The Worlds Of Robert A Heinlein

by Robert A. Heinlein

tolerated because he was a friend of the superintendent. He even poked his

  nose into the commercial power end of the plant, and had the

  mercury-steam-turbogenerator sequence explained to him in detail. This

  alone would have been sufficient to disarm any suspicion that he might be a

  psychiatrist, for the staff psychiatrists paid no attention to the

  hard-bitten technicians of the power-conversion unit. There was no need to;

  mental instability on their part could not affect the bomb, nor were they

  subject to the man-killing strain of social responsibility. Theirs was

  simply a job personally dangerous, a type of strain strong men have been

  inured to since the jungle.

  In due course he got around to the unit of the radiation laboratory set

  aside for Calvin Harper's use. He rang the bell and waited. Harper answered

  the door, his anti-radiation helmet shoved back from his face like a

  grotesque sunbonnet. "What is it?" he asked. "Oh � it's you, Dr. Lentz. Did

  you want to see me?"

  "Why, yes and no," the older man answered. "I was just looking around the

  experimental station, and wondered what you do in here. Will I be in the

  way?"

  "Not at all. Come in. Gus!"

  Erickson got up from where he had been fussing over the power leads to

  their trigger � a modified cyclotron rather than a resonant accelerator.

  "Hello."

  "Gus, this is Dr. Lentz � Gus Erickson."

  "We've met," said Erickson, pulling off his gauntlet to shake hands. He had

  had a couple of drinks with Lentz in town and considered him a "nice old

  duck." "You're just between shows, but stick around and we'll start another

  run-not that there is much to see."

  While Erickson continued with the setup, Harper conducted Lentz around the

  laboratory, explaining the line of research they were conducting, as happy

  as a father showing off twins. The psychiatrist listened with one ear and

  made appropriate comments while he studied the young scientist for signs of

  the instability he had noted to be recorded against him.

  "You see," Harper explained, oblivious to the interest in himself, "we are

  testing radioactive materials to see if we can produce disintegration of

  the sort that takes place in the bomb, but in a minute, almost microscopic,

  mass. If we are successful, we can use the power of the bomb to make a

  safe, convenient, atomic fuel for rockets." He went on to explain their

  schedule of experimentation.

  "I see," Lentz observed politely. "What metal are you examining now?"

  Harper told him. "But it's not a case of examining one element � we've

  finished Isotope II with negative results. Our schedule calls next for

  running the same test on Isotope V. Like this." He hauled out a lead

  capsule, and showed the label to Lentz, who saw that it was, indeed, marked

  with the symbol of the fifth isotope. He hurried away to the shield around

  the target of the cyclotron, left open by Erickson. Lentz saw that he had

  opened the capsule, and was performing some operation on it in a gingerly

  manner, having first lowered his helmet. Then he closed and clamped the

  target shield.

  "O. K., Gus?" he called out. "Ready to roll?"

  "Yeah, I guess so," Erickson assured him, coming around them. They crowded

  behind a thick metal shield that cut them off from direct sight of the

  setup.

  "Will I need to put on armor?" inquired Lentz.

  "No," Erickson reassured him, "we wear it because we are around the stuff

  day in and day out. You just stay behind the shield and you'll be all

  right. It's lead � backed up by eight inches of case-hardened armor plate.

  Erickson glanced at Harper, who nodded, and fixed his eyes on a panel of

  instruments mounted behind the shield. Lentz saw Erickson press a push

  button at the top of the board, then heard a series of relays click on the

  far side of the shield. There was a short moment of silence.

  The floor slapped his feet like some incredible bastinado. The concussion

  that beat on his ears was so intense that it paralyzed the auditory nerve

  almost before it could be recorded as sound. The air-conducted concussion

  wave flailed every inch of his body with a single, stinging, numbing blow.

  As he picked himself up, he found he was trembling uncontrollably and

  realized, for the first time, that he was getting old.

  Harper was seated on the floor and had commenced to bleed from the nose.

