Code Of The Lifemaker

by Hogan, James

  official duties, with detrimental consequences to the job he was being sent to

  do. In view of these observations, therefore, would NASO like to reconsider its

  choice?

  Conlon dashed off a terse reply stating that Massey's function was to assess and

  report objectively the behavior, attitudes, emotional stresses, and other

  psychological effects observed among the experimental community. If Zambendorf

  was going, then Zambendorf would constitute a valid part of the test

  environment, thus warranting objective reporting as much as anything else.

  Objective reporting demanded qualified observers, and Massey's unique background

  fitted him ideally to the total situation. No, NASO would not like to reconsider

  its choice.

  A few days after that, Warren Taylor, the director of the North American

  Division of NASO, told Conlon that he wanted the decision reversed, making

  little effort to hide the fact that words had been exchanged among the higher

  levels of NASO and GSEC management. Conlon could hardly defy a direct

  instruction from his superior, and accepted the directive with a disinclination

  to further argument that his colleagues inside NASO found surprising.

  That same afternoon, Conlon gave Allan Brady a draft of a press bulletin for

  immediate release, stating that Massey was to be dropped from the Mars mission

  and spelling out the reasons why: The proposed inclusion of a competent stage

  magician was considered threatening to a psychic superman being sponsored by a

  multibillion dollar corporation. Brady balked; Conlon demanded to sign the

  release note himself, and Brady retreated to seek higher counsel. Eventually the

  decision came back down the line that clearance was denied. At that point Conlon

  went back to Taylor to protest the unconstitutional and illegal suppression of

  information not relating to national security, and threatened to resign with

  full public disclosure.

  And, suddenly, the heat was off. The order to drop Massey was rescinded, Conlon

  tore up his press bulletin, and everybody stopped talking about the law, the

  Constitution, and threats of resignation.

  Not long afterward, Massey received an invitation to give a private

  performance". . . for the further entertainment of our guests . . ."at a banquet

  to be held in the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Burton Ramelson in Delaware. All

  expenses would be paid, naturally, and the fee was left open, effectively giving

  Massey a blank check. It just so happened that the Ramelson family were

  controlling stockholders in a diversity of mutually enriching industrial

  enterprises, which, among other things, included General Space Enterprises

  Corporation and the majority of its bondholding banks.

  7

  "AMAZING!" ONE OF THE LADIES IN THE ENTHUSIASTIC THRONG crowding around Massey

  at the end of the dining hall in the Ramelsons' mansion exclaimed. "Truly

  amazing! Are you sure you're not deceiving us just a little when you insist that

  you don't possess genuine psychic powers, Mr. Massey?"

  Massey, resplendent, his full beard flowing above tuxedo and black tie, shook

  his head firmly. "I did all the deceiving earlier. I'm here purely to entertain.

  I don't pretend to be anything I'm not."

  "Could I have an autograph, possibly?" a buxom woman, festooned with jewels and

  wearing a lilac evening dress, asked. "Here on this menu card would be fine."

  "Certainly." Massey took the card and seemed about to open it when another voice

  caused him to turn away.

  "I'm not sure I believe it," a tall, distinguished-looking man with thinning

  hair and a clipped mustache declared. "You're genuine all right, Massey, but you

  haven't realized it yourself yet. It's happened before, you know—plenty of

  reliable, authenticated stories."

  In an apparently absentminded way, Massey handed what looked like the same menu

  card back to the woman in the lilac dress. It was always a safe bet that someone

  would want a menu card autographed at an occasion like that, and Massey made a

  point of beginning such evenings with a few prepared cards concealed about his

  person. "I would be most surprised," he told the distinguished-looking man

  sincerely.

  "I simply must know how you did that thing with the envelope," an attractive

  girl somewhere in her twenties said. "Can't you give us just a hint, even? I

  mean ... it was so impossible."

  "Oh, you should know better than to ask things like that," Massey said

  reproachfully.

  "But you never touched it."

  "Didn't I?"

  "Well, no. We all know what we saw."

  "No—you just know what you think you saw."

  "Is Karl Zambendorf genuine?" a tubby man with a ruddy face asked. He was

  swaying slightly and looked a little the worse for drink.

  "How could I know?" Massey replied. "But I do know that I can duplicate

  everything he's done so far."

  "But that doesn't prove anything, does it," the tubby man said. "You're all the

  same, you fellows ... If Zambendorf walked across the Chesapeake Bay from here

  to Washington, you'd just say, 'Oh yes— that's the old walking-on-the-water

  trick.' Just because you can imitate something, it doesn't mean it had to be

  done the same way first time, does it?"

  "When he walks across the bay, I'll give you my comment," Massey promised.

  "Er, Mr. Massey, you did say you'd autograph my menu card," the woman in the

  lilac evening dress reminded him hesitantly.

  "That's right. I did."

  "I still have it here, and—"

  "No, you misunderstood me. I have."

