Pepper was examining the psychological eavesdropper that had saved him some unpleasantness a while ago, tinkering with it and attempting to set it right.
"Well?" grunted Marty.
"Can't be done," said Pepper. "Let's turn to more constructive lines of thought. What did you say Fersen did?"
"Psychology, like us. He experiments. Last thing he did was a study of engramatic impulses."
"Do tell. What are they?"
"It's really the old 'group unconscious' idea in false face. Engrams are memories of previous lives stamped into the chromosomes. They carry compulsive force sometimes. If you hear a low-pitched, growling musical note, your tendency is to shudder and draw away. If you're drunk you'll try to run like hell, because that note, if rightly delivered, means feline carnivores in misty Tertiary jungle."
"I see," mumbled Pepper. "When did Fersen publish this, and from where?"
"Oslo, eight years ago," said Marty.
"And what I've done then and up to now would sorely tax your limited understanding," said a full-throated whine.
Pepper slowly swiveled his chair around. The face that he saw was thin and keen, the hair an ashy blonde. But more to the point than hair and face was the blued steel tube that was in the speaker's hands.
"If I read your gaze aright," said the aristocrat, "you're wondering about this thing. Wonder no more, for it is a new development on the old-style chiller. It will congeal the blood of a turtle. What's more it is absolutely noiseless. I could kill you two where you sit and walk out and away to my very comfortable flat in Residential. My name is Fersen and I got here by bribing your janitor. Does that answer all your questions?"
"Doesn't even begin to," grunted Pepper sourly. "What now?"
"Now you are coming with me." He herded them from the room at the point of his weapon. As they came out into the open he hid it under his cloak.
"Stroll casually," said Fersen. "Be gay and lightsome. You're going to Residential to watch the beautiful women walk down the beautiful streets. Sorry I bungled that attempt last night, Pepper. It must have been irritating to both of us. You weren't going to be killed at all."
Nervously, Fersen went on talking. "You'll be interested to know that I was summoned to this continent by a grand conclave of Optimus. They propose to settle the unhappy question of the coming election once and for all time."
"By committing mass suicide?" suggested Marty.
Fersen was pleased to laugh briefly, like the snapping of a lock in a death-cell's door. "By no means," he chuckled. "By that gentlest of all arts, psychology. Whereat, enter Fersen. Get in, please." He gestured at the open door of a car that had pulled up beside them, silent and grim.
"Cest bon, children," smiled Fersen. "Romp if you wish." The two Lowers were staring in awe at the incredible battery of instruments racked on the walls, piled on the floors, hanging from the ceiling everywhere.
"For a lab, not bad," finally admitted Pepper. "All psychological?" He stared hard at some electronic equipment—ikonoscopes, tubes and coils—that was sparking quietly away in a corner.
"All," said Fersen proudly. "Now be seated, please."
The two were shoved into chairs by bruisers, then buckled in securely with plastic straps. The bruisers saluted Fersen and left.
"Now," said the psychologist, carefully locking the door, "you poor scum think you know things about the human brain?" He paced to their chairs and stared contemptuously into their faces.
"You think," he spat, "that the incredible, contorted caverns of the mind can be unraveled by base-born apes of your caliber? Forget it. I'm going to show you things about behavior you won't believe even after you see them. I'm going to make you say that you love the Optimus Party and that you'll fight to the death anybody who doesn't.
"I'm going to leave you in such a state of cringing, gibbering bestality that you're going to betray your friends and cut your children's throats and know that you're doing a noble thing."
"Hypnotism won't work that far," said Pepper matter-of-factly.
"I don't use hypnotism," grunted Fersen. "I'm turning to the classics.
What good would an isolated case or so be? We've got to have a mass movement, a movement that will spread like wildfire. Look at that!" He held up a book.
"Odes of Anacreon," read Pepper from the title-page. "So what?"
Fersen grinned slowly. "I know," he said irrelevantly, "an arrangement of lines that would make you beat your brains out in despair. I know a sound that will make you so angry that you'll tear your own flesh if there's nobody else around. I know a certain juxtaposition of colored masses that would turn you into a satyr—drive you mad with insatiable lust."
"I see," said Marty slowly. "I see that you weren't quite finished with the engram in Oslo."
"I had barely begun. I am now able—once I've sized up the psyche of the subject—to deliver complex commands in a compulsion-language that cannot possibly be disobeyed."
"Go on," snapped Pepper, catching Fersen's eye. He had seen something at the edge of his vision that made his heart pound. He relaxed deliberately. "Go on!"
"This book," said Fersen, smiling again, "will be released to the general public very shortly—as soon as I've completed copy for a definitive edition. Picture this scene:
"A bookseller receives a shipment of the Odes. 'How now!' says bookseller. He is amazed. He is distressed. He did not order the Odes.
He does not want to pay for them; they look like a slow-moving item. He picks up a copy from the crate so as to get a better idea of what they are.
'What's this?' demands bookseller excitedly. For it seems to be a foreign tongue which he does not understand. Printed plainly on every page in large type is a brief message. Always the same, always legible.
