The Wonder Effect

by Frederik Pohl

  Muhlenhoff smiled his attractive smile. “Breck,” he said, “thank God you’ve got guts. Perhaps we were in a bit of a panic. Gentlemen, I hope we’ll all take heart from Mr. Breck’s level-headed-what did you say,

  Breck?”

  Breck didn’t look up. He was pawing through the dispatch Muhlenhoff had dropped to the table. “Nine-inch plate,” he read aloud, white-faced. “And time of installation, not quite seven weeks ago.

  If this goes on in a straight line-“ he grabbed for a pocket slide-rule -“we have, uh-“ he swallowed-“less time than the probable error,” he finished.

  “Breck!” Muhlenhoff yelled. “Where are you going?”

  The veteran heat-transfer man said grimly as he sped through the door: “To find a submarine.”

  The rest of the Engineering Board was suddenly pulling chairs toward the trouble-shooting team’s’dispatch. Muhlenhoff slammed a fist on the table.

  “Stop it,” he said evenly. “The next man who leaves the meeting will have his contract canceled. Is that clear, gentlemen? Good. We will now proceed to get organized.”

  He had them; they were listening. He said forcefully: “I want a task force consisting of a petrochemist, a vibrations man, a hydrostatics man and a structural engineer. Co-opt mathematicians and computermen as needed. I will have all machines capable of handling Fourier series and up cleared for your use. The work of the task force will be divided into two phases. For Phase One, members will keep their staffs as small as possible. The objective of Phase One is to find the cause of the leaks and predict whether similar leaks are likely elsewhere in the project. On receiving a first approximation from the force I will proceed to set up Phase Two, to deal with countermeasures.”

  He paused. “Gentlemen,” he said, “we must not lose our nerves. We must not panic. Possibly the most serious technical crisis in Atlantic’s history lies before us. Your most important job is to maintain-at all times-a cheerful, courageous attitude. We cannot, repeat cannot, afford to have the sub-technical staff of the project panicked for lack of a good example from us.” He drilled each of them in turn with a long glare. “And,” he finished, “if I hear of anyone suddenly discovering emergency business ashore, the man who does it better get fitted for a sludgemonkey’s suit, because that’s what he’ll be tomorrow. Clear?”

  Each of the executives assumed some version of a cheerful, courageous attitude. They looked ghastly, even to themselves.

  Muhlenhoff stalked into his private office, the nerve-center of the whole bulkheaded works.

  In MuhlenhofFs private office, you would never know you were 1,800 meters below the surface of the sea. It looked like any oilman’s brass-hat office anywhere, complete to the beautiful blonde outside the door (but white-faced and trembling), the potted palm (though the ends of its fronds vibrated gently), and the typical section chief bursting in in the typical flap. “Sir,” he whined, frenzied, “Section Six has pinholed! The corrosion-“

  “Handle it!” barked Muhlenhoff, and slammed the door. Section Six be damned! What did it matter if a few of the old bulkheads pinholed and rilled? The central chambers were safe, until they could lick whatever it was that was corroding. The point was, you had to stay with it and get out the oil; because if you didn’t prove your lease, PetroMex would. Mexican oil wanted those reserves mighty badly.

  Muhlenhoff knew how to handle an emergency. Back away from it. Get a fresh slant. Above all, don’t panic.

  He slapped a button that guaranteed no interruption and irritably, seeking distraction, picked up his latest copy of the New New Review-for he was, among other things, an intellectual as tune allowed.

  Under the magazine was the latest of several confidential communications from the home office. Muhlenhoff growled and tossed the magazine aside. He reread what Priestley had had to say:

  “I know you understand the importance of beating our Spic friends to the Atlantic deep reserves, so I won’t give you a hard time about it. I’ll just pass it on the way Lundstrom gave it to me: ‘Tell Muhlenhoff he’ll come back on the Board or on a board, and no alibis or excuses.’ Get it? Well-“

  Hell. Muhlenhoff threw the sheet down and tried to think about the damned corrosion-leakage situation.

