EXPANDED UNIVERSE

Copyright © 1980 by Robert A. Heinlein


Life-Line, © 1939, by Street & Smith Pubs. Inc., © 1967 Robert A.
Heinlein
Blowups Happen, © 1940 by Street & Smith Pubs. Inc., © 1967
Robert A. Heinlein
Solution Unsatisfactory, by Street & Smith Pubs. Inc. © 1968 Robert
A. Heinlein
They Dolt With Mirrors, © by Better Publications, Inc. © 1974 Robert
A. Heinlein
Free Men, © 1966 by Robert A. Heinlein
No Bands Playing, No Flags Flying © 1973 Mankind Publishing Co.
Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon © Boy Scouts of America, ©
1976 Robert
A. Heinlein
Pandora’s Box, A different version under the title of Where To?,
copyright 1952,
by Gaiaxy Publishing Corp.

Cliff and the Calories, © Teens Institute, Inc. 1950, © 1977 Robert
A. Heinlein
The Third Millennium Opens, © 1956 Ziff Davis
“Pravda” Means “Truth,” © 1960 American Mercury
Searchlight, © 1962, by Carson Roberts, Inc.
The Pragmatics of Patriotism, © 1973 Conde Nast Publications, Inc.
Paul Dirac, Antimatter, and You, © F. E. Compton Company, a
  division of
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. 1975
Table of Contents
Foreword
Life-Line
Successful Operation
Blowups Happen
Solution Unsatisfactory
The Last Days of the United States
How to Be a Survivor
Pie from the Sky
They Do It With Mirrors
Free Men
No Bands Playing, No Flags Flying-
A Bathroom of Her Own
On the Slopes of Vesuvius
Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon
Pandora’s Box
Where To?
Cliff and the Calories
Ray Guns and Rocket Ships
The Third Millennium Opens
Who Are the Heirs of Patrick Henry?
“Pravda” Means “Truth”
Inside Intourist
Searchlight
The Pragmatics of Patriotism
Paul Dirac, Antimatter, and You
Larger Than Life
Spinoff
The Happy Days Ahead


To William Targ




                                 2
FOREWORD
Warning! Truth in advertising requires me to tell you that this volume
contains THE WORLDS OF ROBERTA. HEINLEIN, published 1966.
But this new volume is about three times as long. It contains fiction
stories that have never before appeared in book form, nonfiction
articles not available elsewhere, a 30-year updating on my 1950
prognostications (as well as the 15-year updating that appeared in
THE WORLDS OF R.A.H.), with the usual weasel-worded excuses as
to why I guessed wrong-and (ruffles & flourishes) not one but two
scenarios for the year 2000, one for people who like happy endings
and another for people who can take bad news without a quiver-as
long as it happens to somebody else.
On these I will do a really free-swinging job as the probability (by a
formula I just now derived) that either I or this soi-disant civilization
will be extinct by 2000 A.D. approaches 99.92+%. This makes it
unlikely that I will again have to explain my mistakes.
But do not assume that I will be the one extinct. My great-great-great-
grandfather Lawrence Heinlein died prematurely at the age of ninety-
seven, through having carelessly left his cabin one winter morning
without his gun - and found a buck deer on the ice of
his pond. Lack of his gun did not stop my triple-greatgrandfather; this
skinful of meat must not be allowed to escape. He went out on the ice
and bulldogged the buck, quite successfully.
But in throwing the deer my ancestor slipped on the ice, went down,
and a point of the buck’s rack stabbed between his ribs and pierced
his heart.
No doubt it taught him a lesson-it certainly taught me one. So far I’ve
beaten the odds three times: continued to live when the official
prognosis called for something less active. So I intend to be careful-
not chopped down in my prime the way my ancestor was. I shan’t
bulldog any buck deer, or cross against the lights, or reach



                                     3
barehanded into dark places favored by black widow spiders, or-most
especially!-leave my quarters without being adequately armed.
Perhaps the warmest pleasure in life is the knowledge that one has
no enemies. The easiest way to achieve this is by outliving them. No
action is necessary; time wounds all heels.
In this peaceful crusade I have been surprisingly successful; most of
those rascals are dead . . . and three of the survivors are in very poor
health. The curve seems to indicate that by late 1984 I won’t have an
enemy anywhere in the world.
Of course someone else may appoint himself my enemy (all my
enemies are self-appointed) but I would not expect such an unlikely
event to affect the curve much. There appears to be some unnamed
ESP force at work here; the record shows that it is not healthy to hate
me.
I don’t have anything to do with this. The character can be more than
a thousand miles away, with me doing my utter best to follow
Sergeant Dogberry’s advice; nevertheless it happens: He starts
losing weight, suffering from insomnia and from nightmares,
headaches, stomach trouble, and, after a bit, he starts hearing
voices.

The terminal stages vary greatly. Anyhow, they are
unpleasant and I should not be writing about such things as I am
supposed to be writing a blurb that will persuade you to buy this book
despite the fact that nearly a third of it is copy you may have seen
before.
Aside from this foreword the items in this book are arranged in the
order in which written, each with a comment as to how and why it
was written (money, usually, but also- Well, money)-then a bridging
comment telling what I was writing or doing between that item and
the next.
The span is forty years. But these are not my memoirs of those four
decades. The writing business is not such as to evoke amusing
memoirs (yes, I do mean you and you and you and especially you). A
writer spends his professional time in solitary confinement, refusing to
accept telephone calls and declining to see visitors, surrounded by a
dreary forest of reference books and somewhat-organized papers.


                                   4
The high point of his day is the breathless excitement of waiting for
the postman. (The low point is usually immediately thereafter.)
How can one write entertaining memoirs about such an occupation?
Answer: By writing about what this scrivener did when not writing, or
by resorting to fiction, or both. Usually both.
I could write entertaining memoirs about things I did when not writing.
I shan’t do so because a) I hope those incidents have been forgotten,
or b) I hope that any not forgotten are covered by the statute of
limitations.
Meanwhile I hope you enjoy this. The fiction is plainly marked fiction;
the nonfiction is as truthful as I can make it-and here and there,
tucked into space that would otherwise be blank are anecdotes and
trivia ranging from edifying to outrageous.
Each copy is guaranteed-or double your money back-to be printed on
genuine paper of enough pages to hold the covers apart.
• R.A.H.



FOREWORD
The beginning of 1939 found me flat broke following a disastrous
political Campaign (I ran a strong second best, but in politics there
are no prizes for place or show). I was highly skilled in ordnance,
gunnery, and fire control for Naval vessels, a skill for which there was
no demand ashore-and I had a piece of paper from the Secretary of
the Navy telling me that I was a waste of space-“totally and
permanently disabled” was the phraseology. I “owned” a heavily-
mortgaged house.
  About then THRILLING WONDER STORIES ran a house ad
  reading (more or less):
GIANT PRIZE CONTEST-Amateur Writers!!!!!!
First Prize $50 Fifty Dollars $50

In 1939 one could fill three station wagons with fifty dollars worth of
groceries. Today I can pick up fifty dollars in groceries unassisted-
perhaps I’ve grown stronger. So I wrote the story LIFE-LINE. It took
me four days-I am a slow typist. But I did not send it to THRILLING


                                    5
WONDER; I sent it to ASTOUNDING, figuring they would not be so
swamped with amateur short stories.
ASTOUNDING bought it. . . for $ 70, or $ 20 more than that “Grand
Prize”-and there was never a chance that I would ever again look for
honest work.




Life-Line
THE chairman rapped loudly for order. Gradually the catcalls and
boos died away as several self-appointed sergeants-at-arms
persuaded a few hot-headed individuals to sit down. The speaker on
the rostrum by the chairman seemed unaware of the disturbance. His
bland, faintly insolent face was impassive. The chairman turned to
the speaker, and addressed him, in a voice in which anger and
annoyance were barely restrained.
“Doctor Pinero,” - the “Doctor” was faintly stressed - “I must apologize
to you for the unseemly outburst during your remarks. I am surprised
that my colleagues should so far forget the dignity proper to men of
science as to interrupt a speaker, no matter,” he paused and set his
mouth, “no matter how great the provocation.” Pinero smiled in his
face, a smile that was in some way an open insult. The chairman
visibly controlled his temper and continued, “I am anxious that the
program be concluded decently and in order. I want you to finish your
remarks. Nevertheless, I must ask you to refrain from affronting our
intelligence with ideas that any educated man knows to be fallacious.
Please confine yourself to your discovery - if you have made one.”
Pinero spread his fat white hands, palms down. “How can I possibly
put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your
delusions?”
The audience stirred and muttered. Someone shouted from the rear
of the hail, “Throw the charlatan out! We’ve had enough.” The
chairman pounded his gavel.



                                   6
“Gentlemen! Please!” Then to Pinero, “Must I remind you that you are
not a member of this body, and that we did not invite you?”
  Pinero’s eyebrows lifted. “So? I seem to remember an invitation on
  the letterhead of the Academy?”
The chairman chewed his lower lip before replying. “True. I wrote that
invitation myself. But it was at the request of one of the trustees - a
fine public-spirited gentleman, but not a scientist, not a member of
the Academy.”
Pinero smiled his irritating smile. “So? I should have guessed. Old
Bidwell, not so, of Amalgamated Life Insurance? And he wanted his
trained seals to expose me as a fraud, yes? For if I can tell a man the
day of his own death, no one will buy his pretty policies. But how can
you expose me, if you will not listen to me first? Even supposing you
had the wit to understand me? Bah! He has sent jackals to tear down
a lion.” He deliberately turned his back on them. The muttering of the
crowd swelled and took on a vicious tone. The chairman cried vainly
for order. There arose a figure in the front row.
  “Mister Chairman!”
The chairman grasped the opening and shouted, “Gentlemen! Doctor
Van RheinSmitt has the floor.” The commotion died away.
The doctor cleared his throat, smoothed the forelock of his beautiful
white hair, and thrust one hand into a side pocket of his smartly
tailored trousers. He assumed his women’s club manner.
“Mister Chairman, fellow members of the Academy of Science, let us
have tolerance. Even a murderer has the right to say his say before
the state exacts its tribute. Shall we do less? Even though one may
be intellectually certain of the verdict? I grant Doctor Pinero every
consideration that should be given by this august body to any
unaffiliated colleague, even though” - he bowed slightly in Pinero’s
direction - “we may not be familiar with the university which bestowed
his degree. If what he has to say is false, it can not harm us. If what
he has to say is true, we should know it.” His mellow cultivated voice
rolled on, soothing and calming. “If the eminent doctor’s manner
appears a trifle in urbane for our tastes, we must bear in mind that
the doctor may be from a place, or a stratum, not so meticulous in
these little matters. Now our good friend and benefactor has asked us



                                   7
to hear this person and carefully assess the merit of his claims. Let
us do so with dignity and decorum.”
He sat down to a rumble of applause, comfortably aware that he had
enhanced his reputation as an intellectual leader. Tomorrow the
papers would again mention the good sense and persuasive
personality of “America’s handsomest University President”. Who
knew? Perhaps old Bidwell would come through with that swimming
pool donation.
When the applause had ceased, the chairman turned to where the
center of the disturbance sat, hands folded over his little round belly,
face serene.
  “Will you continue, Doctor Pinero?”
  “Why should I?”
  The chairman shrugged his shoulders. “You came for that
     purpose.”
Pinero arose. “So true. So very true. But was I wise to come? Is there
anyone here who has an open mind who can stare a bare fact in the
face without blushing? I think not. Even that so beautiful gentleman
who asked you to hear me out has already judged me and
condemned me. He seeks order, not truth. Suppose truth defies
order, will he accept it? Will you? I think not. Still, if I do not speak,
you will win your point by default. The little man in the street will think
that you little men have exposed me, Pinero, as a hoaxer, a
pretender. That does not suit my plans. I will speak.”
“I will repeat my discovery. In simple language I have invented a
technique to tell how long a man will live. I can give you advance
billing of the Angel of Death. I can tell you when the Black Camel will
kneel at your door. In five minutes time with my apparatus I can tell
any of you how many grains of sand are still left in your hourglass.”
He paused and folded his arms across his chest. For a moment no
one spoke. The audience grew restless. Finally the chairman
intervened.
   “You aren’t finished, Doctor Pinero?”
   “What more is there to say?”
   “You haven’t told us how your discovery works.”
Pinero’s eyebrows shot up. “You suggest that I should turn over the
fruits of my work for children to play with. This is dangerous



                                     8
knowledge, my friend. I keep it for the man who understands it,
myself.” He tapped his chest.
  “How are we to know that you have anything back of your wild
  claims?”
“So simple. You send a committee to watch me demonstrate. If it
works, fine. You admit it and tell the world so. If it does not work, I am
discredited, and will apologize. Even I, Pinero, will apologize.”
A slender stoop-shouldered man stood up in the back of the hail. The
chair recognized him and he spoke:
“Mr. Chairman, how can the eminent doctor seriously propose such a
course? Does he expect us to wait around for twenty or thirty years
for some one to die and prove his claims?”
  Pinero ignored the chair and answered directly:
“Pfui! Such nonsense! Are you so ignorant of statistics that you do
not know that in any large group there is at least one who will die in
the immediate future? I make you a proposition; let me test each one
of you in this room and I will name the man who will die within the
fortnight, yes, and the day and hour of his death.” He glanced fiercely
around the room. “Do you accept?”
Another figure got to his feet, a portly man who spoke in measured
syllables. “I, for one, can not countenance such an experiment. As a
medical man, I have noted with sorrow the plain marks of serious
heart trouble in many of our elder colleagues. If Doctor Pinero knows
those symptoms, as he may, and were he to select as his victim one
of their number, the man so selected would be likely to die on
schedule, whether the distinguished speaker’s mechanical egg-timer
works or not.”
Another speaker backed him up at once. “Doctor Shepard is right.
Why should we waste time on voodoo tricks? It is my belief that this
person who calls himself Doctor Pinero wants to use this body to give
his statements authority. If we participate in this farce, we play into
his hands. I don’t know what his racket is, but you can bet that he has
figured out some way to use us for advertising for his schemes. I
move, Mister Chairman, that we proceed with our regular business.”
The motion carried by acclamation, but Pinero did not sit down.
Amidst cries of “Order! Order!” he shook his untidy head at them, and
had his say:

                                    9
“Barbarians! Imbeciles! Stupid dolts! Your kind have blocked the
recognition of every great discovery since time began. Such ignorant
canaille are enough to start Galileo spinning in his grave. That fat fool
down there twiddling his elk’s, tooth calls himself a medical man.
Witch doctor would be a better term! That little baldheaded runt over
there - You! You style yourself a philosopher, and prate about life and
time in your neat categories. What do you know of either one? How
can you ever learn when you won’t examine the truth when you have
a chance? Bah!” He spat upon the stage. “You call this an Academy
of Science. I call it an undertaker’s convention, interested only in
embalming the ideas of your red-blooded predecessors.”
He paused for breath and was grasped on each side by two
members of the platform committee and rushed out the wings.
Several reporters arose hastily from the press table and followed him.
The chairman declared the meeting adjourned.
The newspapermen caught up with him as he was going out by the
stage door. He walked with a light springy step, and whistled a little
tune. There was no trace of the belligerence he had shown a moment
before. They crowded about him. “How about an interview, doe?”
“What dyu think of Modem Education?” “You certainly told ‘em. What
are your views on Life after Death?” “Take off your hat, doe, and look
at the birdie.”
He grinned at them all. “One at a time, boys, and not so fast. I used
to be a newspaperman myself. How about coming up to my place,
and we’ll talk about it?”
A few minutes later they were trying to find places to sit down in
Pinero’s messy bed-living-room, and lighting his cigars. Pinero looked
around and beamed. “What’ll it be, boys? Scotch, or Bourbon?”
When that was taken care of he got down to business. “Now, boys,
what do you want to know?”
     “Lay it on the line, doe. Have you got something, or haven’t
     you?”
     “Most assuredly I have something, my young friend.”
     “Then tell us how it works. That guff you handed the profs won’t
     get you anywhere now.”
“Please, my dear fellow. it is my invention. I expect to make some
money with it. Would you have me give it away to the first person
who asks for it?”


                                   10
“See here, doe, you’ve got to give us something if you expect to get a
break in the morning papers. What do you use? A crystal ball?”
    “No, not quite. Would you like to see my apparatus?”
    “Sure. Now we are getting somewhere.”
He ushered them into an adjoining room, and waved his hand. “There
it is, boys.” The mass of equipment that met their eyes vaguely
resembled a medico’s office x-ray gear. Beyond the obvious fact that
it used electrical power, and that some of the dials were calibrated in
familiar terms, a casual inspection gave no clue to its actual use.
  “What’s the principle, doe?”
Pinero pursed his lips and considered. “No doubt you are all familiar
with the truism that life is electrical in nature? Well, that truism isn’t
worth a damn, but it will help to give you an idea of the principle. You
have also been told that time is a fourth dimension. Maybe you
believe it, perhaps not. It has been said so many times that it has
ceased to have any meaning. It is simply a cliché that windbags use
to impress fools. But I want you to try to visualize it now and try to
feel it emotionally.”
He stepped up to one of the reporters. “Suppose we, take you as an
example. Your name is Rogers, is it not? Very well, Rogers, you are
a space-time event having duration four ways. You are not quite six
feet tall, you are about twenty inches wide and perhaps ten inches
thick. In time, there stretches behind you more of this space-time
event reaching to perhaps nineteen-sixteen, of which we see a cross-
section here at right angles to the time axis, and as thick as the
present. At the far end is a baby, smelling of sour milk and drooling
its breakfast on its bib. At the other end lies, perhaps, an old man
someplace in the nineteen-eighties. Imagine this space-time event
which we call Rogers as a long pink worm, continuous through the
years, one end at his mother’s womb, the other at the grave. It
stretches past us here and the cross-section we see appears as a
single discrete body. But that is illusion. There is physical continuity
to this pink worm, enduring through the years. As a matter of fact
there is physical continuity in, this concept to the entire race, for
these pink worms branch off from other pink worms. In this fashion
the race is like a vine whose branches intertwine and send Out
shoots. Only by taking a cross-section of the vine would we fall into
the error of believing that the shootlets were discrete individuals.”


                                    11
  He paused and looked around at their faces. One of them, a dour
  hard-bitten chap, put in a word.
  “That’s all very pretty, Pinero; if true, but where does that get you?”
Pinero favored him with an unresentful smile. “Patience, my friend. I
asked you to think of life as electrical. Now think of our long pink
worm as a conductor of electricity. You have heard, perhaps, of the
fact that electrical engineers can, by certain measurements, predict
the exact location of a break in a trans-Atlantic cable without ever
leaving the shore. I do the same with our pink worms. By applying my
instruments to the cross-section here in this room I can tell where the
break occurs, that is to say, when death takes place. Or, if you like, I
can reverse the connections and tell you the date of your birth. But
that is uninteresting; you already know it.”
The dour individual sneered. “I’ve caught you, doe. If what you said
about the race being like a vine of pink worms is true, you can’t tell
birthdays because the connection with the race is continuous at birth.
Your electrical. conductor reaches on back through the mother into a
man’s remotest ancestors.”
Pinero beamed, “True, and clever, my friend. But you have pushed
the analogy too far. It is not done in the precise manner in which one
measures the length of an electrical conductor. In some ways it is
more like measuring the length of a long corridor by bouncing an
echo off the far end. At birth there is a sort of twist in the corridor,
and, by proper calibration, I can detect the echo from that twist. There
is just one case in which I can get no determinant reading; when a
woman is actually carrying a child, I can’t sort out her life-line from
that of the unborn infant.”
  “Let’s see you prove it.”
  “Certainly, my dear friend. Will you be a subject?”
  One of the others spoke up. “He’s called your bluff, Luke. Put up,
     or shut up.”
  “I’m game. What do I do?”
  “First write the date of your birth on a sheet of paper, and hand it to
     one of your colleagues.”
  Luke complied. “Now what?”
“Remove your outer clothing and step upon these scales. Now tell
me, were you ever very much thinner, or very much fatter, than you



                                   12
are now. No? What did you weigh at birth? Ten pounds? A fine
bouncing baby boy. They don’t come so big any more.”
  “What is all this flubdubbery?”
“I am trying to approximate the average cross-section of our long pink
conductor, my dear Luke. Now will you seat yourself here. Then
place this electrode in your mouth. No, it will not hurt you; the voltage
is quite low, less than one micro-volt, but I must have a good
connection.” The doctor left him and went behind his apparatus,
where he lowered a hood over his head before touching his controls.
Some of the exposed dials came to life and a low humming came
from the machine. It stopped and the doctor popped out of his little
hide-away.
  “I get sometime in February, nineteen-twelve. Who has the piece of
  paper with the date?”
  It was produced and unfolded. The custodian read, “February 22nd,
  1912.”
The stillness that followed was broken by a voice from the edge of
the little group. “Doe, can I have another drink?”
The tension relaxed, and several spoke at once, “Try it on me, doe.”
“Me first, doe, I’m an orphan and really want to know.” “How about it,
doe. Give us all a little loose play.”
He smilingly complied, ducking in and out of the hood like a gopher
from its hole. When they all had twin slips of paper to prove the
doctor’s skill, Luke broke a long silence.
  “How about showing how you predict death, Pinero.”
  “If you wish. Who will try it?”
No one answered. Several of them nudged Luke forward. “Go ahead,
smart guy. You asked for it.” He allowed himself to be seated in the
chair. Pinero changed some of the switches, then entered the hood.
When the humming ceased, he came out, rubbing his hands briskly
together.
     “Well, that’s all there is to see, boys. Got enough for a story?”
     “Hey, what about the prediction? When does Luke get his
     ‘thirty’?”
     Luke faced him. “Yes, how about it? What’s your answer?”




                                    13
Pinero looked pained. “Gentlemen, I am surprised at you. I give that
information for a fee. Besides, it is a professional confidence. I never
tell anyone but the client who consults me.”
  “I don’t mind. Go ahead and tell them.”
  “I am very sorry. I really must refuse. I agreed only to show you
  how, not to give the results.”
Luke ground the butt of his cigarette into the floor. “It’s a hoax, boys.
He probably looked up the age of every reporter in town just to be
ready to pull this. It won’t wash, Pinero.”
     Pinero gazed at him sadly. “Are you married, my friend?”
     “Do you have any one dependent on you? Any close relatives?”
     “No. WHY, do you want to adopt me?”
Pinero shook his head sadly. “I am very sorry for you, my dear Luke.
You will die before tomorrow.”

“SCIENCE MEET ENDS IN RIOT”
  “SAVANTS SAPS SAYS SEER”
  “DEATH PUNCHES TIMECLOCK”
  “SCRIBE DIES PER DOC’S DOPE”
  “HOAX’ CLAIMS SCIENCE HEAD”

“... within twenty minutes of Pinero’s strange prediction, Timons was
struck by a falling sign while walking down Broadway toward the
offices of the Daily Herald where he was employed.
“Doctor Pinero declined to comment but confirmed the story that he
had predicted Timons’ death by means of his so-called
chronovitameter. Chief of Police Roy...”
Does the FUTURE worry You????????
Don’t waste money on fortune tellers -
Consult Doctor Hugo Pinero, Bio-Consultant
to help you plan for the future by
infallible scientific methods.
No Hocus-Pocus. No “Spirit” Messages.
$10,000 Bond posted in forfeit to back
our predictions. Circular on request.
SANDS of TIME, Inc.
Majestic Bldg., Suite 700


                                    14
(adv.)

    • Legal Notice
To whom it may concern, greetings; I, John Cabot Winthrop III, of the
firm Winthrop, Winthrop, Ditmars & Winthrop, Attorneys-at-Law, do
affirm that Hugo Pinero of this city did hand to me ten thousand
dollars in lawful money of the United States, and instruct me to place
it in escrow with a chartered bank of my selection with escrow
instructions as follows:.
The entire bond shall be forfeit, and shall forthwith be paid to the first
client of Hugo Pinero and/or Sands of Time, Inc. who shall exceed his
life tenure as predicted by Hugo Pinero by one per centurn, or to the
estate of the first client who shall fail of such predicted tenure in a like
amount, whichever occurs first in point of time.
I do further affirm that I have this day placed this bond in escrow with
the above related instructions with the Equitable-First National Bank
of this city.
Subscribed—and sworn,
John Cabot Winthrop Ill

Subscribed and sworn to before me
this 2nd day of April, 1951.
Albert M. Swanson
Notary Public in and for this county and state
My commission expires June 17, 1951.

“Good evening Mr. and Mrs. Radio Audience, let’s go to Press! Flash!
Hugo Pinero, The Miracle Man from Nowhere, has made his
thousandth death prediction without a claimant for the reward he
posted for anyone who catches him failing to call the turn. With
thirteen of his clients already dead it is mathematically certain that -
he has a private line to the main office of the Old Man with the
Scythe. That is one piece of news I don’t want to know before it
happens. Your Coast-to-Coast Correspondent will not be a client of
Prophet Pinero. . .”
The judge’s watery baritone cut through the stale air of the
courtroom. “Please, Mr. Weeds, let us return to our muttons. This
court granted your prayer for a temporary restraining order, and now


                                     15
you ask that it be made permanent. In rebuttal, Mr. Pinero claims that
you have presented no cause and asks that the injunction be lifted,
and that I order your client to cease from attempts to interfere with
what Pinero describes as a simple - lawful business. As you are not
addressing a jury, please omit the rhetoric and tell me in plain
language why I should not grant his prayer.”
Mr. Weeds jerked his chin nervously, making his flabby Grey dewlap
drag across his high stiff collar, and resumed:

“May it please the honorable court, I represent the public-“
  “Just a moment. I thought you were appearing for Amalgamated
  Life Insurance.”
“I am, Your Honor, in a formal sense. In a wider sense I represent
several other major assurance, fiduciary, and financial institutions;
their stockholders, and policy holders, who constitute a majority of the
citizenry. In addition we feel that we protect the interests of the entire
population; unorganized, inarticulate, and otherwise unprotected.”
“I thought that I represented the public,” observed the judge dryly. “I
am afraid I must regard you as appearing for your client-of-record.
But continue; what is your thesis?”
The elderly barrister attempted to swallow his Adam’s apple, then
began again. “Your Honor, we contend that there are two separate
reasons why this injunction should be made permanent, and, further,
that each reason is sufficient alone. In the first place, this person is
engaged in the practice of soothsaying, an occupation proscribed
both in common law and statute. He is a common fortune teller, a
vagabond charlatan who preys on the gullibility of the public. He is
cleverer than the ordinary gypsy palm-reader, astrologer, or table
tipper, and to the same extent more dangerous. He makes false
claims of modern scientific methods to give a spurious dignity to his
thaumaturgy. We have here in court leading representatives of the
Academy of Science to give expert witness as to the absurdity of his
claims.
“In the second place, even if this person’s claims were true-granting
for the sake of argument such an absurdity” - Mr. Weems permitted
himself a thin-lipped smile - “we contend that his activities are
contrary to the public interest in general, and unlawfully injurious to
the interests of my client in particular. We are prepared to produce

                                    16
numerous exhibits with the legal custodians to prove that this person
did publish, or cause to have published, utterances urging the public
to dispense with the priceless boon of life insurance to the great
detriment of their welfare and to the financial damage of my client.”
      Pinero arose in his place. “Your Honor, may I say a few
      words?”
      “What is it?”
      “I believe I can simplify the situation if permitted to make a brief
      analysis.”
      “Your Honor,” cut in Weems, “this is most irregular.”
“Patience, Mr. Weems. Your interests will be protected. It seems to
me that we need more light and less noise in this matter. If Dr. Pinero
can shorten the proceedings by speaking at this time, I am inclined to
let him. Proceed, Dr. Pinero.”
“Thank you, Your Honor. Taking the last of Mr. Weems’ points first, I
am prepared to stipulate that I published the utterances he speaks of”
“One moment, Doctor. You have chosen to act as your own attorney.
Are you sure you are competent to protect your own interests?”
  “I am prepared to chance it, Your Honor. Our friends here can
  easily prove what I stipulate.”
  “Very well. You may proceed.”
“I will stipulate that many persons have cancelled life insurance
policies as a result thereof, but I challenge them to show that anyone
so doing has suffered any loss or damage there from. It is true that
the Amalgamated has lost business through my activities, but that is
the natural result of my discovery, which has made their policies as
obsolete as the bow and arrow. If an injunction is granted on that
ground, I shall set up a coal oil lamp factory, then ask for an
injunction against the Edison and General Electric companies to
forbid them to manufacture incandescent bulbs.”
“I will stipulate that I am engaged in the business of making
predictions of death, but I deny that I am practicing magic, black,
white, or rainbow colored. If to make predictions by methods of
scientific accuracy is illegal, then the actuaries of the Amalgamated
have been guilty for years in that they predict the exact percentage
that will die each year in any given large group. I predict death retail;



                                    17
the Amalgamated predicts it wholesale. If their actions are legal, how
can mine be illegal?”
“I admit that it makes a difference whether I can do what I claim, or
not; and I will stipulate that the so-called expert witnesses from the
Academy of Science will testify that I cannot. But they know nothing
of my method and cannot give truly expert testimony on it.”
“Just a moment, Doctor. Mr. Weems, is it true that your expert
witnesses are not conversant with Dr. Pinero’s theory and methods?”
Mr. Weems looked worried. He drummed on the table top, then
answered, “Will the Court grant me a few moments indulgence?”
  “Certainly.”
Mr. Weems held a hurried whispered consultation with his cohorts,
then faced the bench. “We have a procedure to suggest, Your Honor.
If Dr. Pinero will take the stand and explain the theory and practice of
his alleged method, then these distinguished scientists will be able to
advise the Court as to the validity of his claims.”
The judge looked inquiringly at Pinero, who responded, “I will not
willingly agree to that. Whether my process is true or false, it would
be dangerous to let it fall into the hands of fools and quacks” he
waved his hand at the group of professors seated in the front row,
paused and smiled maliciously “as these gentlemen know quite well.
Furthermore it is not necessary to know the process in order to prove
that it will work. Is it necessary to understand the complex miracle of
biological reproduction in order to observe that a hen lays eggs? Is it
necessary for me to reeducate this entire body of self-appointed
custodians of wisdom - cure them of their ingrown superstitions - in
order to prove that my predictions are correct? There are but two
ways of forming an opinion in science. One is the scientific method;
the other, the scholastic. One can judge from experiment, or one can
blindly accept authority. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is
all important and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be
junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is
everything and facts are junked when they do not fit theory laid down
by authority.”
“It is this point of view-academic minds clinging like oysters to
disproved theories-that has blocked every advance of knowledge in



                                   18
history. I am prepared to prove my method by experiment, and, like
Galileo in another court, I insist, ‘It still moves!’”
“Once before I offered such proof to this same body of self-styled
experts, and they rejected it. I renew my offer; let me measure the life
lengths of the members of the Academy of Science. Let them appoint
a committee to judge the results. I will seal my findings in two sets of
envelopes; on the outside of each envelope in one set will appear the
name of a member, on the inside the date of his death. In the other
envelopes I will place names, on the outside I will place dates. Let the
committee place the envelopes in a vault, then meet from time to time
to open the appropriate envelopes. In such a large body of men some
deaths may be expected, if Amalgamated actuaries can be trusted,
every week or two. In such a fashion they will accumulate data very
rapidly to prove that Pinero is a liar, or no.”
He stopped, and pushed out his little chest until it almost caught up
with his little round belly. He glared at the sweating savants. “Well?”
  The judge raised his eyebrows, and caught Mr. Weems’ eye. “Do
  you accept?”

“Your Honor, I think the proposal highly improper-“
The judge cut him short. “I warn you that I shall rule against you if you
do not accept, or propose an equally reasonable method of arriving
at the truth.”
Weems opened his mouth, changed his mind, looked up and down
the faces of learned witnesses, and faced the bench. “We accept,
Your Honor.”
“Very well. Arrange the details between you. The temporary
injunction is lifted, and Dr. Pinero must not be molested in the pursuit
of his business. Decision on the petition for permanent injunction is
reserved without prejudice pending the accumulation of evidence.
Before we leave this matter I wish to comment on the theory implied
by you, Mr. Weems, when you claimed damage to your client. There
has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion
that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public
for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged
with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the
face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This
strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither

                                   19
individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask
that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private
benefit. That is all.”
Bidwell grunted in annoyance. “Weems, if you can’t think up anything
better than that, Amalgamated is going to need a new chief attorney.
It’s been ten weeks since you lost the injunction, and that little wart is
coining money hand over fist. Meantime every insurance firm in the
country is going broke. Hoskins, what’s our loss ratio?”
“It’s hard to say, Mr. Bidwell. It gets worse every day. We’ve paid off
thirteen big policies this week; all of them taken out since Pinero
started operations.”
A spare little man spoke up. “I say, Bidwell, we aren’t accepting any
new applications for United until we have time to check and be sure
that they have not consulted Pinero. Can’t we afford to wait until the
scientists show him up?”
Bidwell snorted. “You blasted optimist! They won’t show him up.
Aldrich, can’t you face a fact? The fat little blister has got something;
how I don’t know. This is a fight to the finish. If we wait, we’re licked.”
He threw his cigar into a cuspidor, and bit savagely into a fresh one.
“Clear out of here, all of you! I’ll handle this my own way. You too,
Aldrich. United may wait, but Amalgamated won’t.”
Weems cleared his throat apprehensively. “Mr. Bidwell, I trust you will
consult with me before embarking on any major change in policy?”
Bidwell grunted. They filed out. When they were all gone and the
door closed, Bidwell snapped the switch of the inter-office announcer.
“O.K.; send him in.”
The outer door opened; a slight dapper figure stood for a moment at
the threshold. His small dark eyes glanced quickly about the room
before he entered, then he moved up to Bidwell with a quick soft
tread. He spoke to Bidwell in a flat emotionless voice. His face
remained impassive except for the live animal eyes. “You wanted to
talk to me?”
  “Yes.”
  “What’s the proposition?”
  “Sit down, and we’ll talk.”
  Pinero met the young couple at the door of his inner office.



                                     20
“Come in, my dears, come in. Sit down. Make yourselves at home.
Now tell me, what do you want of Pinero? Surely such young people
are not anxious about the final roll call?”
The boy’s honest young face showed slight confusion. “Well, you
see, Dr. Pinero, I’m Ed Harley and this is my wife, Betty. We’re going
to have-that is, Betty is expecting a baby and, well-“
Pinero smiled benignly. “I understand. You want to know how long
you will live in order to make the best possible provision for the
youngster. Quite wise. Do you both want readings, or just yourself?”
  The girl answered, “Both of us, we think.”
Pinero beamed at her. “Quite so. I agree. Your reading presents
certain technical difficulties at this time, but I can give you some
information now, and more later after your baby arrives. Now come
into my laboratory, my dears, and we’ll commence.” He rang for their
case histories, then showed them into his workshop. “Mrs. Harley
first, please. If you will go behind that screen and remove your shoes
and your outer clothing, please. Remember, I am an old man, whom
you are consulting as you would a physician.”
He turned away and made some minor adjustments of his apparatus.
Ed nodded to his wife who slipped behind the screen and reappeared
almost at once, clothed in two wisps of silk. Pinero glanced up, noted
her fresh young prettiness and her touching shyness.
“This way, my dear. First we must weigh you. There. Now take your
place on the stand. This electrode in your mouth. No, Ed, you mustn’t
touch her while she is in the circuit. It won’t take a minute. Remain
quiet.”
He dove under the machine’s hood and the dials sprang into life.
Very shortly he came out with a perturbed look on his face. “Ed, did
you touch her?”
“No, Doctor.” Pinero ducked back again, remained a little longer.
When he came out this time, he told the girl to get down and dress.
He turned to her husband.
  “Ed, make yourself ready.”
  “What’s Betty’s reading, Doctor?”
  “There is a little difficulty. I want to test you first.”




                                       21
When he came out from taking the youth’s reading, his face was
more troubled than ever. Ed inquired as to his trouble. Pinero
shrugged his shoulders, and brought a smile to his lips.
“Nothing to concern you, my boy. A little mechanical misadjustment, I
think. But I shan’t be able to give you two your readings today. I shall
need to overhaul my machine. Can you come back tomorrow?”
   “Why, I think so. Say, I’m sorry about your machine. I hope it isn’t
      serious.”
   “It isn’t, I’m sure. Will you come back into my office, and visit for a
      bit?”
   “Thank you, Doctor. You are very kind.”
   “But Ed, I’ve got to meet Ellen.”
   Pinero turned the full force of his personality on her.
“Won’t you grant me a few moments, my dear young lady? I am old
and like the sparkle of young folk’s company. I get very little of it.
Please.” He nudged them gently into his office, and seated them.
Then he ordered lemonade and cookies sent in, offered them
cigarettes, and lit a cigar.
Forty minutes later Ed listened entranced, while Betty was quite
evidently acutely nervous and anxious to leave, as the doctor spun
out a story concerning his adventures as a young man in Tierra del
Fuego. When the doctor stopped to relight his cigar, she stood up.
   “Doctor, - we really must leave. Couldn’t we hear the rest
      tomorrow?”
   “Tomorrow? There will not be time tomorrow.”
   “But you haven’t time today either. Your secretary has rung five
      times.”
   “Couldn’t you spare me just a few more minutes?”
   “I really can’t today, doctor. I have an appointment. There is
      someone waiting for me.”
   “There is no way to induce you?”
   “I’m afraid not. Come, Ed.”
After they had gone, the doctor stepped to the window and stared out
over the city. Presently he picked out two tiny figures as they left the
office building. He watched them hurry to the corner, wait for the
lights to change, then start across the street. When they were part
way across, there came the scream of a siren. The two little figures
hesitated, started back, stopped, and turned. Then the car was upon


                                     22
them. As the car slammed to a stop, they showed up from beneath it,
no longer two figures, but simply a limp unorganized heap of clothing.
Presently the doctor turned away - from the window. Then he picked
up his phone, and spoke to his secretary.
“Cancel my appointments for the rest of the day.... No... No one... I
don’t care; cancel them.” Then he sat down in his chair. His cigar
went out. Long after dark he held it, still unlighted.
Pinero sat down at his dining table and contemplated the gourmet’s
luncheon spread before him. He had ordered this meal with particular
care, and had come home a little early in order to enjoy it fully.
Somewhat later he let a few drops of fiori d’Alpini roll around his
tongue and trickle down his throat. The heavy fragrant syrup warmed
his mouth, and reminded him of the little mountain flowers for which it
was named. He sighed. It - had been a good meal, an exquisite meal
and had justified the exotic liqueur. His musing was interrupted by a
disturbance at the front door. The voice of his elderly maidservant
was raised in remonstrance. A heavy male voice interrupted her. The
commotion moved down the hail and the dining room door was
pushed open.
  “Madonna! Non si puo entrare! The Master is eating!”
“Never mind, - Angela. I have time to see these gentlemen. You
..may go.” Pinero faced the surly-faced spokesman of the intruders.
“You have business with me; yes?”
        “You bet we have. Decent people have had enough of your
        damned nonsense.”
        “And so?”
The caller did not answer at once. A smaller dapper individual moved
out from behind him and faced Pinero.
        “We might as well begin.” The chairman of the committee
placed a key in the lock-box and opened it. “Wenzell, will you help me
pick out today’s envelopes?” He was interrupted by a touch on his
arm. - “Dr. Baird, you are wanted on the telephone.”
        “Very well. Bring the instrument here.”
        When it was fetched he placed the receiver to his ear. “Hello....
Yes; speaking.... What? .. No, we have beard nothing... Destroyed
the machine, you say.... Dead! How?.... No! No statement. None at
all.... Call me later....”


                                   23
      He slammed the instrument down - and pushed it from him.
      “What’s up? Who’s dead now?”
      Baird held up one hand. “Quiet, gentlemen, please!
      Pinero was murdered a few moments ago at his home.”
      “Murdered?!”
      “That isn’t all. About the same time vandals broke into his office
and smashed his apparatus.” -
      No one spoke at first. The committee members glanced around
at each other. No one seemed anxious to be the first to comment.
      Finally one spoke up. “Get it out.”
      “Get what out?”
      “Pinero’s envelope. It’s in there too. I’ve seen it.”
      Baird located it and slowly tore it open. He unfolded the single
sheet of paper, and scanned it.
      “Well? Out with it!”
      “One thirteen p.m. - today.”
      They took this in silence.
      Their dynamic calm was broken by a member across the table
from Baird reaching for the lock-box. Baud interposed a hand.
      “What do you want?”
      “My prediction-it’s in there-we’re all in there.”
      “Yes, yes. We’re all in here. Let’s have them.”
      Baird placed both hands over the box. He held the eye of the
man opposite him but did not speak. He licked his lips. The corner of
his mouth twitched. His hands shook. Still he did not speak. The man
opposite relaxed back into his chair.
      “You’re right, of course,” he said.
      “Bring me that waste basket.” Baird’s voice was low and
strained but steady.
      He accepted it and dumped the litter on the rug. He placed the
tin basket on the table before him. He tore half a dozen envelopes
across, set a match to them, and dropped them in the basket. Then
he started tearing a double handful at a time, and fed the fire steadily.
The smoke made him cough, and tears ran out of his smarting eyes.
Someone got up and opened a window. When he was through, he
pushed the basket away from him, looked down, and spoke.
      “I’m afraid I’ve ruined this table top.”




                                   24
FOREWORD
For any wordsmith the most valuable word in the English language is
that short, ugly, Anglo-Saxon monosyllable: No!!! It is one of the
peculiarities in the attitude of the public toward the writing profession
that a person who would never expect a free ride from a taxi driver, or
free groceries from a market, or free gilkwoks from a gilkwok dealer,
will without the slightest embarrassment ask a professional writer for
free gifts of his stock in trade.
This chutzpah is endemic in science fiction fans, acute in organized
SF fans, and at its virulent worst in organized fans-who-publish-fan-
magazines.
The following story came into existence shortly after I sold my first
story-and resulted from my having not yet learned to say No!
“Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a
cat.”
• L. Long



SUCCESSFUL OPERATION

“How dare you make such a suggestion!”
The State Physician doggedly stuck by his position. “I would not
make it, sire, if your life were not at stake. There is no other surgeon
in the Fatherland who can transplant a pituitary gland, but Doctor
Lans.”
  “You will operate!”
  The medico shook his head. “You would die, Leader. My skill is not
  adequate.”
The Leader stormed about the apartment. He seemed about to give
way to one of the girlish bursts of anger that even the inner state
clique feared so much. Surprisingly he capitulated.
  “Bring him here!” he ordered.
Doctor Lans faced the Leader with inherent dignity, a dignity and
presence that three years of “protective custody” had been unable to
shake. The pallor and gauntness of the concentration camp lay upon


                                   25
him, but his race was used to oppression. “I see,” he said. “Yes, I see
. . . I can perform that operation. What are your terms?”
“Terms?” The Leader was aghast. “Terms, you filthy swine? You are
being given a chance to redeem in part the sins of your race!”
The surgeon raised his brows. “Do you not think that I know that you
would not have sent for me had
there been any other course available to you? Obviously, my services
have become valuable.
  “You’ll do as you are told! You and your kind are lucky to be alive.”
“Nevertheless I shall not operate without my fee.” “I said you are
lucky to be alive-“ The tone was an open threat.
Lans spread his hands, did not answer.
  “Well-I am informed that you have a family...”
The surgeon moistened his lips. His Emma-they would hurt his
Emma. . . and his little Rose. But he must be brave, as Emma would
have him be. He was playing for high stakes-for all of them. “They
cannot be worse off dead,” he answered firmly, “than they are now.
It was many hours before the Leader was convinced that Lans could
not be budged. He should have known-the surgeon had learned
fortitude at his mother’s breast.
  “What is your fee?”
  “A passport for myself and my family.”
  “Good riddance!”
  “My personal fortune restored to me-“
  “Very well.”
  “-to be paid in gold before I operate!”
The Leader started to object automatically, then checked himself. Let
the presumptuous fool think so! It could be corrected after the
operation.
   “And the operation to take place in a hospital on foreign soil.”
   “Preposterous!”
   “I must insist.”
   “You do not trust me?”
Lans stared straight back into his eyes without replying. The Leader
struck him, hard, across the mouth. The surgeon made no effort to
avoid the blow, but took it, with no change of expression....


                                   26
“You are willing to go through with it, Samuel?” The younger man
looked at Doctor~Lans without fear as he answered,
  “Certainly, Doctor.”
“I can not guarantee that you will recover. The Leader’s pituitary
gland is diseased; your younger body may or may not be able to
stand up under it- that is the chance you take.”
  “I know it-but I am out of the concentration camp!”
“Yes. Yes, that is true. And if you do recover, you are free. And I will
attend you myself, until you are well enough to travel.”
Samuel smiled. “It will be a positive joy to be sick in a country where
there are no concentration camps!”
  “Very well, then. Let us commence.”
They returned to the silent, nervous group at the other end of the
room. Grimly, the money was counted out, every penny that the
famous surgeon had laid claim to before the Leader had decided that
men of his religion had no need for money. Lans placed half of the
gold in a money belt and strapped it around his waist. His wife
concealed the other half somewhere about her ample person.
It was an hour and twenty minutes later that Lans put down the last
instrument, nodded to the surgeons assisting him, and commenced
to strip off operating gloves. He took one last look at his two patients
before he left the room. They were anonymous under the sterile
gowns and dressings. Had he not known, he could not have told
dictator from oppressed. Come to think about it, with the exchange of
those two tiny glands there was something of the dictator in his
victim, and something of the victim in the dictator.
Doctor Lans returned to the hospital later in the day, after seeing his
wife and daughter settled in a first class hotel. It was an
extravagance, in view of his un
certain prospects as a refugee, but they had enjoyed no luxuries for
years back there-he did not think of it as his home country-and it was
justified this once.
He enquired at the office of the hospital for his second patient. The
clerk looked puzzled. “But he is not here.”
  “Not here?”


                                    27
  “Why, no. He was moved at the same time as His Excellency-back
  to your country.”
Lans did not argue. The trick was obvious; it was too late to do
anything for poor Samuel. He thanked his God that he had had the
foresight to place himself and his family beyond the reach of such
brutal injustice before operating. He thanked the clerk and left.
The Leader recovered consciousness at last. His brain was
confused-then he recalled the events before he had gone to sleep.
The operation!-it must be over! And he was alive! He had never
admitted to anyone how terribly frightened he had been at the
prospect. But he had lived-he had lived!
He groped around for the bell cord, and, failing to find it, gradually
forced his eyes to focus on the room. What outrageous nonsense
was this? This was no sort of a room for the Leader to convalesce in.
He took in the dirty white-washed ceiling, and the bare wooden floor
with distaste. And the bed! It was no more than a cot!
He shouted. Someone came in, a man wearing the uniform of a
trooper in his favorite corps. He started to give him the tongue-
lashing of his life, before having him arrested. But he was cut short.
  “Cut out that racket, you unholy pig!”
At first he was too astounded to answer, then he shrieked, “Stand at
attention when you address your Leader! Salute!”
The man looked dumbfounded, then guffawed. “Like this, maybe?”
He stepped to the side of the cot, struck a pose with his right arm
raised in salute. He carried a rubber truncheon in it. “Hail to the
Leader!” he shouted, and brought his arm down smartly. The
truncheon crashed into the Leader’s cheekbone. Another trooper
came in to see what the noise was while the first was still laughing at
his witticism. “What’s up, Jon? Say, you’d better not handle that
monkey too rough-he’s still carried on the hospital list.” He glanced
casually at the Leader’s bloody face. “Him? Didn’t you know?” He
pulled him to one side and whispered.
The second’s eyes widened; he grinned. “So? They don’t want him to
get well, eh? Well, I could use some exercise this morning-“
     “Let’s get Fats,” the other suggested. “He always has such
     amusing ideas.”
     “Good idea.” He stepped to the door, and bellowed, “Hey, Fats!”

                                   28
     They didn’t really start in on him until Fats was there to help.

FOREWORD
LiFE-LINE, MISFIT, LET THERE BE LIGHT, ELSE WHEN, PIED
PIPER, IF THiS GOES ON-, REQUIEM, THE ROADS MUST ROLL,
COVENTRY, BLOWUPS HAPPEN-for eleven months, mid March
1939 through mid February 1940, I wrote every day.. and that ended
my bondage; BLOWUPS HAPPEN paid off the last of that pesky
n’tortgage-eight years ahead of time.
BLOWUPS HAPPEN was the first of my stories to be published in
hard covers, in Groff Conklin’s first anthology, THE BEST OF
SCIENCE FICTION, 1946. In the meantime there had been World
War II, Hiroshima, The Smyth Report-so I went over my 1940
manuscript most carefully, correcting some figures I had merely
guessed at in early 1940.
This week I have compared the two versions, 1940 and 1946, word
by word-there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between them. . . and
I now see, as a result of the enormous increase in the art in 33 years,
more errors in the ‘46 version than I spotted in the ‘40 version when I
checked it in ‘46.
I do not intend ever again to try to update a story to make it fit new
art. Such updating can’t save a poor story and isn’t necessary for a
good story. All of H. G. Wells’ SF stories are hopelessly dated. . . and
they remain the best, the most gripping science fiction stories to be
found anywhere. My BEYOND THIS HORIZON (1941) states that H.
sapiens has forty-eight chromosomes, a “fact” that “everybody knew”
in 1941. Now “everybody knows” that the “correct” number is forty-
sLx. 1 shan’t change it.
The version of BLOWUPS HAPPEN here following is exactly, word
for word, the way it was first written in February 1940.

Blowups Happen

“PUT down that wrench!”
The man addressed turned slowly around and faced the speaker. His
expression was hidden by a grotesque helmet, part of a heavy, lead-
and-cadmium armor which shielded his entire body, but the tone of
voice in which he answered showed nervous exasperation.


                                   29
  “What the hell’s eating on you, doc?” He made no move to replace
  the tool in question.
They faced each other like two helmeted, arrayed fencers, watching
for an opening. The first speaker’s voice came from behind his mask
a shade higher in key and more peremptory in tone. “You heard me,
Harper. Put down that wrench at once, and come away from that
‘trigger’. Erickson!”
  A third armored figure came from the far end of the control room.
  “What ‘cha want, doe?”
“Harper is relieved from watch. You take over as engineer-of-the-
watch. Send for the standby engineer.”
“Very well.” His voice and manner were phlegmatic, as he accepted
the situation without comment. The atomic engineer whom he had
just relieved glanced from one to the other, then carefully replaced
the wrench in its rack.
“Just as you say, Doctor Silard, but send for your relief, too. I shall
demand an immediate hearing!” Harper swept indignantly out, his
lead-sheathed boots clumping on the floorplates.
Doctor Silard waited unhappily for the ensuing twenty minutes until
his own relief arrived. Perhaps he had been hasty. Maybe he was
wrong in thinking that Harper had at last broken under the strain of
tending the most dangerous machine in the world-the atomic breeder
plant. But if he had made a mistake, it had to be on the safe side-
slips must not happen in this business; not when a slip might result in
atomic detonation of nearly ten tons of uranium-238, U-235, and
plutonium.
He tried to visualize what that would mean, and failed. He had ‘been
told that uranium was potentially twenty million times as explosive as
T.N.T. The figure was meaningless that way. He thought of the pile
instead as a hundred million tons of high explosive, or as a thousand
Hiroshimas. It still did not mean anything. He had once seen an A-
bomb dropped, when he had been serving as a temperament analyst
for the Air Forces. He could not imagine the explosion of a thousand
such bombs; his. brain balked. Perhaps these atomic engineers
could. Perhaps, with their greater mathematical ability and closer
comprehension of what actually went on inside the nuclear fission
chamber, they had some vivid glimpse of the mind-shattering horror


                                    30
locked up beyond that shield. If so, no wonder they tended to blow
up- He sighed. Erickson looked away from the controls of the linear
resonant accelerator on which he had been making some
adjustment.
   “What’s the trouble, doc?”
   “Nothing. I’m sorry I had to relieve Harper.”
Silard could feel the shrewd glance of the big Scandinavian. “Not
getting the jitters yourself, are you, doc? Sometimes you squirrel-
sleuths blow up, too-“
  “Me? I don’t think so. I’m scared of that thing in there-I’d be crazy if
  I weren’t.”
“So am I,” Erickson told him soberly, and went back to his work at the
controls of the accelerator. The accelerator proper lay beyond
another shielding barrier; its snout disappeared in the final shield
between it and the pile and fed a steady stream of terrifically speeded
up sub-atomic bullets to the beryllium target located within the pile
itself. The tortured beryllium yielded up neutrons, which shot out in all
directions through the uranium mass. Some of these neutrons struck
uranium atoms squarely on their nuclei and split them in two. The
fragments were new elements, barium, xenon, rubidium-depending
on the portions in which each atom split. The new elements were
usually unstable isotopes and broke down into a, dozen more
elements by radioactive disintegration in a progressive reaction.
But these second transmutations were comparatively safe; it was the
original splitting of the uranium nucleus, with the release of the awe-
inspiring energy that bound it together-an incredible two hundred
million electron volts-that was important-and perilous.
For, while uranium was used to breed other fuels by bombarding it
with neutrons, the splitting itself gives up more neutrons which in turn
may land in other uranium nuclei and split them. If conditions are
favorable to a progressively increasing reaction of this sort, it may get
out of hand, build up in an unmeasurable fraction of a micro-second
into a complete atomic explosion-an explosion which would dwarf an
atom bomb to pop-gun size; an explosion so far beyond all human
experience as to be as completely incomprehensible as the idea of
personal death. It could be feared, but not understood.
But a self-perpetuating sequence of nuclear splitting, just wider the
level of complete explosion, was necessary to the operation of the

                                    31
breeder plant. To split the first uranium nucleus by bombarding it with
neutrons from the beryllium target took more power than the death of
the atom gave up. In order that the breeder pile continue to operate it
was imperative that each atom split by a neutron from the beryllium
target should cause the splitting of many more.
It was equally imperative that this chain of reactions should always
tend to dampen, to die out. It must not build up, or the uranium mass
would explode within a time interval too short to be measured by any
means whatsoever.
  Nor would there be anyone left to measure it.
The atomic engineer on duty at the pile could control this reaction by
means of the “trigger”, a term the engineers used to include the linear
resonant accelerator, the beryllium target, the cadmium damping
rods, and adjacent controls, instrument board, and power sources.
That is to say he could vary the bombardment on the beryllium target
to increase or decrease the level of operation of the plant, he could
change the “effective mass” of the pile with the cadmium dampers,
and he could tell from his instruments that the internal reaction was
dampened-or, rather, that it had been dampened the split second
before. He could not possibly know what was actually happening now
within the pile-subatomic speeds are too great and the time intervals
too small. He was like the bird that flew backward; he could see
where he had been, but never knew where he was going.
Nevertheless, it was his responsibility, and his alone, not only to
maintain the pile at a high efficiency, but to see that the reaction
never passed the critical point and progressed into mass explosion.
  But that was impossible. He could not be sure; he could never be
  sure.
He could bring to the job all of the skill and learning of the finest
technical education, and use it to reduce the hazard to the lowest
mathematical probability, but the blind laws of chance which appear
to rule in sub-atomic action might turn up a royal flush against him
and defeat his most skillful play.
And each atomic engineer knew it, knew that he gambled not only
with his own life, but with the lives of countless others, perhaps with
the lives of every human being on the planet. Nobody knew quite
what such an explosion would do. A conservative estimate assumed


                                   32
that, in addition to destroying the plant and its personnel completely,
it would tear a chunk out of the populous and heavily traveled Los
Angeles-Oklahoma Road-City a hundred miles to the north.
The official, optimistic viewpoint on which the plant had been
authorized by the Atomic Energy Commission was based on
mathematics which predicted that such a mass of uranium would
itself be disrupted on a molar scale, and thereby limit the area of
destruction, before progressive and accelerated atomic explosion
could infect the entire mass.
The atomic engineers, by and large, did not place faith in the official
theory. They judged theoretical mathematical prediction for what it
was worth-precisely nothing, until confirmed by experiment.
But even from the official viewpoint, each atomic engineer while on
watch carried not only his own life in his hands, but the lives of many
others-how many, it was better not to think about. No pilot, no
general, no surgeon ever carried such a daily, inescapable, ever
present weight of responsibility for the lives of others as these men
carried every time they went on watch, every time they touched a
venire screw, or read a dial.
They were selected not alone for their intelligence and technical
training, but quite as much for their characters and sense of social
responsibility. Sensitive men were needed-men who could fully
appreciate the importance of the charge entrusted to them; no other
sort would do. But the burden of responsibility was too great to be
borne indefinitely by a sensitive man.
  It was, of necessity, a psychologically unstable condition. Insanity
  was an occupational disease.
Doctor Cummings appeared, still buckling the straps of the armor
worn to guard against stray radiation. “What’s up?” he asked Silard.
      “I had to relieve Harper.”
      “So I guessed. I met him coming up. He was sore as hell-just
      glared at me.”
      “I know. He wants an immediate hearing. That’s why I had to
      send for you.”
Cummings grunted, then nodded toward the engineer, anonymous in
all-enclosing armor. “Who’d I draw?”
  “Erickson.”


                                   33
  “Good enough. Squareheads can’t go crazy-eh, Gus?”
Erickson looked up momentarily, and answered, “That’s your
problem,” and returned to his work. Cummings turned back to Silard,
and commented, “Psychiatrists don’t seem very popular around here.
O.K.-I relieve you, sir.”
  “Very well, sir.”
Silard threaded his way through the zig-zag in the outer shield which
surrounded the control room. Once outside this outer shield, he
divested himself of the cumbersome armor, disposed of it in the
locker room provided, and hurried to a lift. He left the lift at the tube
station, underground, and looked around for an unoccupied capsule.
Finding one, he strapped himself in, sealed the gasketed door, and
settled the back of his head into the rest against the expected surge
of acceleration.
Five minutes later he knocked at the door of the office of the general
superintendent, twenty miles away.
The breeder plant proper was located in a bowl of desert hills on the
Arizona plateau. Everything not necessary to the immediate
operation of the plant-administrative offices, television station, and so
forth-lay beyond the hills. The buildings housing these auxiliary
functions were of the most durable construction technical ingenuity
could devise. It was hoped that, if the tag ever came, occupants
would stand approximately the chance of survival of a man going
over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
Silard knocked again. He was greeted by a male secretary, Steinke.
Silard recalled reading his case history. Formerly one of the most
brilliant of the young engineers, he had suffered a blanking out of the
ability to handle mathematical operations. A plain case of fugue, but
there had been nothing that the poor devil could do about it- he had
been anxious enough with his conscious mind to stay on duty. He
had been rehabilitated as an office worker.
Steinke ushered him into the superintendent’s private office. Harper
was there before him, and returned his greeting with icy politeness.
The superintendent was cordial, but Silard thought he. looked tired,
as if the twenty-four-hour-a-day strain was too much for him.
“Come in, Doctor, come In. Sit down. Now. tell me about this. I’m a
little’ surprised. I thought Harper was one of my steadiest men.”