  Erickson had gotten up; his cheek was cut. He touched a hand to the wound,

  then stood there, regarding the blood on his fingers with a puzzled

  expression on his face.

  "Are you hurt?" Lentz inquired inanely. "What happened?"

  Harper cut in. "Gus, we've done it! We've done it! Isotope V's turned the

  trick!"

  Erickson looked still more bemused. "Five?" he said stupidly. "But that

  wasn't Five; that was Isotope II. I put it in myself."

  "You put it in? I put it in! It was Five, I tell you!"

  They stood staring at each other, still confused by the explosion, and each

  a little annoyed at the boneheaded stupidity the other displayed in the

  face of the obvious. Lentz diffidently interceded.

  "Wait a minute, boys," he suggested. "Maybe there's a reason � Gus, you

  placed a quantity of the second isotope in the receiver?"

  "Why, yes, certainly. I wasn't satisfied with the last run, and I wanted to

  check it."

  Lentz nodded. "It's my fault, gentlemen," he admitted ruefully. "I came in

  and disturbed your routine, and both of you charged the receiver. I know

  Harper did, for I saw him do it � with Isotope V. I'm sorry."

  Understanding broke over Harper's face, and he slapped the older man on the

  shoulder. "Don't be sorry," he laughed; "you can come around to our lab and

  help us make mistakes any time you feel in the mood. Can't he, Gus? This is

  the answer, Dr. Lentz; this is it!"

  "But," the psychiatrist pointed out, "you don't know which isotope blew

  up."

  "Nor care," Harper supplemented. "Maybe it was both, taken together. But we

  will know � this business is cracked now; we'll soon have it open." He

  gazed happily around at the wreckage.

  In spite of Superintendent King's anxiety, Lentz refused to be hurried in

  passing judgment on the situation. Consequently, when he did present

  himself at King's office, and announced that he was ready to report, King

  was pleasantly surprised as well as relieved. "Well, I'm delighted," he

  said. "Sit down, Doctor, sit down. Have a cigar. What do we do about it?"

  But Lentz stuck to his perennial cigarette and refused to be hurried. "I

  must have some information first. How important," he demanded, "is the

  power from your plant?"

  King understood the implication at once. If you are thinking about shutting

  down the bomb for more than a limited period, it can't be done."

  "Why not? If the figures supplied me are correct, your output is less than

  thirteen percent of the total power used in the country."

  "Yes, that is true, but you haven't considered the items that go into

  making up the total. A lot of it is domestic power, which householders get

  from sunscreens located on their own roofs. Another big s
lice is power for

  the moving roadways � that's sunpower again. The portion we provide here is

  the main power source for most of the heavy industries � steel, plastics,

  lithics, all kinds of manufacturing and processing. You might as well cut

  the heart out of a man � "

  "But the food industry isn't basically dependent on you?" Lentz persisted.

  "No. Food isn't basically a power industry � although we do supply a

  certain percentage of the power used in processing. I see your point, and

  will go on and concede that transportation � that is to say, distribution

  of food � could get along without us. But, good heavens, Doctor, you can't

  stop atomic power without causing the biggest panic this country has ever

  seen. It's the keystone of our whole industrial system."

  "The country has lived through panics before, and we got past the oil

  shortage safely."

  "Yes � because atomic power came along to take the place of oil. You don't

  realize what this would mean, Doctor. It would be worse than a war; in a

  system like ours, one thing depends on another. If you cut off the heavy

  industries all at once, everything else stops, too."

  "Nevertheless, you had better dump the bomb." The uranium in the bomb was

  molten, its temperature being greater than twenty-four hundred degrees

  centigrade. The bomb could be dumped into a group of small containers, when

  it was desired to shut it down. The mass in any one container was too small

  to maintain progressive atomic disintegration.

  King glanced involuntarily at the glass-inclosed relay mounted on his

  office wall, by which he, as well as the engineer on duty, could dump the

  bomb, if need be. "But I couldn't do that � or rather, if I did, the plant

  wouldn't stay shut down. The Directors would simply replace me with someone

  who would operate the bomb.''

