For Us, The Living

by Robert Heinlein

  "However terror breeds terror and persecution brings its own reaction. The Libertarian element in the population, normally unorganized, were forced into protective coloration, but were not defeated. Under the pressure of necessity they organized, secretly and underground. They placed candidates in the field for their next congressional election and prepared to win at any cost. An underground terrorist group was formed by the more headstrong which undertook to hand the Knights some of their own medicine. The more conservative turned their attention to the coming election and flooded the country with pamphlets which denied that the Scudderites were more than a small part of the population and urged the people to vote their convictions. Election day was a shambles and the counting of the ballots resolved itself into a multitude of little battles between the Knights and the embattled individualists. When the smoke had cleared away it became evident that Scudder had lost the election. He had been heavily defeated on both coasts and clearly lost the majority of the seats in the larger cities of the valley. Even if he were conceded all the disputed contests in his rural strongholds, he nevertheless had lost every state but Tennessee and Alabama.

  "The members of the new congress who had been elected on an anti-Scudder ticket were pledged to constitutional reforms to prevent a recurrence of loss of individual liberty from any cause. In consequence several hundred amendments were proposed in the first few days of the term. The parliamentary impasses resulted in a clever piece of law making. At a caucus of the Libertarians it was proposed and agreed to that a small representative committee draft and submit to the caucus an amendment in the form of a new constitution which, if adopted and ratified, would supersede the old constitution in toto. The committee consisted of five men and one woman, great minds all of them; Cyrus Fielding, Rosa Weinstein, John Delano Roosevelt, Ludvig Dixon, Joseph Berzowski, and Colin MacDonald. Fielding presided and apportioned the work. I wish we had time to go into the details of their discussions. They labored night and day for nearly four months. Fortunately we have a record of their entire proceedings which you can study at your leisure, and there are several excellent abridgments available. Their report was submitted to the caucus on 2028 April 20 and was debated in caucus for three weeks, but the members of the committee had done their work so well and in particular had been so skillful in retaining most of the wording of the original document, the new amendment was approved by the caucus without change and submitted as a single bill signed by every member of the caucus. Its adoption of course was a forgone conclusion. It was ratified by the thirty-seventh state on 2028 November 12.

  "I won't go into the minutiae of the document but several changes are worthy of note tonight. The most important was the addition of a new restriction on the power of government. Henceforth no law was constitutional that deprived any citizen of any liberty of action which did not interfere with the equal freedom of action of another citizen. Pardon me, I have stated that badly. These are the words of the new constitution: 'Every citizen is free to perform any act which does not hamper the equal freedom of another. No law shall forbid the performance of any act, which does not damage the physical or economic welfare of any other person. No act shall constitute a violation of a law valid under this provision unless there is such damage, or immediate present danger of such damage resulting from that act.'

  "Do you see the significance of that last provision? Up to that time, a crime had two elements; act of commission and intent. Now it had a third; harmful effect which must be proved in each case, as well as the act and the intent. The consequences of this change can hardly be exaggerated. It established American individualism forever by requiring the state to justify in each case its interference with an individual's acts. Furthermore the justification must be based on a tangible damage or potential damage to a person or persons. The person damaged might be a schoolgirl injured or endangered by a reckless driver or it might be every person in the state endangered by the betrayal of military secrets or injured by manipulation of commodity prices, but it must not be some soulless super-person, the state incarnate, or the majesty of the law. It reduced the state to its proper size, an instrument to serve individuals, instead of a god to be worshipped and glorified. Most especially it ended the possibility of the majority oppressing any minority with that hackneyed hoary lie that 'the majority is always right.'

  "In another place in the constitution, corporate persons were defined and declared to have no rights of any sort except wherein they represented rights of real persons. Corporate persons could not be damaged. An act committed against a corporate person must be shown to have damaged a real person in order to constitute an offense. This was intended to clip the wings of the corporate trusts which threatened to crowd out the man of flesh and blood.

