The sharp intakes of breath about the table were his cue. Even the girl hesitated the space of a second in her transcription. Suddenly, the thing was obvious. And Doug knew he could cope with it—he had, so many times before!
This lad, he thought,wants to be the next Senior Quadrate!
"It seems," he said, "the Quadrate has forgotten that the Council table is not intended as a political arena. He will be seated."
Tayne reddened. But he did not sit.
"The Director be praised but it's time we got to the bottom of this! Is it not true, Quadrate Blair, that the OP is being delayed so that whole sections may be entirely revised—in order to conform to your personal beliefs concerning what you term efficiency of equipment, on which we hear you expound so often? I suggest sir that you are grossly overstepping your authority! I doubt seriously that our checklists have even been consulted! The Senior Quadrate would accuse me of seeking his position—I'm aware of that—but I ask him point-blank of his own ambitions toward the Directorate!"
There was but an instant of silence; the Council was stunned. Doug felt cold little drops of sweat rolling down the undersides of his arms. What now? Was he supposed to shoot the man on the spot? Fire him, what? He turned to the girl.
"You will make extra copies of the Quadrate's remarks for the—the Director's personal file. Forward them to his headquarters as soon following adjournment of this session as is possible." She nodded. He was still doing it right. But luck wasn't a consistent thing. "Until the Director clarifies the status of Quadrate Tayne, pending his review of this report of his insubordinate charges and my own recommendations for the severest penalty the law allows for such insubordination, we will consider the conference adjourned, gentlemen...."
They stood at once, bowed, and flanked by their junior officers filed silently out.
Doug remained seated. The secretary was gathering her equipment. He dared ask her—what?
She startled him when she spoke.
"I'll get the transcription coded and prepared for A priority transmission on the first open Venus channel. But if I may say so, Sir—not that he certainly hasn't deserved it ever since his brother got him appointed—it's too bad you could not have found some other way—I've always marvelled at the methods you've been able to devise to cope with him in the past. This was—but pardon me. I'm entirely out of place."
"No, no it's all right. His brother?"
"Why—yes of course, Gundar Tayne. The Director."
He had thought like a child to have believed he could have done more than bluff. He had thought like a child to have taken the impossible gamble at all. Already he had committed a fatal error, and he knew that were it not for his physical appearance the farce would not have lasted ten seconds.
Nonsense! Was not a high stake worth the toss of any dice? Perhaps he was slightly mad, but he hadnotthought like a child. Slightly mad, mad enough to suppose that to win happiness there must be courage, and with the courage, success, somehow.
He could feel the solidity of the corridor floor beneath his feet as he followed her toward the panel at its end upon which the words Office Of The Senior Quadrate stood boldly, with the insignia of the office inscribed beneath them.
Fatal error be damned!
He would satisfy Tayne! As soon as the panel of the large, private office slid shut behind them, he would countermand his order to the secretary and have her scrap the section of her records which was so much more damning to himself than it could ever be to Tayne. There would be some other way....
Yes, it was politics. But it was the only weapon he knew, and for the moment he would have to wield it more skillfully than he ever had in his life.
And idly, he wondered what they would do if he failed. If, somehow they saw through the disguise of his body....
He knew what they would do. They would make him build a new Contraption, make him go. And the Contraption they would make him build—there was of course too great a chance that he and Dorothy would miss their own point in time, become hopelessly lost....
And wouldn't it be sheer idiocy to risk that?
The office was a miniature of the council chamber. It was elliptical, furnished with two desks of smooth, soft-finished metal molded to fit the general configurations of the chamber itself, and planned for both business-like efficiency and personal comfort. The name-plate on the larger desk bore his insignia and said Douglas J. Blair; that on the smaller said Miss Jane Landis.
He seated himself.
"Miss Landis, about that report to the Director. Perhaps—perhaps as you suggested, it was in, shall we say, bad taste. Better file it. Future reference."
"Why Doug—what on Earth's the matter?" She put the recording device on her desk, walked over to his. There was a look of concern on her face that he didn't understand. What had he said wrong now? Whatever it was, there was no hint of suspicion in her look, only a vague puzzlement.
Young, and pretty. A trap, perhaps—no, they hadn't tumbled yet. Perhaps just Nature's own trap and that was all. Funny, Doug thought, very funny. There were rules. Sometimes you were supposed to be thankful to Nature, worship her, hold her in awe—and other times, you were supposed to completely deny that she existed, and villify her if she had done too good a job. She had done a good job on Miss Landis.
"Why, nothing. It is simply that—"
"But why the 'Miss' Landis? Did I do something wrong? And the way you just went over and sat down...."
"Sorry ... sorry, Jane." He smiled. "It's Tayne. I think I handled him rather badly."
"Don't worry so, Doug! I've never seen such a little thing get under your skin. Everyone knows he never got properly conditioned, even the Director himself. He's a good games officer, and that's that. He's always trying to draw someone into a state of anger, and you told me yourself just yesterday that you're his special target just for the job. It's a good thing you didn't blow up in there. What came over you—giving an order like that, I mean?"
"I—let's say I was confused for the moment."
"As long as he's the only headquarters man like that there's nothing to keep you so upset, Doug. Now come on—"
She was behind the desk, a slender hand on the back of his chair.
"Not—no not now Jane. Anyway you should appreciate my—"
"Your position ... yes.... But Lisa's not the jealous sort Doug, you know that. Your wife's always been willing to share you with others...."
"I—yes I know that of course...."Good Lord...
He hadn't even thought of it, hadn't been ready. The entire set-up of conventions would of course have so many differences—what was simple bad taste in his time-phase might be accepted as a matter of course here. And vice-versa perhaps—how was he to know? And he would have to know.
"Doug...."
He said nothing, and she withdrew a little.
"Doug I'm sorry about getting out of line when I said what I did about the way you handled Tayne, if that's what it is ... I know my business and I know yours...."
He remained silent, and she left his side of the desk.
He tried to think, tried to remember the early days in the courtroom. And he must say something quickly—
"No—no honestly I'm glad you said it. After all, how long have we known each other, Jane?"