                                    34
   “I don’t say he isn’t, sir.”
   “Well?”
   “He may be perfectly all right, but your instructions to me are not to
      take any chances.”
“Quite right” The superintendent gave the engineer, silent and tense
in his chair, a troubled glance, then returned his attention to Silard.
“Suppose you tell me about it.”
Silard took a deep breath. “While on watch as psychological observer
at the control station I noticed that the engineer of the watch seemed
preoccupied and less responsive to stimuli than usual. During my off-
watch observation of this case, over a period of the past several
days, I have suspected an increasing lack of attention. For example,
while playing contract bridge, he now occasionally asks for a review
of the bidding which is contrary to his former behavior pattern.
“Other similar data are available. To cut it short, at 3:11 today, while
on watch, I saw Harper, with no apparent reasonable purpose in
mind, pick up a wrench used only for operating the valves of the
water shield and approach the trigger. I relieved him of duty, and sent
him out of the control room.”
“Chief!” Harper calmed himself somewhat and continued, “If this
witch-doctor knew a wrench from an oscillator, he’d know what I was
doing. The wrench was on the wrong rack. I noticed it, and picked it
up to return it to its proper place. On the way, I stopped to check the
readings!”
The superintendent turned inquiringly to Doctor Shard. “That may be
true- Granting that it is true,” answered the psychiatrist doggedly, “my
diagnosis still stands. Your behavior pattern has altered; your present
actions are unpredictable, and I can’t approve you for responsible
work without a complete check-up.”
General Superintendent King drummed on the desktop, and sighed.
Then he spoke slowly to Harper, “Cal, you’re a good boy, and believe
me, I know how you feel. But: there is no way to avoid it-you’ve got to
go up for the psychometricals, and accept whatever disposition the
board makes of you.” He paused, but Harper maintained an
expressionless silence. “Tell you what, son-why don’t, you take a few
days’ leave? Then, when you come back,’ you can go up before the
board, or transfer to another department away from the bomb,



                                   35
whichever you prefer.” He looked to Shard for approval, and received
a nod.
But Harper was not mollified. “No, chief,” he protested. “It won’t do.
Can’t you’ see what’s wrong? It’s this constant supervision.
Somebody always watching the back of your neck, expecting you to
go crazy. A man can’t even shave in private. We’re jumpy about the
most innocent acts, for fear some head doctor, half batty himself, will
see it and decide it’s a sign we’re slipping-good grief, what do you
expect!”
His outburst having run its course, he subsided into a flippant
cynicism that did” not quite jell. “O.K.-never mind the strait jacket; I’ll
go quietly. You’re a good Joe in spite of it, chief,” he added, “and I’m
glad to have worked under you. Goodbye.”
King kept the pain in his eyes out of his voice. ‘Wait a minute, Cal-
you’re not through here. Let’s forget about the vacation.’ I’m
transferring you to the radiation laboratory. You belong in research
anyhow; I’d never have spared you from it to stand watches if I hadn’t
been short on number-one men.
“As for the constant psychological observation, I hate it as much as
you do. I don’t suppose you know that they watch me about twice as
hard as they watch you duty engineers.”
Harper showed his surprise, but Shard nodded in sober conflation.
“But we have to have this supervision. . . Do you remember
Manning? No, he was before your time. We didn’t have’
psychological observers then. Manning was able and brilliant.
Furthermore, he was always cheerful; nothing seemed to bother him.
“I was glad to have him on the pile, for he was always alert, and
never seemed nervous about working with it-in fact he grew more
buoyant and cheerful the longer he stood control watches. I should
have known that was a very bad sign, but I didn’t, and there was no
observer to ‘tell me so.
“His technician had to slug him one night. . . He found him
dismounting the, safety interlocks on the cadmium assembly. Poor
old Manning never pulled out of it- he’s been violently insane ever
since. After Manning cracked up, we worked out the present system
of two qualified engineers and an observer for every watch. It
seemed the only thing to do.”


                                     36
“I suppose so, chief,” Harper mused, his face no longer sullen, but
still unhappy. “It’s a hell of a situation just the same.”
“That’s putting it mildly.” He got up and put out his hand. “Cal, unless
you’re dead set on leaving us, I’ll expect to see you at the radiation
laboratory tomorrow. Another thing-I don’t often recommend this, but
it might do you good to get drunk tonight.”
King had signed to Shard to remain after the young man left. Once
the door was closed he turned back to the psychiatrist. “There goes
another one-and one of the best. Doctor, what am I going to do?”
Silard pulled at his cheek. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “The hell of it
is, Harper’s absolutely right. It does increase the strain on them to
know that they are being watched... and yet they have to be watched.
Your psychiatric staff isn’t doing too well, either. It makes us nervous
to be around the Big Bomb... the more so because we don’t
understand it. And it’s a strain on us to be hated and despised as we
are. Scientific detachment is difficult under such conditions; I’m
getting jumpy myself.”
  King ceased pacing the floor and faced the doctor. “But there must
  be some solution-“ he insisted.
Silard shook his head. “It’s beyond me, Superintendent. I see no
solution from the standpoint of psychology.”
  “No? Hmm-Doctor, who is the top man in your field?” “Eh?”
  “Who is the recognized number-one man in handling this sort of
  thing?”
“Why, that’s hard to say. Naturally, there isn’t any one, leading
psychiatrist in the world; we specialize too much.” I know what you
mean, though. You don’t want the best industrial temperament
psychometrician; you want the” best all-around man for psychoses
non-lesional and situational. That would be Lentz.”
  “Go on.”
“Well- He covers the whole field of environment adjustment. He’s the
man that correlated the theory of optimum tonicity with the relaxation
technique that Korzybski had developed empirically. He actually
worked under, Korzybski himself, when he was a young student-it’s
the only thing he’s vain about.”



                                   37
  “He did? Then he must be pretty old; Koxzybski died in- What year
  did he die?”
“I started to say that you must know his work in symbology-theory of
abstraction and calculus of statement, all that sort of thing-because of
its applications to engineering and mathematical physics.”
  “That Lentz-yes, of course. But I had never thought of him as a
  psychiatrist.”
“No, you wouldn’t, in your field. Nevertheless, we are inclined to
credit him with having done as much to check and reduce the
pandemic neuroses of the Crazy Years as any other man, and more
than any man left alive.”
   “Where is he?”
   “Why, Chicago, I suppose. At the Institute.”
   “Get him here.”
“Get him down here. Get on that visiphone and locate him. Then
have Steinke call the Port of Chicago, and hire a stratocar to stand by
for him. I want to see him as soon as possible-before the day is out.”
King sat up in his chair with the air of a man who is once more master
of himself and the situation. His spirit knew that warming
replenishment that comes only with reaching a decision. The
harassed expression was gone.
Silard looked dumbfounded. “But, superintendent,” he expostulated,
“you can’t ring for Doctor Lentz as if he were a junior clerk. He’s-he’s
Lentz.”
“Certainly-that’s why I want him. But I’m not a neurotic clubwoman
looking for sympathy, either. He’ll come. If necessary, turn on the
heat from Washington. Have the White House call him. But get him
here at once. Move!” King strode out of the office.
When Erickson came off watch he inquired around and found that
Harper had left for town. Accordingly, he dispensed with dinner at the
base, shifted into “drinkin’clothes”, and allowed himself to be
dispatched via tube to Paradise. Paradise, Arizona, was a hard little
boom town, which owed its existence to the breeder plant. It was
dedicated exclusively to the serious business of detaching the
personnel of the plant from their inordinate salaries. In this worthy
project they received much cooperation from the plant personnel
themselves, each of whom was receiving from twice to ten times as


                                   38
much money each payday as he had ever received in any other job,
and none of whom was certain of living long enough to justify saving
for old’ age. Besides, the company carried a sinking fund in
Manhattan for their dependents; why be stingy?
It was claimed, with some truth, that any entertainment or luxury
obtainable in New York City could be purchased in Paradise. The
local chamber of commerce had appropriated the slogan of Reno,
Nevada, “Biggest Little City in the World.” The Reno boosters
retaliated by claiming that, while a town that close to the atomic
breeder plant undeniably brought thoughts of death and the
hereafter; Hell’s Gates would be a more appropriate name.
Erickson started making the rounds. There were twenty-seven places
licensed to sell liquor in the six blocks of the main street of Paradise.
He expected to find Harper in one of them, and, knowing the man’s
habits and tastes, he expected to find him in the first two three he
tried.
He was not mistaken. He found Harper sitting alone a table in the
rear of deLancey’s Sans Souci Bar. Lancey’s was a favorite of both of
them. There was old-fashioned comfort about its chrome-plated bar
red leather furniture that appealed to them more than the spectacular
fittings of the up-to-the-minute place. DeLancey was conservative; he
stuck to indirect light and soft music; his hostesses were required to
be fully clothed, even in the evening. The fifth of Scotch in front of
Harper was about two thirds full. Erickson shoved three fingers in
front Harper’s face and demanded, “Count!”
  “Three,” announced Harper. “Sit down, Gus.”
“That’s correct,” Erickson agreed, sliding his big frame into a low-
slung chair. “You’ll do-for now. What the outcome?”
“Have a drink. Not,” he went on, “that this Scotch any good. I think
Lance has taken to watering it. I surrendered, horse and foot.”
      “Lance wouldn’t do that-stick to that theory anti you’ll sink in the
sidewalk up to your knees. How come you capitulated? I thought you
planned to beat ‘em about the head and shoulders, at least.” ‘
      I
      “I did,” mourned Harper, “but, cripes, Gus, the chief is right. If a
brain mechanic says you’re punchy, he has got to back him up, and
take you off the watch list. The chief can’t afford to take a chance.”


                                    39
       “Yeah, the chief’s all right, but I can’t learn to love our dear
psychiatrists. Tell you what-let’s find us one, and, see if he can feel
pain. I’ll hold him while you slug ‘im.”
       “Oh, forget it, Gus. Have a drink.”
       “A pious thought-but not Scotch. I’m going to have a martini; we
ought to eat pretty soon.”
       “I’ll have one, too.”
       “Do you good.” Erickson lifted his blond head and bellowed,
“Israfell”
       A large, black person appeared at his elbow. “Mistuh Erickson!
Yes, sub!”
       “Izzy, fetch two martinis. Make mine with Italian.” He turned
back to Harper. “What are you going to do now, Cal?”
       “Radiation laboratory.”
       “Well, that’s not so bad. I’d like to have a go at the matter of
rocket fuels ‘myself. I’ve got some ideas.”
       Harper looked mildly amused. “You mean atomic fuel for
interplanetary flight? That problem’s pretty well exhausted. No, son,
the ionosphere is the ceiling until we think up something better than
rockets. Of course, you could mount a pile in a ship, and figure out
some jury rig to convert some of its output into push, but where does
that get you? You would still have a terrible mass-ratio because of
the shielding and I’m betting you couldn’t convert one percent into
thrust. That’s disregarding the question of getting the company to
lend you a power pile for anything that doesn’t pay dividends.”
       Erickson looked balky. “I don’t concede that you’ve covered all
the alternatives. What have we got? The early rocket boys went right
ahead trying to build better rockets, serene in the belief that, by the
time they could build rockets good enough to fly to the moon, a fuel
would be perfected that would do the trick. And they did build ships
that were good enough-you could take any ship that makes the
Antipodes run, and refit it for the moon-if you had a fuel that was
adequate. But they haven’t got it.
       “And why not? Because we let ‘em down, that’s why. Because
they’re still depending on molecular energy, on chemical reactions,
with atomic power sitting right here in our laps. It’s not their fault-old
D. D. Harriman had Rockets Consolidated underwrite the whole first
issue of Antarctic Pitchblende, and took a big slice of it himself, in the
expectation that we would produce something usable in the way of a
concentrated rocket fuel. Did we do it? Like hell! The company went


                                    40
hog-wild for immediate commercial exploitation, and there’s no
atomic rocket fuel yet.”
       “But you haven’t stated it properly,” Harper objected. “There are
just two forms of atomic power-available, radioactivity and atomic
disintegration. The first is too slow; the energy is there, but you can’t
wait years for it to come out-not in a rocket ship. The second we can
only manage in a large power plant. There you are-stymied.”
       “We haven’t really tried,” Erickson answered. “The power is
there; we ought to give ‘em a decent fuel”
       “What would you call a ‘decent fuel’?”
       Erickson ticked it off. “A small enough critical mass so that all,
or almost all, the energy could be taken up as heat by the reaction
mass-I’d like the reaction mass to be ordinary water. Shielding that
would have to be no more than a lead and cadmium jacket. And the
whole thing controllable to a fine point.”
       Harper laughed. “Ask for Angel’s wings and be done with it.
You couldn’t store such fuel in a rocket; it would~ Set itself off before
it reached the jet chamber.”
       Erickson’s Scandinavian stubbornness was just gathering for
another try at the argument when the waiter arrived with the drinks.
He set them down with a triumphant flourish. “There you are, suh!”
       “Want to roll for them, Izzy?” Harper inquired.
       “Don’ mind if I do.”
       The Negro produced a leather dice cup and Harper rolled. He
selected his combinations with care and managed to get four aces
and jack in three rolls. Israfel took the cup. He rolled in the grand
manner with a backwards twist to his wrist. His score finished at five
kings, and he courteously accepted the price of six drinks. Harper
stirred the engraved cubes with his forefinger.
       “Izzy,” he asked, “are these the same dice I rolled with?”
       “Why, Mistuh Harper!” The black’s expression was pained.
       “Skip it,” Harper conceded. “I should know better than to
gamble with you. I haven’t won a roll from you in six weeks. What did
you start to say, Gus?”
       “I was just going to say that there ought to be a better way to
get energy out of-“ But they were joined again, this time by something
very seductive in an evening gown that appeared to have been
sprayed on her lush figure. She was young, perhaps nineteen or
twenty. “You boys lonely?” she asked as she flowed into a chair.



                                   41
       “Nice of you to ask, but we’re not,” Erickson denied with patient
politeness. He jerked a thumb at a solitary figure seated across the
room. “Go talk to Hannigan; he’s not busy.”
       She followed his gesture with her eyes, and answered with faint
scorn, “Him? He’s no use. He’s been like that for three weeks-hasn’t
spoken to a soul. If you ask me, I’d say that he was cracking up.”
       “That so?” he observed noncommittally. “Here-“ He fished out a
five-dollar bill and handed it to her. “Buy yourself a drink. Maybe we’ll
look you up later.”
       “Thanks, boys.” The money disappeared under her clothing,
and she stood up. “Just ask for Edith.”
       “Hannigan does look bad,” Harper considered, noting the
brooding stare and apathetic attitude, “and he has been awfully
stand-offish lately, for him. Do you suppose we’re obliged to report
him?”
       “Don’t let it worry you,” advised Erickson, “there’s a spotter on
the job now. Look.” Harper followed his companion’s eyes and
recognized Dr. Mott of the psychological staff. He was leaning
against the far end of the bar and nursing a tall glass, which gave him
protective coloration. But his stance was such that his field of vision
included not only Hannigan, but Erickson and Harper as well.
       “Yeah, and he’s studying us as well,” Harper added.’ “Damn it
to hell, why does it make my back hair rise just to lay eyes on one of
them?”
       The question was rhetorical, Erickson ignored it. “Let’s get out
of here,” he suggested, “and have dinner some where else.”

“O.K.”
DeLancey himself waited on them as they left. “Going         so soon,
gentlemen?” he asked, in a voice that implied that their departure
would leave him no reason to stay open. “Beautiful lobster thermidor
tonight. If you do not like it, you need not pay.” He smiled brightly.
“No sea food, Lance,” Harper told him, “not tonight. Tell me-why do
you stick around here when you know that the pile is bound to get
you in the long run? Aren’t you afraid of it?”
  The tavern keeper’s eyebrows shot up. “Afraid of this pile? But it is
  my friend!”
  “Makes you money, eh?”



                                   42
“Oh, I do not mean that.” He leaned toward them confidentially. “Five
years ago I come here to make some money quickly for my family
before my cancer of the stomach, it kills me. At the clinic, with the
wonderful new radiants you gentlemen make with the aid of the Big
Bomb, I am cured-I live again. No, I am not afraid of the pile; it is
my good friend.”
  “Suppose it blows up?”
  “When the good Lord needs me, he will take me.” He crossed
  himself quickly.
As they turned away, Erickson commented in a low voice to Harper.
“There’s your answer, Cal-if all us engineers had his faith, the job
wouldn’t get us down.”
Harper was unconvinced. “I don’t know,” be mused. ‘I don’t think it’s
faith; I think it’s lack of imagination and knowledge.”
Notwithstanding King’s confidence, Lentz did not show up until the
next day. The superintendent was subconsciously a little surprised at
his visitor’s appearance. He had pictured a master psychologist as
wearing flowing hair, an imperial, and having piercing black eyes. But
this man was not overly tall, was heavy in his framework, and fat-
almost gross. He might have been a butcher. Little, piggy, faded-blue
eyes peered merrily out from beneath shaggy blond brows. There
was no hair anywhere else on the enormous skull, and the ape-like
jaw was smooth and pink. He was dressed in mussed pajamas of
unbleached linen. A long cigarette holder jutted permanently from
one corner of a wide mouth, widened still more by a smile which
suggested unmalicious amusement at the worst that life, or men,
could do. He had gusto. King found him remarkably easy to talk to.
At Lentz’ suggestion the Superintendent went first into the history of
atomic power plants, how the fission of the uranium atom by Dr. Otto
Hahn in December, 1938, had opened up the way to atomic power.
The door was opened just a crack; the process to be self
perpetuating and commercially usable required an enormously
greater knowledge than there was available in the entire civilized
world at that time.
In 1938 the amount of separated uranium-235 in the world was not
the mass of the head of a pin. Plutonium was unheard of. Atomic
power was abstruse theory and a single, esoteric laboratory


                                  43
experiment. World War II, the Manhattan Project, and Hiroshima
changed that; by late 1945 prophets were rushing into print with
predictions of atomic power, cheap, almost free atomic power, for
everyone in a year or two.
It did not work out that way. The Manhattan Project had been run with
the single-minded purpose of making weapons; the engineering of
atomic power was still in the future.
The far future, so it seemed. The uranium piles used to make the
atom bomb were literally no good for commercial power; they were
designed to throw away power as a useless byproduct, nor could the
design of a pile, once in operation, be changed. A design-on paper-
for an economic, commercial power pile could be made, but it had
two serious hitches. The first was that such a pile would give off
energy with such fury, if operated at a commercially satisfactory level,
that there was no known way of accepting that energy and putting it
to work.
This problem was solved first. A modification of the Douglas-Martin
power screens, originally designed to turn the radiant energy of the
sun (a natural atomic power pile itself) directly into electrical power,
was used to receive the radiant fury of uranium fission and carry it
away as electrical current.
The second hitch seemed to be no hitch at all. An “enriched” pile-one
in which U-235 or plutonium had been added to natural uranium-was
a quite satisfactory source of commercial power. We knew how to get
U-235 and plutonium; that was the primary accomplishment of the
Manhattan Project.
Or did we know how? Hanford produced plutonium; Oak Ridge
extracted U-235, true-but the Hanford piles used more U-235 than
they produced plutonium and Oak Ridge produced nothing but
merely separated out the 7/10 of one percent of U-235 in natural
uranium and “threw away” the 99%-plus of the energy which was still
locked in the discarded U-238. Commercially ridiculous, economically
fantastic!
But there was another way to breed plutonium, by means of a high-
energy, unmoderated pile of natural uranium somewhat enriched. At
a million electron volts or more U-238 will fission at somewhat lower
energies it turns to plutonium. Such a pile supplies its own “fire” and



                                    44
produces more “fuel” than it uses; it could breed fuel for many other
power piles of the usual moderated sort.
  But an unmoderated power pile is almost by definition an atom
  bomb.
The very name “pile” comes from the pile of graphite bricks and
uranium slugs set up in a squash court at the University of Chicago at
the very beginning of the Manhattan Project. Such a pile, moderated
by graphite or heavy water, cannot explode.
Nobody knew what an unmoderated, high-energy pile might do. It
would breed plutonium in great quantities- but would it explode?
Explode with such violence as to make the Nagasaki bomb seem like
a popgun?
  Nobody knew.
In the meantime the power-hungry technology of the United States
grew still more demanding. The Douglas Martin sunpower screens
met the immediate crisis when oil became too scarce to be wasted as
fuel, but sunpower was limited to about one horsepower per square
yard and was at the mercy of the weather.
  Atomic power was needed-demanded.
Atomic engineers lived through the period in an agony of indecision.
Perhaps a breeder pile could be controlled. Or perhaps if it did go out
of control it would simply blow itself apart and thus extinguish its own
fires. Perhaps it would explode like several atom bombs but with low
efficiency. But it might-it just might-explode its whole mass of many
tons of uranium at once and destroy the human race in the process.
There is an old story, not true, which tells of a scientist who had
made a machine which would instantly destroy the world, so he
believed, if he closed one switch. He wanted to know whether or not
lie was right. So he closed the switch-and never found out.
  The atomic engineers were afraid to close the switch.
“It was Destry’s mechanics of infinitesimals that showed a way out of
the, dilemma,” King went on. “His equations appeared to predict that
such an atomic explosion, once started, would disrupt the molar
mass enclosing it so rapidly that neutron loss through the outer
surface of the fragments would dampen the progression of the atomic



                                   45
explosion to zero before complete explosion could be reached. In an
atom bomb such damping actually occurs.
“For the mass we use in the pile, his equations predicted possible
force of explosion one-seventh of one percent of the force of
complete explosion. That alone, of course, would be
incomprehensibly destructive-enough to wreck this end of the state.
Personally, I’ve never been sure that is all that would happen.”
  “Then why did you accept this job?” inquired Lentz.
King fiddled with items on his desk before replying. “I couldn’t turn it
down, doctor I couldn’t. If I had refused, they would have gotten
someone else-and it was an opportunity that comes to a physicist
once in history.”
Lentz nodded. “And probably they would- have gotten someone not
as competent. I understand, Dr. King-you were compelled by the
‘truth-tropism’ of the scientist. He must go where the data is to be
found, even if it kills him. But about this fellow Destry, I’ve never liked
his mathematics; he postulates too much.”
King looked up in quick surprise, then recalled that this was the man
who had refined and given rigor to the calculus of statement. “That’s
just the hitch,” he agreed. “His work is brilliant, but I’ve never been
sure that his predictions were worth the paper they were written on.
Nor, apparently,” he added bitterly, “do my junior engineers.”
He told the psychiatrist Of the difficulties they had had with
personnel, of how the most carefully selected men would, sooner or
later, crack under the strain. “At first I thought it might be some
degenerating effect from the neutron radiation that leaks out through
the shielding, so we improved the screening and the personal armor.
But it didn’t help. One young fellow who had joined us after the new
screening was installed became violent at dinner one night, and
insisted that a pork chop was about to explode. I hate to think of what
might have happened if he had been on duty at the pile when he blew
up.”
The inauguration of the system of constant psychological observation
had greatly reduced the probability of acute danger resulting from a
watch engineer cracking up, but King was forced to admit that the
system was not a success; there had actually been a marked
increase in psychoneuroses, dating from that time.


                                    46
“And that’s the picture, Dr. Lentz. It gets worse all the time. It’s getting
me now. The strain is telling on me; I can’t sleep, and I don’t think my
judgment is as good as it used to be-I have trouble making up my
mind, of coming to a decision. Do you think you can do anything for
us?”
But Lentz had no immediate relief for his anxiety. “Not so fast,
superintendent,” he countered. “You have given me the background,
but I have no real data as yet. I must look around for a while, smell
out the situation for myself, talk to your engineers, perhaps have a
few drinks with them, and get acquainted. That is possible, is it not?
Then in a few days, maybe, we know where we stand.”
  King had no alternative but to agree.
“And it is well that your young men do not know what I am here for.
Suppose I am your old friend, a visiting physicist, eh?”
“Why, yes-of course. I can see to it that that idea gets around. But
say-“ King was reminded again of something that had bothered him
from the time Silard had first suggested Lentz’ name. “May I ask a
personal question?”
  The merry eyes were undisturbed. “Go ahead.”
“I can’t help but be surprised that one man should attain eminence in
two such widely differing fields as psychology and mathematics. And
right now I’m perfectly convinced of your ability to pass yourself off as
a physicist. I don’t understand it.”
The smile was more amused, without being in the least patronizing,
nor offensive. “Same subject,” he answered.

“Eh? How’s that-“
“Or rather, both mathematical physics and psychology are branches
of the same subject, symbology. You are a specialist; it’ would not
necessarily come to your attention.”
  “I still don’t follow you.”
“No? Man lives in a world of ideas. Any phenomenon is so complex
that he cannot possibly grasp the whole of it. He abstracts certain
characteristics of a given phenomenon as an idea, then represents
that idea as a symbol, be it a word or a mathematical sign. Human
reaction is almost entirely reaction to symbols, and only negligibly to


                                     47
phenomena. As a matter Of fact,” he continued, removing the
cigarette holder from his mouth and settling into his subject, “it can be
demonstrated that the human mind can think only in terms of
symbols.
“When we think, we let symbols operate on other symbols in certain,
set fashions-rules of logic, or rules of mathematics. If the symbols
have been abstracted so that they are structurally similar to the
phenomena they stand for, and if the symbol operations are similar in
structure and order to the operations of phenomena in the ~real~
world, we think sanely. If our logic-mathematics, or our word-
symbols, have been poorly chosen, we think not sanely.
“In mathematical physics you are concerned with making your
symbology fit physical phenomena. In psychiatry I am concerned with
precisely the same thing, except that I am more immediately
concerned with the man who does the thinking than with the
phenomena he is thinking about. But the same subject, always the
dame subject.”
  “We’re not getting anyplace, Gus.” Harper put down his slide rule
  and frowned.
  “Seems like it, Cal,” Erickson grudgingly admitted.
“Damn it, though-there ought to be some reasonable way of tackling
the problem. What do we need? Some form of concentrated,
controllable power for rocket fuel. What have we got? Power galore
through fission. There must be some way to bottle that power, and
serve it out when we need it-and the answer is some place in one of
the radioactive~ series. I know it.” He stared glumly around the
laboratory as if expecting to find the answer written somewhere on
the lead-sheathed walls.
“Don’t be so down in the mouth about it. You’ve got me convinced
there is an answer; let’s figure out how to find it. In the first place the
three natural radioactive series are out, aren’t they?”
  “Yes ... at least we had agreed that all that ground had been fully
  covered before.”
“Okay; we have to assume that previous investigators have done
what their notes show they have done-otherwise we might as well not
believe anything, and start checking on everybody from Archimedes



                                     48
to date. Maybe that is indicated, but Methuselah himself couldn’t
carry out such an assignment. What have we got left?”
  “Artificial radioactives.”
“All right. Let’s set up a list of them, both those that have been made
up to now, and those that might possibly be made in the future. Call
that our group-or rather, field, if you want to be pedantic about
definitions. There are a limited number of operations that can be
performed on each member of the group, and on the members taken
in combination. Set it up.”
Erickson did so, using the curious curlicues of the calculus of
statement. Harper nodded. “All right-expand it.”
Erickson looked up after a few moments, and asked, “Cal, have you
any idea how many terms there are in the expansion?”
  “No. . . hundreds, maybe thousands, I suppose.”
“You’re conservative. It reaches four figures without considering
possible new radioactives. We couldn’t finish such a research in a
century. He chucked his pencil down and looked morose.
Cal Harper looked at him curiously, but with sympathy. “Gus,” he said
gently, “the job isn’t getting you, too, is it?”
  “I don’t think so. Why?”
“I never saw you so willing to give up anything before. Naturally you
and I will never finish any such job, but at the very worst we will have
eliminated a lot of wrong answers for somebody else. Look at Edison-
sixty years of experimenting, twenty hours a day, yet he never found
out the one thing he was most interested in knowing. I guess if he
could take it, we can.”
Erickson pulled out of his funk to some extent. “I suppose so,” he
agreed. “Anyhow, maybe we could work out some techniques for
carrying a lot of experiments simultaneously.”
Harper slapped him on the shoulder. “That’s the ol’ fight. Besides, we
may not need to finish the research, or anything like it, to find a
satisfactory fuel. The way I see it, there are probably a dozen, maybe
a hundred, right answers. We may run across one of them any day.
Anyhow, since you’re willing to give me a hand with it in your off
watch time, I’m game to peck away at it till hell freezes.”



                                   49
Lentz puttered around the plant and the administration center for
several days, until he was known to everyone by sight He made
himself pleasant and asked questions. He was soon regarded as a
harmless nuisance, to be 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 radiation-to-electric-power 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 pile, nor were they subject to the 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 antiradiation helmet shoved back from his
face like some grotesque sunbonnet. “What is it?” he asked. “Oh-it’s
you, Doctor 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 betatron rather than a resonant
accelerator. “Hello.”
  “Gus, this is Doctor 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 set-up, 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.



                                   50
“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 pile, but in a minute,
almost microscopic, mass. If we are successful, we can use the
breeder pile to make a safe, convenient, atomic fuel for rockets-or for
anything else.” He went on to explain their schedule of
experimentation.

“I see,” Lentz observed politely. “What element are you
examining now”
Harper told him. “But it’s not a case of examining one element-we’ve
finished Isotope II of this element 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. He hurried
away to the shield around the target of the betatron, left open by
Erickson. Lentz saw that he had opened the capsule, and was
performing some operation on it with ‘a long pair of tongs in a
gingerly manner, having first lowered his helmet. Then he closed and
clamped the target shield.
  “Okay, Gus?” he called out. “Ready to roll?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Erickson assured him, coming around from
behind the ponderous apparatus, and rejoining them. They crowded
behind a thick metal and concrete shield that cut them off from direct
sight of the set up.
  “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.”
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


                                   51
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 Five has
  turned the trick!”
Erickson looked still more bemused. “Five?” he said stupidly, “-but
that wasn’t Five, that was Isotope IL 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, 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 anytime you feel in the
mood- Can’t he, Gus? This is the answer, Doctor 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 be did
present himself at King’s office, and announced that he was ready to


                                       52
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 plant for more than a limited period, it can’t be
done.”
“Why not? If the figures supplied me are correct, your power output is
less than thirteen percent of the total power used in the country.”
“Yes, that is true, but we also supply another thirteen percent second
hand through the plutonium we breed here-and you haven’t analyzed
the items that make up the balance. A lot of it is domestic power
which householders get from sunscreens located on their roofs.
Another big slice is power for the moving roadways-that’s sunpower
again. The portion we provide here directly or indirectly 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 though we do supply a
certain percentage of the power used in processing. I see your point,
and will go on, concede that transportation, that is to say, distribution
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 our whole industrial system.”
  “The country has lived through panics before, and we got past the
  oil shortage safely.”
“Yes because sunpower and atomic power had to take the place of
oil. You don’t realize what would mean, Doctor. It would be worse
than a war; in 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 pile.” The uranium in the pile
was molten, its temperature bell greater than twenty-four hundred
degrees centigrade. The pile could be dumped into a group of small

                                   53
containers when it was desired to shut it down. The mass into one
container would be too small to maintain progressive atomic
disintegration.
Icing glanced involuntarily at the glass-enclosed relay mounted on his
office wall, by which he, as well as the engineer on duty, could dump
the pile, if need be. “But ~ 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 it.”
“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 plant, there is no solution to your
  problem-none whatsoever!”
  “I owe you a full explanation,” he continued, presently.
“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 you 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,


                                    54
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 entrust
control 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 cannot 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. You engineers have correctly evaluated
the public danger of this thing, and it will, with dreadful certainty, drive
all of you crazy!
  “The only possible solution is to dump the pile-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 adrenalin 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. Adrenalin therapy might stave of
a mental breakdown, but it most assuredly would hasten a physical

                                     55
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 mused. “It fills a basic human heed. 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


                                   56
to the outer office. He commenced to speak at once, turning to Lentz,
who was nearer to him than King.
  “You’re King? Why, Doctor 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 at a corner of
King’s desk. “Superintendent, you are entitle to an explanation as to
why I have broken in on you Ilk this-“
“Glad to have you.” In fact, the routine of formal politeness was an
anodyne to King’s frayed nerves.
“That’s kind of you, but that secretary chap, the one that brought me
in here, would it be too much to as for you to tell him to forget my
name? I know it seem strange-“
“Not at all.” King was mystified, but willing to grab 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 private palaver, Captain.”
King looked from Harrington to Lentz, and back at Harrington. The
astronomer showed momentary indecision, then protested, “I have no
objection at all myself it’s up to Doctor King. As a matter of fact,” he
added,” might be a very good thing if you did sit in on it.”
“I don’t know what it is, Captain,” observed Kin~ “that you want to see
me about, but Doctor Lentz is a ready here in a confidential capacity.”
“Good! Then that’s settled .. I’ll get right down I business. Doctor
King, you know Destry’s mechanics infinitesimals?”
  “Naturally.” Lentz cocked a brow at King, who chose to ignore it.
“Yes, of course. Do you remember - theorem six, an 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.


                                    57
“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, Doctor 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 of mathematical symbols. “Do you see that? Do you
see what that implies?” He peered anxiously at their faces.
King studied it, his lips moving. “Yes. .. . I -believe I do see. ‘Odd... I
never looked at it just that way before- yet I’ve studied those
equations until I’ve dreamed about them.” He turned to Lentz. “Do
you agree, Doctor?”
  Lentz nodded slowly. “I believe so ... Yes, I think I may say so.”
Harrington should have been pleased; he wasn’t. “I had hoped you
could tell me I was wrong,” he said, almost petulantly, “but I’m afraid
there is no further doubt about it. Doctor Destry included an
assumption valid in molar physics, but for which we have absolutely
no assurance in atomic physics. I suppose you realize what this
means to you, Doctor King?”
King’s voice was a dry whisper. “Yes,” he said, “yes it means that if
the Big Bomb out there ever blows up, we must assume that it will all
go up all at once, rather than the way Destry predicted ... and God
help the human race!”
Captain Harrington cleared his throat to break the silence that
followed. “Superintendent,” he said, “I would not have ventured to call
had it been simply a matter of disagreement as to interpretation of
theoretical predictions-“
  “You have something more to go on?”
“Yes, and no. Probably you gentlemen think of the Naval Observatory
as being exclusively preoccupied with ephemeredes and tide tables.


                                     58
In a way you would be right-but we still have some time to devote to
research as long as it doesn’t cut into the appropriation. My special
interest has always been lunar theory.
“I don’t mean lunar ballistics,” he continued, “I mean the much more
interesting problem of its origin and history, the problem the younger
Darwin struggled with, as well as my Illustrious predecessor, Captain
T. J. J. See. I think that it is obvious that any theory of lunar origin
and history must take into account the surface features of the moon-
especially the mountains, the craters, that mark its face so
prominently.”
He paused momentarily, and Superintendent King put in, “Just a
minute, Captain-I may be stupid, or perhaps I missed something, but-
is there a connection between what we were discussing before and
lunar theory?”
“Bear with me for a few moments, Doctor King,” Harrington
apologized; “there is a connection-at least, I’m afraid there is a
connection-but I would rather present my points in their proper order
before making my conclusions.” They granted him an alert silence; he
went on:
“Although we are in the habit of referring to the ‘craters’ of the moon,
we know they are not volcanic craters. Superficially, they follow none
of the rules of terrestrial volcanoes in appearance or distribution, but
when Rutter came out in 952 with his monograph on the dynamics of
vulcanology, he proved rather conclusively that the lunar craters
could not be caused by anything that we know as volcanic action.
“That left the bombardment theory as the simplest hypothesis. It
looks good, on the face of it, and a few minutes spent throwing
pebbles in to a patch of mud will convince anyone that the lunar
craters could have been formed by falling meteors.
“But there are difficulties. If the moon was struck so repeatedly, why
not the earth? It hardly seems necessary to mention that the earth’s
atmosphere would be no protection against masses big enough to
form craters like Endymion, or Plato. And if they fell after the moon
was a dead world while the earth was still young enough to change
its face and erase the marks of bombardment, why did the meteors
avoid so nearly completely the dry basins we call the seas?




                                   59
“I want to cut this short; you’ll find the data and the mathematical
investigations from the data here in my notes. There is one other
major objection to the meteor bombardment theory: the great rays
that spread from
Tycho across almost the entire surface of the moon. It makes the
moon look like a crystal ball that had been struck with a hammer, and
impact from - outside seems evident, but there are difficulties. The
striking mass, our hypothetical meteor, must have been smaller than
the present crater of Tycho, but it must have the mass and speed to
crack an entire planet.”
“Work it out for yourself-you must either postulate a chunk out of the
core of a dwarf star, or speeds such as we have never observed
within the system. It’s conceivable but a far-fetched explanation”
He turned to King. “Doctor, does anything occur to you that might
account for a phenomenon like Tycho?”
The Superintendent grasped the arms of his chair, then glanced at
his palms. He fumbled for a handkerchief, and wiped them. “Go
ahead,” he said, almost inaudibly.
“Very well then-“ Harrington drew out of his briefcase a large
photograph of the moon-a beautiful full-moon portrait made at Lick. “I
want you to imagine the moon as she might have been sometime in
the past. The dark areas we call the ‘Seas’ are actual oceans. It has
an atmosphere, perhaps a heavier gas than oxygen and nitrogen, but
an active gas, capable of supporting some conceivable form of life.
“For this is an inhabited planet, inhabited by intelligent beings, beings
capable of discovering atomic power and exploiting it!”
He pointed out on the photograph, near the southern limb, the lime-
white circle of Tycho, with its shining, incredible, thousand-mile-long
rays spreading, thrusting, jutting out from it. “Here ... here at Tycho
was located their main atomic plant.” He moved his finger to a point
near the equator, and somewhat east of meridian-the point where
three great dark areas merged, Mare Nubium, Mare Imbriwn,
Oceanus Procellarum-and picked out two bright splotches
surrounded also by rays, but shorter, less distinct, and wavy. “And
here at Copernicus and at Kepler, on islands at the middle of a great
ocean, were secondary power stations.”



                                   60
He paused, and interpolated soberly, “Perhaps they knew the danger
they ran, but wanted power so badly that they were willing to gamble
the life of their race. Perhaps they were ignorant of the ruinous
possibilities of their little machines, or perhaps their mathematicians
assured them that it could not happen.
“But we will never know ... no one can ever know. For it blew up, and
killed them-and it killed their planet.
“It whisked off the gassy envelope and blew it into outer space. It may
even have set up a chain reaction, in that atmosphere. It blasted
great chunks of the planet’s crust Perhaps some of that escaped
completely, too, but all that did not reach the speed of escape fell
back down in time and splashed great ring-shaped craters in the
land.
“The oceans cushioned the shock; only the more massive fragments
formed craters through the water. Perhaps some life still remained in
those ocean depths. If so, it was doomed to die-for the water,
unprotected by atmospheric pressure, could not remain liquid and
must inevitably escape lit time to outer space. Its life blood drained
away. The planet was dead-dead by suicide!
He met the grave eyes of his two silent listeners with an expression
almost of appeal. “Gentlemen-this is only a theory I realize ... only a
theory, a dream, a nightmare- But it has kept me awake so many
nights that I had to come tell you about it, and see if you saw it the
same way I do.
As for the mechanics of it, it’s all in there, in my notes. You can check
it-and I pray that you find some error! But it is the only lunar theory I
have examined which included all of the known data, and accounted
for all of them.”
He appeared to have finished; Lentz spoke up. “Suppose, Captain,
suppose we check your mathematics and find no flaw-what then?”
  Harrington flung out his hands. “That’s what I came here to find
  out!”
Although Lentz had asked the question, Harrington directed the
appeal to King. The superintendent looked up; his eyes met the
astronomer’s, wavered, and dropped again. “There’s nothing to be
done,” he said dully, “nothing at all.”



                                   61
Harrington stared at him in open amazement. “But good God, man!”
he burst out. “Don’t you see it? That pile has got to be disassembled
at once!”
“Take it easy, Captain.” Lentz’s calm voice was a spray of cold water.
“And don’t be too harsh on poor King, this worries him even more
than it does you. What he means is this; we’re not faced with a
problem in physics, but with a political and economic situation. Let’s
put it this way: King can no more dump his plant than a peasant with
a vineyard on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius can abandon his
holdings and pauperize his family simply because there will be an
eruption someday.
“King doesn’t own that plant out there; he’s only the custodian. If he
dumps it against the wishes of the legal owners, they’ll simply oust
him and put in someone more amenable. No, we have to convince
the owners.”
  “The President could make them do it,” suggested Harrington. “I
  could get to the President-“
“No doubt you could, through your department. And you might even
convince him. But could he help much?”
  “Why, of course he could. He’s the President!”
“Wait a minute. You’re Director of the Naval Observatory; suppose
you took a sledge hammer and tried to smash the big telescope-how
far would you get?”
  “Not very far,” Farrington conceded. “We guard the big fellow pretty
  closely.”
“Nor can the President act in an arbitrary manner,” Lentz persisted.
“He’s not an unlimited monarch. If he shuts down this plant without
due process of law, the federal courts will tie him in knots. I admit that
Congress isn’t helpless, since the Atomic Energy Commission takes
orders from it, but-would you like to try to give a congressional
committee a course in the mechanics of infinitesimals?”
Harrington readily stipulated the point. “But there is another way,” he
pointed out. “Congress is responsive to public opinion. What we need
to do is to convince the public that the pile is a menace to everybody.
That could be done without ever trying to explain things in terms of
higher mathematics.”


                                    62
“Certainly it could,” Lentz agreed. “You could go on the air with it and
scare everybody half to death. You could create the damnedest panic
this slightly slug-nutty country has ever seen. No, thank you. I, for
one, would rather have us all take the chance of being quietly killed
than bring on a mass psychosis that would destroy the culture we are
building up. I think one taste of the Crazy Years is enough.”
  “Well, then, what do you suggest?”
Lentz considered shortly, then answered, “All I see is a forlorn hope.
We’ve got to work on the Board of Directors and try to beat some
sense in their heads.”
King, who had been following the discussion with attention in spite of
his tired despondency, interjected a remark. “How would you go
about that?”
“I don’t know,” Lentz admitted. “It will take some thinking. But it
seems the most fruitful line of approach. If it doesn’t work, we can
always fall back on Harrington’s notion of publicity-I don’t insist that
the world commit suicide to satisfy my criteria of evaluation.”
Harrington glanced at his wrist watch-a bulky affair-and whistled.
“Good heavens,” he exclaimed, “I forgot the time! I’m supposed
officially to be at the Flag staff Observatory.”
King had automatically noted the time shown by the Captain’s watch
as it was displayed. “But it can’t be that late,” he had objected.
Harrington looked puzzled, then laughed.
“It isn’t-not by two hours. We are in zone plus-seven; this shows zone
plus-five-it’s radio-synchronized with the master clock at
Washington.”
  “Did you say radio-synchronized?”
“Yes. Clever, isn’t it?” He held it out for inspection. “I call it a
telechronometer; it’s the only one of its sort to date. My nephew
designed it for me. He’s a bright one, that boy. He’ll go far. That is”-
his face clouded, as if the little interlude had only served to
emphasize the tragedy that hung over them-“if any of us live that
long!”
A signal light glowed at King’s desk, and Steinke’s face showed on
the communicator screen. King answered him, then said, “Your car is
ready, Doctor Lentz.”


                                    63
  “Let Captain Harrington have it.”
  “Then you’re not going back to Chicago?”
  “No. The situation has changed. If you want me, I’m stringing
    along.”
The following Friday Steinike ushered Lentz into King’s office. King
looked almost happy as he shook hands. “When did you ground,
Doctor? I didn’t expect you back for another hour, or so.”
  “Just now. I hired a cab instead of waiting for.. the shuttle.”
  “Any luck?” King demanded.
“None. The same answer they gave you: ‘The Company is assured
by independent experts that Destry’s mechanics is valid, and sees no
reason to encourage an hysterical attitude among its employees.”
King tapped on his desk top, his eyes unfocused. Then, hitching
himself around to face Lentz directly, he said, “Do you suppose the
Chairman is right?”
  “How?”
  “Could the three of us, you, me, and Harrington, have gone off the
     deep end, slipped mentally?”
  “No.”
  “You’re sure?”
“Certain. I looked up some independent experts of my own, not
retained by the Company, and had them check Harrington’s work. It
checks.” Lentz purposely neglected to mention that he had done so
partly because he was none too sure of King’s present mental
stability.
King sat up briskly, reached out and stabbed a push button. “I am
going to make one more try,” he explained, “to see if I can’t throw a
scare into Dixon’s thick head. Steinke,” he said to the communicator,
“get me Mr. Dixon on the screen.”
  “Yes, sir.”
In about two minutes the visiphone screen came to life and showed
the features of Chairman Dixon. He was transmitting, not from his
office, but from the boardroom of the power syndicate in Jersey City.
“Yes?” he said.
  “What is it, Superintendent?” His manner was somehow both
  querulous and affable.



                                  64
“Mr. Dixon,” King began, “I’ve called to try to impress on you the
seriousness of the Company’s action. I stake my scientific reputation
that Harrington has proved completely-“
  “Oh, that? Mr. King, I thought you understood that that was a
  closed matter.”

“But Mr. Dixon-“
“Superintendent, please! If there was any possible legitimate cause to
fear do you think I would hesitate? I have children you know, and
grandchildren.”

“That is just why-“
“We try to conduct the affairs of the Company with reasonable
wisdom, and in the public interest. But we have other responsibilities,
too. There are hundreds of thousands of little stockholders who
expect us to show a reasonable return on their investment. You must
not expect us to jettison a billion-dollar corporation just because
you’ve taken up astrology. Moon theory!” He sniffed.
  “Very well, Mister Chairman.” King’s tone was stiff.
“Don’t, take it that way, Mr. King. I’m glad you called, the Board has
just adjourned a special meeting. They have decided to accept you
for retirement-with full pay, of course.”
    “I did not apply for retirement!”
    “I know, Mr. King, but the Board feels that-“
    “I understand. Goodbye!”
    “Mr. King-“
“Goodbye!” He switched him off, and turned to Lentz. “’-with full pay,’”
he quoted, “which I can enjoy in any way that I like for the rest of my
life just as happy as a man in the death house!”
“Exactly,” Lentz agreed. “Well, we’ve tried our way. I suppose we
should call up Harrington now and let him try the political and
publicity method.”
  “I suppose so,” King seconded absent-mindedly. “Will you be
  leaving for Chicago now?”
“No . . .” said Lentz. “No.... I think I will catch the shuttle for Los
Angeles and take the evening rocket for the Antipodes.”


                                      65
King looked surprised, but said nothing. Lentz answered the
unspoken comment. “Perhaps some of us on the other side of the
earth will survive. I’ve done all that I can here. I would rather be a live
sheepherder in Australia than a dead psychiatrist in Chicago.”
King nodded vigorously. “That shows horse sense. For two cents, I’d
dump the pile now, and go with you.”
“Not horse sense, my friend-a horse will run back into a burning barn,
which is exactly what I plan not to do. Why don’t you do it and come
along. If you did, it would help Harrington to scare ‘em to death.”
    “I believe I will!”
    Steinke’s face appeared again on the screen. “Harper and
       Erickson are here, Chief.”
    “I’m busy.”
    “They are pretty urgent about seeing you.”
    “Oh-all right,” King said in a tired voice, “show them in. It doesn’t
       matter.”
They breezed in, Harper in the van. He commenced talking at once,
oblivious to the superintendent’s morose preoccupation. “We’ve got
it, Chief, we’ve got it! And it all checks out to the umpteenth decimal!”
  “You’ve got what? Speak English.”
Harper grinned. He was enjoying his moment of triumph, and was
stretching it out to savor it. “Chief, do you remember a few weeks
back when I asked for an additional allotment-a special one without
specifying how I was going to spend it?”
  “Yes. Come on-get to the point.”
  “You kicked at first, but finally granted it. Remember?
Well, we’ve got something to show for it, all tied up in pink ribbon. It’s
the greatest advance in radioactivity since Hahn split the nucleus.
Atomic fuel, Chief, atomic fuel, safe, concentrated, and controllable.
Suitable for rockets, for power plants, for any damn thing you care to
use it for.”
  King showed alert interest for the first time. “You mean a power
  source that doesn’t require a pile?”
“Oh, no, I didn’t say that. You use the breeder pile to make the fuel,
then you use the fuel anywhere and anyhow you like, with something
like ninety-two percent recovery of energy. But you could junk the
power sequence, if you wanted to.”


                                    66
King’s first wild hope of a way out of his dilemma was dashed; he
subsided. “Go ahead. Tell me about it.”
“Well-it’s a matter of artificial radioactives. Just before I asked for that
special research allotment, Erickson and I-Doctor Lentz had a finger
in it too,” he acknowledged with an appreciative nod to the
psychiatrist, “-found two isotopes that seemed to be mutually
antagonistic. That is, when we goosed ‘em in the presence of each
other they gave up their latent energy all at once- blew all to hell. The
important point is we were using just a gnat’s whisker of mass of
each-the reaction didn’t require a big mass to maintain it.”

“I don’t see,” objected King, “how that could-“
“Neither do we, quite-but it works. We’ve kept it quiet until we were
sure. We checked on what we had, and we found a dozen other
fuels. Probably we’ll be able to tailor-make fuels for any desired
purpose. But here it is.” He handed him a bound sheaf of typewritten
notes which he had been carrying under his arm. “That’s your copy.
Look it over.”
King started to do so. Lentz joined him, after a look that was a silent
request for permission, which Erickson had answered with his only
verbal contribution, “Sure, doc.”
As King read, the troubled feelings of an acutely harassed executive
left him. His dominant personality took charge, that of the scientist.
He enjoyed the controlled and cerebral ecstasy of the impersonal
seeker for the elusive truth. The emotions felt in his throbbing
thalamus were permitted only to form a sensuous obbligato for the
cold flame of cortical activity. For the time being, he was sane, more
nearly completely sane than most men ever achieve at any time.
For a long period there was only an occasional grunt, the clatter of
turned pages, a nod of approval. At last he put it down.
  “It’s the stuff,” he said. “You’ve done it, boys. It’s great; I’m proud of
  you.”
Erickson glowed a bright pink, and swallowed. Harper’s small, tense
figure gave the ghost of a wriggle, reminiscent of a wire-haired terrier
receiving approval. “That’s fine, Chief. We’d rather hear you say that
than get the Nobel Prize.”



                                     67
“I think you’ll probably get it. However”-the proud light in his eyes died
down-“I’m not going to take any action in this matter.”
  “Why not, Chief?” His tone was bewildered.
“I’m being retired. My successor will take over in the near future; this
is too big a matter to start just before a change in administration.”
  “You being retired! What the bell?”
  “About the same reason I took you off watch-at least, the directors
  think so.”
“But that’s nonsense! You were right to take me off the watch-list; I
was getting jumpy. But you’re another matter-we all depend on you.”
“Thanks, Cal-but that’s how it is; there’s nothing to be done about it.”
He turned to Lentz. “I think this is the last ironical touch needed to
make the whole thing pure farce,” he observed bitterly. “This thing is
big, bigger than we can guess at this stage-and I have to give it a
miss.”
“Well,” Harper burst out, “I can think of something to do about it!” He
strode over to King’s desk and snatched up the manuscript. “Either
you superintend the exploitation, or the Company can damn well get
along without our discovery!” Erickson concurred belligerently.
“Wait a minute.” Lentz had the floor. “Doctor Harper... have you
already achieved a practical rocket fuel?”
  “I said so. We’ve got it on hand now.”
“An escape-speed fuel?” They understood his verbal shorthand a fuel
that would lift a rocket free of the earth’s gravitational pull.
“Sure. Why, you could take any of the Clipper rockets, refit them a
trifle, and have breakfast on the moon.”
“Very well. Bear with me. . . .” He obtained a sheet of paper from
King, and commenced to write. They watched in mystified
impatience. He continued briskly for some minutes, hesitating only
momentarily. Presently he stopped, and spun the paper over to King.
“Solve it!” he demanded.
King studied the paper. Lentz had assigned symbols to a great
number of factors, some social, some psychological, some physical,
some economic. He had thrown them together into a structural
relationship, using the symbols of calculus of statement. King


                                    68
understood the paramathematical operations indicated by the
symbols, but he was not as used to them as he was to the symbols
and operations of mathematical physics. He plowed through the
equations, moving his lips slightly in subconscious vocalization.
He accepted a pencil from Lentz, and completed the solution. It
required several more lines, a few more equations, before they
cancelled out, or rearranged themselves, into a definite answer.
  He stared at this answer while puzzlement gave way to dawning
  comprehension and delight.
  He looked up. “Erickson! Harper!” he rapped out.
“We will take your new fuel, refit a large rocket, install the breeder pile
in it, and throw it into an orbit around the earth, far out in. space.
There we will use it to make more fuel, safe fuel, for use on earth,
with the danger from the Big Bomb itself limited to the operators
actually on watch!”
There was no applause. It was not that sort of an idea; their minds
were still struggling with the complex implications.
“But Chief,” Harper finally managed, “how about your retirement?
We’re still not going to stand for it.”
“Don’t worry,” King assured him. “It’s all in there, implicit in those
equations, you two, me, Lentz, the Board of Directors and just what
we all have to do about it to accomplish it.”
       “All except the matter of time,” Lentz cautioned.
       “You’ll note that elapsed time appears in your answer as an
       undetermined unknown.”
       “Yes.. . yes, of course. That’s the chance we have to take. Let’s
       get busy!”
Chairman Dixon called the Board of Directors to order. “This being a
special meeting we’ll dispense with minutes and reports,” he
announced. “As set forth in the call we have agreed to give the
retiring superintendent two hours of our time.”
  “Mr. Chairman-“
  “Yes, Mr. Strong?”
  “I thought we had settled that matter.”
“We have, Mr. Strong, but in view of Superintendent King’s long and
distinguished service, if he asks for a hearing, we are honor bound to
grant it. You have the floor, Doctor King.”

                                    69
  King got up, and stated briefly, “Doctor Lentz will speak for me.” He
  sat down.
Lentz had to wait for coughing, throat-clearing, and scraping of chairs
to subside. It was evident that the Board resented the outsider.
Lentz ran quickly over the main points in the argument which
contended that the bomb presented an intolerable danger anywhere
on the face of the earth. He moved on at once to the alternative
proposal that the bomb should be located in a rocket ship, an artificial
moonlet flying in a free orbit around the earth at a convenient
distance- say fifteen thousand miles-while secondary power stations
on earth burned a safe fuel manufactured by the bomb.
He announced the discovery the Harper-Erickson technique and
dwelt on what it meant to them commercially. Each point was
presented as persuasively as possible, with the full power of his
engaging personality. Then he paused and waited for them to blow
off steam.
They did. “Visionary-“ “Unproved-“ “No essential change in the
situation-“ The substance of it was that they were very happy to hear
of the new fuel, but not particularly impressed by it. Perhaps in
another twenty years, after it had been thoroughly tested and proved
commercially, they might consider setting up another breeder pile
outside the atmosphere. In the meantime there was no hurry. Only
one director supported the scheme and he was quite evidently
unpopular.
Lentz patiently and politely dealt with their objections. He emphasized
the increasing incidence of occupational psychoneurosis among the
engineers and the grave danger to everyone near the bomb even
under the orthodox theory. He reminded them of their insurance and
indemnity bond costs, and of the “squeeze” they paid state
politicians. Then he changed his tone and let them have it directly
and brutally. “Gentlemen,” he said, “we believe that we are fighting
for our lives ... our own lives, our families, and every life on the globe,
if you refuse this compromise, we will fight as fiercely and with as
little regard for fair play as any cornered animal.” With that he made.
His first move in attack. It was quite simple. He offered for their
inspection the outline of a propaganda campaign on a national scale,
such as any major advertising firm could carry out as a matter of
routine. It was complete to the last detail, television broadcasts, spot


                                    70
plugs, newspaper and magazine coverage with planted editorials,
dummy “citizens’ committees,” and-most important-a supporting
whispering campaign and a letters-to-Congress organization. Every
businessman there knew from experience how such things worked.
But its object was to stir up fear of the Arizona pile and to direct that
fear, not into panic, but into rage against the Board of Directors
personally, and into a demand that the Atomic Energy Commission
take action to have the Big Bomb removed to outer space.
  “This is blackmail! We’ll stop you!”
“I think not,” Lentz replied gently. “You may be able to keep us out of
some of the newspapers, but-you can’t stop the rest of it. You can’t
even keep us off the air-ask the Federal Communications
Commission.” It was true. Harrington had handled the political end
and had performed his assignment well; the President was
convinced.
Tempers were snapping on all sides; Dixon had to pound for order.
“Doctor Lentz,” he said, his own temper under taut control, “you plan
to make every-one of us appear a black-hearted scoundrel with no
oilier thought than personal profit, even at the expense of the lives of
others. You know that is not true; this is a simple difference of opinion
as to what is wise.”
“I did not say it was true,” Lentz admitted blandly, “but you will admit
that I can convince the public that you are deliberate villains. As to it
being a difference of opinion ... you are none of you atomic
physicists; you are not entitled to hold opinions in this matter.
“As a matter of fact,” he went on callously, “the only doubt in my mind
is whether or not an enraged public will destroy your precious plant
before Congress has time to exercise eminent domain, and take it
away from you!”
Before they had time to think up arguments in answer and ways of
circumventing him, before their hot indignation had cooled and set as
stubborn resistance, he offered his gambit. He produced another lay-
out for a propaganda campaign-an entirely different sort.
This time the Board of Directors was to be built up, not torn down. All
of the same techniques were to be used; behind-the-scenes feature
articles with plenty of human interest would describe the functions of
the Company, describe it as a great public trust, administered by


                                    71
patriotic, unselfish statesmen of the business world. At the proper
point in the campaign, the Harper-Erickson fuel would be announced,
not as a semi-accidental result of the initiative of two employees, but
as the long-expected end product of years of systematic research
conducted under an axed policy of the Board of Directors, a policy
growing naturally out of their humane determination to remove
forever the menace from even the sparsely settled Arizona desert.
  No mention was to be made of the danger of complete, planet-
  embracing catastrophe.
Lentz discussed it. He dwelt on the appreciation that would be due
them from a grateful world. He invited them to make a noble sacrifice,
and, with subtle misdirection, tempted them to think of themselves as
heroes. He deliberately played on one of the most deep-rooted of
simian instincts, the desire for approval from one’s kind, deserved or
not.
All the while he was playing for time, as he directed his attention from
one hard case, one resistant mind, to another; He soothed and he
tickled and he played on personal foibles. For the benefit of the
timorous and the devoted family men, he again painted a picture of
the suffering, death, and destruction that might result from their well-
meant reliance on the unproved and highly questionable predictions
of Destry’s mathematics. Then he described in glowing detail a
picture of a world free from worry but granted almost unlimited power,
safe power from an invention which was theirs for this one small
concession. It worked. They did not reverse themselves all at once,
but a committee was appointed to investigate the feasibility of the
proposed spaceship power plant. By sheer brass Lentz suggested
names for the committee and Dixon confirmed his nominations, not
because he wished to, particularly, but because he was caught off
guard and could not think of a reason to refuse without affronting
those colleagues. Lentz was careful to include his one supporter in
the list.
The impending retirement of King was not mentioned by either side.
Privately, Lentz felt sure that it never would be mentioned.
It worked, but there was left much to do. For the first few days, after
the victory in committee, King felt much elated by the prospect of an
early release from the soul killing worry. He was buoyed up by
pleasant demands of manifold new administrative duties. Harper and


                                   72
Erickson were detached to Goddard Field to collaborate with the
rocket engineers there in design of firing chambers, nozzles, fuel
stowage, fuel metering, and the like. A schedule had to be worked
out with the business office to permit as much use of the pile as
possible to be diverted to making atomic fuel, and a giant combustion
chamber for atomic fuel had to be designed and ordered to replace
the pile itself during the interim between the time it was shut down on
earth and the later time when sufficient local, smaller plants could be
built to carry the commercial load. He was busy.
When the first activity had died down and they were settled in a new
routine, pending the shutting down of the plant and its removal to
outer space, King suffered an emotional reaction. There was, by
then, nothing to do but wait, and tend the pile, until the crew at
Goddard Field smoothed out the bugs and produced a space-worthy
rocket ship.
At Goddard they ran into difficulties, overcame them, and came
across more difficulties. They had never used such high reaction
velocities; it took many trials to find a nozzle shape that would give
reasonably high efficiency. When that was solved, and success
seemed in sight, the jets burned out on a time-trial ground test. They
were stalemated for weeks over that hitch.
There was another problem quite separate from the rocket problem:
what to do with the power generated by the breeder pile when
relocated in a satellite rocket? It was solved drastically by planning to
place the pile proper outside the satellite, unshielded, and let it waste
its radiant energy. It would be a tiny artificial star, shining in the
vacuum of space. In the meantime research would go on for a means
to harness it again and beam the power back to Earth. But only its
power would be wasted; plutonium and the never atomic fuels would
be recovered and rocketed back to Earth.
Back at the power plant Superintendent King could do nothing but
chew his nails and wait He had not even the release of running over
to Goddard Field to watch the progress of the research, for, urgently
as he desired to, he felt an even stronger, an overpowering
compulsion to watch over the pile more lest it heartbreakingly blow up
at the last minute.




