Complete Fiction (Jerry eBooks)

by Fox B. Holden

  In the living room, the woman was listening to her husband.

  “By their standards, we would seem as improbable in our psychological reactions, our reasoning and our way of life as they seem under-developed and generally inferior in intelligence to our eyes. When you’re among them, Lisa, you will have to guard against the self-assurance which to them could be easily interpreted as lack of emotion. Lender any but the most intimate circumstances, we might appear to them as some sort of thinking machinery devoid of what they term ‘character’ and ‘personality’. Other than that, you should have little trouble. If you should err through some lack of detailed knowledge, you will find it amazingly easy to cover up.” He toyed with a cigarette in a momentary attempt to deduce its function. He broke it in two, examined the tobacco grains as she spoke. Her voice was quiet, almost as though consciously held in check by some secret restraint.

  “From your description, these people can be dealt with more or less at the mental level of a child of eight, then . . .”

  “A child of about 13, on their standards. Not in individual cases, however—you will have to judge quickly for yourself. There are many who approach us in mental agility. I believe, from what I’ve been able to discover during the last few hours, that our host was one of those. There are few others of his rank, however, who are his equal.”

  “That would account for the apparatus.” And then in a different voice and quite suddenly she said, “Dare we not use it, Douglas, and—”

  “And what? Lisa, sometimes I think I don’t understand you at all. You seem frightened, I think. Are you frightened?”

  “No. No, Douglas.”

  “That’s better. At any rate, we will do best to leave his apparatus absolutely unmolested. Here, apparently, science is not a restricted thing, in the sense that the individual is not limited by law in its study and practice. Technological secrets of the government are of course carefully guarded, and periodically divulged to the public in vague or distorted form. However, the individual may be a free agent in science to the limit of his wealth, interest and intellectual ability. That is why our host was able to complete a project similar to that upon which Zercheq was at work when he was apprehended. Although even my technical training at Quadrature Academy excluded detailed study of space-time mechanics just as it did nuclear fission, I’m quite positive that our host has constructed a successful Chronospan, as Zercheq called it. If we tamper with it, his chances of returning here and ours of returning to our phase in time are reduced to absolute zero. As it is, he will be faced with the task of building another to effect his return—and unless he is a clever man indeed, his chances are of course exceedingly slim. Zercheq was only half-finished when the S Council apprehended him.”

  “We are the—innocent victims of a trap, then.”

  “It need not be a trap, precisely, my dear. There is a slim chance that we may return—but that must of course remain in his hands. Quite probably, he may fail. Therefore, we must go about the process of adapting ourselves, and in any measure possible, alter and adapt this civilization to our own methods and standards.”

  “Please, Douglas—”

  “Yes?”

  SHE looked away from him for a moment, then back, but with her eyes lowered.

  “I suppose changing them,” she said softly, “would be a—a challenge to you, Douglas.” Then her eyes came up, looked full into his. “Please, let us use his device. Let us go back. I—It is that I—I am afraid, Douglas,” she said.

  “Afraid?” His tone was that of a man speaking half in doubt, half in impatience. “I still fail to understand you, Lisa. A moment ago you said—”

  “Then forgive me,” she interjected with a nervous suddenness. “It is—let us say it is the shock.”

  “If so it shall wear off. But you may be assured, Lisa, there is nothing to fear. These people are at least a century behind us, generally speaking. Sociologically, they are where we were before the formation of the Prelatinate—purely a case of arrested development dating from antiquity. Technologically they are very little behind us—perhaps only decades. I am not as yet familiar with the manifold details of which the causes are comprised, but the effects in themselves are starkly obvious. There are wars, for one thing. They are the end effect of all the other contributory effects. I am in a position to inaugurate the proper political maneuvers to eliminate this end effect—and I shall. The problem of changing these people should be quite simple, and because of their terrible desperation, if should take astonishingly little time. They are slow-moving when it comes to governmental function for the direct benefit of the individual, but in their present state—as I say, almost unbelievably confused and hazardous—I am quite sure that they can be relied on to favor any possible solution to the curtailment of crisis after crisis.”

  “You mean—you mean the games, don’t you, Douglas? . . .”

  “Why of course! What else would I mean?”

  “They have space travel, I suppose—”

  “No—no, oddly, they’re highly skeptical of it—it’s still relegated to colorful pamphlets for amusement purposes and to a few rather well done pieces of fiction with all too limited circulation. But of course, when the time comes, the Sahara will serve well enough—that is where we started. Ordinarily, it would take years with people such as these to convince them to adopt our game system. I shall work through their weak spots—their fear, their desperation, their willingness to follow beliefs unfounded in fact. Perhaps even within months . . . Lisa, you’re not listening!”

  “Yes. Yes I am, Douglas.”

  “I see. You think that because they’re rank amateurs in the philosophy of political mechanics, I will meet insurmountable stumbling blocks. It is true they are quite backward in economic theory, and of course that has its manifestation throughout government as well as the governed. But fortunately, their motives are transparent to anyone except themselves—that will help at least in gaining a toehold. Before I begin, I want a few hours careful study of the notes the boys are compiling. They’ve been industrious, I hope and not too taken with all this.”