"Ever since—ever since your election to the Quadrature almost ten years ago."
"Yes—it's a long time, isn't it? Tell me, had you ever known anything about me before then?"
"Why, only your name, your accomplishments. Your work for the great cause of politics and government as a journalist. I read a lot of your work. I thought there was never a man more devoted to his party since the formation of the Prelatinate itself. You were a great man then just as you are now, Doug—and you're third in worship only to the Prelate General himself."
"Worship ... you mean public admiration, respect...."
"Doug, how can you say such a thing? It's like—well, as if they'd said years ago that they—that they admired or respected their God!"
He felt the muscles in his jaw slacken, caught them.
"There's been a lot of progress since that era, of course. A lot of hard, exhausting work...." He was careful, lest any of his question-marks show. At any moment he could imagine her whirling upon him, shrieking "Imposter!"
But she was taking the bait.
"It seems impossible that there could ever have been a way of life without the Prelatinate, the Quadrature. Impossible even that there was once such a thing as war. How terrible it must have been—no conditioning, the constant killing of valuable adults...."
He let her words sink into his memory, pushed them, crammed them into it, then tried to make them follow through.
"Ironic, isn't it, that without such beastiality there might never have been a world as we know it now. I sometimes wonder how often they thought about the future—if they thought about it as we do today. You know, Jane, I think about the future a lot. Remember what we were talking about just the other day—a week or so ago, wasn't it?"
And he waited, tensed. Too far, perhaps—
"Doug—Doug you mustn't talk about that any more! The S-Council would have both of us in a minute if they ever heard us. The boys in white have sterilized people for less than talking about the desirability of inter-political marriages. But God, how I wish I'd been brought up a Liberal! Lisa wouldn't have had a chance!"
"I suppose it would've made the children a problem...."
"An understatement if I ever heard one! Your twin sons—I bet they're good solid Liberals by now! Do they—do they ever question, Doug? I've often wondered about kids, brought up in the family party from the time they're old enough to say 'Prelatinate'. Have Kurt and Ronal ever—do they ever show a streak of heresy—you know what I mean ... I should think kids'd rebel, try out some ideas of their own."
"Well, did you ever, when you were a child?"
"No—no I guess not. I see what you mean. If you come out with a really good question, there's always an answer for you right out of the Constitutional Commandments."
"And of course no one dares challenge them!"
"Doug!"
"Oh, don't misunderstand, Jane." Almost, that time. He could feel the sweat start under his arms again. Dammit what an organization. They worshipped government, they were scrupulously careful to keep a perfect check-and-balance on political spheres of influence, they had such well-oiled machinery that even war was impossible.
"Don't worry, I don't."
"I just meant that sometimes it really makes me realize what a wonderful balance we've achieved. Education, population."
"No form of birth control could ever have solved the problems of over-crowding and starvation and war as well as the games. You should know! Without work like yours, Doug, just think what the whole world could be like! There'd be the problem of enforcing the birth control laws again, knowing that every time they were violated the threat of unbalance would grow a little more."
The games again. What kind of magic, what kind of panacea were they? He thought of the teeming, overcrowded millions in Europe, Asia—World War I, World War II, Korea, the Puerto Rican revolution in 1955. New York and her East Side slums, Chicago, and—whatever it was he headed, it solved these things.
"Guess I'd better get back to the big job," he said then. "—Or Tayne'll be your new boss! And then—"
"Doug what a perfectly awful thing to say! You've got to stop worrying. Sometimes you're hardly yourself—honestly, if I didn't know you better I'd think you'd lost the old self-confidence, the old strut! Your voice even sounds kind of different. You've got to relax, mister."
"When I get things taken care of, maybe then.... And I think—I think I can give them something they can't say no to if I go over every detail once more—a whole re-study." He watched her face closely, nerves taut for the first tell-tale sign that he'd fallen on his face. But she nodded.
"Probably help. Shall I bring in the whole file for last year? Checklists, film-strips, the works?
"Yes," he said. "Yes. That's what I want—the works."
Neatly lettered on the file-tab of the heavy folder she brought were the words WAR GAMES, 1957, and he did not understand.
War Games, and she had said there was no war....
Suddenly, he was afraid. Afraid to reach inside the folder, afraid to find what would tell him that for some fearful reason she had lied, that this beautiful, sparkling world was nothing but a lie....
He read the file-tab again. WAR GAMES, 1957, it said. No—no he did not understand.
He drew out the four thick volumes of bound records, the square can containing the film-strips, the thin sheaf of checklists.
And he opened the personal record titledSenior Quadrate's Report. May 1, 1957-May 7, 1957. Blair.
And simply, directly, it began on the first page.
Subject: War Games, 1957: Notes.
Location: Venus, northern mass, west: N Lat. 38°24' to N Lat. 37°12' E Long. 41°6' to E Long 39°12'.
Force: 1,231,693.
Age range: Reg. 10 yrs. 1 mo. to 10 yrs. 4 mos. Av: 10 yrs. 2-1/2 mos.
Mortality: 483,912.
Wounded In Action (Retrieved): 202,516.
Balance: Minus 200 M; plus 173 WIA.
Remarks: Within forgiveness margin.
Conditioning: 3% held over.
Personal observation: Full month training period completed by entire quadrant. For male children of the 10-year age level, exceptionally excellent military discipline this year. From what I witnessed of the quadrants under Tayne, Klauss and Vladkow, they have experienced the same good results. Despite use of outmoded weapons, combat exceptionally vigorous, well-executed and effective. This was especially true in final phase, with all quadrants meeting on common front, northern mass (See map, Final Phase,) at which time 692,511 were committed. Full day rest allowed all quadrants during transfer from southwestern mass of quadrants 2 and 4.
Klauss is to be especially commended for this thoroughness in psychologically preparing his quadrant. Each of its members seemed completely convinced that battle was necessary to survival; I assume Klauss' extraordinary success may be laid to a great extent on his expert use of the propaganda techniques so successful in the World War.