  "I don't think I quite—"

  "Look inside it."

  "What? Oh, but ... Oh, my God, look at this! How did that get in here?"

  At that moment Burton Ramelson appeared behind Massey, smiling and holding a

  brandy glass. He was small in stature, almost bald, and even his exquisitely cut

  dinner jacket failed to hide completely the sparseness of his frame; but his

  sharp eyes and tight, determined jaw instilled enough instant respect to open a

  small circle in the guests before him. "A splendid exhibition!" he declared. "My

  compliments, Mr. Massey, and I'm sure I speak for everyone when I add—my thanks

  for turning our evening into a sparkling occasion." Murmurs and applause

  endorsed his words. He turned his head to address the guests. "I know you would

  all like to talk to Mr. Massey forever, but after his exertions I think we owe

  him the courtesy of a few minutes' rest in relative peace and quiet. I promise

  I'll do my best to persuade him to rejoin you later." Turning once more toward

  Massey, he said, "Perhaps you'd care to join a few friends and myself for a

  brandy in the library."

  As they proceeded out of the dining room and across a hall of paneled walls,

  gilt-framed portraits, and heavy drapes, Ramelson chatted about the house and

  its grounds, which had been built for a railroad magnate in the 1920s and

  acquired by Ramelson's father toward the end of the twentieth century. The

  Ramelson family, Massey had learned from Conlon, commanded hundreds of millions

  spread among its many members, heirs, foundations, and trusts in such a way as

  to avoid excessively conspicuous concentrati
ons of assets. Most of their wealth

  had come from the energy hoax and coal boom following the antinuclear propaganda

  campaign and political sabotage of high-technology innovation in the seventies

  and eighties, which while achieving its immediate objective of maximizing the

  returns on existing capital investments, had contributed to the formulation of

  U.S. policies appropriate to the nineteenth century while the developing nations

  were thrusting vigorously forward into the twenty-first. The subsequent decline

  in competitiveness of American industries and their increasing dependence on

  selling to their own domestic market to maintain solvency was partly the result

  of it.

  The group waiting in the library comprised a half dozen or so people, and

  Ramelson introduced the ones whom Massey had not met already. They included

  Robert Fairley, a nephew of Ramelson, who sat on the board of a New York

  merchant bank affiliated to GSEC; Sylvia Fenton, in charge of corporate media

  relations; Gregory Buhl, GSEC's chief executive, and Caspar Lang, Buhl's

  second-in-command.

  Ramelson filled a glass at an open cabinet near the fireplace, added a dash of

  soda, and passed the glass to Massey. He proffered a cigar box; Massey declined.

  "I'm so glad you were able to come," Ramelson said. "You possess some

  extraordinary skills. I particularly admire the insight into human thinking that

  your profession must cultivate. That's a rare, and very valuable, talent." After

  the briefest of hesitations he added, "I do hope you find it adequately rewarded

  in this world of ours."

  "It was a good act," Buhl said, clapping Massey on the shoulder. "I've always

  been about as cynical as a man can get, but I don't mind saying it straight—you

  came close to converting me."

  Massey grinned faintly and sipped his drink. "I don't believe that, but it's

  nice to hear you say it all the same." Somebody laughed; everyone smiled.

  "But it's only your hobby, isn't that right?" Robert Fairley said. "Most of the

  time you're a professor of human behavior or something..."

  "Cognitive psychology," Massey supplied. "I study what kinds of things people

  believe, and why they believe them. Deception and delusion play a big part in

  it. So, you see, the hobby is really an extension of my job, but in disguise."

  "It sounds a fascinating field to be associated with," Sylvia Fenton commented.

  "Button's right—it's valuable," Buhl said. "Not enough people know how to begin

  telling sense from nonsense. Most of our managers don't know where to start . .

  . nobody to show 'em how. Financial mechanics are all you get from the business

  schools these days."

  "An interesting point," Ramelson said. He went through the motions of thinking

  to himself for a few seconds. "Have you, er . . . have you ever wondered what

  your knowledge might be worth to you outside of the academic community, Mr.

  Massey?" Massey made no immediate response, and after a pause Ramelson went on,

  "I'm sure I don't have to spell out at great length what it might mean to have

  the resources of an organization like GSEC at your disposal. And as we all know,

  such an organization is able, if it so chooses, to reward the services that it

  considers particularly valuable with . . . well, shall we say, extreme

  generosity."

  The rest of the company had fallen quiet. Massey walked slowly away toward the

  center of the room, stopped to sip some more of his drink, and then turned back

  to face them. "Let's come right to the point," he suggested. "You want to buy me

  off of the Mars mission."

  Ramelson seemed to have been half expecting the sudden directness, and remained

  affable. "If you wish to put it that way," he agreed. "We all have our

  price—it's a worn and tired phrase, but I believe it nevertheless. So what's

  yours, Massey? Name it—research facilities and equipment? Staff? Effectively

  unlimited funding? Publicity? . . . Someone like you doesn't need the details

  elaborated. But everything is negotiable."

