They'd Rather Be Right

by Mark Clifton

  Billings watched him without expression as he came through the door—a little man, a negative quantity, who wore heavy silver-rimmed glasses in the hope they would give character to a characterless face. The brief case he carried, too, was heavily decorated with silver, proclaiming its unusual importance. He needed these trappings, and more. He was the kind of man one forgot to introduce, and his whole bearing suggested his determination to command the attention he never quite received.

  There was a portentous frown on his gray face, and without any preliminaries of greeting he bustled over and laid a new issue of the college paper on Billings’ desk. Billings looked down at the open page, and a cartoon of himself looked slyly back.

  That was the trouble of having an old, old face with a thousand wrinkles. Even seventy years had been unkind in putting so many wrinkles there. In a cartoon, and he was often the subject of them throughout the country, those wrinkles could be slanted to make him appear fine and noble, or sly and scheming. It would depend upon which faction of the public the cartoonist wanted to please.

  This time, in the cartoon, he was sly; and had his finger held up toward his lips in a cautioning, secretive gesture. There was a caption in bold print beneath the cartoon.

  “You were quite wrong, Albert, about the nature of the universe!”

  Billings looked up from the cartoon with a slight smile and met the accusing expression in Rogan’s washed blue eyes.

  “This is highly irregular, doctor,” Rogan said firmly, before Billings could comment. “I trust you have not been questioning indisputable facts! I trust you have not been planting disturbing doubts in the minds of our future citizens! I trust you know Congress approved those facts for school textbooks long ago! It would be most subversive, not to mention a waste of time and tax money, to question them now!”

  Billings felt a flare of sudden irritation, an emotion he considered quite unworthy of the circumstances. He should be accustomed to this sort of thing by now. For the past thirty years there had been a Resident Investigator, some worse and some not any worse than Rogan; monitoring what the teachers said, the lines of thought they pursued. He remembered a long succession of them who had come through his door; some of them resentful that he was world famous and must be handled with especial care; others seeing in it a golden opportunity for personal publicity if they could catch him in some subversive remark.

  Out of the montage of accusations and sly traps written in their collective expressions, one face stood out clearly from all the rest. What was the remark the man had made? Oh, yes, he remembered it now.

  “I am completely impartial, Dr. Billings,” the man had said. “I merely see to it that you teachers say nothing which might threaten our freedom of speech!”

  The memory of that incredible twist of semantics, so characteristic of the early days, cleared the irritation from his mind, and he looked back into Rogan’s face with equal firmness. His answering tones were just far enough away from Rogan’s speech that he could not be accused of Contempt For An Investigator.

  “I trust you know, Mr. Rogan, that my subject is psychosomatics. I trust you are aware that I have no knowledge of approved astronomy courses, and would not feel qualified to comment upon it.”

  Rogan slapped the cartoon on the desk with the back of his fingers imperatively. He had studied the old films assiduously in an attempt to impart authority into his own attitudes and gestures.

  “How do you account for this cartoon, then, doctor?” he asked with the triumphant expression of having scored an irrefutable point. The characteristic puerility of it washed away the final residue of irritation on Billings’ mind, and he smiled in genuine amusement.

  “Why, I suspect young Tyler, its author, is just having a bit of fun,” he said slowly. “He’s quite a mischief maker.”

  Rogan’s eyes lighted up with delight at the possibility of a new scent.

  “A student, eh?” he asked quickly, “One of these subversive cults probably. Trying to undermine our faith in our institutions.”

  “The cartoonist is young Raymond Tyler, of Tyler Synthetics,” Billings said quietly. “An only son of the family, I believe.”

  “Ah,” Rogan’s face smoothed of all suspicion instantly. “Just a boyhood prank then.” He was obsequious at the very name of such a powerful industry. “Boys will be boys, eh, doctor?”

  “This one in particular,” Billings said with a heavy note of irony. “Was that all, Mr. Rogan?” There was a note of unmistakable dismissal in his voice. Even Rogan could not miss it. The little man flushed, and pointedly sat down in a chair as his answer.

  “No, doctor, that was just a preliminary,” he said. “I have a commission for you from Washington. You are to head up a new line of research.”

  “I haven’t completed my old line of research, Mr. Rogan,” Billings reminded him. “Inquiry into the reasons for Citizen Neurosis.”

  “That’s canceled, doctor,” Rogan said firmly. “Washington is no longer interested in Civilian Fatigue.” He reached out for his ornate brief case, fondled it lovingly as he opened it, and drew from it a thick sheaf of papers in a blue binding.

  Billings made an impatient gesture, as if to remonstrate that months of work should not be so easily discarded, and then realized the futility of it. He settled back into his chair again.

  “Very well, Mr. Rogan,” he said in a resigned voice. “What does Washington instruct me to work on now?”

  Even after thirty years of it, he was not yet accustomed to universities being operated on sound businesslike principles, with orders coming from the front office telling the boys in the lab what they should be thinking about today.

