The Servant Problem

by William Tenn

  No, he reflected, let Garomma have his glorious moments and open adulation, his secret palaces and multitudes of concubines. He, Moddo, would settle for the single, occasional touch… and complete control.

  The anteroom to Loob’s office was empty. He stood there impatiently for a moment, then called out: “Loob! Isn’t anyone taking care of this place? I’m in a hurry!”

  A plump little man with a tiny pointed beard on his chin came scurrying out of the other room. “My secretary—everyone had to go downstairs when the Servant of All entered—things are so disrupted—she hasn’t returned yet. But I was careful,” he went on, catching up to his own breath, “to cancel all my appointments with other patients while you were in the building. Please come in.”

  Moddo stretched himself out on the couch in the Healer’s office. “I can only spare about—about fifteen minutes. I have a very important decision to make, and I have a headache that’s gouging out my—my brains.”

  Loob’s fingers circled Moddo’s neck and began massaging the back of his head with a serene purposefulness. “I’ll do what I can. Now try to relax. Relax. That’s right. Relax. Doesn’t this help?”

  “A lot,” Moddo sighed. He must find some way of working Loob into his personal entourage, to be with him whenever he had to travel with Garomma. The man was invaluable. It would be wonderful to have him always available in person. Just a matter of conditioning Garomma to the thought. And now that could be handled with the same suggestion. “Do you mind if I just talk?” he inquired. “I don’t feel very much—very much like free association.”

  Loob sat down in the heavily upholstered chair behind the desk. “Do whatever you want. If you care to, go into what’s troubling you at the moment. All we can hope to do in fifteen minutes is help you relax.”

  Moddo began to talk.

  This was the day of complete control…

  Loob, the Healer of Minds, the Assistant to the Third Assistant Servant of Education, threaded his fingers through the small, triangular beard that was his professional badge and allowed himself to luxuriate in the sensation of ultimate power, absolute power, power such as no human being had ever dared to dream of before this day.

  Complete control. Complete …

  It would have been extremely satisfying to have handled the Servant of Security matter directly, but such pleasures would come in time. His technicians in the Bureau of Healing Research had almost solved the problem be had set them. Meanwhile he still had revenge and the enjoyment of unlimited dominion.

  He listened to Moddo talking of his difficulties in, a carefully guarded, non-specific fashion and held up a round fat hand to cover his grin. The man actually believed that after seven years of close therapeutic relationship, he could conceal such details from Loob!

  But of course. He had to believe it. Loob had spent the first two years restructuring his entire psyche upon that belief, and then—and only then—had begun to effect transference on a total basis. While the emotions Moddo felt toward his parents in childhood were being duplicated relative to the Healer, Loob had begun to probe in the now unsuspicious mind. At first he hadn’t believed what the evidence suggested. Then, as he got to know the patient much better he became completely convinced and almost breathless at the scope of his windfall.

  For more than twenty-five years, Garomma, as the Servant of All, had ruled the human race, and for longer than that, Moddo, as a sort of glorified personal secretary, had controlled Garomma in every important respect.

  So, for the past five years, he, Loob, as psychotherapist and indispensable crutch to an uncertain, broken ego, had guided Moddo and thus reigned over the world, undisputed, unchallenged—and thoroughly unsuspected.

  The man behind the man behind the throne. What could be safer than that?

  Of course, it would be more efficient to fasten his therapeutic grip directly on Garomma. But that would bring him out in the open far too much. Being the Servant of All’s personal mental physician would make him the object of jealous scrutiny by every scheming high-echelon cabal.

  No, it was better to be the one who had custody of the custodian, especially when the custodian appeared to be the most insignificant man in all the Hovel of Service officialdom.

  And then, some day, when his technicians had come up with the answer he required, he might dispose of the Servant of Education and control Garomma at firsthand, with the new method.

  He listened with amusement to Moddo discussing the Servant of Security matter in terms of a hypothetical individual in his own department who was about to be replaced. The question was which one of two extremely able subordinates should be given his job?

  Loob wondered if the patient had any idea how transparent his subterfuges were. No, they rarely did. This was a man whose upset mind had been so manipulated that its continued sanity depended on two factors: the overpowering need to consult Loob whenever anything even mildly delicate came up, and the belief that he could be consulted without revealing the actual data of the situation.

  When the voice on the couch had come to the end of its ragged, wandering summation, Loob took over. Smoothly, quietly, almost tonelessly, he reviewed what Moddo had said. On the surface, he was merely restating the concepts of his patient in a more coherent way. Actually, he was reformulating them so that, considering his personal problems and basic attitudes, the Servant of Education would have no alternative. He would have to select the younger of the two candidates, the one whose background had included the least opposition to the Healers Guild.

  Not that it made very much difference. The important thing was the proof of complete control. That was implicit in having made Moddo convince Garomma of the necessity of getting rid of a Servant of Security at a time when the Servant of All faced no particular mental crisis. When, in fact, his euphoria was at its height.

  But there was, admittedly, the additional pleasure in finally destroying the man who, years ago as Chief of the Forty-seventh District’s Security, had been responsible for the execution of Loob’s only brother. The double achievement was as delicious as one of those two-flavor tarts for which the Healer’s birthplace was famous. He sighed reminiscently.

