by C. L. Moore
"He is. His I.Q. is remarkable. He's also got alcaptonuria. His blood hasn't got the enzyme that takes care of alcapton through oxidation. He has one defective gene. when you do get a mutant, it upsets the apple cart, and while certain genes may be wonders for the I.Q. and so forth, there's always the danger of a corresponding quirk somewhere. That's why so few of the mutants lived. They were mostly freaks."
"Louis gets along, doesn't he?"
"Alcaptonuria isn't serious. But suppose I have a child with phenylketonuria?"
"It sounds pretty bad," Carolyn admitted. "Is it?"
"No, it just means that a certain acid in the blood isn't changed—unfortunately, phenylketonurics are always imbeciles or idiots, too. The central nervous system is affected. They're always mentally defective, Carrie."
"I hope you haven't told Margaret these cheerful little ideas of yours," the woman said. "Even I know you're all wrong."
"It's an occupational disease of potential parents. Ever since the first mutants were born, people started to worry if they were expecting a child. Oh, well. I guess you're right. When the kid's born, I'll take a look at his medical charts and be able to relax."
"Aren't there any prenatal charts?"
"Sure. But ... ah forget it."
Carolyn studied him. "Why don't you go and see Margaret?" she suggested. "She might be having similar ideas. Cheer her up."
"She's cheerful. A little peaked physically, but the Colorado air ought to help that. I am going to see her; tomorrow's my last night here for a week."
"You don't have to tell me. I'm spending my time off in the Berkshires, with my grandchildren." Carolyn sighed luxuriously. "I'm not going to do a thing but work my fool head off. I'm going to bake bread and make rhubarb pies. I'm going to dust and sweep and paint the furniture. I'm going to dig in the garden."
"Good therapy," Breden said, and Carolyn snorted.
"Joe, sometimes you irritate me. It's fun! I wouldn't like it as a steady diet, but I grew up in a midwest farmhouse, and I loved it. Ever eat fresh-baked bread?"
"No. Why bother? You can't get refrigomeals—"
"Sure. A frozen Creole dinner is really something. Or a frozen Mandarin special. We never had those on the farm, and I couldn't do without 'em now. But no quick-freezer can give you fresh-baked bread, either; it can't give you the smell of it, which is half the pleasure. 'I came across no wine more wonderful than thirst,' " Carolyn quoted.
Two men came into view on a visor screen—the relief crew. They said hello, while they stood in the entrance chamber and were thoroughly checked before admittance. Fingerprints, the rod-and-cone patterns of their eyes, respiration, pulse; traces of radioactivity on their clothes—a highly unlikely contingency, since nobody went near the forbidden sites of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Hilo, the New Mexican danger area, or the few other scattered radiation radii. Dust samples were analyzed; the brain's energy-pattern was recorded and checked; finally Sam Carse and Wilbur Fielding were discovered to be Sam Carse and Wilbur Fielding, and were admitted to the sanctum.
"Well, take over," Carolyn said, getting up a little stiffly. "I guess Baby won't explode tonight."
And suddenly they were all quiet, listening, while four pairs of eyes moved with experienced swiftness across the faces of dial and gauged. But only Breden felt that dreadful, impossible pulse come up from below and vibrate through his body and shock against his brain.
Uranium Pile One.
If Archimedes had had this lever, he could have moved the world.
A voice from the wall said, "Breden, report to M.A. before you check out."
No one commented; the reactions of Medical Administration were erratic and unpredictable. But Breden thought: I must get help! Somewhere—somehow—
First, though—there would be the matter of tricking Medical Administration.
-
III
The only thing that could save Breden from having the veils ripped from his mind was the common phobia of all technicians, that he himself shared. Research men could think along experimental lines; they could scarcely help doing so or they wouldn't have become researchers in the first place. But they didn't do it in public. Implanted in their conscious was the idea of wrong-doing whenever they touched on independent research. It was contra bonos mores. Status quo was the ideal. A man who discovered how to draw free energy out of the air would have been suppressed, like the guinea pigs in "Alice," had he been rash enough to announce his success. Guinea pigs, in fact, were not the popular little research controls they had once been.
