on the job.
As he watched, the snarl of traffic on the parkway broke free, and started to flow as easily as the gentle Potomac River that paralleled its course. The bright wall of cherry blossoms was all that divided the flow of belching metal from the flow of quiet water.
Major Vorontsov. The title sounded good when it preceded his name. It was quite a victory. Major Ivan Vorontsov.
Ivan wondered why his victory tasted like the bitter steel of a Kalashnikov; why his mood matched the gun-metal gray of the weather outside his window, rather than the bright sunshine that the weather bureau— his weather bureau—had predicted for this day a week ago.
He had just received the promotion to major, making him one of the youngest majors in the army. He had also received an assignment—one that might well end his career.
They had ordered him to re-evaluate the predictions of global consequences of a nuclear war. The purpose of the re-evaluation was to “perform an analysis that allows the Soviet Union to maintain an advantage in confrontations with the United States.”
Ivan was a good Russian. He was also pure Russian, born in Kursk as the only child of wholly Russian parents. As often happened with single children, he had learned early how to talk with adults, though he had never quite learned how to play with other children his own age. Also like many single children, he believed his parents’ beliefs even more fiercely than his parents did. He loved his homeland. He disliked Americans. And he hated Germans.
So when his time had come to serve in the army, to protect the children of Russia and of the whole Soviet Union from her enemies, he had accepted the duty proudly.
He stepped out of his office, quickly marched down the hallway of the Military Meteorology building, and pushed through the massive door into the streets of Novosibirsk.
Bitter wind swept around him. He clenched his teeth against the cold and headed for the officers’ quarters.
The gunmetal sky showed no hint of sun. Would the climatic effects of a nuclear war even be noticed here? He could imagine that the sunbathers along the Black Sea would be most affected, though he knew better.
Certainly, radioactive fallout from a war would affect all the people he cared about. That included his childhood friend Anna, and her three children, living so close to the strategic targets in Sevastopol.
He remembered the day his parents had brought Anna to stay. Her mother, Ivan knew, was always drunk, and her father was … different. He remembered how helpless Anna had been, yet how hopeful, despite her helplessness. Ivan’s parents loved her as they loved all children—almost as much as they loved Ivan himself. And though Ivan never did learn how to be friends with his peers, he had learned from his parents the love of children.
How wasted their efforts would prove if Ivan let some damn fool—either American or Russian—initiate a nuclear exchange. Though Ivan loved his country’s children, he worried that Russia’s leaders might not share that feeling.
He thought again of the sunny skies predicted for today. How could men be so foolish as to think they could know the impact of a nuclear war on the fragile atmosphere! The work of climatology contained too much magic and too little science for categorical assertions.
Within that guaranteed uncertainty lurked the great danger. Ivan knew he could make the outcome of his re-analysis match any result they wanted him to report.
With too-crisp clarity, he saw why they had chosen him for this job. He was bright, ambitious, patriotic, and impressionable. And he had a knack for technology—a knack that compensated for his loner’s attitude. He had the credentials, and presumably, the malleability to give them what they wanted.
He felt like a scientist in the days before the telescope, instructed by the Church to prove that the Sun circled the Earth. The truth could not be changed. But without instruments, truth could be distorted whenever convenient for the leaders—or when necessary for the followers.
Still, none of these games of distortion could change the truth. And in the nuclear age, distorting the truth about nuclear war endangered all the children, including the adult children playing the game.
Ivan squeezed his eyes closed. Another gust of wind slapped his face. His nostrils flared as he inhaled; the deep breath of sharp, chilled air helped him make his decision.
He would gather the best scientists he could find. They would study the consequences of nuclear war again. If the earlier analysis had been provably hysterical, wonderful. But the new Major Vorontsov would introduce no bias to force the decision.
Ivan tramped onward against the last gusts of Siberian winter, unswerving in his purpose.
Kira stepped from the elevator into the antiseptic beauty of the Oeschlager Art Museum. She forced herself to slow down as her high heels clicked across the slippery marble floor. She turned, to step into the quiet elegance of the displays. Soon she was surrounded by works that cost thousands of hours of loving labor to construct. She needed these moments, in this museum, to remember why she had come to Wilcox-Morris. She needed these moments to fuel her anger.
Her whole body itched from the taint of the Wilcox-Morris Corporation. She wanted to run home to the shower, to cleanse herself of it; yet she knew that that would not help. Only her anger enabled her to continue.
The Oeschlager Museum sprawled over the first two floors of the Wilcox Building. All costs of maintaining it, and for collecting new works, came out of the advertising budget of Wilcox-Morris. Thousands of people had died of lung cancer, emphysema, and heart disease to support this museum.