Tayne is also to be commended, as is Vladkow, for having trained his quadrant to an admirably high degree of technical proficiency with both broadsword and mace. (See Recommendations, Final Report.)
Removal of dead done with somewhat lower expedience than usual in all quadrants, due, however to the increased vigor on numerous occasions to....
Doug shut his eyes.
No. No, none of this was so. None of it....
"Jane!"
"Yes, Doug. Something—"
"I want to see the strips—now, if possible."
"Hit on something already?"
"The strips I said! Now!"
"Of course—right away, Doug." She pressed a stud in a panel flush with the desk-top. He knew he had startled her.
But he had to see. If he could see, he'd understand. The words had made no sense at all, they were gibberish, crazy and he didn't know what they meant.
He held his muscles rigid as he waited for the orderly she had summoned to prepare the recessed projector, inset wall-screen.Hurry, damn you, hurry!
"Verbal commentary desired, sir?"
"Oh—yes, yes of course."
"All ready then, sir."
"Go ahead then, go on."
The suffused lighting of the chamber suddenly dimmed, and Jane rose from her desk.
"I'll be in the eightieth level records library, sir, if I'm needed."
"I don't—well if you wish, Miss Landis." She left. Because she knew—yes, of course she'd known what was coming. And she had left—
In full color, the pictures flashed on the screen.
He watched, only subconsciously aware of the intermittent voice describing, evaluating, analyzing. He sat and watched as though there were not a mobile muscle in his sweating body.
Ten-year-old children, somewhere beneath a fantastic milk-white sky, painting an impossible blue plain with the red of their own blood....
The broadswords rose and fell with a savagery unknown to any but the ancient Turk, Mongol, Spartan. They glinted strangely in a daylight where there was no sun, and the piked maces swung in circles of red horror as they tore, smashed, at young, half-naked bodies....
They swarmed across the wide, flat expanses of bush, blue grass, and the cries that issued from their throats as they charged like hunger-crazed beasts into the sword-points of their opponents were mercifully deleted; the maddened distortion of the features on their white, young faces was enough.
The voice explained, pointed out, reconciled pre-calculated plans with facts as they transpired.
The masses of mangled young flesh surged now forward now back, to either side; swelled, bunched, drove, fell writhing....
He saw a head fall, a running body split in two down the back.
"That's all, that'sall!"
There was bitter stuff in his throat and he fought to keep the violent sickness bottled inside him.
"Yes, yes sir."
No no no no no!
The illumination had returned fully when Tayne walked in, saluted loosely. He carried something in his right hand.
"Yes?"
"There's been an alteration in our rosters—Old Man himself, I had nothing to do with it. Here."
Senses still numbed, he took the thin plastisheets. He tried to get the words to make sense. Subject, transfer, quadrant 3 to quadrant 1, attention, Quadrates concerned.
"Apparently the Director thought it would be better this way. For myself, I don't see that it could make any actual difference."
What was the man saying? What did—there it was. Ronal Blair, Kurt Blair: quadrant 3, Blair, to quadrant 1, Tayne. By Command: Gundar Tayne, Director....
His thoughts spun dizzily.Mike, Terry—no, those were not the names. The other Blair's sons....
This time, thank God, the other Blair's sons....
"I am apparently a relatively high official in the government. It is called a Congressman. Although there are many others of equal and superior rank, I am well liked. I have a strong political following."
"Was there any suspicion?"
"None at all. I had the good fortune, almost immediately upon discovering my role in this civilization, to gain access to a number of speech recordings our host had made. His voice is very little different than mine, and of course within about thirty minutes I had mastered his tone, his inflection, and his manner of speech. We shall have little or no difficulty."
They were seated in the living-room of the house; in its den, two young boys were diligently working at the task their father had set them. The books were opened in an orderly array on the wide, polished floor. One read excerpts from the texts as the other quickly gained mastery of a portable typewriter, transcribed as his brother read aloud.
"Father was correct in his reasoning ... take this ...with the desertion by Germany of the League of Nations, the stage for World War II was set. Failure of the Weimar Republic..."
Their sheaf of notes had grown measurably in thickness since the first fact had been written on the first page the night before. The boy had written it slowly as he had begun mastery of the awkward writing machine—1. Washington defeats Cornwallis at Yorktown, Oct. 19, 1781...
In the living-room, the woman was listening to her husband.
"By their standards, we would seem as improbable in our psychological reactions, our reasoning and our way of life as they seem under-developed and generally inferior in intelligence to our eyes. When you're among them, Lisa, you will have to guard against the self-assurance which to them could be easily interpreted as lack of emotion. Under any but the most intimate circumstances, we might appear to them as some sort of thinking machinery devoid of what they term 'character' and 'personality'. Other than that, you should have little trouble. If you should err through some lack of detailed knowledge, you will find it amazingly easy to cover up." He toyed with a cigarette in a momentary attempt to deduce its function. He broke it in two, examined the tobacco grains as she spoke. Her voice was quiet, almost as though consciously held in check by some secret restraint.
"From your description, these people can be dealt with more or less at the mental level of a child of eight, then...."
"A child of about 13, on their standards. Not in individual cases, however—you will have to judge quickly for yourself. There are many who approach us in mental agility. I believe, from what I've been able to discover during the last few hours, that our host was one of those. There are few others of his rank, however, who are his equal."
"That would account for the apparatus." And then in a different voice and quite suddenly she said, "Dare we not use it, Douglas, and—"
"And what? Lisa, sometimes I think I don't understand you at all. You seem frightened, I think. Are you frightened?"
"No. No, Douglas."
"That's better. At any rate, we will do best to leave his apparatus absolutely unmolested. Here, apparently, science is not a restricted thing, in the sense that the individual is not limited by law in its study and practice. Technological secrets of the government are of course carefully guarded, and periodically divulged to the public in vague or distorted form. However, the individual may be a free agent in science to the limit of his wealth, interest and intellectual ability. That is why our host was able to complete a project similar to that upon which Zercheq was at work when he was apprehended. Although even my technical training at Quadrature Academy excluded detailed study of space-time mechanics just as it did nuclear fission, I'm quite positive that our host has constructed a successful Chronospan, as Zercheq called it. If we tamper with it, his chances of returning here and ours of returning to our phase in time are reduced to absolute zero. As it is, he will be faced with the task of building another to effect his return—and unless he is a clever man indeed, his chances are of course exceedingly slim. Zercheq was only half-finished when the S Council apprehended him."
