Henry Walters’ tongue clicked away from his palate in a small sound of finality.
“Thank you, Mr. Carmer. “We’re deeply appreciative of your cooperation. I’m only sorry you couldn’t clear up the difficulty. We retained the services of an excellent psychiatrist, for use in the event that our own efforts were unsuccessful. He is available for immediate session, if you wish. There is no charge, of course, and we’re refunding your fee. Thank you again for your willingness to help us. And please be assured that we will not be satisfied until we have made full amends to you.”
It didn’t much matter what he said, specifically, as long as he extended both apologies and further help. Carmer was still pretty much in shock—had been, ever since Spot Dialogue’s emergency squad had brought him back from the corner where he’d been wandering aimlessly.
“Psychiatrist, huh?” he muttered under his breath. “Yeah. Yes—good idea.”
Henry Walters picked up an office phone and called a staff member to come take Carmer down to the psychiatrist. While they waited, he looked coldly at Stephenson, who was uncomfortably trying to retain his slipping hold on a neutral facial expression.
Henry Walters waited until Carmer had left the room. He held Stephenson in the vise of his look, and his look grew tighter and tighter.
Stephenson screamed for mercy, in his own characteristic way.
He mopped his face and tried to explain. “Look, Henry —I still say it made sense to try it my way. Carmer was amnesiac, sure, but there was a good chance he’d snap out of it with a little prodding. Now what’s going to happen? We send him to a psychiatrist. Okay. The head-shrinker fixes him up. Then what does Carmer do? He goes home and tells his friends Spot Dialogue fouled him up so badly that he had to be bailed out of it with psychiatric treatment.”
He gestured helplessly and slapped his fist in agony. “Inside of a week, we won’t have a client left!” He looked back at Henry Walters in puzzlement, wondering why he had not been interrupted.
Henry Walters raised a finger. “One:” he said, “Carmer subscribed to Spot Dialogue because he doesn’t think he can meet the competition by himself. The essence of Spot Dialogue’s service is that we provide each man with an instantaneous research and counseling service that’s guaranteed to pull him out of any tough spot. He doesn’t know how we do it, and he isn’t specially concerned. He knows we watch over him, and, whether it’s swinging a business deal or making time with a cute little thing from Four Oaks, Ohio, we’ll see him through.
“Two: it follows that Carmer is unconsciously convinced of his inability to do the right thing. I’m not interested in the conditioning, childhood environment, heredity, or any other mental cat’s-cradle that led him to that conclusion. All I know is that hewas led to it. He wouldn’t be a subscriber if he hadn’t.
“Three: it follows that Carmer will feel that the fault is somehow in himself, not in Spot Dialogue. He willnot tell his friends we failed him. Being convinced that he failed himself, he will not tell his friends anything.”
“Four: by dragging him up here and trying shotgun methods on him, you came close to spilling the beans. He was very close to realizing that we’re just as scared— more so—than he is. Steve, you’re my partner because you have the business front and I don’t. But I’m your partner because I set up this outfit, and I’ve got the brains and you have not. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll do the thinking while you stick to popularizing my product.”
Stephenson flushed a meaty red. He opened his mouth.
“Five:” Henry Walters said, “You know I’m right. More important, I know I’m right.”
Stephenson let his mouth close. He took a deep breath. “Well,” he said finally, “Well—so we are in the clear. Carmer won’t talk. That takes care of that,” he added with relief.
Henry Walters shook his head with the cold inexorability of a computing robot. “We are not. Our pickups went haywire at the exact same instant as Cramer went amnesiac.”
Stephenson shrugged. “Coincidental equipment failure.”
Henry Walters pursed his lips as though to spit. “Item: Spot Dialogue does not have equipment failures. In terms of the field mechanics, it’s impossible. Item: Carmer does not have amnesia. If he can remember Dugan at all, the trouble’s not connected with anything he and Dugan might have said or done to each other. He was not—” this was said with heavy scorn—”hit on the head by a falling object, a la popular fiction. We are not actors in a psychological drama. Carmer was heterodyned, pure and simple, at the same time and by the same means, as our equipment was. Conclusion: someone else has learned how to set up a hyperspatial field, and deliberately threw a monkey wrench into us. Why? Because our particular bowl of gravy has attracted its first fly. Yes, Steve, conservatively speaking, we are in trouble.”
That was Monday, and Carmer had been under the routine supervision of a Constant Service operator. On Tuesday, handling a Special, Henry Walters had the next one happen to him.
The client’s name was Dietz.
Spot Dialogue had contracted to see him through one specific situation. Henry Walters was on it because Dietz’s account would be highly valuable, if he could be convinced of Spot Dialogue’s effectiveness.
Specials were fairly easy. Since the client could brief them on what was coming, SD’s research staff was able to compile pertinent data ahead of time. There was only a low expectation of sudden calls on the research division, and, with time to familiarize himself, the operator could do an even smoother job than usual.