                                   73
He took to hanging around the control room. He had to stop that; his
unease communicated itself to his watch engineers; two of them
cracked up in a single day-one of them on watch.
He must face the fact-there had been a grave upswing in
psychoneurosis among his engineers since the period of watchful
waiting had commenced. At first, they had tried to keep the essential
facts of the plan a close secret, but it had leaked out, perhaps
through some member of the investigating committee. He admitted to
himself now that it had been a mistake ever to try to keep it secret-
Lentz had advised against it, and the engineers not actually engaged
in the change-over were bound to know that something was up.
He took all of the engineers into confidence at last, under oath of
secrecy that had helped for a week or more, a week in which they
were all given a spiritual lift-by the knowledge, as he had been. Then
it had worn off, the reaction had set in, and the psychological
observers had started disqualifying engineers for duty almost daily.
They were even reporting each other as mentally unstable with great
frequency; he might even be faced with a shortage of psychiatrists if
that kept up, he thought to himself with bitter amusement. His
engineers were already standing four-hours in every sixteen. If one
more dropped out, he’d put himself on watch. That would be a relief,
to tell himself the truth.
Somehow some of the civilians around about and the non-technical
employees were catching on to the secret.
That mustn’t go on-if it spread any further there might be a
nationwide panic. But how the hell could he stop it? He couldn’t.
He turned over in bed, rearranged his pillow, and tried once more to
get to sleep. No good. His head ached, his eyes were balls of pain,
and his brain was a ceaseless grind of useless, repetitive activity, like
a disc recording stuck in one groove.
God! This was unbearable! He wondered if he were cracking up if he
already had cracked up. This was worse, many times worse, than the
old routine when he had simply acknowledged the danger and tried to
forget it as much as possible. Not that the pile was any different-it
was this five-minutes-to-armistice feeling, this waiting for the curtain
to go up, this race against time with nothing to do to help. He sat up,
switched on his bed lamp, and looked at the clock. Three-thirty. Not
so good. He got up, went into his bathroom, and dissolved a sleeping

                                   74
powder in a glass of whisky and water, half and half. He gulped it
down and went back to bed. Presently he dozed off.
He was running, fleeing down a long corridor. At the end lay safety he
knew that, but he was so utterly exhausted that he doubted his ability
to finish the race. The thing pursuing him was catching up; he forced
his leaden, aching legs into greater activity. The thing behind him
increased its pace, and actually touched him. His heart stopped, then
pounded again. He became aware that he was screaming, shrieking
in mortal terror. But he had to reach the end of that corridor, more
depended on it than just himself. He had to. He had to- He had to!
Then the flash came and he realized that he had lost, realized it with
utter despair and utter, bitter defeat. He had failed; the pile had blown
up.
The flash was his bed lamp coming on automatically; it was seven
o’clock. His pajamas were soaked, chipping with sweat, and his heart
still pounded. Every ragged nerve throughout his body screamed for
release. It would take more than a cold shower to cure this case of
the shakes.
He got to the office before the janitor was out of it. He sat there, doing
nothing, until Lentz walked in on him, two hours later. The psychiatrist
came in just as he was taking two small tablets from a box in his
desk.
“Easy ... easy, old man,” Lentz said in a slow voice. “What have you
there?” He came around and gently took possession of the box.
      “Just a sedative.”
      Lentz studied the inscription on the cover. “How many have you
      had today?”
      “Just two, so far.”
      “You don’t need barbiturates; you need a walk in the fresh air.
      Come take one with me.”
      “You’re a fine one to talk you’re smoking a cigarette that isn’t
      lighted!”
      “Me? Why, so I am! We both need that walk. Come.”
Harper arrived less than ten minutes after they had left the office.
Steinke was not in the outer office. He walked on through and
pounded on the door of King’s private office, then waited with the
man who accompanied him a hard young chap with an easy
confidence to his bearing. Steinke let them in.


                                    75
Harper brushed on past him with a casual greeting, then checked
himself when he saw that there was no one else inside.
  “Where’s the chief?” he demanded.
  “Out. He’ll be back soon.”
  “I’ll wait. Oh-Steinke, this is Greene. Greene Steinke.”
  The two shook hands. “What brings you back, Cal?” Steinke asked,
      turning back to Harper.
  ‘Well.. . I guess it’s all right to tell you-“
The communicator screen flashed into sudden activity, and cut him
short. A face filled most of the frame. It was apparently too close to
the pickup, as it was badly out of focus. “Superintendent!” it yelled in
an agonized voice. “The pile-!”
A shadow flashed across the screen, they heard a dull “Smack!”, and
the face slid out of the screen. As it fell it revealed the control room
behind it. Someone was down on the floor plates, a nameless heap.
Another figure ran across the field of pickup and disappeared.
Harper snapped into action first. “That was Silard!” he shouted, “-in
the control room! Come on, Steinke!” He was already in motion
himself.
Steinke went dead white, but hesitated only an unmeasurable instant.
He pounded sharp on Harper’s heels. Greene followed without
invitation, in a steady run that kept easy pace with them.
They had to wait for a capsule to unload at the tube station. Then all
three of them tried to crowd into a two passenger capsule. It refused
to start and moments were lost before Greene piled out and claimed
another car.
The four minute trip at heavy acceleration seemed an interminable
crawl. Harper was convinced that the system had broken down, when
the familiar click and sigh announced their arrival at the station under
the plant. They jammed each other trying to get out at the same time.
The lift was up; they did not wait for it. That was unwise; they gained
no time by it, and arrived at the control level out of breath.
Nevertheless, they speeded up when they reached the top,
zigzagged frantically around the outer shield, and burst into the
control room.
  The limp figure was still on the floor, and another, also inert, was
  near it.


                                   76
A third figure was bending over the trigger. He looked up as they
came in, and charged them. They hit him together, and all three went
down. It was two to one, but they got in each other’s way. His heavy
armor protected him from the force of their blows. He fought with
senseless, savage violence.
Harper felt a bright, sharp pain; his right arm went limp and useless.
The armored figure was struggling free of them. There was a shout
from somewhere behind them: “Hold still!”
He saw a flash with the corner of one eye, a deafening crack hurried
on top of it, and re-echoed painfully in the restricted space.
The armored figure dropped back to his knees, balanced there, and
then fell heavily on his face. Greene stood in the entrance, a service
pistol balanced in his hand.
Harper got up and went over to the trigger. He tried to reduce the
power-level adjustment, but his right hand wouldn’t carry out his
orders, and his left was too clumsy.
     “Steinke,” he called, “come here! Take over.”
     Steinke hurried up, nodded as he glanced at the readings, and
     set busily to work.
     It was thus that King found them when he bolted in a very few
     minutes later.
     “Harper!” he shouted, while his quick glance was still taking in
     the situation. “What’s happened?”
Harper told him briefly. He nodded. “I saw the tail end of the fight
from my office Steinke!” He seemed to grasp for the first time who
was on the trigger. “He can’t manage the controls-“ He hurried toward
him.
  Steinke looked up at his approach. “Chief!” he called out, “Chief!
  I’ve got my mathematics back!”
King looked bewildered, then nodded vaguely, and let him be. He
turned back to Harper. “How does it happen you’re here?”
  “Me? I’m here to report-we’ve done it, Chief!”
  “Eh?”
“We’ve finished; it’s all done. Erickson stayed behind to complete the
power plant installation on the big ship. I came over in the ship we’ll
use to shuttle between Earth and the big ship, the power plant. Four
minutes from Goddard Field to here in her. That’s the pilot over


                                   77
there.” He pointed to the door, where Greene’s solid form partially hid
Lentz.
  “Wait a minute. You say that everything is ready to install the pile in
  the ship? You’re sure?”
“Positive. The big ship has already flown with our fuel-longer and
faster than she will have to fly to reach station in her orbit; I was in it-
out in space, Chief! We’re all set, six ways from zero.”
King stared at the dumping switch, mounted behind glass at the top
of the instrument board. “There’s fuel enough,” he said softly, as if he
were alone and speaking only to himself, “there’s been fuel enough
for weeks.”
  He walked swiftly over to the switch, smashed the glass with his
  fist, and pulled it.
The room rumbled and shivered as tons of molten, massive metal,
heavier than gold, coursed down channels, struck against baffles,
split into a dozen dozen streams, and plunged to rest in leaden
receivers-to rest, safe and harmless, until it should be reassembled
far out in space.

AFTERWORD
December 1979, exactly 40 years after I researched BLOWUPS
HAPPEN (Dec. ‘39): I had some doubt about republishing this
because of the current ignorant fear of fission power, recently
enhanced by the harmless flap at Three Mile Island. When I wrote
this, there was not a full gram of purified U-235 on this planet, and no
one knew its hazards in detail, most especially the mass and
geometry and speed of assembly necessary to make “blowups
happen.” But we now know from long experience and endless tests
that the “tons” used in this story could never be assembled-no
explosion, melt-down possible, melt-down being the worst that can
happen at a power plant; to cause U-235 to explode is very difficult
and requires very different design. Yes, radiation is hazardous

BUT- RADIATION EXPOSURE
Half a mile from Three-Mile plant
during the flap 83 millirems
At the power plant     1,100 millirems


                                     78
During heart catheterization for
angiogram 45,000 millirems
  • which I underwent 18 months ago. I feel fine.

R.A.H.

FOREWORD
I had always planned to quit the writing business as soon as that
mortgage was paid off. I had never had any literary ambitions, no
training for it, no interest in it- backed into it by accident and stuck
with it to pay off debt, I being always firmly resolved to quit the silly
bus iness once I had my chart squared away.
At a meeting of the Mai~ana Literary Society-an amorphous
disorganization having as its avowed purpose “to permit young
writers to talk out their stories to each other in order to get them off
their minds and thereby save themselves the trouble of writing them
down”-at a gathering of this noble group I was expounding my
determination to retire from writing once my bills were paid-in a few
weeks, during 1940, if the tripe continued to sell.
William A. P. White (“Anthony Boucher”) gave me a sour look. “Do
you know any retired writers?”
  “How could I? All the writers I’ve ever met are in this room.
“Irrelevant. You know retired school teachers, retired naval officers,
retired policemen, retired farmers. Why don’t you know at least one
retired writer?”
  “What are you driving at?”
“Robert, there are no retired writers. There are writers who have
stopped selling. . . but they have not stopped writing.
I pooh-poohed Bill’s remarks-possibly what he said applied to writers
in general. . . but I wasn’t really a writer; I was just a chap who
needed money and happened to discover that pulp writing offered an
easy way to grab some without stealing and without honest work.
(“Honest work”-a euphemism for underpaid bodily exertion, done
standing up or on your knees, often in bad weather or other nasty
circumstances, and frequently involving shovels, picks, hoes,
assembly lines, tractors, and unsympathetic supervisors. It has never
appealed to me.


                                     79
Sitting at a typewriter in a nice warm room, with no boss, cannot
possibly be described as “honest work.”)
BLOWUPS HAPPEN sold and I gave a mortgageburning party. But I
did not quit writing at once (24 Feb 1940) because, while I had the
Old Man of the Sea (that damned mortgage) off my back, there were
still some other items. I needed a new car; the house needed paint
and some repairs; I wanted to make a trip to New York; and it would
not hurt to have a couple of hundred extra in the bank as a cushion-
and I had a dozen-odd stories in file, planned and ready to write.
So I wrote MAGIC, INCORPORATED and started east on the
proceeds, and wrote THEY and SIXTH COLUMN while I was on that
trip. The latter was the only story of mine ever influenced to any
marked degree by John W. Campbell, Jr. He had in file an unsold
story he had written some years earlier. JWC did not show me his
manuscript; instead he told me the story line orally and stated that, if I
would write it, he would buy it.
  He needed a serial; I needed an automobile. I took the brass
  check.
Writing SIXTH COLUMN was a job I sweated over. I had to reslant it
to remove racist aspects of the original story line. And I didn’t really
believe the pseudoscientific rationale of Campbell’s three spectra-so I
worked especially hard to make it sound realistic.
It worked out all right. The check for the serial, plus 35~ in cash,
bought me that new car.. . and the book editions continue to sell and
sell and sell, and have earned more than forty times as much as I
was paid for the serial. So it was a financial success. . but I do not
consider it to be an artistic success.
While I was back east I told Campbell of my plans to quit writing later
that year. He was not pleased as I was then his largest supplier of
copy. I finally said, “John, I am not going to write any more stories
against deadlines. But I do have a few more stories on tap that I
could write. I’ll send you a story from time to time.. . until the day
comes when you bounce one. At that point we’re through. Now that I
know you personally, having a story rejected by you would be too
traumatic.”
So I went back to California and sold him CROOKED HOUSE and
LOGIC OF EMPIRE and UNIVERSE and SOLUTION


                                    80
UNSATISFACTORY and METHUSELAH’S CHILDREN and BY HIS
BOOTSTRAPS and COMMON SENSE and GOLDFISH BOWL and
BEYOND THIS HORIZON and WALDO and THE UNPLEASANT
PROFESSION OF JONATHAN HOAG-which brings us smack up
against World War II.
Campbell did bounce one of the above (and I shan’t say which one)
and I promptly retired-put in a new irrigation system-built a garden
terrace-~resumed serious photography, etc. This went on for about a
month when I found that I was beginning to be vaguely ill: poor
appetite, loss of weight, insomnia, jittery, absentminded-much like the
early symptoms of pulmonary tuberculosis, and I thought, “Damn it,
am I going to have still a third attack?”
Campbell dropped me a note and asked why he hadn’t heard from
me?-I reminded him of our conversation months past: He had
rejected one of my stories and that marked my retirement from an
occupation that I had never planned to pursue permanently.
He wrote back and asked for another look at the story he had
bounced. I sent it to him, he returned it promptly with the
recommendation that I take out this comma, speed up the 1st half of
page umpteen, delete that adjective-fiddle changes that Katie Tarrant
would have done if told to.
I sat down at my typewriter to make the suggested changes.. . and
suddenly realized that I felt good for the first time in weeks.
Bill “Tony Boucher” White had been dead right. Once you get the
monkey on your back there is no cure short of the grave. I can leave
the typewriter alone for weeks, even months, by going to sea. I can
hold off for any necessary time if I am strenuously engaged in some
other full-time,
worthwhile occupation such as a con~ctruction job, a political
campaign, or (damn it!) recovering from illness.
But if I simply loaf for more than two or three days, that monkey starts
niggling at me. Then nothing short of a few thousand words will
soothe my nerves. And as I get older the attacks get worse; it is
beginning to take 300,000 words and up to produce that feeling of
warm satiation. At that I don’t have it in its most virulent form; two of
my colleagues are reliably reported not to have missed their daily fix
in more than forty years.


                                   81
The best that can be said for SOLUTION UNSATISFACTORY is that
the solution is still unsatisfactory and the dangers are greater than
ever. There is little satisfaction in having called the turn forty years
ago; being a real-life Cassandra is not happy-making.

SOLUTION UNSATISFACTORY
In 1903 the Wright brothers flew at Kitty Hawk. In December, 1938, in
Berlin, Dr. Hahn split the uranium atom.
In April, 1943, Dr. Estelle Karst, working under the Federal
Emergency Defense Authority, perfected the Karst-Obre technique
for producing artificial radioactives.
  So American foreign policy had to change.
Had to. Had to. It is very difficult to tuck a bugle call back into a bugle.
Pandora’s Box is a one-way propositiori. You can turn pig into
sausage, but not sausage into pig. Broken eggs stay broken. “All the
King’s horses and all the King’s men can’t put Humpty together
again.”
  I ought to know-I was one of the King’s men.
By rights I should not have been. I was not a professional military
man when World War II broke out, and when Congress passed the
draft law I drew a high number, high enough to keep me out of the
army long enough to die of old age.
Not that very many died of old age that generation! But I was the
newly appointed secretary to a freshman congressman; I had been
his campaign manager and my former job had left me. By profession,
I was a high-school teacher of economics and sociology-school
boards don’t like teachers of social subjects actually to deal with
social problems-and my contract
was not renewed. I jumped at the chance to go to Washington.
My congressman was named Manning. Yes, the Manning, Colonel
Clyde C. Manning, U. S. Army retired-Mr. Commissioner Manning.
What you may not know about him is that he was one of the Army’s
No. 1 experts in chemical warfare before a leaky heart put him on the
shelf. I had picked him, with the help of a group of my political
associates, to run against the two-bit chiseler who was the incumbent
in our district. We needed a strong liberal candidate and Manning
was tailor-made for the job. He had served one term in the grand jury,

                                     82
which cut his political eye teeth, and had stayed active in civic
matters thereafter.
Being a retired army officer was a political advantage in vote-getting
among the more conservative and well-to-do citizens, and his record
was O.K. for the other side of the fence. I’m not primarily concerned
with vote-getting; what I liked about him was that, though he was
liberal, he was tough-minded, which most liberals aren’t. Most liberals
believe that water runs downhill, but, praise God, it’ll never reach the
bottom.
Manning was not like that. He could see a logical necessity and act
on it, no matter how unpleasant it might be.
We were in Manning’s suite in the House Office Building, taking a
little blow from that stormy first session of the Seventy-eighth
Congress and trying to catch up on a mountain of correspondence,
when the War Department called. Manning answered it himself.
I had to overhear, but then I was his secretary. “Yes,” he said,
“speaking. Very well, put him on. Oh
hello, General . . . Fine, thanks. Yourself?” Then there was a long
silence. Presently, Manning said, “But I can’t do that, General, I’ve
got this job to take
care of. . . . What’s that?.. . Yes, who is to do my committee work and
represent my district? . . . I think so.” He glanced at his wrist watch.
“I’ll be right over.” He put down the phone, turned to me, and said,
“Get your hat, John. We are going over to the War Department.”
  “So?” I said, complying.
“Yes,” he said with a worried look, “the Chief of Staff thinks I ought to
go back to duty.” He set off at a brisk walk, with me hanging back to
try to force him not to strain his bum heart. “It’s impossible, of
course.” We grabbed a taxi from the stand in front of the office
building and headed for the Department.
But it was possible, and Manning agreed to it, after the Chief of Staff
presented his case. Manning had to be convinced, for there is no way
on earth for anyone, even the President himself, to order a
congressman to leave his post, even though he happens to be a
member of the military service, too.




                                    83
The Chief of Staff had anticipated the political difficulty and had been
forehanded enough to have already dug up an opposition
congressman with whom to pair Manning’s vote for the duration of
the emergency. This other congressman, the Honorable Joseph T.
Brigham, was a reserve officer who wanted to go to duty himself-or
was willing to; I never found out which. Being from the opposite
political party, his vote in the House of Representatives could be
permanently paired against Manning’s and neither party would lose
by the arrangement.
There was talk of leaving me in Washington to handle the political
details of Manning’s office, but Manning decided against it, judging
that his other secretary could do that, and announced that I must go
along as his adjutant. The Chief of Staff demurred, but Manning was
in a position to insist, and the Chief had to give in.
A chief of staff can get things done in a hurry if he wants to. I was
sworn in as a temporary officer before
we left the building; before the day was out I wa the bank, signing a
note to pay for the sloppy ser uniforms the Army had adopted and to
buy a d uniform with a beautiful shiny belt-a dress uniform which, as it
turned out, I was never to need.
We drove over into Maryland the next day and l”~’ fling took charge
of the Federal nuclear research oratory, known officially by the hush-
hush title of1 Department Special Defense Project No. 347. I di know
a lot about physics and nothing about mo atomic physics, aside from
the stuff you read in Sunday supplements. Later, I picked up a
smatter mostly wrong, I suppose, from associating with heavyweights
with whom the laboratory was stal Colonel Manning had taken an
Army p.g. cours Massachusetts Tech and had received a master of
ence degree for a brilliant thesis on the mathemal theories of atomic
structure. That was why the Army had to have him for this job. But
that had been s years before; atomic theory had turned several c
wheels in the meantime; he admitted to me tha had to bone like the
very devil to try to catch up tc point where he could begin to
understand what highbrow charges were talking about in their rep I
think he overstated the degree of his ignora. there was certainly no
one else in the United St who could have done the job. It required a
man



                                   84
could direct and suggest research in a highly esot field, but who saw
the problem from the standpoii
urgent military necessity Left to themselves the physicists would have
reveled in the intellectual luxury ofan unlimited research expense
account, but, while they undoubtedly would have made major
advances in human knowledge, they might never have developed
anything of military usefulness, or the military possibilities of a
discovery might be missed for years.
It’s like this: It takes a smart dog to hunt birds, it takes a hunter
behind him to keep him from wasting time chasing rabbits. And the
hunter needs to know nearly as much as the dog.
No derogatory reference to the scientists is intended-by no means!
We had all the genius in the field that the United States could
produce, men from Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, M. I. T., Cal Tech,
Berkeley, every radiation laboratory in the country, as well as a
couple of broad-A boys lent to us by the British. And they had every
facility that ingenuity could think up and money could build. The five-
hundred-ton cyclotron which had originally been intended for the
University of California was there, and was already obsolete in the
face of the new gadgets these brains had thought up, asked for, and
been given. Canada supplied us with all the uranium we asked for-
tons of the treacherous stuff-from Great Bear Lake, up near the
Yukon, and the fractional-residues technique of separating uranium
isotope 235 from the commoner isotope 238 had already been
worked out, by the same team from Chicago that had worked up the
earlier expensive mass spectograph method.
Someone in the United States government had realized the terrific
potentialities of uranium 235 quite early and, as far back as the
summer of 1940, had rounded up every atomic research man in the
country and had sworn them to silence. Atomic power, if ever
developed, was planned to be a government monopoly, at least till
the war was over. It might turn out to be the most incredibly powerful
explosive ever dreamed of, and it might be the source of equally
incredible power. In any case, with Hitler talking about secret
weapons and shouting hoarse insults at democracies, the
government planned to keep any new discoveries very close to the
vest.



                                   85
Hitler had lost the advantage of a first crack at the secret of uranium
through not taking precautions. Dr. Hahn, the first man to break open
the uranium atom, was a German. But one of his laboratory
assistants
had fled Germany to escape a pogrom. She came to this country,
and told us about it.
We were searching, there in the laboratory in Maryland, for a way to
use U235 in a controlled explosion. We had a vision of a one-ton
bomb that would be a whole air raid in itself, a single explosion that
would flatten out an entire industrial center. Dr. Ridpath, of
Continental Tech, claimed that he could build such a bomb, but that
he could not guarantee that it would not explode as soon as it was
loaded and as for the force of the explosion-well, he did not believe
his own figures; they ran out to too many ciphers.
The problem was, strangely enough, to find an explosive which would
be weak enough to blow up only one county at a time, and stable
enough to blow up only on request. If we could devise a really
practical rocket fuel at the same time, one capable of driving a war
rocket at a thousand miles an hour, or more, then we would be in a
position to make most anybody say “uncle” to Uncle Sam.
We fiddled around with it all the rest of 1943 and well into 1944. The
war in Europe and the troubles in Asia dragged on. After Italy folded
up, England was able to release enough ships from her
Mediterranean fleet to ease the blockade of the British Isles. With the
help of the planes we could now send her regularly and with the
additional over-age destroyers we let her have, England hung on
somehow, digging in and taking more and more of her essential
defense industries underground. Russia shifted her weight from side
to side as usual, apparently with the policy of preventing either side
from getting a sufficient advantage to bring the war to a successful
conclusion. People were beginning to speak of “permanent war.”
I was killing time in the administrative office, trying to improve my
typing-a lot of Manning’s reports had to be typed by me personally-
when the orderly on duty stepped in and announced Dr. Karst. I
flipped the interoffice communicator.        “Dr. Karst is here, chief. Can
you see her?”
  “Yes,” he answered, through his end. I told the orderly to show her
  in.

                                    86
Estelle Karst was quite a remarkable old girl and, I suppose, the first
woman ever to hold a commission in the Corps of Engineers. She
was an M.D. as well as an Sc.D. and reminded me of the teacher I
had had in fourth grade. I guess that was why I always stood up
instinctively when she came into the room-I was afraid she might look
at me and sniff. It couldn’t have been her rank; we didn’t bother much
with rank.
She was dressed in white coveralls and a shop apron and had simply
thrown a hooded cape over herself to come through the snow. I said,
“Good morning, ma’am,” and led her into Manning’s office.
The Colonel greeted her with the urbanity that had made him such a
success with women’s clubs, seated her, and offered her a cigarette.
  “I’m glad to see you, Major,” he said. “I’ve been intending to drop
  around to your shop.”
I knew what he was getting at; Dr. Karst’s work had been primarily
physiomedical; he wanted her to change the direction of her research
to something more productive in a military sense.
   “Don’t call me ‘major,’ “ she said tartly.
   “Sorry, Doctor-“
“I came on business, and must get right back. And I presume you are
a busy man, too. Colonel Manning, I need some help.”
  “That’s what we are here for.”
“Good. I’ve run into some snags in my research. I think that one of
the men in Dr. Ridpath’s department could help me, but Dr. Ridpath
doesn’t seem disposed to be cooperative.”
“So? Well, I hardly like to go over the head of a departmental chief,
but tell me about it; perhaps we can arrange it. Whom do you want?”
  “I need Dr. Obre.”
“The spectroscopist. Hm-m-m. I can understand Dr. Ridpath’s
reluctance, Dr. Karst, and I’m disposed to agree with him. After all,
the high-explosives research is really our main show around here.”
She bristled and I thought she was going to make him stay in after
school at the very least. “Colonel Manning, do you realize the
importance of artificial radioactives to modern medicine?”




                                   87
“Why, I believe I do. Nevertheless, Doctor, our primary mission is to
perfect a weapon which will serve as a safeguard to the whole
country in time of war-“ She sniffed and went into action. “Weapons-
fiddlesticks! Isn’t there a medical corps in the Army? Isn’t it more
important to know how to heal men than to know how to blow them to
bits? Colonel Manning, you’re not a fit man to have charge of this
project! You’re a. . . you’re a, a warmonger, that’s what you are!”
I felt my ears turning red, but Manning never budged. He could have
raised Cain with her, confined her to her quarters, maybe even have
court-martialed her, but Manning isn’t like that. He told me once that
every time a man is court-martialed, it is a sure sign that some senior
officer hasn’t measured up to his job. “I am sorry you feel that way,
Doctor,” he said mildly, “and I agree that my technical knowledge isn’t
what it might be. And, believe me, I do wish that healing were all we
had to worry about. In any case, I have not refused your request.
Let’s walk over to your laboratory and see what the problem is. Likely
there is some arrangement that can be made which will satisfy
everybody.
He was already up and getting out his greatcoat. Her set mouth
relaxed a trifle and she answered, “Very well. I’m sorry I spoke as I
did.”
“Not at all,” he replied. “These are worrying times. Come along,
John.” I trailed after them, stopping in the outer office to get my own
coat and to stuff my notebook in a pocket.
By the time we had trudged through mushy snow the eighth of a mile
to her lab they were talking about gardening!
Manning acknowledged the sentry’s challenge with a wave of his
hand and we entered the building. He started casually on into the
inner lab, but Karst stopped him. “Armor first, Colonel.”
We had trouble finding overshoes that would fit over Manning’s
boots, which he persisted in wearing, despite the new uniform
regulations, and he wanted to omit the foot protection, but Karst
would not hear of it. She called in a couple of her assistants who
made jury-rigged moccasins out of some soft-lead sheeting. The
helmets were different from those used in the explosives lab, being
fitted with inhalers. “What’s this?” inquired Manning.
  “Radioactive dust guard,” she said. “It’s absolutely essential.”


                                   88
We threaded a lead-lined meander and arrived at the workroom door
which she opened by combination. I blinked at the sudden bright
illumination and noticed the air was filled with little shiny motes.
“Hm-m-m-it is dusty,” agreed Manning. “Isn’t there some way of
controlling that?” His voice sounded muffled from behind the dust
mask.
“The last stage has to be exposed to air,” explained Karst. “The hood
gets most of it. We could control it, but it would mean a quite
expensive new installation.”
“No trouble about that. We’re not on a budget, you know, It must be
very annoying to have to work in a mask like this.”
“It is,” acknowledged Karst. “The kind of gear it would take would
enable us to work without body armor, too. That would be a comfort.”
I suddenly had a picture of the kind of thing these researchers put up
with. I am a fair-sized man, yet I found that armor heavy to carry
around. Estelle Karst was a small woman, yet she was willing to work
maybe fourteen hours, day after day, in an outfit which was about as
comfortable as a diving suit. But she had not complained.
Not all the heroes are in the headlines. These radiation experts not
only ran the chance of cancer and nasty radioaction burns, but the
men stood a chance of damaging their germ plasm and then having
their wives present them with something horrid in the way of
offspring-no chin, for example, and long hairy ears. Nevertheless,
they went right ahead and never seemed to get irritated unless
something held up their work.
Dr. Karst was past the age when she would be likely to be concerned
personally about progeny, but the principle applies.
I wandered around, looking at the unlikely apparatus she used to get
her results, fascinated as always by my failure to recognize much that
reminded me of the physics laboratory I had known when I was an
undergraduate, and being careful not to touch anything. Karst started
explaining to Manning what she was doing and why, but I knew that it
was useless for me to try to follow that technical stuff. If Manning
wanted notes, he would dictate them. My attention was caught by a
big boxlike contraption in one corner of the room. It had a hopperlike
gadget on one side and I could hear a sound from it like the whirring
of a fan with a background of running water. It intrigued me. I moved


                                  89
back to the neighborhood of Dr. Karst and the Colonel and heard her
saying, “The problem amounts to this, Colonel: I am getting a much
more highly radioactive end product than I want, but there is
considerable variation in the half-life of otherwise equivalent samples.
That suggests to me that I am using a mixture of isotopes, but I
haven’t been able to prove it. And frankly, I do not know enough
about that end of the field to be sure of sufficient refinement in my
methods. I need Dr. Obre’s help on that.”
I think those were her words, but I may not be doing her justice, not
being a physicist. I understood the part
about “half-life.” All radioactive materials keep right on radiating until
they turn into something else, which takes theoretically forever. As a
matter of practice their periods, or “lives,” are described in terms of
how long it takes the original radiation to drop to onehalf strength.
That time is called a “half-life” and each radioactive isotope of an
element has its own specific characteristic half-lifetime.
One of the staff-I forget which one-told me once that any form of
matter can be considered as radioactive in some degree; it’s a
question of intensity and period, or half-life.
“I’ll talk to Dr. Ridpath,” Manning answered her, “and see what can be
arranged. In the meantime you might draw up plans for what you
want to reequip your laboratory.”
  “Thank you, Colonel.”
I could see that Manning was about ready to leave, having pacified
her; I was still curious about the big box that gave out the odd noises.
    “May I ask what that is, Doctor?”
    “Oh, that? That’s an air conditioner.”
    “Odd-looking one. I’ve never seen one like it.”
“It’s not to condition the air of this room. It’s to remove the radioactive
dust before the exhaust air goes outdoors. We wash the dust out of
the foul air.”
    “Where does the water go?”
    “Down the drain. Out into the bay eventually, I suppose.
I tried to snap my fingers, which was impossible because of the lead
mittens. “That accounts for it, Colonel!”
  “Accounts for what?”


                                    90
“Accounts for those accusing notes we’ve been getting from the
Bureau of Fisheries. This poisonous dust is being carried out into
Chesapeake Bay and is killing the fish.”
  Manning turned to Karst. “Do you think that possible, Doctor?”
I could see her brows draw together through the window in her
helmet. “I hadn’t thought about it,” she admitted. “I’d have to do some
figuring on the possible concentrations before I could give you a
definite answer. But it is possible-yes. However,” she added
anxiously, “it would be simple enough to divert this drain to a sink
hole of some sort.”
  “Hm-m-m-yes.” He did not say anything for some minutes, simply
     stood there, looking at the box.
  Presently he said, “This dust is pretty lethal?”
  “Quite lethal, Colonel.” There was another long silence.
At last I gathered he had made up his mind about something for he
said decisively, “I am going to see to it that you get Obre’s
assistance, Doctor-“
  “Oh, good!”
“-but I want you to help me in return. I am very much interested in this
research of yours, but I want it carried on with a little broader scope. I
want you to investigate for maxima both in period and intensity as
well as for minima. I want you to drop the strictly utilitarian approach
and make an exhaustive research along lines which we will work out
in greater detail later.”
She started to say something but he cut in ahead of her. “A really
thorough program of research should prove more helpful in the long
run to your original purpose than a more narrow one. And I shall
make it my business to expedite every possible facility for such a
research. I think we may turn up a number of interesting things.”
He left immediately, giving her no time to discuss it. He did not seem
to want to talk on the way back and I held my peace. I think he had
already gotten a glimmering of the bold and drastic strategy this was
to lead
to, but even Manning could not have thought out that early the
inescapable consequences of a few dead fish-otherwise he would
never have ordered the research.



                                    91
No, I don’t really believe that. He would have gone right ahead,
knowing that if he did not do it, someone else would. He would have
accepted the responsibility while bitterly aware of its weight.
1944 wore along with no great excitement on the surface. Karst got
her new laboratory equipment and so much additional help that her
department rapidly became the largest on the grounds. The
explosives research was suspended after a conference between
Manning and Ridpath, of which I heard only the end, but the meat of
it was that there existed not even a remote possibility at that time of
utilizing U235 as an explosive. As a source of power, yes, sometime
in the distant future when there had been more opportunity to deal
with the extremely ticklish problem of controlling the nuclear reaction.
Even then it seemed likely that it would riot be a source of power in
prime movers such as rocket motors or mobiles, but would be used in
vast power plants at least as large as the Boulder Dam installation.
After that Ridpath became a sort of co-chairman of Karst’s
department and the equipment formerly used by the explosives
department was adapted or replaced to carry on research on the
deadly artificial radioactives. Manning arranged a division of labor
and Karst stuck to her original problem of developing techniques for
tailor-making radioactives. I think she was perfectly happy, sticking
with a one-track mind to the problem at hand. I don’t know to this day
whether or not Manning and Ridpath ever saw fit to discuss with her
what they intended to do.
As a matter of fact, I was too busy myself to think much about it. The
general elections were coming up and I was determined that Manning
should have a constituency to return to, when the emergency was
over. He was not much interested,’but agreed to let his name be filed
as a candidate for re-election. I was trying to work up a campaign by
remote control and cursing because I could not be in the field to deal
with the thousand and one emergencies as they arose.
I did the next best thing and had a private line installed to permit the
campaign chairman to reach me easily. I don’t think I violated the
Hatch Act, but I guess I stretched it a little. Anyhow, it turned out all
right; Manning was elected as were several other members of the
citizen-military that year. An attempt was made to smear him by
claiming that he was taking two salaries for one job, but we
squelched that with a pamphlet entitled “For Shame!” which


                                    92
explained that he got one salary for two jobs. That’s the Federal law
in such cases and people are entitled to know it.
It was just before Christmas that Manning first admitted to me how
much the implications of the KarstObre process were preying on his
mind. He called me into his office over some inconsequential matter,
then did not let me go. I saw that he wanted to taik.
  “How much of the K-O dust do we now have on hand?” he asked
  suddenly.
“Just short of ten thousand units,” I replied. “I can look up the exact
figures in half a moment.” A unit would take care of a thousand men,
at normal dispersion. He knew the figure as well as I did, and I knew
he was stalling.
We had shifted almost imperceptibly from research to manufacture,
entirely on Manning’s initiative and authority. Manning had never
made a specific report to the Department about it, unless he had
done so orally to the Chief of Staff.
  “Never mind,” he answered to my suggestion, then added, “Did you
  see those horses?”
  “Yes,” I said briefly.
I did not want to talk about it. I like horses. We hac requisitioned six
broken-down old nags, ready for th bone yard, and had used them
experimentally. W knew now what the dust would do. After they had
died any part of their carcasses would register on a photo graphic
plate and tissue from the apices of their lung1 and from the bronchia
glowed with a light of its own. Manning stood at the window, staring
out at th dreary Maryland winter for a minute or two before re plying,
“John, I wish that radioactivity had never beer discovered. Do you
realize what that devilish stuf amounts to?”
  “Well,” I said, “it’s a weapon, about like poisor gas-maybe more
  efficient.”
“Rats!” he said, and for a moment I thought he wa~ annoyed with me
personally. “That’s about like corn paring a sixteen-inch gun with a
bow and arrow We’ve got here the first weapon the world has eve~
seen against which there is no defense, none whatso ever. It’s death
itself, C.O.D.




                                   93
“Have you seen Ridpath’s report?” he went on. I had not. Ridpath had
taken to delivering his re ports by hand to Manning personally.
“Well,” he said, “ever since we started productioi I’ve had all the talent
we could spare working on th problem of a defense against the dust.
Ridpath telL me and I agree with him that there is no means what
soever to combat the stuff, once it’s used.”
  “How about armor,” I asked, “and protective cloth ing?”
“Sure, sure,” he agreed irritatedly, “provided yoi never take it off to
eat, or to drink or for any purpos whatever, until the radioaction has
ceased, or you ar out of the danger zone. That is all right for laborator
work; I’m talking about war.”
I considered the matter. “I still don’t see what yoi are fretting about,
Colonel. If the stuff is as good as yo~ say it is, you’ve done just
exactly what you set out t odo-develop a weapon which would give
the United States protection against aggression.”
  He swung around. “John, there are times when I think you are
  downright stupid!”
I said nothing. I knew him and I knew how to discount his moods. The
fact that he permitted me to see his feelings is the finest compliment I
have ever had. “Look at it this way,” he went on more patiently; “this
dust, as a weapon, is not just simply sufficient to safeguard the
United States, it amounts to a loaded gun held at the head of every
man, woman, and child on the globe!”
“Well,” I answered, “what of that? It’s our secret, and we’ve got the
upper hand. The United States can put a stop to this war, and any
other war. We can declare a Pax Americana, and enforce it.”
“Hm-m-m-I wish it were that easy. But it won’t remain our secret; you
can count on that. It doesn’t matter how successfully we guard it; all
that anyone needs is the hint given by the dust itself and then it is just
a matter of time until some other nation develops a technique to
produce it. You can’t stop brains from working, John; the reinvention
of the method is a mathematical certainty, once they know what it is
they are looking for. And uranium is a common enough substance,
widely distributed over the globe-don’t forget that!
“It’s like this: Once the secret is out-and it will be out if we ever use
the stuff!-the whole world will be comparable to a room full of men,
each armed with a loaded .45. They can’t get out of the room and

                                     94
each one is dependent on the good will of every other one to stay
alive. All offense and no defense. See what I mean?”
I thought about it, but I still didn’t guess at the difficulties. It seemed
to me that a peace enforced by us was the only way out, with
precautions taken to see that we controlled the sources of uranium. I
had the usual American subconscious conviction that our country
would never use power in sheer aggressior Later, I thought about the
Mexican War and the Spar ish-American War and some of the things
we did i Central America, and I was not so sure- It was a couple of
weeks later, shortly after inauguration day, that Manning told me to
get the Chief of Staff’s office on the telephone. I heard only the tail en
of the conversation. “No, General, I won’t,” Manning was saying. “I
won’t discuss it with you, or the Secr tary, either. This is a matter the
Commander in Chi is going to have to decide in the long run. If he
turns down, it is imperative that no one else ever knoi~ about it.
That’s my considered opinion.. . . What that? . . . I took this job under
the condition that I wa to have a free hand. You’ve got to give me a
little le way this time.. . . Don’t go brass hat on me. I kne~ you when
you were a plebe... . O.K., O.K., sorry... If the Secretary of War won’t
listen to reason, you te him I’ll be in my seat in the House of
Representativc tomorrow, and that I’ll get the favor I want from th
majority leader. . . . All right. Good-bye.”
Washington rang up again about an hour later.] was the Secretary of
War. This time Manning listene more than he talked. Toward the end,
he said, “All want is thirty minutes alone with the President. I nothing
comes of it, no harm has been done. If I convince him, then you will
know all about it. . . . No, Sir.”
I did not mean that you would avoid responsibility. intended to be
helpful. . . . Fine! Thank you, Mr. Se retary.”
  The White House rang up later in the day and set time.
We drove down to the District the next day throug a nasty cold rain
that threatened to turn to sleet. TF usual congestion in Washington
was made worse b the weather; it very nearly caused us to be late in
a:
riving. I could hear Manning swearing under his breath all the way
down Rhode Island Avenue. But we were dropped at the west wing
entrance to the White House with two minutes to spare. Manning was
ushered into the Oval Office almost at once and I was left cooling my

                                    95
heels and trying to get comfortable in civilian clothes. After so many
months of uniform they itched in the wrong places.
  The thirty minutes went by.
The President’s reception secretary went in, and came out very
promptly indeed. He stepped on out into the outer reception room
and I heard something that began with, “I’m sorry, Senator, but-“ He
came back in, made a penciled notation, and passed it out to an
usher.
  Two more hours went by.
Manning appeared at the door at last and the secretary looked
relieved. But he did not come out, saying instead, “Come in, John.
The President wants to take a look at you.”
  I fell over my feet getting up.
Manning said, “Mr. President, this is Captain DeFries.” The President
nodded, and I bowed, unable to say anything. He was standing on
the hearth rug, his fine head turned toward us, and looking just like
his pictures-but it seemed strange for the President of the United
States not to be a tall man.
I had never seen him before, though, of course, I knew something of
his record the two years he had been in the Senate and while he was
Mayor before that.
The President said, “Sit down, DeFries. Care to smoke?” Then to
Manning. “You think he can do it?”
  “I think he’ll have to. It’s Hobson’s choice.”
  “And you are sure of him?”
  “He was my campaign manager.”
  “I see.”
The President said nothing more for a while and God knows I didn’t!-
though I was bursting to know what they were talking about. He
commenced again with,
“Colonel Manning, I intend to follow the procedur you have
suggested, with the changes we discusse But I will be down
tomorrow to see for myself that th dust will do what you say it will.
Can you prepare demonstration?”
  “Yes, Mr. President.”



                                    96
“Very well, we will use Captain DeFries unless think of a better
procedure.” I thought for a momer that they planned to use me for a
guinea pig! But h turned to me and continued, “Captain, I expect to
sen you to England as my representative.”
I gulped. “Yes, Mr. President.” And that is ever word I had to say in
calling on the President of th United States.
After that, Manning had to tell me a lot of things h had on his mind. I
am going to try to relate them ~ carefully as possible, even at the risk
of being dull an obvious and of repeating things that are commo
knowledge.
We had a weapon that could not be stopped. An type of K-O dust
scattered over an area rendered th~ area uninhabitable for a length
of time that depende on the half-life of the radioactivity.
  Period. Full stop.
Once an area was dusted there was nothing th~ could be done about
it until the radioactivity ha fallen off to the point where it was no longer
harmfu The dust could not be cleaned out; it was everywhen There
was no possible way to counteract it-burn i combine it chemically; the
radioactive isotope w~ still there, still radioactive, still deadly. Once
used o a stretch of land, for a predetermined length of tim that piece
of earth would not tolerate life.
It was extremely simple to use. No complicate bomb-~ights were
needed, no care need be taken to h “military objectives.” Take it aloft
in any sort of aircraft, attain a position more or less over the area yo
wish to sterilize, and drop the stuff. Those on the ground in the
contaminated area are dead men, dead in an hour, a day, a week, a
month, depending on the degree of the infection-but dead.
Manning told me that he had once seriously considered, in the middle
of the night, recommending that every single person, including
himself, who knew the Karst-Obre technique be put to death, in the
interests of all civilization. But he had realized the next day that it had
been sheer funk; the technique was certain in time to be rediscovered
by someone else.
Furthermore, it would not do to wait, to refrain from using the grisly
power, until someone else perfected it and used it. The only possible
chance to keep the world from being turned into one huge morgue


                                     97
was for us to use the power first and drastically-get the upper hand
and keep it.
We were not at war, legally, yet we had been in the war up to our
necks with our weight on the side of democracy since 1940. Manning
had proposed to the President that we turn a supply of the dust over
to Great Britain, under conditions we specified, and enable them
thereby to force a peace. But the terms of the peace would be
dictated by the United States-for we were not turning over the secret.
  After that, the Pax Americana.
The United States was having power thrust on it, willy-nilly. We had
to accept it and enforce a worldwide peace, ruthlessly and drastically,
or it would be seized by some other nation. There could not be
coequals in the possession of this weapon. The factor of time
predominated.
I was selected to handle the details in England because Manning
insisted, and the President agreed with him, that every person
technically acquainted with the Karst-Obre process should remain on
the laboratory reservation in what amounted to protective custody-
imprisonment. That included Manning himself.
I could go because I did not have the secret-I coul not even have
acquired it without years of schoolingand what I did not know I could
not tell, even under well, drugs. We were determined to keep the
secret a long as we could to consolidate the Pax; we did nc distrust
our English cousins, but they were Britisher with a first loyalty to the
British Empire. No need to tempt them.
I was picked because I understood the backgroun if not the science,
and because Manning trusted me. don’t know why the President
trusted me, too, hi. then my job was not complicated.
We took off from the new field outside Baltimore o a cold, raw
afternoon which matched my own feeling I had an all-gone feeling in
my stomach, a runny nos and, buttoned inside my clothes, papers
appointin me a special agent of the President of the Unite States.
They were odd papers, papers without prec~ dent; they did not
simply give me the usual diplomati immunity; they made my person
very nearly as sacre as that of the President himself.




                                   98
At Nova Scotia we touched ground to refuel, tF F.B.I. men left us, we
took off again, and the Canadia transfighters took their stations
around us. All the du:
we were sending was in my plane; if the President representative
were shot down, the dust would go 1 the bottom with him.
No need to tell of the crossing. I was airsick and mi erable, in spite of
the steadiness of the new six-engine jobs. I felt like a hangman on
the way to an executio] and wished to God that I were a boy again,
with not] ing more momentous than a debate contest, or a trac meet,
to worry me.
There was some fighting around us as we neare Scotland, I know,
but I could not see it, the cabin beir shuttered. Our pilot-captain
ignored it and brougi his ship down on a totally dark field, using a
beam,
suppose, though I did not know nor care. I would have welcomed a
crash. Then the lights outside went on and I saw that we had come to
rest in an underground hangar.
I stayed in the ship. The Commandant came to see me to his
quarters as his guest. I shook my head. “I stay here,” I said. “Orders.
You are to treat this ship as United States soil, you know,”
  He seemed miffed, but compromised by having dinner served for
  both of us in my ship.
There was a really embarrassing situation the next day. I was
commanded to appear for a Royal audience. But I had my
instructions and I stuck to them. I was sitting on that cargo of dust
until the President told me what to do with it. Late in the day I was
called on by a member of Parliament-nobody admitted out loud that it
was the Prime Minister-and a Mr. Windsor. The M.P. did most of the
talking and I answered his questions. My other guest said very little
and spoke slowly with some difficulty. But I got a very favorable
impression of him. He seemed to be a man who was carrying a load
beyond human strength and carrying it heroically.
There followed the longest period in my life. It was actually only a
little longer than a week, but every minute of it had that split-second
intensity of imminent disaster that comes just before a car crash. The
President was using the time to try to avert the need to use the dust.
He had two face-to-face television conferences with the new Fuehrer.


                                    99
The President spoke German fluently, which should have helped. He
spoke three times to the warring peoples themselves, but it is
doubtful if very many on the Continent were able to listen, the police
regulations there being what they were.
The Ambassador from the Reich was given a special demonstration
of the effect of the dust. He was flown
out over a deserted stretch of Western prairie and ~ lowed to see
what a single dusting would do to a he] of steers. It should have
impressed him and I thu that it did-nobody could ignore a visual
demonstr tion!-but what report he made to his leader we nev knew.
The British Isles were visited repeatedly during the wait by bombing
attacks as heavy as any of the war was safe enough but I heard
about them, and I cou see the effect on the morale of the officers with
who I associated. Not that it frightened them-it ma~ them coldly
angry. The raids were not directed p1 manly at dockyards or
factories, but were ruthless d struction of anything, particularly
villages.
“I don’t see what you chaps are waiting for,” a fig commander
complained to me. “What the Jerri need is a dose of their own
shrecklichkeit, a lesson their own Aryan culture.”
I shook my head. “We’ll have to do it our own way He dropped the
matter, but I knew how he and F brother officers felt. They had a
standing toast, as s cred as the toast to the King: “Remember
Coventry! Our President had stipulated that the R. A. F. w not to
bomb during the period of negotiation, but th bombers were busy
nevertheless. The continent w showered, night after night, with bales
of leaflets, p~ pared by our own propaganda agents. The first of the
called on the people of the Reich to stop a useless w and promised
that the terms of peace would not vindictive. The second rain of
pamphlets showed ph tographs of that herd of steers. The third was a
simf direct warning to get out of cities and to stay out. As Manning put
it, we were calling “Halt!” thr times before firing. I do not think that he
or the Pre dent expected it to work, but we were morally ob gated to
try.
The Britishers had installed for me a televisor, of the Simonds-Yarley
nonintercept type, the sort where the receiver must “trigger” the
transmitter in order for the transmission to take place at all. It made
assurance of privacy in diplomatic communication for the first time in

                                    100
history, and was a real help in the crisis. I had brought along my own
technician, one of the F. B. I.’s new corps of specialists, to handle the
scrambler and the trigger.
  He called to me one afternoon. “Washington signaling.
I climbed tiredly out of the cabin and down to the booth on the hangar
floor, wondering if it were another false alarm.
  It was the President. His lips were white. “Carry out your basic
  instructions, Mr. DeFries.”
  “Yes, Mr. President!”
The details had been worked out in advance and, once I had
accepted a receipt and token payment from the Commandant for the
dust, my duties were finished. But, at our instance, the British had
invited military observers from every independent nation and from the
several provisional governments of occupied nations. The United
States Ambassador designated me as one at the request of Manning.
Our task group was thirteen bombers. One such bomber could have
carried all the dust needed, but it was split up to insure most of it, at
least, reaching its destination. I had fetched forty percent more dust
than Ridpath calculated would be needed for the mission and my last
job was to see to it that every canister actually went on board a plane
of the flight. The extremely small weight of dust used was
emphasized to each of the military observers.
We took off just at dark, climbed to twenty-five thousand feet,
refueled in the air, and climbed again. Our escort was waiting for us,
having refueled thirty minutes before us. The flight split into thirteen
groups, and cut the thin air for middle Europe. The bombers we rode
had been stripped and hiked up to permit the utmost maximum of
speed and altitude.
Elsewhere in England, other flights had taken off shortly before us to
act as a diversion. Their destina
tions were every part of Germany; it was the intentio to create such
confusion in the air above the Reich th2 our few planes actually
engaged in the serious wor might well escape attention entirely, flying
so high i the stratosphere.
The thirteen dust carriers approached Berlin fnoi different directions,
planning to cross Berlin as if fo lowing the spokes of a wheel. The


                                   101
night was apprech bly clear and we had a low moon to help us.
Berlin: not a hard city to locate, since it has the largest squan mile
area of aiiy modern city and is located on a broa flat alluvial plain. I
could make out the River Spree a we approached it, and the Havel.
The city was blacke out, but a city makes a different sort of black froi
open country. Parachute flares hung over the city i many places,
showing that the R. A. F. had been bus before we got there and the
A. A. batteries on tli ground helped to pick out the city.
There was fighting below us, but not within fiftee thousand feet of our
altitude as nearly as I could judg~ The pilot reported to the captain,
“On line of bearing!” The chap working the absolute altimeter stea ily
fed his data into the fuse pots of the canister. Tli canisters were
equipped with a light charge of blac powder, sufficient to explode
them and scatter tF dust at a time after release predetermined by the
fu5 pot setting. The method used was no more than an e ficient
expedient. The dust would have been almost a effective had it simply
been dumped out in paper bag although not as well distributed.
The Captain hung over the navigator’s board, slight frown on his thin
sallow face. “Ready one!” r ported the bomber.
  “Release!”
  “Ready two!”
  The Captain studied his wristwatch. “Release!” “Ready three!”
  “Release!”
  When the last of our ten little packages was out of the ship we
    turned tail and ran for home.

No arrangements had been made for me to get home; nobody had
thought about it. But it was the one thing I wanted to do. I did not feel
badly; I did not feel much of anything. I felt like a man who has at last
screwed up his courage and undergone a serious operation; it’s over
now, he is still numb from shock but his mind is relaxed. But I wanted
to go home.
The British Commandant was quite decent about it; he serviced and
manned my ship at once and gave me an escort for the offshore war
zone. It was an expensive way to send one man home, but who
cared? We had just expended some millions of lives in a desperate
attempt to end the war; what was a money expense? He gave the
necessary orders absentmindedly.


                                   102
I took a double dose of nembutal and woke up in Canada. I tried to
get some news while the plane was being serviced, but there was not
much to be had. The government of the Reich had issued one official
news bulletin shortly after the raid, sneering at the much vaunted
“secret weapon” of the British and stating that a major air attack had
been made on Berlin and several other cities, but that the raiders had
been driven off with only minor damage. The current Lord Haw-Haw
started one of his sarcastic speeches but was unable to continue it.
The announcer said that he had been seized with a heart attack, and
substituted some recordings of patriotic music. The station cut off in
the middle of the “Horst Wessel” song. After that there was silence.
I managed to promote an Army car and a driver at the Baltimore field
which made short work of the Annapolis speedway. We almost
overran the turnoff to the laboratory.
Manning was in his office. He looked up as I came in, said, “Hello,
John,” in a dispirited voice, and dropped
his eyes again to the blotter pad. He went back drawing doodles.
I looked him over and realized for the first time th the chief was an old
man. His face was gray and flabF deep furrows framed his mouth in a
triangle. F clothes did not fit.
I went up to him and put a hand on his should~ “Don’t take it so hard,
chief. It’s not your fault. \ gave them all the warning in the world.”
He looked up again. “Estelle Karst suicided this morning. Anybody
could have anticipated it, but nobody d And somehow I felt harder hit
by her death than by t death of all those strangers in Berlin. “How did
she it?” I asked.
  “Dust. She went into the canning room, and took off her armor.”
I could picture her-head held high, eyes snappir and that set look on
her mouth which she got wh people did something she disapproved
of. One lit old woman whose lifetime work had been turn against her.
  “I wish,” Manning added slowly, “that I could explain to her why we
  had to do it.”
  We buried her in a lead-lined coffin, then Manning and I went on to
  Washington.
While we were there, we saw the motion pictui that had been made of
the death of Berlin. You ha not seen them; they never were made


                                   103
public, but th were of great use in convincing the other nations oft
world that peace was a good idea. I saw them wh Congress did,
being allowed in because I was Ma ning’s assistant.
They had been made by a pair of R. A. F. pilots, w had dodged the
Luftwaffe to get them. The first sh showed some of the main streets
the morning after t raid. There was not much to see that would show
up telephoto shots, just busy and crowded streets, but if you looked
closely you could see that there had been an excessive number of
automobile accidents.
The second day showed the attempt to evacuate. The inner squares
of the city were practically deserted save for bodies and wrecked
cars, but the streets leading out of town were boiling with people,
mostly on foot, for the trams were out of service. The pitiful creatures
were fleeing, not knowing that death was already lodged inside them.
The plane swooped down at one point and the cinematographer had
his telephoto lens pointed directly into the face of a young woman for
several seconds. She stared back at it with a look too woebegone to
forget, then stumbled and fell.
She may have been trampled. I hope so. One of those six horses had
looked like that when the stuff was beginning to hit his vitals.
The last sequence showed Berlin and the roads around it a week
after the raid. The city was dead; there was not a man, a woman, a
child-nor cats, nor dogs, not even a pigeon. Bodies were all around,
but they were safe from rats. There were norats.
The roads around Berlin were quiet now. Scattered carelessly on
shoulders and in ditches, and to a lesser extent on the pavement
itself, like coal shaken off a train, were the quiet heaps that had been
the citizens of the capital of the Reich. There is no use in talking
about it.
But, so far as I am concerned, I left what soul I had in that projection
room and I have not had one since. The two pilots who made the
pictures eventually died-systemic, cumulative infection, dust in the air
over Berlin. With precautions it need not have happened, but the
English did not believe, as yet, that our extreme precautions were
necessary.
The Reich took about a week to fold up. It might have taken longer if
the new Fuehrer had not gone to Berlin the day after the raid to


                                   104
“prove” that the British boasts had been hollow. There is no need to
recount
the provisional governments that Germany had in t] following several
months; the only one we are co cerned with is the so-called restored
monarchy whh used a cousin of the old Kaiser as a symbol, the 01
that sued for peace.
  Then the trouble started.
When the Prime Minister announced the terms the private agreement
he had had with our Presider he was met with a silence that was
broken only I cries of “Shame! Shame! Resign!” I suppose it was i
evitable; the Commons reflected the spirit of a peop who had been
unmercifully punished for four yeai They were in a mood to enforce a
peace that wou have made the Versailles Treaty look like the Bea
tudes.
The vote of no confidence left the Prime Minister no choice. Forty-
eight hours later the King made a speech from the throne that
violated all constitutional precedent, for it had not been written by a
Prime Minister. In this greatest crisis in his reign, his voice was clear
and unlabored; it sold the idea to England and a national coalition
government was formed.
I don’t know whether we would have dusted Lond to enforce our
terms or not; Manning thinks we would have done so. I suppose it
depended on the character of the President of the United States, and
there is is way of knowing about that since we did not have to do it.
The United States, and in particular the President the United States,
was confronted by two inescapable problems. First, we had to
consolidate our position once, use our temporary advantage of an
overwhelmingly powerful weapon to insure that such a weapon would
not be turned on us. Second, some means had to be worked out to
stabilize American foreign policy so that it could handle the
tremendous power we suddenly had thrust upon us.
The second was by far the most difficult and serious. If we were to
establish a reasonably permanent peace-say a century or so-through
a monopoly on a weapon so powerful that no one dare fight us, it was
imperative that the policy under which we acted be more lasting than
passing political administrations. But more of that later-The first
problem had to be attended to at once- time was the heart of it. The


                                    105
emergency lay in the very simplicity of the weapon. It required
nothing but aircraft to scatter it and the dust itself, which was easily
and quickly made by anyone possessing the secret of the Karst-Obre
process and having access to a small supply of uranium-bearing ore.
But the Karst-Obre process was simple and might be independently
developed at any time. Manning reported to the President that it was
Ridpath’s opinion, concurred in by Manning, that the staff of any
modern radiation laboratory should be able to work out an equivalent
technique in six weeks, working from the hint given by the events in
Berlin alone, and should then be able to produce enough dust to
cause major destruction in another six weeks.
Ninety days-ninety days provided they started from scratch and were
not already halfway to their goal. Less than ninety days-perhaps no
time at all- By this time Manning was an unofficial member of the
Cabinet; “Secretary of Dust,” the President called him in one of his
rare jovial moods. As for me, well, I attended Cabinet meetings, too.
As the only layman who had seen the whole show from beginning to
end, the President wanted me there.
I am an ordinary sort of man who, by a concatenation of
improbabilities, found himself shoved into the councils of the rulers.
But I found that the rulers were ordinary men, too, and frequently as
bewildered as I was.
But Manning was no ordinary man. In him ordinary hard sense had
been raised to the level of genius. Oh, yes, I know that it is popular to
blame everything on him and to call him everything from traitor to
mad dog, but I still think he was both wise and benevoler I don’t care
how many second-guessing historians don’t agree with me.
  “I propose,” said Manning, “that we begin by ir mobilizing all aircraft
  throughout the world.”
The Secretary of Commerce raised his brov~ “Aren’t you,” he said,
“being a little fantastic, Colon Manning?”
“No, I’m not,” answered Manning shortly. “I’ being realistic. The key to
this problem is aircra Without aircraft the dust is an inefficient
weapon. TI only way I see to gain time enough to deal with t] whole
problem is to ground all aircraft and put the out of operation. All
aircraft, that is, not actually the service of the United States Army.