"We are the—innocent victims of a trap, then."
"It need not be a trap, precisely, my dear. There is a slim chance that we may return—but that must of course remain in his hands. Quite probably, he may fail. Therefore, we must go about the process of adapting ourselves, and in any measure possible, alter and adapt this civilization to our own methods and standards."
"Please, Douglas—"
"Yes?"
She looked away from him for a moment, then back, but with her eyes lowered.
"I suppose changing them," she said softly, "would be a—a challenge to you, Douglas." Then her eyes came up, looked full into his. "Please, let us use his device. Let us go back. I—It is that I—Iamafraid, Douglas," she said.
"Afraid?" His tone was that of a man speaking half in doubt, half in impatience. "I still fail to understand you, Lisa. A moment ago you said—"
"Then forgive me," she interjected with a nervous suddenness. "It is—let us say it is the shock."
"If so it shall wear off. But you may be assured, Lisa, there is nothing to fear. These people are at least a century behind us, generally speaking. Sociologically, they are where we were before the formation of the Prelatinate—purely a case of arrested development dating from antiquity. Technologically they are very little behind us—perhaps only decades. I am not as yet familiar with the manifold details of which the causes are comprised, but the effects in themselves are starkly obvious. There are wars, for one thing. They are the end effect of all the other contributory effects. I am in a position to inaugurate the proper political maneuvers to eliminate this end effect—and I shall. The problem of changing these people should be quite simple, and because of their terrible desperation, it should take astonishingly little time. They are slow-moving when it comes to governmental function for the direct benefit of the individual, but in their present state—as I say, almost unbelievably confused and hazardous—I am quite sure that they can be relied on to favor any possible solution to the curtailment of crisis after crisis."
"You mean—you mean the games, don't you, Douglas?..."
"Why of course! What else would I mean?"
"They have space travel, I suppose—"
"No—no, oddly, they're highly skeptical of it—it's still relegated to colorful pamphlets for amusement purposes and to a few rather well done pieces of fiction with all too limited circulation. But of course, when the time comes, the Sahara will serve well enough—that is where we started. Ordinarily, it would take years with people such as these to convince them to adopt our game system. I shall work through their weak spots—their fear, their desperation, their willingness to follow beliefs unfounded in fact. Perhaps even within months ... Lisa, you're not listening!"
"Yes. Yes I am, Douglas."
"I see. You think that because they're rank amateurs in the philosophy of political mechanics, I will meet insurmountable stumbling blocks. It is true they are quite backward in economic theory, and of course that has its manifestation throughout government as well as the governed. But fortunately, their motives are transparent to anyone except themselves—that will help at least in gaining a toehold. Before I begin, I want a few hours careful study of the notes the boys are compiling. They've been industrious, I hope and not too taken with all this."
She did not answer him.
"You are to be highly credited, my dear," he said. He knew her mood would pass. It had, before.... "They are fine sons. I shall see to it, as long as we must remain in this time-phase, that the only arms they shall ever carry will be in the war games which I feel confident I can inaugurate. They're in the den? After you, my dear...."
He did not notice the sudden tightening of the little lines at the edges of her mouth.
For several days, it was little more than a game of watchful waiting. There had been committee meetings, sub-committee meetings, and each had been more tense in the complexion of its discussions than the one preceding it. These men, he found, were little, desperate men, and had but only recently come to realize it.
The notes Ronal and Kurt had compiled for him were extensive and accurate. Fundamentally, he understood the background of cause and effect underlying the tensions, and had realized at once that these men had become mired so deeply in the swale of political intrigue that they had at last come to the point where they would gladly grab at the nearest straw to extricate themselves. But they had run out of straws. They had begun running out in the early 1950's; each had broken pitifully since the Korea fiasco, and now they had been used up. He listened, for his opportunity could come at any moment—and it must be precisely the right moment.
"Gentlemen," one of them began in the soft drawl of the south, "I am in favor of the President's proposal for two main reasons and two alone: firstly, it is an indirect solution to the thorny problem of Civil Rights. Secondly, we simply must have the arms. No one could have foretold that Soviet Russia would have succeeded as she did in ultimately outproducing us. Therefore we are caught by surprise, and simply must have the funds, gentlemen. I wish to go definitely on record as favoring the 50 per cent tax on individual income...."
"Impossible! I think the Congressman forgets the inherent strength in the will of the people! I tell you they've had all they will take. Especially in your own state. Congressman—they will become slaves in a far more severe sense of the word than they ever were before the Civil W—pardon me, the War Between the States."
"As I pointed out, Congressman, the President's proposal will solve the thorny Civil Rights problem. And at any rate, the people of which you so respectfully speak, Congressman, seem to have learned that politics is after all a matter for the professional politicians. I think we both realize that whether or not they feel, as you say, that they have had all they can take, they will do little about it. When, in recent years, have they, may I ask? I suggest, therefore...."
Several of the conferees looked in Blair's direction, as though expecting him to do something. But the time was not yet. And when it came, he must be careful—even in their desperation, they would not accept it whole-hog.
"—and I b'lieve it is obvious that by working gradually, as we have in the past, we should not have any of the trouble the Congressman from New York suggests. Each year, we have simply added a little more, and promised it would be the last time. Until now, even at 30 per cent we are in a position to continue almost indefinitely. One thing the people do fear, gentlemen, is war. We have been skillful, and let us not mince words about it. They have been thoroughly frightened!"
Of course that was it. Gradually, with accompanying promises.... The fear had been made a direct thing, and the tangled, subtle causes beneath had become psychologically, if not actually, inaccessible.
All of the causes, of course, he might never learn. But the general effects were obvious, so it was on them and with them alone that he must build his case.
