The Trigger

by Arthur C. Clarke

  Greene suspected they were being punished for a breach of etiquette - namely, failing to properly grease the inspector's palm. With Aron Goldstein's bargain-hunting corporate buyers signing the purchase orders, very little of what had gone into building the Annex or the Village had been purchased locally, and none of it from Tillman Construction.

  The suspicion hardened into certainty when Greene received the early-morning call from the gatehouse. 'Dr Greene, we have a Robert Tillman here - he says he's here for final inspection on a number of permits, and you're expecting him.'

  Greene cast a bleary eye in the direction of the clock. 'Have someone take him up to the Village, and stay with him until Mr Colquit or I get there. Give him some coffee, but don't let him inside any of the buildings without us. In fact, give him a lot of coffee - it might help improve his opinion of the plumbing.' Closing the comset on the guard's laughter, Greene rolled onto his right side and nudged a sleeping Leigh Thayer. 'Lee?'

  She stirred and turned toward him. 'The answer is no,' she murmured. 'Ask again later.'

  Tillman's playing some more games with us. I have to go down to the Village right now. Give me a tickle when you get up - if we're still at it, maybe you'll want to come join us,' he said as he climbed out of bed. 'Besides, I don't think you've been down since before the Family Center came in and the landscapers rolled out the sod for the playground.'

  Yawning, she sat up, letting the sheet fall away with careless unconcern. The Tasmanian Devil grinned back at him from her sleepshirt. 'It's not like I haven't had any work of my own to do,' she said.

  'I know,' Greene said, jumping into his pants. 'I just thought if we all could sign off at the same time, we might be able to give the green light to the people who've been waiting to move.'

  'You actually think Tillman will let us occupy? I'm expecting him to fine-print us to death. But I'll come down anyway in a little while to lend moral support. - Comb your hair, hon, you look like you've been partying all night with some tart.'

  By the time Thayer joined them two hours later, her prophecy had already been fulfilled. Tillman had torn open a finished wall and ripped up the subfloor of a carpeted room before red-tagging the California-built manufactured homes so heavily that the tags looked like part of the decor. But he had not dawdled in doing so; he was already on his way back to the gate when Lee found a glum Gordon Greene sitting on the porch steps of one of the two larger L-shaped prefabs.

  'Bad?'

  Greene waggled the sheaf of yellow deficiency notices at her. 'He rejected the manufacturer's certification papers because they weren't originals - hand-signed by the inspector, embossed seal, one copy for each unit.'

  That arrogant son of a…'

  'The smaller the crown, the more petty the king. But this won't hold us up more than a couple of days. I've already contacted the manufacturer. They'll have new certificates couriered to us as soon as they can put them together.'

  'I didn't know you were capable of being this philosophical,' she said with a wry smile.

  'Some people just aren't worth the stomach acid,' Greene said. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the door behind him. 'Got a few minutes? I'd still like to show you this one.'

  Her gaze narrowed. 'Why? Isn't this the administrative supply building?' Then she raised an eyebrow. 'Or is this your idea of asking me later?'

  Greene laughed as he stood. 'No to both. Come on - I'll show you.'

  It was obvious on first glance that the spaces inside were set up for a residence rather than for storage. But the structure was half again as large as the standard Village home. 'I don't understand. I was sure the site plan called for an administrative building here.'

  'It did,' Greene agreed cheerfully. 'I think the director's residence qualifies as an administrative building, don't you?'

  'The director's residence,' she echoed, as she peeked through a doorway. 'Hey, look at the size of that bathroom. You talked me into it - I'll take it. - So, where are you going to live?'

  'Well - I'm afraid there's only one director's residence, and we happen to have two directors.'

  'That was poor planning.'

  'I agree. But it's too late now to do anything about it. So -'

  he shrugged '- I'm afraid we don't have much choice but to share.'

  She crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame, an amused expression on her face. 'Gordie, this is at once the sweetest and the dumbest way I've ever heard of asking someone to move in with you.'