  "You're right, of course." Lentz silently considered the situation for some

  time, then said, "Superintendent, will you order a car to fly me back to

  Chicago?"

  "You're going, Doctor?"

  "Yes." He took the cigarette holder from his face, and, for once, the smile

  of Olympian detachment was gone completely. His entire manner was sober,

  even tragic. "Short of shutting down the bomb, there is no solution to your

  problem-none whatsoever!

  "I owe you a full explanation," Lentz continued, at length. "You are

  confronted here with recurring; instances of situational psychoneurosis.

  Roughly, the symptoms manifest themselves as anxiety neurosis or some form

  of hysteria. The partial amnesia of your secretary, Steinke, is a good

  example of the latter. He might be cured with shock technique, but it would

  hardly be a kindness, as he has achieved a stable adjustment which puts him

  beyond the reach of the strain he could not stand.

  "That other young fellow, Harper, whose blowup was the immediate cause of

  your sending for me, is an anxiety case. When the cause of the anxiety was

  eliminated from his matrix, he at once regained full sanity. But keep a

  close watch on his friend, Erickson �

  "However, it is the cause, and prevention, of situational psychoneurosis we

  are concerned with here, rather than the forms in which it is manifested.

  In plain language, psychoneurosis situational simply refers to the common

  fact that, if you put a man in a situation that worries him more than he

  can stand, in time he blows up, one way or another.

  "That is precisely the situation here. You take sensitive, intelligent

  young men, impress them with the fact that a single slip on their part, or

  even some fortuitous circumstance beyond their control, will result in the

  death of God knows how many other people, and then expect them to remain

  sane. It's ridiculous � impossible!"

  "But good heavens, Doctor, there must be some answer! There must!" He got

  up and paced around the room. Lentz noted, with pity, that King himself was

  riding the ragged edge of the very condition they were discussing.

  "No," he said slowly. "No. Let me explain. You don't dare intrust the bomb

  to less sensitive, less socially conscious men. You might as well turn the

  controls over to a mindless idiot. And to psychoneurosis situational there

  are but two cures. The first obtains when the psychosis results from a

  misevaluation of environment. That cure calls for semantic readjustment.

  One assists the patient to evaluate correctly his environment. The worry

  disappears because there never was a real reason for worry in the situation

  itself, but simply in the wrong meaning the patient's mind had assigned to

  it.

  "The second case is when the patient has correctly evaluated the situation,

  and rightly finds in it cause for extreme worry. His worry is perfectly

  sane and proper, but he can not stand up under it indefinitely; it drives

  him crazy. The only possible cure is to change the situation. I have stayed

  here long enough to assure myself that such is the condition here. Your

  engineers have correctly evaluated the public danger of this bomb, and it

  will, with dreadful certainty, drive all of you crazy!

  "The only possible solution is to dump the bomb � and leave it dumped."

  King had continued his nervous pacing of the floor, as if the walls of the

  room itself were the cage of his dilemma. Now he stopped and appealed once

  more to the psychiatrist. "Isn't there anything I can do?"

  "Nothing to cure. To alleviate � well, possibly."

  "How?"

  "Situational psychosis results from adrenaline exhaustion. When a man is

  placed under a nervous strain, his adrenal glands increase their secretion

  to help compensate for the strain. If the strain is too great and lasts too

  long, the adrenals aren't equal to the task, and he cracks. That is what

  you have here. Adrenaline therapy might stave off a mental breakdown, but

  it most assuredly would hasten a physical breakdown. But that would be

  safer from a viewpoint of public welfare � even though it assumes that

  physicists are expendable!

  "Another thing occurs to me: If you selected any new watch engineers from

  the membership of churches that practice the confessional, it would

  increase the length of their usefulness."

  King was plainly surprised. "I don't follow you."