  Massey frowned at the glass in his hand, and, perplexed, exhaled a long breath,

  then answered obliquely. "I don't understand all this. I know that you know

  Zambendorf is a fake. Okay, so the stunt on Mars could be good for business—but

  I can't see what makes it so essential. The logical thing would be to drop

  Zambendorf now since it looks like more trouble than it's worth. But that's not

  what's happening. What do people in your positions care whether he keeps his

  image clean or not? So what's the real story?"

  "You just said it," Buhl replied, shrugging and following Ramelson's candid

  lead. "It's good for business. The more the idea of colonies is popularized, the

  sooner they'll become financially viable and potentially profitable. Yes, we

  like making money. Who doesn't?"

  The answer sounded more like a rationalization than a reason and left Massey

  feeling dissatisfied. But his instincts told him that any attempt at delving

  deeper would be futile. "I've nothing against trying to popularize the

  colonies," he said. "But if you're going to do it, why can't you do it through

  rational education and reason? Why resort to spreading miseducation and

  unreason?"

  "Because it works," Sylvia Fenton said simply. "It's the only thing that has

  ever worked. We have to be realistic, not idealistic. We didn't make people the

  way they are. What benefit has rational education ever had, except on a small

  minority of any population, anytime in history? Nobody wants to hear it."

  "Some people do," Massey replied. "There are a lot of people on this planet who

  used to starve by the millions, and while their children withered away and died

  like flies, they prayed to cows that wandered the streets. Now they're building

  their own fusion plants and launching moonships. I'd say they got quite a bit

  out of it."

  "But that kind of thing takes centuries to trickle down," Fairley pointed out.

  "We don't have centuries. No popular mass movement was ever started in a

  laboratory or a lecture theater. Thinking things through takes too much time for

  most people. Sylvia made a valid point —look at anybody from Jesus Christ to

  Karl Marx who got results fast, and see how they did it."

  "And what were the results worth?" Massey asked. "Generations of people wasting

  their lives away buying crutches because they'd been brainwashed into thinking

  they were cripples."

  Buhl studied his glass for a moment, then looked up. "That's a noble sentiment,

  Mr. Massey, but who's to blame for people being conditionable in the first

  place?"

  "A society that fails to teach them to think for themselves, trust in their own

  judgment, and rely on their own abilities," Massey said.

  "But that's not what most people want," Sylvia Fenton insisted. "They want to

  believe that something smarter and stronger than they are knows all the answers

  and will take care of them—a God, the government, a cult leader, or some magic

  power . . . anything. If they're going to change, they'll change in their own

  time. All you can do until then is take the world as you find it and make the

  most of your opportunities."

  "Opportunities for w
hat?" Massey said. "To persuade ordinary people that wanting

  a better living is really a trivial distraction from the higher things that

  really matter, and fob them off with superstitions that tell them they'll get

  theirs later, in some hereafter, some other dimension, or whatever—if they'll

  only believe, and work harder. Is that what I'm supposed to do?"

  "Why do you owe them anything else?" Buhl asked. He shrugged. "The ones who can

  make it will make it anyway. Are the rest worth the effort?"

  "From the way a lot of them end up, no," Massey agreed frankly. "But the

  potential they start out with is something else. The most squandered resource on

  this planet is the potential of human minds— especially the minds of young

  people. Yes, I believe the effort to realize some of that potential is worth

  it."

  The conversation continued for a while longer, but the positions remained

  essentially unaltered. Each side had heard the other's viewpoint before, and

  neither was about to be converted. Eventually Mrs. Ramelson appeared with a

  request from the guests for a further, impromptu, performance, and after a few

  closing pleasantries Massey left with her to return to the dining room.

  Silence descended for a while after their departure. At last Ramelson commented

  genially, "Well, at least we know where we stand: If we fly our flag on the good

  ship Zambendorf, Massey will be out to torpedo it. I can't say I'm entirely

  surprised, but we all agreed it had to be tried. . . ." He looked across at the

  saturnine figure of Caspar Lang, the deputy chief executive of GSEC, who had

  said little since Massey's arrival and was brooding in one of the leather

  armchairs opposite the door. Lang raised his ruggedly chiseled, crew-cut head

  and returned a hard-eyed inquiring look as he caught the motion. "So if we're

  sending our ship into hostile waters, we'd better make sure it has a strong

  escort squadron," Ramelson went on. He closed his eyes and brought a hand to his

  brow. "You could find yourself with a tough job on your hands at the end of your

  voyage, my powers tell me, Caspar. . . . We'd better make sure you take plenty

  of ammunition along."

  "Don't give me any of that crap, you little tramp!"

  "Who the hell do you think you are to call me a tramp? You—you of all people!"

  "Just stop screaming for two seconds and listen to yourself for chrissakes! What