It was now a matter of discerning how many of these men were genuinely concerned with bettering the situation, how many were tenaciously satisfied with the status quo, and how many were intent on using the situation to better their own interests. All were desperate men. Only their goals were different.
In time of course he would be able to do away with most of them. They would in all probability fail to fit in a world organized about the psychological concept on which the games were built. The people themselves, however, if what the southern Congressman had said were true, would fit perfectly.
And inwardly, he smiled. It was almost a simple thing, because it was obvious that what the man had said was at least true to a degree. Their economic set-up was proof of it. Millions and millions of pieces of green paper, in which they had implicit faith despite the facts which they knew to be true—that far less than half of their paper currency was validly backed by the standard metal on which it was based. There was not that much ore in the planet's entire crust!
But theybelievedthat the system worked, and that was all that was necessary.
Just as the people of his own time-phase believed that a child could actually be conditioned for life against violence, after sustaining the temporary psychological shock caused by a week's subjugation to the bloody horror of wanton slaughter. It was understood that such severe psychological shock during the early years of mental development was sufficient to condition each new generation for life against any future acts of violence as adults, and it was believed because it seemed to work. And because it seemed to work, it was believedin. Each surviving youth grew into adulthood as convinced as his neighbor that the conditioning of the games was life-long, that the psychological scar they left was permanent, and would therefore render impossible any form of violent conflict.
The belief, scientifically questionable as it might be, was never challenged, because there was always the fact to face that there was, after all, no war.
There was none primarily because the games simply solved the main cause of it. Carefully controlled mortality rates on the battlefields kept the population where it belonged, prevented the ultimate over-crowding which was directly and indirectly responsible at 90 per cent of the causes of any armed conflict. The few who were sufficiently timorous to probe the philosophy upon which the system was based were at once amazed at its simplicity: it consisted simply of a logical premise that the killing of a required number of immature children was self-evidently worth the saving of millions of valuable adults. It was a matter of necessary sacrifice.
Yes, the people of this time-phase would fit into the plan well. Not because they were intelligent, but because they had a natural tendency as followers, and because their limited imaginations held them in a mentally astigmatic state, too concerned with the status quo to ask questions concerning the future until it was too late.
Blair smiled, this time openly. Tayne could have the directorship back there! Here there was no Tayne. Here was a world for the asking, upon which he would at last be the object of primary, not tertiary, worship by a planet! He could take the shapeless clay—could cultivate it, could forge it in time into a great, brilliant civilization—and it would be his, all his. What greater monument to the genius of a man....
It was a week later when the time came. The Congressman from the south had been on a brief inspection of a hydrogen bomb site following a test detonation. The pink flush had subsequently vanished from his jowls and in its place was the color of ash. His brain had been mightily disturbed; he had been forced to the painful recourse of thought, and that had disturbed it even further.
Two other Congressmen were getting away with intelligent debate, because the Congressman from the south was at last quite silent.
"... And I contend that our armed forces have not at all times been informing us truthfully, especially regarding the need for vast land armies, when it is obvious that they have become obsolete. It is my opinion that their maintenance is used simply as a tool, gentlemen—a tool to gouge extra taxes from the public, thereby enforcing their increased dependence for survival on the government itself."
"You mean, Congressman, to say that the Army lies?"
"Like a rug, Congressman!"
There was a murmur throughout the group, short, whispered exchanges.
"You can substantiate this claim?"
"Do I really have to, Congressman?"
A gavel rapped quickly. Blair had slipped for the moment into the comfort of relaxation; by the Prelatinate, it wasamusing!
Then the debate continued, and he was at last convinced that these men were genuinely afraid that the war from which no amount of influence or money could buy their safety was imminent. The third war in their history which would genuinely be fought to win. The others had been their American Revolution, and their Civil War.
Then, "Congressman Blair. You've had little to say for the last few days. Perhaps this sub-committee could profit by an opinion from you...."
The chance had come.
He rose. "I have a plan," he said, "that may seem fantastic to you. I have waited until most of the routine arguments were heard, so that this thing would not be any more confused and bogged down in senseless debate than necessary. I am prepared to answer all questions directed to me regarding it, but I am finished at the first sign of the usual harangue."
He watched their faces. They were suddenly intense, and there was a new alertness in them. It was true, then—they did respect him; he had a good following.
"It is quite evident that our enemy has taken the advantage by surprise. The nuclear weapons on both sides have kept us deadlocked for about seven nervous, uncomfortable, difficult years. And the deadlock is now on the verge of finally being broken, and to his advantage. He is now capable of outproducing us—his dealings with unscrupulous American businessmen have finally borne fruit, and he has sprung his surprise. His nuclear weapons outnumber ours five to one and he is in the driver's seat whether we care to deny it or not. And we are stuck with twenty million men under arms in the field—rifles and hand-grenades, lumbering tanks and a few other ridiculous toys. An organization so tremendous that it trips itself and falls flat on its face at every attempted move.
"But you gentlemen are painfully aware of all this, as are the high-ranking, tradition-bound military leaders who are still denying it. What you may not be aware of is that we may equalize our position if we are quick to act—we may counter-surprise, counter-shock, if we do not delay.
"I therefore ask your support, gentlemen, when I introduce my bill to immediately lower the present minimum draft age from seventeen to thirteen years."
The gavel clattered for order. Many had risen to their feet.
"Your questions, one at a time, gentlemen."
"Very well. The chair recognizes the Congressman from New Jersey."
"May I submit, Congressman Blair, that your plan is crazy? You yourself admitted that manpower alone is woefully insufficient to cope with this situation."
"It is, as such. In the form of surprise—and believe me, it would surprise the enemy ten times the degree to which it has obviously shocked this group here—it would prove of great value, in that it would reflect a murderously frightening desperation. It would, of course, have to be simultaneously accompanied by an immediate step-up in production of nuclear weapons. All other types would immediately be dropped. Factory shifts would in all instances immediately become full-day, full-week."
"The Congressman from California."
"And you mean to imply that our enemy would actually stand in fear of a thirteen-year-old?"
