Big Book of Science Fiction (31 page)

Phy nodded slowly. “That,” he
said in a curious, distant voice, “is a very interesting deduction.”

“Having reluctantly accepted my
main premise,” Carrsbury went on, “everything became clear. The cyclic
six-months’ fluctuations in a world credit—I realized at once that Morgenstern
of Finance must be a manic-depressive with a six-months’ phase, or else a dual
personality with one aspect a spendthrift, the other a miser. It turned out to
be the former. Why was the Department of Cultural advancement stagnating?
Because Manager Hobart was markedly catatonic. Why the boom in extraterrestrial
Research? Because McElvy was a euphoric.”

Phy looked at him wonderingly. “But
naturally,” he said, spreading his lean hands, from one of which the gasoid
dropped like a curl of green smoke.

Carrsbury glanced at him sharply.
He replied, “Yes, I know that you and several of the others have a certain
warped awareness of the differences between your . . . personalities, though
none whatsoever of the basic aberration involved in them all. But to get on. As
soon as I realized the situation, my course was marked out. As a sane man,
capable of entertaining fixed realistic purposes, and surrounded by individuals
of whose inconsistencies and delusions it was easy to make use, I was in a
position to attain, with time and tact, any goal at which I might aim. I was
already in the Managerial Service. In three years I became World manager. Once
there, my range of influence was vastly enhanced. Like the man in Archimedes’
epigram, I had a place to stand from which I could move the world. I was able,
in various guises and on various pretexts, to promulgate regulations the actual
purpose of which was to soothe the great neurotic masses by curtailing
upsetting stimulations and introducing a more regimented and orderly program of
living. I was able, by humoring my fellow executives and making the fullest use
of my greater capacity for work, to keep world affairs staggering along fairly
safely— at least stave off the worst. At the same time I was able to begin my
Ten Years’ Plan—the training, in comparative isolation, first in small numbers,
then in larger, as those instructed could in turn become instructors, of a
group of prospective leaders carefully selected on the basis of their relative
freedom from neurotic tendencies.”

“But that—” Phy began rather
excitedly, starting up.

“But what?” Carrsbury inquired
quickly.

“Nothing,” muttered Phy
dejectedly, sinking back.

“That about covers it,” Carrsbury
concluded, his voice suddenly grown a little duller. “Except for one secondary
matter. I couldn’t afford to let myself go ahead without any protection. Too
much depended on me. There was always the risk of being wiped out by some
ill-co-ordinated but none the less effective spasm of violence, momentarily
uncontrollable by tact, on the part of my fellow executives. So, only because I
could see no alternative, I took a dangerous step. I created”— his glance
strayed toward the faint crease in the side wall— “my secret police. There is a
type of insanity known as paranoia, an exaggerated suspiciousness involving
delusions of persecution. By means of the late twentieth century Rand technique
of hypnotism, I inculcated a number of these unfortunate individuals with the
fixed idea that their lives depended on me and that I was threatened from all
sides and must be protected at all costs. A distasteful expedient, even though
it served its purpose. I shall be glad, very glad to see it discontinued. You can
understand, can’t you, why I had to take that step?”

He looked up questioningly at
Phy—and became aware with a shock that that individual was grinning at him
vacuously and holding up the gasoid between two fingers.

“I cut a hole in my couch and a
lot of this stuff came out,” Phy explained in a thick naive voice. “Ropes of it
got all over my office. I kept tripping.” His fingers patted at it deftly,
sculpturing it into the form of a hideous transparent green head, which he proceeded
to squeeze out of existence. “Queer stuff,” he rambled on, “rarefied liquid.
Gas of fixed volume. And all over my office floor, tangled up with the
furniture.”

Carrsbury leaned back and shut
his eyes. His shoulders slumped. He felt suddenly a little weary, a little
eager for his day of triumph to be done. He knew he shouldn’t be despondent
because he had failed with Phy. After all, the main victory was won. Phy was
the merest of side issues. He had always known that except for flashes, Phy was
hopeless as the rest. Still—

“You don’t need to worry about
your office floor Phy,” he said with a listless kindliness. “Never any more.
Your successor will have to see about cleaning it up. Already, you know, to all
intents and purposes, you have been replaced.”

“That’s just it!” Carrsbury
started at Phy’s explosive loudness. The World secretary jumped up and strode
toward him, pointing an excited hand. “That’s what I came to see you about!
That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! I can’t be replaced like that! None
of the others can, either! It won’t work! You can’t do it!”

With a swiftness born of long
practice, Carrsbury slipped behind his desk. He forced his features into that
expression of calm, smiling benevolence of which he had grown unutterably
weary.

“Now, now, Phy,” he said
brightly, soothingly, “if I can’t do it, of course I can’t do it. But don’t you
think you ought to tell me why? Don’t you think it would be very nice to sit
down and talk it all over and you tell me why?”

Phy halted and hung his head,
abashed.

“Yes, I guess it would,” he said
slowly, abruptly falling back into the low, effortful tones. “I guess I’ll have
to. I guess there just isn’t any other way. I had hoped, though, not to have to
tell you everything.” The last sentence was half question. He looked up wheedlingly
at Carrsbury. The latter shook his head, continuing to smile. Phy went back and
sat down.

“Well,” he finally began,
gloomily kneading the gasoid, “it all began when you first wanted to be World
manager. You weren’t the usual type, but I thought it would be kind of fun
—yes, and kind of helpful.” He looked up at Carrsbury. “You’ve really done the
World a lot of good in quite a lot of ways, always remember that,” he assured
him. “Of course,” he added, again focusing the tortured gasoid, “they weren’t
exactly the ways you thought.”