  "Another new civil liberty was defined, the right of privacy. You will understand that better as you study the code of customs. Several other reforms were instituted, most of them obvious, such as the direct election of the president, and a re-definition of the 'general welfare' clause in order to give greater freedom in changing the details of government in a changing world. There were two important changes in the method of legislation. The House of Representatives was given the right to pass legislation over the veto of the Senate. There had been under consideration the abolition of the Senate, or at least to make it proportionately representative, but an obscure clause in the original document prevented this without the unanimous consent of all the states. Perhaps the most striking change was the power vested in the chief executive to initiate legislation and force its consideration. Under this provision the President with the aid of his advisers could draft bills which automatically became law at the expiration of ninety days unless Congress rejected it. The ninety days had to be while Congress was sitting of course."

  "Suppose Congress wasn't in session?"

  "The President could call it if he saw fit."

  "Suppose the matter was too urgent to wait ninety days."

  "Congress could accept it at once if there was need. Sometimes the President asks them to do so."

  "Did Congress lose its power to initiate legislation?"

  "Oh no, not at all. They could pass any laws they wanted and reject any laws they chose to. But if there was great disharmony, either branch of the government might force an immediate general election. The President could do so by dissolving Congress; the Congress, by a vote of no confidence. The latter vote was in the House alone, the Senate wasn't empowered. That is the least but one of the major changes. The new constitution called for a re-codification of law every ten years and laid a strong injunction on all law makers to use simple language and to avoid abstractions. A way was opened here to invalidate laws on constitutional grounds simply because they were not in clear English."

  "I like that," commented Perry. "I always have thought that lawyers had deliberately clouded the issue by the cock-eyed way they talk. I had a course in school once in order writing. Although it was classed as English composition, the criterion was not style, nor literary merit, but whether or not the meaning was unmistakable. I think it would have done most lawyers a lot of good to have taken it."

  "I'm sure of it. Well, that about clears us up, Perry. The past sixty years have been largely development and growth which you can best appreciate by seeing it. If you will excuse me, I'm going to bed."

  "A sound idea. But I want to thank you first for the trouble you have taken for me. You have been very patient."

  "Not at all, son. I enjoyed it. Someday soon I want to question you at length about your recollections of your period. If you actually have authentic and detailed personal memories of your time you will be doing me a great service."

  "It will be a privilege and a pleasure."

  "Well, goodnight, son."

  "Goodnight, sir, and thanks again."

  V

  "Going to sleep all day, sleepy head?"

  Perry stretched and yawned, then grinned up at Diana.

  "What time is it?"

 
"Late enough. Daylight's wasting. Master Cathcart is gone long since. If you want breakfast with me you'd better hurry." Perry jumped up and ducked into the refresher. When he returned ten minutes later, tingling from his shower, Diana was setting near the window a tray from which rose appetizing smells.

  "What have we here? Buckwheat cakes. Sausage. Fresh pineapple. Diana, you are a jewel. Will you adopt me and feed me like this every morning?"

  "Sit down, silly, and eat." She made a face at him, but her eyes were shining. "Hurry up. We're going places today."

  "Where?" The coffee cup poised in the air.

  "Round and about. Most any place you want to. The great wide world. What would you like to see?"

  "I don't know—yet."

  "Well, that's where we'll go."

  After breakfast Diana lit a cigarette, then popped the dishes into the fire. She turned to Perry. "Better put these on. Your other things are already in thecar." 'These' were a pair of sandals with zipper fasteners and ornamental straps. He slipped them on and hurried after Diana who had opened the outer door. Perry found himself not outdoors, but in a small reception hall. On his left Diana's shapely legs were disappearing up a flight of steps. He hastened and caught up with her. They emerged in a moderately large hangar, containing at the moment what was obviously an aircraft but reminded Perry of an illustration from some lurid Sunday supplement. It was egg-shaped, about eighteen feet long and twelve feet high. It was supported by three retractable wheels, two at the blunt or forward end, and one at the stern. Mounted at the small end of the egg was a screw propeller with three five-foot blades. At the topmost point of the egg shaped body was a small cylindrical projection from which streamed aft a sheaf of flat blades about fifteen feet long and perhaps eighteen inches wide at the widest point. Perry guessed that this unfolded into a rotor for helicopter flight. He attempted to count the blades in the gloom and decided that there were either five or six. No wings were in evidence but Perry noticed that there were slots about four feet long on each side near the top amidships. Diana confirmed his guess that these housed wings that spread when needed. But search as he might he saw no sign of a control surface; rudder, stabilizer, nor fins.

  The body was a dull copper color, except for the front end and the sides back to midships, which were plastic glass. The door was just abaft his enormous view-port on the starboard side. Diana swung it open and they stepped inside. The interior was very roomy, there being nearly five feet of clear floor space thwartships and almost that much abaft the twin pilots' chairs. A lazy bench ran around the outer wall except for the space forward of the chairs, where it was replaced by a belt of instruments with clear glass above and below. Perry saw that the level inner floor plate and the corresponding curved outer hull were largely of glass.

  Diana seated herself in the right hand pilot's chair. "Come sit beside me, Perry." He did so and examined the dual controls in front of him. Diana touched a lever control and the car rolled out on the platform. She grasped the joystick and pulled it toward her, thumb pressing a button on the end. Perry heard a soft hum and a slight haze appeared over the car. The rotor had unfolded. The hum grew to a high-pitched whine, then died away. The car trembled and he noticed a slight feeling of heaviness. He glanced down between his feet and watched the mountain with its crags and pine trees drop away. A few minutes later Diana moved the stick forward to the vertical. Perry felt as if he were riding in an express elevator which had just stopped at the top floor. The car hovered about two thousand feet over 'Diana's mountain'. She turned to him. "Now where shall we go?"

  "I don't want to go any place until I learn to fly this thing."

  "I'm not exactly a flying instructor, but I'll try. You saw me take off. First I started the main motor with this switch turned to 'helicopter.' I pull back the stick to rise straight up. With the stick vertical the car hovers. The stick won't move unless you press the button on the end. Push the stick forward—so—and the car lowers. Then return it to vertical when you are at the altitude you wish. In landing you settle it down slowly with a slight pressure forward."

  "Suppose the main motor stops while you're in the helicopter?"

  "It settles down on the rotor. The wheels snap out into place. They are held retracted magnetically by a field off the main motor. You settle down pretty hard—It's about like falling ten meters at sea level, a little harder in this thin air. But the carriage takes most of the shock and this pneumatic upholstery soaks up the rest. It is pretty much of a jolt however. Anyone standing in the cabin should lie down quickly on the couch."

  "Suppose it fell over water."

  "The car will float. If you can start the rotor again, you can even take off again. I've done it with this one from Lake Tahoe. If you can't take off, you can just sit there and wait to be rescued."

  "Now tell me how to maneuver this baby."

  "Turn the main control switch from 'helix' to 'plane'. The wings come out,"—Sure enough, Perry saw them spread on each side—"and the screw starts. As it gathers speed, it drags more and more current, and the rotor slows down and stops and folds up. If you stop the screw by throwing the switch back, or if something happens to it, the rotor starts. The wings don't retract until the rotor is maintaining lift. See, there goes the rotor." The great vanes passed by, turning more slowly each revolution, finally stopped, folded back on each other like a Japanese fan, and disappeared. "We are flying now. If I pull back on the stick now the speed increases. When the air speed meter shows the speed I want I return the stick to vertical. If I pushed the stick forward the speed slows. If I slow to stalling speed before I reach it the rotor will start."

  "How do you change direction?"

  "If you push the stick sideways, the car turns in the same direction. When you are on your new course you return the stick to vertical."

  "Does that both bank and handle the rudder? Say, I didn't see a rudder nor any other control surfaces. Why should it turn?"