  But he didn’t try for long. There was, he realized, no point at all in him thinking about the problem. For one thing, he no longer had the equipment.

  Muhlenhoff realized, wonderingly, that he hadn’t opened a table of integrals for ten years; he doubted that he could find his way around the pages, well enough to run down a tricky form. He had come up pretty fast through the huge technical staff of Atlantic. First he had been a geologist in the procurement section, one of those boots-and-leather-jacket guys who spent his days in rough, tough blasting and drilling and his nights in rarefied scientific air, correlating and integrating the findings of the day. Next he had been a Chief Geologist, chairborne director of youngsters, now and then tackling a muddled report with Theory of Least Squares and Gibbs Phase Rule that magically separated dross from limpid fact ... or, he admitted wryly, at least turning the muddled reports over to mathematicians who specialized in those disciplines.

  Next he had been a Raw Materials Committee member who knew that drilling and figuring weren’t the almighty things he had supposed them when he was a kid, who began to see the Big Picture of off-shore leases and depreciation allowances; of power and fusible rocks and steel for the machines, butane for the drills, plastics for the pipelines, metals for the circuits, the computers, the doors, windows, walls, tools, utilities.

  A committeeman who began to see that a friendly beer poured for the right resources-commission man was really more important than Least Squares or Phase Rule, because a resources commissioner who didn’t get along with you might get along, for instance, with somebody from Coastwide, and allot to Coastwide the next available block of leases-thus working grievous harm to Atlantic and the billions it served. A committeeman who began to see that the Big Picture meant government and science leaning chummily against each other, government setting science new and challenging tasks like the billion-barrel procurement program, science backing government with all its tremendous prestige. You consume my waste hydrocarbons, Muhlenhoff thought comfortably, and I’ll consume yours.

  Thus mined, smelted and milled, Muhlenhoff was tempered for higher things. For the first, the technical directorate of an entire Atlantic Sub-Sea Petroleum Corporation district, and all wells, fields, pipelines, stills, storage fields, transport, fabrication and maintenance appertaining thereto. Honors piled upon honors. And then-

  He, glanced around him at the comfortable office. The top. Nothing to be added but voting stock and Board membership-and those within his grasp, if only he weathered this last crisis. And then the rarefied height he occupied alone.

  And, by God, he thought, I do a damn good job of it! Pleasurably he reviewed his conduct at the meeting; he had already forgotten his panic. Those shaking fools would have brought the roof down on us, he thought savagely. A few gallons of water in an unimportant shaft, and they’re set to message the home office, run for the surface, abandon the whole project. . The Big Picture! They didn’t see it, and they never would. He might, he admitted, not be able to chase an integral form through a table, but by God he could give the orders to those who would. The thing was organized now; the project was rolling; the task force had its job mapped out; and somehow, although he would not do a jot of the brain-wearing, eyestraining, actual work, it would be his job, because he had initiated it. He thought of the flat, dark square miles of calcareous ooze outside, under which lay the biggest proved untapped petroleum reserve in the world. Sector Fortyone, it was called on the hydrographic charts.

  Perhaps, some day, the charts would say: Muhlenhoff Basin.

  Well, why not?

  The emergency intercom was flickering its red call light pusillanimously. Muhlenhoff calmly lifted the handset off its cradle and ignored the tinny bleat. When you gave an order, you had to leave the
men alone to carry it out.

  He relaxed in his chair and picked up a book from the desk. He was, among other things, a student of Old American History, as time permitted.

  Fifteen minutes now, he promised himself, with the heroic past. And then back to work refreshed!

  Muhlenhoff plunged into the book. He had schooled himself to concentration; he hardly noticed when the pleading noise from the intercom finally gave up trying to attract his attention. The book was a_ study of that Mexican War in which the United States had been so astonishingly deprived of Texas, Oklahoma and points west under the infamous Peace of Galveston. The story was well told; Muhlenhoff was lost in its story from the first page.