"Human mass has nothing to do with age, Congressman."
"The Congressman from Ohio."
"What you suggest, Congressman, is inhuman, unbearably horrible—you suggest that we support you in a bill to draftchildren!"
"To make my point more clear, perhaps I should ask some questions of my own. First, am I to understand that this group was at any time inoppositionto Universal Military Training? And—second, is the youth of seventeen a grown man?
"Or shall I ask the question this way—where would you rather place these youngsters—in a position to possibly solve our dilemma, or in cities that cannot possibly be adequately defended, and have them marked for certain death along with the rest of us in them?
"You say my proposal is unbearably inhuman. You are right. War is. It makes little difference how you draft its plans.
"Are there any further questions?"
There were none.
"Very well. I will call for a confidence vote, with the chair's permission."
"Permission granted."
The Congressman from the south was very white. And very silent.
Dot's face was tense as she watched him. Doug held the delicate phone device to his ear with pressure that made his flesh white around it. He was oblivious to the wonder-like comforts of the beautiful home now, cursing it subconsciously as though it had been built for the sole purpose of trapping him, imprisoning him here.
The high-pitched signal in the receiver repeated evenly and he forced himself to wait. His fingers drummed an uneven tattoo on the low table, vibrated the dismantled parts of the tele-radio set that he'd examined earlier. The open pages of the catalogue from the Science Council library trembled in his left hand.
"Electrosupply, Federal Service Division," the voice said suddenly.
"Hail, this is Senior Quadrate Blair again."
"Hail, sir. Is there something unsatisfactory? The equipment you ordered should have arrived at your home—"
"It has, it is satisfactory. However I find that I neglected to request a high-speed bl—correction, high-kempage power-pack." He tried to steady the pages. The closely printed alphabetized lines kept running together.
"High-kempage power-pack? Your reference, sir?"
"Reference?" The veins on his throat stood out, but his voice was not a sudden bellow from indignation. "You forget my position! How soon may I expect the unit?"
"As soon as possible, sir."
He hung up. "Damn," he said. "Damn it to hell anyway!"
"Doug, can I do anything?"
"No, honey, no. We've just got to sweat it out until that pack gets here. It'll be all right." He forced a smile, sank to a chair, put his head in his hands. She knelt beside him. "The film-strips, that you saw—they must have been—horrible."
He looked up. "Horrible isn't the word. God, what people. And at first they seemed so—What a cold-blooded, ruthless—"
"Easy, mister." She came closer to him and he felt himself relax slowly at the warmth of her touch.
"What a system.... I guess I read over those reports a dozen times. They know there is no possible way to tell how long such an awful mental shock will stay—even in the impressionable mind of a half-grown child. Yet they accept it as full-blown conditioning process—theybelievein it! Theybelievein everything around here—they worship the government, the Prelate General, the Director—even me! And because there's no war and hasn't been since the first Prelatinate, they keep right on believing that from the day you fight in the games—if you survive—till the day you die, you're thoroughly conditioned against physical violence—" He let the sentence taper off into silence.
"Just rest awhile, darling," she murmured.
He smiled. "Thanks, Dot. But I've got to get that mess downstairs cleaned up. I'll be all right."
The equipment—the neat sorted rows of resistors, condensers, vacuum tubes and the rest of it glittered on the long, wide expanse of the workbench he'd installed. At one end was a half-completed framework, and at the other—was the blackened ruin of what had been a transformer.
The burnt-out unit had cooled, but the stench of overheated oil and melted insulation still hung in the air trapped in the blue haze of smoke.
"Can any of the rest be assembled in the meantime, Doug? I'll help...."
He busied himself with the blackened junk. "It could, but it's not worth the chance. It's got to be so damn perfect. I've got to know exactly what I'm going to be able to get out of the pack. Got to have at least 1,000 Volts—or should I say Kemps—anyway. Damn the DC...."
He hadn't found out about the utility power in the house until he'd blown up the transformer. It was a little thing, direct current rather than alternating current, but it meant time, and there wasn't much time. He knew there'd be no chance of his getting through the games undetected, even if he found a way somehow to stomach such a horror.
There was a gentle chiming sound.
"The front door, Doug!"
"Guess I really threw a scare into 'em! You go up first, I'll douse the lights."
There were two of them, and their uniforms were white. Their helicopter idled on the front lawn. They saluted.
"Quadrate Blair, if you'll accompany us please."
They stood there, their faces impassive, their tones matter-of-fact as though they had asked him to pass the salt.
"Accompany you? I understood that you were going to deliver—"
"S-Council, Department of Security, sir. You appreciate our position. We have our orders. The Prelatinate-Attorney suggests an interview immediately, sir. If you will accompany us, please."
"You may tell the—the Prelatinate-Attorney that I'm quite busy, but that I shall be glad to make an appointment for him later tomorrow."
They stood there. There was a questioning look on Dot's face, and he had no answer for it. Somehow, they'd gotten onto something. Jane. No. Tayne again—
"We are sorry, sir."
"I'm afraid I fail to understand. You make it sound actually as though I'm to have no choice in the matter. Who issued your orders?"
"Office of the Director, sir. And actually, sir, you have no choice. If you will please accompany us."
They stood, immobile, waiting. There were only two of them. But he knew that in minutes there could be two hundred.
He went with them.
He judged the pneumatic elevator tube had descended at least 20 levels below the surface before it came to a softly-whispering halt on a resilient cushion of compressed air. They left the tube, and the same miracle of lighting that kept the city in eternal daylight was gently suffused through the entire length of the wide, silent corridors.
They did not walk far. Doug forced his mind into what order he could. If this were some adventure fantasy from the pages of fiction there would somehow be an escape, some thing he could suddenly do and the tables would be turned. But it was not. It was fantastic, but it was as real as the day the first atomic bomb was dropped.
The sliding panel admitted them to a round, low-ceilinged room similar in most respects to his own office, even to the intertelecon screen inset in the curving wall to the left of the large metal desk. The man behind the desk was thin-faced and slight, but there was an intelligence behind the high forehead that seemed to put a snap in his wide-spaced eyes as well as in his voice. But it was the eyes that made Doug's nerves feel that they must break like an overdrawn violin string at any moment; the voice was smooth, controlled.