  "The patient unloads most of his worry on his confessor, who is not himself

  actually confronted by the situation, and can stand it. That is simply an

  ameliorative, however. I am convinced that, in this situation, eventual

  insanity is inevitable. But there is a lot of good sense in the

  confessional," he added. "It fills a basic human need. I think that is why

  the early psychoanalysts were so surprisingly successful, for all their

  limited knowledge." He fell silent for a while, then added, "If you will be

  so kind as to order a stratocab for me � "

  "You've nothing more to suggest?"

  "No. You had better turn your psychological staff loose on means of

  alleviation; they're able men, all of them."

  King pressed a switch and spoke briefly to Steinke. Turning back to Lentz,

  he said, "You'll wait here until your car is ready?"

  Lentz judged correctly that King desired it And agreed
.

  Presently the tube delivery on King's desk went ping! The Superintendent

  removed a small white pasteboard, a calling card. he studied it with

  surprise and passed it over to Lentz. "I can't imagine why he should be

  calling on me," he observed, and added, "Would you like to meet him?"

  Lentz read:

  THOMAS P. HARRINGTON

  CAPTAIN (MATHEMATICS)

  UNITED STATES NAVY

  DIRECTOR,

  U.S. NAVAL OBSERVATORY

  "But I do know him," he said. "I'd be very pleased to see him."

  Harrington was a man with something on his mind. He seemed relieved when

  Steinke had finished ushering him in, and had returned to the outer office.

  He commenced to speak at once, turning to Lentz, who was nearer to him than

  King. "You're King? . . . Why, Dr. Lentz! What are you doing here?"

  "Visiting," answered Lentz, accurately but incompletely, as he shook hands.

  "This is Superintendent King over here. Superintendent King � Captain

  Harrington."

  "How do you do, Captain � it's a pleasure to have you here.

  "It's an honor to be here, sir."

  "Sit down?"

  "Thanks." He accepted a chair and laid a briefcase on a corner of King's

  desk. "Superintendent, you are entitled to an explanation as to why I have

  broken in on you like this � "

  "Glad to have you." In fact, the routine of formal politeness was an

  anodyne to Kings frayed nerves.

  "That's kind of you, but � That secretary chap, the one that brought me in

  here, would it be too much to

  ask you to tell him to forget my name? I know it seems strange � "

  "Not at all." King was mystified, but willing to grant any reasonable

  request of a distinguished colleague in science. He summoned Steinke to the

  interoffice visiphone and gave him his orders.

  Lentz stood up and indicated that he was about to leave. He caught

  Harrington's eye. "I think you want a private palaver, Captain"

  King looked from Harrington to Lentz and back to Harrington. The astronomer

  showed momentary indecision, then protested: "I have no objection at all

  myself; it's up to Dr. King. As a matter of fact," he added, "It might be a

  very good thing if you did sit in on it."

  "I don't know what it is, Captain," observed King, "that you want to see me

  about, but Dr. Lentz is already here in a confidential capacity."

  "Good! Then that's settled. I'll get right down to business. Dr. King, you

  know Destry's mechanics of infinitesimals?"

  "Naturally." Lentz cocked a brow at King, who chose to ignore it.

  "Yes, of course. Do you remember theorem six and the transformation between

  equations thirteen and fourteen?"

  "I think so, but I'd want to see them." King got up and went over to a

  bookcase. Harrington stayed him with a hand.

  "Don't bother. I have them here." He hauled out a key, unlocked his

  briefcase, and drew out a large, much-thumbed, loose-leaf notebook. "Here.

  You, too, Dr. Lentz. Are you familiar with this development?"

  Lentz nodded. "I've had occasion to look into them"

  "Good � I think it's agreed that the step between thirteen and fourteen is

  the key to the whole matter. Now, the change from thirteen to fourteen

  looks perfectly valid � and would be, in some fields. But suppose we expand

  it to show every possible phase of the matter, every link in the chain of

  reasoning."

  He turned a page and showed them the same two equations broken down into

  nine intermediate equations. He placed a finger under an associated group