"Bookseller than scans one page, very briefly. Some strange compulsion holds him; he reads further and the mysterious language is as plain as day. The message says: 'You are loyal to the Optimus Party. You will always be loyal to the Optimus Party. You will show the Odes to everybody you see. Everybody must read the Odes. You will always be loyal to the Optimus Party.'
" 'How now!' says bookseller again. 'Uncanny!' And he sees a woman on the street. He seizes her. She screams. He twists her arm and shoves her into his shop. She sits quietly while the Odes are shoved under her nose. She reads, lest this madman damage her. They then join forces and distribute copies of the book far and wide. It's like a prairie fire—
people read and make others read.
"Pepper, there are twelve thousand booksellers in New York Sector. As soon as I've probed somewhat into your minds to determine whether a vowel or a diphthong would serve better to break down the resistance of a determined spirit opposed to the Optimus, I shall give orders to the printers, who've been immunized by a temporary hypnosis.
"Pepper, two hours after I have sent in copy the crates of books will arrive simultaneously in every one of the twelve thousand shops. Now relax. You're going to be investigated."
He turned to select instruments from a cluttered board. With a faint intake of breath Marty slid from the chair in which he had been strapped, from which he had been working himself free with desperate speed while Pepper held the psychologist's gaze.
Marty launched himself at Fersen's back, snapping an arm about his throat. The psychologist snatched a scalpel from the board before the two reeled away into the center of the cluttered room. With his other hand Marty grabbed frantically at the wrist that held the blade, closed with crushing force about it. The knife dropped, tinkling, to the floor.
The two of them fell; Marty, shoving a knee into the small of Fersen's back, wrenched at his arm.
The psychologist collapsed shuddering in a heap. Marty warily broke away from him and picked up a casting, then clubbed Fersen carefully on the side of the head.
As he unbuckled Pepper he snapped: "Thank God that door's locked.
Thank God he didn't make enough noise to get the guard. Thank God for so damned many things
, Pepper. This is the chance of a lifetime!"
"I don't understand," said Pepper.
"You will," smiled Marty airily. "You probably will. Now where in the bloody dithering hell does he keep his notes—?"
Jay Morningside, bookseller, wearily said: "I'm sorry, ma'am; I'm in trade. I can't afford to have any political opinions."
"Please," said the girl appealingly. "This election petition will help turn out the Fusionist gang and put in Lowers who know how people like us feel and think—"
Return from M-15
[Cosmic Stories - March 1941 as by S. D. Gottesman]
"For this device," declared the haggard young man, "and all rights, I want thirty percent of the World Research Syndicate voting stock."
The big man grinned. "Your little joke, Dr. Train. World Research Syndicate has little interest in independents—but from a person of your ability, perhaps we'll examine it. What is it you have there?
Perhaps a payment of a few thousands can be arranged."
"Don't laugh just yet. Look over these plans—you'll see what I mean."
The engineer took up the sheaf of cap with a smile and unrolled one of the sheets. His brow wrinkled, the smile became a frown. He opened other sheets and stared at them.
"Excuse me," he said, looking up. "I think I see what you are driving at, but I can't deliver an opinion on this sort of thing. I'm an expert in my own line and I know dielectrics as well as most, but this stuff is over my head. I shall endorse your work and refer it to the Board of Technology.
And I think you'll scare hell out of them."
Train laughed freely. "I'll do my best, Hans. And have you any idea of what this device will do?"
Vogel looked frightened. "I almost hope I'm wrong," he said. "Does it—"
he whispered in Train's ear.
"Right the first time. It does and it will. And if the Syndicate doesn't meet my demands, then I can set it up myself and go into business."
The other man looked strangely sober. "Young Dr. Train," he started, "I am strangely inclined to advise you like a father."
"Go ahead, Hans," replied Train cheerfully.
"Very well. I tell you, then, to moderate your request, or you will find yourself in the gravest of difficulties." He looked about the room apprehensively. "This is not a threat; it is merely advice. I am almost convinced that you should scrap your machine or technique, or whatever it is, and forget about it as completely as you can."
Train rose angrily. "Thank you. Vogel, you must be the truest and most faithful slave the Syndicate has; you and your advice can both go to the same place. I'm leaving the plans with you; they are not complete, of course. I hold all the key details. Send them in to your board and have them communicate with me. Good day."
Ann was primping herself before a mirror. "Barney," she warned coldly as she saw Train sneaking up behind her.
"I just wanted to straighten my tie," he said meekly.
"A likely story!"
"It isn't every day one calls on Jehovah," he said. "I think Mr. T J. Hartly would be disgruntled if I appeared with a crooked tie to receive a check for a million dollars."
"For a check that big you should be willing to go in stark naked," she said reflectively.
"Possibly. Where shall we have dinner? I want to flash the check in a head-waitress' face. They've been sneering at me all my life and I think it's time I got even."
"You'll do no such thing!" she retorted indignantly. "The moment we get that check, we head for the city clerk and get married. The money may be in your name, but I'm not going to be short-changed."
"Come on," he said, taking her arm and starting for the door. "It is sort of wonderful, isn't it? I'm so damned nervous I might burst into tears."
Suddenly sober, she looked at him. "Yes."