  She did not answer him.

  “You are to be highly credited, my dear,” he said. He knew her mood would pass. It had, before . . . “They are fine sons. I shall see to it, as long as we must remain in this time-phase, that the only arms they shall ever carry will be in the war games which I feel confident I can inaugurate. They’re in the den? After you, my dear . . .”

  He did not notice the sudden tightening of the little lines at the edges of her mouth.

  FOR several days, it was little more than a game of watchful waiting. There had been committee meetings, sub-committee meetings, and each had been more tense in the complexion of its discussions than the one preceding it. These men, he found, were little, desperate men, and had but only recently come to realize it.

  The notes Ronal and Kurt had compiled for him were extensive and accurate. Fundamentally, he understood the background of cause and effect underlying the tensions, and had realized at once that these men had become mired so deeply in the swale of political intrigue that they had at last come to the point where they would gladly grab at the nearest straw to extricate themselves. But they had run out of straws. They had begun running out in the early 1950’s; each had broken pitifully since the Korea fiasco, and now they had been used up. He listened, for his opportunity could come at any moment—and it must be precisely the right moment.

  “Gentlemen,” one of them began in the soft drawl of the south, “I am in favor of the President’s proposal for two main reasons and two alone: firstly, it is an indirect solution to the thorny problem of Civil Rights. Secondly, we simply must have the arms. No one could have foretold that Soviet Russia would have succeeded as she did in ultimately outproducing us. Therefore we are caught by surprise, and simply must have the funds, gentlemen. I wish to go definitely on record as favoring the 50 per cent tax on individual income . . .”

  “Impossible! I think the
Congressman forgets the inherent strength in the will of the people! I tell you they’ve had all they will take. Especially in your own state, Congressman—they will become slaves in a far more severe sense of the word than they ever were before the Civil W—pardon me. the War Between the States.”

  “As I pointed out, Congressman, the President’s proposal will solve the thorny Civil Rights problem. And at any rate, the people of which you so respectfully speak, Congressman. seem to have learned that politics is after all a matter for the professional politicians. I think we both realize that whether or not they feel, as you say, that they have had all they can take, they will do little about it. When, in recent years, have they, may I ask? I suggest, therefore . . .”

  Several of the conferees looked in Blair’s direction, as though, expecting him to do something. But the time was not yet. And when it came, he must be careful—even in their desperation, they would not accept it whole-hog.

  “—and I b’lieve it is obvious that by working gradually, as we have in the past, we should not have any of the trouble the Congressman from New York suggests. Each year, we have simply added a little more, and promised it would be the last time. Until now, even at 30 per cent we are in a position to continue almost indefinitely. One thing the people do fear, gentlemen, is war. We have been skillful, and let us not mince words about it. They have been thoroughly frightened!”

  Of course that was it. Gradually, with accompanying promises . . . The fear had been made a direct thing, and the tangled, subtle causes beneath had become psychologically, if not actually, inaccessible.

  All of the causes, of course, he might never learn. But the general effects were obvious, so it was on them and with them alone that he must build his case.

  IT was now a matter of discerning how many of these men were genuinely concerned with bettering the situation, how many were tenaciously satisfied with the status quo, and how many were intent on using the situation to better their own interests. All were desperate men. Only their goals were different.

  In time of course he would be able to do away with most of them. They would in all probability fail to fit in a world organized about the psychological concept on which the games were built. The people themselves, however, if what the southern Congressman had said were true, would fit perfectly.

  And inwardly, he smiled. It was almost a simple thing, because it was obvious that what the man had said was at least true to a degree. Their economic set-up was proof of it. Millions and millions of pieces of green paper, in which they had implicit faith despite the facts which they knew to be true—that far less than half of their paper currency was validly backed by the standard metal on which it was based. There was not that much ore in the planet’s entire crust!

  But they believed that the system worked, and that was all that was necessary.

  Just as the people of his own time-phase believed that a child could actually be conditioned for life against violence, after sustaining the temporary psychological shock caused by a week’s subjugation to the bloody horror of wanton slaughter. It was understood that such severe psychological shock during the early years of mental development was sufficient to condition each new generation for life against any future acts of violence as adults, and it was believed because it seemed to work. And because it seemed to work, it was believed in. Each surviving youth grew into adulthood as convinced as his neighbor that the conditioning of the games was lifelong, that the psychological scar they left was permanent, and would therefore render impossible any form of violent conflict.

  The belief, scientifically questionable as it might be, was never challenged, because there was always the fact to face that there was, after all, no war.

  There was none primarily because the games simply solved the main cause of it. Carefully controlled mortality rates on the battlefields kept the population where it belonged, prevented the ultimate over-crowding which was directly and indirectly responsible at 90 per cent of the causes of any armed conflict. The few who were sufficiently timorous to probe the philosophy upon which the system was based were at once amazed at its simplicity: it consisted simply of a logical premise that the killing of a required number of immature children was self-evidently worth the saving of millions of valuable adults. It was a matter of necessary sacrifice.