The orderlies saluted and were dismissed. The panel slid closed.
"Sorry to have to call you down here like this, Doug. But damn it, it's my job, and besides that you've done something this time for which there'd be hell to pay if the PG ever found out and you know it as well as I do."
He gestured Doug to a chair. The Prelatinate-Attorney's tone was relaxed, but Doug wondered how it might have sounded to a man of lesser rank than himself.
One thing was certain; it was time to go back into the act. "I suppose this all is leading up to threats of the S-Council—"
"Doug, when the DO buzzed me and said they'd been notified by Electrosupply that you'd refused to give a reference for a piece of equipment you ordered, there was nothing else for me to do but to get you down here on the spot. You can imagine where I'd be if I didn't."
"It was Tayne I suppose."
There was a quick flick of the attorney's eyes, but his face didn't change. "Personalities don't matter, Doug."
Doug waited for it. Behind the nonchalance, the employer-to-faithful-but-errant-employee tone, there was something of hard spring steel, coiled, waiting to be sprung.
"I'm not sure I like your tone," Doug bluffed. "I have some degree of position you know—"
"Yes, I know—you seldom let anybody forget it. I understand you've even reminded the Director on occasion...."
Doug shrugged. "Suppose we get down to it. Just what is there this time that has the DO so upset?"
The Attorney stiffened visibly. "Whatisthere? You mean you don't realize that you've come about as close as anyone can come to committing a capital heresy? Did you actually suppose you could order a thing like that without a triple-endorsed Science Council reference? You know as well as I do how strict the law is about possession of restricted equipment of any kind by anyone except members of the Science Council itself. Even the Director has to go through channels! Where d'you think we'd be, anyway, if just anybody and everybody could read any books, tinker with any kind of paraphernalia they wanted to? Damn it, man, if every Tom, Dick and Harry went fooling around with the knowledge that wasn't food for them the whole damn planet would be in the S-chambers!"
"What do you mean, restricted—?"
"And we can't have any exceptions! Except, that is, for the special training such as picked men as yourself received at the Quadrature Academy. But when it comes to personal possession of restricted stuff, without the required reference, you might just as well be caught with a copy of Freud in your library!"
The pack. That had to be what he meant—he'd been phoning for the pack, and they'd asked for a reference.... Somehow, he had to—the catalogue!The closely printed lines that got tangled up because he couldn't hold it steady!
"You're accusing me of ordering restricted—"
"Now look, Doug. You'd better tell me—I don't want it on the record that I had to use Right of Office to get an answer. You ordered a high-kempage power-pack. Now what for?"
"High-kempage power-pack? You can't be serious!"
"I've warned you, Doug."
"Warn and be damned! You sit there and repeatedly accuse me of ordering restricted equipment—without reference, and you haven't even got your facts straight! Did Electrosupply tell you that?"
A peculiar look was on the Attorney's face.
"DO said so."
"Well you could've saved us a good hour's time if you'd have called me to see what I had to say first before dragging me over here as if I were a common criminal! I think an apology will be in order!"If only Barnum had been right!"What I ordered, just in the event you're as interested as you say you are, was a high-speed blower-rack!"
"A—what?"
Reel him in!
"A high-speed blower-rack. So happens I'm having trouble with the electronic units of my vento-conditioner at home, and I'm doing the work myself more or less as a project in avocational therapy—"
"Now it is you who can't be serious. How great a fool do you think—"
"Damn it, whose word are you going to take in this?" Doug stood up. "Some Electrosupply technician's, who can't hear any better than you can reason, or mine?"
There was a second's silence.
"All right, Doug. You're a fool, you know. You are, and so am I.... It was a high-speed blower-rack. I'll make sure it's set straight."
"Well, thank you."
"Just be careful, Doug."
"That's good advice—don't wear it out!"
He turned quickly, made his exit before the panel had widened half-way.
The ugly, black building stood out like a shapeless smudge of soot against the milk-white sky, but it was by sheer accident that Terry and Mike discovered it, built as it was at the water's edge where the high blue grass had been neither trampled nor trimmed, and at a distance further from the training areas than they had ever ventured.
"We'd better go back, Terry. We'll get in trouble." Mike's young body glistened with perspiration as he stood on the knoll with his brother, eyes still fastened to the low black structure as he spoke. His equipment belt was heavy and he tugged again at it to change the distribution of its weight. The broadsword swung loosely at his left side, not quite counterbalancing the mace which hung by its thong to his right.
"They said there were a couple of hours before the next class, didn't they? The guy in the sharp uniform said we could amuse ourselves any way we wanted."
"Sure, but this isn't the way the others are doing it. They all went out and started practicing with the swords again. We oughtta."
"You rather do that than go exploring?"
Mike touched the half-healed flesh-wound on his right shoulder. He remembered how the short, dark-haired kid had laughed when it had started to bleed, and then how mad he got when he found he couldn't use the sword well enough to cut him back.
"I'd like to get that guy."
"Don't be a dope. It's only a dream—you didn't really get hurt. Come on, let's see what that place is. Nobody's around...."
"Maybe it is only a dream, but he made me mad. Boy I'll cut his ears off if I—"
"Aw, come on."
They had barely started down the opposite side of the knoll when Jon Tayne's voice hailed them.
"Hey, you two! Where d'you think you're going, anyway?" They waited for him. There was a cross look on his face which Mike immediately resented.
"Over there." He pointed toward the black building. "What's it to you?"
"Nothing to me, but it'll be double duty to you if you don't get back to the recreation area right away."
"There's a lot of time yet. He said we could amuse ourselves, didn't he?"
"That doesn't mean walking around wherever you please. It means just what it says—giving your weapons a work-out. I was called away from a good match just to come and find you two. Come on."
They turned, fell in at either side of him.
"We didn't mean anything wrong," Terry said.
