Off The Main Sequence

by Robert A. Heinlein

  “Who’s not a superman?" she asked at the end of their last session.

  “Yes, teacher."

  “Come here, lug." She grabbed him by the ears, kissed him soundly. “So long." He did not see her again for many weeks.

  His tutor in E.S,P. was an ineffectual-looking little man who had taken the protective coloration of the name Weems. Joe was not very good at producing E.S.P. phenomena. Clairvoyance he did not appear to have. He was better at precognition, but he did not improve with practice. He was best at telekinesis; he could have made a soft living with dice. But, as Kettle Belly had pointed out, from affecting the roll of dice to moving tons of freight was quite a gap — and one possibly not worth bridging.

  “It may have other uses, however," Weems had said softly, lapsing into English. “Consider what might be done if one could influence the probability that a neutron would reach a particular nucleus — or change the statistical probability in a mass."

  Gilead let it ride; it was an outrageous thought.

  At telepathy he was erratic to exasperation. He called the Rhine cards once without a miss, then had poor scores for three weeks. More highly structured communication seemed quite beyond him, until one day without apparent cause but during an attempt to call the cards by telepathy, he found himself hooked in with Weems for all of ten seconds — time enough for a thousand words by Speedtalk standards.

  — it comes out us speech!

  — why not? thought is speech.

  — how do we do it?

  — if we knew it would not be so unreliable, as it is, some can do it by volition, some by accident, and some never seem to be able to do it. we do know this: while thought may not be of the physical world in any fashion we can now define and manipulate, it is similar to events in continuum in its quantal nature. You are now studying the extension of the quantum concept to all features of the continuum, you know the chronon, the mensum, and the viton, as quanta, as well as the action units of quanta such as the photon. The continuum has not only structure but texture in all its features. The least unit of thought we term the psychon.

  — define it. put salt on its tail.

  — some day, some day. I can tell you this; the fastest possible rate of thought is one psychon per chronon; this is a basic, universal constant.

  — how close do we come to that?

  — less than sixty-to-the-minus-third-power of the possibility.

  — ! ! ! ! ! !

  — better creatures than ourselves will follow us. We pick pebbles at a boundless ocean.

  — what can we do to improve it?

  — gather our pebbles with serene minds. Gilead paused for a long split second of thought.

  — can psychons be destroyed?

  — citons may be transferred, psychons are —

  The connection was suddenly destroyed. “As I was saying," Weems went on quietly, “psychons are as yet beyond our comprehension in many respects. Theory indicates that they may not be destroyed, that thought, like action, is persistent. Whether or not such theory, if true, means that personal identity is also persistent must remain an open question. See the daily papers — a few hundred years from now — or a few hundred thousand." He stood up.

  “I’m anxious to try tomorrow’s session, Doc," Gilead-Greene almost bubbled. “Maybe —"

  “I’m finished with you."

  “But, Doctor Weems, that connection was clear as a phone hook-up. Perhaps tomorrow —"

  “We have established that your talent is erratic. We have no way to train it to dependability. Time is too short to waste, mine and yours." Lapsing suddenly into English, he added, “No."

  Gilead left.

  During his training in other fields Joe was exposed to many things best described as impressive gadgets. There was an integrating pantograph, a factory-in-a-box, which the New Men planned to turn over to ordinary men as soon as the social system was no longer dominated by economic wolves. It could and did reproduce almost any prototype placed on its stage, requiring thereto only materials and power. Its power came from a little nucleonics motor the size of Joe’s thumb; its theory played hob with conventional notions of entropy. One put in “sausage"; one got out “pig."

  Latent in it was the shape of an economic system as different from the current one as the assembly-line economy differed from the family-shop system — and in such a system lay possibilities of human freedom and dignity missing for centuries, if they had ever existed.

  In the meantime New Men rarely bought more than one of anything — a pattern. Or they made a pattern.