  Greene protested his innocence with raised hands. I'm just trying to carry out my responsibilities for efficient facilities management. Here we are, occupying two Cardinals, burning twice as many lights, using twice as many rolls of toilet tissue -'

  Lee frowned. 'I suppose if we did move in together, we'd finally have enough pillows for the bed.'

  'And we could return half of the silverware we've lifted from the cafeteria - more savings for Terabyte. What do you say, Lee?'

  Her smile returned, at once tender and mocking. 'How can I resist a company man?'

  Greene smiled back. But before either could say more, both their comsets began to chirp the priority page signal.

  'I was thinking about coming over there and kissing you,' he said, 'but I suppose a company man would answer.'

  Thayer was already reaching for her pocket. It's Karl,' she said, looking down at the display.

  They hit their callback buttons together, and in moments they were connected.

  'Gordie? Lee? This is Dr Brohier.' The senior scientist's voice was eager and vibrant. 'Whatever you're doing, drop it. Whatever you were planning on doing, forget it. I need you to build something for me.'

  * * *

  26: Forever Our Destiny

  'We cannot accept the doctrine that war must be forever a part of man's destiny.'

  - Franklin Delano Roosevelt

  Aron Goldstein was one of the last of his breed, and he knew it. He had watched the globe-trotting on-the-go CEO gradually give way to the teleconferencing stay-at-home CEO, seen the articles in Fortune and Forbes and Business Week lauding multimedia interconnectivity as the essential management tool, noted the ranks of the corporate jets thinning as stockholders and corporate boards increasingly questioned the necessity of shipping protoplasm from here to there at company expense. When McNamara's The Frugal Executive hit the bestseller list, airline stocks fell fourteen percent in three days, and business travel fell twenty percent by the end of the year.

  But Goldstein remained a road warrior, spending an average of thirty-five weeks a year away from his Maryland estate. That included week-long visits to each of his companies, attending international trade shows in North America, Europe, and the Pacific Rim, and an annual two-week retreat aboard the rigid-sail catamaran First Love he kept docked at St Thomas, in the Virgin Islands.

  He did it because he could - as sole owner of Aurum Industries, the holding company which served as overseer of all his properties, he did not have to answer to anyone but himself. He also did it because he believed it was necessary - he would not trust even the smallest of his enterprises to a manager whose measure he had not taken in person. Nor would Goldstein assess an operation by the numbers alone, or allow himself to be given a 'Stalin village' tour of operations. Consequently, his unannounced visits had, over time, become what Goldstein described as 'agreeably motivational' - not least because they were frequently followed by sudden promotions and summary dismissals.

  But that was the quintessential Aron Goldstein - demanding and decisive. He had made his fortune and his reputation on two simple principles, and one personal gift. The first principle was 'Move quickly, whether pursuing an opportunity or being pursued by calamity.' The second principle was 'No one ever lost a customer by giving him too much value.'

  Goldstein's gift was an uncanny ability to connect seemingly unrelated events and in doing so to pick up on the earliest signs of coming trouble - a knack for hearing the signal among the static, the off notes in the o
rchestra. It was said in jest that there was no need for smoke detectors when he was around, that the first warning sign would be Goldstein standing over the point of ignition with an extinguisher, waiting for the fire to break out.

  The myth exaggerated the gift. Still, Goldstein had come to rely on that feeling of prescient certainty. But it took no special talent on Goldstein's part to recognize that when a Secret Service advance team showed up at his estate to arrange for an unexpected and off-the-record visit from the President, the disarmament initiative was in trouble.

  Breland's visit was hidden as an unannounced stop on a routine weekend flight to Camp David. The giant props of the Marine Corps Osprey set it down gently on the rain-softened driving range a few minutes before Friday noon. The President alone emerged from the rear hatch of the tilt-rotor to join Goldstein and the Secret Service ground detail. Breland looked at once tired and tense, and snapped at the agents when two of them tried to follow him inside the house.

  'This is a private meeting,' he said, stopping short and blocking the doorway.

  'Mr President, we have to be close at hand if we're going to be able to respond quickly enough to protect you,' one of the agents protested.