  Good thumbnail sketch of Presidente Lopez, artistically contrasted with the United States’ Whitmore. More-in-sorrow-than-in-anger off-the-cuff psychoanalysis of the crackpot Texan, Byerly, derisively known to Mexicans as “El Cacafuego.” Byerly’s raid at the head of his screwball irredentists, their prompt annihilation by the Mexican Third Armored Regiment, Byerly’s impeccably legal trial and execution at Tehuantepec. Stiff diplomatic note from the United States. Bland answer: Please mind your business, Senores, and we will mind ours. Stiffer diplomatic note. We said please, Senores, and can we not let it go at that? Very stiff diplomatic note; and Latin temper flares at last: Mexico severs relations.

  Bad to worse. Worse to worst.

  Massacre of Mexican nationals at San Antonio. Bland refusal of the United States federal government to interfere in “local police problem” of punishing the guilty. Mexican Third Armored raids San Antone, arrests the murderers (feted for weeks, their faces in the papers, their proud boasts of butchery retold everywhere), and hangs them before recrossing the border. United States declares war. United States loses war-outmaneuvered, outgeneraled, out-logisticated, outgunned, outmanned. And outfought. Said the author:

  “The colossal blow this cold military fact delivered to the United States collective ego is inconceivable to us today. Only a study of contemporary comment can make it real to the historian: The choked hysteria of the newspapers, the raging tides of suicides, Whitmore’s impeachment and trial, the forced resignations of the entire General Staff-all these serve only to sketch in the national mood.

  “Clearly something had happened to the military power which, within less than five decades previous, had annihilated the war machines of the Cominforrn and the Third Reich.

  “We have the words of the contemporary military analyst, Osgood Ferguson, to explain it:

  “The rise of the so-called ‘political general’ means a decline in the efficiency of the army. Other things being equal, an undistracted professional beats an officer who is half soldier and half politician. A general who makes it his sole job to win a war will infallibly defeat an opponent who, by choice or constraint, must offend no voters of enemy ancestry, destroy no cultural or religious shrines highly regarded by the press, show leniency when leniency is fashionable at home, display condign firmness when voters demand it (though it cause in& zone of communications to blaze up into a fury of guerrilla clashes), choose his invasion routes to please a state department apprehensive of potential future ententes.

  “It is unfortunate that most of Ferguson’s documentation was lost when his home was burned during the unsettled years after the war. But we know that what Mexico’s Presidente Lopez said to his staff was: ‘My generals, win me this war.’ And this entire volume does not have enough space to record what the United States generals were told by the White House, the Congress as a whole, the Committees on Military affairs, the Special Committees on Conduct of the War, the State Department, the Commerce Department, the Interior Department, the Director of the Budget, the War Manpower Commission, the Republican National Committee, the Democratic National Committee, the Steel lobby, the Oil lobby, the Labor lobby, the political journals, the daily newspapers, the broadcasters, the ministry, the Granges, the Chambers of Commerce. However, we do know-unhappily-that the United States generals obeyed their orders. This sorry fact was inscribed indelibly on the record at the Peace of Galveston.”

  Muhlenhoff yawned and closed the book. An amusing theory, he thought, ,but thin. Political generals? Nonsense.

  He was glad to see that his subordinates had given up their attempt to pass responsibility for the immediate problem to his shoulders; the intercom had been silent for many minutes now. It only showed, he thought comfortably, that they had absorbed his leading better than they knew.

  He glanced regretfully at the door that had sheltered him, for this precious refreshing interlude, from the shocks of the project outside. Well, the interlude was over; now to see about this leakage thing. Muhlenhoff made a note, in his tidy card-catalog mind, to have

  Maintenance on the carpet. The door was bulging out of true. Incredible sloppiness! And some damned fool had shut the locks in the ventilating system. The air was becoming stuffy.

  Aggressive and confident, the political engineer pressed the release that opened the door to the greatest shock of all.