  Another useful but hardly wonderful gadget was a dictaphone-typewriter-printing-press combination. The machine’s analysers recognized each of the thousand-odd phonetic symbols; there was a typebar for each sound. It produced one or many copies. Much of Gilead’s education came from pages printed by this gadget, saving the precious time of others.

  The arrangement, classification, and accessibility of knowledge remains in all ages the most pressing problem. With the New Men, complete and organized memory licked most of the problem and rendered record keeping, most reading and writing — and most especially the time-destroying trouble of rereading — unnecessary. The autoscriber gadget, combined with a “librarian" machine that could “hear" that portion of Speedtalk built into it as a filing system, covered most of the rest of the problem. New Men were not cluttered with endless bits of paper. They never wrote memoranda.

  The area under the ranch was crowded with technological wonders, all newer than next week. Incredibly tiny manipulators for micrurgy of all sorts, surgical, chemical, biological manipulation, oddities of cybernetics only less complex than the human brain — the list is too long to describe. Joe did not study all of them; an encyclopedic synthesist is concerned with structured shapes of knowledge; he cannot, even with Speedtalk, study details in every field.

  Early in his education, when it was clear that he had had the potential to finish the course, plastic surgery was started to give him a new identity and basic appearance. His height was reduced by three inches; his skull was somewhat changed; his complexion was permanently darkened. Gail picked the facial appearance he was given; he did not object. He rather liked it; it seemed to fit his new inner personality.

  With a new face, a new brain, and — a new outlook, he was almost in fact a new man. Before he had been a natural genius; now he was a trained genius.

  “Joe, how about some riding?"

  “Suits."

  “I want to give War Conqueror some gentle exercise. He’s responding to the saddle; I don’t want him to forget."

  “Right with you."

  Kettle Belly and Gilead-Greene rode out from the ranch buildings. Baldwin let the young horse settle to a walk and began to talk. “I figure you are about ready for work, son." Even in Speedtalk Kettle Belly’s speech retained his own flavor.

  “I suppose so, but I still have those mental reservations."

  “Not sure we are on the side of the angels?"

  “I’m sure you mean to be. It’s evident that the organization selects for good will and humane intentions quite as carefully as for ability. I wasn’t sure at one time —"

  “Yes?"

  “That candidate who came here about six months ago, the one who broke his neck in a riding accident."

  “Oh, yes! Very sad."

  “Very opportune, you mean. Kettle Belly,"

  “Damn it, Joe, if a bad apple gets in this far, we can’t let him out." Baldwin reverted to English for swearing purposes; he maintained that it had “more juice,"

  “I know it. That’s why I’m sure about the quality of our people."

  “So it’s 'our people’ now?"

  “Yes. But I’m not sure we are on the right track."

  “What’s your notion of the right track?"

  “We should come out of hiding and teach the ordinary man what he can learn of what we know. He could learn a lot of it and could use it. Properly briefed and trained, he could run h
is affairs pretty well. He would gladly kick out the no-goods who ride on his shoulders, if only he knew how. We could show him. That would be more to the point than this business of spot assassination, now and then, here and there — mind you, I don’t object to lolling any man who merits killing; I simply say it’s inefficient. No doubt we would have to continue to guard against such crises as the one that brought you and me together, but, in the main, people could run their own affairs if we would just stop pretending that we are so scared we can’t mix with people, come out of our hole, and lend a hand."

  Baldwin reined up. “Don’t say that I don’t mix with the common people, Joe; I sell used 'copters for a living. You can t get any commoner. And don’t imply that my heart is not with them. We are not like them, but we are tied to them by the strongest bond of all, for we are all, each every one, sickening with the same certainly fetal disease — we are alive.

  “As for our killings, you don’t understand the principles of assassination as a political weapon. Read —" He named a Speedtalk library designation. “If I were knocked off, our organization wouldn’t even hiccup, 1 but organizations for bad purposes are different. They are personal empires; if you pick the time and the method, you can destroy such an organization by killing one man — the parts that remain will be almost harmless until assimilated by another leader — then you kill him. It is not inefficient; it’s quite efficient, if planned with the brain and not with the emotions.

