by Various
"I'll take the blame."
"Mr. Harrison, you look kind of funny. Hadn't I better...."
Harrison was sketching a drawing on a piece of waste paper. He was working in quick rough strokes, copying something from a book.
"They'll blame us both, Mr. Harrison. Anyway, it might hold up somebody who's got a real idea...."
"I have a real idea, Kirk. I'm going to draw it for you."
The metal worker noticed that the book Harrison was copying from was a dictionary, a very old and battered one.
"Here, can you follow what I've drawn?"
The metal worker accepted it reluctantly, giving Harrison an odd, almost patronizing look. "This is crazy."
"Kirk!"
"Look, Mr. Harrison. We worked a long time together. You...."
Harrison suddenly rose from the chair.
"This is our one chance of beating this thing, no matter how crazy it seems. Will you do the job?"
"You believe you got something, eh," the other said. "You think you have?"
"I have to have."
* * * * *
"Gentlemen," said the President of the Intersolar Council. "There is very little to say. There can be no denying the fact that we have exhausted our efforts at finding a satisfactory solution.
"The contents of this book of reports represents the greatest concentration of expert reasoning perhaps ever applied to a single problem.
"But alas, the problem remains--unsolved."
He paused to glance at his wristwatch.
"The aliens return in an hour. As you very well know there is one action that remains for us. It is one we have held to this hour. It is one that has always been present and one that we have been constantly urged to use.
"Force, gentlemen. It is not insignificant. It lies at our command. It represents the technology of the Intersolar alliance. I will entertain a motion to use it."
There were no nay votes.
* * * * *
The alien arrived on schedule. The ship grew from a tiny bright speck in the sky to full size. It settled to a graceful landing as before on the strip and silently moved into the revetment.
Again it spoke in the voice of the frog, but the tone was, if anything, less human this time.
"Earthmen, we have come for your solution."
At that instant a hundred gun crews stiffened and waited for a signal behind their carefully camouflaged blast plates and inside dummy buildings....
Harrison was running. The Administration building was empty. His footsteps echoed through the long, silent halls. He headed for an emergency exit that led directly to the blast tunnel. All doors were locked.
The only way was over the wall. He paused and tossed the awkward, heavy object over the ten-foot wall. Then, backing toward the building, he ran and jumped for a hold onto the wall's edge. He failed by several inches to reach it.
"Earthmen, we have come for your solution."
He ran at the wall once more. This time he caught a fair hold with one hand. Digging at the rough concrete with his feet he was able to secure the hold and begin pulling his body upward.
Quickly he was over the wall and onto the apron, a hundred yards from the shining metal ship.
"Wait!" he shouted. "Wait, for God's sake!"
Picking up the object he had tossed over the wall, he raised it above his head and ran toward the alien ship.
"Wait! Here is the solution," he gasped.
Somehow the command to fire was not given. There was a long moment of complete silence on the field. Nothing moved.
Then the voice of the frog boomed from the alien ship.
"The solution appears to be correct."
* * * * *
The alien left three days later. Regular communications would begin within the week. Future meetings would work out technical difficulties. Preliminary trade agreements, adequately safeguarded, were drafted and transmitted to the ship. The Races of Man and the Races of Wan were in harmony.
* * * * *
"It was simply too obvious for any of us to notice," explained Harrison. "It took that street-corner evangelist to jar something loose--even then it was an accident."
"And the rest of us--" started Mills.
"While all of us worked on the assumption that the test involved a showing of strength--a flexing of technological muscle."
"I still don't see--"
"Well, the evangelist put the problem on the right basis. He humbled us, exalted the aliens--that is, he thought the alien was somehow a messenger from God to put us in our places."
"We were pretty humble ourselves, especially the last day," protested Mills.
"But humble about our technology," put in Harrison. "The aliens must be plenty far beyond us technologically. But how about their cultural superiority. Ask yourself how a culture that could produce the ship we've just seen could survive without--well destroying itself."
"I still don't understand."
"The aliens developed pretty much equally in all directions. They developed force--plenty of it, enough force to kick that big ship through space at the speed of light plus. They must also have learned to control force, to live with it."
"Maybe you better stick to the sword business," said Mills.
"The sword is the crux of the matter. What did the alien say about the sword? 'It is defective.' It is defective, Bob. Not as an instrument of death. It will kill a man or injure him well enough.
"But a sword--or any other instrument of force for that matter--is a terribly ineffectual tool. It was originally designed to act as a tool of social control. Did it--or any subsequent weapon of force--do a good job at that?
"As long as man used swords, or gunpowder, or atom bombs, or hydrogen bombs, he was doomed to a fearful anarchy of unsolved problems and dreadful immaturity.
"No, the sword is not useful. To fix it--to 'correct that which renders it not useful'--meant to make it something else. Now what in the hell did that mean? What can you do with a sword?"