“No?” Carrsbury prompted
automatically.
Humor him. Humor him.
The wornout refrain droned in his
mind.

Phy sadly shook his head. “Take
those regulations you promulgated to soothe people—”

“Yes?”

“—they kind of got changed on the
way. For instance, your prohibition, regarding reading tapes, of all exciting
literature . . . oh, we tried a little of the soothing stuff you suggested at
first. Everyone got a great kick out of it. They laughed and laughed. But
afterwards, well, as I said, it kind of got changed —in this case to a
prohibition of all
unexciting
literature.”

Carrsbury’s smile broadened. For
a moment the edge of his mind had toyed with a fear, but Phy’s last remark had
banished it.

“Every day I coast past several
reading stands,” Carrsbury said gently. “The fiction tapes offered for sale are
always in the most chastely and simply colored containers. None of those wild
and lurid pictures that one used to see everywhere.”

“But did you ever buy one and
listen to it? Or project the visual text?” Phy questioned
apologetically. ^

“For ten years I’ve been a very
busy man,” Carrsbury answered. “Of course I’ve read the official reports
regarding such matters, and at times glanced through sample resumes of taped
fiction.”

“Oh, sure, that sort of official
stuff,” agreed Phy, glancing up at the wall of tape files beyond the desk. “What
we did, you see, was to keep the monochrome containers but go back to the old
kind of contents. The contrast kind of tickled people. Remember, as I said
before, a lot of your regulations have done good. Cut out a lot of unnecessary
noise and inefficient foolishness, for one thing.”

That sort of official stuff.
The phrase lingered unpleasantly
in Carrsbury’s ears. There was a trace of irrepressible suspicion in his quick
over-the-shoulder glance at the tiered tape files.

“Oh, yes,” Phy went on, “and that
prohibition against yielding to unusual or indecent impulses, with a long
listing of specific categories. It went into effect all right, but with a
little rider attached: ‘unless you really want to.’ That seemed absolutely
necessary, you know.” His fingers worked furiously with the gasoid. “As for the
prohibition of various stimulating beverages—well, in this locality they’re
still served under other names, and an interesting custom has grown up of
behaving very soberly while imbibing them. Now when we come to that matter of
the eight-hour working day—”

Almost involuntarily, Carrsbury
had got up and walked over to the outer wall. With a flip of his hand through
an invisible U-shaped beam, he switched on the window. It was as if the outer
wall had disappeared. Through its near-perfect transparency, he peered down
with fierce curiosity past the sleekly gleaming facades to the terraces and
parkways below.

The modest throngs seemed quiet
and orderly enough. But then there was a scurry of confusion—a band of people,
at this angle all tiny heads with arms and legs, came out from a shop far below
and began to pelt another group with what looked like foodstuffs. While, on a
side parkway, two small ovoid vehicles, seamless drops of silver because their
vision panels were invisible from the outside, butted each other playfully.
Someone started to run.

Carrsbury hurriedly switched off
the window and turned around. Those were just off-chance occurrences, he told
himself angrily. Of no real statistical significance whatever. For ten years
mankind had steadily been trending toward sanity despite occasional relapses.
He’d seen it with his own eyes, seen the day-by-day progress —at least enough
to know. He’d been a fool to let Phy’s ramblings affect him—only tired nerves
had made that possible.

He glanced at his timepiece.

“Excuse me,” he said curtly,
striding past Phy’s chair, “I’d like to continue this conversation, but I have
to get along to the first meeting of the new Central Managerial Staff.”

“Oh but you can’t!” Instantly Phy
was up and dragging at his arm. “You just can’t do it, you know! It’s
impossible!”

The pleading voice rose toward a
scream. Impatiently Carrsbury tried to shake loose. The seam in the side wall
widened, became a doorway. Instantly both of them stopped struggling.

In the doorway stood a cadaverous
giant of a man with a stubby dark weapon in his hand. Straggly black beard
shaded into gaunt cheeks. His face was a cruel blend of suspicion and fanatical
devotion, the first directed along with the weapon at Phy, the second—and the
somnambulistic eyes—at Carrsbury.

“He was threatening you?” the
bearded man asked in a harsh voice, moving the weapon suggestively.

For a moment an angry, vindictive
light glinted in Carrsbury’s eyes. Then it flicked out. What could he have been
thinking, he asked himself. This poor lunatic World secretary was no one to
hate.

“Not at all, Hartman,” he remarked
calmly. “We were discussing something and we became excited and allowed our
voices to rise. Everything is quite all right.”

“Very well,” said the bearded man
doubtfully, after a pause. Reluctantly he returned his weapon to its holster,
but he kept his hand on it and remained standing in the doorway.

“And now,” said Carrsbury,
disengaging himself, “I must go.”

He had stepped on to the corridor
slidewalk and had coasted halfway to the elevator before he realized that Phy
had followed him and was plucking timidly at his sleeve.

“You can’t go off like this,” Phy
pleaded urgently, with an apprehensive backward glance. Carrsbury noted that
Hartman had also followed—an ominous pylon two paces to the rear. “You must
give me a chance to explain, to tell you why, just like you asked me.”

Humor him.
Carrsbury’s mind was deadly
tired of the drone, but mere weariness prompted him to dance to it a little
longer. “You can talk to me in the elevator,” he conceded, stepping off the
slidewalk. His finger flipped through a U-beam and a serpentine movement of
light across the wall traced the elevator’s obedient rise.