Grinning with a faint trace of contempt—as he did every time he sat behind a pickup console—Henry Walters settled himself in his operator’s chair, energized the pickup, and waited, his head encased in the opaque fish-bowl of the pickup receptor. The earpieces rested snugly against his skull, cutting off all sound from the room. His cheeks were pressed by the rubber padding of the lenses over his eyes.
The search signal rippled through hyperspace, found Dietz, and keyed in the receptors. The carrier wave built up, and Henry Walters looked at Dietz from all around him. He reached out to the console, selected his viewpoint angle, and found himself looking Dietz in the face. He touched the selector again, and saw what Dietz was looking at. He turned the sound on and listened.
Dietz was talking to a secretary in the front office of the man he’d come to see. Dietz’s eyes were taking almost criminal advantage of her.
“Will you take a seat, please?” she said, smiling.
Henry Walters touched the research connection. The auxiliary signal dropped into the timelessness of hyperspace, where Research had set up its bubble. “Testing,” he said.
The staff member on the other end acknowledged. “Clear,” he said.
“Ready on the Dietz job.”
“Dietz, okay. We’re hooked in.”
The complete network was established. If anything unexpected developed, Research would cut in on the circuit, play back its recording of Dietz’s activities, consult, and give Henry Walters the information. He, in turn, would whisper the proper move in Dietz’s car. The process was, of course, instantaneous.
“Certainly,” Dietz replied. He crossed to a lounge chair and sat down. Henry Walters waited until his eyes were momentarily away from the girl before he pushed the EST button on the console.
The crooked grin intensified. The IN button activated the speaker inside the client’s ear. The client naturally assumed the pickup began simultaneously—if he went to the trouble of assuming a pickup at all. Who can divine the ways of omniscience?
Dietz acknowledged his awareness of the pickup with a short, sharp nod—and thereafter kept his eyes away from the secretary. He could not be sure, of course, that Spot Dialogue was watching—but why take chances?
Henry Walters almost chuckled.
“You may go in now,” the secretary said.
“Thank you,” Dietz answered. He stood up and went to the door of the inner office, which was opened for him by Wilke, the man he’d co
me to see.
Wilke looked directly into Dietz’s eyes, and, past them, into Henry Walters’.
“Tough luck, Mr. Walters,” he said, and the pickup seemed to go to pieces around Henry Walters’ head.
Stephenson handed him the aspirin with trembling fingers. The glass of water had slopped over and wet his hand.
Henry Walters groped out, swallowed the tablets, and gulped the water. He rubbed his eyes heavily.
“How frightened are you, Steve?” he asked, despite the fact that the pain was burrowing in terror through his brain.
“I don’t know, Henry,” Stephenson said in a small voice. “I don’t think I’d better let myself know.”
Henry Walters chuckled crookedly. “The devil we know is a terrible devil indeed, eh? Well, now we know how the clients feel—except that the clients know that whatever watches over them is on their side.”
“Henry!”
“Don’t exert yourself, Steve. We have no more secrets, and I’m quite sure our opponents want us to be aware of them. Whether I acknowledge my awareness now or at some guarded midnight meeting, they’ll know I know. Accustom yourself to living with no privacy, Steve—if you can.”
“What about you?”
Henry Walters laughed. “What a man does, and says, is never as significant or important as what he thinks. And plans.” He looked into thin air and said “I’d keep that mind,” to his opponent’s listening operator.
“Steve,” he went on, “they can’t beat me. And if they’ll think a moment, they’ll see why. I invented the mechanics of this. I set up the organization that is Spot Dialogue. I recruited you, Steve, to make the contacts and do the selling. You make an excellent salesman for a mystical product—omniscience—because even you regard it as a mystical product. It is not. It is good, hard, practical stuff. I’m intelligent, yes. More intelligent, almost certainly, than any of our customers. But I don’t know everything. I don’t have to. I don’t need to be a crackerjack real estate operator to sell real estate. I’m no lawyer—but I’ve never had a client to go to jail. Why?
“Everyone is brilliant in retrospect. ‘I should have said’ is one of the most popular phrases in a human language. ‘I should have done’—’I should have known.’ Well, I do say it, and do it, and know it. I’ve got an unbeatable library, operating with no timelapse whatsoever. That’s all it is, Steve. An instantaneous library and an instantaneous transmission. No mystical aura whatsoever.
“But even you, knowing how it works, are frightened when the system—or an exact duplicate—is directed at you. You can’t stand the thought of other eyes watching. I don’t mind. Because even my opponent is going to feel a little of that awe. Whereas I am a practical and enlightened man. It’s my system, no matter how many times it’s stolen. I built it. I know it. I know how to use it. And I know how to improve on it.
“I know its weaknesses, and I know where they can be strengthened.
“These people, whoever they are, are out to ruin our reputation and break our monopoly. I don’t see how I can stop them, this time. The best I can do is a stalemate, attacking them the same way they have attacked me. But it’s not the physical appurtenances that count, in the end. It’s the brain. And my brain is better, and knows more than theirs. They can’t win in the end.