"You mean besides cut a man in two with it," said Mills.
"Yes, what can you do with it besides use it as a weapon? Here our street-corner friend referred me to the right place: The bible!
"They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
"The aliens just wanted to know if we meant what we said."
"Do we?"
"We better. It's going to take a hell of a lot more than a silly ploughshare to convince those babies on that ship. But there's more to it than that. The ability of a culture finally to pound all of its swords--its intellectual ones as well as its steel ones--into ploughshares must be some kind of least common denominator for cultures that are headed for the stars."
* * *
Contents
ANTHEM
by Ayn Rand
Chapter One
It is a sin to write this. It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It is base and evil. It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears but our own. And we know well that there is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone. We have broken the laws. The laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven!
But this is not the only sin upon us. We have committed a greater crime, and for this crime there is no name. What punishment awaits us if it be discovered we know not, for no such crime has come in the memory of men and there are no laws to provide for it.
It is dark here. The flame of the candle stands still in the air. Nothing moves in this tunnel save our hand on the paper. We are alone here under the earth. It is a fearful word, alone. The laws say that none among men may be alone, ever and at any time, for this is the great transgression and the root of all evil. But we have broken many laws. And now there is nothing here save our one body, and it is strange to see only two legs stretched on the ground, and on th
e wall before us the shadow of our one head.
The walls are cracked and water runs upon them in thin threads without sound, black and glistening as blood. We stole the candle from the larder of the Home of the Street Sweepers. We shall be sentenced to ten years in the Palace of Corrective Detention if it be discovered. But this matters not. It matters only that the light is precious and we should not waste it to write when we need it for that work which is our crime. Nothing matters save the work, our secret, our evil, our precious work. Still, we must also write, for—may the Council have mercy upon us!—we wish to speak for once to no ears but our own.
Our name is Equality 7-2521, as it is written on the iron bracelet which all men wear on their left wrists with their names upon it. We are twenty-one years old. We are six feet tall, and this is a burden, for there are not many men who are six feet tall. Ever have the Teachers and the Leaders pointed to us and frowned and said: "There is evil in your bones, Equality 7-2521, for your body has grown beyond the bodies of your brothers." But we cannot change our bones nor our body.
We were born with a curse. It has always driven us to thoughts which are forbidden. It has always given us wishes which men may not wish. We know that we are evil, but there is no will in us and no power to resist it. This is our wonder and our secret fear, that we know and do not resist.
We strive to be like all our brother men, for all men must be alike. Over the portals of the Palace of the World Council, there are words cut in the marble, which we are required to repeat to ourselves whenever we are tempted:
"We are one in all and all in one.
There are no men but only the great WE,
One, indivisible and forever."—
We repeat this to ourselves, but it helps us not.
These words were cut long ago. There is green mould in the grooves of the letters and yellow streaks on the marble, which come from more years than men could count. And these words are the truth, for they are written on the Palace of the World Council, and the World Council is the body of all truth. Thus has it been ever since the Great Rebirth, and farther back than that no memory can reach.
But we must never speak of the times before the Great Rebirth, else we are sentenced to three years in the Palace of Corrective Detention. It is only the Old Ones who whisper about it in the evenings, in the Home of the Useless. They whisper many strange things, of the towers which rose to the sky, in those Unmentionable Times, and of the wagons which moved without horses, and of the lights which burned without flame. But those times were evil. And those times passed away, when men saw the Great Truth which is this: that all men are one and that there is no will save the will of all men together.
All men are good and wise. It is only we, Equality 7-2521, we alone who were born with a curse. For we are not like our brothers. And as we look back upon our life, we see that it has ever been thus and that it has brought us step by step to our last, supreme transgression, our crime of crimes hidden here under the ground.
We remember the Home of the Infants where we lived till we were five years old, together with all the children of the City who had been born in the same year. The sleeping halls there were white and clean and bare of all things save one hundred beds. We were just like all our brothers then, save for the one transgression: we fought with our brothers. There are few offenses blacker than to fight with our brothers, at any age and for any cause whatsoever. The Council of the Home told us so, and of all the children of that year, we were locked in the cellar most often.
When we were five years old, we were sent to the Home of the Students, where there are ten wards, for our ten years of learning. Men must learn till they reach their fifteenth year. Then they go to work. In the Home of the Students we arose when the big bell rang in the tower and we went to our beds when it rang again. Before we removed our garments, we stood in the great sleeping hall, and we raised our right arms, and we said all together with the three Teachers at the head:
"We are nothing. Mankind is all. By the grace of our brothers are we allowed our lives. We exist through, by and for our brothers who are the State. Amen."
Then we slept. The sleeping halls were white and clean and bare of all things save one hundred beds.