It was likely, though, that a man discovering how to utilize free aerial energy would have forgotten his method as soon as he could. Unless strongly antisocial, he would have, instead, concentrated on perfecting some method to make independent research impossible. For status quo was the safety and the ideal and, by propagandized psychic implantation, the norm.
Civilization and technology had, in the middle of the twentieth century, approached the critical mass. Only the creation of the unified world government, with its practically unlimited powers, could have kept the global pile from beginning a fatal chain reaction. That was axiomatic.
So the technicians depended on safe axioms.
The patient is uneasy, apprehensive, insecure and fearful.
-
Dr. Hoag was a smiling little fat man. He said that they were getting a detailed report from Margaret's clinical observers, with special reference to biology and genetics. "So that should relieve your mind about the danger of having a mutant baby," he told Breden.
Three other psychiatrists regarded Breden thoughtfully. Breden said he knew it was illogical, but he couldn't help worrying a little. He hoped it didn't show in his work.
"You're too good a man to lose," Dr. Hoag said, glancing at a stack of cards and tapes on the desk before him. "Of course we can't take chances—you know that. But this doesn't look serious. You made a wrong move at chess. All we want to do is find out why."
"Couldn't it be an accident?"
"Nothing is an accident," said one of the psychiatrists very wisely.
"Mm-m-m," Dr. Hoag grunted. This Wechsler test you just took, Breden—it's not conclusive, but it's indicative. So are these doodles of yours, and the association check-up. I know it's natural for you to be worried about the uranium pile, but you've always compensated nicely till now."
Breden waited. He had rigged the tests as much as he had dared. But he didn't know whether or not he had managed to outguess the psychiatrists. This wasn't the exhaustive check-up the Controllers supervised, or the arduous psych tests, with their mechanical detectors and their thoroughly efficient exhaustiveness. This was simply routine. At any rate, the psychiatrists thought so. They weren't expecting real trouble. But if he'd given himself away in the tests, if they found out about his recurrent dream—!
Hoag said, "We're agreed on the main point, though. I want you to listen to this closely. You play chess with Carolyn Kohl. You don't want her to lose."
Breden frowned. "I don't quite agree with that. It's natural to want to win, isn't it?"
"Normally. But in the past Carolyn Kohl has showed herself a far better chess player than you. Lately, these tests of yours show, you've found her easier to beat. But you haven't won many games. Now why is that?"
"I don't know," Breden said politely.
"Because you haven't let yourself win. You'd rather make an obviously fatal move for one of your own men than prove to yourself something you've been trying to ignore. The fact that Carolyn Kohl has become inefficient. She is sixty-eight years old. She is slowing down. The earliest beginnings of senility are beginning to affect her brain. And she holds one of the most responsible positions in the world. She guards the uranium pile."
Breden said, "But ... Carolyn—"
"Am I right?"
Breden didn't answer.
Dr. Hoag said, "You know what depends on the safety of keeping this unit below CM. And critical mass is something you can't play with.
The physicists who are selected for this duty are very carefully chosen. And once a month they're given a psych check. The efficiency of the organization must be perfect. If it isn't, if the human factor fails at one point, there's the danger of an atomic blast. And that can mean the end of civilization."
It would. That, too, was axiomatic. That had been dinned in the ears of the world for a hundred years. Safety lay in only one thing; keeping the uranium piles and civilization below critical mass.
"All right," Hoag said, leaning back. "Naturally you're afraid. You don't dare let yourself realize that the human factor, represented by Carolyn Kohl, is failing. So you try to assure yourself that she's not failing. The symbol is chess. As long as she can beat you at chess, you can feel safe in assuming that she's not weakening. That explains your deviation from the norm. So. Now look at these."