                                   106
After that ‘~ can deal with complete world disarmament and pe
manent methods of control.”
“Really now,” replied the Secretary, “you are n proposing that
commercial airlines be put out of o eration. They are an essential part
of world econom It would be an intolerable nuisance.”
“Getting killed is an intolerable nuisance, too Manning answered
stubbornly. “I do propose ju that. All aircraft. All.”
The President had been listening without comme to the discussion.
He now cut in. “How about aircra on which some groups depend to
stay alive, Colom such as the Alaskan lines?”
  “If there are such, they must be operated by Ame can Army pilots
  and crews. No exceptions.”
The Secretary of Commerce looked startled. “An to infer from that
last remark that you intended ti prohibition to apply to the United
States as well other nations?”
       “Naturally.”
       “But that’s impossible. It’s unconstitutional. It vi lates civil
       rights.”
       “Killing a man violates his civil rights, too,” Ma ning answered
       stubbornly.
       “You can’t do it. Any Federal Court in the country would enjoin
       you in five minutes.”
“It seems to me,” said Manning slowly, “that Andy Jackson gave us a
good precedent for that one when he told John Marshall to go fly a
kite.” He looked slowly around the table at faces that ranged from
undecided to antagonistic. “The issue is sharp, gentlemen, and we
might as well drag it out in the open. We can be dead men, with
everything in due order, constitutional, and technically correct; or we
can do what has to be done, stay alive, and try to straighten out the
legal aspects later.” He shut up and waited.
The Secretary of Labor picked it up. “I don’t think the Colonel has any
corner on realism. I think I see the problem, too, and I admit it is a
serious one. The dust must never be used again. Had I known about
it soon enough, it would never have been used on Berlin. And I agree
that some sort of worldwide control is necessary. But where I differ
with the Colonel is in the method. What he proposes is a military



                                  107
dictatorship imposed by force on the whole world. Admit it, Colonel.
Isn’t that what you are proposing?”
  Manning did not dodge it. “That is what I am proposing.
“Thanks. Now we know where we stand. I, for one, do not regard
democratic measures and constitutional procedure as of so little
importance that I am willing to jettison them any time it becomes
convenient. To me, democracy is more than a matter of expediency,
it is a faith. Either it works, or I go under with it.”
  “What do you propose?” asked the President.
“I propose that we treat this as an opportunity to create a worldwide
democratic commonwealth! Let us use our present dominant position
to issue a call to all nations to send representatives to a conference
to form a world constitution.”
  “League of Nations,” I heard someone mutter.
“No!” he answered the side remark. “Not a League of Nations. The
old League was helpless because it had no real existence, no power.
It was not implementc to enforce its decisions; it was just a debating
societ a sham. This would be different for we would turn ov the dust
to it!”
Nobody spoke for some minutes. You could see them turning it over
in their minds, doubtful, partially approving, intrigued but dubious.
   “I’d like to answer that,” said Manning.
   “Go ahead,” said the President.
“I will. I’m going to have to use some pretty pla~ language and I hope
that Secretary Lamer will do n the honor of believing that I speak so
from sinceril and deep concern and not from persorìal pique.
“I think a world democracy would be a very flu thing and I ask that
you believe me when I say I woul willingly lay down my life to
accomplish it. I ah think it would be a very fine thing for the lion to 1
down with the lamb, but I am reasonably certain that only the lion
would get up. If we try to form an actu world democracy, we’ll be the
lamb in the setup.
“There are a lot of good, kindly people who are internationalists these
days. Nine out of ten of them are soft in the head and the tenth is
ignorant. If we set up a worldwide democracy, what will the electorate
be? Take a look at the facts: Four hundred million Chinese with no


                                    108
more concept of voting and citizen responsibility than a flea; three
hundred million Hindus who aren’t much better indoctrinated; God
knows ho many in the Eurasian Union who believe in God knows
what; the entire continent of Africa only semicivilize eighty million
Japanese who really believe that th are Heaven-ordained to rule; our
Spanish-Americ~ friends who might trail along with us and might nc
but who don’t understand the Bill of Rights the w~ we think of it; a
quarter of a billion people of two doz different nationalities in Europe,
all with revenge an black hatred in their hearts.
“No, it won’t wash. It’s preposterous to talk about world democracy
for many years to come. If you turn the secret of the dust over to such
a body, you will arming the whole world to commit suicide.”
Lamer answered at once. “I could resent some of your remarks, but I
won’t. To put it bluntly, I consider the source. The trouble with you,
Colonel Manning, is that you are a professional soldier and have no
faith in people. Soldiers may be necessary, but the worst of them are
martinets and the best are merely paternalistic.” There was quite a lot
more of the same.
Manning stood it until his turn came again. “Maybe I am all those
things, but you haven’t met my argument. What are you going to do
about the hundreds of millions of people who have no experience in,
nor love for, democracy? Now, perhaps, I don’t have the same
concept of democracy as yourself, but I do know this:
Out West there are a couple of hundred thousand people who sent
me to Congress; I am not going to stand quietly by and let a course
be followed which I think will result in their deaths or utter ruin.
“Here is the probable future, as I see it, potential in the smashing of
the atom and the development of lethal artificial radioactives. Some
power makes a supply of the dust. They’ll hit us first to try to knock us
out and give them a free hand. New York and Washington overnight,
then all of our industrial areas while we are still politically and
economically disorganized. But our army would not be in those cities;
we would have planes and a supply of dust somewhere where the
first dusting wouldn’t touch them. Our boys would bravely and
righteously proceed to poison their big cities. Back and forth it would
go until the organization of each country had broken down so
completely that they were no longer able to maintain a sufficiently
high level of industrialization to service planes and manufacture dust.


                                   109
That presupposes starvation and plague in the process. You can fill
in the details.
“The other nations would get in the game. It would be silly and
suicidal, of course, but it doesn’t take brains to take a hand in this. All
it takes is a very small group, hungry for power, a few airplanes and a
supply ~mf dllQt It’c a a~ic’r,~jc c’ir,-lo that ,’ai’,i-ic,t ,-,,-,cci~l-,li, ho
stopped until the entire planet has dropped to a level economy too
low to support the techniques necessary i main tam it. My best guess
is that such a point woul be reached when approximately three-
quarters of tF world’s population were dead of dust, disease, or hui
gem, and culture reduced to the peasant-and-villa~ type.
  “Where is your Constitution and your Bill of Righ if you let that
  happen?”
I’ve shortened it down, but that was the gist of it. can’t hope to record
every word of an argument th~ went on for days.
The Secretary of the Navy took a crack at him nex “Aren’t you getting
a bit hysterical, Colonel? After a] the world has seen a lot of weapons
which were goir to make war an impossibility too horrible to conten
plate. Poison gas, and tanks, and airplanes-even fir arms, if I
remember my history.”
Manning smiled wryly. “You’ve made a point, M Secretary. ‘And when
the wolf really came, the liii boy shouted in vain.’ I imagine the
Chamber of Con merce in Pompeii presented the same reasonab
argument to any early vulcanologist so timid as to fe~ Vesuvius. I’ll
try to justify my fears. The dust diffe] from every earlier weapon in its
deadliness and ease use, but most importantly in that we have
develope no defense against it. For a number of fairly technic~
reasons, I dont think we ever will, at least not th century.”
  “Why not?”
“Because there is no way to counteract radioactivil short of putting a
lead shield between yourself and i an airtight lead shield. People
might survive by livir in sealed underground cities, but our
characterist American culture could not be maintained.”
“Colonel Manning,” suggested the Secretary State, “I think you have
overlooked the obvious alte native.”
  “Have I?”


                                       110
“Vcsc_tn lroon t1n~. ru i ~ C ni ir nn;n ccsrrat ,yn ni ir nfl
way, and let the rest of the world look out for itself. That is the only
program that fits our traditions.” The Secretary of State was really a
fine old gentleman, and not stupid, but he was slow to assimilate new
ideas.
“Mr. Secretary,” said Manning respectfully, “I wish we could afford to
mind our own business. I do wish we could. But it is the best opinion
of all the experts that we can’t maintain control of this secret except
by rigid policing. The Germans were close on our heels in nuclear
research; it was sheer luck that we got there first. I ask you to
imagine Germany a year hence-with a supply of dust.”
  The Secretary did not answer, but I saw his lips form the word
  Berlin.
They came around. The President had deliberately let Manning bear
the brunt of the argument, conserving his own stock of goodwill to
coax the obdurate. He decided against putting it up to Congress; the
dusters would have been overhead before each senator had finished
his say. What he intended to do might be unconstitutional, but if he
failed to act there might not be any Constitution shortly. There was
precedent- the Emancipation Proclamation, the Monroe Doctrine, the
Louisiana Purchase, suspension of habeas corpus in the War
between the States, the Destroyer Deal.
On February 22nd the President declared a state of full emergency
internally and sent his Peace Proclamation to the head of every
sovereign state. Divested of its diplomatic surplusage, it said: The
United States is prepared to defeat any power, or combination of
powers, in jig time. Accordingly, we are outlawing war and are calling
on every nation to disarm completely at once. In other words, “Throw
down your guns, boys; we’ve got the drop on you!”
A supplement set forth the procedure: All aircraft capable of flying the
Atlantic were to be delivered in one week’s time to a field, or rather a
great stretch of prairie, just west of Fort Riley, Kansas. For lesser
aircraft, a spot near Shanghai and a rendezvous in Wales were
designated. Memoranda would be issued lat with respect to other war
equipment. Uranium and i ores were not mentioned; that would come
later.




                                   111
  No excuses. Failure to disarm would be construe as an act of war
  against the United States.
  There were no cases of apoplexy in the Senate; wF not, I don’t
  know.
There were only three powers to be seriously wo ned about, England,
Japan, and the Eurasian Unio:
England had been forewarned, we had pulled her oi of a war she was
losing, and she-or rather her men i power-knew accurately what we
could and wou] do.
Japan was another matter. They had not seen Berli and they did not
really believe it. Besides, they ha been telling each other for so many
years that th were unbeatable, they believed it. It does not do to gi
too tough with a Japanese too quickly, for they will d rather than lose
face. The negotiations were coi ducted very quietly indeed, but our
fleet was halfw~ from Pearl Harbor to Kobe, loaded with enough du
to sterilize their six biggest cities, before they we~ concluded. Do you
know what did it? This never h the newspapers but it was the wording
of the par phlets we proposed to scatter before dusting.
The Emperor was pleased to declare a New Order Peace. The official
version, built up for home co sumption, made the whole matter one of
collaboratic between two great and friendly powers, with Japa taking
the initiative.
The Eurasian Union was a puzzle. After Stalin’s ui expected death in
1941, no western nation knew vei much about what went on in there.
Our own dipl matic relations had atrophied through failure to r place
men called home nearly four years befor Everybody knew, of course,
that the new group power called themselves Fifth Internationalists, bi
what that meant, aside from ceasing to display ti pictures of Lenin
and Stalin, nobody knew.
But they agreed to our terms and offered to cooperate in every way.
They pointed out that the Union had never been warlike and had kept
out of the recent world struggle. It was fitting that the two remaining
great powers should use their greatness to insure a lasting peace.
I was delighted; I had been worried about the E. U. They commenced
delivery of some of their smaller planes to the receiving station near
Shanghai at once. The reports on the number and quality of the
planes seemed to indicate that they had stayed out of the war


                                  112
through necessity; the planes were mostly of German make and in
poor condition, types that Germany had abandoned early in the war.
Manning went west to supervise certain details in connection with
immobilizing the big planes, the transoceanic planes, which were to
gather near Fort Riley. We planned to spray them with oil, then dust
from a low altitude, as in crop dusting, with a low concentration of
one-year dust. Then we could turn our backs on them and forget
them, while attending to other matters.
But there were hazards. The dust must not be allowed to reach
Kansas City, Lincoln, Wichita-any of the nearby cities. The smaller
towns roundabout had been temporarily evacuated. Testing stations
needed to be set up in all directions in order that accurate tab on the
dust might be kept. Manning felt personally responsible to make sure
that no bystander was poisoned.
We circled the receiving station before landing at Fort Riley. I could
pick out the three landing fields which had hurriedly been graded.
Their runways were white in the sun, the twenty-four-hour cement as
yet undirtied. Around each of the landing fields were crowded dozens
of parking fields, less perfectly graded. Tractors and bulldozers were
still at work on some of them. In the eastemnmost fields, the German
and British ships were already in place, jammed wing to body as
tightly as planes on the flight deck of a carrier-save for a few that
were still being towed mt position, the tiny tractors looking from the
air lil~ ants dragging pieces of leaf many times larger tha themselves.
Only three flying fortresses had arrived from tli Eurasian Union. Their
representatives had asked for short delay in order that a supply of
high-test aviatio gasoline might be delivered to them. They claimed
shortage of fuel necessary to make the long flight ov the Arctic safe.
There was no way to check the claii and the delay was granted while
a shipment wa routed from England.
We were about to leave, Manning having satisfie himself as to safety
precautions, when a dispatc came in announcing that a flight of E. U.
bombei might be expected before the day was out. Mannini wanted to
see them arrive; we waited around for for hours. When it was finally
reported that our escort fighters had picked them up at the Canadian
borde Manning appeared to have grown fidgety and state that he
would watch them from the air. We took of gained altitude and
waited.


                                  113
There were nine of them in the flight, cruising in co umn of echelons
and looking so huge that our littl fighters were hardly noticeable. They
circled the fiel and I was admiring the stately dignity of them whe
Manning’s pilot, Lieutenant Rafferty, exclaimed “What the devil! They
are preparing to land dowi wind!”
      I still did not tumble, but Manning shouted to ti copilot, “Get the
      field!”
      He fiddled with his instruments and announced “Got ‘em, sir!”
      “General alarm! Armor!”
We could not hear the sirens, naturally, but I cou] see the white
plumes rise from the big steam whist on the roof of the Administration
Building-three br blasts, then three short ones. It seemed almost at tI
same time that the first cloud broke from the E. I planes.
Instead of landing, they passed low over the receiving station,
jampacked now with ships from all over the world. Each echelon
picked one of three groups centered around the three landing fields
and streamers of heavy brown smoke poured from the bellies of the
E. U. ships. I saw a tiny black figure jump from a tractor and run
toward the nearest building. Then the smoke screen obscured the
field.
  “Do you still have the field?” demanded Manning. “Yes, sir.”
  “Cross connect to the chief safety technician. Hurry!”
The copilot cut in the amplifier so that Manning could talk directly.
“Saunders? This is Manning. How about it?”
  “Radioactive, chief. Intensity seven point four.” They had paralleled
  the Karst-Obre research.
Manning cut him off and demanded that the communication office at
the field raise the Chief of Staff. There was nerve-stretching delay, for
it had to be routed over land wire to Kansas City, and some chief
operator had to be convinced that she should commandeer a trunk
line that was in commercial use. But we got through at last and
Manning made his report. “It stands to reason,” I heard him say, “that
other flights are approaching the border by this time. New York, of
course, and Washington. Probably Detroit and Chicago as well. No
way of knowing.”
The Chief of Staff cut off abruptly, without comment. I knew that the
U.S. air fleets, in a state of alert for weeks past, would have their



                                   114
orders in a few seconds, and would be on their way to hunt out and
down the attackers, if possible before they could reach the cities.
I glanced back at the field. The formations were broken up. One of
the E. U. bombers was down, crashed, half a mile beyond the station.
While I watched, one of our midget dive bombers screamed down on
a behemoth E. U. ship and unloaded his eggs. It was a center hit, but
the American pilot had cut it too fine, could not pull out, and crashed
before his vi tim.
There is no point in rehashing the newspaper storh of the Four-Days
War. The point is that we should ha’s lost it, and we would have, had
it not been for an ui likely combination of luck, foresight, and good
mai agement. Apparently, the nuclear physicists of tF Eurasian Union
were almost as far along as Ridpath crew when the destruction of
Berlin gave them the ti they needed. But we had rushed them, forced
them 1 move before they were ready, because of the dea( line for
disarmament set forth in our Peace Proclam~ tion.
If the President had waited to fight it out with Co gress before issuing
the proclamation, there would n be any United States.
Manning never got credit for it, but it is evident me that he anticipated
the possibility of somethii like the Four-Days War and prepared for it
in a doz different devious ways. I don’t mean military prep ration; the
Army and the Navy saw to that. But it w no accident that Congress
was adjourned at the tim I had something to do with the vote-
swapping am compromising that led up to it, and I know.
But I put it to you-would he have maneuvered get Congress out of
Washington at a time when I feared that Washington might be
attacked if he he had dictatorial ambitions?
Of course, it was the President who was back of t] ten-day leaves
that had been granted to most of t] civil-service personnel in
Washington and he hims must have made the decision to take a
swing throuf the South at that time, but it must have been Mannii who
put the idea in his head. It is inconceivable th the President would
have left Washington to esca~ personal danger.
And then, there was the plague scare. I don’t kno how or when
Manning could have started that-it ce tainly did not go through my
notebook-but I simply do not believe that it was accidental that a



                                   115
completely unfounded rumor of bubonic plaguc~ caused New York
City to be semideserted at the time the E. U. bombers struck.
  At that, we lost over eight hundred thousand people in Manhattan
  alone.
Of course, the government was blamed for the lives that were lost
and the papers were merciless in their criticism at the failure to
anticipate and force an evacuation of all the major cities.
  If Manning anticipated trouble, why did he not ask for evacuation?
  Well, as I see it, for this reason:
A big city will not be, never has been, evacuated in response to
rational argument. London never was evacuated on any major scale
and we failed utterly in our attempt to force the evacuation of Berlin.
The people of New York City had considered the danger of air raids
since 1940 and were long since hardened to the thought.
But the fear of a nonexistent epidemic of plague caused the most
nearly complete evacuation of a major city ever seen.
And don’t forget what we did to Vladivostok and Irkutsk and Moscow-
those were innocent people, too. War isn’t pretty.
I said luck played a part. It was bad navigation that caused one of our
ships to dust Ryazan instead of Moscow, but that mistake knocked
out the laboratory and plant which produced the only supply of
military madioactives in the Eurasian Union. Suppose the mistake
had been the other way around-suppose that one of the E. U. ships in
attacking Washington, D.C., by mistake had included Ridpath’s shop
forty-five miles away in Maryland?
Congress reconvened at the temporary capital in St. Louis, and the
American Pacification Expedition started the job of pulling the fangs
of the Eurasian Union. It was not a military occupation in the usual
sense; there were two simple objectives: to search out and dust all
aircraft, aircraft plants, and fields, and locate and dust radiation
laboratories, uranium su plies, and bodes of carnotite and
pitchblende. No a tempt was made to interfere with, or to replace, ci~
government.
We used a two-year dust, which gave a breathir spell in which to
consolidate our position. Liberal r wards were offered to informers, a



                                    116
technique whh worked remarkably well not only in the E. U., but most
parts of the world.
The “weasel,” an instrument to smell out radiatio based on the
electroscope-discharge principle and r fined by Ridpath’s staff,
greatly facilitated the work locating uranium and uranium ores. A grid
of wease] properly spaced over a suspect area, could locate ai
important mass of uranium almost as handily as a c rection-finder can
spot a radio station.
But, notwithstanding the excellent work of Gener Bulfinch and the
Pacification Expedition as a whole, was the original mistake of
dusting Ryazan that ma the job possible of accomplishment.
Anyone interested in the details of the pacificati work done in 1945-6
should see the “Proceedings the American Foundation for Social
Research” for paper entitled A Study of the Execution of the Americ
Peace Policy from February, 1945. The de facto soluti of the problem
of policing the world against war k the United States with the much
greater problem perfecting a policy that would insure that the dead
power of the dust would never fall into unfit hand:
The problem is as easy to state as the problem squaring the circle
and almost as impossible of a complishment. Both Manning and the
President b lieved that the United States must of necessity ke~ the
power for the time being, until some permane institution could be
developed fit to retain it. The ha and was this: Foreign policy is
lodged jointly in ti hands of the President and the Congress. We were
fc tunate at the time in having a good President and adequate
Congress, but that was no guarantee for the future. We have had
unfit Presidents and power-hungry Congresses-oh, yes! Read the
history of the Mexican War.
We were about to hand over to future governments of the United
States the power to turn the entire globe into an empire, our empire.
And it was the sober opinion of the President that our characteristic
and beloved democratic culture would not stand up under the
temptation. Imperialism degrades both oppressor and oppressed.
The President was determined that our sudden power should be
used for the absolute minimum of maintaining peace in the world-the
simple purpose of outlawing war and nothing else. It must not be
used to protect American investments abroad, to coerce trade
agreements, for any purpose but the simple abolition of mass killing.

                                  117
There is no science of sociology. Perhaps there will be, some day,
when a rigorous physics gives a finished science of colloidal
chemistry and that leads in turn to a complete knowledge of biology,
and from there to a definitive psychology. After that we may begin to
know something about sociology and politics. Sometime around the
year 5000 A. D., maybe-if the human race does not commit suicide
before then.
Until then, there is only horse sense and rule of thumb and
observational knowledge of probabilities. Manning and the President
played by ear.
The treaties with Great Britain, Germany and the Eurasian Union,
whereby we assumed the responsibility for world peace and at the
same time guaranteed the contracting nations against our own
misuse of power, were rushed through in the period of relief and
goodwill that immediately followed the termination of the Four-Days
War. We followed the precedents established by the Panama Canal
treaties, the Suez Canal agreements, and the Philippine
Independence policy.
But the purpose underneath was to commit future governments of the
United States to an irrevocable benevolent policy.
The act to implement the treaties by creating tF Commission of World
Safety followed soon after, an Colonel Manning became Mr.
Commissioner Mai ning. Commissioners had a life tenure and the
intei tion was to create a body with the integrit permanence and
freedom from outside pressure p0sessed by the Supreme Court of
the United State Since the treaties contemplated an eventual join
trust, commissioners need not be American citizensand the oath they
took was to preserve the peace of t1~ world.
There was trouble getting the clause past the Coi gress! Every other
similar oath had been to the Const tution of the United States.
Nevertheless the Commission was formed. It toc charge of world
aircraft, assumed jurisdiction over r~ dioactives, natural and artificial,
and commenced tF long slow task of building up the Peace Patrol.
Manning envisioned a corps of world policemen, a aristocracy which,
through selection and indoctrim tion, could be trusted with unlimited
power over life of every man, every woman, every child on the fa( of
the globe. For the power would be unlimited; ti precautions necessary


                                    118
to insure the unbeatab weapon from getting loose in the world again
made axiomatic that its custodians would wield power th~ is safe only
in the hands of Deity. There would be r one to guard those selfsame
guardians. Their o~ characters and the watch they kept on each oth
would be all that stood between the race and disaste For the first time
in history, supreme political pow was to be exerted with no possibility
of checks an balances from the outside. Manning took up the ta~ of
perfecting it with a dragging subconscious convi tion that it was too
much for human nature.
The rest of the Commission was appointed sbowl the names being
sent to the Senate after long joint coi sideration by the President and
Manning. The direct of the Red Cross, an obscure little professor of
history from Switzerland, Dr. Igor Rimski who had developed the
Karst-Obre technique indepen’dently and whom the A. P. F. had
discovered in prison after the dusting of Moscow-those three were
the only foreigners. The rest of the list is well known.
Ridpath and his staff were of necessity the original technical crew of
the Commission; United States Army and Navy pilots its first
patrolmen. Not all of the pilots available were needed; their records
were searched, their habits and associates investigated, their mental
processes and emotional attitudes examined by the best
psychological research methods available-which weren’t good
enough. Their final acceptance for the Patrol depended on two
personal interviews, one with Manning, one with the President.
Manning told me that he depended more on the President’s feeling
for character than he did on all the association and reaction tests the
psychologists could think up. “It’s like the nose of a bloodhound,” he
said. “In his forty years of practical politics he has seen more phonies
than you and I will ever see and each one was trying to sell him
something. He can tell one in the dark.”
The long-distance plan included the schools for the indoctrination of
cadet patrolmen, schools that were to be open to youths of any race,
color, or nationality, and from which they would go forth to guard the
peace of every country but their own. To that country a man would
never return during his service. They were to be a deliberately
expatriated band of Janizanies, with an obligation only to the
Commission and to the race, and welded together with a carefully
nurtured esprit de corps.


                                  119
It stood a chance of working. Had Manning been allowed twenty
years without interruption, the original plan might have worked.
The President’s running mate for reelection was the result of a
political compromise. The candidate for Vice President was a
confirmed isolationist who ha opposed the Peace Commission from
the first, but was he or a party split in a year when the oppositio was
strong. The President sneaked back in but with greatly weakened
Congress; only his power of vet twice prevented the repeal of the
Peace Act. The Vic President did nothing to help him, although he did
n publicly lead the insurrection. Manning revised h plans to complete
the essential program by the end 1952, there being no way to predict
the temper of tF next administration.
We were both overworked and I was beginning 1 realize that my
health was gone. The cause was not fi to seek; a photographic film
strapped next to my ski would cloud in twenty minutes. I was
suffering froi cumulative minimal radioactive poisoning. No wel
defined cancer that could be operated on, but a sy temic deterioration
of function and tissue. There w~ no help for it, and there was work to
be done. I’ve a ways attributed it mainly to the week I spent sittir on
those canisters before the raid on Berlin.
February 17, 1951. I missed the televue flash aboi the plane crash
that killed the President because I w~ lying down in my apartment.
Manning, by that tim was requiring me to rest every afternoon after
lunc though I was still on duty. I first heard about it from my secretary
when I returned to my office, and at om hurried into Manning’s office.
There was a curious unreality to that meeting. seemed to me that we
had slipped back to that d~ when I returned from England, the day
that Estel Karst died. He looked up. “Hello, John,” he said.
  I put my hand on his shoulder. “Don’t take it hard, chief,” was all I
  could think of to say.
Forty-eight hours later came the message from ti newly sworn-in
President for Manning to report him. I took it in to him, an official
despatch which decoded. Manning read it, face impassive.
  “Are you going, chief?” I asked.
  “Eh? Why, certainly.”
  I went back into my office, and got my topcoat, gloves, and
     briefcase.


                                    120
Manning looked up when I came back in. “Never mind, John,” he
said. “You’re not going.” I guess I must have looked stubborn, for he
added, “You’re not to go because there is work to do here. Wait a
minute.” He went to his safe, twiddled the dials, opened it and
removed a sealed envelope which he threw on the desk between us.
“Here are your orders. Get busy.”
He went out as I was opening them. I read them through and got
busy. There was little enough time.
The new President received Manning standing and in the company of
several of his bodyguards and intimates. Manning recognized the
senator who had led the movement to use the Patrol to recover
expropriated holdings in South America and Rhodesia, as well as the
chairman of the committee on aviation with whom he had had several
unsatisfactory conferences in an attempt to work out a modus
operandi for.reinstituting commercial airlines.
  “You’re prompt, I see,” said the President. “Good.” Manning bowed.
“We might as well come straight to the point,” the Chief Executive
went on. “There are going to be some changes of policy in the
administration. I want your resignation.”
      “I am sorry to have to refuse, sir.”
      “We’ll see about that. In the meantime, Colonel Manning, you
      are relieved from duty.”
      “Mr. Commissioner Manning, if you please.”
      The new President shrugged. “One or the other, as you please.
      You are relieved, either way.”
      “I am sorry to disagree again. My appointment is for life.”
“That’s enough,” was the answer. “This is the United States of
America. There can be no higher authority. You are under arrest.”
I can visualize Manning staring steadily at him for a long moment,
then answering slowly, “You a physically able to arrest me, I will
concede, but I a vise you to wait a few minutes.” He stepped to the wi
dow. “Look up into the sky.”
Six bombers of the Peace Commission patrolh over the Capitol.
“None of those pilots is Americ~ born,” Manning added slowly. “If you
confine ni none of us here in this room will live out the day.’ There
were incidents thereafter, such as the unfc tunate affair at Fort
Benning three days later, and t] outbreak in the wing of the Patrol


                                 121
based in Lisbon au its resultant wholesale dismissals, but for practic
purposes, that was all there was to the coup d’etat. Manning was the
undisputed military dictator the world.
Whether or not any man as universally hated Manning can perfect
the Patrol he envisioned, make self-perpetuating and trustworthy, I
don’t kno’ and-because of that week of waiting in a buried En lish
hangar-I won’t be here to find out. Manninl heart disease makes the
outcome even more uncc tam-he may last another twenty years; he
may ke over dead tomorrow-and there is no one to take F place. I’ve
set this down partly to occupy the she time I have left and partly to
show there is anoth side to any story, even world dominion.
Not that I would like the outcome, either way. there is anything to this
survival-after-death busine5 I am going to look up the man who
invented the bc and arrow and take him apart with my bare hanc For
myself, I can’t be happy in a world where any ma or group of men,
has the power of death over you ai me, our neighbors, every human,
every animal, eve living thing. I don’t like anyone to have that kind
power.
  And neither does Manning.

FOREWORD
After World War II I resumed writing with two objectives: first, to
explain the meaning of atomic weapons through popular articles;
second, to break out from the limitations and low rates of pulp
science-fiction magazines into anything and everything: slicks, books,
motion pictures, general fiction, specialized fiction not intended for SF
magazines, and nonfiction.
My second objective I achieved in every respect, but in my first and
much more important objective I fell flat on my face.
Unless you were already adult in August 1945 it is almost impossible
for me to convey emotionally to you how people felt about the A-
bomb, how many different ways they felt about it, how nearly totally
ignorant 99.9% of our citizens were on the subject, including almost
all of our military leaders and governmental officials.
  And including editors!
(The general public is just as dangerously ignorant as to the
significance of nuclear weapons today, 1979, as in 1 945-but in


                                   122
different ways. In 1945 we were smugly ignorant; in 1979 we have
the Pollyannas, and the Ostriches, and the Jingoists who think we
can “win” a nuclear war, and the group-a majority?-who regard World
War III as of no importance compared with inflation, gasoline
rationing, forced school-busing, or you name it. There is much
excuse for the ignorance of 1945; the citizenry had been hit by ideas
utterly new and strange. But there is no excuse forthe ignorance
of1979. Ignorance today can be charged only to stupidity and
laziness-both capital offences.)
I wrote nine articles intended to shed light on the postHiroshima age,
and I have never worked harder on any writing, researched the
background more thoroughly, tried harder to make the (grim and
horrid) message entertaining and readable. I offered them to
commercial markets, not to make money, but because the only
propaganda
that stands any chance of influencing people is packaged so
attractively that editors will buy it in the belief that the cash customers
will be entertained by it.
  Mine was not packaged that attractively.
  I was up against some heavy tonnage:
General Groves, in charge of the Manhattan District (code name for
A-bomb R&D), testified that it would take from twenty years to forever
for another country to build an A-bomb. (USSR did it in 4 years.)
The Chief of Naval Operations testified that the “only” way to deliver
the bomb to a target across an ocean was by ship.
A very senior Army Air Force general testified that “blockbuster”
bombs were just as effective and cheaper.
The chairman of NACA (shortly to become NASA) testified (Science
News Letter 25 May 1946) that intercontinental rockets were
impossible.
  Ad nauseum-the old sailors want wooden ships, the old soldiers
  want horse cavalry.
But I continued to write these articles until the U.S.S.R. rejected the
United States’ proposals for controlling and outlawing atomic
weapons through open skies and mutual on-the-ground inspection,
i.e., every country in the world to surrender enough of its sovereignty


                                    123
to the United Nations that mass-weapons war would become
impossible (and lesser war unnecessary).
The U.S.S.R. rejected inspection-and I stopped trying to peddle
articles based on tying the Bomb down through international policing.
I wish that I could say that thirty-three years of “peace” (i.e., no A- or
H- or C- orN- orX- bombs dropped) indicates that we really have
nothing to fear from such weapons, because the human race has
sense enough not to commit suicide. But I am sorry to say that the
situation is even more dangerous, even less stable, than it was in
1946.

Here are three short articles, each from a different ap
proach, with which I tried (and failed) to beat the drum br world
peace.
Was I really so naif that I thought that I could change the course of
history this way? No, not really. But, damn it, I had to try!

“If you pray hard enough,
water will run uphill. How hard?
Why, hard enough to make water
run uphill, of course!”
   • L. Long



THE LAST DAYS OF THE UNITED STATES
“Here lie the bare bones of the United States of America, conceived
in freedom, died in bondage. 1776-1986. Death came mercifully, in
one stroke, during senility.
  “Rest in Peace!”
No expostulations, please. Let us not kid ourselves. The next war can
destroy us, utterly, as a nation-and World War III is staring us right in
the face. So far, we have done little to avert it and less to prepare for
it. Once upon a time the United Nations Organization stood a fair
chance of preventing World War III. Now, only a major operation can
equip the UNO to cope with the horrid facts of atomics and rocketry-a
major operation which would take away the veto power of the Big


                                    124
Five and invest the world organization with the sole and sovereign
power to possess atomic weapons.
  Are we, as a people, prepared to make the necessary sacrifices to
  achieve a world authority?
Take a look around you. Many of your friends and neighbors believe
that the mere possession of the atomic bomb has rendered us
immune to attack. So- the country settles back with a sigh of relief,
content to leave foreign affairs to William Randolph Hearst, the
Denver Post, and the Chicago Tribune. We turn our backs on world
responsibility and are now hell-bent
on new washing machines and new cars.
From such an attitude, with dreadful certainty, comes World War III,
the Twenty Minute War, the Atomic War, the War of Final
Destruction. The “secret” of the atomic bomb cannot be kept, the
experts have told us repeatedly, for the “secret” is simply engineering
know-how which can be developed by any industrial nation.
From this fact it can be predicted that any industrial nation, even
though small and comparatively weak, will in a few years be able to
create the means to destroy the United States at will in one all-out
surprise attack. What constitutes a strong power in the Atomic Era?
Scientific knowledge, engineering skill, and access to the ores of
uranium-no more is needed. Under such circumstances the
pretensions of the Big Five to veto powers over the affairs of this
planet are preposterous. At the moment there is only the Big One, the
United States, through its temporary exclusive possession of the
Bomb. Tomorrow-five to ten years- the list might include any of the
many nations with the two requirements.
Belgium and Canada have the greatest known deposits of uranium.
Both are small but both possess science and skill in abundance.
Potentially they are more powerful than any of the so-called Big Five,
more powerful than the United States or Russia. Will they stand
outside indefinitely, hat in hand, while the “Big Five” determine the
fate of the human race? The developments of atomic weapons and of
rocketry are analogous to the development of the revolver in
individual affairs-it has made the little ones and the big ones all the
same size. Some fine day some little nation may decide she is tired
of having us around, give us one twenty-minute treatment with atomic
rocket bombs, and accept our capitulation.

                                  125
We have reason to fear such an attack. We have been through one
Pearl Harbor; we know that it can happen to us. Our present conduct
breeds fear and distrust in the hearts of men all over the globe. No
matter how we
think of ourselves, no matter how peaceful and good hearted we think
ourselves to be, two facts insure that we will be hated by many. We
have the Bomb-it is like a loaded revolver pointed at the heads of all
men. Oh, we won’t pull the trigger! Nevertheless, do you suppose
they love us for it?
Our other unforgivable sin is being rich while they are poor. Never
mind our rationalizations-they see our wasteful luxury while much of
the globe starves. Hungry men do not reason calmly. We are getting
ourselves caught in a situation which should lead us to expect attack
from any quarter, from whoever first produces atomic weapons and
long-distance rockets.
Knowing these things, the professional gentlemen who are charged
with the defense of this country, the generals and the admirals and
the members of the military and naval affairs committees of both
houses, are cudgelling their brains in a frenzied but honest attempt to
persuade the rest of the country to follow this course or that, which, in
their several opinions, will safeguard the country in any coming
debacle.
But there is a tragic sameness to their proposals. With few
exceptions, they favor preparedness for the last war. Thusly:
Conscription in peacetime to build up a reserve; Emphasis on aircraft
carriers rather than battleships;
Decentralization of cities; An armaments race to keep our head start
in atomic weapons; Agreements to “outlaw” atomic weapons;
Consolidation of the Army and the Navy; Buying enough war planes
each year to insure new development; An active military and foreign
affairs intelligence corps; Moving the aircraft industry inland; Placing
essential war industry underground.
These are the progressive proposals. (Some still favor infantry and
battleships!) In contrast, General Arnold says to expect war in which
space ships cruise outside the atmosphere and launch super-high-
speed, atomicarmed rockets on cities below. Hap Arnold tells his



                                   126
boys to keep their eyes on Buck Rogers. Somebody is wrong-is it
Hap Arnold or his more conservative colleagues?
  Compulsory military training-France had that, for both wars. The
  end was Vichy.
Aircraft carriers vs. battleships. Look, pals, the aircraft carrier was the
weapon of this war, before Hiroshima. Carriers don’t look so good
against space ships. Let’s build galleons instead; they are cheaper,
prettier, and just as useful.
Decentralization of large cities-let’s table this one for a moment.
There is some sense to it, if carried to its logical conclusion. But not
with half measures and not for $250,000,000,000, the sum mentioned
by Sumner Spaulding, its prime proponent.
Bigger and better atomic weapons for the United States-this has a
reasonable and reassuring sound. We’ve got the plant and the
trained men; let’s stay ahead in the race. Dr. Robert Wilson says that
atomic bombs a hundred or a thousand times as powerful as the
Hiroshima bomb are now in prospect. Teddy Roosevelt advised us to
“Speak softly but carry a big stick.”
It is a tempting doctrine, but the great-hearted Teddy died long before
Hiroshima; his day was the day of the charge up San Juan Hill. A
hundred obsolete atomic bombs could destroy the United States-if
the enemy struck first. Our super bombs would not save us, unless
we were willing to strike first, without declaring war. If two men are
locked in a basement, one armed with a 50-calibre machine gun, the
other with an 18th century ball-and-powder pistol, victory goes
to the man who shoots first, not to the one with the better weapon.
That is the logic of atomics and now is the time to learn it by heart.
  Agreements to “outlaw” atomic weapons? Swell! Remember the
  Kellogg Pact? It “outlawed” war.
Consolidation of the armed forces: A proposition sensible in itself, but
disastrously futile unless we realize that all previous military art is
obsolete in the atomic age. The best pre-Hiroshima weapons are now
no more than the sidearms of the occupying military police. Buck
Rogers must be the new chief of staff. Otherwise we will find
ourselves with the most expensive luxury in the world-a second-best
military establishment.



                                    127
Purchase of military aircraft in quantities to insure new development-
we bought sailing ships-of-theline in the 1880’s. This makes the same
sort of pseudosense. Airplanes are already obsolete-slow, clumsy,
and useless. The V-2 is credited with a speed of 3600 miles per hour.
Here is a simple problem in proportion: The Wright Brothers crate at
Kittyhawk bears the same relation to the B-29 that the V-2 bears to
the rocket ship of the coming war. Complete the equation by
visualizing the coming rocket ship. Then stop wasting taxes on
airplanes.
An efficient intelligence system-Fine! But no answer in itself. The
British intelligence was quite efficient before this war. Mr.
Chamberlain’s desk was piled high with intelligence reports, reports
which showed that Munich need never have happened. This has
since been confirmed by high German General Staff officers. But Mr.
Chamberlain did not read the reports. Intelligence reports are useful
only to the intelligent.
Moving the aircraft industry inland-excellent preparation for World
War II. Move an industry which we don’t need for World War III inland
where it will be safe from the weapons of World War II. While we are
about it let’s put stockades around them to keep the Indians out. In
the meantime our potential enemies will have plenty of time to perfect
long-range rockets.
Placing key war industry underground-assembly lines underground
are all very well, but blast furnaces and many other things simply
won’t fit. Whatever digging in we do, be sure we do it so secretly that
the enemy will never suspect, lest he drop an earthquaketype atomic
bomb somewhere near-by and bury all hands. Let us be certain, too,
that he does not introduce a small atomic bomb inside the
underground works, disguised as a candy vending machine, a lunch
pail, or a fire extinguisher. The age of atomics is a field day for
saboteurs; underground works could be colossal death traps.
No one wants this new war, no sane men anywhere. Yet we are
preparing for it and a majority, by recent Gallup polls, believe it will
come. We have seen the diplomats and prime ministers and
presidents and foreign affairs committees and state departments
manage to get things messed up in the past; from where we sit it
looks as if they were hell-bent on messing them up again. We hear
the rumble of the not-sodistant drum.


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What we want, we little men everywhere, is planetary organization so
strong that it can enforce peace, forbid national armaments, atomic or
otherwise, and in general police the globe so that a decent man can
raise his kids and his dog and smoke his pipe free from worry of
sudden death. But we see the same old messing around with half
measures.
(If you want to help to try to stop the messing-up process, you might
write Congressman Jerry Voorhis, or Senator Fuibright, or Senator
Ball, or Beardsley Ruml, or Harold Stassen. Or even the President
himself.)
If things go from bad to worse and we have to fight a war, can we
prepare to win it? First let us try to grasp
what kind of a war it will be. Look at LIFE, Nov. 19, 1945, page 27:
THE 36-HOUR WAR: Arnold Report Hints at the Catastrophe of the
Next Great Conflict. The first picture shows Washington, D.C., being
destroyed by an atomic rocket bomb. The text and pictures go on to
show 13 U.S. cities being destroyed the same wa~, enemy airborne
troops attempting to occupy, the U.S. striking back with its own
rockets from underground emplacements, and eventually winning-at
a cost of 13 cities and at least 10,000,000 American lives.
Horrible as the picture is, it is much too optimistic. There is no reason
at all to assume that the enemy will attack in too little force,
destroying only 13 cities, or to assume that he will attempt to occupy
until we have surrendered, or to assume that we will be able to strike
back after we are attacked.
It is not safe to assume that the enemy will be either faint-hearted or
foolish. If he follows our example with Japan, he will smash us until
we surrender, then land. If his saboteurs are worth their blood money,
our own rocket emplacements may be blown up by concealed atomic
bombs just in advance of the attack.
Atomic rocket warfare has still another drawback- it is curiously
anonymous. We might think we knew who had attacked us but be
entirely mistaken.
You can think of at least three nations which dislike both us and
Russia. What better joke for them than to select a time when
suspicion has been whipped up between the two giants to lob just a
few atomic rockets from a ship in the North Atlantic, or from a secret


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emplacement in the frozen north of Greenland-half at us, half at
Russia, and with the attack in each case apparently coming from the
other, and then sit back while we destroyed each other!
  A fine joke! You would die laughing.
  Don’t think it can’t be done, to us and to Russia.

   What can we do?
   The first thing is to get Congress to take a realistic
view of the situation. The most certain thing about LIFE’s description
of the coming war was the destruction of Washington. Washington is
the prime military target on earth today for it is the center of the
nervous system of the nation that now has the Bomb. It must be
destroyed first and it will be destroyed, if war ever comes. Your
congressman has the most dangerous job in the world today. You
may live through World War Ill-he can’t. Make yours realize this; he
may straighten up and fly right.
What we want him to work for is world order and world peace. But we
may not get it. The other nations may be fed up with our shilly-
shallying and may not go along with us, particularly any who believe
they are close to solving the problems of atomic weapons. We may
have to go it alone. In such cases, is there anything we can do to
preserve ourselves?
  Yes, probably-but the price is high.
We can try for another Buck Rogers weapon with which to ward off
atomic bomb rockets. It would need to be better than anything we
have now or can foresee. To be 100% effective (with atom bombs,
anything less is hardly good enough!) it should be something which
acts with much greater speed than guns or anti-aircraft rockets.
There is a bare possibility that science could cook up some sort of a
devastatingly powerful beam of energy, acting with the speed of light,
which would be a real anti-aircraft weapon, even against rockets. But
the scientists don’t promise it.
We would need the best anti-aircraft devices possible, in the
meantime. A robot hook-up of target-seeking rockets, radar, and
computing machines might give considerable protection, if extensive
enough, but there is a lot of research and test and production ahead
before any such plan is workable. Furthermore, it could not be air
tight and it would be very expensive- and very annoying, for it would


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end civilian aviation. If we hooked the thing up to ignore civilian
planes, we would leave ourselves wide open to a Trojan Horse tactic
in which the enemy would use ordinary planes to deliver his atomic
bombs.
Such a defense, although much more expensive and much more
trouble than all our pre-War military establishment, would be needed.
If we are not willing to foot the bill, we can at least save money by not
buying flame throwers, tanks, or battleships.
We can prepare to attack. We can be so bristlingly savage that other
nations may fear to attack us. If we are not to have a super-state and
a world police, then the United States needs the fastest and the most
longrange rockets, the most powerful atomic blasts, and every other
dirty trick conceived in comic strip or fantastic fiction. We must have
space ships and we must have them first. We must land on the Moon
and take possession of it in order to forbid its use to other nations as
a base against us and in order to have it as a base against any
enemy of ours. We must set up, duplicate, and reduplicate rocket
installations intended to destroy almost automatically any spot on
earth; we must let the world know that we have them and that we are
prepared to use them at the drop of a diplomat’s silk hat. We must be
prepared to tell uncooperative nations that there are men sitting in
front of switches, day and night, and that an attack on Washington
would cause those switches to be thrown.
And we must guard the secrets of the locations and natures of our
weapons in a fashion quite impossible for a normal democracy in
peace time. More of that later.
Decentralization we would have to have. Not the picayune
$250,000,000,000 job which has been proposed- (“Wait a minute!
Why should we disperse our cities if we are going to have that Buck
Rogers super-dooper death ray screen?”)
We haven’t got such a screen. Nor is it certain that we will ever have
such a screen, no matter how much
money we spend. Such a screen is simply the one remote possibility
which modern physics admits. It may turn out to be impossible to
develop it; we simply don’t know.
We must disperse thoroughly, so thoroughly that no single
concentration of population in the United States is an inviting target.


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Mr. Sumner Spaulding’s timid proposal of a quarter of a trillion dollars
was based on the pleasant assumption that Los Angeles was an
example of a properly dispersed city for the Atomic Age. This is an
incredible piece of optimism which is apparently based on the belief
that Hiroshima is the pattern for all future atomic attacks. Hiroshima
was destroyed with one bomb. Will the enemy grace the city of the
Angels with only one bomb? Why not a dozen?
The Hiroshima bomb was the gentlest, least destructive atomic bomb
ever likely to be loosed. Will the enemy favor us with a love tap such
as that?
Within twenty miles of the city hall of Los Angeles lives half the
population of the enormous state of California. An atomic bomb
dropped on that City Hall would not only blast the swarming center of
the city, it would set fire to the surrounding mountains (“WARNING!
No Smoking, In or Out of Cars-$500 fine and six months
imprisonment”) from Mount Wilson Observatory to the sea. It would
destroy the railroad terminal half a dozen blocks from the City Hall
and play hob with the water system, water fetched clear from the
State of Arizona.
  If that is dispersion, I’ll stay in Manhattan.
Los Angeles is a modern miracle, an enormous city kept alive in a
desert by a complex and vulnerable concatenation of technical
expedients. The first three colonies established there by the
Spaniards starved to death to the last man, woman, and child. If the
fragile structure of that city were disrupted by a single atomic bomb,
those who survived the blast would in a few short days be reduced to
a starving, thirst-crazed mob, ready for murder and cannibalism.
No, if we are to defend ourselves we must not assume that Los
Angeles is “dispersed” despite the jokes about her far-flung city line.
The Angelenos must be relocated from Oregon to Mexico, in the
Mojave Desert, in Imperial Valley, in the great central valley, in the
Coast Range, and in the High Sierras.
The same principles apply everywhere. Denver must be scattered out
toward Laramie and Boulder, while Colorado Springs must flow
around Pike’s Peak to Cripple Creek. Kansas City and Des Moines
must meet at the Iowa-Missouri line, while Joplin flows up toward
Kansas City and on down into the Ozarks. As for Manhattan, that is
almost too much to describe- from Boston to Baltimore all the great

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east coast cities must be abandoned and the population scattered
like leaves.
The cities must go. Only villages must remain. If we are to rely on
dispersion as a defense in the Atomic Age, then we must spread
ourselves out so thin that the enemy cannot possibly destroy us with
one bingo barrage, so thin that we will be too expensive and too
difficult to destroy.
It would be difficult. It would be incredibly difficult and expensive-Mr.
Spaulding’s estimate would not cover the cost of new housing alone,
but new housing would be the least of our problems. We would have
to rebuild more than half of our capital plant-shops, warehouses,
factories, railroads, highways, power plants, mills, garages, telephone
lines, pipe lines, aqueducts, granaries, universities. We would have to
take the United States apart and put it back together again according
to a new plan and for a new purpose. The financial cost would be
unimportant, because we could not buy it, we would have to do it,
with our own hands, our own sweat. It would mean a sixty-hour week
for everyone, no luxury trades, and a bare minimum standard of living
for all for some years. Thereafter the standard of living woula be
permanently depressed, for the new United States would be
organized for defense, not for mass production, nor efficient
marketing, nor convenient distribution. We would have to pay for our
village culture in terms of lowered consumption. Worse, a large chunk
of our lowered productivity must go into producing and supporting the
atomic engines of war necessary to strike back against an aggressor-
for dispersion alone would not protect us from invasion.
If the above picture is too bleak, let us not prate about dispersion.
There are only three real alternatives open to us: One, to form a truly
sovereign superstate to police the globe; two, to prepare realistically
for World War III in which case dispersion, real and thorough
dispersion, is utterly necessary, or, third, to sit here, fat, dumb, and
happy, wallowing in our luxuries, until the next Hitler annihilates us!
The other necessary consequences of defense by dispersion are
even more chilling than the economic disadvantages. If we go it alone
and depend on ourselves to defend ourselves we must be prepared
permanently to surrender that democratic freedom of action which we
habitually enjoyed in peace time. We must resign ourselves to
becoming a socialistic, largely authoritarian police state, with freedom


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of speech, freedom of occupation, and freedom of movement
subordinated to military necessity, as defined by those in charge.
Oh, yes! I dislike the prospect quite as much as you do, but I dislike
still more the idea of being atomized, or of being served up as a roast
by my starving neighbors. Here is what you can expect:
The front door bell rings. Mr. Joseph Public, solid citizen, goes to
answer it. He recognizes a neighbor. “Hi, Jack! What takes you out
so late?”
  “Got some dope for you, Joe. Relocation orders-I was appointed an
  emergency deputy, you know.”
“Hadn’t heard, but glad to hear. Come in and sit down and tell me
about it. How do the orders read? We stay, don’t we?”
“Can’t come in-thanks. I’ve got twenty-three more stops to make
tonight. I’m sorry to say you don’t stay. Your caravan will rendezvous
at Ninth and Chelsea, facing west, and gets underway at noon
tomorrow.”
   “What!”
   “That’s how it is. Sorry.”
   “Why, this is a damned outrage! I put in to stay here-with my home
      town as second choice.”
The deputy shrugged. “So did everybody else. But you weren’t even
on the list of essential occupations from which the permanent
residents were selected. Now, look-I’ve got to hurry. Here are your
orders. Limit yourself to 150 pounds of baggage, each, and take food
for three days. You are to go in your own car-you’re getting a break-
and you will be assigned two more passengers by the convoy
captain, two more besides your wife I mean.”
  Joe Public shoved his hands in his pockets and looked stubborn. “I
  won’t be there.”
“Now, Joe, don’t take that attitude. I admit it’s kinda rough, being in
the first detachment, but you’ve had lots of notice. The newspapers
have been full of it. It’s been six months since the President’s
proclamation.”
“I won’t go. There’s some mistake. I saw the councilman last week
and he said he thought I would be all right. He-“
  “He told everybody that, Joe. This is a Federal order.”


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  “I don’t give a damn if it’s from the Angel Gabriel. I tell you I won’t
  go. I’ll get an injunction.”
“You can’t, Joe. This has been declared a military area and protests
have to go to the Provost Marshal. I’d hate to tell you what he does
with them. Anyhow, you can’t stay here-it’s no business of mine to
put you out; I just have to tell you-but the salvage crews will be here
tomorrow morning to pull out your plumbing.
   “They won’t get in.”
   “Maybe not. But the straggler squads will go through all of these
       houses first.”
   “I’ll shoot!”
   “I wouldn’t advise it. They’re mostly ex-Marines.”
Mr. Public was quiet for a long minute. Marines. “Look, Jack,” he said
slowly, “suppose I do go. I’ve got to have an exemption on this
baggage limitation and I can’t carry passengers. My office files alone
will fill up the back seat.”
“You won’t need them. You are assigned as an apprentice carpenter.
The barracks you are going to are only temporary.”
  “Joseph! Joseph! Don’t stand there with the door open! Who is it?”
  His wife followed her voice in.
  He turned to tell her; the deputy took that as a good time to leave.
At eleven the next morning he pulled out of the driveway, gears
clashing. He had the white, drawn look of a man who has been up all
night. His wife slept beside him, her hysteria drowned in a triple dose
of phenobarbital.
That is dispersion. If you don’t believe it, ask any native-born citizen
of Japanese blood. Nothing less than force and police organization
will drive the peasants off the slopes of Vesuvius. The bones of
Pompeii and Herculaneum testify to that. Or, ask yourself- will you go
willingly and cheerfully to any spot and any occupation the
government assigns to you? If not, unless you are right now working
frantically to make World War III impossible, you have not yet
adjusted yourself to the horrid facts of the Atomic Age.
For these are the facts of the Atomic Age. If we are not to have a
World State, then we must accept one of two grim alternatives: A
permanent state of total war, even in “peace” time, with every effort
turned to offense and defense, or relax to our fate, make our peace


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with God, and wait for death to come out of the sky. The time in
which to form a World State is passing rapidly; it may be gone by the
time this is printed. It is worthwhile to note that the publisher of the
string of newspapers most bitterly opposed to “foreign
entanglements,” particularly with Russia, and most insistent on us
holding on to the vanishing “secret” of the atomic bomb-this man, this
publisher, lives on an enormous, self-sufficient ranch, already
dispersed. Not for him is the peremptory knock on the door and the
uprooting relocation order. Yet he presumes daily to tell our Congress
what must be done with us and for us.
Look at the facts! Go to your public library and read the solemn
statements of the men who built the atomic bomb. Do not let yourself
be seduced into a false serenity by men who do not understand that
the old world is dead. Regularly, in the past, our State Department
has bungled us into wars and with equal regularity our military
establishment has been unprepared for them. Then the lives and the
strength of the common people have bought for them a victory.
  Now comes a war which cannot be won after such mistakes.
If we are to die, let us die like men, eyes open, aware of our peril and
striving to cope with it-not as fat and fatuous fools, smug in the belief
that the military men and the diplomats have the whole thing under
control.
  “It is later than you think.”

HOW TO BE A SURVIVOR
The Art of Staying Alive
in the Atomic Age


Thought about your life insurance lately?
  Wait a minute-sit back down! We don’t want to sell you any
  insurance.
Let’s put it another way: How’s your pioneer blood these days?
Reflexes in fine shape? Muscle tone good? Or do you take a taxi to
go six blocks?
How are you at catching rabbits? The old recipe goes, “First, catch
the rabbit-“ Suppose your supper depended on catching a rabbit?


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Then on building a fire without matches? Then on cooking it? What
kind of shape will you be in after the corner delicatessen is atomized?
When a committee of Senators asked Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer
whether or not a single attack on the United States could kill forty
million people, he testified, “I am afraid it is true.”
This is not an article about making the atom bomb safe for
democracy. This is an article about you-and how you can avoid being
one of the forty million knocked off in the first attack in World War III.
How, if worst comes to worst, you can live through the next war,
survive the aftermath, and build a new life.
If you have been reading the newspapers you are aware that World
War III, if it ever comes, is expected to start with an all-out surprise
attack by long-dis
tance atomic bombing on the cities of America. General Marshall’s
final report included this assumption, General Arnold has warned us
against such an attack, General Spaatz has described it and told us
that it is almost impossible to ward it off if it ever comes. Innumerable
scientists, especially the boys who built the A-bomb, have warned us
of it.
From the newspapers you may also have gathered that world affairs
are not in the best of shape-the Balkans, India, Palestine, Iran,
Argentina, Spain, China, The East Indies, etc., etc.-and the UNO
does not seem as yet to have a stranglehold on all of the problems
that could lead to another conflict.
Maybe so, maybe not-time will tell. Maybe we will form a real World
State strong enough to control the atom bomb. If you are sure there
will never be war again, don’t let me waste your time. But if you think
it possible that another Hitler or Tojo might get hold of the atomic
bomb and want to try his luck, then bend an ear and we’ll talk about
how you and your kids can live through it. We’ll start with the grisly
assumption that the war will come fast and hard, when it comes,
killing forty million or so at once, destroying the major cities, wrecking
most of our industry and utterly disorganizing the rest. We will
assume a complete breakdown of government and communication
which will throw the survivors-that’s you, chum!-on their own as
completely as ever was Dan’! Boone.




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No government-remember that. The United States will cease to be a
fact except in the historical sense. You will be on your own, with no
one to tell you what to do and no policeman on the corner to turn to
for protection. And you will be surrounded with dangerous carnivores,
worse than the grizzlies Daniel Boone tackled-the two-legged kind.
Perhaps we had better justify the assumption of complete breakdown
in government. It might not happen, but, if the new Hitler has sense
enough to write
Mein Kampf, or even to read it as a textbook, he will do his very best
to destroy and demoralize us by destro~ing our government-and his
best could be quite efficient. If he wants to achieve political
breakdown in his victim, Washington, D.C., will be his prime target,
the forty-eight state capitals his secondary targets, and
communication centers such as Kansas City his tertiary targets. The
results should be roughly comparable to the effect on a man’s
organization when his head is chopped off.
Therefore, in this bad dream we are having, let us assume no
government, no orders from Washington, no fireside chats, no
reassurances. You won’t be able to write to your congressman,
because he, poor devil!, is marked for the kill. You can live through it,
he can’t. He will be radioactive dust. His profession is so hazardous
that there is no need for him to study up on how to snare rabbits.
  But you should- if you are smart, you can live through it.
Now as to methods-there is just one known way to avoid being killed
by an atomic bomb. The formula is very simple:
  Don’t be there when it goes off!
Survival methods in the atomic age can be divided into two headings,
strategical and tactical. The first or strategical aspect is entirely
concerned with how not to be where the bomb is; the second, tactical
part has to do with how to keep yourself and your family alive if you
live through the destruction of the cities and the government.
Strategy first-the simplest way to insure long life for yourself and
family is to move to Honduras or some other small and
nonindustrialized country, establish yourself there, and quit worrying.
It is most unlikely that such places will be subjected to atomic
bombardment; if war comes, they will move into the economic



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and political sphere of the winner, to be sure, but probably without
bloodshed, since resistance would be so obviously futile.
However, you probably cannot afford, or feel that you can’t afford,
any move as drastic as that. (Whether or not you can in truth afford it
is a moot point, to be settled by your own notion of the degree of
danger. The pre-War refugees from Nazi Germany could not “afford”
to flee, either, but events proved the wisdom of doing so. There is an
old Chinese adage, “In the course of a long life a wise man will be
prepared to abandon his baggage several times.” It has never been
more true than it is today.)
There are several moves open to you which are less drastic. If you
live on a farm or in a small village, several miles-fifty is a good figure-
from the nearest large city, rail junction, power dam, auto factory, or
other likely military target, strategy largely takes care of itself. If you
are blasted, it will probably be an accident, a rocket gone wild, or
something equally unforeseeable. If you are not in such a location,
you had better make some plans.
Just a moment-a gentleman in the back row has a question. A little
louder please. He asks, “Isn’t it true that the government is planning
to disperse the cities so we will be safe from atomic bombs?”
I don’t know-is it? The only figure I have heard mentioned so far is
$250,000,000,000. Quite aside from the question of whether or not
large scale dispersion can be made effective, there is still the
question as to whether or not Congress would appropriate a quarter
of a trillion dollars in peacetime for any purpose. That is a political
question, beyond the scope of this discussion. We are concerned
here with how you, unassisted, with your two hands, your brain, and
your ability to plan ahead, can keep yourself alive during and after
any possible Next War.
If you have to live in a large city or other target area, your strategical
planning has to be a good bit more
detailed, alert, and shifty. You need an emergency home, perhaps an
abandoned farm picked up cheaply or a cabin built on government
land. What it is depends on the part of the country you live in and
how much money you can put into it, but it should be chosen with
view to the possibilities it offers of eating off the country-fish, game,
garden plot-and it should be near enough for you to reach it on one
tank of gasoline. If the tank in your car is too small, have a special

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one built, or keep enough cans of reserve permanently in the trunk of
your car. Your car should also be equipped with a survival kit, but that
comes under tactics.
Having selected and equipped your emergency base, you must then,
if you are to live in a target area, keep your ear to the ground and
your eyes open with respect to world affairs. There will be no time to
get out after rockets are launched. You will have to outguess events.
This is a tricky assignment at best and is the principal reason why it is
much better to live in the country in the first place, but you stand a
fair chance of accomplishing it if you do not insist on being blindly
optimistic and can overcome a natural reluctance to make a clean
break with your past-business, home, clubs, friends, church-when it
becomes evident that the storm clouds are gathering. Despite the
tragic debacle at Pearl Harbor, quite a number of people, laymen
among them, knew that a war with Japan was coming. If you think
you can learn to spot the signs of trouble long enough in advance to
jump, you may get away with living on the spot with the X mark.
Let us suppose that you were quick-witted, far sighted, and fast on
your feet; you brought yourself and your family safely through the
bombing and have them somewhere out in the country, away from
the radioactive areas that were targets a short time before. The
countryside is swarming with survivors from the edges of the bombed
areas, survivors who are hun-
gry, desperate, some of them armed, all of them free of the civilizing
restrictions of organized living. Enemy troops, moving in to occupy,
may already be present or may be dropping in from the skies any
day.
  How, on that day, will you feed and protect yourself and your
  family?
The tactical preparations for survival after the debacle fall mainly into
three groups. First is the overhaul of your own bodily assets, which
includes everything from joining the YMCA, to get rid of that paunch
and increase your wind and endurance, to such things as getting
typhoid and cholera shots, having that appendix out, and keeping
your teeth in the best shape possible. If you wear glasses, you will
need several pairs against the day when there will be no opticians in
practice. Second is the acquisition of various materials and tools
which you will be unable to make or grow in a sudden, synthetic


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stone age- items such as a pickax or a burning glass, for example,
will be wdrth considerably more than two college degrees or a
diamond bracelet. Third is training in various fundamental pioneer
skills, not only how to snare and cook rabbits, but such things as
where and when to plant potatoes, how to tell edible fungi from
deadly toadstools without trying them on Junior, and how to walk
silently.
All these things are necessary, but more important, much more
important, is the acquiring of a survival point of view, the spiritual
orientation which will enable you to face hardship, danger, cold, and
hunger without losing your zest and courage and sense of humor. If
you think it is going to be too hard to be worthwhile, if you can’t face
the prospect of coming back to the ruins of your cabin, burned down
by drunken looters, other than with the quiet determination to build
another, then don’t bother to start. Move to a target area and wait for
the end. It does not take any special courage or skill to accept the
death that moves like
lightning. You won’t even have ttie long walk the steers have to make
to get from the stockyard pens to the slaughter-house.
But if your ancestors still move in your bones, you will know that it is
worthwhile, just as they did. “The cowards never started and the
weaklings died on the way.” That was the spirit that crossed the
plains, and such was the spirit of every emigrant who left Europe.
There is good blood in your veins, compadre!
It is not possible to tell exactly what to do to prepare yourself best to
survive, even if this were a book instead of a short article, for the
details must depend on the nature of the countryside you must rely
on, your opportunities for planning and preparing, the numbers, ages
and sex of your dependents if any, your present skills, talents, and
physical condition, and whether or not you are at present dispersed
from target areas or must plan for such dispersal. But the principles
under which you can make your plans and the easiest means by
which to determine them can be indicated.
Start out by borrowing your son’s copy of the Boy Scout Manual. It is
a practical book of the sort of lore you will need. If you can’t borrow it
because he is not a member of the Scouts, send him down at once
and make him join up. Then make him study. Get him busy on those
merit badges-woodcraft, cooking, archery, carpentry. Somebody is


                                    141
going to have to make that fire without matches, if that rabbit is ever
to be cooked and eaten. See to it that he learns how, from experts.
Then make him teach you.
Can you fell a tree? Can you trim a stone? Do you know where to dig
a cesspool? Where and how to dig a well? Can you pull a tooth? Can
you shoot a rifle accurately and economically? Can you spot
tularemia (we are back to that ubiquitous rabbit again!) in cleaning a
rabbit? Do you know the rudiments of farming? Given simple tools,
could you build a log, or adobe, or
rammed-earth, or native-stone cabin from materials at hand and have
it be weather-tight, varmint-proof, and reasonably comfortable?
You can’t learn all the basic manual trades in your spare time in a
limited number of years but you can acquire a jackleg but adequate
knowledge of the more important ones, in the time we have left.
  But how much time have we?
All we can do is estimate. How long will it be before other nations
have the atomic bomb? Nobody knows- one estimate from the men
who made it was “two to five years.” Dr. Vannevar Bush spoke of
“five to fifteen years” while another expert, equally distinguished,
mentioned “five or ten years.” Major General Leslie Groves, the atom
general, thinks it will be a long time.
Let us settle on five years as a reasonable minimum working time. Of
course, even if another nation, unfriendly to us, solved the production
problems of atomic weapons in that length of time, there still might
not be a war for a number of years, nor would there necessarily ever
be one. However, since we don’t know what world conditions will be
like in five years, let’s play it safe; let’s try to be ready for it by 1950.
Four or five years is none too long to turn a specialized, soft, city
dweller into a generalized, hardened pioneer. However, it is likely that
you will find that you are enjoying it. It will be an interesting business
and there is a deep satisfaction in learning how to do things with your
own hands.
First get that Scout Manual. Look over that list of merit badges. Try to
figure out what skills you are likely to need, what ones you now have,
and what ones you need to study up on. The Manual will lead you in
time to other books. Ernest Thompson Seton’s Two Little Savages is
full of ideas and suggestions.