We, Equality 7-2521, were not happy in those years in the Home of the Students. It was not that the learning was too hard for us. It was that the learning was too easy. This is a great sin, to be born with a head which is too quick. It is not good to be different from our brothers, but it is evil to be superior to them. The Teachers told us so, and they frowned when they looked upon us.
So we fought against this curse. We tried to forget our lessons, but we always remembered. We tried not to understand what the Teachers taught, but we always understood it before the Teachers had spoken. We looked upon Union 5-3992, who were a pale boy with only half a brain, and we tried to say and do as they did, that we might be like them, like Union 5-3992, but somehow the Teachers knew that we were not. And we were lashed more often than all the other children.
The Teachers were just, for they had been appointed by the Councils, and the Councils are the voice of all justice, for they are the voice of all men. And if sometimes, in the secret darkness of our heart, we regret that which befell us on our fifteenth birthday, we know that it was through our own guilt. We had broken a law, for we had not paid heed to the words of our Teachers. The Teachers had said to us all:
"Dare not choose in your minds the work you would like to do when you leave the Home of the Students. You shall do what the Council of Vocations shall prescribe for you. For the Council of Vocations knows in its great wisdom where you are needed by your brother men, better than you can know it in your unworthy little minds. And if you are not needed by your brother men, there is no reason for you to burden the earth with your bodies."
We knew this well, in the years of our childhood, but our curse broke our will. We were guilty and we confess it here: we were guilty of the great Transgression of Preference. We preferred some work and some lessons to the others. We did not listen well to the history of all the Councils elected since the Great Rebirth. But we loved the Science of Things. We wished to know. We wished to know about all the things which make the earth around us. We asked so many questions that the Teachers forbade it.
We think that there are mysteries in the sky and under the water and in the plants which grow. But the Council of Scholars has said that there are no mysteries, and the Council of Scholars knows all things. And we learned much from our Teachers. We learned that the earth is flat and that the sun revolves around it, which causes the day and night. We learned the names of all the winds which blow over the seas and push the sails of our great ships. We learned how to bleed men to cure them of all ailments.
We loved the Science of Things. And in the darkness, in the secret hour, when we awoke in the night and there were no brothers around us, but only their shapes in the beds and their snores, we closed our eyes, and we held our lips shut, and we stopped our breath, that no shudder might let our brothers see or hear or guess, and we thought that we wished to be sent to the Home of the Scholars when our time would come.
All of the great modern inventions come from the Home of the Scholars, such as the newest one, which was found only a hundred years ago, of how to make candles from wax and string; also, how to make glass, which is put in our windows to protect us from the rain. To find these things, the Scholars must study the earth and learn from the rivers, from the sands, from the winds and the rocks. And if we went to the Home of the Scholars, we could learn from these also. We could ask questions of these, for they do not forbid questions.
And questions give us no rest. We know not why our curse makes us seek we know not what, ever and ever. But we cannot resist it. It whispers to us that there are great things on this earth of ours, and that we must know them. We ask, why must we know, but it has no answer to give us. We must know that we may know.
So we wished to be sent to the Home of the Scholars. We wished
it so much that our hands trembled under the blankets in the night, and we bit our arm to stop that other pain which we could not endure. It was evil and we dared not face our brothers in the morning. For men may wish nothing for themselves. And we were punished when the Council of Vocations came to give us our life Mandates which tell those who reach their fifteenth year what their work is to be for the rest of their days.
The Council of Vocations came in on the first day of spring, and they sat in the great hall. And we who were fifteen and all the Teachers came into the great hall. And the Council of Vocations sat on a high dais, and they had but two words to speak to each of the Students. They called the Students' names, and when the Students stepped before them, one after another, the Council said: "Carpenter" or "Doctor" or "Cook" or "Leader." Then each Student raised their right arm and said: "The will of our brothers be done."
Now if the Council said "Carpenter" or "Cook," the Students so assigned go to work and do not study any further. But if the Council has said "Leader," then those Students go into the Home of the Leaders, which is the greatest house in the City, for it has three stories. And there they study for many years, so that they may become candidates and be elected to the City Council and the State Council and the World Council—by a free and general vote of all men. But we wished not to be a Leader, even though it is a great honor. We wished to be a Scholar.
So we awaited our turn in the great hall and then we heard the Council of Vocations call our name: "Equality 7-2521." We walked to the dais, and our legs did not tremble, and we looked up at the Council. There were five members of the Council, three of the male gender and two of the female. Their hair was white and their faces were cracked as the clay of a dry river bed. They were old. They seemed older than the marble of the Temple of the World Council. They sat before us and they did not move. And we saw no breath to stir the folds of their white togas. But we knew that they were alive, for a finger of the hand of the oldest rose, pointed to us, and fell down again. This was the only thing which moved, for the lips of the oldest did not move as they said: "Street Sweeper."