“And with that in mind,” he concluded, speaking once again to the invisible watcher, “I’m ready to negotiate. May I suggest a meeting with your representatives tomorrow, at noon? Anywhere you wish, of course—since there is no possible neutral ground.”
He turned back to Stephenson. “Here, Steve—have an aspirin.”
Wilke cleared his throat, glanced around at the flanking members of his staff—Dietz, of course, was among them—and bent his gaze on Henry Walters.
“We are prepared to offer you twenty per cent of the preferred stock in Easyphrase, Inc., together with an assured election to a salaried Vice-Presidency. Mr. Stephenson is offered five per cent and a Vice-Presidency.”
Henry Walters picked up his cigarette and inhaled gently. “In return for?”
“Your stock in Spot Dialogue, Inc.”
“I see.” Henry Walters smiled gently.
“That’s a hundred per cent!” Stephenson exclaimed. Wilke and Henry Walters both raised their eyebrows in tolerant amusement. Stephenson flushed and fumbled with his pencil, eyes downcast.
“Now, Mr. Walters ...”
“Oh, hardly now, gentlemen. I’ve heard your offer. I’ll consider it, and let you know at a later date. I’ll consider it,” he emphasized, “to myself.”
Wilke looked at him angrily. “It was our impression that you were ready to enter immediate negotiation.”
Henry Walters nodded. “Certainly it was. Didn’t you hear me say so in Mr. Stephenson’s presence? It follows that what I tell Mr. Stephenson is not necessarily what I am thinking. And now that I’ve seen your faces, gentlemen, I shall be going.”
He pushed his chair back. He saw Stephenson bursting with enraged vanity. He nodded toward the door, and Stephenson followed.
“You said yourself I was the businessman!” Stephenson exploded in the taxi, goaded beyond his limited endurance. “I’m an equal partner! What kind of a fool do you want to make of me? First you won’t let me do the talking, and then you insult me! We’ve got to present them with a united front! We’ve got to stand firm!”
Henry Walters leaned back and lit a new cigarette. “Steve, what I said was that you were the business front. And, yes, you’re an equal partner—I want your interest in Spot Dialogue to be genuine and sincere. But, tell me something, Steve.” He faced Stephenson and sent a cold lance thrusting out of his eyes. “Don’t you think I could take your stock away from you, anytime I wished? It’s still my company, Steve. My company, my system, my brain. You know what you are, Steve? When I want you to be, you are my mouth. Just a mouth, Steve.”
He sat back and ignored Stephenson’s answers, whatever they might or might not have been. Thinking precisely, he took stock.
Spot Dialogue, Inc., was paralyzed. Easyphrase could heterodyne their signals at will. The effect on the client was trauma.
By the same token, Easyphrase had to persuade him to join them before they could operate.
Had Easyphrase thought of some of the other qualities of omniscience?
Probably. Wilke was a shrewd man—not really intelligent, but shrewd.
There was, then, a distinct possibility that Easyphrase might have offered its services to the government. Wilke wouldn’t see the inevitable disaster there. He’d see the profits.
Henry Walters had plotted that staircase to disaster a long time ago. First you work for the government. Then the government works for you. Then you are the government.
Dominion over the Earth ensues. This places absolute power over everything and everyone in your hands and the hands of your descendants. And then, after two or three generations of making hay while the sun shines, you discover that the human race, adapting readily to having its thinking done for it, has lost all initiative. Result? Your time is spent in desperately trying to maintain the interdependence of civilization—which can only be supported successfully by the interaction of discreet individuals with individual motives. Final result? You still keep your absolute power and gigantic profit—but you count that profit in flint arrowheads. And, after a while, you can’t even get the parts that maintain the machines that maintainyou.
But Wilke wouldn’t see that. He couldn’t begin to understand that the hardest part of the discovery of the Walters system had been in deciding where not to apply it.
Henry Walters noted in passing that Stephenson had run the gamut from protest through pleading to threats. He shrugged Stephenson’s hand off his shoulder and continued his summation.
It followed that he’d accept Wilke’s offer. Easyphrase would absorb Spot Dialogue and Henry Walters, much as tuberculosis baccilli absorb a bacteriophage.
Henry Walters smiled slightly, while the cab drew up in f
ront of the Spot Dialogue building. “We’re here, Steve,” he said gently. “You can stop talking now.” His smile broadened. “I wonder what makes you think Wilke will ever believe in our united front now?”
That was Wednesday. On Thursday, Henry Walters came into the office at his usual time, sat down behind his desk, and was about to call Stephenson in when Stephenson knocked on the door. His face was set, and his whole manner was rigid.
Henry Walters raised his eyebrows. “Good morning, Steve. I was about to ask you to come in.”
Stevenson nodded curtly. “I thought you might. I’ve been waiting for you to come in.”
“And?”
“Henry, what are we going to do? Have you decided?”
Henry Walters nodded. “But, for obvious reasons, I can’t yet tell you what my decision is.”
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