                                     142
Presently you will find that there are handbooks of various trades you
have not time to master; books which contain information you could
look up in an emergency if you have had the forethought to buy the
book and hide it away in your out-of-tpwn base. There are books
which show how to build fireplaces, giving the exact dimensions of
reflector, throat, ledge, and flue. You may not remember such details;
being able to look them up may save you from a winter in a smoke-
filled cabin. If there is any greater domestic curse than a smoking
fireplace, I can’t recall it, unless it be the common cold.
There are little handbooks which show, in colored pictures, the edible
mushrooms and their inedible cousins. It is possible to live quite well
on practically nothing but fungi, with comparatively little work; they
exist in such abundance and variety.
You will need a medical reference book, selected with the advice of a
wise and imaginative medical man. Tell him why you want it. Besides
that, the best first-aid and nursing instrvction you can get will not be
too much. Before you are through with this subject you will find
yourself selecting drugs, equipment, and supplies to be stored
against the darkness, in your base as well as a lesser supply to go
into the survival kit you keep in your automobile.
What goes into that survival kit, anyhow? You will have to decide; you
won’t take any present advice in any case. By the time you get to it
you will think, quite correctly, that you are the best judge. But the
contents of the survival kits supplied our aviators in this latest war will
be very illuminating. The contents varied greatly, depending on
climate and nature of mission- from pemmican to quinine, fish hooks
to maps.
What to put in your cabin is still more difficult to state definitely. To
start with, you might obtain a Sears-Roebuck or Montgomery-Ward
catalog and go through it, item by item. Ask yourself “Do I have to
have this?,” then from the list that produces ask yourself “Could I
make this item, or a substitute, in a pinch?”
If shoes wear out, it is possible to make moccasins- although shoes
should be hoarded in preference to any
other item of clothing. But you can’t-unless you are Superman-make
an ax. You will need an ax.
  You will need certain drugs. Better be liberal here.


                                    143
    Salt is difficult to obtain, inland.
It is difficult to reject the idea of hoarding canned goods. A few
hundred dollars worth, carefully selected, could supplement the diet
of your family to the point of luxury for several years. It might save
you from starvation, or the cannibalism that shamed the Donner
Party, during your first winter of the Dark Ages, and it could certainly
alleviate some of the sugar hunger you are sure to feel under most
primitive conditions. But it is a very great risk to have canned goods.
If you have them, you will be one of the hated rich if anybody finds
out about them. We are assuming that there will be no government to
protect you. To have canned goods-and have it known by anyone
outside your own household-is to invite assassination. If you do not
believe that a man will commit murder for one can of tomatoes, then
you have never been hungry.
If you have canned goods, open them when the windows are
shuttered and bury the cans. Resist the temptation to advertise your
wealth by using the empty tins as receptacles.
  Don’t forget a can opener-two can openers.
You will have a rifle, high-powered and with telescopic sights, but you
won’t use it much. Cartridges are nearly irreplaceable. A deer or a
man should be about the limit of the list of your targets . . . a deer
when you need meat; a man when hiding or running is not enough.
That brings us to another subject and the most interesting of all. We
have not talked much about the enemy, have we? And yet he was
there, from the start. It was his atom bombs which reduced you to
living off the country and performing your own amputations and
accouchements. If you have laid your plans carefully, you won’t see
much of him for quite a while; this is a very, very big country. Where
you are hidden out
there never were very many people~at any time; the chances of
occupation forces combing all of the valleys, canyons, and hills of our
back country in less than several years is negligible. It is entirely
conceivable that an enemy could conquer or destroy our country, as
a state, in twenty minutes, with atom bomb and rocket. Yet, when his
occupation forces move in, they will be almost lost in this great
continent. He may not find you for years.
There is your chance. It has been proved time and again, by the
Fighting French, the recalcitrant Irish, the deathless Poles, yes and

                                  144
by our own Apache and Yaqui Indians, that you cannot conquer a
free man; you can only kill him.
  After the immediate problems of the belly, comes the Underground!
You’ll need your rifle. You will need knives. You will need dynamite
and fuses. You will need to know how to turn them into grenades.
You must learn how to harry the enemy in the dark, how to turn his
conquest into a mockery, too expensive to exploit. Oh, it can be
done, it can be done! Once he occupies, his temporary advantage of
the surprise attack with the atom bomb is over, for once his troops
are scattered among you, he cannot use the atom bomb.
Then is your day. Then is the time for the neighborhood cell, the
mountain hideout, the blow in the night. Yes, and then is the time for
the martyr to freedom, the men and women who die painfully, with
sealed lips.
Can we then win our freedom back? There is no way of telling.
History has some strange quirks. It was a conflict between England
and France that gave us our freedom in the first place. A quarrel in
enemy high places, a young hopeful feeling his oats and anxious to
displace the original dictator, might give us unexpected opportunity,
opportunity we could exploit if we were ready.

There are ways to study for that day, too. There are
books, many of them, which you may read to learn how other people
have done it. One such book is Tom Wintringham’s New Ways of
War. It is almost a blueprint of what to do to make an invader wish he
had stayed at home. It is available in a 25 cent PenguinInfantry
Journal edition. You can study up and become quite deadly, even
though 4-F, or fifty.
If you plan for it, you can survive. If you study and plan and are ready
to organize when the time comes, you can hope not only to survive
but to play a part in winning back lost freedoms. General George
Washington once quoted Scripture to describe what we were fighting
for then-a time when “everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine
and figtree, and none shall make him afraid!”
  It is worth planning for.




                                  145
“A person who won’t be blackmailed,
can’t be blackmailed.”
  • L. Long


PIE FROM THE SKY
Since we have every reason to expect a sudden rain of death from
the sky sometime in the next few years, as a result of a happy
combination of the science of atomics and the art of rocketry, it
behooves the Pollyanna Philosopher to add up the advantages to be
derived from the blasting of your apartment, row house, or suburban
cottage.
It ain’t all bad, chum. While you are squatting in front of your cave,
trying to roast a rabbit with one hand while scratching your lice-
infested hide with the other, there will be many cheerful things to
think about, the assets of destruction, rather than tortu1ring your
mind with thoughts of the good old, easy days of taxis and tabloids
and Charlie’s Bar Grill.
There are so many, many things in this so-termed civilization of ours
which would be mightily improved by a once over lightly of the
Hiroshima treatment. There is that dame upstairs, for instance, the
one with the square bowling ball. Never again would she take it out
for practice right over your bed at three in the morning. Isn’t that
some consolation?
No more soap operas. No more six minutes of good old Mom facing
things bravely, interspersed with eight minutes of insistent, syrupy
plugging for commercial junk you don’t want and would be better off
without. Never again will you have to wait breathlessly for “same
time, same station” to find out what
beautiful Mamie Jukes, that priceless moron, does about her
nameless babe. She will be gone, along with the literary prostitute
who brought her into being.
No more alarm clocks. No more alarm clocks! No more of the
frenzied keeping of schedules, appointments, and deadlines that they
imply. You won’t have to gulp your coffee to run for the 8:19
commuters’ special, nor keep your eye on the clock while you lunch.
A few of the handy little plutonium pills dropped from the sky will end


                                   146
the senseless process of running for the bus to go to work to make
the money to buy the food to get the strength to run for the bus. You
will swap the pressure of minutes for the slow tide of eternity.
But best of all, you will be freed of the plague of the alarm that yanks
you from the precious nirvana of sleep and sets you on your weary
feet, with every nerve screaming protest. If you are snapped
suddenly out of sleep in the Atomic Stone Age, it will be a mountain
lion, a wolf, a man, or some other carnivore, not a mechanical
monstrosity.
Westbrook Pegler will no longer exhibit to you his latest hate, nor will
Lolly Parsons stuff you with her current girlish enthusiasm. (If your
pet dislikes among the columnists are not these two, fill in names to
suit yourself; none of them will bother you after the fission treatment.)
In fact, all the impact of world-wide troubles will fade away. Divorces,
murders, and troubles in China will no longer smite from headline and
radio. Your only worries will be your own worries.
  No more John L. Lewis.
  No more jurisdictional strikes.
  No more “Hate-Roosevelt” clubs.
  No more “Let’s-Hate-Eleanor,-Too” clubs.
  No more Petrillo.
No more damn fools who honk right behind your car while the lights
are changing. I’ll buy this one at a black market price right now.
No more Gerald L. K. Smith... . ai~d, conversely, no more people who
think that the persecution of their particular minority is the only evil in
the entire world worth talking about, or working to correct.
No more phony “days.” You won’t have to buy a red carnation to
show that Mom is alive nor a white one to show that she’s not. (It’s
even money that you will have lost track of her in the debacle and not
know whether she is alive or dead.) No more “Boy’s Day” in our city
governments with pre-adolescent little stinkers handing out fines and
puritanical speeches to tired street walkers while the elected judge
smiles blandly for the photographers. No more “Eat More Citrus Fruit”
or “Eat More Chocolate Candy” or “Read More Comic Books” weeks
thought up by the advertising agents of industries.
While we are on the subject of phony buildups, let’s give a cheer for
the elimination of debutantes with press agents, for the blotting out of


                                    147
“cafe” society, for the consignment to oblivion of the whole notion of
the “coming-out” party. The resumption of the comingout party in the
United States, with its attendant, incredibly callous, waste, at the very
time that Europe starves, is a scandal to the jay birds. A few atom
bombs would be no more than healthy fumigation of this imbecilic
evil.
No more toothsome mammals built up by synthetic publicity into
movie “stars” before they have played a part in a picture. This is
probably a relatively harmless piece of idiocy in our whipped-cream
culture, but the end of it, via A-bombs, may stop Sarah Bernhardt
from spinning in her grave.
No more over-fed, under-worked, rapacious female tyrants. I won’t
say “mothers-in-law”; your motherin-law may be a pretty good Joe. If
not, you may have a chance to cut her up for steak.
There is actually nothing to prevent American women from being
able, adult, useful citizens, and many of them are. But our society is
so rigged that a
worthless female can make a racket of it-but not after a brisk one-two
with uranium! The parasites will starve when that day comes, from
the cheerful idiots of the Helen Hokinson cartoons to the female
dinosaurs who use sacrosanct sex as a club to bullyrag, blackmail,
and dominate every man they can reach.
The parasite males will die out, too. Yes, pal, if you can manage to
zig while the atomic rockets zag you will find society much changed
and in many respects improved.
There are a lot of other minor advantages you should get firmly in
mind now, lest you fall prey to a fatal nostalgia after this great,
fantastic, incredible, somewhat glorious and very fragile technological
culture crashes about your ears. Subway smell, for example. The guy
who coughs on the back of your neck in the theater. Men who bawl
out waitresses. The woman who crowds in ahead of you at the
counter. The person who asks how much you paid for it. The
preacher with the unctuous voice and the cash register heart. The
millionairess who wills her money to found a home for orphan
guppies. The lunkhead who dials a wrong number (your number) in
the middle of the night and then is sore at you for not being the party
he wanted. The sportsman who turns his radio up loud so that he can
boo the Dodgers while out in his garden. The Dodgers. People who

                                   148
don’t curb their dogs. People who spit on sidewalks. People who
censor plays and suppress books. Breach-of-promise suits. People
who stare at wounded veterans.
  A blinding flash, a pillar of radioactive dust, and all this will be
  gone.
I don’t mean to suggest that it will all be fun. Keeping alive after our
cities have been smashed and our government disintegrated will be a
grim business at best, as the survivors in central Europe could tell
you. In spite of the endless list that could be made of the
things we are better off without I d~ not think it will be very much fun
to scrabble around in the woods for a bite to eat. For that reason I am
thinking of liquidating, in advance, the next character who says to me,
“Well, what difference does it make if we are atombombed-you gotta
die sometime!”
  I shall shoot him dead, blow through the barrel, and say, “You
  asked for it, chum.”
Conceding that we will all die some day, is that a reason why I should
let this grinning ape drag me along toward disaster just because he
will take no thought of tomorrow?
Since there are so many of him the chances of us, as a nation, being
able to avert disaster are not good. Perhaps some of us could form
an association to live through World War III. Call it the League for the
Preservation of the Human Race, or the Doom’s Day Men, or
something like that. Restrict the membership to survivor types, sound
in tooth and wind, trained in useful trades or science, reasonably high
I.Q.’s and proved fertility. Then set up two or three colonies remote
from cities and other military targets.
  It might work.
Maybe I will start it myself if I can find an angel to put up the dough
for the original promotion. That should get me in as anex-officio
member, I hope. I have looked over my own qualifications and I don’t
seem to measure up to the standards.
My ancestors got into America by a similar dodge. They got here
early, when the immigration restrictions were pretty lax. Maybe I can
repeat.




                                    149
I am sure I shall not resign myself to death simply because Joe
Chucklehead points out that atomization is quick and easy. Even if
that were good I would not like it. Furthermore, it is not true. Death
comes fast at the center of the blast; around the edges is a big area
of the fatal burn and the slow death, with plenty of time to reconsider
the disadvantages of chucklehead-
ness in the Atomic Age, before your flesh sloughs off and you give up
the ghost. No, thank you, I plan to disperse myself to the country.
Of course, if you are so soft that you like innerspring mattresses and
clean water and regular meals, despite the numerous advantages of
blowing us off the map, but are not too soft to try to do something to
avoid the coming debacle, there is something you can do about it,
other than forming Survival Leagues or cultivating an attitude of
philosophical resignation.
If you really want to hang on to the advantages of our slightly wacky
pseudo-civilization, there is just one way to do it, according to the
scientists who know the most about the new techniques of war-and
that is to form a sovereign world authority to prevent the Atomic War.
Run, do not walk, to the nearest Western Union, and telegraph your
congressman to get off the dime and get on with the difficult business
of forming an honestto-goodness world union, with no jokers about
Big Five vetoes or national armaments.. . to get on with it promptly,
while there is still time, before Washington, D.C., is reduced to
radioactive dust-and he with it, poor devil!

FOREWORD
While I was failing at World-Saving, I was beginning to achieve my
second objective: to spread out, not limit myself to pulp science
fiction. THEY DO IT WITH MIRRORS was my first attempt in the
crime-mystery field, and from it I learned three things: a) whodunn its
are fairly easy to write and easy to sell; b) I was no threat to
Raymond Chandler or Rex Stout as the genre didn’t interest me that
much; and c) Crime Does Not Pay- Enough (the motto of the Mystery
Writers of America).
It may amuse you to know that this story was considered to be (in
1945) too risque; the magazine editor laundered it before publication.
You are seeing the original “dirty” version; try to find in it anything at
all that could bring a blush to the cheek of your maiden aunt.

                                    150
In late 1945 this magic mirror existed in a bar at (as I recall) the
corner of Hollywood and Gower Gulch; the rest is fiction.

“Anything you get free costs more than
worth-but you don’t find it out until later.”
• Bernardo de la Paz
-

THEY DO IT WITH MIRRORS

An Edison Hill Crime Case
 I was there to see beautiful naked women. So was everybody else.
 It’s a common failing.
I climbed on a stool at the end of the bar in Jack Joy’s Joint and
spoke to Jack himself, who was busy setting up two old-fashioneds.
“Make it three,” I said. “No, make it four and have one with me.
What’s the pitch, Jack? I hear you set up a peep show for the
suckers.”
   “Hi, Ed. Nope, it’s not a peep show-it’s Art.”
   “What’s the difference?”
“If they hold still, it’s Art. If they wiggle around, it’s illegal. That’s the
ruling. Here.” He handed me a program.
  It read:

THE JOY CLUB
PRESENTS
The Magic Mirror

Beautiful Models in a series of Entertaining
and Artistic Pageants
10 p.m.        “Aphrodite”      Estelle
11 p.m.      “Sacrifice to the Sun” Estelle and Hazel
12 p.m.      “The High Priestess” Hazel
1 a.m.        “The Altar Victim”      Estelle
2 a.m.       “Invocation to Pan”      Estelle and Hazel

(Guests are requested to refrain stomping, whistling, or otherwise
disturbing the artistic serenity of the presentations)

                                       151
The last was a giggle. Jack’s place was strictly a joint. But on the
other side of the program I saw a new schedule of prices which
informed me that the drink in my hand was going to cost me just
twice what I had figured. And the place was jammed. By suckers-
including me.
I was about to speak to Jack, in a kindly way, promising to keep my
eyes closed during the show and then pay the old price for my drink,
when I heard two sharp beeps!-a high tension buzzer sound, like
radio code- from a spot back of the bar. Jack turned away from me,
explaining, “That’s the eleven o’clock show.” He busied himself
underneath the bar.
Being at the end of the bar I could see under the long side somewhat.
He had enough electrical gear there to make a happy Christmas for a
Boy Scout-switches, a rheostat dingus, a turntable for recordings,
and a hand microphone. I leaned over and sized it up. I have a
weakness for gadgets, from my old man. He named me Thomas Alva
Edison Hill in hopes that I would emulate his idol. I disappointed him-I
didn’t invent the atom bomb, but I do sometimes try to repair my own
typewriter.
Jack flipped a switch and picked up the hand mike. His voice came
out of the juke box: “We now present the Magic Mirror.” Then the
turntable picked up with Hymn to the Sun from Coq d’Or, and he
started turning the rheostat slowly.
The lights went down in the joint and came up slowly in the Magic
Mirror. The “Mirror” was actually a sheet of glass about ten feet wide
and eight high which shut off a little balcony stage. When the house
lights were on bright and the stage was dark, you could not see
through the glass at all; it looked like a mirror. As the house lights
went out and the stage lights came on, you could see through the
glass and a picture slowly built up in the “Mirror.”
Jack had a single bright light under the bar which lighted him and the
controls and which did not go out
with the house lights. Because of my position at th end of the bar it hit
me square in the eye. I had to bloci it with my hand to see the stage.
  It was something to see.
Two girls, a blonde and a brunette. A sort of altar oi table, with the
blonde sprawled across it, volup’. Th brunette standing at the end of


                                   152
the altar, grabbing th blonde by the hair with one hand while holding 2
fancy dagger upraised with the other. There was 2 backdrop in gold
and dark blue-a sunburst in 2 phony Aztec or Egyptian design, but
nobody was look ing at it; they were looking at the girls.
The brunette was wearing a high show-girl heac dress, silver
sandals, and a G-string in glass jewels Nothing more. No sign of a
brassiere. The blonde wa~ naked as an oyster, with her downstage
knee drawn uj just enough to get past sufficiently broad-minded cen
sors.
  But I was not looking at the naked blonde; I wa~ looking at the
  brunette.
It was not just the two fine upstanding breasts flO] the long graceful
legs nor the shape of her hips an thighs; it was the overall effect. She
was so beautiful i hurt. I heard somebody say, “Great jumping
jeepers!’ and was about to shush him when I realized it was me
  Then the lights went down and I remembered t breathe.
I paid the clip price for my drink without a quivel and Jack assured
me: “They are hostesses betweer shows.” When they showed up at
the stairway leadin~ down from the balcony he signalled them to
come ove~ and then introduced me.
  “Hazel Dorn, Estelle d’Arcy-meet Eddie Hill.”
  Hazel, the brunette, said, “How do you do?” but th blonde said,
  “Oh, I’ve met the Ghost before. How’s business Rattled any chains
    lately?”

I said, “Good enough,” and let it pass. I knew her al
right-but as Audrey Johnson, not as Estelle d’Arcy. She had been a
steno at the City Hal1~when I was doing an autobiography of the
Chief of Police. I had not liked her much; she had an instinct for
finding a sore point and picking at it.
I am not ashamed of being a ghost writer, nor is it a secret. You will
find my name on the title page of Forty Years a Cop as well as the
name of the Chief-in small print but it is there: “with Edison Hill.”
  “How did you like the show?” Hazel asked, when I had ordered a
  round.
“I likedyou,” I said, softly enough to keep it private. “I can’t wait for the
next show to see more of you.”

                                     153
“You’ll see more,” she admitted and changed the subject. I gathered
an impression that she was proud of her figure and liked to be told
she was beautiful but was not entirely calloused about exhibiting it in
public.
Estelle leaned across the bar to Jack. “Jackie Boy,” she said in
sweetly reasonable tones, “you held the lights too long again. It
doesn’t matter to me in that pose, but you had poor old Hazel
trembling like a leaf before you doused the glim.”
Jack set a three-minute egg timer, like a little hourglass on the bar.
“Three minutes it says-three minutes you did.”
  “I don’t think it was more than three minutes,” Hazel objected. “I
  wasn’t tired.”
“You were trembling, dear. I saw you. You mustn’t tire yourself-it
makes lines. Anyhow,” she added, “I’ll just keep this,” and she put the
egg timer in her purse. “We’ll time it ourselves.”
  “It was three minutes,” Jack insisted.
“Never mind,” she answered. “From now on it’ll be three minutes, or
mamma will have to lock Jackie in the dark closet.”
  Jack started to answer, thought better of it, then walked away to
  the other end of the bar. Estelle
shrugged, then threw down the rest of her drink ~ left us. I saw her
speak to Jack again, then join so customers at one of the tables.
Hazel looked at her as she walked away. “I’d pad that chippie’s
pants,” she muttered, “if she wore an
      “A bum beef?”
“Not exactly. Maybe Jack is a friend of yours- “Just an acquaintance.”
“Well . . . I’ve had worse bosses-but he is a bit ( jerk. Maybe he
doesn’t stretch the poses just out meanness-I’ve never timed him-but
some of th poses are too long for three minutes. Take Estel Aphrodite
pose-you saw it?”

‘ ‘ I’Jo.’ ~
“She balances on the ball of one foot, no costum all, but with one leg
raised enough to furnish a fig li Jack’s got a blackout switch to cover
her if she bre~ but, just the same, it’s a strain.”
     “To cover himself with the cops, you mean.”


                                   154
      “Well, yes. Jack wants us to make it just as stronl the vice
      squad will stand for.”
      “You ought not to be in a dive like this. You ough have a movie
      contract.”
  She laughed without mirth. “Eddie, did you ever to get a movie
     contract? I’ve tried.”
  “Just the same-oh, well! But why are you sorc Estelle? What you
     told me doesn’t seem to cover i
  “She- Skip it. She probably means well.”
  “You mean she shouldn’t have dragged you into i
  “Partly.”
  “What else?”
“Oh, nothing-look, do you think I need any wrin remover?” I examined
her quite closely, until she tually blushed a little, then assured her
that she not.
“Thanks,” she said. “Estelle evidently thinks She’s been advising me
to take care of myself lat and has been bringing me little presents of
bea
preparations. I thank her for them and it appears to be sheer
friendliness on her part.. . but it makes me squirm.
I nodded and changed the subject. I did not want to talk about
Estelle; I wanted to talk about her-and me. I mentioned an agent I
knew (my own) who could help her and that got her really interested,
if not in me, at least in what I was saying.
Presently she glanced at the clock back of the bar and squealed.
“I’ve got to peel for the customers. ‘Bye now!” It was five minutes to
twelve. I shifted from the end of the bar to the long side, just opposite
Jack’s Magic Mirror controls. I did not want that bright light of his
interfering with me seeing Hazel.
It was just about twelve straight up when Jack came up from the rear
of the joint, elbowed his other barman out of the way, and took his
place near the controls. “Just about that time,” he said to me. “Has
she rung the buzzer?”
  “Not a buzz.”
“Okay, then.” He cleared dirty glasses off the top of the bar while we
waited, changed the platter on the turntable, and generally messed
around. I kept my eyes on the mirror.


                                   155
I heard the two beeps! sharp and clear. When he did not announce
the show at once, I glanced around and saw that, while he had the
mike in his hand, he was staring past it at the door, and looking
considerably upset.
There were two cops just inside the door, Hannegan and Feinstein,
both off the beat. I supposed he was afraid of a raid, which was silly.
Pavement pounders don’t pull raids. I knew what they were there for,
even before Hannegan gave Jack a broad grin and waved him the
okay sign-they had just slipped in for a free gander at the flesh under
the excuse of watching the public morals.

“We now present the Magic Mirror,” said Jack’s
voice out of the juke box. Somebody climbed on ti stool beside me
and slipped a hand under my arm. looked around. It was Hazel.
  “You’re not here; you’re up there,” I said foc ishly.
“Huh-uh. Estelle said- I’ll tell you after the show The lights were
coming up in the Mirror and the jul box was cranking out Valse Triste.
The altar was in th scene, too, and Estelle was sprawled over it much
she had been before. As it got lighter you could see red stain down
her side and the prop dagger. Haz had told me what each of the acts
were; this was ti one called “The Altar Victim,” scheduled for the oi
o’clock show.
I was disappointed not to be seeing Hazel, but I h2 to admit it was
good-good theater, of the nasty soi sadism and sex combined. The
red stuff-catsup guessed-trickling down her bare side and the hand of
the prop dagger sticking up as if she had be stabbed through-the
customers liked it. It was a na ural follow-up to the “Sacrifice to the
Sun”.
  Hazel screamed in my ear.
Her first scream was solo. The next thing I can rec~ it seemed as if
every woman in the place was screar ing-soprano, alto, and some
tenor, but most screeching soprano. Through it came the bull voice
Hannegan. “Keep your seats, folks! Somebody turn the lights!”
  I grabbed Hazel by the shoulders and shook hc “What’s the
  matter? What’s up?”
She looked dazed, then pointed at the Mirror. “Shc dead. . . she’s
dead . . . she’s dead!” she chanted. 5] scrambled down from the stool

                                   156
and took out for ii back of the house. I started after her. The house
ligh came on abruptly, leaving the Mirror lights still oi
We finished one, two, three, up the stairwa through a little dressing
room, and onto the stage almost caught up with Hazel, and Feinstein
was do on my heels.
We stood there, jammed in the door, blinking at the flood lights, and
not liking what we saw under them. She was dead all right. The
dagger, which should have been faked between her arm and her
breast with catsup spilled around to maintain the illusion-this prop
dagger, this slender steel blade, was three inches closer to her
breastbone than it should have been. It had been stabbed straight
into her heart.
On the floor at the side of the altar away from the audience, close
enough to Estelle to reach it, was the egg timer. As I looked at it the
last of the sand ran out.
I caught Hazel as she fell-she was a big armful- and spread her on
the couch. “Eddie,” said Feinstein, “call the Station for me. Tell
Hannegan not to let anyone out. I’m staying here.” I called the station
but did not have to tell Hannegan anything. He had them all seated
again and was jollying them along. Jack was still standing back of the
bar, shock on his face, and the bright light at the control board
making him look like a death’s head.
By twelve-fifteen Spade Jones, Lieutenant Jones of Homicide,
showed up and from there on things slipped into a smooth routine.
He knew me well, having helped me work up some of the book I did
for the Chief, and he grabbed onto me at once for some of the
background. By twelve-thirty he was reasonably sure that none of the
customers could have done it. “I won’t say one of them didn’t do it,
Eddie my boy-anybody could have done it who knew the exact
second to slip upstairs, grab the knife, and slide it into her ribs. But
the chances are against any of them knowing just when and how to
do it.”
  “Anybody inside or outside,” I corrected.
  “So?”
  “There’s a fire exit at the foot of the stairs.”
“You think I haven’t noticed that?” He turned away and gave
Hannegan instructions to let anybody go who could give satisfactory



                                   157
identification with a local address. The others would have to go
downtown to
have closer ties as material witnesses put on them 1 the night court.
Perhaps some would land in the ta] for further investigation, but in
any case-clear ‘e out!
The photographers were busy upstairs and so we the fingerprint
boys. The Assistant Medical Examin showed up, followed by
reporters. A few minutes lat after the house was cleared, Hazel came
downstai and joined me. Neither of us said anything, but I p~ ted her
on the back. When they carried down the b2 ket stretcher a little later,
with a blanket-wrapp shape in it, I put my arm around her while she
bun her eyes in my shoulders.
Spade talked to us one at a time. Jack was not ta] ing. “It ain’t smart
to talk without a lawyer,” was Spade could get out of him. I thought to
myself that would be better to talk to Spade now than to sweated and
maybe massaged a little under the ugh My testimony would clear him
even though it wou show that there was a spat between him and
Estel Spade would not frame a man. He was an honest cc as cops
go. I’ve known honest cops. Two, I think.
Spade took my story, then he took Hazel’s, a] called me back. “Eddie
my boy,” he said, “help me d into this thing. As I understand it, this
girl Ha; should have had the twelve o’clock show.”
  “That’s right.”
He studied one of the Joy Club’s programs. “Ha; says she went
upstairs to undress for the show abc eleven-fifty-five.”
  “Exactly that time.”
“Yeah. She was with you, wasn’t she? She says s went up and that
Estelle followed her in with a sor and-dance that the boss said to
swap the two shoi around.
  “I wouldn’t know about that.”
“Naturally not. She says she beefed a little but ga in and came on
downstairs, where she joined you. C( rect?”
  “Correct.”
“Mmmm .. . By the way, your remark about the fire door might lead to
something. Hazel put me onto a boy friend for Estelle. Trumpeter in


                                  158
that rat race across the street. He could have ducked across and
stabbed her. Wouldn’t take long. Trumpet players can’t be pushing
wind all the time; they’d lose their lip.”
  “How would he know when to do it? It was supposed to be Hazel’s
  show.”
“Mmmm.. . Well, maybe he did know. Swapping shows sounds like
Estelle had made a date, and that sounds like a man. In which case
he’d know about it. One of the boys is looking into it. Now about the
way these shows worked-do you suppose you could show me how
they were staged? Hannegan tried it but all he got was a shock.”
“I’ll try it,” I said, getting up. “It’s nothing very fancy. Did you ask Jack
about Hazel’s statement that Estelle had permission from him to
swap the shows?”
“That’s the one thing he cracked on. He states flatly that he didn’t
know that the shows were swapped. He says he expected to see
Hazel in the Mirror.”
The controls looked complicated but weren’t. I showed Jones the
rheostat and told him it enabled Jack to turn either set of lights down
slowly while the other set went up. I found a bypass switch back of
the rheostat which accounted for the present condition- all lights
burning brightly, house and stage. There was a blackout switch and
there was a switch that cut the hand microphone and the turntable in
through the juke box. Near the latter was the buzzer-a small black
case with two binding posts-which the girls used to signal Jack.
Centered on the under side of the bar was a hundred-and-fifty watt
bulb hooked in on its own line separate from the rheostat. Except for
the line to this light all the wires from all the equipment disappeared
into a steel conduit underneath the bar. It was this light which had
dazzled me during the
eleven o’clock show. It seemed excessive; a pear bulb would have
been more appropriate. Apparen Jack liked lots of light.
I explained the controls to Spade, then gave hin dry run. First I
switched the rheostat back to “Hou~ and threw off the bypass switch,
leaving the roc brightly lighted and the Magic Mirror dark. “The tii is
five minutes of twelve. Hazel leaves me to go i. stairs. I shift around
to the bar stool just oppos where I am now standing. At midnight Jack
comes and asks me if I’ve heard the buzzer. I say ‘No.’ I fiddles


                                     159
around a bit, clearing away glasses and t like. Then come two beeps
on the buzzer. He picks the microphone but he doesn’t announce the
show a few seconds-he’s just noticed Hannegan and Fe stein.
Hannegan gives him the high sign and he gc ahead.” Then I picked
up the mike myself and spc into it:
  “We now present the Magic Mirror!”
  I put down the mike and flipped on the turntal
switch. The same platter was on and the juke h
started playing Valse Triste. Hazel looked up at i
sharply, from where she had been resting her head
her arms a few tables away. She looked horrified, a
the reconstruction were too much for her stomacF I turned the
rheostat slowly from “House”
“Stage.” The room darkened and the stage lit r “That’s all there was
to it,” I said. “Hazel sat do~ beside me just as Jack announced the
show. As lights came on she screamed.”
Spade scratched his chin. “You say Joy was star ing in front of you
when the buzzer signal came fr upstairs?”
  “Positive.”
  “You gave him a motive-the war he was havi with Estelle. But
  you’ve given him an alibi too.”
  “That’s right. Either Estelle punched that buz:
herself, then lay down and stabbed herself, or she ‘~ murdered and
the murderer punched it to cover i
then ducked out while everybody had their eyes on the Mirror. Either
way I had Jack Joy in sight.”
      “It’s an alibi all right,” he conceded. “Unless you were in
      cahoots with him,” he said hopefully.
      “Prove it,” I answered, grinning. “Not with him. I think he’s a
      jerk.”
      “We’re all jerks, more or less, Eddie my boy. Let’s look around
      upstairs.”
I switched the bypass on, leaving both stage and house lighted, and
followed him. I pointed out the buzzer to him, after searching for it
myself. A conduit came up through the floor and ended in a junction
box on the wall, from which cords ran to the flood lights. The button
was on the junction box. I wondered why it was not on the “altar,”

                                  160
then saw that the altar was a movable prop. Apparently the girls
punched the button, then fell quickly into their poses. Spade tried the
button meditatively, then wiped print powder off on his trousers. “I
can’t hear it,” he said.
  “Naturally not. This stage is almost a soundproof booth.”
He had seen the egg timer but I had not told him until then about
seeing the last of the sand run out. He pursed his lips. “You’re sure?”
  “Call it hallucination. I think I saw it. I’ll testify to it.”
He sat down on the altar, avoiding the blood stain, and said nothing
for quite a long time. Finally he said, “Eddie my boy-“
     “Yes?”
“You’ve not only given Jack Joy an alibi, you’ve damn’ near made it
impossible for anyone to have done it.”
     “I know it. Could it have been suicide?”
“Could be. Could be. From the mechanics angle but not from the
psychological angle. Would she have started that egg timer for her
own suicide? Another thing. Take a look at that blood. Taste it.”
   “Huh?”
   “Don’t throw up. Smell it then.”
I did, very gingerly. Then I smelled it again. T’ smells. Tomato. Blood.
Blood and tomato catsur thought I could detect differences in
appearance well. “You see, son? If she’s going to have blood on I
chest she won’t bother with catsup. Aside from ti and the timer it’s a
perfect, dramatic, female-style:
icicle. But it won’t wash. It’s murder, Eddie.” Feinstein stuck his head
in. “Lieutenant-“ “What is it?”
  “That musician punk. He had a date with her right.”
  “Oh, he did, eh?”
  “But he’s clear. The band was on the air at midnig in a number that
     features him in a trumpet solo.’
  “Damn! Get out of here.”
“That ain’t all. I called the Assistant Medical I aminer, like you said.
The motive you suggested wo go-she not only wasn’t expecting; she
hadn’t e’ been had. Virgo intacta,” he added in passable hi school
Latin.
“Feinstein, you’ll be wanting to be a sergeant ne~ Spade answered
placidly, “using big words like th Get out.”

                                        161
“Okay, Lieutenant.” I was more than a little s
prised at the news. I would have picked Estelle a
case of round heels. Evidently she was a tease in m~
ways than one.
Spade sat a while longer, then said, “When it’s 1i1 in here, it’s dark
out there; when it’s light out thc it s dark in here.
   “That’s right. Ordinarily, that is. Right now we got both sides lighted
      with the bypass.”
   “Ordinarily is what I mean. Light, dark; dark, hg Eddie my boy-“
   “Yes?”
   “Are you sweet on that Hazel girl?”
   “I’m leaning that way,” I admitted.
   “Then keep an eye on her. The murderer was in K
for just a few seconds-the egg timer and the buzzer prove that. He
wasn’t any of the fei~~~ people who knew about the swap in the
shows-not since the trumpetplaying boy friend got knocked out of the
running. And it was dark. He murdered the wrong party, Eddie my
boy. There’s another murder coming up.”
  “Hazel,” I said slowly.
  “Yes, Hazel.”
Spade Jones shooed us all home, me, Hazel, the two waiters, the
other barman, and Jack Joy. I think he was tempted to hold Jack
simply because he wouldn’t talk but he compromised by telling him
that if he stuck his head outside his hotel, he would find a nice
policeman ready to take him down to a nice cell. He tipped me a wink
and put a finger on his lips as he said good night to me.
But I didn’t keep quiet. Hazel let me take her home readily enough.
When I saw that she lived alone in a single apartment in a building
without a doorman, I decided it called for an all night vigil and some
explaining.
She stepped into the kitchenette and mixed me a drink. “One drink
and out you go, Ed,” she called to me. “You’ve been very sweet and I
want to see you again and thank you, but tonight this girl goes to bed.
I’m whipped.”
  “I’m staying all night,” I announced firmly.




                                   162
She came out with a drink in her hand and looked at me, both
annoyed and a little puzzled. “Ed,” she said, “aren’t you working just a
bit too fast? I didn’t think you were that clumsy.”
“Calm yourself, beautiful,” I told her. “It’s not necessarily a
proposition. I’m going to watch over you. Somebody is trying to kill
you.”
  She dropped the drink.
I helped her clean it up and explained the situation. “Somebody
stabbed a girl in a dark room,” I finished. “That somebody thought it
was you. He knows better by now and he will be looking for a chance
to finish the
job. What you and I have got to figure out is: Wd wants to kill you?”
She sat down and started to manhandle a handk chief. “Nobody
wants to kill me, Eddie. It was I telle.”
   “No, it wasn’t.”
   “But it couldn’t have been me. I know.”
   “What do you know?”
“I- Oh, it’s impossible. Stay all night if you wa to. You can sleep on
the couch.” She got up and pull the bed down out of the wall, went in
the bath, cbs the door, and splashed around for a while. “That ba is
too small to dress and undress in,” she stated flat “Anyhow I sleep
raw. If you want to get undressed y won’t scare me.”

I said. “I’ll take my coat and tie and shc
“Suit yourself.” Her voice was a little bit smother as she was already
wiggling her dress over her hea
She wore pants, whether Estelle ever did or notplain, white knit that
looked clean and neat. She c not wear a brassiere and did not need
to. The concc tion I had gotten of her figure in the Magic Mirror ‘~
entirely justified. She was simply the most magn~ cently beautiful
thing I had ever seen in my life. street clothes she was a beautiful,
well-built wom~ in her skin-wars have started over less.
I was beginning to doubt my ability to stay on t couch. I must have
showed it, for she snorted, “Wi the drool off your chin!” and stepped
out of Ipants.




                                  163
‘Scuse, please,” I answered and started unlaci my shoes. She
stepped over and switched off the ligI then went over to the one big
window and raised t shade. It was closed but, with the light out, you
coi see outside easily. “Stand back from that window, said. “You’re
too good a target.”

“Huh? Oh, very well.” She backed up a few steps ic
continued to stare thoughtfully out the window. I stared thoughtfully at
her. There w~as a big neon sign across the street and the colored
lights, pouring in the window, covered her from head to foot with a
rosy liquid glow. She looked like something out of a dream of
fairyland.
Presently I wasn’t thinking how she looked; I was thinking about
another room, where a girl had lain murdered, with the lights of a
night club shining through a pane of glass, shining through like this
neon.
My thoughts rearranged themselves rapidly and very painfully. I
added them up a second time and still got the same answer. I did not
like the answer. I was glad, damn glad, she was bare naked, with no
way to conceal a gun, or a knife, or any other sort of deadly weapon.
“Hazel,” I said softly.
      She turned to me. “Yes, Eddie?”
      “I’ve just had a new idea .. . why should anyone want to kill
      you?”
      “You said that before. There isn’t any.reason.”
      “I know. You’re right; there isn’t any. But put it this way-why
      should you want to kill Estelle?”
I thought she was going to faint again, but I didn’t care-I wanted to
shock her. Her lusciousness meant nothing to me now but a trap that
had confused my thoughts. I had not wanted to think her guilty, so I
had disregarded the fact that of all the persons involved she was the
only one with the necessary opportunity, the knowledge of the
swapped shows, and at least some motive. She had made it plain
that she detested Estelle. She had covered it up but it was still
evident.
But most important of all, the little stage had not been dark! True, it
looked dark-from the outside. You can’t see through glass when all
the light comes from one side and you are on that same side-but light


                                  164
passes through the glass just the same. The neon on the street
illuminated this room we were in fairly
brightly; the brilliant lights of Jack’s bar illuminat the little stage even
when the stage floodlights we:
out.
She knew that. She knew it because she had been there many times,
getting ready to pose for the suc ers. Therefore she knew that it was
not a case of mi taken identity in the dark-there was no dark! And
would have to be nearly pitch black for anyone to mi take Hazel’s
blue-black mane for Estelle’s peroxid mop.
She knew-why hadn’t she said so? She was lettir me stay all night,
not wanting me around but riskii her reputation and more, because I
had propound the wrong-girl-in-the-dark theory. She knew it wou not
hold water; why had she not said so?
  “Eddie, have you gone crazy?” Her voice was frigF ened.
“No-gone sane. I’ll tell you how you did it, n beautiful darling. You
both were there-you admitt that. Estelle got in her pose, and asked
you to pun the buzzer. You did-but first you grabbed the kni and slid it
in her ribs. You wiped the handle, look around, punched the buzzer,
and lammed. About t seconds later you were slipping your arm in mir
Me-your alibi!”
“It had to be you,” I went on, “for no one else wou have had the guts
to commit murder with nothing b glass between him and an audience.
The stage w lighted-from the outside. You knew that, but it didi worry
you. You were used to parading around nak4 in front of that glass,
certain you could not be se~ while the house lights were on! No one
else would ha dared!”
She looked at me as if she could not believe her ea and her chin
began to quiver. Then she squatted do~ on the floor and burst into
tears. Real tears-tb dripped. It was my cue to go soft, but I did not. I
dor like killing.
   I stood over her. “Why did you kill her? Why did you kill her?”
   “Get out of here.”
“Not likely. I’m going to see you fry, my big-busted angel.” I headed
for the telephone, keeping my eyes on her. I did not dare turn my
back, even naked as she was.


                                     165
She made a break, but it was not for me; it was for the door. How far
she thought she could get in the buff I don’t know.
I tripped her and fell on her. She was a big armful and ready to bite
and claw, but I got a hammer lock on one arm and twisted it. “Be
good,” I warned her, “or I’ll break it.”
She lay still and I began to be aware that she was not only an armful
but a very female armful. I ignored it. “Let me go, Eddie,” she said in
a tense whisper, “or I’ll scream rape and get the cops in.”
    “Go right ahead, gorgeous,” I told her. “The cops are just what I
       want, and quick.”
    “Eddie, Eddie, listen to reason-I didn’t kill her, but I know who did.”
    “Huh? Who?”
    “I know.. . I do know-but he couldn’t have. That’s why I haven’t said
       anything.”
    “Tell me.”
    She didn’t answer at once; I twisted her arm. “Tell me!
    “Oh! It was Jack.”
    “Jack? Nonsense-I was watching him.”
    “I know. But he did it, just the same. I don’t know how-but he did it.”
    I held her down, thinking. She watched my face. “Ed?”
    “Huh?”
    “If I punched the buzzer, wouldn’t my fingerprint be on it?”
    “Should be.”
    “Why don’t you find out?”
It stonkered me. I thought I was right but si seemed quite willing to
make the test. “Get up,” I sai “On your knees and then on your feet.
But don’t try get your arm free and don’t try any tricks, or, so he me,
I’ll kick you in the belly.”
She was docile enough and I moved us over to ti phone, dialled it
with one hand and managed to get Spade Jones through the police
exchange. “Spad This is Eddie-Eddie Hill. Was there a fingerprint the
buzzer button?”
  “Now I wondered when you would be getti] around to thinking of
    that. There was.”
  “Whose?”
  “The corpse’s.”
  “Estelle’s?”



                                    166
“The same. And Estelle’s on the egg timer. None the knife-wiped
clean. Lots from both girls aroui the room, and a few odd ones-old,
probably.”
  “Uh. . . yes . .. . well, thanks.”
“Not at all. Call me if you get any bright ideas, son I hung up the
phone and turned to Hazel. I gues~ had let go her arm when Spade
told me the print w not hers, but I don’t remember doing so. She w
standing there, rubbing her arm and looking at me a very odd way.
“Well,” I said, “you can twist my an or kick me anywhere you like. I
was wrong. I’m son I’ll try to prove it to you.”
She started to speak and then started to leak tea again. It finished up
with her accepting my apology the nicest way possible, smearing me
with lipstick ai tears. I loved it and I felt like a heel.
Presently I wiped her face with my handkerchi and said, “You put on
a robe or something and sit the bed and I’ll sit on the couch. We’ve
got to dope tF out and I can think better with that lovely chassis yours
covered up.”

She trotted obediently and I sat down. “You s
Jack killed her, but you admit you don’t know how he could have
  done it. Then why do y~ou think he did?”
“The music.”
~1


Hun?
“The music he played for the show was Valse Triste. That’s Estelle’s
music, for Estelle’s act. My act, the regular twelve o’clock act, calls
for Bolero. He must have known that Estelle was up there; he used
the right music.”
“Then you figure he must have been lying when he claimed Estelle
never arranged with him to swap the shows. But it’s a slim reason to
hang a man-he might have gotten that record by accident.”
“Could, but not likely. The records were kept in order and were the
same ones for the same shows every night. Nobody touched them
but him. He would fire a man for touching anything around the control



                                       167
box. However,” she went on, “I knew it had to be him before I noticed
the music. Only it couldn’t be.”
   “Only it couldn’t be. Go ahead.”
   “He hated her.”
   “Why?”
   “She teased him.”
“’She teased him.’ Suppose she did. Lots of people get teased. She
teased lots of people. She teased you. She teased me. So what?”
  “It’s not the same thing,” she insisted. “Jack was afraid of the dark.”
It was a nasty story. The hunk was afraid of total darkness, really
afraid, the way some kids are. Hazel told me he would not go back of
the building to get his parked car at night without a flashlight. But that
would not have given away his weakness, nor the fact that he was
ashamed of it-lots of people use flashlights freely, just to be sure of
their footing. But he had fallen for Estelle and apparently made a lot
of progress-had actually gotten into bed with her. It never came to
anything because she had snapped out the
lights. Estelle had told Hazel about it, gloating o~ the fact that she
had found out about what she term his cowardice “soon enough.”

“She needled him after that,” Hazel went
“Nothing that anyone could tumble to, if they did know. But he knew.
He was afraid of her, afraid to f her for fear she would tell. He hated
her-at the sai time he wanted her and was jealous of her. There ~
one time in the dressing room. I was there-“ He h come in while they
were dressing, or undressing, a had picked a fight with Estelle over
one of the ci tomers. She told him to get out. When he did not do she
snapped out the light. “He went out of there hik jack rabbit, falling
over his feet.” She stopped. “H( about it, Eddie? Motive enough?”
  “Motive enough,” I agreed. “You’ve got me thinki he did it. Only he
  couldn’t.”
  “’Only he couldn’t.’ That’s the trouble.”
I told her to get into bed and try to get some sleer that I planned to sit
right where I was till the piec fitted. I was rewarded with another sight
of the cc tours as she chucked the robe, then I helped myself a good-
night kiss. I don’t think she slept; at least s did not snore.



                                    168
I started pounding my brain. The fact that the sta was not dark when
it seemed dark changed the wh picture and eliminated, I thought,
everyone not fan jar with the mechanics of the Mirror. It left only Haz
Jack, the other barman, the two waiters-and Este herself. It was
physically possible for an Unkno~ Stranger to have slipped upstairs,
slid the shiv in h ducked downstairs, but psychologically-no. I mad
mental note to find out what other models had worlc in the Mirror.
The other barman and the two waiters Spade h eliminated-all of them
had been fully alibied by c or more customers. I had alibied Jack.
Estelle-bui wasn’t suicide. And Hazel.
  If Estelle’s fingerprint meant what it seemed; Ha:
was out-not time enough to commit a murder, arrange a corpse, wipe
a handle, and ~get downstairs to my side before Jack started the
show.
But in that case nobody could have done it-except a hypothetical sex
maniac who did not mind a spot of butchery in front of a window full
of people. Nonsense!
Of course the fingerprint was not conclusive. Hazel could have
pushed the button with a coin or a bobby pin, without destroying an
old print or making a new one. I hated to admit it but she was not
clear yet.
Again, if Estelle did not push the button, then it looked still more like
an insider; an outsider would not know where to find the button nor
have any reason to push it.
     For that matter, why should Hazel push it? It had not given her
     an alibi-it didn’t make sense.
     Round and round and round till my head ached.
     It was a long time later that I went over and tugged at the
     covers.”Hazel-“
  “Yes, Eddie?”
  “Who punched the buzzer in the eleven o’clock show?”
  She considered. “That show is both of us. She did- she always took
    charge.”
  “Mmmm... . What other girls have worked in the Mirror?”
  “Why, none. Estelle and I opened the show.”
  “Okay. Maybe I’ve got it. Let’s call Spade Jones.”



                                    169
Spade assured me he would be only too happy to get out of a warm
bed to play games with me and would I like a job waking the bugler,
too? But he agreed to come to the Joy Club, with Joy in tow, and to
fetch enough flat feet, fire arms, and muscles to cope.
I was standing back of the bar in the Joy Club, with Hazel seated
where she had been when she screamed and a cop from the
Homicide Squad in niy seat. Jack and Spade were at the end of the
bar, where Spade could see.

“We will now show how a man can be two places at
one time,” I announced. “I am now Mr. Jack Joy. I time is shortly
before midnight. Hazel has just left 1 dressing room and come
downstairs. She stops off a moment at the little girls room at the foot
of 1 stairs, and thereby misses Jack, who is headed those same
stairs. He goes up and finds Estelle in 1 dressing room, peeled and
ready for her act-prol bly.”
I took a glance at Jack. His face was a taut mask, I he was a long
way from breaking. “There was an gument-what about, I don’t know,
but it might h2 been over the trumpet boy she had swapped shows
meet. In any case, I am willing to bet that she stops it by switching
out the dressing room light to ch~ him out.”
First blood. He flinched at that-his mask crack “He didn’t stay out
more than a few moments,” I w~ on. “Probably he had a flashlight in
his pocket-h probably got one on him now-and that let him back into
that terrible, dark room, and switch on 1 light. Estelle was already on
the stage, anointing h self with catsup, and almost ready to push the
buz2 She must have been about to do so, for she had star the egg
timer. He grabbed the prop dagger a stabbed her, stabbed her dead.”
I stopped. No blood from Jack this time. His m~ was on firmly. “He
arranges her in the pose-ten s onds for that; it was nothing but a
sprawl-wipes handle and ducks out. Ten seconds more to this sp Or
make it twenty. He asks me if the buzzer I sounded and I tell him No.
He really had to know, Estelle might have punched it before he got to
he
“Hearing the answer he wanted, he bustles aroi~ a bit like this-“ I
monkeyed with some glassware ~ picked up a bar spoon and pointed
with it to the sta “Note that the Mirror is lighted and empty-I’ve. the
bypass on. Imagine it dark, with Estelle on the tar, a knife in her

                                   170
heart.” I dropped the spoon do and, while their eyes were still on’the
Mirror, I brou~
metal spoon across the two binding posts which carried the two leads
to the push button on the stage. The buzzer gave out with a loud
beep! I broke the connection by lifting the spoon for a split second,
and brought it down again for a second beep! “And that is how a man
can-Catch him, Spade!”
Spade was at him before I yelled. The three cops had him helpless in
no time. He was not armed; it had been sheer reflex-a break for
freedom. But he was not giving up, even now. “You’ve got nothing on
me. No evidence. Anybody could have jimmied those wires anywhere
along the line.”
“No, Jack,” I contradicted. “I checked for that. Those wires run
through the same steel conduit as the power wires, all the way from
the control box to the stage. It was here or there, Jack. It couldn’t be
there; it had to be here.”
  He shut up. “I want to see my lawyer,” was his only answer.
“You’ll see your lawyer,” Spade assured him jovially. “Tomorrow, or
the next day. Right now you’re going to go downtown and sit under
some nice hot lights for a few hours.”
  “No, Lieutenant!” It was Hazel.
  “Eh? And why not, Miss Dorn?”
  “Don’t put him under lights. Shut him in a dark closet!”
“Eh? Well, I’ll be- That’s what I call a bright girl!” It was the mop closet
they used. He lasted thirteen minutes, then he started to whimper
and then to scream. They let him out and took his confession.
I was almost sorry for him when they led him away. I should not have
been-second degree was the most he could get as premeditation was
impossible to prove and quite unlikely anyhow. “Not guilty by reason
of insanity” was a fair bet. Whatever his guilt, that woman had
certainly driven him to it. And imagine the nerve of the man, the pure
colossal nerve, that enabled him to go through with lighting up that
stage
just after he looked up and saw two cops standing:
side the door!




                                    171
I took Hazel home the second time. The bed was SI pulled down and
she went straight for it, kicking her shoes as she went. She unzipped
the side of I dress and started to pull it over her head, when s
stopped. “Eddie!”
  “Yes, Beautiful?”
  “If I take off my clothes again, are you going to cuse me of another
  murder?”
I considered this. “That depends,” I informed h “on whether you are
really interested in me, or in ti agent I was telling you about.”
She grinned at me, then scooped up a shoe a threw it. “In you, you
lug!” Then she went on shucki off her clothes. After a bit I unlaced my
shoes.

FOREWORD
  My next attempt to branch out was my first book:
ROCKET SHIP GALILEO. 1 attempted book publication earlier than I
had intended to because a boys’ book was solicited from me by a
major publisher. I was unsure of myself-but two highly respected
friends, Cleve Cartmill and Fritz Lang, urged me to try it. So I did. . .
and the publisher who had asked for it rejected it. A trip to the Moon?
Preposterous! He suggested that I submit another book-length MS
without that silly space-travel angle.
Instead I sold it to Scribner’s and thereby started a sequence: one
boys’ book each yeartimed for the Christmas trade. This lasted
twelve years and was a very strange relationship, as my editor
disliked science fiction, disliked me (a sentiment I learned to
reciprocate), and kept me on for the sole reason that my books sold
so well that they kept her department out of the red-her words.
Eventually she bounced one with the suggestion that I shelve it for a
year and then rewrite it.
But by bouncing it she broke the chain of options. Instead of shelving
it, I took it across the street. . . and won a Hugo with it.
ROCKET SHIP GALILEO was a fumbling first attempt; I have never
been satisfied with it. But it has never been out of print, has appeared
in fourteen languages, and has earned a preposterous amount in
book royalties alone; I should not kick. Nevertheless I cringe
whenever I consider its shortcomings.

                                   172
My next fiction (here following) was FREE MEN. Offhand it appears
to be a routine post-Holocaust story, and the details-idioms, place
names, etc.-justify that assumption. In fact it is any conquered nation
in any century-

FREE MEN
“That makes three provisional presidents so far,” the Leader said. “I
wonder how many more there are?” He handed the flimsy sheet back
to the runner, who placed it in his mouth and chewed it up like gum.
The third man shrugged. “No telling. What worries me-“ A
mockingbird interrupted. “Doity, doity, doity,” he sang. “Terloo, terloo,
terloo, purty-purtypurty-purty.”
  The clearing was suddenly empty.
“As I was saying,” came the voice of the third man in a whisper in the
Leader’s ear, “it ain’t how many worries me, but how you tell a de
Gaulle from a Laval. See anything?”
“Convoy. Stopped below us.” The Leader peered through bushes and
down the side of a bluff. The high ground pushed out toward the river
here, squeezing the river road between it and the water. The road
stretched away to the left, where the valley widened out into
farmland, and ran into the outskirts of Barclay ten miles away.
The convoy was directly below them, eight trucks preceded and
followed by halftracks. The following halftrack was backing, vortex
gun cast loose and ready for trouble. Its commander apparently
wanted elbow room against a possible trap.

At the second truck helmeted figures gathered
around its rear end, which was jacked up. As the Leader watched he
saw one wheel temoved.
  “Trouble?”
“I think not. Just a breakdown. They’ll be gone soon.” He wondered
what was in the trucks. Food, probably. His mouth watered. A few
weeks ago an opportunity like this would have meant generous
rations for all, but the conquerors had smartened up.




