The Big Eye (21 page)

"A report from Kirensk . . . The Leningrad astronomer. Professor Varanov,
is already on his way to Russia by plane to report personally to the
Soviet Premier. . . .

 

 

"Members of both houses of Congress are now meeting in secret and
emergency session somewhere in America. . . . Riots, violence, and
looting have already begun in many sections. Observatories all over the
world have been attacked, valuable instruments destroyed.

 

 

"At Sing Sing, Dannemora, Leavenworth, and other prisons, inmates have
begun to riot, demanding their freedom. The governor of New York State has
postponed two executions scheduled for tonight. . . . Thousands of people
are beginning to jam airports and railroad stations, moving back to their
homes in the evacuated cities. . . . The Secretary of Defense has ordered
every man in the armed forces, air, land, and sea, to stay at his post."

 

 

There was a knock on the door of the study.

 

 

The Old Man waved his hand, signaling to David to turn off the radio,
and then admitted Francis.

 

 

"Dr. Dawson," the steward began apologetically, "there's someone waiting
to see you."

 

 

"I told you I didn't want to see anyone else right now," interrupted
the Old Man.

 

 

"Yes, sir. But it's Professor Kellar."

 

 

"Kellar? He's here at Palomar?"

 

 

The steward nodded. He seemed to have aged ten years since the morning;
his shoulders sagged under the alpaca coat.

 

 

"He drove up from Los Angeles, sir. And he insists on seeing you."

 

 

The Old Man hesitated for a moment. Then he said, "Show him in, Francis."

 

 

David awaited the appearance of Kellar with more than ordinary
interest. Andrew Kellar was a giant in his own field, recognized as
the greatest physicist alive. He was reputed to know more about nuclear
fission than any other man. It was he who had assembled the first bomb
they had ever dropped in New Mexico, he who had been the scientific
brain behind the vast Manhattan project of World War H, and more than
any other single man, he had been responsible for the bombs dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki fifteen years ago.

 

 

Since that time, however, Kellar had virtually dropped out of sight,
along with many of his colleagues. He had been taken in hand by General
Hawthorne, hemmed in and badgered, a virtual prisoner jealously guarded
and secluded in a kind of rigid cocoon.

 

 

And for fifteen years his genius had become impotent in everything except
research for war.

 

 

"Dr. Dawson!" The nuclear scientist, a tall spare man, came hurrying
into the study, "Thank God, Doctor, for what you've -- "

 

 

David stared at Kellar.

 

 

His eyes were overbright. They shone behind his thick spectacles; they
seemed a little wild, a little mad. Kellar's aged shoulders were straight
back, his sunken cheeks unnaturally flushed. His step was springy and
buoyant; he almost danced into the room.

 

 

He was alternately laughing and sobbing, his voice cracking in
falsetto. He grabbed the Old Man's hand, pumped it up and down, wouldn't
let go.

 

 

He's mad, thought David. He's surely mad.

 

 

"I'm free!" babbled Kellar. "Do you understand. Doctor? I'm free now,
and so are all of us -- Eckert, Davidson, Walker, and the rest of my
colleagues on nuclear fission -- we're free! You set us free! For the
first time since Hiroshima, we can sleep nights!"

 

 

It was shocking, almost obscene, to watch him, a happy man, delirious
with his happiness, mad with it, a lone celebrator in a world of mourners.

 

 

"Thank God for that planet you found! Thank God for it, sir, we welcome
it. We're out of it now, we're absolved. No one's going to use the bomb
now. Doctor, thanks to you. The world may be blown up, yes, but not by
our hand. Not by our hand, now!" He took the Old Man by the shoulders,
almost shook him. "Do you realize what it's been like. Doctor, the fifteen
years since Hiroshima? We've been haunted, living with a stone around
our necks. We've seen what we've created desecrated into an instrument
of slaughter rather than of new power, of curative medicine. We've been
made to feel that we were responsible for the destruction of humanity!" He
released Dr. Dawson and slumped back into a chair, exhausted. "But now
it's out of our hands, thank God. No one can point a finger at us now!"