  MARS-TUBE

  I After Armageddon

  Ray Stanton set his jaw as he stared at the molded lead seal on the museum door. Slowly, he deciphered its inscription, his tongue stumbling over the unfamiliar sibilants of the Martian language as he read it aloud before translating. "To the –strangers from the third planet – who have won their – bitter –triumph – we of Mars charge you, – not to wantonly destroy –that which you will find – within this door ... Our codified learning – may serve you – better than we ourselves – might have done."

  Stanton was ashamed of being an Earthman as he read this soft indictment. "Pathetic," he whispered. "Those poor damned people."

  His companion, a slight, dark-haired girl who seemed out of place in the first exploratory expedition to visit Mars after the decades-long war that had annihilated its population, nodded in agreement. 'the war was a crying shame," she confirmed. "But mourning the dead won't bring them back. To work, Stanton!"

  Stanton shook his head dolefully, but copied the seal's inscription into his voluminous black archaeologist's notebook. Then he tore off the seal and tentatively pushed the door. It swung open easily, and an automatic switch snapped on the hidden lights as the two people entered.

  Both Stanton and Annamarie Hudgins, the girl librarian of the expedition, had seen many marvels in their wanderings over and under the red planet, for every secret place was open to their eyes. But as the lights slowly blossomed over the colossal hall of the library, he staggered back in amazement that so much stately glory could be built into one room.

  The synthetic slabs of gem-like rose crystal that the Martians had reserved for their most awesome sanctuaries were flashing from every wall and article of furnishing, winking with soft ruby lights. One of the typically Martian ramps led up in a gentle curve from their left. The practical Annamarie at once commenced to mount it, heading for the reading-rooms that would be found above. Stanton followed more slowly, pausing to examine the symbolic ornamentation in the walls.

  "We must have guessed right, Annamarie," he observed, catching up with her. "This one's the central museum-library for sure. Take a look at the wall-motif."

  Annamarie glanced at a panel just ahead, a bas-relief done in the rose crystal. "Because of the ultimo symbol, you mean?"

  "Yes, and because – well, look." The room in which they found themselves was less noble than the other, but considerably more practical. It was of radical design, corridors converging like the spokes of a wheel on a focal point where they stood. Inset in the floor – they were almost standing on it –was the ultima symbol, the quadruple linked circles which indicated pre-eminence. Stanton peered down a corridor lined with racks of wire spools. He picked up a spool and stared at its title-tag.

  "Where do you suppose we ought to start?" he asked.

  "Anywhere at all," Annamarie replied. "We've got lots of time, and no way of knowing what to look for. What's the one in your hands?"

  "It see
ms to say, 'the Under-Eaters" – whatever that may mean," Stanton juggled the tiny "book" undecidedly. "That phrase seems familiar somehow. What is it?"

  "Couldn't say. Put it in the scanner and we'll find out." Stanton obeyed, pulling a tiny reading-machine from its cubicle. The delicacy with which Stanton threaded the fragile wire into its proper receptacle was something to watch. The party had ruined a hundred spools of records before they'd learned how to adjust the scanners, and Stanton had learned caution.

  Stanton and his companion leaned back against the bookracks and watched the fluorescent screen of the scanner. A touch of the lever started its operation. There was a soundless flare of light on the screen as the wire made contact with the scanning apparatus, then the screen filled with the curious wavering peak-and-valley writing of the Martian graphic language.

  By the end of the third "chapter" the title of the book was still almost as cryptic as ever. A sort of preface had indicated that "Under-Eaters" was a name applied to a race of underground demons who feasted on the flesh of living Martians. Whether these really existed or not Stanton had no way of telling. The Martians had made no literary distinction between fact and fiction, as far as could be learned. It had been their opinion that anything except pure thought-transference was only approximately true, and that it would be useless to distinguish between an intentional and an unintentional falsehood.

  But the title had no bearing on the context of the book, which was a kind of pseudo-history with heavily allusive passages. It treated of the Earth-Mars war: seemingly it had been published only a few months before the abrupt end to hostilities. One rather tragic passage, so Stanton thought, read: