“’Civilization cannot exist without new frontiers; it needs them both physically and spiritually. The physical need is obvious—new lands, new resources, new materials. The spiritual need is less apparent, but in the long run it is more important. We do not live by bread alone; we need adventure, variety, novelty, romance. As the psychologists have shown by their sensory deprivation experiments, a man goes swiftly mad if he is isolated in a silent, darkened room, cut off completely from the external world. What is true of individuals is also true of societies; they too can become insane without sufficient stimulus.’”
Harrison deactivated the screen and turned back to Julian. “What’s your reaction to that?”
“I don’t know.” Julian shifted in his chair. “It makes a lot of sense.”
The seventy-three-year-old Bert Melville leaned forward impatiently. “Jule, the damn country is turning to mush. Ninety-eight percent do nothing but putter around with their hobbies: they paint paintings nobody wants to look at; they write books nobody reads; they move into mobile towns and travel around the country doing nothing but trying to enjoy themselves.”
Harrison took it up with his usual energy. “Ethically, the country is going to pot. Institutions that have come down to us through the ages are being completely eroded. Look at sex. All the young people now behave like rabbits. They start educating them on how to screw in God only knows how many different positions as soon as they’re into their teens. The family is disappearing, and the population is beginning to decrease. Whatever happened to religious training? The churches are empty except for old folks—those churches that remain at all.”
The usually taciturn Ley put in his word. “It’s like Mr. Melville said. ‘The country’s turning to mush.’ They don’t even have boxing any more. ‘Somebody might get hurt.’ Hell, when I was a kid Joe Louis was still alive. Fought his way up out of the slums, thrilled millions, and made millions. What’s wrong with that? Give the kids a desire to make something of themselves, to fight their way up. I read about this Manolete, the bullfighter in Spain. Another slum kid, but with guts. Became the best bullfighter of all time. Made tons of bucks thrilling people, taking his chances. Inspired other poor Spanish kids to make their play for the big time. How about car racing? I was at Indianapolis one year, at the Old Brickyard. Talk about thrills. The crowd was on its feet half the time, yelling themselves crazy. Those guys that drove those cars had guts, and they inspired younger people to get in there and fight.”
“All the old virtues are topsy-turvy,” Sean muttered. “For instance, anybody at all can dial as much pornography as he wants from the International Data Banks. You should see some of it. A six-year-old kid can look at it if he wants.”
Julian was looking thoughtful. “I’ve argued some of this with Academician Leete and his family. What he points out is that with this new system of the International Data Banks, it’s the best people, those with the highest Aptitude Quotient, who wind up running the country. The rest aren’t needed.”
“Ah?” Harrison said triumphantly. “Who says they’re the best? A bunch of machines! There are some things, Mr. West, a machine can’t measure.”
“The whole idea rather turned me off at the beginning,” Julian admitted. “But Academician Leete has some strong arguments and I don’t have much material to base my disagreements on. Whom can’t the computers measure?”
Harrison, in his enthusiasm, was on his feet. “Whom can’t they measure? The men who count most. The men who have counted most down through the centuries. Men with the dream, with the urge for power, with ruthless ambition, men of aggression, of charisma. The men whose ambition is such that the whole world is pushed forward as a result of their efforts.”
“Such as whom?” Julian said, his voice skeptical.
Harrison nodded at the validity of the question. “Do you know that Alexander the Great was the despair of his tutors, that Winston Churchill was a third-rater in school, that Ulysses S. Grant graduated twenty-first in a class of thirty-nine at West Point? Hitler was a high school dropout and failed his entrance examination to the art academy. Charlemagne couldn’t read or write. Caesar wrote Latin inadequately, much to the embarrassment of Latin teachers to this day. Lord Nelson received only a summary education and at the age of twelve went to sea as a midshipman. Lincoln had less than a year’s schooling. Washington had little formal learning; his biographer says, ‘His chief education was received from practical men and outdoor occupations, not from books.’ Thomas Edison had exactly three months of education and at the age of twelve became a newsboy on the railroads. Dickens had a vocabulary of twenty-five hundred words, and Shakespeare was spurned by most of the literati of his day because he never went to university.
“I could go on and on. Tell me, Mr. West, do you imagine for a moment that any of these men would be selected at Muster Day for even the meanest of positions in the present so-called Republic of the Golden Rule?”
The other men laughed scornfully.
Julian said slowly, “No. From what 1 understand about the computers and the Aptitude Quotient, I suppose none of them would be selected.” He thought a moment. “I suppose the same thing applies to women. No reason why not.”
Dave Woolman said, “Catherine the Great of Russia, one of the most famous women of all time, couldn’t sign her name until she became Empress when she was past the age of forty.”
Julian was listening intently.
Bert Melville spoke now. “Look at yourself, Jule. One of the most successful young men I’ve ever met. You doubled the fortune your father left you before you were thirty. In the Asian war, you went in as a shavetail lieutenant, though God knows you could have pulled strings in Washington. But you came out a major with a fist full of medals. When you found out you were a sick man you had the guts to undertake a dangerous experiment. Not one person in a thousand at the time thought you’d come through.”
“What will happen to you under this society, Mr. West?” Harrison urged.
Julian slumped in his seat. “After I’ve learned the language and studied up a bit, I’ll leave Leete’s tutelage and be off on my own. My Aptitude Quotient will obviously not be such that I will be selected on Muster Day for a job—any job. One of the Leetes suggested that I might give some talks to the younger people, explaining day by day life in the old times before I went into stasis.”
The aged Bert Melville snorted in deprecation. “Not much of a life for a man of your guts and ambition, Jule.”
Julian growled at him, “So, what’s the alternative? The fact of the matter is I understand that the man in the street likes what he’s getting. He’s secure, living the life of Riley. Here we are, five men sitting around beefing that the race has lost its dynamite, that wishy-washy people without the dream but with the ability to run up high Aptitude Quotients are at the country’s helm. What can five men do?”
Once again there was silence, and once again it was Harrison who finally spoke up. “There are more of us than five, Julian.”
“You mean you’ve got an organization?”
“Yes, of course. Nationally. And potentially a much larger one.”
“Recruited from where, and from what elements?”
Bert Melville grunted at that. “There were a few billionaires and several thousand millionaires when this change took place, Jule; they and their families. There were also hundreds of thousands of Americans who felt they were on their way up, men and women on the make, as we used to call it; all these and their families.”
“You can’t figure on all of them.”
“No, of course not. But wouldn’t you have fought the change, had you been awake at the time it took place?”
“Undoubtedly,” Julian answered. “Who else?”
Sean O’Callahan said, “There were a few thousand military, general and admiral rank, when the phasing out of the army, navy, and air corps took place. Not to mention tens of thousands of majors, lieutenant-colonels, and their equivalent ranks in navy and ai
r force. Anybody who selects the military as his career sees it as a lifetime job. Practically none of these people were selected by the computers for positions in the new society.”
“Who else?”
“There were other fields that almost completely disappeared,” Dave Woolman said seriously. “The professionally religious, for instance. Priests, nuns, ministers, rabbis, preachers, evangelists, missionaries. A large number of them were in despair when they saw religion withering away.”
“I can imagine,” Julian said. “Who else doesn’t like the present way?”
Harrison said somewhat impatiently, “Can’t you see how many people there must be who can’t adapt to this fast-changing world? Conservatives: those who liked the old ways; those who dragged their feet at the changes that applied to almost every aspect of our way of life. Suppose you were a mediumly successful farmer in Mississippi or Idaho. Your grandfather had settled your land, your father had improved it, you were born and raised on it. One day the representatives of the Republic of the Golden Rule come along and tell you that your method of farming is out—antiquated or whatever. That all farmland is being amalgamated so that it can be turned over to the latest automated farm machinery, operated largely by computers. How would you feel?”
Sean said, “All these are potential followers of ours when the break comes.”
Julian eyed him. “What break?” Those they had mentioned coincided with the malcontents Edith and her father had named.
Harrison said, his voice smooth, “We can hardly tell you that, Julian, until we know that you’re completely with us.”
“I see. Of what use could I be to you? I’m out of my depth in this world. I don’t know the ropes. I can’t even speak the language very well as yet.”
Sean said, “Jule, you’re the type we don’t have much of any more. You’re a combat man, an aggressive, ambitious, tough fighter.”
“I’ve seen combat,” Fredric Ley grumbled.
Sean looked at him. “Over a third of a century ago. Jule was in combat, killing men, winning medals, a few months ago.” He turned back to Julian. “We need your type. You’re the leader material we need so badly. You don’t have to know how to program a computer, or pilot a spaceship. We can locate lots of people to do that.”
“I see. Well, what happens now?”
Harrison said, “We don’t expect an immediate decision, Julian. Think about it and let us know. You can always get in touch with the organization through Sean, here.”
Julian stood up. “All right, I’ll think it over. Good morning, gentlemen.” He looked at Bert Melville. “A real surprise to see you again, Bert.”
“Oh, we’ll see a good deal of each other in the future, Jule. Talk over the old days, when men were men.” He blinked watery eyes in anticipation.
Sean saw Julian to the door and gave him a pat on the shoulder as he left.
Julian walked down the corridors to the elevators.
Fredric Ley packed a gun in a shoulder holster under his left arm. Supposedly it was in a hideaway rig, but Julian West had seen too many guns in his day to be fooled. There had even been times when his financial activities were such that he had retained a bodyguard, armed in much the same manner as was Ley.
Chapter Fifteen
The Year 2, New Calendar
We look beyond the current shock front to a wealthy and powerful and coordinated world society… a society that might find out how to keep itself alive and evolving for thousands or millions of years…It is a tremendous prospect. It is a quantum jump… the world is now too dangerous for anything less than Utopia.
—John R. Platt, Professor of Biophysics
The Step to Man
Julian returned to his own quarters. Since he had been revived, such a short time ago things had been piling up. And now some of them were coming to a head. He was being faced with various decisions, and was inadequately prepared to make them. The situation irritated him.
He paused before the door to his apartment, then turned and went down to that of the Leetes. As always, since his face was programmed into the identity screen, the door opened at his approach.
He entered the living room to find only Dr. Leete, who had a battered-looking book in his hand and an old-fashioned pencil. He was marking a passage.
“Good morning,” he said. “Edith and Martha are both out. I called you an hour or so ago, and you seemed to have left too.”
Julian nodded. “Have you made any progress with that suggestion of mine yesterday?”
Leete chuckled with self-approval and reached into an inner pocket to emerge with a device that looked like an old fountain pen.
“Yes, and—”
Julian put his finger to his lips in the age-old gesture for silence, and motioned with his thumb to one of the bathrooms.
The other blinked, but held his peace and followed.
Inside, Julian closed the door and once again turned on the running water.
He whispered, “It certainly didn’t take you long.”
Leete beamed. “I ran into a bit of luck. I have a friend who putters around with electronics, physicist chap now retired, but he himself was hesitant. He had no doubt that he could eventually come up with what you wished, but had never done anything along those lines before, and he would have had to start from scratch. However, by sheer chance he has a fellow electronics buff who is fascinated by the subject of bugging and detecting bugs as it applied in your day. My friend introduced me, and Dr. Browning was absolutely delighted to find someone who would even listen to details of his various projects. He had a score and more of some of the most complicated gadgets you ever saw. Did you know that it is possible to pick up from half a mile away the conversation of someone driving along in a vehicle?”
Julian raised a hand to cut him off. “Yes, I’ve heard about it. But I don’t believe we’ll be dealing with anything that sophisticated. What’s that he gave you?”
“He said that it was possibly the most universal, uh, mop he had on hand. But he said that if it didn’t work to come back and—”
“Did you tell him what you wanted it for?”