"Husband and wife," he mused. "Free from care and poverty; we can just love each other and buy all the crazy, expensive machines we want.
We can get acid stains on our hands whenever we feel like it, and have explosions three times a day. It's like a dream."
She kissed him abruptly. "On our way." They hopped into a taxi, and after a few moments of frenzied driving, pulled up at the entrance to the Syndicate Building.
Train paid the driver, gave him an enormous tip. On the elevator, Ann kicked him sharply in the shin.
"What was that for?" he inquired injuredly.
"For wasting our money, dear."
"Then this," he replied, kicking her back, "is for interfering in the distribution of our funds." The door opened and they hobbled out of the car.
"Mr. Train and Miss Riley?" asked a polished young man, looking curiously at them. "Please come this way." He opened a hugely carven oak door and ushered them through. Then the door closed solidly behind them.
The room was huge and impressively bare. At the far end, beneath clouded windows, was a large desk. Impressively the man behind it rose. "I am Mr. Hartly," he said.
"Riley and Train," replied Barnabas Train nervously. "We are pleased to meet you."
Hartly smiled acknowledgment and studied a sheaf of papers. "As the arrangement now stands, we have investigated your device—tagged Independent Fourteen—and are prepared to take over all rights and techniques in exchange for a stated payment. This payment will be an advance of one million dollars to be delivered in toto now, in return for the final details of Independent Fourteen which are in your possession, to be followed by a transfer of thirty percent of the voting stock of Research Syndicate."
"Correct," said Train. "I'm prepared to deliver if you are."
Hartly—who was really a very small man, Ann noted with some surprise—smiled again. "As director of the Syndicate I have decided to request a slight moderation in your demands."
"To what?" snapped Train, his eyes hardening.
"It has been thought that an ample payment would be arranged on a basis of the million advance and—say—one tenth of one percent of non-voting stock."
Train laughed shortly. "Don't joke with me. I know the spot you're in.
I'm holding out for a strong minority for one reason only—I want to put in my vote when I have to and keep your financiers from taking young technicians from the schools and making them your slaves as you've always done. And if you don't give in—Independent Fourteen goes into operation under my direction and at my discretion. And you know what that machine can do to your trust!"
Hartly tapped his teeth with a pencil. "As well as you, certainly." A moment of silence. "Then if we can reach no agreement you had better leave."
"Come on, honey," said Train, taking Ann's arm. "We have work to do."
Turning their backs on the little financier, they walked to the huge door and pulled it open. Before them was a line of police. "Go back," said an officer quietly.
"What the hell is this?" demanded Train as they were hustled back to Hartley's desk, surrounded by an escort with drawn guns. The officer ignored him and addressed the man behind the desk. "We heard there was trouble in here, sir. Are these the ones?"
"Yes. The man has attempted blackmail, theft, sabotage and assault.
The woman is of no importance."
"He's lying!" exploded Train. "I'm Dr. Train and this snake's after stealing an invention he won't meet my terms on."
"You'd better search him," said Hartly quietly. "I believe he has on him documents stolen from our files. They will be marked as specifications for Independent Fourteen."
Suddenly Train stopped struggling. "You're wrong on that point," he said coldly. "All the missing details are in my head; you'll never get them from me."
"It really doesn't matter, Doctor," returned Hardy negligently. "My engineers can reconstruct them from what we have."
"I doubt that very much! The chances are one in a million of your ever stumbling on certain facts that I did. I warn you—Independent Fourteen's lost for good if you do not turn me loose."
"That may be," smiled Hartly. Suddenly he burst into laughter. "But surely you
didn't think we were going to operate your device. It would cripple our economy if we worked it to one percent of its capacity. That machine of yours is impossible—now. We may use it for certain purposes which we shall decide, but your program of operation was a joke."
Train and Ann looked at each other. "I think, Barney," she said softly,
"that sooner or later we'll kill this little man."
"Yes. We will because we'll have to. I'll be back, Ann—wait for me."
"Captain," broke in Hartly to the officer, "here is a warrant of transportation signed by the Commissioner. It authorizes you to remove the prisoner to a suitable institution for indefinite detention. I think that had best be M-15."
Train had been hustled into a police car and rushed to the outskirts of the city. There his guard turned him over to another group in grey uniforms. He looked for insignia but found none. A policeman said to him, before driving off, "These men don't talk and they don't expect prisoners to. Watch your step—good-bye."
Train's first question as to who his guards were was met with a hammer-like blow in the face. Silently they shoved him into an armored car, as grey and blank as their uniforms, and all he knew was that they were driving over rough roads with innumerable twists and turns. At last the car stopped and they dragged him out.
He almost cried out in surprise—they were at a rocket-port. It was small and well hidden by surrounding trees and hills, but seemed complete. On the field was a rocket the like of which he had never seen.
Without windows save for a tiny pilot's port, comparatively bare of markings, and heavily armored, it loomed there as a colossal enigma.
His guards took his arms and walked him to the ship. Silently a port opened, making a runway with the ground, and other men in grey descended. They took Train and the single sheet of paper that was his doom and dragged him into the ship.
His Share of Glory The Complete Short Science Fiction Page 98
