Paradise Spells Danger

by George B Mair

  Grant estimated that he would be rising seventy-four or five, but he had the leathery skin of the deep south and a permanent tan which made him look younger. He didn’t carry a spare kilo of body-weight and drank only fruit juices.

  They were sipping a final coffee in the Alvis suite when their host suddenly turned to business. ‘I take it that you’ve expanded your team, David.’

  ‘A bit of a coincidence really,’ said Grant. ‘We met kind of unexpectedly and I phoned from her house, but Moogie’s father, until a few days ago, was my chief.’

  ‘The Admiral?’ Alvis looked surprised.

  ‘Yes. Seems that way back towards the end of his term in south-east Asia Admiral Copper fell in love with her mother. They never married, but he was extremely generous although he only visited his daughter once.

  ‘Her name, incidentally, is really Parichart Puntum Sani and of late they’ve corresponded regularly. Indeed he wrote that we were coming out and said Moogie could meet us so long as she could fix an introduction without using his name.’

  ‘Then why Moogie?’

  ‘It was the pet name Admiral Cooper used for her mother and our little girl here liked it. When mother died she took it over.’

  ‘And what does she aim to do? Where does she figure?’

  Grant gave a headline review of the news and felt easier when a twinkle returned to the old man’s eyes.

  ‘So she hoodwinked the pair of you, hid your passports, shot up a suspect car and generally speaking showed far above average initiative.’

  Grant remembered the hand stealing round his body and the touch of lips on his neck. ‘You might say so.’

  ‘She also knows the essentials explained in the messages sent from your top brass. Or what’s left of it?’

  ‘And wants to string along. She is a very remarkable girl and I trust her.’

  Alvis studied her with open interest. ‘Young lady,’ he said at last, ‘a man changes when he get older and a lot of things which once seemed important come to matter less. One of these, in my experience, is unnecessary secrecy, and your own father may also have felt this when he sent David’s address.

  ‘It is only after a lot of experience that one begins to appreciate how futile most cloak and dagger exercises can be, so I shall talk freely. Partly because if you did happen to be on the other side you would know everything anyhow.’

  Moogie became very formal. ‘You can trust me, sir. I am my father’s daughter.’

  ‘Just so.’ Alvis lit a Larranaga Corona and sighed contentedly. ‘Old Jonah Lyveden started me on these at the house-party. Remember? Well, I’ve never been off them since.’

  He turned towards the girls. ‘David and I first met when we aimed to bring down a guy in Moscow who had the latest development in micro-biological warfare. So we eliminated him, though what he had in those days was peanuts to what everyone who matters has today. Concepts about erasing one selected super-power with some fancy weapon or other is now period stuff. Within thirty minutes flat any combination of two out of the few big names could give the whole of our planet a terminal illness. Statesmen have even got used to living with orbital bombs over their heads, a situation which would have rated as science fiction only a few years ago.’

  He eased himself in his chair and kicked off both shoes. ‘Pardon me, but my feet tend to swell at night. More comfortable this way. Anyhow, after that we were confronted with a series of situations due to a weirdy organisation called S.A.T.A.N., or the Society for the Activation of Terror Anarchy and Nihilism. It was really just a rehash of trends which had been going on for about a couple of centuries, but it was a nuisance, and David dealt with it.’

  ‘Forgive me, sir,’ said Grant quietly. ‘But did you say “we”?’

  Alvis grinned with satisfaction. ‘And internal security was then so good that not even you guessed how, behind your own chief and Miss Sidders, I was pulling the strings which made you all jump. Though I was a very withdrawn boss, and only Cooper with the Director General knew exactly where I figured. And the President of course, not forgetting two high-ups in the Pentagon. Anyhow I retired about two months ago on my seventy-third birthday and I’ve had a good share of cake in my time. Which makes it particularly irritating to find that a few things needing attention won’t get it from various people as at the present moment. So I decided to be unorthodox and see how you reacted when I wised you up.’