  Moddo sat up on the couch. He pressed his large, spreading hands into the fabric on either side and stretched. “You’d be amazed how much help this one short session has been, Loob. The—the headache’s gone, the—the confusion’s gone. Just talking about it seems to clarify everything. I know exactly what I have to do now.”

  “Good,” drawled Loob the Healer in a gentle, carefully detached voice.

  “I’ll try to get back tomorrow for a full hour. And I’ve been thinking of having you transferred to my personal staff, so that you can straighten out—straighten out the kinks at the time they occur. I haven’t reached a decision on it yet, though.”

  Loob shrugged and escorted his patient to the door. “That’s entirely up to you. However you feel I can help you most.”

  He watched the tall, husky man walking down the corridor to the elevator. “I haven’t reached a decision on it yet, though.” Well, he wouldn’t—not until Loob did. Loob had put the idea into his mind six months ago, but had deferred having him take action on it. He wasn’t sure that it would be a good idea to get even that close to the Servant of All as yet. And there was that wonderful little project in the Bureau of Healing Research which he still wanted to give maximum daily attention.

  His secretary came in and went right to work at her typewriter. Loob decided to go downstairs and check on what had been done today. With all the fanfare attendant upon the Servant of All’s arrival to celebrate complete control, the researchers’ routine had no doubt been seriously interrupted. Still, the solution might come at any time. And he liked to examine their lines of investigation for potential fruitfulness: these technicians were blunderingly unimaginative!

  As he walked down to the main floor, he wondered if Moddo, anywhere in the secret depths of his psyche, had any idea of how much he had come to depend o
n the Healer, how thoroughly he needed him. The fellow was such a tangle of anxiety and uncertainty—losing his parents as a child, the way he had, of course had not helped too much, but his many repressions had been in existence even then. He had never even remotely suspected that the reason he wanted Garomma to be the ostensible leader was because he was afraid of taking personal responsibility for anything. That the fake personality he was proud of presenting to the world was his real personality, the difference being that he had learned to use his fears and timidity in a positive fashion. But only up to a point. Seven years ago, when he had looked up Loob (“a fast bit of psychotherapy for some minor problems I’ve been having”), he’d been on the point of complete collapse. Loob had repaired the vast flapping structure on a temporary basis and given it slightly different functions. Functions for Loob.

  He couldn’t help wondering further if the ancients would have been able to do anything basic for Moddo. The ancients, according to the Oral Tradition at least, had developed, just before the beginning of the modern era, a psychotherapy that accomplished wonders of change and personal reorganization for the individual.

  But to what end? No serious attempt to use the method for its obvious purpose, for the only purpose of any method… power. Loob shook his head. Those ancients had been so incredibly naive! And so much of their useful knowledge had been lost. Concepts like super-ego merely existed in the Oral Tradition of the Healers Guild as words; there was no clue as to their original meaning. They might be very useful today, properly applied.

  On the other hand, were most of the members of his own modern Healers Guild across the wide sea, any less naive, including his father and the uncle who was now its reigning head? From the day when he had passed the Guild’s final examinations and begun to grow the triangular beard of master status, Loob had seen that the ambitions of his fellow-members were ridiculously limited. Here, in this very city, where, according to legend, the Guild of the Healers of Minds had originated, each member asked no more of life than to use his laboriously learned skill at transference to acquire power over the lives of ten or fifteen wealthy patients.

  Loob had laughed at these sparse objectives. He had seen the obvious goal which his colleagues had been overlooking for years. The more powerful the individual whom you subjected to transference and in whom you created a complete dependence, the more power you, as his healer, enjoyed. The world’s power center was on Capital Island across the great ocean to the east. And it was there that Loob determined to go.

  It hadn’t been easy. The strict rules of custom against changing your residence except on official business had stood in his way for a decade. But once the wife of the Forty-seventh District’s Communications Commissioner had become his patient, it got easier. When the commissioner had been called to Capital Island for promotion to the Second Assistant Servantship of Communication, Loob had gone with the family; he was now indispensable. Through them he had secured a minor job in the Service of Education. Through that job, practicing his profession on the side, he had achieved enough notice to come to the august attention of the Servant of Education himself.

  He hadn’t really expected to go this far. But a little luck, a great deal of skill and constant, unwinking alertness had made an irresistible combination. Forty-five minutes after Moddo had first stretched out on his couch, Loob had realized that he, with all of his smallness and plumpness and lack of distinction, was destined to rule the world.

  Now the only question was what to do with that rule. With wealth and power unlimited.

  Well, for one thing there was his little research project. That was very interesting, and it would serve, once it came to fruition, chiefly to consolidate and insure his power. There were dozens of little pleasures and properties that were now his, but their enjoyment tended to wear off with their acquisition. And finally there was knowledge.