He pushed a card and a tape toward Breden, who took them and looked inquiringly at the psychiatrist.
Hoag said, "Latest report on Carolyn Kohl. I've had some of it put into language you can understand. It should reassure you. She's still at par. Your phobia is imaginary. It can be eliminated. There is no trace of approaching senility in her mind or body."
One of the medics said, "Dr. Hoag—"
"Just a moment, please. Breden, please study those reports. We'll be back soon."
Hoag rose and went out with the others.
-
It had worked, then. There would be another routine test tomorrow night, when he came back on duty, but he was safe for the nonce. And, after all, Carrie hadn't suffered. His momentary twinge of guilt died; he hadn't hurt her by passing the buck. And he had saved himself.
Nevertheless conscience stirred. As far as he knew, there had been no question till now of Carolyn Kohl's capabilities. He had implanted the first doubt. Nothing would come of it as yet, but the psychiatrists, he felt certain, would from now on watch her tests with a more stringent eye. But that wasn't his affair! Anybody who became really incapable shouldn't be on the staff here.
His heart lightened almost tangibly as the elevator rose through the enormous ziggurat.
The ziggurat. The coping stone. The keystone of the arch. Uranium Pile One. The one thing that now, quite strangely, after a hundred years, the security of the world depended on—more than merely a symbol, it was the Power itself.
A protective thought came: is it more than a symbol, after all?
A hundred years ago, fifty years ago, even, the human factor was more important. Now there were the machines. He and Carolyn Kohl and the other nuclear physicists—weren't they purely ornamental, by this time? For if the terror ever reached CM, what could the human factor do that the protective machines could not do better?
Was the human guard merely a guard of honor—an anachronistic symbol? Or worse—now? What had once been a strength might have become a weakness. The machines were enough. They could never turn traitor.
But he could.
-
His orders were checked; he was cleared; and in the pearly gray dawn the helicopter rose aslant along the air channels. Unseen radar watched him. He instinctively reached for the controls, but any deviation from the robot-charted course would be dangerous. He forced himself to relax, fumbling out a cigarette, type-sedative, and sucking it alight. He looked down, watching the patterns on the sea.
Too much time! He snapped open the small bookshelf and tried to find something there. Technical books, a few novels, a western—left by Carrie, of course, he realized—and a stack of wire-tape book reels. He did not even glance at the titles of these. He sank back again, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply on the half-narcotic smoke.
He tried to make plans.
There was no use worrying about this delay; no jet planes were allowed in the vicinity of the island that based Uranium Pile One. It was forbidden area, clearly marked as such on the aerial maps. Radar intercepters would have done their best to open the batteries at any unexpected intruder. It wasn't infallible; in a barrage of rockets, some would have got through, but where on earth could be based such weapons? GPC—Global Peace Commission—made certain that there could be no base that might threaten security.
In 1950 that would have been impossible. In the ancient rivalry between ballistics and armor the balance has gone back and forth as new weights have been placed in the scales. Build a better mousetrap, and eugenics will breed a better mouse—more adaptive, perhaps.
But if the geneticists are on the other side—
The experiments of UNO had culminated, after the abortive start of World War III, in GPC. Not at once. That had taken time, after the riots, the mutinies, the intrigues and the detonations had died down. There was chaos for a while. From 1946 on, the nations had been, naturally, afraid of one another. Power politics hadn't halted when Japan and Germany capitulated. Social postwar problems worried a neurotic, convalescent world. Unemployment, strikes, famine, the old labor vs. capital rivalry, economic fights between countries, blocs, and areas—the merry-go-round was still whirling.
Then the merry-go-round broke down.
International espionage was a highly developed art, squared by the new achievements of the technicians. The race for atomic power went on underground. True, the atom blast had been developed, but there must be easier ways—deadlier ways. There were!