Kira stopped before a sculpture in silver and gold, In the curves of the reflection she saw her mothers face—her own face. Older people sometimes called her by her mother s name, so strong was the resemblance. And despite her fierce defense of herself as a separate person, Kira could not deny the similarity. They shared the same cheekbones when seen in profile, the same pout when angry, the same quick smile that puzzled people who missed the subtler points of human comedy.
They had not shared the dark anger seething behind Kiras eyes as she watched her reflection snake across the surface of the silvery sculpture. Perhaps that was a difference in age more than anything else. IJer mother had not blamed the tobacco companies for her own death. In keeping with her other views of human responsibility, Jan had blamed herself for taking chances that might lead to suicide. Kira had a different point of view.
Uncle Nathan had the most complex view of blame, though in some sense, it was also the simplest. Blame, Uncle Nathan contended, was a concept without value in either Industrial Age or Information Age societies. The key question was not whom to blame, but rather, whose behavior to modify so that the problem did not arise again.
All that analysis had led him to Jan’s answer to smoking, however; they agreed that the best solution lay in educating people to the danger and in teaching them how to quit. Uncle Nathan further contended that this was the only solution a free society could tolerate. Kira still felt uncertain about whether he was right. Certainly, it would not
hurt to investigate other possibilities. Know your enemy; he probably does not know himself, the Zetetic commentary went. People did not usually pursue evil purposes with thoughtful intent, though they might pursue evil purposes while fiercely avoiding thoughts about intentions. The key lay in cultural engineering. Non-Zetetic cultures were always designed to give men rationalizations for not thinking about the inconsistencies of that culture. Given the right cultural environment, you could shape the adaptable human being to profoundly unsane purposes.
Like other creators of evil, Daniel Wilcox was not an evil man. The tobacco culture had engineered him; now, he was himself the chief engineer for the tobacco culture. Still, he was not evil, though he was undoubtedly quite ruthless. He was not evil, though his hands were covered with blood.
Kira looked about the room at the works of inspired genius, at the painfully detailed craftsmanship, that were also now covered with blood.
And she looked back at her own reflection. She too was now covered with blood. She had used her own mind in the creation of advertising that would attract children to their deaths. She had done it in order to get close to the source of power that drove the tobacco companies, so that she might find some way of destroying them. She had done it for a good cause.
And she could rationalize that, had she not created those ads, someone else would have, and they probably would have done just as good a job. But rationalization was not her purpose. She accepted her share of responsibility for the deaths that might result from her action, as surely as she accepted responsibility for the lives that might be saved, if she found a way to destroy the cigarette empire. That was her purpose in coming to Wilcox-Morris—to find some weakness, or set of weaknesses, with which she could destroy the industry.
Based on her first meeting with Daniel Wilcox, she questioned her ability to destroy him. He was too insightful; surely he recognized her revulsion at cigarette smoking, and her shock at the idea of attacking the Institute. She had recovered fairly well at the end. She could even get excited about using the news media, after having watched them take periodic shots at her mother and her uncle for years. She would certainly have no trouble composing a list of potentially useful reporters—she could get them from the Institute data base. She allowed herself a small smile, thinking about how easily she could mold them with the subtle power Wilcox afforded her.
Better yet, she realized that Wilcox’s attack could be turned to the Institute’s benefit. Wilcox could give Uncle Nathan a level of notoriety that poor Uncle Nathan would never bring upon himself. Perhaps this was the key to Wilcox’s downfall.
And perhaps it was the key to her own downfall. Should she have highlighted this possible backfire with Wilcox? On impulse, she had concealed the thought from him, for fear that he would then discard the whole plan. Now she wasn’t sure that had been wise. Surely he would think of that on his own, and he would expect her to think of it as well. She would have to be careful the next time she saw him.
She stepped carefully across museum floors toward the exit; her feet hurt in her new shoes. Two kinds of people went by. Dawdlers drifted here, either for the art or for the excuse it offered for not getting back to work. And urgent men in business suits rushed by, heading for the upper floors of the skyscraper.
The similarities between the Wilcox Building here in Rosslyn and the ZI headquarters in Reston fascinated and repelled her. Both structures projected images carefully designed for public consumption—images of elegant respectability, trustworthiness. The only real difference was the ultimate purpose: the tobacco companies projected trustworthiness so that they could betray the believers. The Institute projected trustworthiness so that they could teach the more malleable people how to be less malleable, how to separate that image from the substance. One of the most gratifying revelations in a Zetetic education was the moment when you looked at the Institute itself and, clear-eyed and laughing, separated the Institute’s internal facts from its projected fantasies. To achieve that moment of revelation, Uncle Nathan said, the end justified the means.