 

 

Dr. Dawson watched Kellar. His face was set and hard, his eyes stern;
they showed no sympathy. The physicist quieted down; he stirred uneasily
under the Old Man's steady and accusing gaze.

 

 

And when the Old Man finally spoke, his voice was as cold and sharp as
the edge of a knife.

 

 

"If you've suffered, Professor Kellar, you've no one to blame but yourself.
You should never have let the atom get away from you."

 

 

Kellar spread his hands. "What could we do? You know what happened.
There was a war. The Army stepped m. They took the atom away from us!
We had nothing to say; we had to stand by helplessly." He appealed to
the Old Man. "We didn't have a chance. You remember, Doctor, back in
the late forties and early fifties, how we tried to warn the world. You
remember why we formed the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists."

 

 

The Old Man nodded.

 

 

"We raised a million dollars for propaganda to make the public aware of
the destructive nature of the bomb. We told them that it would inevitably
lead to war, that there was no particular secret about nuclear fission. We
told them, again and again, that the only solution was international
control, until the words we were trying to get across simply became
cliches." He rose and began to pace the room. "But you can't say we didn't
try, Doctor. We went before Congress, talked to a hundred committees -- to
public meetings -- drove our message home over the radio and through the
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists we issued. And don't forget one thing."

 

 

"Yes?"

 

 

"We weren't publicity men. We were scientists -- amateurs at this business
of propaganda. We had to come out of the laboratory."

 

 

"Very true," said the Old Man quietly. He lighted one of his small cigars
very deliberately. "The trouble was, Professor Kellar, you didn't come
out far enough."

 

 

"I don't understand, Doctor."

 

 

"The point is. Professor, that we scientists have been blind for hundreds
of years. We've dealt only in precise things -- pounds, feet, degrees,
designs, formulas. We've been scientists in everything but the most
important of them all -- the science of the human mind." The Old Man was
emphatic. "But that's wrong, Kellar, wrong! It's not enough to be a good
scientist any longer."

 

 

"Are you suggesting that a scientist become a psychiatrist too. Dr.
Dawson?"

 

 

"More than that, Professor," snapped the Old Man. "He must become a
sociologist, a philosopher, a humanitarian, a reformer, and yes -- even
a preacher. Let's look ourselves straight in the eye, Professor. Let's
own up to what we've done!"

 

 

"Well?" asked Kellar. "What have we done?"

 

 

"We've been criminally negligent. You and Eckert and Davidson and
the others work out nuclear fission. And then instead of weighing the
consequences, instead of going slowly and asking, 'What will they do with
the atom, and are they ready for it?' you blithely give a fused stick
of dynamite and a match to a schoolboy and go back to the comfortable
and familiar sanctity of your laboratories."

 

 

Kellar did not speak for a moment. Then: "Are you suggesting, Doctor,
that we deliberately stop the progress of science?"

 

 

"What I am suggesting is that we control it and judge whether whatever
we create will do more harm than good when it is released,"

 

 

"I don't think scientists are capable of judging "

 

 

"Then it's about time they started to learn," interrupted the Old
Man hotly. "Take myself, Professor. I am an astronomer. My worlds
are universes. I use giant telescopes to study them. Should I then
condescend to turn to a microscope and study the microbes on my own
pitiful planet? The answer is yes. And again, yes! Perhaps I am lacking in
nobility, in the pure scientist's approach that the truth is the thing,
and damn the consequences. But I believe our first responsibility is to
the people with whom we live, not to the things we find!"

 

 

David had never heard the Old Man swear before, had never seen him so
worked up. His eyes blazed, and he spoke passionately.

 

 

"Of course this whole discussion is really academic, Kellar. We haven't
much time left. But we've a lot to atone for. We scientists have been
responsible for many of the world's ills for a long time. We've failed
to understand that science moves fast, it is revolutionary, while the
human mind is slow, evolutionary. As a result, we have a gap of thousands
of years between scientific achievement and the human capacity to use
it wisely."