  ‘For your information,’ said Grant, ‘I posted my resignation this evening.’

  Alvis looked mildly interested. ‘Why?’

  ‘Disenchantment. I don’t like present liberal policies and some new boys are behaving with the irresponsibility of amateurs.’

  ‘So now you aim to hit it up between Sardinia and Las Vegas?’

  Krystelle’s chin was set with sudden temper. ‘David doesn’t tick along these lines, sir. We expect to free-lance.’

  Alvis tipped an inch of ash from his cigar and watched it glow in the tray. ‘Admiral Cooper had a high opinion of your efficiency, young lady, and Miss Sidders also reported that although you represent everything she most disapproved in modern women she had to admit that you are more competent than any staff member. In fact they were both prepared to wink at almost anything David and you did in the way of settling Departmental problems. Even although some of them were strictly official. On paper at any rate. Which is a pretty high complement.’

  He seemed to fumble for words. ‘I’m just a little surprised, though I appreciate that you make a formidable team. And with Moogie around you might even become better.’

  ‘So may I ask, sir, how can we help?’

  The old man rubbed his forehead and sighed. ‘Old age is a Hellish thing. Never mind. The situation is that so soon as one anti-social set-up is eliminated another takes its place. And I’m sure that that pattern won’t change in a hundred years. Not so long as the world is full of psychos or a majority of silent pin-heads with no self-discipline. Television especially terrifies me, because, as your Robin Day once said, it actually operates against the establishment in any free country, while, of course, it isn’t allowed to give anything but angled news in a dictatorship, where, clearly, it helps consolidate the establishment. Or words to that effect. Anyhow, he has a point.’

  ‘So what had you in mind, sir?’

  Alvis frowned slightly. ‘You’re always so darned impatient, David. Remember you’re talking with quite an old man and I don’t think so fast nowadays. But the message is that ideas now matter more than bombs or things.

  ‘We’re agreed that there’s now a kind of stalemate in the big bomb super-power business. They cancel one another out. But there’s still an open market for ideas.’ He relit his cigar and seemed to be marshalling his thoughts. ‘Where would the world have been if the apostles had never written the New Testament? Okay, it might have been better, but it might also have been worse. At least Christ gave us concepts about compassion, and in spite of every sort of persecution they affected most of the world in one way or another. Then Marx gave us ideas about control, discipline, possessions and all that jazz. And in spite of everything his ideas survived. In fact they even cancelled out Christianity over half of two continents. But it took time. Though it was worth it for his disciples in the long run.

  ‘Well, right now there’s a man putting ideas on to paper which could make him the big in-name of the twenty-first century. And what he wants won’t be any more popular in Moscow or Peking than it is likely to be in Washington or London. So, for once at least, the super-powers and others share the same problem, a new political doctrine angled towards the next generation but intended to destroy everything, more or less, which has been created in the past.

  ‘His work is a sort of extension of all sorts of ideas which have been circulating in the underground press plus a lot of forward thinking, and application, in theory, of some fancy new advances in science . . . all, of course, to be controlled directly by a new style government of super-wise-men when the time comes.’ He
smiled towards Moogie. ‘Tell me, young lady, as a student in touch with modern advanced thinking, how do you rate your chances of becoming a grandmother?’

  The girl was suddenly self-conscious and looked towards Grant for support. ‘Not much, sir. I think the world is maybe winding up. Coming to an end.’

  ‘And so do I. Though I also think it can be given another chance, but only if people aren’t upset by any more so-called “advances” which have hardly ever really contributed to human happiness. There’s a big need for a go-slow interlude so that we can all shake down into getting familiar with what’s been off-loaded on to us this past twenty years or so. But this new prophet wants to unleash some “advanced” thinking which will only upset everyone, make them even more unsure of themselves or the future, promote fresh aggressions born from insecurity at all levels, and destroy any remaining ideas about compassion or the importance of a human soul.’