  Knowledge. Especially forbidden knowledge. He could now enjoy it with impunity. He could collate the various Oral Traditions into one intelligible whole and be the only man in the world who knew what had really happened in the past. He had already discovered, through the several teams of workers he had set at the task, such tidbits as the original name of his birthplace, lost years ago in a numbering system that had been created to destroy patriotic associations inimical to the world state. Long before it had been the Fifth City of the Forty-seventh District, he had learned, it had been Austria, the glorious capital of the proud Viennese Empire. And this island on which he stood had been Havanacuba, no doubt once a great empire in its own right which had established hegemony over all other empires somewhere in the dim war-filled beginnings of modern times.

  Well, these were highly personal satisfactions. He doubted very much if Garomma, for example, would be interested to know that he hailed, not from the Twentieth Agricultural Region of the Sixth District, but from a place called Canada, one of the fifty constituent republics of the ancient Northern United States of America. But he, Loob, was interested. Every additional bit of knowledge gave you additional power over your fellow-men, that some day, some way, would be usable.

  Why, if Moddo had had any real knowledge of the transference techniques taught in the upper lodges of the Guild of the Healers of Minds, he might still be running the world himself! But no. It was inevitable that a Garomma should actually be no more than a creature, a thing, of Moddo. It was inevitable that a Moddo, given the peculiar forces that had formed him, should inexorably have had to come to Loob and pass under his control. It was also inevitable that Loob, with his specialized knowledge of what could be done with the human mind, should be the only independent man on Earth today. It was also very pleasant.

  He wriggled a little bit, very satisfied with himself, gave his beard a final finger-comb, and pushed into the Bureau of Healing Research.

  The chief of the bureau came up rapidly and bowed. “Nothing new to report today.” He gestured at the tiny cubicles in which the technicians sat at old books or performed experiments on animals and criminally convicted humans. “It took them a while to get back to work, after the Servant of All arrived. Everyone was ordered out into the main corridor for regulation empathizing with Garomma.”

  “I know,” Loob told him. “I don’t expect much progress on a day like this. Just so you keep them at it. It’s a big problem.”

  The other man shrugged enormously. “A problem which, as far as we can tell, has never been solved before. The ancient manuscripts we’ve discovered are all in terrible shape, of course. But those that mention hypnotism all agree that it can’t occur under any of the three conditions you want: against the individual’s will, contrary to his personal desires and best judgment, and maintaining him over a long period of time in the original state of subjection without need for new applications. I’ m not saying it’s impossible, but—”

  “But it’s very difficult. Well, you’ve had three and a half years to work on it, and you’ll have as much more time as you need. And equipment. And personnel. Just ask. Meanwhile, I’ll wander around and see how your men are doing. You needn’t come with me. I like to ask my own questions.”

  The bureau chief bowed again and turned back to his desk in the rear of the room. Loob, the Healer of Minds, the Assistant to the Third Assistant Servant of Education, walked slowly from cubicle to cubicle, watching the work, asking questions, but mostly noting the personal quality of the psychological technician in each cubicle.

  He was convinced that the right man could solve the problem. And it was just a matter of finding the right man and giving him maximum facilities. The right man would be clever enough and persistent enough to follow up the right lines of research, but too unimaginative to be appalled by a goal which had eluded the best minds for ages.

  And once the problem was solved—then in one short interview with Garomma, he could place the Servant of All under his direct, personal control for the rest of his life and dispense with the complications of long therapeutic sessions with Moddo where he constantly had to sugge
st, and suggest in roundabout fashion, rather than give simple, clear and unambiguous orders. Once the problem was solved—

  He came to the last cubicle. The pimply-faced young man who sat at the plain brown table studying a ripped and damp-rotted volume didn’t hear him come in. Loob studied him for a moment.

  What frustrated, bleak lives these young technicians must lead! You could see it in the tightly set lines of their all-too-similar faces. Growing up in one of the most rigidly organized versions of the world state that a ruler had yet contrived, they didn’t have a thought that was in any way their own, could not dream of tasting a joy that had not been officially allotted to them.

  And yet this fellow was the brightest of the lot. If any one in the Bureau of Healing Research could develop the kind of perfect hypnotic technique Loob required, he could. Loob had been watching him with growing hope for a long time now.

  “How is it coming, Sidothi?” he asked.

  Sidothi looked up from his book.

  “Shut the door,” he said.

  Loob shut the door.

  This was the day of complete control…

  Sidothi, the Laboratory Assistant, Psychological Technician Fifth Class, snapped his fingers in Loob’s face and allowed himself to luxuriate in the sensation of ultimate power, absolute power, power such as no human being had even dared to dream of before this day.

  Complete control. Complete…

  Still sitting, he snapped his fingers again.

  He said: “Report.”

  The familiar glazed look came into Loob’s eyes. His body stiffened. His arms hung limply at his sides. In a steady, toneless voice he began to deliver his report.

  Magnificent. The Servant of Security would be dead in a few hours and the man Sidothi liked would take his place. For an experiment in complete control, it had worked out to perfection. That was all it had been; an attempt to find out if—by creating a feeling of vengefulness in Loob for the sake of a nonexistent brother—he could force the Healer to act on a level he always wanted to avoid; making Moddo do something that the Servant of Education had no interest at all in doing. That was to prod Garomma into an action against the Servant of Security at a time when Garomma was in no particular mental crisis.