                                   173
He put useless thoughts away. “It’s not that that worries me, Dad,” he
added, returning to the subject. “We’ll be able to tell quislings from
loyal Americans. But how do you tell men from boys?”
      “Thinking of Joe Benz?”
“Maybe. I’d give a lot to know how far we can trust Joe. But I could
have been thinking of young Morrie.”
      “You can trust him.”
“Certainly. At thirteen he doesn’t drink-and he wouldn’t crack if they
burned his feet off. Same with Cathleen. It’s not age or sex-but how
can you tell? And you’ve got to be able to tell.”
There was a flurry below. Guards had slipped down from the trucks
and withdrawn from the road when the convoy had stopped, in
accordance with an orderly plan for such emergencies. Now two of
them returned to the convoy, hustling between them a figure not in
uniform.
  The mockingbird set up a frenetic whistling.
“It’s the messenger,” said the Leader. “The dumb fool! Why didn’t he
lie quiet? Tell Ted we’ve seen it.”
       Dad pursed his lips and whistled: “Keewah, keewah, keewah,
       terloo.”
       The other “mockingbird” answered, “Terloo,” and shut up.
       “We’ll need a new post office now,” said the Leader. “Take care
       of it, Dad.”
       “Okay.”
“There’s no real answer to the problem,” the Leader said. “You can
limit size of units, so that one person can’t give away too many-but
take a colony like ours.
It needs to be a dozen or more to work. That means they all have to
be dependable, or they all go down together. So each one has a
loaded gun at the head of each other one.”
Dad grinned, wryly. “Sounds like the United Nations before the Blow
Off. Cheer up, Ed. Don’t burn your bridges before you cross them.”
  “I won’t. The convoy is ready to roll.”
When the convoy had disappeared in the distance, Ed Morgan, the
Leader, and his deputy Dad Carter stood up and stretched. The
“mockingbird” had announced safety loudly and cheerfully. “Tell Ted
to cover us into camp,” Morgan ordered.

                                   174
Dad wheepled and chirruped and received acknowledgement. They
started back into the hills. Their route was roundabout and included
check points from which they could study their back track and receive
reports from Ted. Morgan was not worried about Ted being followed-
he was confident that Ted could steal baby ‘possums from mama’s
pouch. But the convoy breakdown might have been a trap-there was
no way to tell that all of the soldiers had got back into the trucks. The
messenger might have been followed; certainly he had been trapped
too easily.
Morgan wondered how much the messenger would spill. He could
not spill much about Morgan’s own people, for the “post office”
rendezvous was all that he knew about them.
The base of Morgan’s group was neither better nor worse than
average of the several thousand other camps of recalcitrant guerrillas
throughout the area that once called itself the United States. The
Twenty Minute War had not surprised everyone. The mushrooms
which had blossomed over Washington, Detroit, and a score of other
places had been shocking but expected-by some.
Morgan had made no grand preparations. He had simply conceived it
as a good period in which to stay
footloose and not too close to a talget area. He had taken squatter’s
rights in an abandoned mine and had stocked it with tools, food, and
other useful items. He had had the simple intention to survive; it was
during the weeks after Final Sunday that he discovered that there
was no way for a man with foresight to avoid becoming a leader.
Morgan and Dad Carter entered the mine by a new shaft and tunnel
which appeared on no map, by a dry rock route which was intended
to puzzle even a bloodhound. They crawled through the tunnel, were
able to raise their heads when they reached the armory, and stepped
out into the common room of the colony, the largest chamber, ten by
thirty feet and as high as it was wide.
Their advent surprised no one, else they might not have lived to
enter. A microphone concealed in the tunnel had conveyed their
shibboleths before them. The room was unoccupied save for a young
woman stirring something over a tiny, hooded fire and a girl who sat
at a typewriter table mounted in front of a radio. She was wearing
earphones and shoved one back and turned to face them as they
came in.

                                   175
  “Howdy, Boss!”
  “Hi, Margie. What’s the good word?” Then to the other, “What’s for
      lunch?”
  “Bark soup and a notch in your belt.”
  “Cathleen, you depress me.”
  “Well . . . mushrooms fried in rabbit fat, but darn few of them.”
  “That’s better.”
“You better tell your boys to be more careful what they bring in. One
more rabbit with tularemia and we won’t have to worry about what to
eat.”
“Hard to avoid, Cathy. You must be sure you handle them the way
Doc taught you.” He turned to the girl. “Jerry in the upper tunnel?”
  “Yes.”
  “Get him down here, will you?”
“Yes, sir.” She pulled a sheet out of her typewriter and handed it to
him, along with others, then left the room.
Morgan glanced over them. The enemy had abolished soap opera
and singing commercials but he could not say that radio had been
improved. There was an unnewsy sameness to the propaganda
which now came over the air. He checked through while wishing for
just one old-fashioned, uncensored newscast.

“Here’s an item!” he said suddenly. “Get this, Dad-“
“Read it to me, Ed.” Dad’s spectacles had been broken on Final
Sunday. He could bring down a deer, or a man, at a thousand yards-
but he might never read again.
“’New Center, 28 April-It is with deep regret that Continental
Coordinating Authority for World Unification, North American District,
announces that the former city of St. Joseph, Missouri, has been
subjected to sanitary measures. It is ordered that a memorial plaque
setting forth the circumstances be erected on the former site of St.
Joseph as soon as radioactivity permits. Despite repeated warnings
the former inhabitants of this lamented city encouraged and succored
marauding bands of outlaws skulking around the outskirts of their
community. It is hoped that the sad fate of St. Joseph will encourage
the native authorities of all North American communities to take all
necessary steps to suppress treasonable intercourse with the few
remaining lawless elements in our continental soci


                                  176
,    ,,
ety.
     Dad cocked a brow at Morgan. “How many does that make
     since they took over?”
     “Let’s see. . . Salinas . . . Colorado Springs . . . uh, six,
     including St. Joe.”
“Son, there weren’t more than sixty million Americans left after Final
Sunday. If they keep up, we’ll be kind of thinned out in a few years.”
“I know.” Morgan looked troubled. “We’ve got to work out ways to
operate without calling attention to the towns. Too many hostages.”
A short, dark man dressed in dirty dungarees entered from a side
tunnel, followed by Margie. “You wanted me, boss?”
“Yes, Jerry. I want to get word to McCracken to come in for a
meeting. Two hours from now, if he can get here.”
  “Boss, you’re using radio too much. You’ll get him shot and us,
  too.”
  “I thought that business of bouncing it off the cliff face was
  foolproof?”
“Well . . . a dodge I can work up, somebody else can figure out.
Besides, I’ve got the chassis unshipped. I was working on it.”
  “How long to rig it?”
  “Oh, half an hour-twenty minutes.”
  “Do it. This may be the last time we’ll use radio, except as utter last
    resort.”
  “Okay, boss.”

The meeting was in the common room. Morgan called it to order once
all were present or accounted for. McCracken arrived just as he had
decided to proceed without him. McCracken had a pass for the
countryside, being a veterinarian, and held proxy for the colony’s
underground associates in Barclay.
“The Barclay Free Company, a provisional unit of the United States of
America, is now in session.” Morgan announced formally. “Does any
member have any item to lay before the Company?”




                                   177
He looked around; there was no response. “How about you?” he
challenged Joe Benz. “I heard that you had some things you thought
the Company ought to hear.
  Benz started to speak, shook his head. “I’ll wait.”
  “Don’t wait too long,” Morgan said mildly. “Well, I have two points to
  bring up for discussion-“
“Three,” corrected Dr. McCracken. “I’m glad you sent for me.” He
stepped up to Morgan and handed him a large, much folded piece of
paper. Morgan looked it over, refolded it, and put it in his pocket.
  “It fits in,” he said to McCracken. “What do the folks in town say?”
  “They are waiting to hear from you. They’ll back you up-so far,
  anyway.”
“All right.” Morgan turned back to the group. “First item-we got a
message today, passed by hand and about three weeks old, setting
up another provisional government. The courier was grabbed right
under our noses. Maybe he was a stooge; maybe he was careless-
that’s neither here nor there at the moment. The message was that
the Honorable Albert M. Brockman proclaimed himself provisional
President of these United States, under derived authority, and
appointed Brigadier General Dewey Fenton commander of armed
forces including irregular militia-meaning us-and called on all citizens
to unite to throw the Invader out. All formal and proper. So what do
we do about it?”
  “And who the devil is the Honorable Albert M. Brockman?” asked
  someone in the rear.
“I’ve been trying to remember. The message listed government jobs
he’s held, including some assistant secretary job-I suppose that’s the
‘derived authority’ angle. But I can’t place him.”
“I recall him,” Dr. McCracken said suddenly. “I met him when I was in
the Bureau of Animal Husbandry. A career civil servant. . . and a
stuffed shirt.”
  There was a gloomy silence. Ted spoke up. “Then why bother with
  him?”
The Leader shook his head. “It’s not that simple, Ted. We can’t
assume that he’s no good. Napoleon might have been a minor clerk
under different circumstances. And the Honorable Mr. Brockman may


                                   178
be a revolutionary genius disguised as a bureaucrat. But that’s not
the point. We need nationwide unification
more than anything. It doesn’t matter right now who the titular leader
is. The theory of derived authority may be shaky but it may be the
only way to get everybody to accept one leadership. Little bands like
ours can never win back the country. We’ve got to have unity-and
that’s why we can’t ignore Brockman.”
“The thing that burns me,” McCracken said savagely, “is that it need
never have happened at all! It could have been prevented.”
“No use getting in a sweat about it,” Morgan told him. “It’s easy to see
the government’s mistakes now, but just the same I think there was
an honest effort to prevent war right up to the last. It takes all nations
to keep the peace, but it only takes one to start a war.”
“No, no, no-I don’t mean that, Captain,” McCracken answered. “I
don’t mean the War could have been prevented. I suppose it could
have been-once. But everybody knew that another war could happen,
and everybody-everybody, I say, knew that if it came, it would start
with the blasting of American cities. Every congressman, every
senator knew that a war would destroy Washington and leave the
country with no government, flopping around like a chicken with its
head off. They knew-why didn’t they do something!”
  “What could they do? Washington couldn’t be protected.”
“Do? Why, they could have made plans for their own deaths! They
could have slapped through a constitutional amendment calling for an
alternate president and alternate congressmen and made it illegal for
the alternates to be in target areas-or any scheme to provide for
orderly succession in case of disaster. They could have set up secret
and protected centers of government to use for storm cellars. They
could have planned the same way a father takes out life insurance for
his kids. Instead they went stumbling along, fat, dumb, and happy,
and let themselves get killed, with no provision to carry out their
sworn duties after they were dead. Theory of ‘derived authority,’ pfui!
It’s not
just disastrous; it’s ridiculous! We used to be the greatest country in
the world-now look at us!”
  “Take it easy, Doc,” Morgan suggested. “Hindsight is easier than
  foresight.”


                                   179
“Hummm! I saw it coming. I quit my Washington job and took a
country practice, five years ahead of time. Why couldn’t a
congressman be as bright as I am?”
“Hmmm. . . well-you’re right. But we might just as well worry over the
Dred Scott Decision. Let’s get on with the problem. How about
Brockman? Ideas?”
   “What do you propose, boss?”
   “I’d rather have it come from the floor.”
   “Oh, quit scraping your foot, boss,” urged Ted. “We elected you to
      lead.”
“Okay. I propose to send somebody to backtrack on the message
and locate Brockman-smell him out and see what he’s got. I’ll consult
with as many groups as we can reach in this state and across the
river, and we’ll try to manage unanimous action. I was thinking of
sending Dad and Morrie.”
Cathleen shook her head. “Even with faked registration cards and
travel permits they’d be grabbed for the Reconstruction Battalions. I’ll
go.”
“In a pig’s eye,” Morgan answered. “You’d be grabbed for something
a danged sight worse. It’s got to be a man.”
“I am afraid Cathleen is right,” McCracken commented. “They
shipped twelve-year-old boys and old men who could hardly walk for
the Detroit project. They don’t care how soon the radiation gets them-
it’s a plan to thin us out.”
     “Are the cities still that bad?”
     “From what I hear, yes. Detroit is still ‘hot’ and she was one of
     the first to get it.”
     “I’m going to go.” The voice was high and thin, and rarely heard
     in conference.
     “Now, Mother-“ said Dad Carter.
“You keep out of this, Dad. The men and young women would be
grabbed, but they Won’t bother with me. All I need is a paper saying I
have a permit to rejoin my grandson, or something.”
  McCracken nodded. “I can supply that.”
Morgan paused, then said suddenly, “Mrs. Carter will contact
Brockman. It is so ordered. Next order of business,” he went on
briskly. “You’ve all seen the news about St. Joe-this is what they


                                   180
posted in Barclay last night.” He hauled out and held up the paper
McCracken had given him. It was a printed notice, placing the City of
Barclay on probation, subject to the ability of “local authorities” to
suppress “bands of roving criminals.”
  There was a stir, but no comment. Most of them had lived in
  Barclay; all had ties there.
“I guess you’re waiting for me,” McCracken began. “We held a
meeting as soon as this was posted. We weren’t all there-it’s getting
harder to cover up even the smallest gathering-but there was no
disagreement. We’re behind you but we want you to go a little easy.
We suggest that you cut out pulling raids within, oh, say twenty miles
of Barclay, and that you stop all killing unless absolutely necessary to
avoid capture. It’s the killings they get excited about-it was killing of
the district director that touched off St. Joe.”
  Benz sniffed. “So we don’t do anything. We just give up-and stay
  here in the hills and starve.”
“Let me finish, Benz. We don’t propose to let them scare us out and
keep us enslaved forever. But casual raids don’t do them any real
harm. They’re mostly for food for the Underground and for minor
retaliations. We’ve got to conserve our strength and increase it and
organize, until we can hit hard enough to make it stick. We won’t let
you starve. I can do more organizing among the farmers and some
animals can be hidden out, unregistered. We can get you meat-
some, anyhow. And we’ll split our rations with you. They’ve got
us on 1800 calories now, but we can share it. Something can be
done through the black market, too. There are ways.”
   Benz made a contemptuous sound. Morgan looked at him.
   “Speak up, Joe. What’s on your mind?”
“I will. It’s not a plan; it’s a disorderly retreat. A year from now we’ll be
twice as hungry and no further along-and they’ll be better dug in and
stronger. Where does it get us?”
Morgan shook his head. “You’ve got it wrong. Even if we hadn’t had it
forced on us, we would have been moving into this stage anyhow.
The Free Companies have got to quit drawing attention to
themselves. Once the food problem is solved we’ve got to build up
our strength and weapons. We’ve got to have organization and
weapons-nationwide organization and guns, knives, and hand


                                     181
grenades. We’ve got to turn this mine into a factory. There are people
down in Barclay who can use the stuff we can make here-but we
can’t risk letting Barclay be blasted in the meantime. Easy does it.”
  “Ed Morgan, you’re kidding yourself and you know it.”
  “How?”
  “’How?’ Look, you sold me the idea of staying on the dodge and
  joining up-“
  “You volunteered.”
“Okay, I volunteered. It was all because you were so filled with fire
and vinegar about how we would throw the enemy back into the
ocean. You talked about France and Poland and how the Filipinos
kept on fighting after they were occupied. You sold me a bill of goods.
But there was something you didn’t tell me-“
  “Go on.”
“There never was an Underground that freed its own country. All of
them had to be pulled out of the soup by an invasion from outside.
Nobody is going to pull us out.”

There was silence after this remark. The statement
had too much truth in it, but it was truth that no member of the
Company could afford to think about. Young Morrie broke it.
“Captain?”
  “Yes, Morrie.” Being a fighting man, Morrie was therefore a citizen
  and a voter.
“How can Joe be so sure he knows what he’s talking about? History
doesn’t repeat. Anyhow, maybe we will get some help. England,
maybe-or even the Russians.
Benz snorted. “Listen to the punk! Look, kid, England was smashed
like we were, only worse-and Russia, too. Grow up; quit
daydreaming.”
The boy looked at him doggedly. “You don’t know that. We only know
what they chose to tell us. And there aren’t enough of them to hold
down the whole world, everybody, everywhere. We never managed
to lick the Yaquis, or the Moros. And they can’t lick us unless we let
them. I’ve read some history too.”



                                  182
Benz shrugged. “Okay, okay. Now we can all sing ‘My Country ‘Tis of
Thee’ and recite the Scout oath. That ought to make Morrie happy-“
  “Take it easy, Joe!”
“We have free speech here, don’t we? What I want to know is: How
long does this go on? I’m getting tired of competing with coyotes for
the privilege of eating jackrabbits. You know I’ve fought with the best
of them. I’ve gone on the raids. Well, haven’t I? Haven’t I? You can’t
call me yellow.”
  “You’ve been on some raids,” Morgan conceded.
“All right. I’d go along indefinitely if I could see some sensible plan.
That’s why I ask, ‘How long does this go on?’ When do we move?
Next spring? Next year?”
Morgan gestured impatiently. “How do I know? It may be next spring;
it may be ten years. The Poles waited three hundred years.”
“That tears it,” Benz said slowly. “I was hoping you could offer some
reasonable plan. Wait and arm ourselves-that’s a pretty picture!
Homemade hand grenades against atom bombs! Why don’t you quit
kidding yourselves? We’re licked!” He hitched at his belt. “The rest of
you can do as you please-I’m through.”
Morgan shrugged. “If a man won’t fight, I can’t make him. You’re
assigned noncombatant duties. Turn in your gun. Report to
Cathleen.”
  “You don’t get me, Ed. I’m through.”
  “You don’t get me, Joe. You don’t resign from an Underground.”
“There’s no risk. I’ll leave quietly, and let myself be registered as a
straggler. It doesn’t mean anything to the rest of you. I’ll keep my
mouth shut-that goes without saying.”
Morgan took a long breath, then answered, “Joe, I’ve learned by
bitter experience not to trust statements set off by ‘naturally,’ ‘of
course,’ or ‘that goes without saying.’”
  “Oh, so you don’t trust me?”
“As Captain of this Company I can’t afford to. Unless you can get the
Company to recall me from office, my rulings stand. You’re under
arrest. Hand over your gun.



                                    183
Benz glanced around, at blank, unfriendly faces. He reached for his
waist, “With your left hand, Joe!”
Instead of complying, Benz drew suddenly, backed away. “Keep
clear!” he said shrilly. “I don’t want to hurt anybody-but keep clear!”
Morgan was unarmed. There might have been a knife or two in the
assembly, but most of them had come directly from the dinner table.
It was not their custom to be armed inside the mine.
Young Morrie was armed with a rifle, having come from lookout duty.
He did not have room to bring it into play, but Morgan could see that
he intended to try. So could Benz.
“Stop it, Morrie!” Morgan assumed obedience and turned instantly to
the others. “Let him go. Nobody move. Get going, Joe.”
“That’s better.” Benz backed down the main tunnel, toward the main
entrance, weed and drift choked for
years. Its unused condition was their principal camouflage, but it
could be negotiated.
He backed away into the gloom, still covering them. The tunnel
curved; shortly he was concealed by the bend.
Dad Carter went scurrying in the other direction as soon as Benz no
longer covered them. He reappeared at once, carrying something.
“Heads down!” he shouted, as he passed through them and took out
after Benz.
  “Dad!” shouted Morgan. But Carter was gone.
  Seconds later a concussion tore at their ears and noses.
Morgan picked himself up and brushed at his clothes, saying in
annoyed tones, “I never did like explosives in cramped quarters.
Cleve-Art. Go check on it. Move!”
  “Right, boss!” They were gone.
“The rest of you get ready to carry out withdrawal plan-full plan, with
provisions and supplies. Jerry, don’t disconnect either the receiver or
theline-of-sight till I give the word. Margie will help you. Cathleen, get
ready to serve anything that can’t be carried. We’ll have one big
meal. ‘The condemned ate hearty.’”
“Just a moment, Captain.” McCracken touched his sleeve. “I had
better get a message into Barclay.”


                                    184
   “Soon as the boys report. You better get back into town.”
   “I wonder. Benz knows me. I think I’m here to stay.”
   “Hm.. . well, you know best. How about your family?”
McCracken shrugged. “They can’t be worse off than they would be if
I’m picked up. I’d like to have them warned and then arrangements
made for them to rejoin me if possible.”
  “We’ll do it. You’ll have to give me a new contact.”
“Planned for. This message will go through and my number-two man
will step into my shoes. The name is Hobart-runs a feed store on
Pelham Street.”

Morgan nodded. “Should have known you had it
worked out. Well, what we don’t know-“ He was interrupted by Cleve,
reporting.
   “He got away, Boss.”
   “Why didn’t you go after him?”
“Half the roof came down when Dad chucked the grenade. Tunnel’s
choked with rock. Found a place where I could see but couldn’t crawl
through. He’s not in the tunnel.”
  “How about Dad?”
  “He’s all right. Got clipped on the head with a splinter but not really
  hurt.”
Morgan stopped two of the women hurrying past, intent on
preparations for withdrawal. “Here-Jean, and you, Mrs. Bowen. Go
take care of Dad Carter and tell Art to get back here fast. Shake a
leg!”
When Art reported Morgan said, “You and Cleve go out and find
Benz. Assume that he is heading for Barclay. Stop him and bring him
in if you can. Otherwise kill him. Art is in charge. Get going.” He
turned to McCracken. “Now for a message.” He fumbled in his pocket
for paper, found the poster notice that McCracken had given him, tore
off a piece, and started to write. He showed it to McCracken. “How’s
that?” he asked.
The message warned Hobart of Benz and asked him to try to head
him off. It did not tell him that the Barclay Free Company was moving
but did designate the “post office” through which next contact would
be expected-the men’s rest room of the bus station.

                                   185
“Better cut out the post office,” McCracken advised. “Hobart knows it
and we may contact him half a dozen other ways. But I’d like to ask
him to get my family out of sight. Just tell him that we are sorry to
hear that Aunt Dinah is dead.”
  “Is that enough?”
  Yes.
“Okay.” Morgan made the changes, then called, “Margie! Put this in
code and tell Jerry to get it out fast. Tell him it’s the strike-out edition.
He can knock down his sets as soon as it’s out.”
“Okay, boss.” Margie had no knowledge of cryptography. Instead she
had command of jive talk, adoléscent slang, and high school double-
talk which would be meaningless to any but another American
bobbysoxer. At the other end a fifteen-year-old interpreted her
butchered English by methods which impressed her foster parents as
being telepathy-but it worked.
The fifteen-year-old could be trusted. Her entire family, save herself,
had been in Los Angeles on Final Sunday.
Art and Cleve had no trouble picking up Benz’s trail. His tracks were
on the tailings spilling down from the main entrance to the mine. The
earth and rock had been undisturbed since the last heavy rain;
Benz’s flight left clear traces.
But trail was cold by more than twenty minutes; they had left the mine
by the secret entrance a quarter of a mile from where Benz had made
his exit.
Art picked it up where Benz had left the tailings and followed it
through brush with the woodsmanship of the Eagle Scout he had
been. From the careless signs he left behind Benz was evidently in a
hurry and heading by the shortest route for the highway. The two
followed him as fast as they could cover ground, discarding caution
for speed.
   They checked just before entering the highway. “See anything?”
   asked Cleve.
‘ ‘ l\lo . ~
  “Which way would he go?”
  “The Old Man said to head him off from Barclay.”
“Yeah, but suppose he headed south instead? He used to work in
Wickamton. He might head that way.”

                                     186
  “The Boss said to cover Barclay. Let’s go.”
They had to cache their guns; from here on it would be their wits and
their knives. An armed American on a highway would be as
conspicuous as a nudist at a garden party.
  Their object now was speed; they must catch up with him, or get
  ahead of him and waylay him.

Nine miles and two and a half hours later-one
hundred and fifty minutes of dog trot, with time lost lying in the
roadside brush when convoys thundered past-they were in the
outskirts of Barclay. Around a bend, out of sight, was the roadblock of
the Invaders’ check station. The point was a bottleneck; Benz must
come this way if he were heading for Barclay.
  “Is he ahead or behind us?” asked Cleve, peering out through
  bushes.
  “Behind, unless he was picked up by a convoy-or sprouted wings.
  We’ll give him an hour.”
A horse-drawn hayrack lumbered up the road. Cleve studied it.
Americans were permitted no power vehicles except under
supervision, but this farmer and his load could go into town with only
routine check at the road block. “Maybe we ought to hide in that and
look for him in town.”
  “And get a bayonet in your ribs? Don’t be silly.”
“Okay. Don’t blow your top.” Cleve continued to watch the rig. “Hey,”
he said presently. “Get a load of that!”
“That” was a figure which dropped from the tail of the wagon as it
started around the bend, rolled to the ditch on the far side, and
slithered out of sight.
   “That was Joe!”
   “Are you sure?”
   “Sure! Here we go.”
“How?” Art objected. “Take it easy. Follow me.” They faded back two
hundred yards, to where they could cross the road on hands and
knees through a drainage pipe. Then they worked up the other side
to where Benz had disappeared in weeds.



                                  187
They found the place where he had been; grass and weeds were still
straightening up. The route he must have taken was evident-down
toward the river bank, then upstream to the city. There were drops of
blood. “Dad must have missed stopping him by a gnat’s whisker,”
Cleve commented.
  Bad job he didn t.
  “Another thing-he said he was going to give himself up. I don’t think
  he is, or he would have stayed
with the wagon and turned himself in at the check station. He’s
heading for some hideout. Who does he know in Barclay?”
  “I don’t know. We’d better get going.”
“Wait a minute. If he touches off an alarm, they’ll shoot him for us. If
he gets by the ‘eyes,’ we’ve lost him and we’ll have to pick him up
inside. Either way, we don’t gain anything by blundering ahead.
We’ve got to go in by the chute.”
Like all cities the Invader had consolidated, Barclay was girdled by
electric-eye circuits. The enemy had trimmed the town to fit,
dynamiting and burning where necessary to achieve unbroken
sequence of automatic sentries. But the “chute”-an abandoned and
forgotten aqueduct-passed under the alarms. Art knew how to use it;
he had been in town twice since Final Sunday.
They worked back up the highway, crossed over, and took to the
hills. Thirty minutes later they were on the streets of Barclay,
reasonably safe as long as they were quick to step off the sidewalk
for the occasional Invader.
The first “post office,” a clothesline near their exit, told them nothing-
the line was bare. They went to the bus station. Cleve studied the
notices posted for inhabitants while Art went into the men’s rest room.
On the wall, defaced by scrawlings of every sort, mostly vulgar, he
found what he sought: “Killroy was here.” The misspelling of Kilroy
was the clue-exactly eighteen inches below it and six to the right was
an address: “1745 Spruce-ask for Mabel.”
He read it as 2856 Pine-one block beyond Spruce. Art passed the
address to Cleve, then they set out separately, hurrying to beat the
curfew but proceeding with caution-at least one of them must get
through. They met in the backyard of the translated address. Art


                                   188
knocked on the kitchen door. It was opened a crack by a middle-aged
man who did not seem glad to see them. “Well?”
  “We’re looking for Mabel.”
  “Nobody here by that name.”
“Sorry,” said Art. “We must have made a mistake.” He shivered.
“Chilly out,” he remarked. “The nights are getting longer.”
  “They’ll get shorter by and by,” the man answered.
  “We’ve got to think so, anyhow,” Art countered.
“Come in,” the man said. “The patrol may see you.” He opened the
door and stepped aside. “My name’s Hobart. What’s your business?”
“We’re looking for a man named Benz. He may have sneaked into
town this afternoon and found someplace to-“
“Yes, yes,” Hobart said impatiently. “He got in about an hour ago and
he’s holed up with a character named Moyland.” As he spoke he
removed a half loaf of bread from a cupboard, cut four slices, and
added cold sausage, producing two sandwiches. He did not ask if
they were hungry; he simply handed them to Art and Cleve.
“Thanks, pal. So he’s holed up. Haven’t you done anything about it?
He has got to be shut up at once or he’ll spill his guts.”
“We’ve got a tap in on the telephone line. We had to wait for dark.
You can’t expect me to sacrifice good boys just to shut his mouth
unless it’s absolutely necessary.
  “Well, it’s dark now, and we’ll be the boys you mentioned. You can
    call yours off.”
  “Okay.” Hobart started pulling on shoes.
  “No need for you to stick your neck out,” Art told him. “Just tell us
    where this Moyland lives.”
  “And get your throat cut, too. I’ll take you.”
  “What sort of a guy is this Moyland? Is he safe?”
“You can’t prove it by me. He’s a black market broker, but that
doesn’t prove anything. He’s not part of the organization but we
haven’t anything against him.”
Hobart took them over his back fence, across a dark side street,
through a playground, where they lay for several minutes under
bushes because of a false alarm,
then through many more backyards, back alleys, and dark byways.
The man seemed to h~tve a nose for the enemy; there were no more

                                  189
alarms. At last he brought them through a cellar door into a private
home. They went upstairs and through a room where a woman was
nursing a baby. She looked up, but otherwise ignored them. They
ended up in a dark attic. “Hi, Jim,” Hobart called out softly. “What’s
new?”
The man addressed lay propped on his elbows, peering out into the
night through opera glasses held to slots of a ventilating louvre. He
rolled over and lowered the glasses, pushing one of a pair of
earphones from his head as he did so. “Hello, Chief. Nothing much.
Benz is getting drunk, it looks like.”
  “I’d like to know where Moyland gets it,” Hobart said. “Has he
  telephoned?”
“Would I be doing nothing if he had? A couple of calls came in, but
they didn’t amount to anything, so I let him talk.”
How do you know they didn’t amount to anything?” Jim shrugged,
turned back to the louvre. “Moyland just pulled down the shade,” he
announced.
  Art turned to Hobart. “We can’t wait. We’re going
Benz arrived at Moyland’s house in bad condition. The wound in his
shoulder, caused by Carter’s grenade, was bleeding. He had pushed
a handkerchief up against it as a compress, but his activity started
the blood again; he was shaking for fear his condition would attract
attention before he could get under cover.
  Moyland answered the door. “Is that you, Zack?” Benz demanded,
      shrinking back as he spoke.
  “Yes. Who is it?”
  “It’s me-Joe Benz. Let me in, Zack-quick!”
Moyland seemed about to close the door, then suddenly opened it.
“Get inside.” When the door was bolted, he demanded, “Now-what’s
your trouble? Why come to me?”
  “I had to go someplace, Zack. I had to get off the street. They’d
  pick me up.”
  Moyland studied him. “You’re not registered. Why not?”
Benz did not answer. Moyland waited, then went on, “You know what
I can get for harboring a fugitive. You’re in the Underground-aren’t
you?”


                                  190
     “Oh, no, Zack! I wouldn’t do that to you. I’m just a- a straggler. I
     gotta get registered, Zack.”
     “That’s blood on your coat. How?”
     “Uh. . . just an accident. Maybe you could let me have clean
     rags and some iodine.”
Moyland stared at him, his bland face expressionless, then smiled.
“You’ve got no troubles we can’t fix. Sit down.” He stepped to a
cabinet and took out a bottle of bourbon, poured three fingers in a
water glass, and handed it to Benz. “Work on that and I’ll fix you up.
He returned with some torn toweling and a bottle. “Sit here with your
back to the window, and open your shirt. Have another drink. You’ll
need it before I’m through.”
  Benz glanced nervously at the window. “Why don’t you draw the
  shade?”
“It would attract attention. Honest people leave their shades up these
days. Hold still. This is going to hurt.”
Three drinks later Benz was feeling better. Moyland seemed willing to
sit and drink with him and to soothe his nerves. “You did well to come
in,” Moyland told him. “There’s no sense hiding like a scared rabbit.
It’s just butting your head against a stone wall. Stupid.”
   Benz nodded. “That’s what I told them.”
   “Told who?”
   “Hunh? Oh, nobody. Just some guys I was talking to. Tramps.”
   Moyland poured him another drink. “As a matter of fact you were in
      the Underground.”
   “Me? Don’t be silly, Zack.”
“Look, Joe, you don’t have to kid me. I’m your friend. Even if you did
tell me it wOuldn’t matter. In the first place, I wouldn’t have any proof.
In the second place, I’m sympathetic to the Underground-any
American is. I just think they’re wrong-headed and foolish. Otherwise
I’d join ‘em myself.”
  “They’re foolish all right! You can say that again.”
  “So you were in it?”
  “Huh? You’re trying to trap me. I gave my word of honor-“
“Oh, relax!” Moyland said hastily. “Forget it. I didn’t hear anything; I
can’t tell anything. Hear no evil, see no evil-that’s me.” He changed
the subject.



                                    191
The level of the bottle dropped while Moyland explained current
events as he saw them. “It’s a shame we had to take such a
shellacking to learn our lesson but the fact of the matter is, we were
standing in the way of the natural logic of progress. There was a time
back in ‘45 when we could have pulled the same stunt ourselves,
only we weren’t bright enough to do it. World organization, world
government. We stood in the way, so we got smeared. It had to
come. A smart man can see that.”
Benz was bleary but he did not find this comment easy to take. “Look,
Zack-you don’t mean you like what happened to us?”
“Like it? Of course not. But it was necessary. You don’t have to like
having a tooth pulled-but it has to be done. Anyhow,” he went on, “it’s
not all bad. The big cities were economically unsound anyway. We
should have blown them up ourselves. Slum clearance, you might
call it.”
  Benz banged his empty glass down. “Maybe so-but they made
  slaves out of us!”
“Take it easy, Joe,” Moyland said, filling his glass, “you’re talking
abstractions. The cop on the corner could push you around whenever
he wanted to. Is that freedom? Does it matter whether the cop talks
with an Irish accent or some other accent? No, chum, there’s a
lot of guff talked about freedom. No man is free. There is no such
thing as freedom. There are only various privileges. Free speech-
we’re talking freely now, aren’t we? After all, you don’t want to get up
on a platform and shoot off your face. Free press? When did you ever
own a newspaper? Don’t be a chump. Now that you’ve shown sense
and come in, you are going to find that things aren’t so very different.
A little more orderly and no more fear of war, that’s all. Girls make
love just like they used to, the smart guys get along, and the suckers
still get the short end of the deal.”
  Benz nodded. “You’re right, Zack. I’ve been a fool.”
“I’m glad you see it. Now take those wild men you were with. What
freedom have they got? Freedom to starve, freedom to sleep on the
cold ground, freedom to be hunted.”
“That was it,” Benz agreed. “Did you ever sleep in a mine, Zack?
Cold. That ain’t half of it. Damp, too.”



                                  192
     “I can imagine,” Moyland agreed. “The Capehart Lode always
     was wet.”
     “It wasn’t the Capehart; it was the Harkn-“ He caught himself
     and looked puzzled.
     “The Harkness, eh? That’s the headquarters?”

“I didn’t say that! You’re putting words in my mouth! You-“
“Calm yourself, Joe. Forget it.”Moyland got up and drew down the
shade. “You didn’t say anything.”
  “Of course I didn’t.” Benz stared at his glass. “Say, Zack, where do
     I sleep? I don’t feel good.”
  “You’ll have a nice place to sleep any minute now.”
  “Huh? Well, show me. I gotta fold up.”
  “Any minute. You’ve got to check in first.”
  “Huh? Oh, I can’t do that tonight, Zack. I’m in no shape.”
  “I’m afraid you’ll have to. See me pull that shade down? They’ll be
     along any moment.”
  Benz stood up, swaying a little. “You framed me!” he yelled, and
     lunged at his host.

Moyland sidestepped, put a hand on his shoulder
and pushed him down into the chair. “Sit down, sucker,” he said
pleasantly. “You don’t expect me to get A-bombed just for you and
your pals, do you?”
  Benz shook his head, then began to sob.
Hobart escorted them out of the house, saying to Art as they left, “If
you get back, tell McCracken that Aunt Dinah is resting peacefully.”
  “Okay.”
  “Give us two minutes, then go in. Good luck.”
Cleve took the outside; Art went in. The back door was locked, but
the upper panel was glass. He broke it with the hilt of his knife,
reached in and unbolted the door. He was inside when Moyland
showed up to investigate the noise.
Art kicked him in the belly, then let him have the point in the neck as
he went down. Art stopped just long enough to insure that Moyland
would stay dead, then went looking for the room where Benz had
been when the shade was drawn.



                                   193
He found Benz in it. The man blinked his eyes and tried to focus
them, as if he found it impossible to believe what he saw. “Art!” he got
out at last. “Jeez, boy! Am I glad to see you! Let’s get out of here-this
place is ‘hot.’
  Art advanced, knife out.
Benz looked amazed. “Hey, Art! Art! You’re making a mistake. Art.
You can’t do this-“ Art let him have the first one in the soft tissues
under the breast bone, then cut his throat to be sure. After that he got
out quickly.
Thirty-five minutes later he was emerging from the country end of the
chute. His throat was burning from exertion and his left arm was
useless-he could not tell whether it was broken or simply wounded.
Cleve lay dead in the alley behind Moyland’s house, having done a
good job of covering Art’s rear.
It took Art all night and part of the next morning to get back near the
mine. He had to go through the hills
the entire way; the highway was, he judged, too warm at the moment.
He did not expect that the Company would still be there. He was
reasonably sure that Morgan would have carried out the evacuation
pending certain evidence that Benz’s mouth had been shut. He
hurried.
  But he did not expect what he did find-a helicopter hovering over
  the neighborhood of the mine.
He stopped to consider the matter. If Morgan had got them out safely,
he knew where to rejoin. If they were still inside, he had to figure out
some way to help them. The futility of his position depressed him-one
man, with a knife and a bad arm, against a helicopter.
Somewhere a bluejay screamed and cursed. Without much hope he
chirped his own identification. The bluejay shut up and a mockingbird
answered him- Ted.
Art signaled that he would wait where he was. He considered himself
well hidden; he expected to have to signal again when Ted got
closer, but he underestimated Ted’s ability. A hand was laid on his
shoulder.




                                   194
  He rolled over, knife out, and hurt his shoulder as he did so. “Ted!
    Man, do you look good to me!”
  “Same here. Did you get him?”
  “Benz? Yes, but maybe not in time. Where’s the gang?”
  “A quarter mile north of back door. We’re pinned down. Where’s
    Cleve?”
  “Cleve’s not coming back. What do you mean ‘pinned down’?”
“That damned ‘copter can see right down the draw we’re in. Dad’s got
‘em under an overhang and they’re safe enough for the moment, but
we can’t move.”
      “What do you mean ‘Dad’s got ‘em’?” demanded Art. “Where’s
      the Boss?”
“He ain’t in such good shape, Art. Got a machine gun slug in the ribs.
We had a dust up. Cathleen’s dead.”
      “The hell you say!”
“That’s right. Margie and Maw Carter have got her baby. But that’s
one reason why we”re pinned down- the Boss and the kid, I mean.”
       A mockingbird’s call sounded far away. “There’s Dad,” Ted
       announced. “We got to get back.”
       “Can we?”
       “Sure. Just keep behind me. I’ll watch out that I don’t get too far
       ahead.”
Art followed Ted in, by a circuitous and, at one point, almost
perpendicular route. He found the Company huddled under a shelf of
rock which had been undercut by a stream, now dry. Against the wall
Morgan was on his back, with Dad Carter and Dr. McCracken
squatting beside him. Art went up and made his report.
Morgan nodded, his face gray with pain. His shirt had been cut away;
bandaging was wrapped around his ribs, covering a thick pad. “You
did well, Art. Too bad about Cleve. Ted, we’re getting out of here and
you’re going first, because you’re taking the kid.”

“The baby? How-“
  “Doc’ll dope it so that it won’t let out a peep. Then you strap it to
  your back, papoose fashion.”
Ted thought about it. “No, to my front. There’s some knee-and-
shoulder work on the best way out.”
  “Okay. It’s your job.”

                                    195
  “How do you get out, boss?”
  “Don’t be silly.”
  “Look here, boss, if you think we’re going to walk off and leave you,
    you’ve got another-“
  “Shut up and scram!” The exertion hurt Morgan; he coughed and
    wiped his mouth.
  “Yes, sir.” Ted and Art backed away.
  “Now, Ed-“ said Carter.
  “You shut up, too. You still sure you don’t want to be Captain?”
“You know better than that, Ed. They took things from me while I was
your deppity, but they wouldn’t have me for Captain.”
     “That puts it up to you, Doc.”
     McCracken looked troubled. “They don’t know me that well,
     Captain.”
     “They’ll take you. People have an instinct for such things.”
“Anyhow, if I am Captain, I won’t agree to your plan of staying here
by yourself. We’ll stay till dark and carry you out.”
“And get picked up by an infrared spotter, like sitting ducks? That’s
supposing they let you alone until sundown-that other ‘copter will be
back with more troops before long.”
  “I don’t think they’d let me walk off on you.”
“It’s up to you to make them. Oh, I appreciate your kindly thoughts,
Doc, but you’ll think differently as soon as you’re Captain. You’ll know
you have to cut your losses.”
  McCracken did not answer. Morgan turned his head to Carter.
  “Gather them around, Dad.”
They crowded in, shoulder to shoulder. Morgan looked from one
troubled face to another and smiled. “The Barclay Free Company, a
provisional unit of the United States of America, is now in session,”
he announced, his voice suddenly firm. “I’m resigning the captaincy
for reasons of physical disability. Any nommat ions?”
  The silence was disturbed only by calls of birds, the sounds of
  insects.
  Morgan caught Carter’s eyes. Dad cleared his throat. “I nominate
  Doc McCracken.”
“Any other nominations?” He waited, then continued, “All right, all in
favor of Doc make it known by raising your right hand. Okay-opposed

                                   196
the same sign. Dr. McCracken is unanimously elected. It’s all yours,
Captain. Good luck to you.”
McCracken stood up, stooping to avoid the rock overhead. “We’re
evacuating at once. Mrs. Carter, give the baby about another
tablespoon of the syrup, then help Ted. He knows what to do. You’ll
follow Ted.
Then Jerry. Margie, you are next. I’ll assign the others presently.
Once out of the canyon, spread out and go it alone. Rendezvous at
dusk, same place as under Captain Morgan’s withdrawal plan-the
cave.” He paused. Morgan caught his eye and motioned him over,
“That’s all until Ted and the baby are ready to leave. Now back away
and give Captain Morgan a little air.”
When they had withdrawn McCracken leaned over Morgan the better
to hear his weak words. “Don’t be too sure you’ve seen the last of
me, Captain. I might join up in a few days.”
“You might at that. I’m going to leave you bundled up warm and
plenty of water within reach. I’ll leave you some pills, too-that’ll give
you some comfort and ease. Only half a pill for you-they’re intended
for cows.” He grinned at his patient.
“Half a pill it is. Why not let Dad handle the evacuation? He’ll make
you a good deputy-and I’d like to talk with you until you leave.”
  “Right.” He called Carter over, instructed him, and turned back to
  Morgan.
“After you join up with Powell’s outfit,” whispered Morgan, “your first
job is to get into touch with Brockman. Better get Mrs. Carter started
right away, once you’ve talked it over with Powell.”
  “I will.”
“That’s the most important thing we’ve got to worry about, Doc.
We’ve got to have unity, and one plan, from coast to coast. I look
forward to a day when there will be an American assigned, by name,
to each and every one of them. Then at a set time-zzzt!” He drew a
thumb across his throat.
  McCracken nodded. “Could be. It will be. How long do you think it
  will take us?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think about ‘how long’. Two years, five years, ten
years-maybe a century. That’s not the point. The only question is


                                    197
whether or not there are any guts left in America.” He glanced out
where the fifth person to leave was awaiting a signal
from Carter, who in turn was awaiting a signal from Art, hidden out
where he could watch for the helicopter. “Those people will stick.”
  “I’m sure of that.”
Presently Morgan added, “There’s one thing this has taught me: You
can’t enslave a free man. Only person can do that to a man is
himself. No, sir-you can’t enslave a free man. The most you can do is
kill him.”
  “That’s a fact, Ed.”
  “It is. Got a cigarette, Doc?”
  “It won’t do you any good, Ed.”
  “It won’t do me any harm, either-now, will it?”
  “Well, not much.” McCracken unregretfully gave him his last and
     watched him smoke it.
  Later, Morgan said, “Dad’s ready for you, Captain. So long.”
“So long. Don’t forget. Half a pill at a time. Drink all the water you
want, but don’t take your blankets off, no matter how hot you get.”
  “Half a pill it is. Good luck.”
“I’ll have Ted check on you tomorrow.” Morgan shook his head.
“That’s too soon. Not for a couple of days at least.”
McCracken smiled. “I’ll decide that, Ed. You just keep yourself
wrapped up. Good luck.” He withdrew to where Carter waited for him.
“You go ahead, Dad. I’ll bring up the rear. Signal Art to start.”
      Carter hesitated. “Tell me straight, Doc. What kind of shape is
      he in?”
      McCracken studied Carter’s face, then said in a low voice, “I
      give him about two hours.”
      “I’ll stay behind with him.”
“No, Dad, you’ll carry out your orders.” Seeing the distress in the old
man’s eyes, he added, “Don’t you worry about Morgan. A free man
can take care of himself. Now get moving.”
  “Yes, sir.”




                                    198
FOREWORD
This story was tailored in length (1500 words) for Colliers as a short-
short. I then tried it on the American Legion magazine-and was
scolded for suggesting that the treatment given our veterans was
ever less than perfect. I then offered it to several SF editors-and was
told that it was not a science fiction story. (Gee whiz and Gosh
wollickers!-space warps and FTL are science but therapy and
psychology are not. I must be in the wrong church.)
But this story does have a major sho rtcorning, one that usually is
fatal. Try to spot it. I will put the answer just after the end.

NO BANDS PLAYING, NO
FLAGS FLYING-
“The bravest man lever saw in my life!” Jones said,
being rather shrill about it.
We-Jones and Arkwright and I-were walking toward the parking lot at
the close of visiting hours out at the veterans hospital. Wars come
and wars go, but the wounded we have always with us-and damned
little attention they get between wars. If you bother to look (few do),
you can find some broken human remnants dating clear back to
World War One in some of our wards.
So our post always sends out a visiting committee every Sunday,
every holiday. I’m usually on it, have been for thirty years-if you can’t
pay a debt, you can at least try to meet the interest. And you do get
so that you can stand it.
But Jones was a young fellow making his first visit. Quite upset, he
was. Well, surely, I would have despised him if he hadn’t been-this
crop was fresh in from Southeast Asia. Jones had held it in, then
burst out with that remark once we were outside.
“What do you mean by ‘bravery’?” I asked him. (Not but what Jones
had plenty to back up his opinion- this lad he was talking about was
shy both legs and his eyesight, yet he was chin-up and merry.)

“Well, what do you mean by ‘bravery’? Jones de
manded, then added, “sir.” Respect for my white hair rather than my
opinions, I think; there was an edge in his voice.



                                   199
“Keep your shirt on, son,” I answered. “What that lad back there has
I’d call ‘fortitude,’ the ability to endure adversity without losing your
morale. I’m not disparaging it; it may be a higher virtue than bravery-
but I define ‘bravery’ as the capacity to choose to face danger when
you are frightened by it.”
  “Why do you say ‘choose’?”
“Because nine men out often meet the test when it’s forced on them.
But it takes something extra to face up to danger when it scares the
crap out of you and there’s an easy way to bug out.” I glanced at my
watch. “Give me three minutes and I’ll tell you about the bravest man
I’ve ever met.”
I was a young fellow myself back between War One and War Two
and had been in a hospital much like this one Arkwright and Jones
and I had visited- picked up a spot on my lung in the Canal Zone and
had been sent there for the cure. Mind you, this was years ago when
lung therapy was primitive. No antibiotics, no specific drugs. The first
thing they would try was a phrenectomy-cut the nerve that controls
the diaphragm to immobilize the lung and let it get well. If that didn’t
work, they used artificial pneumothorax. If that failed, they did a
“backdoor job”-chop out some ribs and fit you with a corset.
All these were just expedients to hold a lung still so it could get well.
In artificial pneumothorax they shove a hollow needle between your
ribs so that the end is between rib wall and lung wall, then pump the
space in between full of air; this compresses the lung like a squeezed
sponge.
But the air would be absorbed after a while and you had to get
pumped up again. Every Friday morning those of us on pneumo
would gather in the ward surgeon’s office for the needle. It wasn’t
grim-lungers
are funny people; they are almost always cheerful. This was an
officers’ ward and we treated it like a club. Instead of queuing up
outside the surgeon’s office we would swarm in, loll in his chair, sit on
his desk, smoke his cigarettes, and swap lies while he took care of
us. Four of us that morning and I was the first.
Taking the air needle isn’t bad-just a slight prick as it goes in and you
can even avoid that if you want to bother with skin anesthesia. It’s
over in a few minutes; you put your bathrobe back on and go back to


                                   200
bed. I hung around after I was through because the second patient,
chap named Saunders, was telling a dirty story that was new to me.
He broke off in the middle of it to climb up on the table when I got off.
Our number-one ward surgeon was on leave and his assistant was
taking care of us- a young chap not long out of school. We all liked
him and felt he had the makings of a great surgeon.
Getting pumped up is not dangerous in any reasonable sense of the
word. You can break your neck falling off a step ladder, choke to
death on a chicken bone. You can slip on a rainy day, knock yourself
out, and drown in three inches of rain water. And there is just as
unlikely a way to hit the jackpot in taking artificial pneumothorax. If
the needle goes a little too far, penetrates the lung, and if an air
bubble then happens to be forced into a blood vessel and manages
to travel all the way back to the heart without being absorbed, it is
possible though extremely unlikely to get a sort of vapor lock in the
valves of your heart-air embolism, the doctors call it. Given all these
improbable events, you can die.
  We never heard the end of Saunders’ dirty joke. He konked out on
  the table.
The young doc did everything possible for him and sent for help while
he was doing it. They tried this and that, used all the tricks, but the
upshot was that they brought in the meat basket and carted him off to
the morgue.
Three of us were still standing there, not saying a word-me,
reswallowing my breakfast and thanking my stars that I was through
with it, an ex-field-clerk named Josephs who was next up, and
Colonel Hostetter who was last in line. The surgeon turned and
looked at us. He was sweating and looked bad-may have been the
first patient he had ever lost; he was still a kid. Then he turned to Dr.
Armand who had come in from the next ward. I don’t know whether
he was going to ask the older man to finish it for him or whether he
was going to put it off for a day, but it was clear from his face that he
did not intend to go ahead right then.
Whatever it was, he didn’t get a chance to say it. Josephs stood up,
threw off his bathrobe and climbed up on the table. He had just
lighted a cigarette; he passed it to a hospital orderly and said, “Hold
this for me, Jack, while Doctor”-he named our own surgeon-“pumps
me up.” With that he peels up his pajama coat.

                                   201
You know the old business about sending a student pilot right back
up after his first crack up. That was the shape our young doctor was
in-he had to get right back to it and prove to himself that it was just
bad luck and not because he was a butcher. But he couldn’t send
himself back in; Josephs had to do it for him. Josephs could have
ruined him professionally that moment, by backing out and giving him
time to work up a real case of nerves-but instead Josephs forced his
hand, made him do it.
  Josephs died on the table.
The needle went in and everything seemed all right, then Josephs
gave a little sigh and died. Dr. Armand was on hand this time and
took charge, but it did no good. It was like seeing the same horror
movie twice. The same four men arrived to move the body over to the
morgue-probably the same basket.
Our doctor now looked like a corpse himself. Dr. Armand took over.
“You two get back to bed,” he said to
Colonel Hostetter and me. “Colonel, come over to my ward this
afternoon; I’ll take care of your treatment.”
But Hostetter shook his head. “No, thank you,” he said crisply, “My
ward surgeon takes care of my needs.” He took off his robe. The
young fellow didn’t move. The Colonel went up to him and shook his
arm. “Come, now Doctor-you’ll make us both late for lunch.” With that
he climbed up on the table and exposed his ribs.
A few moments later he climbed off again, the job done, and our ward
surgeon was looking human again, although still covered with sweat.
I stopped to catch my breath. Jones nodded soberly and said, “I see
what you mean. To do what Colonel Hostetter did takes a kind of cold
courage way beyond the courage needed to fight.”
“He doesn’t mean anything of the sort,” Arkwright objected. “He
wasn’t talking about Hostetter; he meant the intern. The doctor had to
steady down and do a job-not once but twice. Hostetter just had to
hold still and let him do it.”
I felt tired and old. “Just a moment,” I said. “You’re both wrong.
Remember I defined ‘bravery’ as requiring that a man had to have a
choice . . . and chooses to be brave in spite of his own fear. The ward
surgeon had the decisions forced on him, so he is not in the running.


                                  202
Colonel Hostetter was an old man and blooded in battle-and he had
Josephs’ example to live up to. So he doesn’t get first prize.”
“But that’s silly,” Jones protested. “Josephs was brave, sure-but, if it
was hard for Josephs to offer himself, it was four times as hard for
Hostetter. It would begin to look like a jinx-like a man didn’t stand a
chance of coming off that table alive.”
“Yes, yes!” I agreed. “I know, that’s the way I felt at the time. But you
didn’t let me finish. I know for certain that it took more bravery to do
what Josephs did.
  “The autopsy didn’t show an aft embolism in Josephs, or anything
  else. Josephs died of fright.”

The End
The Answer: I’ll bury this in other words to keep your eye from picking
it up at once; the shortcoming is that this is a true story. I was there. I
have changed names, places, and dates but not the essential facts.

FOREWORD
You may not be old enough to remember the acute housing shortage
following World War II (the subject of this story) but if you are over six
but not yet old enough for the undertaker, you are aware of the
current problem of getting in out of the rain. . . a problem especially
acute for the young couple with one baby and for the retired old
couple trying to get by on Social “Security” plus savings if any. (I am
not suggesting that it is easy for those between youth and old age;
the present price of mortgage money constitutes rape with violence;
the price tag on an honestly-constructed-if you can find one-two-
bedroom house makes me feel faint.)
In 1960 in Moscow Mrs. Heinlein and I had as Intourist courier a
sweet child named Ludmilla-23, unmarried, living with her father,
mother, brother and sisters. She told us that her ambition in life was
for her family not to have to share a bathroom with another family.
The next aesthete who sneers at our American “plumbing culture” in
my presence I intend to cut into small pieces and flush him down that
W.C. he despises.




                                    203
Any old pol will recognize the politics in this story as the Real McCoy.
Should be. Autobiographical in many details. Which details? Show
me a warrant and I’ll take the Fifth.

A BATHROOM OF HER OWN

Ever step on a top step that wasn’t there?
That’s the way I felt when I saw my honorable opponent for the office
of city councilman, third district.
Tom Griffith had telephoned at the close of filing, to let me know my
opponents. “Alfred McNye,” he said, “and Francis X. Nelson.”
“McNye we can forget,” I mused. “He files just for the advertising. It’s
a three-way race-me, this Nelson party, and the present
encumbrance, Judge Jorgens. Maybe we’ll settle it in the primaries.”
Our fair city has the system laughingly called “non-partisan”; a man
can be elected in the primary by getting a clear majority.
  “Jorgens didn’t file, Jack. The old thief isn’t running for re-election.”
I let this sink in. “Tom, we might as well tear up those photostats. Do
you suppose Tully’s boys are conceding our district?”
      “The machine can’t concede the third district, not this year. It
      must be Nelson.”
      “I suppose so . . . it can’t be McNye. What d’you know about
      him?”
      “Nothing.”
“Nor I. Well, we’ll look him over tonight.” The Civic League had called
a “meet-the-candidates” meeting that night. I drove out to the trailer
camp where I hang
my hat-then a shower, a shave, put on my hurtin’ shoes, and back to
town. It gave me time to think.
It’s not unusual for a machine to replace-temporarily-a man whose
record smells too ripe with a citizen of no background to be sniped at.
I could visualize Nelson-young, manly looking, probably a lawyer and
certainly a veteran. He would be so politically naive that he would
stand without hitching, or so ambitious that it would blind him to what
he must do to keep the support of the machine. Either way the
machine could use him.



                                    204
I got there just in time to be introduced and take a seat on the
platform. I couldn’t spot Nelson but I did see Cliff Meyers, standing
with some girl. Meyers is a handyman for Boss Tully-Nelson would be
around close
McNye accepted the call of the peepul in a few hundred well-worn
words then the chairman introduced Nelson “-a veteran of this war
and candidate for the same office”

The girl standing with Meyers walked up and took the stage
They clapped and somebody in the balcony gave a wolf whistle
Instead of getting flustered, she smiled up and said, “Thank you!”
They clapped again and whistled and stomped She started talking I’m
not bright-I had trouble learning to wave bye-bye and never did
master patty-cake. I expected her to apologize for Nelson’s absence
and identify herself as his wife or sister or something. She was into
her fourth paragraph before I realized that
she was Nelson. j Francis X. Nelson-Frances X. Nelson. I wondered
what I had done to deserve this. Female candidates are poison to run
against at best; you don’t dare use the ordinary rough-and-tumble,
while she is free to use anything from a blacksnake whip to mickeys
in your coffee.

Add to that ladylike good looks, obvious intelli
gence, platform poise-and a veteran. I couldn’t have lived that wrong.
I tried to catch Tohi Griffith’s eye to share my misery, but he was
looking at her and the lunk was lapping it up.
Nelson-Miss Nelson-was going to town on housing. “You promised
him that when he got out of that foxhole nothing would be too good
for him. And what did he get? A shack in shanty-town, the sofa in his
inlaws’ parlor, a garage with no plumbing. If I am elected I shall make
it my first concern-“
You couldn’t argue against it. Like good roads, good weather, and the
American Home, everybody is for veterans’ housing.
When the meeting broke up, I snagged Tom and we rounded up the
leaders of the Third District Association and adjourned to the home of
one of the members. “Look, folks,” I told them, “when we caucused
and I agreed to run, our purpose was to take a bite out of the

                                  205
machine by kicking out Jorgens. Well, the situation has changed. It’s
not too late for me to forfeit the filing fee. How about it?”
Mrs. Holmes-Mrs. Bixby Holmes, as fine an old warhorse as ever
swung a gavel-looked amazed. “What’s gotten into you, Jack?
Getting rid of Jorgens is only half of it. We have to put in men we can
depend on. For this district, you’re it.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t want to be the candidate; I wanted to
manage. We should have had a veter”There’s nothing wrong with
your war record,” pi~it
in Dick Blair.
“Maybe not, but it’s useless politically. We needed a veteran.” I had
shuffled papers in the legal section of the Manhattan project-in
civilian clothes. Dick Blair, a paratrooper and Purple Heart, had been
my choice. But Dick had begged off, and who is to tell a combat
veteran that he has got to make further sacrifice for the dear peepul?

“I abided by the will of the group, because Jorgens
was not a veteran either. Now look at the damn thing-What makes
you think I can beat her? She’s got political sex-appeal.”
  “She’s got more than political sex-appeal”-this from Tom.
When Dr. Potter spoke we listened; he’s the old head in our group.
“That’s the wrong tack, Jack. It does not matter whether you win.”
  “I don’t believe in lost causes, Doctor.”
“I do. And so will you, someday. If Miss Nelson is Tully’s choice to
succeed Jorgens, then we must oppose her.”
  “She is with the machine, isn’t she?” asked Mrs. Holmes.
“Sure she is,” Tom told her. “Didn’t you see that Cliff Meyers had her
in tow? She’s a stooge-the Stooge with the Light Brown Hair.”
I insisted on a vote; they were all against me. “Okay,” I agreed, “if you
can take it, I can. This means a tougher campaign. We thought the
dirt we had on Jorgens was enough; now we’ve got to dig.”
      “Don’t fret, Jack,” Mrs. Holmes soothed me. “We’ll dig. I’ll take
      charge of the precinct work.”
      “I thought your daughter in Denver was having a baby?”
      “So she is. I’ll stick.”


                                   206
I ducked out soon after, feeling much better, not because I thought I
could win, but because of Mrs. Holmes and Dr. Potter and more like
them. The team spirit you get in a campaign is pretty swell; I was
feeling it again and recovering my pre-War zip.
Before the War our community was in good shape. We had kicked
out the local machine, tightened up civil service, sent a police
lieutenant to jail, and had put the bidding for contracts on an honest-
to-goodness competitive basis-not by praying on Sunday, either, but
by volunteer efforts of private citizens willing to get out and punch
doorbells.
  Then the War came along and everything came unstuck.
Naturally, the people who can be depended on for the in-and-out-of-
season grind of volunteer politics are also the ones who took the War
the most seriously. From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima they had no time
for politics. It’s a wonder the city hail wasn’t stolen during the War-
bolted to its foundations, I guess.
On my way home I stopped at a drive-in for a hamburger and some
thought. Another car squeezed in close beside me. I glanced up, then
blinked my eyes. “Well, I’ll be-Miss Nelson! Who let you out alone?”
She jerked her head around, ready to bristle, then turned on the vote-
getter. “You startled me. You’re Mr. Ross, aren’t you?”
“Your future councilman,” I agreed. “You startled me. How’s the
politicking? Where’s Cliff Meyers? Dump him down a sewer?”
She giggled. “Poor Mr. Meyers! I said goodnight to him at my door,
then came over here. I was hungry.”
  “That’s no way to win elections. Why didn’t you invite him in and
  scramble some eggs?”
“Well, I just didn’t want-I mean I wanted a chance to think. You won’t
tell on me?” She gave me the yougreat-big-strong-man look.
  “I’m the enemy-remember? But I won’t. Shall I go away, too?”
“No, don’t. Since you are going to be my councilman, I ought to get
acquainted. Why are you so sure you will beat me, Mr. Ross?”
“Jack Ross-your friend and mine. Have a cigar. I’m not at all sure I
can beat you. With your natural advantages and Tully’s gang behind
you I should ‘a stood in bed.