  Krystelle was on her best behaviour, remembering every word of Miss Sidders’ report to the American. ‘I haven’t had a very good education, sir, but I try to think straight, and I would appreciate if you could give us an inkling about what worries you most in this man’s work.’

  Alvis relaxed deep into his chair with his eyes half closed. ‘He reckons that the colour bar has to be eliminated. So he aims at tax concessions and outright subsidies to couples of different colour who reproduce. Not necessarily marry, you understand, but simply reproduce. He wraps it up nicely by saying that most human inadequacies are the result of racial inbreeding, that it is obvious to everyone how mixed breeding creates a more beautiful person, and how, therefore, they are superior to the in-bred, so-called pure, racial type. Well, this is a load of crap, but at least ninety-five per cent of the world could be brought to believe it. And the more people who argue against it on the goggle box or through the press the better it will be, because there’s no such thing as bad publicity. After ten or fifteen years from launching, the whole concept will be rated normal. Later still it will be made compulsory.

  ‘Right. Then he wants to do away with the traditional idea of two people marrying. The argument is what when one dies the other is left lonely: that the self-discipline required to be physically monogamous generates tensions which cause aggression and anti-social trends: that economically it is cheaper for eight or seventeen people to live together than for two: that children grow up more socially conscious when living in a children’s world than when dominated by two adults, and that partner swapping will eliminate the built-in sense of sin which seems to be part of the Western heritage. So exit marriage and enter group partnerships or communes. But can you imagine how easy it would be to sell that one? Contributes to housing shortage problems, solves them I mean, reduces per capita living costs, abolishes loneliness, makes the kids well adjusted human animals and cuts out any nonsense about romance!

  ‘Then death. Euthanasia will be the fashionable thing. And all very civilised. When friends begin to appreciate that someone’s faculties are going up the creek they will state the case to an “authority”. Permission will be granted to destroy the person concerned and an appropriate killing medicine will be given without the patient ever knowing fear of death being round the corner. Now can anything, can anything be more humane than that? And can’t you see how sensible it is, with an enormous population explosion being considered at the same time? Any courageous voice which might suggest possibility of “abuse” would be laughed out of society. Because society, don’t forget, never thinks it can happen to them. If you get me.’

  Moogie disappeared and returned with a hot face cloth. ‘Use this, sir. Very refreshing when one has to think a lot.’

  The old man rubbed his hands with methodical precision and then mopped his brow. ‘And another glass of lemon please. There’s a lot more to come. I mentioned population explosion. Well, that will have to be solved one way or another no matter who is in power, but this great humanist has advanced ideas. Every defective child to be humanely removed at birth. Or when diagnosis has been established. Medical costing will have become astronomical simply to look after people who can be patched up and made to contribute to society. But others will “go”. Intensive care units in hospital won’t be needed. Organ transplants will be too costly and can be forgotten. Because, remember, only the fit will survive. And in an over-populated world every possible approach must be considered towards cutting numbers down.

  ‘But medical work of a most nightmarish type will continue. A few selected couples will be encouraged to have a child, though before conception the reproductive cells will undergo genetic surgery so as to produce some sort of predetermined genius. And it is such creatures who, in the long term, will control and rule the world. Which, I imagine, cuts out any ideas about souls or compassion or whatever. Because strictly they won’t be normal human beings at all. They will be creatures conceived by cells which have been treated by laser or other beams, and carved, so to speak, into the basis for a supra-normal individual who may look like homo sapiens but who will really be a travesty of creation. And if you don’t believe that this is possible go to the reference books and check. You’ll find that genetic surgery is going on apace right now even in many respectable medical schools. All experimental, of course, but so, at one time, was the nuclear weapon. And in due course genetic surgery might . . . indeed probably will . . . be equally important so far as human happiness is concerned.