  Yes, the people of this time-phase would fit into the plan well. Not because they were intelligent, but because they had a natural tendency as followers, and because their limited imaginations held them in a mentally astigmatic state, too concerned with the status quo to ask questions concerning the future until it was too late.

  Blair smiled, this time openly. Tayne could have the directorship back there! Here there was no Tayne. Here was a world for the asking, upon which he would at last be the object of primary, not tertiary, worship by a planet! He could take the shapeless clay—could cultivate it, could forge it in time into a great, brilliant civilization—and it would be his, all his. What greater monument to the genius of a man . . .

  IT was a week later when the time came. The Congressman from the south had been on a brief inspection of a hydrogen bomb site following a test detonation. The pink flush had subsequently vanished from his jowls and in its place was the color of ash. His brain had been mightily disturbed; he had been forced to the painful recourse of thought, and that had disturbed it even further.

  Two other Congressmen were getting away with intelligent debate, because the Congressman from the south was at last quite silent.

  “. . . And I contend that our armed forces have not at all times been informing us truthfully, especially regarding the need for vast land armies, when it is obvious that they have become obsolete. It is my opinion that their maintenance is used simply as a tool, gentlemen—a tool to gouge extra taxes fom the public, thereby enforcing their increased dependence for survival on the government itself.”

  “You mean, Congressman, to say that the Army lies?”

  “Like a rug, Congressman!”

  There was a murmur throughout the group, short, whispered exchanges.

  “You can substantiate this claim?”

  “Do I really have to, Congressman?”

  A gavel rapped quickly. Blair had slipped for the moment into the comfort of relaxation; by the Prelatinate, it was amusing!

  Then the debate continued, and he was at last convinced that these men were genuinely afraid that the war from which no amount of influence or money could buy their safety was imminent. The third war in their history which would genuinely be fought to win. The others had been their American Revolution, and their Civil War.

  Then, “Congressman Blair. You’ve had little to say for the last few days. Perhaps this subcommittee could profit by an opinion from you . . .”

  The chance had come.

  He rose. “I have a plan,” he said, “that may seem fantastic to you. I have waited until most of the routine arguments were heard, so that this thing would not be any more confused and bogged down in senseless debate than necessary. I am prepared to answer all questions directed to me regarding it, but I am finished at the first sign of the usual harangue.”

  HE watched their faces. They were suddenly intense, and there was a new alertness in them. It was true, then—they did respect him; he had a good following.

  “It is quite evident that our enemy has taken the advantage by surprise. The nuclear weapons on both sides have kept us deadlocked for about seven nervous, uncomfortable, difficult years. And the deadlock is now on the verge of finally being broken, and to his advantage. He is now capable of outproducing us—his dealings with unscrupulous American businessmen have finally borne fruit, and he has sprung his surprise. His nuclear weapons outnumber ours five to one and he is in the driver’s seat whether we care to deny it or not. And we are stuck with twenty million men under arms in the field—rifles and hand-grenades, lumbering tanks and a few other ridiculous toys. An organization so tremendous that it trips itself and falls flat on its face at every attempted mov
e.

  “But you gentlemen are painfully aware of all this, as are the high-ranking, tradition-bound military leaders who are still denying it. What you may not be aware of is that we may equalize our position if we are quick to act—we may counter-surprise, countershock, if we do not delay.

  “I therefore ask your support, gentlemen, when I introduce my bill to immediately lower the present minimum draft age from seventeen to thirteen years.”

  The gavel clattered for order. Many had risen to their feet.

  “Your questions, one at a time, gentlemen.”

  “Very well. The chair recognizes the Congressman from New Jersey.”

  “May I submit, Congressman Blair, that your plan is crazy? You yourself admitted that manpower alone is woefully insufficient to cope with this situation.”

  “It is, as such. In the form of surprise—and believe me, it would surprise the enemy ten times the degree to which it has obviously shocked this group here—it would prove of great value, in that it would reflect a murderously frightening desperation. It would, of course, have to be simultaneously accompanied by an immediate step-up in production of nuclear weapons. All other types would immediately be dropped. Factory shifts would in all instances immediately become full-day, full-week.”

  “The Congressman from California.”

  “And you mean to imply that our enemy would actually stand in fear of a thirteen-year-old?”

  “Human mass has nothing to do with age, Congressman.”

  “The Congressman from Ohio.”

  “What you suggest, Congressman, is inhuman, unbearably horrible—you suggest that we support you in a bill to draft children.”

  “To make my point more clear, perhaps I should ask some questions of my own. First, am I to understand that this group was at any time in opposition to Universal Military Training? And—second, is the youth of seventeen a grown man?

  “Or shall I ask the question this way—where would you rather place these youngsters—in a position to possibly solve our dilemma, or in cities that cannot possibly be adequately defended, and have them marked for certain death along with the rest of us in them?