                                   207
Her eyes went narrow; the vote-getter smile was gone. “What do you
mean?” she said slowly. “I’m an independent candidate.”

It was my cue to crawl, but I passed. “You expect
me to swallow that? With Cliff Meyers at your elbow-“ The car hop
interrupted us; we placed our orders and I resumed. She cut in.
  “I do want to be alone,” she snapped and started to close her
  window.
I reached out and placed a hand on the glass. “Just a moment. This
is politics; you are judged by the company you keep. You show up at
your first meeting and Cliff Meyers has you under his wing.”
  “What’s wrong with that? Mr. Meyers is a perfect gentleman.”
“And he’s good to his mother. He’s a man with no visible means of
support, who does chores for Boss Tully. I thought what everybody
thought, that the boss had sent him to chaperone a green candidate.”
      “It’s not true!”
      “No? You’re caught in the jam cupboard. What’s your story?”
      She bit her lip. “I don’t have to explain anything to you.
“No. But if you won’t, the circumstances speak for themselves.” She
didn’t answer. We sat there, ignoring each other, while we ate. When
she switched on the ignition, I said, “I’m going to tail you home.”
  “It’s not necessary, thank you.”
“This town is a rough place since the War. A young woman should
not be out alone at night. Even Cliff Meyers is better than nobody.”
“That’s why I let them- Do as you see fit!” I had to skim red lights, but
I kept close behind her. I expected her to rush inside and slam the
door, but she was waiting by the curb. “Thank you for seeing me
home, Mr. Ross.”
  “Quite all right.” I went upon her front porch with her and said
  goodnight.
“Mr. Ross-I shouldn’t care what you think, but I’m not with Boss Tully.
I’m independent.” I waited. Presently she said, “You don’t believe
me.” The big, beautiful eyes were shiny with tears.
  “I didn’t say so-but I’m waiting for you to explain.”
  “But what is there to explain?”


                                     208
“Plenty.” I sat down on the porch swing. “Come here, and tell papa.
Why did you decide to run for office?”
“Well . . . “ She sat down beside me; I caught a disturbing whiff of
perfume. “It started because I couldn’t find an apartment. No, it didn’t-
it was farther back, out in the South Pacific. I could stand the insects
and the heat. Even the idiotic way the Army does things didn’t fret me
much. But we had to queue up to use the wash basins. There was
even a time when baths were rationed. I hated it. I used to lie on my
cot at night, awake in the heat, and dream about a bathroom of my
own. A bathroom of my own! A deep tub of water and time to soak.
Shampoos and manicures and big, fluffy towels! I wanted to lock
myself in and live there. Then I got out of the Army-“
  “Yes?”
She shrugged. “The only apartment I could find carried a bonus
bigger than my discharge pay, and I couldn’t afford it anyhow.”
  “What’s wrong with your own home?”
“This? This is my aunt’s home. Seven in the family and I make eight-
one bathroom. I’m lucky to brush my teeth. And I share a three-
quarters bed with my eight-year-old cousin.”
  “I see. But that doesn’t tell why you are running for office.”
“Yes, it does. Uncle Sam was here one night and I was boiling over
about the housing shortage and what I would like to do to Congress.
He said I ought to be in politics; I said I’d welcome the chance. He
phoned the next day and asked how would I like to run for his seat? I
said-“
  “Uncle Sam-Sam Jorgens!”
“Yes. He’s not my uncle, but I’ve known him since I was little. I was
scared, but he said not to worry, he
would help me out and advise me. So I did and that’s all there is to it.
You see now?”
I saw all right. The political acumen of an Easter bunny-except that
the bunny rabbit was likely to lick the socks off me. “Okay,” I told her,
“but housing isn’t the only issue. How about the gas company
franchise, for example and the sewage disposal plant? And the tax
rate? What airport deal do you favor? Do you think we ought to ease
up on zoning and how about the freeways?”


                                   209
  “I’m going after housing. Those issues can wait.”
I snorted. “They won’t let you wait. While you’re riding your
hobbyhorse, the boys will steal the public blind-again.”
“Hobbyhorse! Mister Smarty-Britches, getting a house is the most
important thing in the world to the man who hasn’t one. You wouldn’t
be so smug if you were in that fix.”
“Keep your shirt on. Me, I’m sleeping in a leaky trailer. I’m strong for
plenty of housing-but how do you propose to get it?”
  “How? Don’t be silly. I’ll back the measures that push it.”
“Such as? Do you think the city ought to get into the building
business? Or should it be strictly private enterprise? Should we sell
bonds and finance new homes? Limit it to veterans, or will you help
me, too? Heads of families only, or are you going to cut yourself in on
it? How about pre-fabrication? Can we do everything you want to do
under a building code that was written in 1911?” I paused for breath.
“Well?”
  “You’re being nasty, Jack.”
“I sure am. But that’s not half of it. I’ll challenge you to debate on
everything from dog licenses to patent paving materials. A nice, clean
campaign and may the best man win-providing his name is Ross.”
  “I won’t accept.”
  “You’ll wish you had, before we’re through. My boys
and girls will be at all your meetings, asking embarrassing questions.”
      She looked at me. “Of all the dirty politics!”
      “You’re a candidate, kid; you’re supposed to know the
      answers.”
She looked upset. “I told Uncle Sam,” she said, half to herself, “that I
didn’t know enough about such things, but he said-“
    “Go on, Frances. What did he say?”
    She shook her head. “I’ve told you too much already.
“I’ll tell you. You were not to worry your pretty head, because he
would be there to tell you how to vote. That was it, wasn’t it?”




                                   210
“Well, not in so many words. He said-“
“But it amounted to that. And he brought Meyers around and said
Meyers would show you the ropes. You didn’t want to cause trouble,
so you did what Meyers told you to do. Right?”
  “You’ve got the nastiest way of putting things.”
“That’s not all. You honestly think you are independent. But you do
what Sam Jorgens tells you and Sam Jorgens-your sweet old Uncle
Sam-won’t change his socks without Boss Tully’s permission.”
     “I don’t believe it!”
     “Check it. Ask some of the newspaper boys. Sniff around.”
     “I shall.”
“Good. You’ll learn about the birds and the bees.” I stood up. “I’ve
worn out my welcome. See you at the barricades, comrade.”
  I was halfway to the street when she called me back. “Jack!”
“Yes, Frances?” I went back up on the porch. “I’m going to find out
what connection, if any, Tully has with Uncle Sam, but, nevertheless
and notwithstanding, I’m an independent. If I’ve been led around by
the nose, I won’t be for long.”
  “Good girl!”
“That’s not all. I’m going to give you the fight of your life, whip the
pants off you, and wipe that know-it-all look off your face!”
   “Bravo! That’s the spirit, kid. We’ll have fun.”
   “Thanks. Well, goodnight.”
“Just a second.” I put an arm around her shoulders. She leaned away
from me warily. “Tell me, darling:
who writes your speeches?”
      I got kicked in the shins, then the screen door was between us.
      “Goodnight, Mr. Ross!”
      “One more thing-your middle name, it can’t be ‘Xavier.’ What
      does the X stand for?”
      “Xanthippe-want to make something of it?” The door slammed.
I was too busy the following month to worry about Frances Nelson.
Ever been a candidate? It is like getting married and having your
appendix out, while going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. One or more
meetings every evening, breakfast clubs on Saturdays and Sundays,
a Kiwanis, Rotary, or Lions, or Chamber of Commerce lunch to hit at


                                    211
noon, an occasional appearance in court, endless correspondence,
phone calls, conferences, and, to top it off, as many hours of doorbell
pushing as I could force into each day.
It was a grass-roots campaign, the best sort, but strenuous. Mrs.
Holmes, by scraping the barrel, rounded up volunteers to cover three-
quarters of the precincts; the rest were my problem. I couldn’t cover
them all, but I could durn well try.
And every day there was the problem of money. Even with a
volunteer, unpaid organization, politics costs money-printing,
postage, hall rental, telephone bills, and there is gasoline and lunch
money for people who can’t carry their own expenses. A dollar here
and a dollar there and soon sr.~i are three thousand bucks in the red.
It is hard to tell how a campaign is going; you tend to kid each other.
We made a mid-stream spot check-
phone calls, a reply post-card poll, ayid a doorbell sampling. And
Tom and I and Mrs. Holmes got out and sniffed the air. All one day I
bought gasoline here, a cola there, and a pack of cigarettes
somewhere else, talking politics as I did so, and never offering my
name. By the time I met Tom and Mrs. Holmes at her home I felt that
I knew my chances.
We got our estimates together and looked them over. Mine read:
“Ross 45%; Nelson 55%; McNye a trace.” Tom’s was: “fifty-fifty,
against us.” Mrs. Holmes had written, “A dull campaign, a light vote,
and a trend against us.” The computed results of the formal polls
read; Ross 43%, Nelson 52%, McNye 5%-probable error plus-or-
minus 9%.
  I looked around. “Shall we cut our losses, or go on gallantly to
  defeat?”
  “We aren’t licked yet,” Tom pointed out.
“No, but we’re going to be. All we offer is the assumption that I’m
better qualified than the little girl with the big eyes-a notion in which
Joe Public is colossally uninterested. How about it, Mrs. Holmes?
Can you make it up in the precincts?”
She faced me. “Jack, to be frank, it’s all uphill. I’m working the old
faithfuls too hard and I can’t seem to stir out any new blood.”
  “We need excitement,” Tom complained. “Let’s throw some mud.”


                                    212
“At what?” I asked. “Want to accuse her of passing notes in school, or
shall we say she sneaked out after taps when she was a WAC?
She’s got no record.”
  “Well, tackle her on housing. You’ve let her hog the best issue.”
I shook my head. “If I knew the answers, I wouldn’t be living in a
trailer. I won’t make phony promises. I’ve drawn up three bills, one to
support the Federal Act, one to revise the building code, and one for
a bond election for housing projects-that last one is a hot potato.
None of them are much good. This housing shortage will be with us
for years.”
Tom said, “Jack, you shouldn’t run for office. You don’t have the fine,
free optimism that makes a good public figure.”
I grunted. “That’s what I told you birds. I’m the manager type. A
candidate who manages himself gets a split personality.”
Mrs. Holmes knit her brows. “Jack-you know more about housing
than she does. Let’s hold a rally and debate it.”
“Okay with me-I just work here. I once threatened to make her debate
everything from streetcars to taxes. How about it, Torn?”
      “Anything to make some noise.”
      I phoned at once. “Is this the Stooge with the Light Brown
      Hair?”
      “That must be Jack Ross. Hello, Nasty. How’s the baby-
      kissing?”
“Sticky. Remember I promised to debate the issues with you? How
about 8 p.m. Wednesday the 15th?”
She said, “Hold the line-“ I could hear a muffled rumble, then she
said, “Jack? You tend to your campaign; I’ll tend to mine.”
“Better accept, kid. We’ll challenge you publicly. Is Miss Nelson afraid
to face the issues, quote and unquote.”
  “Goodbye, Jack.”
  “Uncle Sam won’t let you, will he?” The phone clicked in my ear.
We went ahead anyway. I sold some war bonds and ordered a
special edition of the Civic League News, with a Ross-for-Councilman
front page, as a throwaway to announce the rally-prizes,
entertainment, movies, and a super-colossal, gigantic debate


                                  213
between Ross in this corner and Nelson in that. We piled the bundles
of papers in Mrs. Holmes’ garage late Sunday night. Mrs. Holmes
phoned about seven-thirty the next morning-“Jack,” she yipped,
“come over right away!”
  “On my way. What’s wrong?”
“Everything. Wait till you get here.” When I did, she led me out to her
garage; someone had broken in and had slit open our precious
bundles-then had poured dirty motor oil on them.
Tom showed up while we were looking at the mess. “Pixies
everywhere,” he observed. “I’ll call the Commercial Press.”
“Don’t bother,” I said bitterly. “We can’t pay for another run.” But he
went in anyhow. The kids who were to do the distributing started to
show up; we paid them and sent them home. Tom came out. “Too
late,” he announced. “We would have to start from scratch- no time
and too expensive.”
I nodded and went in the house. I had a call to make myself. “Hello,” I
snapped, “is this Miss Nelson, the Independent Candidate?”
  “This is Frances Nelson. Is this Jack Ross?”
  “Yes. You were expecting me to call, I see.”
  “No, I knew your sweet voice. To what do I owe the honor?”
  “I’d like to show you how well your boys have been campaigning.
“Just a moment- I’ve an appointment at ten; I can spare the time until
then. What do you mean; how my boys have been campaigning?”
  “You’ll find out.” I hung up.
I refused to talk until she had seen the sabotage. She stared. “It’s a
filthy, nasty trick, Jack-but why show it to me?”
  “Who else?”
“But- Look, Jack, I don’t know who did this, but it has nothing to do
with me.” She looked around at us. “You’ve got to believe me!”
Suddenly she looked relieved. “I know! It wasn’t me, so it must have
been McNye.”
Tom grunted. I said gently, “Look, darling, McNye is nobody. He’s a
seventeenth-rater who files to get his name in print. He wouldn’t use
sabotage because he’s not out to win. It has to be you-wait!-not you
per-



                                   214
sonally, but the machine. This is what you get into when you accept
the backing of wrong ‘uns.”
       “But you’re wrong! You’re wrong! I’m not backed by the
       machine.”
       “So? Who runs your campaign? Who pays your bills?”
She shook her head. “A committee takes care of those things. My job
is to show up at meetings and speak.”
  “Where did the committee come from? Did the stork bring it?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s the Third District HomeOwners’ League.
They endorsed me and set up a campaign committee for me.”
I’m no judge of character, but she was telling the truth, as she saw it.
“Ever hear of a dummy organization, kid? Your only connection with
this Home-Owners’ League is Sam Jorgens . . . isn’t it?”
   “Why, no-that is- Yes, I suppose so.”
   “And I told you Jorgens was a tame dog for Boss Tully.”
“Yes, but I checked on that, Jack. Uncle Sam explained the whole
thing. Tully used to support him, but they broke because Uncle Sam
wouldn’t take the machine’s orders. It’s not his fault that the machine
used to back him.”
  “And you believed him.”
“No, I made him prove it. You said to check with the newspapers-
Uncle Sam had me talk with the editor of the Herald.” Tom snorted.
“He means,” I told her, “that the Herald is part of the machine. I
meant talk to reporters. Most of them are honest and all of them know
the score. But I can’t see how you could be so green. I know you’ve
been away, but didn’t you read the papers before the War?”
It developed that, what with school and the War, she hadn’t been
around town much since she was fifteen. Mrs. Holmes broke in,
“Why, she’s not eligible, Jack! She doesn’t have the residence
requirements.”
I shook my head. “As a lawyer, I assure you she does. Those things
don’t break residence-particularly as she enlisted here. How about
making us all some coffee, Mrs. Holmes?”
Mrs. Holmes bristled; I could see that she did not want to fraternize
with the enemy, but I took her arm and led her into the house,
whispering as I went. “Don’t be hard on the kid, Molly. You and I


                                   215
made mistakes while we were learning the ropes. Remember
Smythe?”
Smythe was as fine a stuffed shirt as ever took a bribe-we had given
him our hearts’ blood. Mrs. Holmes looked sheepish and relaxed. We
chatted about the heat and presidential possibilities, then Frances
said, “I’m conceding nothing, Jack-but I’m going to pay for those
papers.”
“Skip it,” I said. “I’d rather bang Tully’s heads together. But see here-
you’ve got an hour yet; I want to show you something.”
  “Want me along, Jack?” Tom suggested, looking at Frances.
“If you like. Thanks for the coffee, Mrs. Holmes-I’ll be back to clean
up the mess.” We drove to Dr. Potter’s office and got the photostats
we had on Jorgens out of his safe. We didn’t say anything; I just
arranged the exhibits in logical order. Frances didn’t talk either, but
her face got whiter and whiter. At last she said, “Will you take me
home now, Mr. Ross?”
We bumped along for the next three weeks, chasing votes all day,
licking stamps and stenciling autobumper signs late at night and
never getting enough sleep. Presently we noticed a curious fact-
McNye was coming up. First it was billboards and throwaways, next
was publicity-and then we began to get reports from the field of
precinct work for McNye.
We couldn’t have been more puzzled if the Republican Party had
nominated Norman Thomas. We made another spot check. Mrs.
Holmes and Dr. Potter and I went over the results. Ross and Nelson,
neck and
neck-a loss for Nelson; McNye a strong third and coming up fast.
“What do you think, Mrs. Holmes?”
  “The same you do. Tully has dumped Nelson and bought up
  McNye.”
Potter agreed. “It’ll be you and McNye in the runoff. Nelson is
coasting on early support from the machine. She’ll fizzle.”
Tom had come in while we were talking. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Tully
needs a win in the primary, or, if that fails, a run-off between the girl
and McNye. We’ve got an organization, she hasn’t.”



                                   216
“Tully can’t count on me running third. In fact, I’ll beat out Frances for
second place at the very worst.”
  Tom looked quizzical. “Seen tonight’s Herald, Jack?”
  “No. Have they discovered I’m a secret drinker?”
  “Worse than that.” He chucked us the paper.
“CLAIM ROSS INELIGIBLE COUNCILMANIC RACE” it read; there
was a 3-col cut of my trailer, with me in the door. The story pointed
out that a city father must have lived two years in the city and six
months in his district. The trailer camp was outside the city limits.
  Dr. Potter looked worried. “Can they disqualify you, Jack?”
“They won’t take it to court,” I told him. “I’m legal as baseball.
Residence isn’t geographical location; it’s a matter of intent-your
home is where you intend to return when you’re away. I’m registered
at the flat I had before the War, but I turned it over to my partner
when I went to Washington. My junk is still in it, but he’s got a wife
and twins. Hence the trailer, a temporary exigency of no legal effect.”
  “Hmmm . . . how about the political effect?”
  “That’s another matter.”
  “You betcha it is,” agreed Tom. “How about it, Mrs. Holmes?”
She looked worried. “Tom is right. It’s tailor-made for a word-of-mouth
campaign combined with unfa
vorable publicity. Why vote for a man who doesn’t even live in your
district?-that sort of thing.”
  I nodded. “Well, it’s too late to back out, but, let’s face it, folks-
  We’ve wasted our nickel.”
For once they did not argue. Instead Potter said, “What sort of person
is Miss Nelson? Could we possibly back her in the finals?”
“She’s a good kid,” I assured him. “She got taken in and hated to
admit it, but she’s better than McNye.”
  “I’ll say she is,” agreed Tom.
  “She’s a lady,” stated Mrs. Holmes.
“But,” I objected, “we can’t elect her in the finals. We can’t pin
anything on McNye and she’s too green to stand up to what the
machine can do to her in a long campaign. Tully knows what he’s
doing.”




                                     217
  “I’m afraid you’re right,” Potter agreed. “Jack,” said Tom, “I take it
  you think we’re licked now.
  “Ask Mrs. Holmes.”
Mrs. Holmes said, “I hate to say so, and I’m not quitting, but it would
take a miracle to put Jack on the final ballot.”
“Okay,” said Tom, “let’s quit being boy scouts and have some fun the
rest of the campaign. I don’t like the way Boss Tully campaigns.
We’ve played fair; what we’ve gotten in return is shenanigans.”
  “What do you want to do?”
He explained. Presently I nodded and said, “I’m all for it-and a wrinkle
of my own. It’ll be fun, and it just might work.”
  “Well, call her up then!”
I got Frances Nelson on the phone. “Jack Ross, Frances. Haven’t
seen you around much, sweetheart. How’s the campaign?”
  She sounded tired. “Oh, that- What campaign, Jack?”
  “Did you withdraw? I haven’t seen any announcement.”
  “It wasn’t necessary. I had a show-down with
Jorgens and after that my campaign just disappeared. The committee
vanished away. Look, Jack, I’d like to see you-to apologize.”
“Forget it, I want to see you, too. I’ll pick you up.” We laid it on the
line. “I’m dropping out of the race, Frances. We want to throw our
organizational support to you-provided.”
  She stared. “But you can’t, Jack. I’m going to vote for you.”
“Huh? Never mind, you won’t get a chance to.” I showed her the
Herald story. “It’s a phony, but it licks me anyhow. I should have
played up my homeless condition but, like a dope, I let them do it. It’s
too late now-when a candidate has to explain things he’s back on his
heels and ready for the knockout. I was a fifty-fifty squeeze at best;
this tips the balance.”
She was staring at the picture, bug-eyed, knuckles pressed to her
mouth. “Jack- Oh, dear! I’ve gone and done it again.”
  “Done what?”
“Got you into this mess. I told Sam Jorgens all about our first talk,
including how you had to camp out in a trailer. I-“



                                    218
I brushed it aside. “No matter. They would have stumbled on it
anyhow. See here-we’re going to take you on. We might even elect
you.”
“But I don’t want the job, Jack. I want you to have
it.
“Too late, Frances. But we want to beat that spare tire, McNye. The
machine is still using you, to beat me in the primary by splitting the
non-machine vote; then they’ll settle your hash. I’ve got a gimmick for
that. But first-you call yourself an independent. Well, you aren’t now.”
  “What do you mean? I won’t be anything else.”
“They gave women the vote! Look, darling, a candidate can be
unbossed, but not independent. Independence is an adolescent
notion. To merit support you
have to commit yourself-and there goes your independence.
  “But I- Oh, politics is a rotten business!”
“You make me tired! Politics is just as clean-or as dirty-as the people
who practice it. The people who say it’s dirty are too lazy to do their
part in it.” She dropped her face into her hands. I took her by the
shoulders, and shook her. “Now you listen to me. I’m going over our
program, point by point. If you agree with it and commit yourself,
you’re our candidate. Right?”
  “Yes, Jack.” It was just a whisper.
We ran through it. There was no trouble, it was sane and sensible,
likely to appeal to anyone with no ax to grind. The points she did not
understand we let lay over. She liked especially my housing bills and
began to perk up and sound like a candidate.
“Okay,” I said finally. “Here’s the gimmick. I’ll get my name off the
ballot so that the race will be over in the primary. It’s too late to do it
myself, but they’ve played into my hands. It’ll be a court order, for
ineligibility through non-residence.”
Dr. Potter looked up sharply. “Come again, son? I thought you said
your legal position was secure.”
I grinned. “It is-if I fight. But I won’t. Here’s the gag-we bring a
citizen’s suit through a couple of dummies. The court orders me to
show cause. I default. Court has no option but to order my name
stricken from the ballot. One, two, three.”


                                     219
Tom cheered. I bowed. “Now Dr. Potter is your new campaign
chairman. You go on as before, going where you are sent and
speaking your piece. Oh, yes-I’m going to give you some homework
on other issues than housing. As for Tom and me-we’re the special
effects department. Just forget us.”
Three days later I was off the ballot. Tom handled it so that it looked
like McNye and Tully. Mrs. Holmes had the delicate job of convincing
our precinct work-
ers that Frances was our new white hope. Dr. Potter and Dick Blair
got Frances endorsed by the Civic League-the League would
endorse a giant panda against a Tully man. And Dick Blair worked up
a veterans’ division.
  Leaving Tom and me free for fun and games.
First we got a glamor pic of Frances, one that made her look like
Liberty Enlightening the World, with great sorrowful eyes and a noble
forehead, and had it blown up for billboards-6-sheets; 24-sheets look
like too much dough.
We got a “good” picture of McNye, too-good for us. Like this-you
send two photographers to a meeting where your man is to speak.
One hits him with a flash bulb; the second does also, right away,
before the victim can recover from his reflex. Then you throw the first
pic away. We got a picture which showed McNye as pop-eyed, open-
mouthed, and idiotic-a Kallikak studying to be a Jukes. It was so good
we had to tone it down. Then I went up state and got some printing
done, very privately.
We waited until the last few days, then got busy. First we put snipe
sheets on our own billboards, right across Frances’ beautiful puss so
that those eyes looked appealingly at you over the paster. “VOTE
FOR McNYE” they read. Two nights later it was quarter cards, this
time with his lovely picture: VOTE
FOR McNYE-A WOMAN’S PLACE IS IN THE HOME. We stuck them
up on private property, too.
Tom and I drove around the next day admiring our handiwork. “It’s
beautiful,” Tom said dreamily. “Jack, do you suppose there is any
way we could get the Communist Party to endorse McNye?”
     “I don’t see how,” I admitted, “but if it doesn’t cost too much I’ve
     still got a couple of war bonds.”

                                  220
      He shook his head. “It can’t work, but it’s a lovely thought.”
We saved our double-whammie for the day before election. It was
expensive-but wait. We hired some
skid-row characters on Saturday, through connections Tom has, and
specified that they must show up with two-day beards on Monday.
We fed each one a sandwich loaded with garlic, gave him literature
and instructions-ring the doorbell, blow his breath in the victim’s face,
and hand her a handbill, saying abruptly, “Here’s how you vote, lady!”
The handbill said, “VOTE FOR McNYE” and had his special picture. It
had the rest of Tully’s slate too, and some choice quotes of McNye’s
best double talk. Around the edge it said “100% American-lOO%
American.”
We pushed the stumblebums through an average of four precincts
apiece, concentrating on the better neighborhoods.
That night there was an old-fashioned torchlight parade-Mrs. Holmes’
show, and the wind-up of the proper campaign. It started off with an
elephant and donkey (Heaven knows where she borrowed the
elephant!) The elephant carried signs: I’M FOR FRANCES; the
donkey, SO AM I. There was a kid’s band, flambeaux carried by our
weary volunteers, and a platoon of WAC and WAVE veterans
marching ahead of the car that carried Frances. She looked scared
and lovely.
Tom and I watched it, then got to work. No sleep that night- More
pasters. Windshield size this time, 3”xlO”, with glue on the printed
side. I suppose half the cars in town have no garages, housing being
what it is. We covered every block in the district before dawn, Tom
driving and me on the right with a pail of water, a sponge, and
stickers. He would pull alongside a car; I would slap a sticker on the
windshield where it would stare the driver in the face-and have to be
scraped off. They read: VOTE FOR McNYE-KEEP AMERICA PURE.
We figured it would help to remind people to vote. I voted myself
when the polls opened, then fell into bed.
I pulled myself together in time to get to the party at the
headquarters-an empty building we had borrowed for the last month
of the campaign. I hadn’t given a thought to poll watchers or an
honest count- that was Mrs. Holmes’ baby-but I didn’t want to miss
the returns.



                                   221
One election party is like another-the same friendly drunks, the same
silent huddle around the radio, the same taut feeling. I helped myself
to some beer and potato chips and joined the huddle.
  “Anything yet,” I asked Mrs. Holmes. “Where’s Frances?”
  “Not yet. I made her lie down.”
“Better get her out here. The candidate has to be seen. When people
work for a pat on the back, you’ve got to give ‘em the pat.”
But Frances showed up about then, and went through the candidate
routine-friendly, gracious, thanking people, etc. I began to think about
running her for Congress.
Tom showed up, bleary-eyed, as the first returns came in. All McNye.
Frances heard them and her smile slipped. Dr. Potter went over to
her and said, “It’s not important-the machine’s precincts are usually
first to report.” She plastered her smile back on.
McNye piled up a big lead. Then our efforts began to show-Nelson
was pulling up. By 10:30 it was neck and neck. After a while it began
to look as if we had elected a councilman.
  Around midnight McNye got on the air and conceded.
So I’m a councilman’s field secretary now. I sit outside the rail when
the council meets; when I scratch my right ear, Councilman Nelson
votes “yes”; if I scratch my left ear, she votes “no”-usually.
Marry her? Me? Tom married her. They’re building a house, one
bedroom and two bathrooms. When they can get the fixtures, that is.

FOREWORD
When the USSR refused our proposals for controlling the A-bomb, I
swore off “World-Saving.” No more preaching. No more attempts to
explain the mortal peril we were in. No, sir!
A year and a half later, late ‘47, I backslid. If it could not be done by
straightforward exposition, perhaps it could be dramatized as fiction.
  Again I fell flat on my face.
Fifteen years later there was a tremendous flap over Soviet medium-
range missiles in Cuba. Then they were removed-or so we were told-
and the flap died out. Why? Why both ways? For years we have had
Soviet submarines on both coasts; are they armed with slingshots?
Or powder puffs?


                                    222
This story is more timely today, over thirty years later, than it was
when it was written; the danger is enormously greater.
And again this warning will be ignored. But it won’t take much of your
time; it’s a short-short, a mere 2200 words.

ON THE SLOPES OF VESUVIUS
“Paddy, shake hands with the guy who built the atom bomb,”
Professor Warner said to the bartender. “He and Einstein rigged it up
in their own kitchen one evening.”
“With the help of about four hundred other guys,” amended the
stranger, raising his voice slightly to cut through the rumble of the
subway.
“Don’t quibble over details. Paddy, this is Doctor Mansfield. Jerry,
meet Paddy- Say, Paddy, what is your last name?”
“Francis X. Hughes,” answered the barkeep as he wiped his hand
and stuck it out. “I’m pleased to meet any friend of Professor
Warner.”
  “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Hughes.”
  “Call me Paddy, they all do. You really are one of the scientists
     who built the atom bomb?”
  “I’m afraid so.”
  “May the Lord forgive you. Are you at N.Y.U., too?”
  “No, I’m out at the new Brookhaven Laboratory.”
  “Oh, yes.”
  “You’ve been there?”
  Hughes shook his head. “About the only place I go is home to
     Brooklyn. But I read the papers.”
“Paddy’s in a well-padded rut,” explained Warner. “Paddy, what are
you going to do when they blow up New York? It’ll break up your
routine.”

He set their drinks before them and poured himself
a short beer. “If that’s all I’ve got to worry about I guess I’ll die of old
age and still in Thy rut, Professor.”
Warner’s face lost its cheerful expression for a moment; he stared at
his drink as if it had suddenly become bitter. “I wish I had your
optimism, Paddy, but I haven’t. Sooner or later, we’re in for it.”


                                     223
  “You shouldn’t joke about such things, Professor.”
  “I’m not joking.”
  “You can’t be serious.”
  “I wish I weren’t. Ask him. After all, he built the damned thing.”
Hughes raised his brows at Mansfield who replied, “I’m forced to
agree with Professor Warner. They will be able to do it-atom-bomb
New York I mean. I know that; it’s not a guess-it’s a certainty. Being
able to do it, I’m strongly of the opinion that they will do it.”
  “Who do you mean by ‘they’?” demanded the bartender. “The
  Russians?”
  “Not necessarily. It might be anybody who first worked up the
  power to smash us.”
“Sure,” said Warner. “Everybody wants to kick the fat boy. We’re
envied and hated. The only reason we haven’t been smeared is that
no one has had what it takes to do it-up to now, that is!”
“Just a minute, gentlemen-“ put in Hughes. “I don’t get it. You’re
talking about somebody-anybody-atom-bombing New York. How can
they do it? Didn’t we decide to hang on to the secret? Do you think
some dirty spy has gotten away with it while we weren’t watching?”
Mansfield looked at Warner, then back at Hughes and said gently, “I
hate to disturb your peace of mind, Mr. Hughes-Paddy-but there is no
secret. Any nation that is willing to go to the trouble and expense can
build an atom bomb.”
“And that’s official,” added Warner, “and it’s a leadpipe cinch that,
power politics being what it is, a dozen different nations are working
on the problem right now.”
Hughes had been looking perturbed; his face cleared. “Oh, I see what
you mean. In time, they can dig it out for themselves. In that case,
gentlemen, let’s have a round on the house and drink to their
frustration. I can’t be worrying about what might happen twenty years
from now. We might none of us be spared that long what with
taxicabs and the like.”
  Mansfield’s brows shot up. “Why do you say twenty years, Paddy?”
“Eh? Oh, I seem to remember reading it in the papers. That general,
wasn’t it? The one who was in charge of the atom-bomb business.”




                                  224
Mansfield brushed the general aside. “Poppycock! That estimate is
based on entirely unwarranted national conceit. The time will be
much shorter.”
  “How much shorter?” demanded Hughes. Mansfield shrugged.
“What would you do, Paddy,” Warner asked curiously, “if you thought
some nation-let’s say some nation that didn’t like us-had already
managed to manufacture atom bombs?”
The saloon cat came strolling along the top of the bar. Hughes
stopped to feed it a slice of cheese before replying. “I do not have
your learning, gentlemen, but Paddy Hughes is no fool. If someone is
loose in the world with those devil’s contraptions, New York is a
doomed city. America is the champion and must be beaten before
any new bully boy can hope to win-and New York is one of the spots
he would shoot at first. Even Sad Sack-“ He jerked a thumb at the
cat. “-is bright enough to flee from a burning building.”
  “Well, what do you think you would do?”
“I don’t ‘think’ what I’d do, I know what I’d do; I’ve done it before.
When I was a young man and the Blackand-Tans were breathing
down the back o’ my neck, I climbed on a ship with never a thought of
looking back-and any man who wanted them could have my pigs and
welcome to them.”

Warner chuckled. “You must have been quite the
lad, Paddy. But I don’t believe you would do it-not now. You’re firmly
rooted in your rttt and you like it- like me and six million others in this
town. That’s why decentralization is a fantasy.”
Hughes nodded. “It would be hard.” That it would be hard he
understood. Like leaving home it would be to quit Schreiber’s Bar-
Grill after all these years- Schreiber couldn’t run it without him; he’d
chase all the customers away. It would be hard to leave his friends in
the parish, hard to leave his home-what with Molly’s grave being just
around the corner and all. And if the cities were to be blown up a man
would have to go back to farming. He’d promised himself when he hit
the new country that he’d never, never, never tackle the
heartbreaking load of tilling the soil again. Well, perhaps there would
be no landlords when the cities were gone. If a man must farm, at



                                    225
least he might be spared that. Still, it would be hard-and Molly’s grave
off somewhere in the rubble. “But I’d do
it.
      “You think you would.”
“I wouldn’t even go back to Brooklyn to pick up my other shirt. I’ve my
week’s pay envelope right here.” He patted his vest. “I’d grab my hat
and start walking.” The bartender turned to Mansfield. “Tell me the
truth, Doctor-if it’s not twenty years, how long will it be?”
Mansfield took out an envelope and started figuring on the back of it.
Warner started to speak, but Hughes cut him off. “Quiet while he’s
working it out!” he said sharply.
“Don’t let him kid you, Paddy,” Warner said wryly. “He’s been lying
awake nights working out this problem ever since Hiroshima.”
Mansfield looked up. “That’s true. But I keep hoping I’ll come out with
a different answer. I never do.”
   “Well, what is the answer?” Hughes insisted.
   Mansfield hesitated. “Paddy, you understand that there are a lot of
     factors involved, not all of them too
clear. Right? In the first place, it took us about four years. But we
were lavish with money and lavish with men, more so maybe than
any other nation could be, except possibly Russia. Figured on that
alone it might take several times four years for another country to
make a bomb. But that’s not the whole picture; it’s not even the
important part. There was a report the War Department put out, the
Smyth Report-you’ve heard of it?-which gives anyone who can read
everything but the final answers. With that report, with competent
people, uranium ore, and a good deal less money than it cost us, a
nation ought to be able to develop a bomb in a good deal less time
than it took us.”
Hughes shook his head. “I don’t expect you to explain, Doctor; I just
want to know your answer. How long?”
“I was just explaining that the answer had to be indefinite. I make it
not less than two and not more than four years.”
      The bartender whistled softly. “Two years. Two years to get away
      and start a new life.”



                                    226
“No, no, no! Mr. Hughes,” Mansfield objected, “Not two years from
now-two years from the time the first bomb was dropped.”
Hughes’ face showed a struggle to comprehend. “But, gentlemen,” he
protested, “it’s been more than two years since the first bomb was
dropped.”
  “That’s right.”
“Don’t blow your top, Paddy,” Warner cautioned him. “The bomb isn’t
everything. It might be ten years before anybody develops the sort of
robot carrier that can go over the north pole or the ocean and seek
out a particular city with an atom bomb. In the meantime we don’t
have too much to fear from an ordinary airplane attack.”
Mansfield looked annoyed. “You started this, Dick. Why try to hand
out soothing syrup now? With a country as wide open as this one you
don’t need anything as fancy as guided missiles to pull a Pearl
Harbor on
it. The bombs would be assembled secretly and set off by remote
control. Why, there might be a tramp steamer lying out there in the
East River right now- Warner let his shoulders slump. “You’re right, of
course.
Hughes threw down his bar towel. “You’re telling me that New York is
as likely to be blown up right now as at any other time.”
  Mansfield nodded. “That’s the size of it,” he said soberly.
Hughes looked from one to the other. The cat jumped down and
commenced rubbing up against his ankle, purring. He pushed it away
with his foot. “It’s not true! I know it’s not true!”
  “Why not?”
“Because! If it was true would you be sitting here, drinking quietly?
You’ve been having a bit of fun with me, pulling my leg. Oh, I can’t
pick the flaw in your argument, but you don’t believe it yourselves.”
“I wish I didn’t believe it,” said Mansfield. “Oh, we believe it, Paddy,”
Warner told him. “To tell you the truth, I’m planning to get out. I’ve got
letters out to half a dozen cow colleges; I’m just waiting until my
contract expires. As for Doc Mansfield, he can’t leave. This is where
his lab is located.”



                                   227
Hughes considered this, then shook his head. “No, it won’t wash. No
man in his right mind will hang on to a job when it means sitting on
the hot squat, waiting for the Warden to throw the switch. You’re
pulling my leg.”
Mansfield acted as if Hughes had not spoken. “Anyhow,” he said to
Warner, “the political factors might delay the blow off indefinitely.”
Warner shook his head angrily. “Now who’s handing out soothing
syrup? The political factors speed up the event, not delay it. If a
country intends to defeat us someday, it’s imperative that she do it as
quickly as possible, before we catch wind of her plans and strike
first. Or before we work out a real counter weapon-if that’s possible.”
Mansfield looked tired, as if he had been tired for a long time. “Oh,
you’re right. I was just whistling to keep my courage up. But we won’t
develop a counter weapon, not a real one. The only possible defense
against atomic explosion is not to be there when it goes off.” He
turned to the barman. “Let’s have another round, Paddy.”
  “Make mine a Manhattan,” added Warner.
“Just a minute. Professor Warner. Doctor Mansfield. You were not
fooling with me? Every word you had to say is God’s own truth?”
      “As you’re standing there, Paddy.”
      “And Doctor Mansfield-Professor Warner, do you trust Doctor
      Mansfield’s figuring?”
“There’s no man in the United States better qualified to make such an
estimate. That’s the truth, Paddy.”
“Well, then-“ Hughes turned toward where his employer sat nodding
over the cash register on the restaurant side of the room and whistled
loudly between his teeth. “Schreiber! Come take the bar.” He started
stripping off his apron.
  “Hey!” said Warner, “where you going? I ordered a Manhattan.”
“Mix it yourself,” said Hughes. “I’ve quit.” He reached for his hat with
one hand, his coat with the other, and then he was out the door.
Forty seconds later he was on an uptown express; he got off at 34th
Street and three minutes thereafter he was buying a ticket, west. It
was ten minutes later that he felt the train start to roll under him,
headed out of the city.



                                   228
But it was less than an hour later when his misgivings set in. Had he
been too hasty? Professor Warner was a fine man, to be sure, but
given to his little jokes, now and again. Had he been taken in by a
carefully contrived hoax? Had Warner said to his friend, we’ll
have some fun and scare the living daylights out of the old Irishman?
Nor had he made any arrangements for someone to feed Sad Sack.
The cat had a weak stomach, he was certain, and no one else gave
the matter any attention at all. And Molly’s grave-Wednesday was his
day to do his gardening there. Of course Father Nelson would see
that it was watered, just for kindness’ sake, but still- When the train
paused at Princeton Junction he
slipped off and sought out a telephone. He had in mind what he
meant to say if he was able to reach Professor Warner-a good
chance, he thought, for considering the hour the gentlemen probably
stayed on for a steak. Professor Warner, he would say, you’ve had
your fun and a fine joke it was as I would be the first to say and to
buy a drink on it, but tell me-man to man-was there anything to what
you and your friend was telling me? That would settle it, he thought.
  The call went through promptly and he heard Schreiber’s irritated
  voice. “Hello,” he said.
The line went dead. He jiggled the hook. The operator answered,
“One moment, please-“ then, “This is the Princeton operator. Is this
the party with the call to New York?”

“Yes. I-“
“There has been a temporary interruption in service. Will you hang up
and try again in a few minutes, please?”

“But I was just talking-“

“Will you hang up and try again in a few minutes, puhlease?”
He heard the shouting as he left the booth. As he got outdoors he
could see the great, gloriously beautiful, gold and purple mushroom
still mounting over where had been the City of New York.




                                  229
FOREWORD
This story was written twenty-one years before Dr. Neil Armstrong
took “one short step for a man, a giant leap for mankind”-hut in all
important essentials it has not (yet) become dated. True, we do not
know that formations such as “morning glories” exist on Luna and we
do not know that there are areas where footgear midway between
skis and snowshoes would be useful. But the Lunar surface is about
equal in area to Africa; a dozen men have explored an area smaller
than Capetown for a total of a few days. We will still be exploring
Luna and finding new wonders there when the first interstellar
explorers return from Proxima Centauri or Tau Ceti.
This story is compatible with the so-called “Future History” stories. It
is also part of my continuing postWar-lI attempt to leave the SF-pulp
field and spread out. I never left the genre puips entirely, as it turned
out to be easy to write a book-length job, then break it into three or
four cliff-hangers and sell it as a pulp serial immediately before book
publication. I did this with a dozen novels in the ‘40s and ‘SOs. But I
recall only one story (GULF) specifically written for pulp, GULF being
for Astounding’s unique “prophesied” issue.
Deus volent, I may someday collect my Boy Scout stories as one
volume just as I would like to do with the Puddin’ stories.

NOTHING EVER HAPPENS ON THE MOON
   “I never knew a boy from Earth who wasn’t cocky.”
   Mr. Andrews frowned at his Senior Patrol Leader.
“That’s childish, Sam. And no answer. I arrive expecting to find the
troop ready to hike. Instead I find you and our visitor about to fight.
And both of you Eagle Scouts! What started it?”
  Sam reluctantly produced a clipping. “This, I guess.
  It was from the Colorado Scouting News and read:
“Troop 48, Denver-LOCAL SCOUT SEEKS SKYHIGH HONOR.
Bruce Hollifield, Eagle Scout, is moving with his family to South Pole,
Venus. Those who know Bruce-and who doesn’t-expect him to
qualify as Eagle (Venus) in jig time. Bruce will spend three weeks at
Luna City, waiting for the Moon-Venus transport. Bruce has been
boning up lately on lunar Scouting, and he has already qualified in
space suit operation in the vacuum chamber at the Pike’s Peak


                                   230
space port. Cornered, Bruce admitted that he hopes to pass the tests
for Eagle Scout (Luna) while on the Moon.
“If he does-and we’re betting on Bruce!-he’s a dead cinch to become
the first Triple Eagle in history.
   “Go to it, Bruce! Denver is proud of you. Show those Moon Scouts
       what real Scouting is like.”
   Mr. Andrews looked up. “Where did this come from?”
   “Uh, somebody sent it to Peewee.”
   “Yes?”
   “Well, we all read it and when Bruce came in, the fellows ribbed
       him. He got sore.”
   “Why didn’t you stop it?”
   “Uh .. . well, I was doing it myself.”
“Humph! Sam, this item is no sillier than the stuff our own Scribe
turns in for publication. Bruce didn’t write it, and you yahoos had no
business making his life miserable. Send him in. Meantime call the
roll.”
  “Yes, sir. Uh, Mr. Andrews-“
  “Yes?”
  “What’s your opinion? Can this kid possibly qualify for lunar Eagle
    in three weeks?”
“No-and I’ve told him so. But he’s durn well going to have his chance.
Which reminds me: you’re his instructor.”
  “Me?” Sam looked stricken.
  “You. You’ve let me down, Sam; this is your chance to correct it.
     Understand me?”
  Sam swallowed. “I guess I do.”
  “Send Hollifield in.”
Sam found the boy from Earth standing alone, pretending to study
the bulletin board. Sam touched his arm. “The Skipper wants you.”
  Bruce whirled around, then stalked away. Sam shrugged and
  shouted, “Rocket Patrol-fall in!”
Speedy Owens echoed, “Crescent Patrol-fall in!” As muster ended
Mr. Andrews came out of his office, followed by Bruce. The Earth
Scout seemed considerably chastened.
     “Mr. Andrews says I’m to report to you.”



                                  231
      “That’s right.” They eyed each other cautiously. Sam said,
      “Look, Bruce-let’s start from scratch.”
      “Suits me.”
“Fine. Just tag along with me.” At a sign from the Scoutmaster Sam
shouted, “By twos! Follow me.”
Troop One jostled out the door, mounted a crosstown slidewalk and
rode to East Air Lock.
Chubby Schneider, troop quartermaster, waited there with two
assistants, near a rack of space suits. Duffel was spread around in
enormous piles-packaged grub, tanks of water, huge air bottles,
frames of heavy wire, a great steel drum, everything needed for
pioneers on the airless crust of the Moon.
  Sam introduced Bruce to the Quartermaster. “We’ve got to outfit
  him, Chubby.”
  “That new G.E. job might fit him.”
Sam got the suit and spread it out. The suit was impregnated glass
fabric, aluminum-sprayed to silvery whiteness. It closed from crotch
to collar with a zippered gasket. It looked expensive; Bruce noticed a
plate on the collar: DONATED BY THE LUNA CITY KIWANIS KLUB.
The helmet was a plastic bowl, silvered except where swept by the
eyes of the wearer. There it was transparent, though heavily filtered.
Bruce’s uniform was stowed in a locker; Chubby handed him a loose-
knit coverall. Sam and Chubby stuffed him into the suit and Chubby
produced the instrument belt.
Both edges of the belt zipped to the suit; there were several rows of
grippers for the top edge; thus a pleat could be taken. They fastened
it with maximum pleat. “How’s that?” asked Sam.
  “The collar cuts my shoulders.”
“It won’t under pressure. If we leave slack, your head will pull out of
the helmet like a cork.” Sam strapped the air, water, radio, and duffel-
rack backpack to Bruce’s shoulders. “Pressure check, Chubby.”
“We’ll dress first.” While Chubby and Sam dressed, Bruce located his
intake and exhaust valves, the spill valve inside his collar, and the
water nipple beside it. He took a drink and inspected his belt.




                                    232
Sam and Bruce donned helmets. Sam switched on Bruce’s walkie-
talkie, clipped a blood-oxygen indica
tor to Bruce’s ear, and locked his helmet on. “Stand by for pressure,”
he said, his words echoing in Bruce’s helmet. Chubby hooked hose
from a wall gauge to Bruce’s air intake.
Bruce felt the collar lift. The air in the suit grew stuffy, the helmet
fogged. At thirty pounds Chubby cut the intake, and watched the
gauge. Mr. Andrews joined them, a Gargantuan helmeted figure,
toting a pack six feet high. “Pressure steady, sir,” Chubby reported.
Sam hooked up Bruce’s air supply. “Open your intake and kick your
chin valve before you smother,” he ordered. Bruce complied. The
stale air rushed out and the helmet cleared. Sam adjusted Bruce’s
valves. “Watch that needle,” he ordered, pointing to the blood-oxygen
dial on Bruce’s belt. “Keep your mix so that reads steady in the white
without using your chin valve.
      “I know.”
      “So I’ll say it again. Keep that needle out of the red, or you’ll
      explain it to Saint Peter.”
      The Scoutmaster asked, “What load are you giving him?”
      “Oh,” replied Sam, “just enough to steady him-say three
      hundred pounds, total.”
Bruce figured-at one-sixth gravity that meant fifty pounds weight
including himself, his suit, and his pack. “I’ll carry my full share,” he
objected.
“We’ll decide what’s best for you,” the Scoutmaster snapped. “Hurry
up; the troop is ready.” He left.
Sam switched off his radio and touched helmets. “Forget it,” he said
quietly. “The Old Man is edgy at the start of a hike.” They loaded
Bruce rapidly-reserve air and water bottles, a carton of grub, short,
wide skis and ski poles-then hung him with field gear, first-aid kit,
prospector’s hammer, two climbing ropes, a pouch of pitons and snap
rings, flashlight, knife. The Moon Scouts loaded up; Sam called,
“Come
Mr. Andrews handed the lockmaster a list and stepped inside; the
three Scouts followed. Bruce felt his suit expand as the air sucked
back into the underground city. A light blinked green; Mr. Andrews



                                    233
opened the outer door and Bruce stared across the airless lunar
plain.
It dazzled him. The plain was bright under a blazing Sun. The distant
needle-sharp hills seemed painted in colors too flat and harsh. He
looked at the sky to rest his eyes.
It made him dizzy. He had never seen a whole skyful of stars
undimmed by air. The sky was blacker than black, crowded with hard,
diamond lights.
“Route march!” the Scoutmaster’s voice rang in his helmet. “Heel and
toe. Jack Wills out as pathfinder.” A boy left the group in long, floating
strides, fifteen feet at a bound. He stopped a hundred yards ahead;
the troop formed single column fifty yards behind him. The Pathfinder
raised his arm, swung it down, and the troop moved out.
Mr. Andrews and a Scout joined Sam and Bruce. “Speedy will help
you,” he told Sam, “until Bruce gets his legs. Move him along. We
can’t heel-and-toe and still make our mileage.”
   “We’ll move him.”
   “Even if we have to carry him,” added Speedy.
The Scoutmaster overtook the troop in long leaps. Bruce wanted to
follow. It looked easy-like flying. He had not liked the crack about
carrying him. But Sam grasped him by his left belt grip while Speedy
seized the one on his right. “Here we go,” Sam warned. “Feet on the
ground and try to swing in with us.”
Bruce started off confidently. He felt that three days of low gravity in
the corridors of Luna City had given him his “legs”; being taught to
walk, like a baby, was just hazing.
Nothing to it-he was light as a bird! True, it was hard to keep heel-
and-toe; he wanted to float. He gained speed on a downgrade;
suddenly the ground
was not there when he reached for it. He threw up his hands.
He hung head down on his belt and could hear his guides laughing.
“Wha’ happened?” he demanded, as they righted him.
  “Keep your feet on the ground.”
“I know what you’re up against,” added Speedy, “I’ve been to Earth.
Your mass and weight don’t match and your muscles aren’t used to



                                   234
it. You weigh what a baby weighs, Earth-side, but you’ve got the
momentum of a fat man.”
Bruce tried again. Some stops and turns showed him what Speedy
meant. His pack felt like feathers, but unless he banked his turns, it
would throw him, even at a walk. It did throw him, several times,
before his legs learned.
   Presently, Sam asked, “Think you’re ready for a slow lope?”
   “I guess so.”
“Okay-but remember, if you want to turn, you’ve got to slow down
first-or you’ll roll like a hoop. Okay, Speedy. An eight-miler.”
Bruce tried to match their swing. Long, floating strides, like flying. It
was flying! Up! . . . float . . . brush the ground with your foot and up
again. It was better than skating or skiing.
  “Wups!” Sam steadied him. “Get your feet out in front.”
  As they swung past, Mr. Andrews gave orders for a matching lope.
The unreal hills had moved closer; Bruce felt as if he had been flying
all his life. “Sam,” he said, “do you suppose I can get along by
myself?”
      “Shouldn’t wonder. We let go a couple o’ miles back.”
      “Huh?” It was true; Bruce began to feel like a Moon hand.
      Somewhat later a boy’s voice called “Heel and toe!”
The troop dropped into a walk. The pathfinder stood on a rise ahead,
holding his skis up~ The troop halted and unlashed skis. Ahead was
a wide basin filled with soft, powdery stuff.
Bruce turned to Sam, and for the first time looked back to the west.
“Jee .. . miny Crickets!” he breathed.
Earth hung over the distant roof of Luna City, in half phase. It was
round and green and beautiful, larger than the harvest Moon and
unmeasurably more lovely in forest greens, desert browns and glare
white of cloud.
  Sam glanced at it. “Fifteen o’clock.”
Bruce tried to read the time but was stumped by the fact that the
sunrise line ran mostly across ocean. He questioned Sam. “Huh?
See that bright dot on the dark side? That’s Honolulu-figure from
there.”



                                    235
Bruce mulled this over while binding his skis, then stood up and
turned around, without tripping. “Hmmm-“ said Sam, “you’re used to
skis.”
  “Got my badge.”
  “Well, this is different. Just shuffle along and try to keep your feet.”
Bruce resolved to stay on his feet if it killed him. He let a handful of
the soft stuff trickle through his glove. It was light and flaky, hardly
packed at all. He wondered what had caused it.
Mr. Andrews sent Speedy out to blaze trail; Sam and Bruce joined
the column. Bruce was hard put to keep up. The loose soil flew to left
and right, settling so slowly in the weak gravity that it seemed to float
in air-yet a ski pole, swung through such a cloud, cut a knife-sharp
hole without swirling it.
The column swung wide to the left, then back again. Off to the right
was a circular depression perhaps fifty yards across; Bruce could not
see the bottom. He paused, intending to question Sam; the
Scoutmaster’s voice prodded him. “Bruce! Keep moving!”
Much later Speedy’s voice called out, “Hard ground!” Shortly the
column reached it and stopped
to remove skis. Bruce switched off his radio and touched his helmet
to Sam’s.
  “What was that back where the Skipper yelled at me?”
  “That? That was a morning glory. They’re poison!”
  “A ‘morning glory’?”
“Sort of a sink hole. If you get on the slope, you never get out.
Crumbles out from under you and you wind up buried in the bottom.
There you stay-until your air gives out. Lot of prospectors die that
way. They go out alone and are likely to come back in the dark.”
      “How do you know what happens if they go out alone?”
      “Suppose you saw tracks leading up to one and no tracks going
      away?”
      “Oh!” Bruce felt silly.
The troop swung into a lope; slowly the hills drew closer and loomed
high into the sky. Mr. Andrews called a halt. “Camp,” he said. “Sam,
spot the shelter west of that outcropping. Bruce, watch what Sam
does.


                                    236
The shelter was an airtight tent, framed by a half cylinder of woven
heavy wire. The frame came in sections. The Scoutmaster’s huge
pack was the air bag.
The skeleton was erected over a ground frame, anchored at corners
and over which was spread an asbestos pad. The curved roof and
wall sections followed. Sam tested joints with a wrench, then ordered
the air bag unrolled. The air lock, a steel drum, was locked into the
frame and gasketed to the bag. Meanwhile, two Scouts were rigging
a Sun shade.
Five boys crawled inside and stood up, arms stretched high. The
others passed in all the duffel except skis and poles. Mr. Andrews
was last in and closed the air lock. The metal frame blocked radio
communication; Sam plugged a phone connection from the lock to
his helmet. “Testing,” he said.
  Bruce could hear the answer, relayed through Sam’s radio. “Ready
  to inflate.”
“Okay.” The bag surged up, filling the frame. Sam said, “You go on,
Bruce. There’s nbthing left but to adjust the shade.”
  “I’d better watch.”
“Okay.” The shade was a flimsy venetian blind, stretched over the
shelter. Sam half-opened the slats. “It’s cold inside,” he commented,
“from expanding gas. But it warms up fast.” Presently, coached by
phone, he closed them a bit. “Go inside,” he urged Bruce. “It may be
half an hour before I get the temperature steady.”
   “Maybe I should,” admitted Bruce. “I feel dizzy.”
   Sam studied him. “Too hot?”
   “Yeah, I guess so.”
“You’ve held still in the Sun too long. Doesn’t give the air a chance to
circulate. Here.” Sam opened Bruce’s supply valve wider; “Go inside.”
  Gratefully, Bruce complied.
As he backed in, and straightened up, two boys grabbed him. They
closed his valves, unlocked his helmet, and peeled off his suit. The
suit traveled from hand to hand and was racked. Bruce looked
around.
Daylamps were strung from air lock to a curtain at the far end that
shut off the sanitary unit. Near this curtain suits and helmets were


                                  237
racked. Scouts were lounging on both sides of the long room. Near
the entrance a Scout was on watch at the air conditioner, a blood-
oxygen indicator clipped to his ear. Nearby, Mr. Andrews phoned
temperature changes to Sam. In the middle of the room Chubby had
set up his commissary. He waved. “Hi, Bruce! Siddown-chow in two
shakes.”
Two Scouts made room for Bruce and he sat. One of them said,
“Y’ever been at Yale?” Bruce had not. “That’s where I’m going,” the
Scout confided. “My brother’s there now.” Bruce began to feel at
home.
When Sam came in Chubby served chow, beef stew, steaming and
fragrant, packaged rolls, and bricks of peach ice cream. Bruce
decided that Moon Scouts had
it soft. After supper, the Bugler got out his harmonica and played.
Bruce leaned back, feeling pleasantly drowsy.
  “Hollifield!” Bruce snapped awake. “Let’s try you on first aid.”
For thirty minutes Bruce demonstrated air tourniquets and emergency
suit patches, artificial respiration for a man in a space suit, what to do
for Sun stroke, for anoxia, for fractures. “That’ll do,” the Scoutmaster
concluded. “One thing: What do you do if a man cracks his helmet?”
     Bruce was puzzled. “Why,” he blurted, “you bury him.”
“Check,” the Scoutmaster agreed. “So be careful. Okay, sports-six
hours of sleep. Sam, set the watch.”
     Sam assigned six boys, including himself. Bruce asked,
     “Shouldn’t I take a watch?”
Mr. Andrews intervened. “No. And take yourself off, Sam. You’ll take
Bruce on his two-man hike tomorrow; you’ll need your sleep.”
“Okay, Skipper.” He added to Bruce, “There’s nothing to it. I’ll show
you.” The Scout on duty watched several instruments, but, as with
suits, the important one was the blood-oxygen reading. Stale air was
passed through a calcium oxide bath, which precipitated carbon
dioxide as calcium carbonate. The purified air continued through dry
sodium hydroxide, removing water vapor.
“The kid on watch makes sure the oxygen replacement is okay,” Sam
went on. “If anything went wrong, he’d wake us and we’d scramble
into suits.”



                                   238
Mr. Andrews shooed them to bed. By the time Bruce had taken his
turn at the sanitary unit and found a place to lie down, the harmonica
was sobbing: “Day is done Gone the Sun. . .”
It seemed odd to hear Taps when the Sun was still overhead. They
couldn’t wait a week for sundown, of
course. These colonials kept funny~ hours. . . bed at what amounted
to early evening, up at one in the morning. He’d ask Sam. Sam
wasn’t a bad guy-a little bit know-it-all. Odd to sleep on a bare floor,
too- not that it mattered with low gravity. He was still pondering it
when his ears were assaulted by Reveille, played on the harmonica.
Breakfast was scrambled eggs, cooked on the spot. Camp was
struck, and the troop was moving in less than an hour. They headed
for Base Camp at a lope.
The way wound through passes, skirted craters. They had covered
thirty miles and Bruce was getting hungry when the pathfinder called,
“Heel and toe!” They converged on an air lock, set in a hillside.
Base Camp had not the slick finish of Luna City, being rough caverns
sealed to airtightness, but each troop had its own well-equipped troop
room. Air was renewed by hydroponic garden, like Luna City; there
was a Sun power plant and accumulators to last through the long,
cold nights.
Bruce hurried through lunch; he was eager to start his two-man hike.
They outfitted as before, except that reserve air and water replaced
packaged grub. Sam fitted a spring-fed clip of hiking rations into the
collar of Bruce’s suit.
  The Scoutmaster inspected them at the lock. “Where to, Sam?”
  “We’ll head southeast. I’ll blaze it.”
  “Hmm-rough country. Well, back by midnight, and stay out of
      caves.”
  “Yes, sir.”
  Outside Sam sighed, “Whew! I thought he was going to say not to
      climb.”
  “We’re going to?”
  “Sure. You can, can’t you?”
  “Got my Alpine badge.”
  “I’ll do the hard part, anyhow. Let’s go.”
  Sam led out of the hills and across a baked plain. He


                                   239
hit an eight-mile gait, increased it to a twelve-miler. Bruce swung
along, enjoying it. “Swell of you to do this, Sam.”
     “Nuts. If I weren’t here, I’d be helping to seal the gymnasium.”
     “Just the same, I need this hike for my Mooncraft badge.”
     Sam let several strides pass. “Look, Bruce-you don’t really
     expect to make Lunar Eagle?”
  “Why not? I’ve got my optional badges. There are only four
  required ones that are terribly different:
camping, Mooncraft, pathfinding, and pioneering. I’ve studied like the
dickens and now I’m getting experience.
“I don’t doubt you’ve studied. But the Review Board are tough eggs.
You’ve got to be a real Moon hand to get by.”
  “They won’t pass a Scout from Earth?”
“Put it this way. The badges you need add up to one thing,
Mooncraft. The examiners are old Moon hands; you won’t get by with
book answers. They’ll know how long you’ve been here and they’ll
know you don’t know enough.”
  Bruce thought about it. “It’s not fair!”
Sam snorted. “Mooncraft isn’t a game; it’s the real thing. ‘Did you stay
alive?’ If you make a mistake, you flunk-and they bury you.”
  Bruce had no answer.
Presently they came to hills; Sam stopped and called Base Camp.
“Parsons and Hollifield, Troop One-please take a bearing.”
  Shortly Base replied, “One one eight. What’s your mark?”
  “Cairn with a note.”
  “Roger.”
Sam piled up stones, then wrote date, time, and their names on
paper torn from a pad in his pouch, and laid it on top. “Now we start
up.”