 

 

"Then we have one of two alternatives," said Kellar. "In order to gain
an equilibrium, we must either speed up the growing process of the mind
or slow down science."

 

 

"Exactly," answered the Old Man. "One or the other. And of the two,
the slowing down of our research functions is by far the more feasible.
That comes into our province. Professor Kellar. Call it scientific
sabotage, if you will. Call it anything you want. We should have put it
into practice long ago. Now it's too late."

 

 

There was a commotion just outside the study. The door was flung open
and two men burst in, sweeping Francis to one side.

 

 

One was the Secretary of Defense, and the other was General Matt
Hawthorne.

 

 

Immediately after the first radio flash had hit their underground
headquarters they had conferred briefly with the President. Then they
had boarded a jet for San Diego, where an Army helicopter had picked
them up and dropped them on Palomar.

 

 

General Hawthorne's face was livid.

 

 

"Damn it, Doctor, what the hell do you think you've done?" He pounded
his fist on Dr. Dawson's desk. "Didn't you ever hear of something we
call military security?"

 

 

"Yes, General," replied the Old Man quietly, "I have."

 

 

"Then why didn't you check with us before you released this
information? The press and radio people went crazy on us -- rushed the
story through before our censors had a chance to stop 'em!"

 

 

David saw Kellar's face out of the corner of his eye. It was almost
contorted with hate and contempt for Hawthorne. But the Old Man was
unruffled as he answered:

 

 

"Rather like trying to stop an avalanche with a red pencil, isn't
it, General? Besides," he continued calmly, "it was precisely in the
interests of security that my colleagues and I released the announcement
when we did."

 

 

Hawthorne began to retort hotly, but here the Secretary of Defense
stepped in. A tall, thin, hawk-faced man, and a former insurance company
executive, the Secretary was noted for his brilliant administrative
ability and his coolness under pressure.

 

 

But now his face was flushed; he chewed his cigar nervously and spoke
rapidly, jerkily, as though his mind were busy groping for a solution
and had not yet caught up with his tongue.

 

 

"Dr. Dawson, we were on the verge of attacking the Soviet Union. As you
know, there was a meeting near New York "

 

 

"He knows it all right," interrupted Hawthorne angrily. "His boy here,
Hughes, broke my orders and didn't show up. And by God, planet or no
planet, I'm going to prefer charges "

 

 

The Secretary looked annoyed, silenced Hawthorne with a wave of his hand.

 

 

"Let me finish. General." He turned back to the Old Man. "To repeat,
Doctor, we were on the verge of attacking Russia, on the honest
premise that it was in our best interests. We were in the process of
convincing the President himself that this was the wise course to take,
when your bulletin came through. You must realize, you must be aware of
the disastrous effect it will have. Our men are at strategic outposts
everywhere, ready for action. When they hear about this -- this new planet
-- their morale will break down -- their discipline crumble. There's sure
to be a wave of hysteria, perhaps some sort of mass panic. Our men may
simply throw down their weapons, leave their posts, and head for home,
a demoralized mob." His voice rose a little. "And you, Doctor, speak of
releasing this bulletin in the interests of security!"

 

 

"My colleagues and I, Mr. Secretary, were thinking of world security
rather than just national security."

 

 

Hawthorne stepped in, his face a mottled red, and thrust it close to the
Old Man's belligerently. "You say that, knowing that our whole military
setup, let alone our war industries, may melt away overnight? Christ,
man, don't you realize that'll leave us wide open for attack?"

 

 

"Attack?" said the Old Man softly. "Attack by whom?"

 

 

"By the enemy -- by the Reds. Who else?"

 

 

For a moment Dr. Dawson did not reply. David watched the Old Man's face
closely. He thought he saw a flicker of amusement pass over it for the
second time that day. His blue-veined hands toyed with a letter opener,
and he tapped it in a kind of rhythmic beat on the desk.