The doctor looked at him blankly. “I don’t know what we want it for.”
“Did he show you how to operate it?”
“Oh, it’s simplicity itself. He demonstrated it in his workshop. Those little bugs of his are simply fascinating. He had my friend and me hide several of them about the shop while he was out of the room and then—”
“But how do you operate it?”
“You simply press this button on the end and direct the other end at any place you think a bug might be. If there is one, it buzzes.”
“All right. Now keep mum.”
Julian turned off the water and led the way back to the living room, followed by his mystified host. Leete sat down and stared after him as he toured the room, pointing the electronic mop here, there, everywhere. Finally, he approached a painting, an abstract beloved by Edith but which he thought a horror.
A faint buzz emanated from the penlike device he held in his hand.
Academician Raymond Leete’s eyes grew huge.
Julian came closer. The buzz intensified. He deactivated the mop and stuck it in the breast pocket of his jerkin, and reached up and removed the painting from the wall. Silently, he pointed at the circular little device stuck there. It was colored the same as the wall itself and was not easy to detect.
Then Julian put the painting back in place and resumed his search of the room.
He said conversationally, “You know, when we were talking about the socioeconomic changes I was continually surprised at how quickly it all got rolling, once it started moving at all, and how far it went. I would have thought it would take at least a century to have evolved to this point.”
He continued to search the walls, but without further luck.
Leete was far from stupid, and he followed Julian’s lead.
“It’s in the nature of such movements to get out of h
and, Jule; to move faster than the ‘leaders’ expected. Take the French Revolution, or the American Revolution of 1776, for that matter. Or the Russian Mensheviks, who started the revolt against the Czar expecting to set up a Western-style parliamentary government, but soon had matters taken out of their hands by the rampaging Bolsheviks. So it was in this country too. When the Second Constitutional Convention met, even those most active in the beginning had no idea how far it would go. Many who started as leaders dropped out hopelessly conservative before it was through.”
There seemed to have been only the one bug in the living room. Julian gestured for the other to follow him and went into the kitchen, complete with its little breakfast nook where the Leetes usually ate. The bug was more easily detected here. It was under the table, once again neatly camouflaged.
Julian kept up a running chatter as they went from room to room.
He said, “Something Edith said the other day has come back to me. She spoke of the Soviet system as being state-capitalism; they called it communism.”
Leete went along with him, his eyes still wide in disbelief. “Remember the old story of Lincoln? He said to a visiting delegation, ‘If you called a sheep’s tail a leg, how many legs would the sheep have?’ And someone answered, ‘Five’. And Lincoln said, ‘No, the sheep would have four legs. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one.’ ”
Julian laughed. “So?”
“So when the bureaucracy running the Soviet complex called itself communist, or socialist, it wasn’t necessarily either system. In your day, the Soviet Union paid lip service to socialism but exploited wage labor, had money, banks, and most of the other symptoms of a capitalist society. The only difference was that the production and distribution system was not owned by individual capitalists; they were owned by the State. And the State was owned by the Communist Party, the leaders of which, at least, led the same good life as did the capitalists in the West. To a lesser extent the same thing applied to, say, Sweden and Great Britain, both of whom paid lip service to socialism—one of the most elastic terms ever to come into the socioeconomic lexicon. As capitalism develops, it becomes less and less practical for some basic industries to remain in private hands, and less profitable. For instance, take the post office. In the early days in America, it was in the hands of private enterprise—even up until the days of Wells Fargo and the Pony Express. But an industrialized, modern society must have an efficient, integrated postal system. A businessman in early New York who wanted to get an important letter to San Francisco had to send it half a dozen times by half a dozen routes and pray one got through. It wasn’t very efficient. The same thing applied in many countries to railroads; they were inefficient in private hands so they nationalized them. In England the coal mines didn’t allow for a profit so the mines were nationalized and took a loss on production, piously calling it socialism. The miners, of course, were as exploited as they had been under private ownership.”
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