One nation began it. But before the bombardment had really started, six other nations were unloosing their atomic power. Some of them couldn't help it. The atomic bombs secretly planted in their vital areas and key centers had been detonated by other bombs they themselves were sending up.
It was an abortive war, because no one had really counted the cost. The politicians, demagogues, and war makers had simply not comprehended what atomic power meant. To them, it had been just another weapon.
That was when GPC took—or was given—power.
It had been stronger than the League of Nations and stronger than UNO. But not strong enough. That was proved; it could not cope with an aggressor country. However, paradoxically, it could cope with a dozen aggressors, and it could do that efficiently.
For the merry-go-round had broken down. The world was partly paralyzed. Nearly every key area was crippled. But GPC remained mobile, and it was, being international, decentralized. It was a loosely integrated unit physically, but a very tight one in all other respects.
Civil war helped, too. Take a typical nation—any one. It used its atomic bombs in an attack on its neighbor, and the secretly planted blasts within its own geographic body had detonated. The centers were smashed. They could be repaired, but not instantly, and meanwhile its neighbors threatened. A general seized power; he was defied by a politician; both of them were killed by a demagogue. Meanwhile there were riots. In the military, there was mutiny.
And all of this—it took no time at all. This was an era of fast communication and transportation.
-
Only GPC remained functioning, and only GPC, with its specialized membership, had the knowledge and training for the necessary instantaneous social integration. The demagogue, seeing rivals rising, declared his country under the temporary jurisdiction of GPC. He did that to save his own hide, but that did not prevent him from being shot later. In the meantime, two other nations had fled to GPC. That gave the organization aircraft and the beginnings of a military.
It proclaimed an enforced peace. The balance shivered. Then it moved. It moved in the right direction.
For the war makers had found out, now, the true meaning of atomic power, and that global murder had been psychically contagious. The riots raging across the world had perhaps never been equaled in ferocious violence. When a man is in an ammunition dump that is on fire, he will have less hesitancy in firing a gun. The aim didn't matter. The administrators the people had depended on to save them had betrayed them, instead, and in blind fury the mobs turned on the nearest symbols that they could destroy. They had atomic power, so it was not safe to rule.
It was not safe—except for GPC. GP
C was the champion. It was the only tool that could steer the world away from the vicinity of the proximity fuse.
Most nations gave up their power willingly, although only temporarily. The others were whipped into line. Or else smashed. No nation could stand against a world organization that had a policy and power to enforce it. There were no party politics in GPC.
A policy and a power. But such power had never been known or used before. It was, in the true sense of the word—unlimited!
After World War III, in sheer, blind panic and a fury for self-preservation, the globe stripped itself of weapons and armor. It gave GPC its military secrets, and if any were reserved, GPC took them too, and that made it possible for the organization to reach out and secure the hundred-year stranglehold that had maintained peace.
It was the only possible way.
But there was the inevitable danger that such a peace could not last.
GPC took stock, weighed the chances, and made its decision. It eliminated that peril. As long as the status quo held, there would be no war and atomic power could be controlled safely.
The scale had tipped in the right direction.
GPC reached out and gripped the scale. It held it motionless.
For a hundred years the grip had not relaxed.
-
IV
Naturally there were changes. This wasn't the New York of 1947. But, on the other hand, it wasn't the lovely, strange metropolis it might have been with utilization of paragravity, antigravity, and contraterrene material. The new alloys made city engineering a pleasure, and the Old Districts had been razed decades ago—the areas that had escaped atomic-blasting, that is—but a few familiar things still lingered. Nobody called Way Six anything but Broadway; place-names are harder to change than topography.
The copter had taken Breden to the Pacific sea base, and from there a jet plane raced him across ocean and land to the eastern coast. He hadn't lost much time by going from west to east; the jet plane had been nearly fast enough to equalize the time lag. Still, it was morning in New York, early morning, and he wasn't sure whether or not Louis would be in his office yet.