  ‘Then there’s the question of memory transplants. First publications appeared during the later sixties and the thought terrifies me more than almost anything. Let’s think of a child born around 2010. Well, he could get a shot of material, probably synthesised from patterns of the memory cells taken from the brain of, say, a tremendously important biochemist. Okay. By the time the courses of injections have been completed he could, by the age of nine or ten, possess the actual knowledge which was once possessed by this dead genius. Right! A few years later, when the super-man government has got his potential taped and the shots are known to be successful, he can then have a series from a top statesman who has died. By the age of eighteen or nineteen he could, quite possibly, then combine the life-time experience of the dead statesman with the knowledge of the dead biochemist, and with these two fields mastered be invaluable in planning, from the political angle, various uses of biochemistry. And the permutations are endless. But again, memory transplants aren’t fantasy. The basic mechanism of memory build-up has now been worked out and the chemistry of the proteins concerned is understood. There is no reason why memory transplants shouldn’t be as common as kidney transplants within thirty or so years. By 2010 and later they could form a key unit in the structure of the new state which is being thought up. Or rather the new world. Because states are also going to be a thing of the past and people are going to be world citizens.

  ‘Right, you say. How come China? Will Chairman Mao’s little book have been forgotten? Answer. Partly. The pendulum always swings. It swung far enough from Marx to Lenin even in Moscow. And you can’t change people like the Chinese in two generations. So after Mao, or maybe his successor, there will be a swing in the opposite direction. China will be having bad indigestion with so-called progress plus pollution and over-population, so conditions will be ripe for the emotional switch. But the idea of discipline will still be around and it should be simple enough to get the new doctrine across.

  ‘Then food. Animals will be seen only in the zoo. A lot of milk will be synthesised. Even meat. Cows will be conceived, born, live, and die, in automated factories: just as poultry more or less do now. Eating, as we understand it, will be for the top echelons of privilege. The rest will get by on calories according to their needs. And this will be accepted, just as a lot of people today accept that pop-stars and the like are somehow entitled to privilege because they are “different” and help to keep millions of ordinary people so-called “happy.”

  ‘But there is a real good punch line. This big-shot-so-called thinker-philosopher wants to get off to a good st
art when the time comes: and his main problem will be world population around the turn of the century. So he’s organising some immediate activity in the underground press as well as in certain receptive corridors of power. Clearly there are areas of the globe where people don’t matter too much politically and whose leaders have simply been kept in office because of hand-outs from major world capitals working in their own interests. Right. Suppose the big powers opted, as a matter of agreed policy, to withdraw all financial and other assistance from, say, some of the more backward states in a pre-determined area such as the sub-continent in Asia or the central zone of black Africa. Or for that part a few particular states in the Southern Americas, where local war would be inevitable. Then the big boys could step in with a few clean bombs and wipe out x hundred millions of people. Over-population could be solved in a few minutes of a “social exercise” . . . I think it has been called . . . ostensibly to control a situation which would have been declared a threat to world peace. After the clearing-up genocide operations, the brave, socially conscious new world would be led by planners . . . some of them the result of genetic surgery and, or, memory transplant techniques . . . who would start, so to speak, from scratch again, and knowing that the lesson of the “wipe-out operation” wouldn’t have been missed by every other world state. They would, indeed, have been nicely conditioned into giving up any old-hat concepts of national sovereignty, and become willing to join the “new order.” And the long-term conditioning process has begun.’

  Grant sensed that the old man was ready to change the subject. ‘We’ve got the message, sir. And it does sound feasible even if first reaction is to write it off as impossible. But I’m familiar with what’s going on in genetic surgery and I know the laboratory background to the memory transplant researches. The euthanasia concept and removal of mental or physical cripples will probably happen anyhow before very long. But the over-all picture bothers me because there isn’t an idea which hasn’t, as you said yourself, already had some airing in the underground press. So I take it that what you are really after is the genius who can wrap it up into a political message acceptable to the usual ninety-five per cent who swim with the tide.’