  'If the International Army of God is waiting in the wine cellar, we'll have learned something about my ability to judge character. In the meantime, you stay out,' Breland said, and closed the door in the agent's face. As he turned back to a wide-eyed Goldstein, he muttered, 'damn spiders. Ever since Starr got them to spy on Clinton -'

  'Their discretion can't be taken for granted - I know. Shall we?' Goldstein asked, gesturing toward one of the exits from the expansive foyer.

  'I wonder if there's a room with no outside windows where we might talk?'

  Nodding, Goldstein said, 'If the irony isn't too strong for you, there's a chamber in the lower level which the original owner had built as a firing range. My elder daughter used it for archery, and I keep my trains there now. The accommodations are somewhat spartan -'

  'It sounds ideal. Lead on.'

  Goldstein's trains were a complete world in miniature - a great U-shaped landscape wrapped around a small raised observation platform with three swiveling seats. The moment he and Breland entered, a computerized controller brought the diorama to life. Lights came on in buildings, more than a dozen freight and passenger trains started moving along hundreds of meters of track, trolleys shuttled through the streets, and real water flowed through river channels. A matte painting which climbed half-way up the wall extended the landscape to a hilly distant horizon.

  'Why, this looks like north central Philly - say, 1950 or so?' Breland said with surprised pleasure. He stepped closer and peered over the layout. 'Sure, there's 30th Street Station, and the Zoo. Which makes this the Schulkill River. Am I right?'

  'Right city, wrong era. I went with 1935, pre-war, so I could bring the occasional steam engine into the city.' He pointed at the far left end of the diorama. 'I grew up eight blocks from Reading Station and the Chinese Wall. Every time I hear a train whistle, it takes me right back to my bedroom.'

  Suddenly looking wistful, Breland settled into one of the chairs. 'I envy you, having the time for this - for something wonderful and frivolous and personal.'

  Goldstein laughed. 'Don't be misled. You're looking at more money than time - and at that, the time is scattered across three decades, an evening a month, a weekend a year.'

  'Ah. Still -I think I used to have hobbies. Surely one, at least.' Breland smiled wanly. 'But, then, it won't be too much longer before I'll have plenty of time to try to figure out what it was.'

  'Now, Mr President -'

  'Please - Mark,' Breland implored. 'I find I'm increasingly hungry for the sound of my own name.'

  'Mark,' Goldstein echoed. 'As I was about to say, it's much too early to surrender.'

  'I have a forty percent approval rating, Aron.'

  'A passionate and unshakeable forty percent - the kind that can decide an election when half the population stays home.'

  Breland laughed bitterly. 'I don't think anyone's going to sit out the next election. Whatever the modern record for voter turnout is, I'm sure we're going to see it broken.'

  'And if that happens, all bets are off - the pollsters have no idea how to predict the behavior of a group that's never voted before.'

  Holding up his hand and shaking his head, Breland said, 'Enough - enough, please. The only thing sadder than a young cynic is an old idealist.'

  'With respect, sir, I would have said it the other way around. - But our time is limited, and I doubt you came here to trade aphorisms with me.'

  'No,' Breland said. Shoulders slumping, he sat back in his chair. 'No, I came here hoping for your help.'

  'Whatever I can do.'

  'I don't know that there is anything you can do. But I'm desperate, Aron. Everything is spinning out of control. I have no authority over the Pentagon, no credibility in Congress - they've both decided that I'm the lamest of lame ducks, and can safely be ignored. The Joint Chiefs are preparing to rearm with tactical nukes and azide explosives. The House is looking for a way to ban privately owned LifeShields as public hazards. The NRA is suing to get rid of state-installed LifeShields as violations of the Fourth Amendment - unreasonable search and seizure. And I have no leverage with any of them.'

  That's not all - there's yet another front in this war,' Goldstein said. There're more than sixty liability lawsuits pending against

  Aurum Industries, Terabyte Laboratories, Jeffrey Horton, and anyone else who had a hand in building the Triggers which are out there now.'

  'Sixty!'