"They'll let it go this time because you're new, and because you are who you are. But you guys had better be more careful. That's restricted back there."
"What's that? Restricted?"
"You should know that!"
"What is it?"
"Your father never told you anything, did he?"
"Sure—course he did. Lots of things. But there's no way he'd know what that place is."
Jon stopped in mid-stride. "No way he'd know? You crazy?"
"Who's crazy?" Terry clenched his fists, stuck his chin out.
"Look here—you want a fight or something?" Jon's hand went to the hilt of his sword. Terry unhooked his mace. Mike had his sword half free of its wide scabbard.
Jon let his arms drop to his sides.
"Come on, wise guy, who's crazy?" Terry glared at him.
"You know what'll happen to you if you do anything to a section leader?"
"We didn't ask to be here," Mike said. "And we didn't ask to be pushed around, either, or told where we could go and couldn't go. Or be called crazy, either. The whole thing is dumb."
"After the games, if you're still alive, I'll report you for that," Jon said.
"Still alive? Who you kidding? You talk like there was going to be a war. Grown-ups do that, kids don't."
"What do you think you're being trained to use your weapons for?"
"That's easy," Terry said. "So we'll know how to use 'em when we're grown ups. It's called UMT or something."
"You guysarecr—ah, don't be funny. The games start in three days, then you'll know if you're in a war or not. And frankly, I hope you both end up back there." He turned, started walking.
Terry and Mike let their hands fall from their weapons, followed after him.
"Nobody's being funny," Mike said. "Suppose we do end up back in that place? So what?"
"Listen the hero," Jon said. "You planning on taking on the whole First Quadrant single-handed or something? They sure don't bring you back to life back there, if that's what you think. They just make you a little deader."
"Deader?"
"Well I'd rather be buried if I get killed than burned into a little pile of ashes and sent home in a jar. And that's what they do. There's not enough land on Venus to bury everybody every year, and they sure aren't going to go to the trouble of hauling a bunch of corpses out into the ocean just to dump 'em. Not when they can burn 'em up, anyway, right here."
"Burn 'em up?" Mike said, feeling funny in his stomach. "Alive?"
"Not often, I guess. Only when there's a mistake and they don't notice it in time. Or if there haven't been enough guys killed to make the year's quota. Then they take unconscious ones. That's what my father told me once, anyway."
"Suppose—suppose you're just hurt bad? Do they—"
"Not if they've made the quota. If you end up hurt they take you to the other land mass—there's a big hospital there. I've never seen it, but my father says it's the biggest single building ever made."
"How long are you kept there?"
"Until you're recovered, of course. The longest case on their records was my cousin's. He got a broken neck when he was hit in the face by a mace, and lost both eyes. They repaired the cut nerves, gave him two new eyes, and fixed his neck in about a month. They can do anything, so you don't have to worry. I got a broken back myself last year—I was out walking in two weeks."
The recreation area was almost in view. Already they were able to hear the clash of metal on metal, as though a great tangled mass of scythes was being shaken by some huge, clumsy hand which could not break them apart.
"Jon...."
The section leader was quickening his pace. "Yes?"
"How in heck do they know about the quota? How do they know if they should pick you up if you're hurt, or just leave you there?"
"The tab ships take care of it. There's a whole fleet of 'em, and they cover each area where there's fighting. They tabulate everything that happens with things called telescanners, and they keep in constant communication with the Quadrate's ship. Any time during the fighting, they know if they're ahead of the quota rate or behind it in their own area. And all the time, the Quadrates are comparing the figures they get from the tab ships with each other so they can keep a running record of the quota rate for all four quadrants. As long as the rate's right, or high, the medical ships keep landing and picking up the wounded, and flying 'em back. When the tabulations show the rate's lagging, the medical ships take it easy until they get the word to get to work again."
"They wouldn't have so much work to do if we could use guns instead of these things," Terry said. "I think guns would be more fun, don't you?"
"That's what your father thinks, isn't it?"
"Gosh, no, he doesn't—"
"My father says that killing at a distance isn't much good, because you never get into close contact. And if you can't see what happens when you actually kill somebody, you can't get conditioned very well. You'd get bored just sitting around with a gun. And even in the short time of a week—"
"Is that how long it lasts?"
"Usually about that. But even then with guns, you'd get used to it. With swords it's different. You don't get used to that in a week. You still feel pretty shaky when it's all over, believe me...."
"Were you scared, Jon?"
"You shouldn't be scared," he said. "All you have to remember is what they keep telling you—the others will kill you if you don't kill them. Always remember that. Then it gets to be sort of a—well, like a game, to see who's strongest, who can use a sword the best...."
"Yeah," Mike said. "Wait'll I get that guy!" His fingers brushed lightly against the half-healed wound again.
Jon laughed. "Sore at somebody already?"
"I'll cut his ears off!"
"You're getting the idea all right! Just be sure you don't go breaking any more rules—you can't kill anybody until the games begin, you know."
"I'll show him!" Mike said. "How long do we have yet to practice? Now, I mean?"
"Half an hour, maybe. I'll see you later. I'll forget about reporting you this time—but don't go for any more walks!" He left them, and they walked into the recreation area with the others.
Mike found the boy who had laughed. And he found that it was as Jon had said. There wasn't any reason to feel afraid. The sword wasn't as heavy in his hands as it had been at first, and it was more thrilling to use than just fists....
The other boy was grinning, and it was easy to get mad enough to want to cut his head off. Both hands on the long haft of his weapon, Mike swung harder, more surely than the first times he handled the sword. He could parry, now—and cut. Likethat!
The boy staggered back. The side of his head was bleeding profusely, and the blood spurted through his fingers as he pressed them to the gaping place where his ear had been.
"Rules! Rules!"
Mike lowered his sword. That was right, the rules. He couldn't kill now....
So he tried to laugh. At first he had to force the sound from his throat, but suddenly he found it coming easily, clear, and loud.
The boy left the field toward the medical tents.
And Mike found another with whom to practice. It was what Jon had said, a great game—a great, crashing adventure!
He swung the sword and wondered if the dream would ever have to end.