  Or even more than thirty years. It was impossible to draw a hard line on just when it had happened. Perhaps it was the outgrowth of the practice when he had been a research student and young instructor. The local industry would come to the university with a problem. The university was eager to show its cooperation, its practical place in the industrial life of the nation. They got into the habit of delaying their own lines of research and working on those immediate ones required by industry. The habit grew into a custom. A few universities saw the danger and rebelled. Overnight, custom became a law. To rebel against a law, even a bad one, was subversion.

  But he must not let his mind wander into the past. That was the mark of senility, they said. And what was Rogan saying now? And why didn’t the man just leave the folder with him? Why did the man have to read it to him, word for word?

  The opening pages were filled with gobbledegook, replete with such phrases as “by order of,” and “under penalty of.” Why did these government agencies always feel they had to threaten citizens? He could not recall any government communication which did not carry a threat of what would happen to him if he failed to comply. Surely after seven thousand years of trying it, governments should have learned that threats and punishment were not the way to accomplish their aims.

  His eyes wandered around the room, and scowled at the gray November sky outside the window. The cold light made the dark paneled wood of his walls seem dingy and grimed. The shabby, old-fashioned furniture seemed even more shabby as the little man’s voice droned on and on through the phrases.

  “…As revised…authorized…official…top secret…” Rogan apparently liked the sound of the governmental jargon, and gave each phase a full measure of expression.

  Gradually the sense of the order became dimly apparent through all the legal phrasing. As Billings had feared, it was an old problem, just now coming to light.

  That was significant, even though only a few men might recognize it. Not one new principle had come out of the universities in the past thirty years. Not one problem had arisen which hadn’t been foreseen then. It was as if something geared to tremendous momentum had had powerful brakes applied. The forward movement seemed to continue satisfactorily; yet it was apparent to anyone who cared to look that it was grinding to a halt.

  Odd how the human mind, once
it became conscious of the unyielding pressure of limits and restrictions, refused to think constructively. There was a lot of loose talk about the indestructibility of the human will, how it strove onward and upward, overcoming all obstacles. But that was just talk, of the most irresponsible kind. Actually the human will to progress was the most delicate mechanism imaginable, and refused to work at all if conditions were not precisely right.

  In the half million years man had been on earth, there were only twenty occasions when he had been able to pull himself up beyond the primitive animal level. It was significant, too, that most of these generated their forward momentum in one spurt, and often within one lifetime. Momentum reached its point where rulers became satisfied and clamped down restrictions against any change of the status quo. Then began, over and over in each civilization, the slow retrogression and the long night.

  In the typical fashion of governmental directives, the order said the same thing over and over, yet never succeeded in saying outright what it meant. Man’s inventive techniques had outstripped his reaction time possibilities. A plane, hurtling into an unforeseen disaster, would strike it before the pilot could become aware of the danger and react to avert it.

  To protect his own life, man had had to place a limit upon the speed of his vehicles. True, he tried to cope with the situation by inventing servomechanisms, but most of these merely registered their findings upon a dial. The cockpits of ships became a solid wall of dials. No human eye could read all their messages simultaneously and react as they directed.

  And, too, the servomechanisms, intricate and marvelous though they might be, were blind and senseless things, capable of following only one design of action.

  Only the human mind was sufficiently flexible to vary the patterns of behavior to meet the variation of possible circumstances. But the human mind was too slow, too inefficient, too easily distorted. It was—an understatement—undependable.

  Billings watched the unfolding of the inexorable logic in the order with a growing dread which began to mount to the level of horror. For it was clear to him where the logic must lead. Since we did have weapons, the order pursued its line of thinking, which could seek out a target, follow it, strike and destroy it; the work of Hoxworth University was quite simple, and should require little time or tax monies.

  The university was simply required to reverse the known mechanical principle and see that a plane, or an automobile, or other moving vehicle, struck nothing!

  The order ended with its usual propaganda. Thus the citizens could see that, once again, out of war came great benefits to peace.

  Rogan closed the stiff back page of the order and looked up at Billings with an expression of satisfaction at having delivered the government’s instructions concisely and completely.

  “In other words,” Billings said slowly, “they want a servomechanism designed which can foresee the future, and work out a pattern of mechanical operation which will cope with that future at the time it becomes present.” He realized his voice showed his incredulity, and that it would displease Rogan. It did.

  “I believe the order is quite clear, doctor,” Rogan said decisively. “And there is certainly nothing difficult about it, now that Washington has shown you the way to solve it. What a target-fínder missile does, you simply have to do in reverse.”

  “But why did Washington select me, Mr. Rogan?” Billings asked carefully. “I am not a mechanical technician or engineer. I work with the human mind and body, their interaction. I wouldn’t know anything about this project at all.”

  He was sorry he mentioned it, for it could be construed as Unwillingness to Cooperate, a fellow traveler act if not actually subversive. And it was a foolish question to ask, too, since government did not usually take capability into consideration in making an appointment—no more than the people did in electing government. Still, his question did bring him unexpected results.

  Rogan hesitated, pulled at his lip, decided not to make anything out of the doctor’s slip.

  “Washington does not usually have to explain to a citizen,” he said, “but I am instructed to answer you. This project is not a new one. It has been assigned before—several times.”