Did the end justify the means? Kira didn’t know. Uncle Nathan had a pat answer to that, too, of course: the end justifies the means as long as the end is moral, and as long as you account for all the side effects as parts of that end. Somehow, the side effects in her efforts to penetrate the Wilcox-Morris Corporation seemed too complicated to calculate.
This was why she lingered in the museum. She could not tell if her purpose here was moral or not. Until she figured it out, her anger was all that could sustain her as she plunged her hands into her work, defending the salesmen of death.
June 11
History is a race between education and catastrophe.
—H.Q. Wells 4
PAN. Bill Hardie enters a room of soft contours and padded chairs. He glides to the corner, where he commands a view of both participants and podium. He turns, and the flatcam on his lapel sweeps the room.
ZOOM. A group of people emerge through the doorway. The sizes and shapes vary, but all look like residents of Fairfax County. They come to the headquarters of the Zetetic Institute not because it is the headquarters, but because it is handy. It wouldn’t make sense for people to come from great distances just for the Sampler. The curious investigator could find many places throughout the country offering this seminar. The skeptical investigator could obtain a condensed version of the Sampler on videotape for the cost of postage and handling.
FOCUS. A man of medium height in a medium blue suit separates himself from the ragged line of people and walks to the front of the room with a light step—confident yet quiet. He sits on the edge of the desk, relaxed, projecting that relaxation to his audience. Even Bill feels at ease.
CUT. Everyone is seated now except Bill himself. Noting a number of eyes upon him, including the lecturers, Bill slides into a chair.
The lecturer stands and introduces himself. “Good evening, everyone. I am Dr. Hammond, and this is a quick introduction to the Zetetic educational system.”
Dr. Hammond shifts toward the audience as he warms up. “The Zetetic educational system arose to fill a gap in American society. The public schools teach our children oceans of facts and ideas. The colleges bend more toward teaching the theories that lie behind the uncovering of those facts. Meanwhile, vocational schools teach how to create products of various flavors.
“But what do you do with all those facts? Worse, what do you do with all those theories? How do they apply to the everyday occurrences of life?”
Hammond’s eyes harden; his voice booms. “How do you extract the truth from a used car salesman? How do you spot a lawyer whose interest is his own welfare, not yours?” He steps forward. “Those are communication skills that aren’t well taught. Another class of skills that is left out of most people’s eduction is real business skills. America is supposed to run on a free-enterprise system. But how many people know how to operate in a free-enterprise system? To start your own business, how do you identify a market, make a business plan, acquire capital, design an advertising campaign, write a contract? Does it really make sense to leave the answers to these questions—the heart of the American economic process—to students working on MBAs? If it does, then we don’t have a system of free enterprise—we have a system of elite enterprise, because only a handful of people understand what’s required.” He smiles. “And there are other analytic skills that we see in action, but that people rarely learn how to apply. For example, there’s a vast difference between accuracy and precision . How many people here know the difference?”
BACK OFF. Bill frowns. A difference between accuracy and precision? What difference could there be? Only a few people raise their hands to suggest that they know.
Hammond looks around, unsurprised by the apparent ignorance of the majority. “Usually only physicists pay attention to the difference. But the difference is important in everything from household budgets to airplane repairs. Human beings have wasted vast quantities of effort through the centu
ries, trying to increase their precision beyond the level of their accuracy.”
Hammond takes a deep breath. “You can find numerous texts on subliminal cuing and impulse motivation—but very little on how this information is used against you in advertising. And no educational institution will tell you that it’s important for you to know.
“And everyone learns statistics—but how many people can tell the difference between newspaper articles that use statistics to illuminate the truth, and articles that use them to conceal it?”
CUT. Bill bristles with hostility. Bill finds it particularly unnerving because, as Hammond makes his last statement, he looks toward Bill himself with a slowly rising eyebrow. *
Hammond continues. “Nathan Pilstrom founded the Institute over a decade ago. He started with the limited idea of developing software that could teach some fundamentals of Information Age problem-solving. The individual software modules were called PEPs, or Personal Enhancement Programs.”
PAUSE. Bill shakes his head in surprise. He didn’t know the Zetetic Institute had created the PEPs. He’d used a couple himself.
“Of course, the Zetetic movement didn’t become widely known until Nathan’s sister, Jan Evans, synthesized anti-smoking techniques from all over the world into a comprehensive package. That package could be adapted with a high degree of success to each individual’s therapy needs. And that is perhaps the unique feature of Zeteticism: it focuses on the methods used for customizing methods for each individual set of needs and values. Zeteticism explores methods of method-selection.”
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