  “As for keeping ourselves separate, we are about like the U-235 in U-238, not effective unless separated out. There have been potential New Men in every generation, but they were spread too thin.

  “As for keeping our existence secret, it is utterly necessary if we are to survive and increase. There is nothing so dangerous as being the Chosen People — and in the minority. One group was persecuted for two thousand years merely for making the claim."

  He again shifted to English to swear. “Damn it, Joe, face up to it. This world is run the way my great aunt Susie flies a 'copter. Speedtalk or no Speedtalk, common man can’t learn to cope with modern problems. No use to talk about the unused potential of his brain, he has not got the will to learn what he would have to know. We can’t fit him out with new genes, so we have to lead him by the hand to keep him from killing himself — and us. We can give him personal liberty, we can give him autonomy in most things, we can give him a great measure of personal dignity — and we will, because we believe that individual freedom, at all levels, is the direction of evolution, of maximum survival value. But we can’t let him fiddle with issues of racial life and death; he ain’t up to it.

  “No help for it. Each shape of society develops its own ethic. We are shaping this the way we are inexorably forced to, by the logic of events. We think we are shaping it toward survival."

  “Are we?" mused Greene-Gilead.

  “Remains to be seen. Survivors survive. We’ll know — Wup! Meeting’s adjourned."

  The radio on Baldwin’s pommel was shrilling his personal emergency call. He listened, then spoke one sharp word in Speedtalk. “Back to the house, Joe!" He wheeled and was away. Joe’s mount came of less selected stock; he was forced to follow.

  Baldwin sent for Joe soon after he got back. Joe went in; Gail was already there.

  Baldwin’s face was without expression. He said in English, “I’ve work for you, Joe, work you won’t have any doubt about. Mrs. Keithley."

  “Good."

  “Not good." Baldwin shifted to Speedtalk. “We have been caught flatfooted. Either the second set of films was never destroyed, or there was a third set. We do not know; the man who could tell us is dead. But Mrs. Keithley obtained a set and has been using them.

  “This is the situation. The 'fuse’ of the nova effect has been installed in the New Age hotel. It has been sealed off and can be triggered only by radio signal from the Moon — her signal. The 'fuse’ has been rigged so that any attempt to break in, as long as the firing circuit is still armed, will trigger it and set it off. Even an attempt to examine it by penetration wavelengths will set it off. Speaking as a physicist, it is my considered opinion that no plan for tackling the 'nova’ fuse bomb itself will work unless the arming circuit is first broken on the Moon and that no attempt should be made to get at the fuse before then, because of extreme danger to the entire planet.

  “The arming circuit and the radio relay to the Earthside trigger is located on the Moon in a building inside her private dome. The triggering control she keeps with her. From the same control she can disarm the arming circuit temporarily; it is a combination dead-man switch and time-clock arrangement. It can be set to disarm for a maximum of twelve hours, to let her sleep, or possibly to permit her to order rearrangements. Unless it is switched off any attempt to enter the building in which the arming circuit is housed will also trigger the 'Nova’ bomb circuit. While it is disarmed, the housing on the Moon may be broached by force but this will set off alarms which will warn her to rearm and then to trigger at once. The set up is such that the following sequence of events must take place:

  “First, she must be killed, and the circuit disarmed.

  “Second, the building housing the arming circuit and radio relay to the trigger must be broken open and the circuits destroyed before the time clock can rearm and trigger — This must be done with speed, not only because of guards, but because her surviving lieutenants will attempt to seize power by possessing themselves of the controls.

  “Third, as soon as word is received on Earth that the arming circuit is destroyed, the New Age will be attacked in force and the 'Nova’ bomb destroyed.