  “You mean the mechanical engineers have refused it?” Billings asked.

  “Those who did are serving their sentences, of course,” Rogan said, and his voice implied that Dr. Billings could join them without loss to the world. “But there was one thread of agreement at their trials. They all said that this would be duplicating the work of the human brain, and we’d better go to an expert on the human brain if we wanted to know how that worked.

  “So,” he finished simply, “here we are.”

  Billings had thought he was beyond further astonishment, but he had underestimated his own capacity for it.

  “Mr. Rogan,” he said slowly, trying not to show that he was aghast at the vacuity of such logic. “I do not question Washington’s wisdom. But for the sake of the record, I know only a few of the secondary effects of mental action; I do not know how the mind works; I do not know of any human being who does.”

  He stopped short, for there flashed into his mind the possibility of one who might, Joe Carter, a student—a telepath.

  The house where Joe lived was nearly a century old, and did not need the aid of the fog and the dusk to give it an air of grimy neglect. The weather-stained sign which proclaimed light-housekeeping rooms for students seemed almost as old, but at least it did not misrepresent them as being cheery or bright or comfortable.

  Billings hesitated briefly at the foot of the steps leading up to its front door, and mentally pictured with dread the two long flights of wooden stairs he must climb to reach Joe’s room.

  He could have summoned Joe to his office, of course, but tonight that would have been adding insult to injury. And, too, in his own room, the boy seemed to have a little less reserve than in the office or the classrooms.

  He started the slow, careful climb up the steps, opened the front door which was never locked for it was obvious that no one here could have anything worth taking, walked across the short hall, and started up the first flight of stairs. He glanced farther down the hall, saw the landlady’s door close abruptly, and smiled. It was the same, every time he came to see Joe.

  He had known Joe Carter for twelve years. First there had been the letter from Martin at Steiffel University, telling him about an eight-year-old telepath whose parents thought him insane. He, himself, had gone to the small college town and talked with the boy. He had arrived at a bad time. The story, as he got it from others, was that the boy had picked up a stray dog. The boy’s parents had turned the dog over to the pound, and it had been destroyed. Joe had become silent, uncommunicative, unresponsive to any of Billings’ attempts to draw him out.

  Twelve years. From the sidelines he had watched Joe get through primary and secondary schools. He had marveled at the continued, never-breaking concealment the boy practiced in covering his unique talent. But concealment breeds distrust. The boy grew up friendless and alone.

  Every year Billings had reviewed the grades which Joe had made. They were uniformly, monotonously, equivalent of C. He was determined to be neither sharp nor dull; determined that he would do nothing to make anyone notice him for any reason. As if his life, itself, depended upon remaining unnoticed.

  Both his high school associates and Joe’s parents were astonished when Hoxworth University offered him a scholarship. It wasn’t much of a scholarship, true, for Joe’s parents had no influence and Joe was not an athlete. Since there would be neither prestige nor financial return to the University, it hadn’t been easy, but Billings had managed it, and without revealing the reasons for it.

  He paused and caught his breath in the hallway at the top of the first flight of stairs, and then resumed his upward climb. They could talk all they pleased about how hale and hearty he was at seventy, but two flights of stairs—

  Twelve years. That would make Joe about twenty now. The last thr
ee years had been at Hoxworth. And Joe had been as colorless in college as in high school.

  Billings had tried, many times, to draw him out, make him flare into life. He had shown infinite patience; he had strived to radiate sympathy and understanding. Joe Carter had remained polite, friendly, appreciative—and closed. Billings had tried to show community of spirit, transcending the fifty years gap in their ages—and Joe had remained respectful, considerate, and aware of the honor of personal friendship from such a famous man. If Joe had known who wheedled a scholarship for him, he had never shown the knowledge.

  Tonight Billings would try a different method. Tonight he would sink to the common level of the mean in spirit. He would demand acknowledgment and some repayment for his benefaction.

  He hesitated in front of the wooden paneled door, almost withdrew back down the stairs in preference to portraying himself in such a petty light; and then before he could make up his mind to give it up, he knocked.

  The door opened, almost immediately, as if Joe had been waiting for the knock. The boy’s face was withdrawn and expressionless, as usual. Yet Billings felt there was a greater wariness than usual.

  “Come in, doctor,” Joe said. “I heard you coming up the stairs. I’ve just made some coffee.”

  Two chairs were placed at the pitiful little table; two heavy china cups wreathed vapor. A battered coffeepot sat on a gas plate. The housekeeping was light, indeed.

  The two of them sat down in chairs, straight hard chairs and picked up the mugs of coffee.

  “I’m in trouble, Joe,” Billings began. “I need your help.” Somehow he felt that an immediate opening, without preliminary fencing, would be more appreciated. And on this basis, he proceeded into the story of the newest order he had just received that afternoon from Rogan. He made no effort, either, to draw Joe out, to get the boy to acknowledge his talent of telepathy. Billings took it for granted, and became aware as he progressed that Joe was making no effort to deny it.

  That, at least, was hopeful. He switched suddenly to a frontal approach, although he knew that young men usually resented it when an older man, particularly a successful one, did it.