  "There aren't any control surfaces. The car is gyro stabilized. We rotate the car around the rigid reference frame of the gyros and let the screw push away in our new direction."

  Perry nodded slowly. "That seems all right, except that she must side slip like the very devil on a turn."

  "That's right, Perry, but ordinarily it doesn't matter. If you need to prevent it, you can turn past your new course and hold it there until the side slip is killed."

  Perry's face cleared. "Yes, I suppose so, but I would hate to try to fly a tight military formation in her."

  "You couldn't. This is a family model, for quiet people like me. It isn't very fast and it's as nearly foolproof and automatic as they can make it. They claim that if you can use a knife and fork you can fly a 'Cloud House'."

  "What speed does she make?"

  "I cruise her at about five hundred kilometers. I could make five hundred and fifty but there's a nasty vibration at that speed. I may need a new propellor."

  Perry whistled. "If that is a moderate speed for a family car, what's the record these days?"

  "About three thousand. That is with rockets of course. But I don't like a rocket ship. They make me nervous and they are devilish to handle. Give me my old-fashioned electric runabout. I'm in no hurry."

  "Which reminds me. I gather this baby must be electric drive, but how?"

  "The rotor and the prop are driven by induction motors. The power comes from storage batteries. The gyros each have their own induction windings. They run all the time."

  "Storage batteries—I should think they would be too heavy."

  "These aren't heavy for the power they store. They call 'em chlorophyll batteries because the principle involved is supposed to be similar to the photosynthesis of plants. But don't ask me why. I'm a dancer, not a physicist. However there are some new models on the market that make their own electricity from coal."

  "Directly?"

  "I don't know. It doesn't burn if that's what you mean."

  Perry slapped his thigh. "Edison was working on th
at when he died."

  "Too bad he didn't perfect it. We've had it only about ten years. See here, Perry, want to try the controls?"

  "Yes indeed. Wait a minute though. How do I change altitude when I'm in 'plane' combination. "

  "You can get as much as ten degrees dive or climb by changing this setting. It rotates the car about the horizontal gyro axis. You can use that when hovering with the rotor to keep from drifting in the wind, provided the wind isn't more than seventy-five kilometers."

  "In that case you could maneuver by rotor if you wanted to, couldn't you."

  "Yes, but it's slow of course. Do you know what all your instruments mean?"

  "You keep an eye on the instruments. I'll fly by ear for a while." Perry took the car up a couple of thousand feet and cautiously put her through her paces. Presently when he had the feel of the controls he undertook to see what it would do. He soared and dropped, flew straight away and slewed her into sudden turns. He discovered that he could jamb her about one hundred and eighty degrees and stop her dead with the propeller. After this stunt Diana touched his arm:

  "Perry, if you knock off the propeller, we'll have to go home on the rotor." He looked crestfallen.

  "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought anything she could do, she could handle."

  "That is very nearly true. But my prop may be out of balance, you know. In any case the screw itself is a gyro and you were processing it on a rigid frame."

  He set the controls at neutral and turned to her. "Diana, if you are a dancer and no physicist, how do you know so much about mechanics?"

  She looked surprised. "Any schoolgirl knows that much."

  "I can see education has improved." He returned to the controls and tried new stunts; stalling, changing combinations, maneuvering on the rotor. The flight brought them back near the canyon—'Diana's canyon' as Perry regarded it—and the waterfall caught Perry's eye. He lowered away cautiously and eased the craft slowly over toward the veil of water until they hovered halfway down and a hundred feet from the falls. They both sat in silent contemplation for several minutes until a shift in the wind forced Perry to return to the controls. He rose out of the canyon and settled down in level flight. Then he spoke. His voice was low and fervent. "Boy, but that fall is something!" He turned to Diana. "It's nearly as beautiful as you are, Dian'." She looked up and met his eyes for a moment, then dropped her lids, without replying. They were flying west. Presently Diana spoke.