  'It's only the beginning, I'm afraid. I believe there's a coordinated effort to get rid of the Trigger by making it prohibitively expensive to build them or install them. And it's working as blackmail even before the first case has reached a courtroom - we already know of more than a hundred private installations that have been voluntarily shut down or removed.'

  'Because the owners are more worried about being sued than about someone being killed.'

  'That's what it comes down to.'

  Breland blew a sigh across a clenched fist. 'You know, Aron, I've never had any faith in Freudian analysis, but in this instance, I'm sorely tempted - the male fetish for guns, and the completely unreasoning way some men react to the prospect of giving them up -'

  'I know where this is going. As if they were being castrated, rendered impotent.'

  'It sounds absurd, and yet -' Breland shook his head.

  'I suppose it's too late to add National Mental Health Insurance to Medicare.'

  That drew a brittle laugh from Breland. 'The other explanation I've been offered is even more depressing - that we're fighting a primal biological selfishness, an innate drive to acquire power and defend the family. A British anthropologist sent me a long essay with his analysis: The resistance is coming from men who see me as a threat rather than as a higher-status male of their tribe. They're refusing to place themselves under my protection, and clinging to what they believe they need to protect themselves.'

  That sounds like the makings of a revolution.'

  'Doesn't it, though? Maybe the only thing that's saved us from that is how weak I look - how weak I am. They see me as mortally wounded. They think they've already won. And right now, I'd have a hard time arguing the point. Which is why I'm here - looking for more leverage. Looking for a way to prove them wrong.'

  'I'm not sure I understand -'

  'With your cooperation, I turned over the complete theoretical and technical record on the Trigger to five government research centers - four military, one under the Justice Department. I know now that I can't look to any of them for help. Their mindset is controlled by the people who feel threatened by the Trigger, and they're picking it apart to learn how to thwart it, not how to improve it. Nothing I can do will make any difference - it's like hiring wolves to shear sheep.'

  'I understand now. You want to know what we can do for you.'

 
'I'd phrase it with a bit more desperation - I've come to beg you to find some way to help. I need a better Trigger, Aron. A better and a safer Trigger. I need one that works on all the exotic flavors of explosives we're rushing to bring into play. I need one that handles explosives the way the current version handles black powder. I need one that makes us feel safe enough that the generals can live without battlefield nukes and the rest of us can live without an arsenal in the closet. I need more leverage. I need an answer - if I can't find one, civil disarmament is going to end up side-by-side in the history books with Prohibition as a noble idea we couldn't live up to.'

  A deep frown furrowed Goldstein's face with worry lines. 'Have you talked to Senator Wilman about this?'

  'Grover came to me, earlier this week. He has his own concerns, and no answers. It was a very gloomy conversation.'

  'But the foreign labs -'

  '- Have so far been unable to do more than refine the original design. Grover spoke of a theoretical hurdle, a missing piece.'

  'I assure you, Mr President, we didn't hold anything back.'

  'I know that. But the original Trigger was your creation - no one knows more about it than your people.'

  'Perhaps so. But Dr Horton's been on sabbatical -'

  Then it's time to get him back to work,' Breland said sharply.

  Goldstein frowned. The fact of the matter is, Dr Horton hasn't been keeping very closely in touch.'

  'You don't know where he is?'

  That's my understanding.'

  Breland shook his head unhappily. 'Maybe it's unfair of me to lay this at your doorstep, Aron, but there it is - what you've done so far isn't enough. You have to take it further. You have to give me more, and sooner rather than later. If you can't, we will fail -and I know you don't want that.'

  'Of course not. Of course not.'

  Breland stood and edged toward the door, signaling his intention to leave. 'In fact, I remember very clearly something you said that day in the Oval Office - that even if our species is condemned to create murderers and warlords, the least the rest of us can do is make it as hard for them as we possibly can. Well, we aren't there yet. Help me. Push your people. Shame them, bribe them, scare them, inspire them - whatever it takes to extract the very best they can give us. Because it's getting very late, Aron - and we won't get a second chance in our lifetimes.'