  “Fourth, as soon as the bomb is destroyed, a general round up must be made of all persons technically capable of setting up the 'Nova’ effect from plans. This alert must be maintained until it is certain that no plans remain in existence, including the third set of films, and further established by hypno that no competent person possesses sufficient knowledge to set it up without plans. This alert may compromise our secret status; the risk must be taken.

  “Any questions?"

  “Kettle Belly," said Joe, “doesn’t she know that if the Earth becomes a nova, the Moon will be swallowed up in the disaster?"

  “Crater walls shield her dome from line-of-sight with Earth; apparently she believes she is safe. Evil is essentially stupid, Joe; despite her brilliance, she believes what she wishes to believe. Or it may be that she is willing to risk her own death against the tempting prize of absolute power. Her plan is to proclaim power with some pious nonsense about being high priestess of peace — a euphemism for Empress of Earth. It is a typical paranoid deviation; the proof of the craziness lies in the fact that the physical arrangements make it certain — if we do not intervene — that Earth will be destroyed automatically a few hours after her death; a thing that could happen any time — and a compelling reason for all speed. No one has ever quite managed to conquer all of Earth, not even the commissars. Apparently she wishes not only to conquer it, but wants to destroy it after she is gone, lest anyone else ever manage to do so again. Any more questions?"

  He went on. “The plan is this; You two will go to the Moon to become domestic servants to Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Copley, a rich, elderly couple living at the Elysian Rest Homes, Moon Colony. They are of us. Shortly they will decide to return to Earth; you two will decide to remain, you like it. You will advertise, offering to work for anyone who will post your return bond. About this time Mrs. Keithley will have lost, through circumstances that will be arranged, two or more of her servants; she will probably hire you, since domestic service is the scarcest commodity on the Moon. If not, a variation will be arranged for you.

  “When you are inside her dome, you’ll maneuver yourselves into positions to carry out your assignments. When both of you are so placed, you will carry out procedures one and two with speed.

  “A person named McGinty, already inside her dome, will help you in communication. He is not one of us but is our agent, a telepath. His abilit
y does not extend past that. Your communication hook up will probably be, Gail to McGinty by telepathy, McGinty to Joe by concealed radio."

  Joe glanced at Gail; it was the first that he had known that she was a telepath. Baldwin went on, “Gail will kill Mrs. Keithley; Joe will break into the housing and destroy the circuits. Are you ready to go?"

  Joe was about to suggest swapping the assignments when Gait answered, “Ready"; he echoed her.

  “Good. Joe, you will carry your assumed I.Q. at about 85, Gail at 95; she will appear to be the dominant member of a married couple —" Gail grinned at Joe. “— but you, Joe, will be in charge. Your personalities and histories are now being made up and will be ready with your identifications. Let me say again that the greatest of speed is necessary; government security forces here may attempt a foolhardy attack on the New Age hotel. We shall prevent or delay such efforts, but act with speed. Good luck."

  Operation Black Widow, first phase, went off as planned. Eleven days later Joe and Gail were inside Mrs. Keithley’s dome on the moon and sharing a room in the servants’ quarters. Gail glanced around when first they entered it and said in Speedtalk, “Now you’ll have to marry me; I’m compromised."

  “Shut that up, idiot! Some one might hear you."

  “Pooh! They’d just think I had asthma. Don’t you think it’s noble of me, Joe, to sacrifice my girlish reputation for home and country?"

  “What reputation?"

  “Come closer so I can slug you."

  Even the servants’ quarter were luxurious. The dome was a sybarite’s dream. The floor of it was gardened in real beauty save where Mrs, Keithley’s mansion stood. Opposite it, across a little lake — certainly the only lake on the Moon — was the building housing the circuits; it was disguised as a little Doric Grecian shrine. The dome itself was edge-lighted fifteen hours out of each twenty-four, shutting out the black sky and the harsh stars. At “night" the lighting was gradually withdrawn.