The way was rough and unpredictable; this canyon
had never been a watercourse. Several times Sam stretched a line
before he would let Bruce follow. At intervals he blazed the rock with
his hammer. They came to an impasse, five hundred feet of rock, the
first hundred of which was vertical and smooth.



                                    240
  Bruce stared. “We’re going up that?”
“Sure. Watch your Uncle Samuel.” A pillar thrust up above the vertical
pitch. Sam clipped two lines together and began casting the bight up
toward it. Twice he missed and the line floated down. At last it went
over.
Sam drove a piton into the wall, off to one side, clipped a snap ring to
it, and snapped on the line. He had Bruce join him in a straight pull on
the free end to test the piton. Bruce then anchored to the snap ring
with a rope strap; Sam started to climb.
Thirty feet up, he made fast to the line with his legs and drove
another piton; to this he fastened a safety line. Twice more he did
this. He reached the pillar and called, “Off belay!”
     Bruce unlinked the line; it snaked up the cliff. Presently Sam
     shouted, “On belay!”
     Bruce answered, “Testing,” and tried unsuccessfully to jerk
     down the line Sam had lowered.
     “Climb,” ordered Sam.
“Climbing.” One-sixth gravity, Bruce decided, was a mountaineer’s
heaven. He paused on the way up only to unsnap the safety line.
Bruce wanted to “leapfrog” up the remaining pitches, but Sam
insisted on leading. Bruce was soon glad of it; he found three mighty
differences between climbing on Earth and climbing here; the first
was low gravity, but the others were disadvantages: balance climbing
was awkward in a suit, and chimney climbing, or any involving knees
and shoulders, was clumsy and carried danger of tearing the suit.
They came out on raw, wild upland surrounded by pinnacles, bright
against black sky. “Where to?” asked Bruce.
  Sam studied the stars, then pointed southeast. “The photomaps
  show open country that way.”
“Suits me.” They trudged away; the country was too rugged to lope.
They had been traveling a long time, it seemed to Bruce, when they
came out on a higher place from which Earth could be seen. “What
time is it?” he asked.
  “Almost seventeen,” Sam answered, glancing up.
  “We’re supposed to be back by midnight.”
  “Well,” admitted Sam, “I expected to reach open country before
    now.”

                                  241
  “We’re lost?”
  “Certainly not! I’ve blazed it. But I’ve never been here before. I
    doubt if anyone has.”
  “Suppose we keep on for half an hour, then turn back?”
  “Fair enough.” They continued for at least that; Sam conceded that
    it was time to turn.
  “Let’s try that next rise,” urged Bruce.
  “Okay.” Sam reached the top first. “Hey, Bruce-we made it!”
Bruce joined him. “Golly!” Two thousand feet below stretched a dead
lunar plain. Mountains rimmed it except to the south. Five miles away
two small craters formed a figure eight.
“I know where we are,” Sam announced. “That pair shows up on the
photos. We slide down here, circle south about twenty miles, and
back to Base. A cinch- how’s your air?”
Bruce’s bottle showed fair pressure; Sam’s was down, he having
done more work. They changed both bottles and got ready. Sam
drove a piton, snapped on a ring, fastened a line to his belt and
passed it through the ring. The end of the line he passed between his
legs, around a thigh and across his chest, over his shoulder and to
his other hand, forming a rappel seat. He began to “walk” down the
cliff, feeding slack as needed.
He reached a shoulder below Bruce. “Off rappel!” he called, and
recovered his line by pulling it through the ring.
Bruce rigged a rappel seat and joined him. The pitches became
steeper; thereafter Sam sent Bruce down first, while anchoring him
above. They came to a last high sheer drop. Bruce peered over.
“Looks like here we roost.”
“Maybe.” Sam bent all four lines together and measured it. Ten feet
of line reached the rubble at the base.
      Bruce said, “It’ll reach, but we have to leave the lines behind
      us.”
      Sam scowled. “Glass lines cost money; they’re from Earth.”
      “Beats staying here.”
Sam searched the cliff face, then drove a piton. “I’ll lower you. When
you’re halfway, drive two pitons and hang the strap from one. That’ll
give me a changeover.”
  “I’m against it,” protested Bruce.


                                   242
  “If we lost our lines,” Sam argued, “we’ll never hear the last of it.
     Go ahead.”
  “I still don’t like it.”
  “Who’s in charge?”
  Bruce shrugged, snapped on the line and started down.
  Sam stopped him presently. “Halfway. Pick me a nest.”
Bruce walked the face to the right, but found only smooth wall. He
worked back and located a crack. “Here’s a crack,” he reported, “but
just one. I shouldn’t drive two pitons in one crack.”
“Spread ‘em apart,” Sam directed. “It’s good rock.” Reluctantly, Bruce
complied. The spikes went in easily but he wished he could hear the
firm ring that meant a piton was biting properly. Finished, he hung the
strap. “Lower away!”
In a couple of minutes he was down and unsnapped the line. “Off
belay!” He hurried down the loose rock at the base. When he reached
the edge of it he called, “Sam! This plain is soft stuff.”

“Okay,” Sam acknowledged. “Stand clear.” Bruce
moved along the cliff about fifty feet and stopped to bind on skis.
Then he shuffled out onto the plain, kickturned, and looked back.
Sam had reached the pitons. He hung, one foot in the strap, the bight
in his elbow, and recovered his line. He passed his line through the
second piton ring, settled in rappel, and hooked the strap from piton
to piton as an anchor. He started down.
  Halfway down the remaining two hundred feet he stopped. “What’s
  the matter?” called Bruce.
“It’s reached a shackle,” said Sam, “and the pesky thing won’t feed
through the ring. I’ll free it.” He raised himself a foot, then suddenly let
what he had gained slip through the ring above.
To Bruce’s amazement Sam leaned out at an impossible angle. He
heard Sam cry “Rock!” before he understood what had happened-the
piton had failed.
Sam fell about four feet, then the other piton, connected by the strap,
stopped him. He caught himself, feet spread. But the warning cry had
not been pointless; Bruce saw a rock settling straight for Sam’s
helmet. Bruce repeated the shout.



                                    243
Sam looked up, then jumped straight out from the cliff. The rock
passed between him and the wall; Bruce could not tell if it had struck
him. Sam swung in, his feet caught the cliff-and again he leaned out
crazily. The second piton had let go.
  Sam again shouted, “Rock!” even as he kicked himself away from
  the cliff.
Bruce watched him, turning slowly over and over and gathering
momentum. It seemed to take Sam forever to fall.
  Then he struck.
Bruce fouled his skis and had to pick himself up. He forced himself to
be careful and glided toward the spot.
Sam’s frantic shove had saved him from crashing his helmet into
rock. He lay buried in the loose debris, one leg sticking up
ridiculously. Bruce felt an hysteri
cal desire to laugh.
Sam did not stir when Bruce tugged at him. Bruce’s skis got in his
way; finally he stood astraddle, hauled Sam out. The boy’s eyes were
closed, his features slack, but the suit still had pressure. “Sam,”
shouted Bruce, “can you hear me?”
Sam’s blood-oxygen reading was dangerously in the red; Bruce
opened his intake valve wider-but the reading failed to improve. He
wanted to turn Sam face down, but he had no way of straightening
Sam’s helmeted head, nor would he then be able to watch the blood-
oxygen indicator unless he took time to remove the belt. He decided
to try artificial respiration with the patient face up. He kicked off skis
and belt.
The pressure in the suit got in his way, nor could he fit his hands
satisfactorily to Sam’s ribs. But he kept at it-swing! and one, and two
and up! and one, and two and swing!
  The needle began to move. When it was well into the white Bruce
     paused.
  It stayed in the white.
  Sam’s lips moved but no sound came. Bruce touched helmets.
     “What is it, Sam?”
  Faintly he heard, “Look out! Rock!”
  Bruce considered what to do next.


                                    244
There was little he could do until he got Sam into a pressurized room.
The idea, he decided, was to get help-fast!
Send up a smoke signal? Fire a gun three times? Snap out of it,
Bruce! You’re on the Moon now. He wished that someone would
happen along in a desert car.
He would have to try radio. He wasn’t hopeful, as they had heard
nothing even from the cliff. Still, he must try- He glanced at Sam’s
blood-oxygen reading, then climbed the rubble, extended his antenna
and tried. “M’aidez!” he called. “Help! Does anybody hear me?” He
tried again.
  And again.
When he saw Sam move he hurried back. Sam was sitting up and
feeling his left knee. Bruce touched helmets. “Sam, are you all right?”
  “Huh? This leg won’t work right.”
  “Is it broken?”
  “How do I know? Turn on your radio.”
  “It is on. Yours is busted.”
  “Huh? How’d that happen?”
  “When you fell.”
  “Fell?”
  Bruce pointed. “Don’t you remember?”
Sam stared at the cliff. “Uh, I don’t know. Say, this thing hurts like
mischief. Where’s the rest of the troop?”
       Bruce said slowly, “We’re out by ourselves, Sam. Remember?”
       Sam frowned. “I guess so. Bruce, we’ve got to get out of here!
       Help me get my skis on.”
       “Do you think you can ski with that knee?”
“I’ve got to.” Bruce lifted him to his feet, then bound a ski to the
injured leg while Sam balanced on the other. But when Sam tried
shifting his weight he collapsed-and fainted.
Bruce gave him air and noted that the blood-oxygen reading was still
okay. He untangled the ski, straightened out Sam’s legs, and waited.
When Sam’s eyes fluttered he touched helmets. “Sam, can you
understand me?”
  “Yeah. Sure.”
  ~You,,can’t stay on your feet. I’ll carry you.”
  No.


                                    245
   “What do you mean, ‘No’?”
   “No good. Rig a toboggan.” He closed his eyes.
Bruce laid Sam’s skis side by side. Two steel rods were clipped to the
tail of each ski; he saw how they were meant to be used. Slide a rod
through four ring studs, two on each ski; snap a catch-so! Fit the
other rods. Remove bindings-the skis made a passable narrow
toboggan.
He removed Sam’s pack, switched his bottles around in front and told
him to hold them. “I’m going to move you. Easy, now!” The space-
suited form hung over the edges, but there was no help for it. He
found he could thread a rope under the rods and lash his patient
down. Sam’s pack he tied on top.
He made a hitch by tying a line to the holes in the tips of the skis;
there was a long piece left over. He said to Sam, “I’ll tie this to my
arm. If you want anything, just jerk.”
  Okay.
“Here we go.” Bruce put on his skis, brought the hitch up to his
armpits and ducked his head through, forming a harness. He grasped
his ski poles and set out to the south, parallel to the cliff.
The toboggan drag steadied him; he settled down to covering miles.
Earth was shut off by the cliff; the Sun gave him no estimate of hour.
There was nothing but blackness, stars, the blazing Sun, a burning
desert underfoot, and the towering cliff-nothing but silence and the
urgency to get back to base.
Something jerked his arm. It scared him before he accounted for it.
He went back to the toboggan. “What is it, Sam?”
  “I can’t stand it. It’s too hot.” The boy’s face was white and sweat-
  covered.
Bruce gave him a shot of air, then thought about it. There was an
emergency shelter in Sam’s pack, just a rolled-up awning with a
collapsible frame. Fifteen minutes later he was ready to move. One
awning support was tied upright to the sole of one of Sam’s boots;
the other Bruce had bent and wedged under Sam’s shoulders. The
contraption looked ready to fall apart but it held. “There! Are you
okay?”
  “I’m fine. Look, Bruce, I think my knee is all right now. Let me try it.”


                                    246
Bruce felt out the knee through the suit. It was twice the size of its
mate; he could feel Sam wince. He touched helmets. “You’re full of
hop, chum. Relax.”
Bruce got back into harness.
Hours later, Bruce came across tracks. They swung in from
northeast, turned and paralleled the hills. He stopped and told Sam.
   “Say, Sam, how can I tell how old they are?”
   “You can’t. A track fifty years old looks as fresh as a new one.
   “No point in following these?”
   “No harm in it, provided they go in our direction.”
“Roger.” Bruce went back to towing. He called hopefully over the
radio every few minutes and then listened. The tracks cheered him
even though he knew how slim the chance was that they meant
anything. The tracks swung out from the hills presently or, rather, the
hills swung in, forming a bay. He took the shorter route as his
predecessor had.
He should have seen what was coming. He knew that he should keep
his eyes ahead, but the need to watch his instruments, the fact that
he was leaning into harness, and the circumstance that he was
following tracks combined to keep his head down. He had just
glanced back at Sam when he felt his skis slipping out from under
him.
Automatically he bent his knees and threw his skis into a “snowplow.”
He might have been able to stop had not the toboggan been scooting
along behind. It plowed into him; boy, skis, and toboggan went down,
tangled like jackstraws.
He struggled for footing, felt the sand slip under him. He had time to
see that he had been caught-in daylight!-by that lunar equivalent of
quicksand, a morning glory. Then the sifting dust closed over his
helmet.
  He felt himself slip, slide, fall, slide again, and come softly to rest.
Bruce tried to get his bearings. Part of his mind was busy with horror,
shock, and bitter self blame for having failed Sam; another part
seemed able to drive
ahead with the business at hand. He did not seem hurt-and he was
still breathing. Heisupposed that he was buried in a morning glory; he
suspected that any movement would bury him deeper.

                                    247
Nevertheless he had to locate Sam. He felt his way up to his neck,
pushing the soft flakes aside. The toboggan hitch was still on him. He
got both hands on it and heaved. It was frustrating work, like
swimming in mud. Gradually he dragged the sled to him-or himself to
the sled. Presently he felt his way down the load and located Sam’s
helmet. “Sam! Can you hear me?”
  The reply was muffled. “Yeah, Bruce!”
  “Are you okay?”
  “Okay? Don’t be silly! We’re in a morning glory!”
  “Yes, I know. Sam, I’m terribly sorry!”
  “Well, don’t cry about it. It can’t be helped.”
  “I didn’t mean to-“
“Stow it, can’t you!” Sam’s voice concealed panic with anger. “It
doesn’t matter. We’re goners-don’t you realize that?”
       “Huh? No, we’re not! Sam, I’ll get you out-I swear I will.”
       Sam waited before replying. “Don’t kid yourself, Bruce. Nobody
       ever gets out of a morning glory.”
       “Don’t talk like that. We aren’t dead yet.”
“No, but we’re going to be. I’m trying to get used to the idea.” He
paused. “Do me a favor, Bruce-get me loose from these confounded
skis. I don’t want to die tied down.”
“Right away!” In total darkness, his hands in gloves, with only
memory to guide him, and with the soft, flaky dust everywhere,
unlashing the load was nearly impossible. He shifted position, then
suddenly noticed something-his left arm was free of the dust.
He shifted and got his helmet free as well. The darkness persisted;
he fumbled at his belt, managed to locate his flashlight.
He was lying partly out and mostly in a sloping mass of soft stuff.
Close overhead was a rocky roof; many
feet below the pile spilled over a floor of rock. Sideways the darkness
swallowed up the beam.
He still clutched the toboggan; he hauled at it, trying to drag Sam out.
Failing, he burrowed back in. “Hey, Sam! We’re in a cave!”
  “Huh?”
“Hang on. I’ll get you out.” Bruce cautiously thrashed around in an
attempt to get his entire body outside the dust. It kept caving down on
him. Worse, his skis anchored his feet. He kicked one loose, snaked

                                  248
his arm in, and dragged it out. It slid to the base of the pile. He
repeated the process, then rolled and scrambled to the floor, still
clinging to the hitch.
He set the light on the rock floor, and put the skis aside, then heaved
mightily. Sam, toboggan, and load came sliding down, starting a
small avalanche. Bruce touched helmets. “Look! We’re getting
somewhere!”
  Sam did not answer. Bruce persisted, “Sam, did you hear me?”
  “I heard you. Thanks for pulling me out. Now untie me, will you?”
“Hold the light.” Bruce got busy. Shortly he was saying, “There you
are. Now I’ll stir around and find the way out.”
     “What makes you think there is a way out?”
     “Huh? Don’t talk like that. Who ever heard of a cave with no
     exit?”
     Sam answered slowly, “He didn’t find one.”
“Look.” Sam shined the light past Bruce. On the rock a few feet away
was a figure in an old-fashioned space suit.
Bruce took the light and cautiously approached the figure. The man
was surely dead; his suit was limp. He lay at ease, hands folded
across his middle, as if taking a nap. Bruce pointed the torch at the
glass face plate. The face inside was lean and dark, skin clung to the
bones; Bruce turned the light away.

He came back shortly to Sam. “He didn’t make out
so well,” Bruce said soberly. “I found these papers in his pouch. We’ll
take them with us ~so we can let his folks know.”
“You are an incurable optimist, aren’t you? Well, all right.” Sam took
them. There were two letters, an oldstyle flat photograph of a little girl
and a dog, and some other papers. One was a driver’s license for the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, dated June 1995 and signed
Abner Green.
  Bruce stared. “1995! Gee Whiz!”
  “I wouldn’t count on notifying his folks.”
Bruce changed the subject. “He had one thing we can use. This.” It
was a coil of manila rope. “I’ll hitch all the lines together, one end to
your belt and one to mine. That’!! give me five or six hundred feet. If
you want me, just pull.”

                                    249
   “Okay. Watch your step.”
   “I’ll be careful. You’ll be all right?”
   “Sure. I’ve got him for company.”
   “Well . . . . here goes.”
One direction seemed as good as another. Bruce kept the line taut to
keep from walking in a circle. The rock curved up presently and his
flash showed that it curved back on itself, a dead end. He followed
the wall to the left, picking his way, as the going was very rough. He
found himself in a passage. It seemed to climb, but it narrowed.
Three hundred feet and more out by the ropes, it narrowed so much
that he was stopped.
Bruce switched off his light and waited for his eyes to adjust. He
became aware of a curious sensation. It was panic.
He forced himself not to turn on the light until he was certain that no
gleam lay ahead. Then thankfully he stumbled back into the main
cavern.
  Another series of chambers led steadily downward. He turned back
  at a black and bottomless hole.
The details varied but the answers did not: At the furthest reach of
the lines, or at some impassable ob
stacle, he would wait in the dark-but no gleam of light ever showed.
He went back to Sam after having covered, he estimated, about
1800.
  Sam had crawled up to the heap of fallen dust. Bruce hurried to
  him. “Sam, are you all right?”
  “Sure. I just moved to a feather bed. That rock is terribly cold. What
  did you find?”
“Well, nothing yet,” he admitted. He sat down in the flaky pile and
leaned toward Sam. “I’ll start again in a moment.”
  “How’s your air supply?” asked Sam.
  “Uh, I’ll have to crack my reserve bottle soon. How’s yours?”
“Mine is throttled to the limit. You’re doing all the work; I can save my
reserve bottle for you-I think.”
Bruce frowned. He wanted to protest, but the gesture wouldn’t make
sense. They would have to finish up all even; naturally he was using
much more air than was Sam.


                                   250
One thing was sure-time was running out. Finally he said, “Look,
Sam-there’s no end of those caves and passages. I couldn’t search
them all with all the air in Luna City.”
   “I was afraid so.”
   “But we know there’s a way out right above us.”
   “You mean in.”
“I mean out. See here-this morning glory thing is built like an hour
glass; there’s an open cone on top, and this pile of sand down below.
The stuff trickled down through a hole in the roof and piled up until it
choked the hole.”
      “Where does that get you?”
      “Well, if we dug the stuff away we could clear the hole.”
      “It would keep sifting down.”
“No, it wouldn’t, it would reach a point where there wasn’t enough
dust close by to sift down any further- there would still be a hole.”

Sam considered it. “Maybe. But when you tried to
climb up it would collapse back on you. That’s the bad part about a
morning glory, Bruce; you can’t get a foothold.”
“The dickens I can’t! If I can’t climb a slope on skis without collapsing
it, when I’ve got my wits about me and am really trying, why, you can
have my reserve air bottle.”
  Sam chuckled. “Don’t be hasty. I might hold you to it. Anyhow,” he
  added, “I can’t climb it.”
“Once I get my feet on the level, I’ll pull you out like a cork, even if
you’re buried. Time’s a-wastin’.” Bruce got busy.
Using a ski as a shovel he nibbled at the giant pile. Every so often it
would collapse down on him. It did not discourage him; Bruce knew
that many yards of the stuff would have to fall and be moved back
before the hole would show.
Presently he moved Sam over to the freshly moved waste. From
there Sam held the light; the work went faster. Bruce began to sweat.
After a while he had to switch air bottles; he sucked on his water tube
and ate a march ration before getting back to work.
He began to see the hole opening above him. A great pile collapsed
on him; he backed out, looked up, then went to Sam. “Turn out the
light!”

                                    251
There was no doubt; a glimmer of light filtered down. Bruce found
himself pounding Sam and shouting. He stopped and said, “Sam, old
boy, did lever say what patrol I’m from?”
  “No. Why?”
“Badger Patrol. Watch me dig!” He tore into it. Shortly sunlight poured
into the hole and reflected dimly around the cavern. Bruce shoveled
until he could see a straight rise from the base of the pile clear to the
edge of the morning glory high above them. He decided that the
opening was wide enough to tackle.
He hitched himself to Sam with the full length of all the glass ropes
and then made a bundle of Sam’s pack save air and water bottles,
tied a bowline on Sam’s
uninjured foot, using the manila line and secured the bundle to the
end of that line. He planned to drag Sam out first, then the
equipment. Finished, he bound on skis.
  Bruce touched helmets. “This is it, pal. Keep the line clear of the
     sand.”
  Sam grabbed his arm. “Wait a minute.”
  “What’s the matter?”
  “Bruce-if we don’t make it, I just want to say that you’re all right.”
“Uh . . . oh, forget it. We’ll make it.” He started up. A herringbone step
suited the convex approach to the hole. As Bruce neared the opening
he shifted to side-step to fit the narrow passage and the concave
shape of the morning glory above. He inched up, transferring his
weight smoothly and gradually, and not remaining in one spot too
long. At last his head, then his whole body, were in sunshine; he was
starting up the morning glory itself.
He stopped, uncertain what to do. There was a ridge above him,
where the flakes had broken loose when he had shoveled away their
support. The break was much too steep to climb, obviously unstable.
He paused only a moment as he could feel his skis sinking in; he
went forward in half side-step, intending to traverse past the unstable
formation.
The tow line defeated him. When Bruce moved sideways, the line
had to turn a corner at the neck of the hole. It brushed and then cut
into the soft stuff. Bruce felt his skis slipping backwards; with cautious
haste he started to climb, tried to ride the slipping mass and keep


                                   252
above it. He struggled as the flakes poured over his skis. Then he
was fouled, he went down, it engulfed him.
Again he came to rest in soft, feathery, darkness. He lay quiet,
nursing his defeat, before trying to get out. He hardly knew which way
was up, much less which way was out. He was struggling
experimentally when he felt a tug on his belt. Sam was trying to help
him.
A few minutes later, with Sam’s pull to guide him, Bruce was again on
the floor of the ca\’e. The only light came from the torch in Sam’s
hand; it was enough to show that the pile choking the hole was bigger
than ever.
  Sam motioned him over. “Too bad, Bruce,” was all he said.
  Bruce controlled his choking voice to say, “I’ll get busy as soon as I
     catch my breath.”
  “Where’s your left ski?”
  “Huh? Oh! Must have pulled off. It’ll show up when I start digging.”
  “Hmmm .. . how much air have you?”
  “Uh?” Bruce looked at his belt. “About a third of a bottle.”
  “I’m breathing my socks. I’ve got to change.”
  “Right away!” Bruce started to make the switch; Sam pulled him
     down again.
  “You take the fresh bottle, and give me your bottle.”
  “But-“
“No ‘buts’ about it,” Sam cut him off. “You have to do all the work;
you’ve got to take the full tank.”
Silently Bruce obeyed. His mind was busy with arithmetic. The
answer always came out the same; he knew with certainty that there
was not enough air left to permit him again to perform the Herculean
task of moving that mountain of dust.
He began to believe that they would never get out. The knowledge
wearied him; he wanted to lie down beside the still form of Abner
Green and, like him, not struggle at the end.
However he could not. He knew that, for Sam’s sake, he would have
to shovel away at that endless sea of sand, until he dropped from
lack of oxygen. Listlessly he took off his remaining ski and walked
toward his task.
  Sam jerked on the rope.


                                  253
  Bruce went back. “What’s got into you, kid?” Sam demanded.
  “Nothing. Why?”
  “It’s got you whipped.”
  “I didn’t say so.”
“But you think so. I could see it. Now you listen! You convinced me
that you could get us out-and, by Jimmy! you’re going to! You’re just
cocky enough to be the first guy to whip a morning glory and you can
do it. Get your chin up!”
Bruce hesitated. “Look, Sam, I won’t quit on you, but you might as
well know the truth: there isn’t air enough to do it again.”
  “Figured that out when I saw the stuff start to crumble.
  “You knew? Then if you know any prayers, better say them.”
  Sam shook his arm. “It’s not time to pray; it’s time to get busy.”
  “Okay.” Bruce started to straighten up.
  “That’s not what I meant.”
  “Huh?”
  “There’s no point in digging. Once was worth trying; twice is
     wasting oxygen.”
  “Well, what do you want me to do?”
  “You didn’t try all the ways out, did you?”
  “No.” Bruce thought about it. “I’ll try again, Sam. But there isn’t air
     enough to try them all.”
“You can search longer than you can shovel. But don’t search
haphazardly; search back toward the hills. Anywhere else will be just
another morning glory; we need to come out at the hills; away from
the sand.
  “Uh. . . look, Sam, where are the hills? Down here you can’t tell
    north from next week.”
  “Over that way,” Sam pointed.
  “Huh? How do you know?”
“You showed me. When you broke through I could tell where the Sun
was from the angle of the light.”
  “But the Sun is overhead.”
  “Was when we started. Now it’s fifteen, twenty de
grees to the west. Now listen: these caves must have been big blow
holes once, gas pockets. You search off in that direction and find us
a blow hole that’s not choked with sand.”
  “I’ll do my darndest!”


                                   254
  “How far away were the hills when we got caught?”
  Bruce tried to remember. “Half a mile, maybe.”
“Check. You won’t find what we want tied to me with five or six
hundred feet of line. Take that pad of paper in my pouch. Blaze your
way-and be darn sure you blaze enough!”
  “I will!”
  “Attaboy! Good luck.”
  Bruce stood up.

It was the same tedious, depressing business as before. Bruce
stretched the line, then set out at the end of it, dropping bits of paper
and counting his steps. Several times he was sure that he was under
the hills, only to come to an impasse. Twice he skirted the heaps that
marked other morning glorys. Each time he retraced his steps he
gathered up his blazes, both to save paper and to keep from
confusing himself.
Once, he saw a glimmer of light and his heart pounded-but it filtered
down from a hole too difficult even for himself and utterly impossible
for Sam.
His air got low; he paid no attention, other than to adjust his mix to
keep it barely in the white. He went on searching.
A passage led to the left, then down; he began to doubt the wisdom
of going further and stopped to check the darkness. At first his eyes
saw nothing, then it seemed as if there might be a suggestion of light
ahead. Eye fatigue? Possibly. He went another hundred feet and
tried again. It was light!
Minutes later he shoved his shoulders up through a twisted hole and
gazed out over the burning plain.
  “Hi!” Sam greeted him. “I thought you had fallen down a hole.
  “Darn near did. Sam, I found it!”
  “Knew you would. Let’s get going.”
  “Right. I’ll dig out my other ski.”
  “Nope.”
  “Why not?”
  “Look at your air gauge. We aren’t going anywhere on skis.”
“Huh? Yeah, I guess not.” They abandoned their loads, except for air
and water bottles. The dark trek was made piggy-back, where the
ceiling permitted. Some places Bruce half dragged his partner. Other

                                   255
places they threaded on hands and knees with Sam pulling his bad
leg painfully behind him.
Bruce climbed out first, having slung Sam in a bowline before he did
so. Sam gave little help in getting out; once they were above ground
Bruce picked him up and set him against a rock. He then touched
helmets. “There, fellow! We made it!”
  Sam did not answer.
Bruce peered in; Sam’s features were slack, eyes half closed. A
check of his belt told why; the blood-oxygen indicator showed red.
Sam’s intake valve was already wide open; Bruce moved fast, giving
himself a quick shot of air, then transferring his bottle to Sam. He
opened it wide.
He could see Sam’s pointer crawl up even as his own dropped
toward the red. Bruce had air in his suit for three or four minutes if he
held still.
He did not hold still. He hooked his intake hose to the manifold of the
single bottle now attached to Sam’s suit and opened his valve. His
own indicator stopped dropping toward the red. They were Siamese
twins now, linked by one partly-exhausted bottle of utterly necessary
gas. Bruce put an arm around Sam, settled Sam’s head on his
shoulder, helmet to helmet, and throttled down both valves until each
was barely in the white. He gave Sam more margin than himself, then
settled down to wait. The rock under them was in shadow, though the
Sun still baked the plain. Bruce
looked out, searching for anyone or anything, then extended his
aerial. “M’aidez!” he called. “Help us! We’re lost.”
  He could hear Sam muttering. “May day!” Sam echoed into his
  dead radio. “May day! We’re lost.”
Bruce cradled the delirious boy in his arm and repeated again,
“M’aidez! Get a bearing on us.” He paused, then echoed, “May day!
May day!”
After a while he readjusted the valves, then went back to repeating
endlessly, “May day! Get a bearing on us.”
He did not feel it when a hand clasped his shoulder. He was still
muttering “May day!” when they dumped him into the air lock of the
desert car.


                                   256
      Mr. Andrews visited him in the infirmary at Base Camp. “How
      are you, Bruce?”
      “Me? I’m all right, sir. I wish they’d let me get up.”
      “My instructions. So I’ll know where you are.” The Scoutmaster
      smiled; Bruce blushed.
      “How’s Sam?” he asked.
      “He’ll get by. Cold burns and a knee that will bother him a while.
      That’s all.”
      “Gee, I’m glad.”
“The troop is leaving. I’m turning you over to Troop Three, Mr.
Harkness. Sam will go back with the grub car.
      “Uh, I think I could travel with the Troop, sir.”
      “Perhaps so, but I want you to stay with Troop Three. You need
      field experience.”
      “Uh-“ Bruce hesitated, wondering how to say it. “Mr. Andrews?”
      “Yes?”
“I might as well go back. I’ve learned something. You were right. A
fellow can’t get to be an old Moon hand in three weeks. Uh . . . I
guess I was just conceited.”
   “Is that all?”
   “Well-yes, sir.”
“Very well, listen to me. I’ve talked with Sam and with Mr. Harkness.
Mr. Harkness will put you through a course of sprouts; Sam and I will
take over when you get back. You plan on being ready for the Court
of Honor two weeks from Wednesday.” The Scoutmaster added,
“Well?”
  Bruce gulped and found his voice. “Yes, sir!”

PANDORA’S BOX
 Once opened, the box could never be closed. But after the myriad
 swarming Troubles came Hope.
Science fiction is not prophecy. It often reads as if it were prophecy;
indeed the practitioners of this odd genre (pun intentional-I won’t do it
again) of fiction usually strive hard to make their stories sound as if
they were true pictures of the future. Prophecies.
Prophesying is what the weatherman does, the race track tipster, the
stock market adviser, the fortuneteller who reads palms or gazes into
a crystal. Each one is predicting the future-sometimes exactly,

                                   257
sometimes in vague, veiled, or ambiguous language, sometimes
simply with a claim of statistical probability, but always with a claim
seriously made of disclosing some piece of the future.
This is not at all what a science fiction author does. Science fiction is
almost always laid in the future-or at least in a fictional possible-
future-and is almost invariably deeply concerned with the shape of
that future. But the method is not prediction; it is usually extrapolation
and/or speculation. Indeed the author is not required to (and usually
does not) regard the fictional “future” he has chosen to write about as
being the events most likely to come to pass; his purpose may have
nothing to do with the probability that these storied events may
happen.

“Extrapolation” means much the same in fiction
writing as it does in mathematics: exploring a trend. It means
continuing a curve, a path, a trend into the future, by extending its
present direction and continuing the shape it has displayed in its past
performance-i.e., if it is a sine curve in the past, you extrapolate it as
a sine curve in the future, not as an hyperbola, nor a Witch of Agnesi,
and most certainly not as a tangent straight line.
“Speculation” has far more elbowroom than extrapolation; it starts
with a “What if?”-and the new factor thrown in by the what-if may be
both wildly improbable and so revolutionary in effect as to throw a
sine-curve trend (or a yeast-growth trend, or any trend) into
something unrecognizably different. What if little green men land on
the White House lawn and invite us to join a Galactic union?-or big
green men land and enslave us and eat us? What if we solve the
problem of immortality? What if New York City really does go dry?
And not just the present fiddlin’ shortage tackled by fiddlin’ quarter-
measures-can you imagine a man being lynched for wasting an ice
cube? Living, as I do, in a state (Colorado-1965) which has just two
sorts of water, too little and too much-we just finished seven years of
drought with seven inches of rain in two hours, and one was about as
disastrous as the other-I find a horrid fascination in Frank Herbert’s
Dune World, in Charles Einstein’s The Day New York Went Dry, and
in stories about Bible-type floods such as S. Fowler Wright’s Deluge.
Most science fiction stories use both extrapolation and speculation.
Consider “Blowups Happen,” elsewhere in this volume. It was written


                                   258
in 1939, updated very slightly for book publication just after World
War II by inserting some words such as “Manhattan Project” and
“Hiroshima,” but not rewritten, and is one of a group of stories
published under the pretentious collective title of The History of the
Future (!) (an editor’s title, not mine!)-which certainly sounds like
prophecy.
I disclaim any intention of prophesying; Iwrote that story for the sole
purpose of making money to pay off a mortgage and with the single
intention of entertaining the reader. As prophecy the story falls flat on
its silly face-any tenderfoot Scout can pick it to pieces- but I think it is
still entertaining as a story, else it would not be here; I have a
business reputation to protect and wish to continue making money.
Nor am I ashamed of this motivation. Very little of the great literature
of our heritage arose solely from a wish to “create art”; most writing,
both great and not-sogreat, has as its proximate cause a need for
money combined with an aversion to, or an inability to perform, hard
“honest labor.” Fiction writing offers a legal and reasonably honest
way out of this dilemma.
A science fiction author may have, and often does have, other
motivations in addition to pursuit of profit. He may wish to create “art
for art’s sake,” he may want to warn the world against a course he
feels to be disastrous (Orwell’s 1984, Huxley’s Brave New World- but
please note that each is intensely entertaining, and that each made
stacks of money), he may wish to urge the human race toward a
course which he considers desirable (Bellamy’s Looking Backwards,
Wells’ Men Like Gods), he may wish to instruct, or uplift, or even to
dazzle. But the science fiction writer-any fiction writer-must keep
entertainment consciously in mind as his prime purpose . . . or he
may find himself back dragging that old cotton sack.
If he succeeds in this purpose, his story is likely to remain gripping
entertainment long years after it has turned out to be false
“prophecy.” H. G. Wells is perhaps the greatest science fiction author
of all time- and his greatest science fiction stories were written
around sixty years ago (i.e., about 1895). . . under the whip. Bedfast
with consumption, unable to hold a job, flat broke, paying alimony-he
had to make money somehow, and writing was the heaviest work he
could manage. He was clearly aware (see his autobiography)




                                     259
that to stay alive he must be entertaining. The result was a flood of
some of the most brilliant speculative stories about the future ever
written. As prophecy they are all hopelessly dated . . . which matters
not at all; they are as spellbinding now as they were in the Gay
‘Nineties and the Mauve Decade.
Try to lay hands on his The Sleeper Awakes. The gadgetry in it is
ingenious-and all wrong. The projected future in it is brilliant-and did
not happen. All of which does not sully the story; it is a great story of
love and sacrifice and blood-chilling adventure set in a matrix of
mind-stretching speculation about the nature of Man and his Destiny.
I read it first in 1923, and at least a dozen times since . . . and still
reread it whenever I get to feeling uncertain about just how one does
go about the unlikely process of writing fiction for entertainment of
strangers-and again finding myself caught up in the sheer excitement
of Wells’ story.
“Solution Unsatisfactory” herein is a consciously Weilsian story. No,
no, I’m not claiming that it is of H. G. Wells’ quality-its quality is for
you to judge, not me. But it was written by the method which Wells
spelled out for the speculative story: Take one, just one, basic new
assumption, then examine all its consequences-but express those
consequences in terms of human beings. The assumption I chose
was the “Absolute Weapon”; the speculation concerns what changes
this forces on mankind. But the “history” the story describes simply
did not happen.
However the problems discussed in this story are as fresh today, the
issues just as poignant, for the grim reason that we have not reached
even an “unsatisfactory” solution to the problem of the Absolute
Weapon; we have reached no so1ution~
In the years that have passed since I wrote that story (in 1940) the
world situation has grown much worse. Instead of one Absolute
Weapon there arc now at least free distinct types---an “Absolute
Weapon being de~
fined as one against which there is no effective defense and which
kills indiscriminately over a very wide area. The earliest of the five
types, the A-bomb, is now known to be possessed by at least five
nations; at least twenty-five other nations have the potential to build
them in the next few years.



                                    260
But there is a possible sixth type. Earlier this year (l965-R.A.H.) I
attended a seminar at one of the nation’s new think-factories. One of
the questions discussed was whether or not a “Doomsday Bomb”
could be built-a single weapon which would destroy all life of all sorts
on this planet; one weapon, not an all-out nuclear holocaust involving
hundreds of thousands of ICBMs. No, this was to be a world-wrecker
of the sort Dr. E. E. Smith used to use in his interstellar sagas back in
the days when SF magazines had bug-eyed monsters on the cover
and were considered lowbrow, childish, fantastic.
The conclusions reached were: Could the Doomsday Machine be
built?-yes, no question about it. What would it cost?-quite cheap.
  A seventh type hardly seems necessary.
And that makes the grimness of “Solution Unsatisfactory” seem more
like an Oz book in which the most harrowing adventures always turn
out happily.
“Searchlight” is almost pure extrapolation, almost no speculation. The
gadgets in it are either hardware on the shelf, or hardware which will
soon be on the shelf because nothing is involved but straightforward
engineering development. “Life-Line” (my first story) is its opposite, a
story which is sheer speculation and either impossible or very highly
improbable, as the What-If postulate will never be solved-I think. I
hope. But the two stories are much alike in that neither depends on
when it was written nor when it is read. Both are independent of any
particular shape to history; he~ are timeless.

Free Men’ is another timeless story. As told, it
looks like another “after the blowup” story-but it is not. Although the
place is nominally the United States and the time (as shown by the
gadgetry) is set in the not-distant future, simply by changing names of
persons and places and by inserting other weapons and other
gadgets this story could be any country and any time in the past or
future-or could even be on another planet and concern a non-human
race. But the story does also apply here-and-now, so I told it that
way.
“Pandora’s Box” was the original title of an article researched and
written in 1949 for publication in 1950, the end of the half-century.
Inscrutable are the ways of editors: it appeared with the title “Where
To?” and purported to be a nonfiction prophecy concerning the year

                                   261
2000 A.D. as seen from 1950. (I agree that a science fiction writer
should avoid marijuana, prophecy, and time payments-but I was
tempted by a soft rustle.)
Our present editor (1965) decided to use this article, but suggested
that it should be updated. Authors who wish to stay in the business
listen most carefully to editors’ suggestions, even when they think an
editor has been out in the sun without a hat; I agreed.
And reread “Where To?” and discovered that our editor was
undeniably correct; it needed updating. At least.
But at last I decided not to try to conceal my bloopers. Below is
reproduced, unchanged, my predictions of fifteen years back. But
here and there through the article I have inserted signs for footnotes-
like this:
(z)- and these will be found at the end of the 1950 article . . . calling
attention to bloopers and then forthrightly excusing myself by
rationalizing how anyone, even Nostradamus, would have made the
same mistake. . . hedging my bets in other cases, or chucking in
brand-new predictions and carefully laying them farther in the future
than I am likely to live
  and, in some cases, crowing loudly about successful
predictions. (Addendum 1979: I have interpolated the
later comments, and marked each item 1950, or 1965,
or 1980.) So-


WHERE TO?
A bloomin’, foolish sparrow Built his nest in a spout, And along-
• came a building inspector, looked over the site, and the plans, and
   okayed them, after requiring the sparrow to buy eleven different
   licenses totalling 18% of the sparrow’s building budget, plus
   something called special service, and along-
  • the bleedin’ rains came, And washed the sparrow out.

Again the foolish sparrow, Built his nest in the spout, And again-
• came that building inspector, bawled out the sparrow for failing to
  get special licenses and permits covering typhoons, sun spots,
  and ice ages, required him to buy seventeen permits and/or

                                    262
  licenses and appear before boards controlling zoning, economic
  impact, ecological protection, energy conservation, and community
  esthetics, plus something called “very special service”-and a
  second mortgage, and along-
• the bleedin’ rains came,
  And washed the sparrow out. (Around again.., and again.., and-)
1950 Where To?
Most science fiction consists of big-muscled stories about adventures
in space, atomic wars, invasions by extra-terrestrials, and such. All
very well-but now we will take time out for a look at ordinary home life
half a century hence.
Except for tea leaves and other magical means, the only way to
guess at the future is by examining the present in the light of the
past. Let’s go back half a century and visit your grandmother before
we attempt to visit your grandchildren.
1900: Mr. McKinley is President and the airplane has not yet been
invented. Let’s knock on the door of that house with the gingerbread,
the stained glass, and the cupola.
The lady of the house answers. You recognize her- your own
grandmother, Mrs. Middleclass. She is almost as plump as you
remember her, for she “put on some good, healthy flesh” after she
married.
She welcomes you and offers coffee cake, fresh from her modern
kitchen (running water from a hand pump; the best coal range
Pittsburgh ever produced). Everything about her house is modern-
hand-painted china, souvenirs from the Columbian Exposition,
beaded portières, shining baseburner stoves, gas lights, a telephone
on the wall.

There is no bathroom, but she and Mr. Middleclass
are thinking of putting one in. Mr. Middleclass’s mother calls this
nonsense, but your grandmother keeps up with the times. She is an
advocate of clothing reform, wears only one petticoat, bathes twice a
week, and her corsets are guaranteed rust proof. She has been
known to defend female suffrage-but not in the presence of Mr.
Middleclass.



                                  263
  Nevertheless, you find difficulty in talking with her. Let’s jump back
  to the present and try again.
The automatic elevator takes us to the ninth floor, and we pick out a
door by its number, that being the only way to distinguish it.
“Don’t bother to ring,” you say? What? It’s your door and you know
exactly what lies beyond it- Very well, let’s move a half century into
the future and try another middle class home.
It’s a suburban home not two hundred miles from the city. You pick
out your destination from the air while the cab is landing you-a cluster
of hemispheres that makes you think of the houses Dorothy found in
Oz.
You set the cab to return to its hangar and go into the entrance hall.
You neither knock nor ring. The screen has warned them before you
touched down on the landing flat and the autobutler’s transparency is
shining with: PLEASE RECORD A MESSAGE.
Before you can address the microphone a voice calls out, “Oh, it’s
you! Come in, come in.” There is a short wait, as your hostess is not
at the door. The autobutler flashed your face to the patio-where she
was reading and sunning herself-and has relayed her voice back to
you.
She pauses at the door, looks at you through oneway glass, and
frowns slightly; she knows your oldfashioned disapproval of casual
nakedness. Her kindness causes her to disobey the family
psychiatrist; she grabs a robe and covers herself before signaling the
door to open.

The psychiatrist was right; you have thus been
classed with strangers, tradespeople, and others who are not family
intimates. But you must swallow your annoyance; you cannot object
to her wearing clothes when you have sniffed at her for not doing so.
There is no reason why she should wear clothes at home. The house
is clean-not somewhat clean, but clean-and comfortable. The floor is
warm to bare feet; there are no unpleasant drafts, no cold walls. All
dust is precipitated from the air entering this house. All textures, of
floor, of couch, of chair, are comfortable to bare skin. Sterilizing ultra-
violet light floods each room whenever it is unoccupied, and, several
times a day, a “whirlwind” blows house-created dust from all surfaces

                                    264
and whisks it out. These auto services are unobstrusive because
automatic cut-off switches prevent them from occurring whenever a
mass in a room is radiating at blood temperature.
Such a house can become untidy, but no~ dirty. Five minutes of
straightening, a few swipes at children’s fingermarks, and her day’s
housekeeping is done. Oftener than sheets were changed in Mr.
McKinley’s day, this housewife rolls out a fresh layer of sheeting on
each sitting surface and stuffs the discard down the oubliette. This is
easy; there is a year’s supply on a roll concealed in each chair or
couch. The tissue sticks by pressure until pulled loose and does not
obscure the pattern and color.
You go into the family room, sit down, and remark on the lovely day.
“Isn’t it?” she answers. “Come sunbathe with me.”
The sunny patio gives excuse for bare skin by anyone’s standards;
thankfully she throws off the robe and stretches out on a couch. You
hesitate a moment. After all, she is your own grandchild, so why not?
You undress quickly, since you left your outer wrap and shoes at the
door (only barbarians wear street shoes in a house) and what
remains is easily discarded. Your grandparents had to get used to a
mid-century beach. It was no easier for them.
On the other hand, their bodies were wrinkled and old, whereas yours
is not. The triumphs of endocrinology, of cosmetics, of plastic
surgery, of figure control in every way are such that a woman need
not change markedly from maturity until old age. A woman can keep
her body as firm and slender as she wishes-and most of them so
wish. This has produced a paradox:
the United States has the highest percentage of old people in all its
two and a quarter centuries, yet it seems to have a larger proportion
of handsome young women than ever before.
  (Don’t whistle, son! That’s your grandmother-)
This garden is half sunbathing patio, complete with shrubs and
flowers, lawn and couches, and half swimming pool. The day, though
sunny, is quite cold-but not in the garden, and the pool is not chilly.
The garden appears to be outdoors, but is not; it is covered by a
bubble of transparent plastic, blown and cured on the spot. You are
inside the bubble; the sun is outside; you cannot see the plastic.



                                  265
She invites you to lunch; you protest. “Nonsense!” she answers, “I
like to cook.” Into the house she goes. You think of following, but it is
deliciously warm in the March sunshine and you are feeling relaxed
to be away from the city. You locate a switch on the side of the
couch, set it for gentle massage, and let the couch knead your
troubles away. The couch notes your heart rate and breathing; as
they slow, so does it. As you fall asleep it stops.
Meanwhile your hostess has been “slaving away over a hot stove.”
To be precise, she has allowed a menu selector to pick out an 800-
calory, 4-ration-point luncheon. It is a random-choice gadget,
somewhat like a slot machine, which has in it the running inventory of
her larder and which will keep hunting until it turns up a balanced
meal. Some housewives claim that it takes the art out of cookery, but
our hostess is one of many who have accepted it thankfully as an
endless source of new menus. Its choice is limited today as it
has been three months since she has done grocery shopping. She
rejects several menus; the selector continues patiently to turn up
combinations until she finally accepts one based around fish
disguised as lamb chops.
Your hostess takes the selected items from shelves or the freezer. All
are prepared; some are pre-cooked. Those still to be cooked she
puts into her-well, her “processing equipment,” though she calls it a
“stove.” Part of it traces its ancestry to diathermy equipment; another
feature is derived from metal enameling processes. She sets up
cycles, punches buttons, and must wait two or three minutes for the
meal to cook. She spends the time checking her ration accounts.
Despite her complicated kitchen, she doesn’t eat as well as her great
grandmother did-too many people and too few acres.
Never mind; the tray she carries out to the patio is well laden and
beautiful. You are both willing to nap again when it is empty. You
wake to find that she has burned the dishes and is recovering from
her “exertion” in her refresher. Feeling hot and sweaty from your nap
you decide to use it when she comes out. There is a wide choice
offered by the ‘fresher, but you limit yourself to a warm shower
growing gradually cooler, followed by warm air drying, a short
massage, spraying with scent, and dusting with powder. Such a
simple routine is an insult to a talented machine.



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Your host arrives home as you come out; he has taken a holiday from
his engineering job and has had the two boys down at the beach. He
kisses his wife, shouts, “Hi, Duchess!” at you, and turns to the video,
setting it to hunt and sample the newscasts it has stored that day. His
wife sends the boys in to ‘fresh themselves then says, “Have a nice
day, dear?”
He answers, “The traffic was terrible. Had to make the last hundred
miles on automatic. Anything on the phone for me?”
  “Weren’t you on relay?”
“Didn’t set it. Didn’t want to be bothered.” He steps to the house
phone, plays back his calls, finds nothing he cares to bother with-but
the machine goes ahead and prints one message; he pulls it out and
tears it off.
   “What is it?” his wife asks.
   “Telestat from Luna City-from Aunt Jane.”
   “What does she say?”
   “Nothing much. According to her, the Moon is a great place and
     she wants us to come visit her.”
   “Not likely!” his wife answers. “Imagine being shut up in an air-
     conditioned cave.”
“When you are Aunt Jane’s age, my honey lamb, and as frail as she
is, with a bad heart thrown in, you’ll go to the Moon and like it. Low
gravity is not to be sneezed at-Auntie will probably live to be a
hundred and twenty, heart trouble and all.”
   “Would you go to the Moon?” she asks.
   “If I needed to and could afford it.” He turns to you. “Right?”
You consider your answer. Life still looks good to you-and stairways
are beginning to be difficult. Low gravity is attractive even though it
means living out your days at the Geriatrics Foundation on the Moon.
“It might be fun to visit,” you answer. “One wouldn’t have to stay.”
Hospitals for old people on the Moon? Let’s not be silly- Or is it silly?
Might it not be a logical and necessary outcome of our world today?
Space travel we will have, not fifty years from now, but much sooner.
It’s breathing down our necks. As for geriatrics on the Moon, for most
of us no price is too high and no amount of trouble is too great to
extend the years of our lives. It is possible that low gravity (one sixth,
on the Moon) may not lengthen lives; nevertheless it may-we don’t


                                    267
know yet-and it will most certainly add greatly to comfort on reaching
that inevitable age when the burden of dragging around
one’s body is almost too much, or when we would otherwise resort to
an oxygen tent to lessen the work of a worn-out heart.
      By the rules of prophecy, such a prediction is probable, rather
      than impossible.
      But the items and gadgets suggested above are examples of
      timid prophecy.
      What are the rules of prophecy, if any?
Look at the graph shown here. The solid curve is what has been
going on this past century. It represents many things-use of power,
speed of transport, numbers of scientific and technical workers,
advances in communication, average miles traveled per person per
year, advances in mathematics, the rising curve of knowledge. Call it
the curve of human achievement.
What is the correct way to project this curve into the future? Despite
everything, there is a stubborn “common sense” tendency to project it
along dotted line
number one-like the patent office official of a hundred years back who
quit his job “because everything had already been invented.” Even
those who don’t expect a slowing up at once tend to expect us to
reach a point of diminishing returns (dotted line number two).
Very daring minds are willing to predict that we will continue our
present rate of progress (dotted line number three-a tangent).
But the proper way to project the curve is dotted line number four-for
there is no reason, mathematical, scientific, or historical, to expect
that curve to flatten out, or to reach a point of diminishing returns, or
simply to go on as a tangent. The correct projection, by all facts
known today, is for the curve to go on up indefinitely with increasing
steepness.
The timid little predictions earlier in this article actually belong to
curve one, or, at most, to curve two. You can count on the changes in
the next fifty years at least eight times as great as the changes of the
past fifty years.
  The Age of Science has not yet opened.
      AXIOM: A “nine-days’ wonder” is taken as a matter of course on
      the tenth day.

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     AXIOM: A “common sense” prediction is sure to err on the side
     of timidity.
     AXIOM: The more extravagant a prediction sounds the more
     likely it is to come true.
     So let’s have a few free-swinging predictions about the future.
     Some will be wrong-but cautious predictions are sure to be
     wrong.
     1. 1950 Interplanetary travel is waiting at your front door-C.O.D.
     It’s yours when you pay for it.
1965 And now we are paying for it and the cost is high. But, for
reasons understandable only to bureaucrats, we have almost halted
development of a nu
clear-powered spacecraft when success was in sight. Never mind; if
we don’t another country will. By the end of this century space travel
will be cheap.
1980 And now the Apollo-Saturn Man-on-the-Moon program has
come and gone, and all we have now in the U.S.A. as a new man-in-
space program is the Space Shuttle-underfinanced and two years
behind schedule. See my article SPINOFF on page 500 of this book,
especially the last two pages.
Is space travel dead?No, because the United States is not the only
nation on this planet. Today both Japan and Germany seem to be
good bets-countries aware that endless wealth is out there for the
taking. USSR seems to be concentrating on the military aspects
rather than on space travel, and the People’s Republic of China does
not as yet appear to have the means to spare-but don’t count out
either nation; the potential is there, in both cases.
And don’t count out the United States! Today most of our citizens
regard the space program as a boondoggle (totally unaware that it is
one of the very few Federal programs that paid for themselves,
manyfold). But we are talking about twenty years from now, 2000 AD.
Let’s see it in perspective. Exactly thirty years ago George Pal and
Irving Pichel and I-and ca. 200 others-were making the motion picture
DESTINATION MOON. I remember sharply that most of the people
working on that film started out thinking that it was a silly fantasy, an
impossibility. I had my nose rubbed in it again and again, especially if
the speaker was unaware that I had written it. (Correction: written the



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first version of it. By the time it was filmed, even the banker’s wife
was writing dialog.)
      As for the general public- A trip to the Moon? Nonsense!
      That was thirty years ago, late 1949.
      Nineteen years and ten months later Apollo 11 landed on the
      Moon.

Look again at the curves on page 322. With respect
to space travel (and industry, power, and colonization) we have
dropped to that feeble curve #1-but we could shift back to curve #4
overnight if our President and/or Congress got it through their heads
that not one but all of our crisis problems can be solved by exploiting
space. Employment, inflation, pollution, population, energy, running
out of nonrenewable resources- there is pie in the sky for the U.S.A.
and for the entire planet including the impoverished “Third World.”
I won’t try to prove it here. See THE THIRD INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION by G. Harry Stine, 1979, Ace Books, 51 Madison
Avenue, New York, NY 10010, and see A STEP FARTHER OUT by
Dr. Jerry Pournelle, also Ace Books 1979-and accept my assurance
that I have known both authors well for twenty-odd years, know that
each has years of experience in aerospace, and that each has both
the formal education and the continuing study-and the horse sense!-
to be true experts in this matter.
  From almost total disbelief about space travel (99.9% +)to a
  landing on the Moon in twenty years
from President Kennedy’s announcement of intention to that Lunar
landing in only seven years . . . and still twenty years to go until the
year 2000-we can still shift to curve #4 (and get rich) almost
overnight. By 2000 A.D. we could have O’Neill colonies, self-
supporting and exporting power to Earth, at both Lagrange-4 and
Lagrange-5, transfer stations in orbit about Earth and around Luna, a
permanent base on Luna equipped with an electric catapult-and a
geriatrics retirement home.
However, I am not commissioned to predict what we could do but to
predict (guess) what is most likely to happen by 2000 A.D.
Our national loss of nerve, our escalating anti-intellectualism, our
almost total disinterest in anything that does not directly and



                                    270
immediately profit us, the shambles of public education throughout
most of our nation (especially in New York and California) cause
me to predict that our space program will continue to dwindle. It
would not surprise me (but would distress me mightily!) to see the
Space Shuttle canceled.
In the meantime some other nation or group will start exploiting
space-industry, power, perhaps Lagrange-point colonies-and
suddenly we will wake up to the fact that we have been left at the
post. That happened to us in ‘57; we came up from behind and
passed the competition. Possibly we will do it again. Possibly- But I
am making no cash bets.
2. 1950 Contraception and control of disease is revising relations
between the sexes to an extent that will change our entire social and
economic structure.
1965 This trend is so much more evident now than it was fifteen
years ago that I am tempted to call it a fulfilled prophecy. Vast
changes in sex relations are evident all around us-with the oldsters
calling it “moral decay” and the youngsters ignoring them and taking it
for granted. Surface signs: books such as Sex and the Single Girl are
smash hits; the formerlytaboo four-letter words are now seen both in
novels and popular magazines; the neologism “swinger” has come
into the language; courts are conceding that nudity and semi-nudity
are now parts of the cultural mores. But the end is not yet; this
revolution will go much farther and is now barely started.
The most difficult speculation for a science fiction writer to undertake
is to imagine correctly the secondary implications of a new factor.
Many people correctly anticipated the coming of the horseless
carriage; some were bold enough to predict that everyone would use
them and the horse would virtually disappear. But I know of no writer,
fiction or nonfiction, who saw ahead of time the vast change in the
courting and mating habits of Americans which would result primarily
from the automobile-a change which the diaphragm and the oral
contraceptive merely con-
firmed. So far as I know, no one even dreamed of the change in sex
habits the automobile would set off.
There is some new gadget in existence today which will prove to be
equally revolutionary in some other way equally unexpected. You and


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I both know of this gadget, by name and by function-but we don’t
know which one it is nor what its unexpected effect will be. This is
why science fiction is not prophecy-and why fictional speculation can
be so much fun both to read and to write.
1980 (No, I still don’t know what that revolutionary gadget is-unless it
is the computer chip.) The sexual revolution: it continues apace-
FemLib, GayLib, single women with progeny and never a lifted
eyebrow, staid old universities and colleges that permit unmarried
couples to room together on campus, group marriages, “open”
marriages, miles and miles of “liberated” beaches. Most of this can be
covered by one sentence: What used to be concealed is now done
openly. But sexual attitudes are in flux; the new ones not yet cultural
mores.
But I think I see a trend, one that might jell by 2000 A.D. The racial
biological function of “family” is the protection of children and
pregnant women. To accomplish that, family organization must be
rewarding to men as well .. . and I do not mean copulation. There is a
cynical old adage covering that: “Why keep a cow when milk is so
cheap?” A marriage must offer its members emotional, spiritual, and
physical comforts superior to those to be found in living alone if that
prime function is to be accomplished.
(Stipulated: there are individuals, both sexes, who prefer to live
alone. This is racially self-correcting.)
The American core family (father, mother, two or three children) has
ceased to be emotionally satisfying-if it ever was. It is a creation of
our times: mobility, birth control, easy divorce. Early in this century
the core family was mother, father, four to eight children.. . and was
itself a unit in an extended family of
grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins living near enough (if not in
the same house) to be mutually supportive. If a child was ill, Aunt
Cora came over to help while Aunt Abby took the other kids into her
home. See Mauve Decade fiction.
With increased mobility and fewer children this undefined extended-
family pattern disappeared almost without its disappearance being
noticed. To the extent to which it was noticed there was often glee at
being free of the nuisance of in-laws and kinfolk. It took considerably
longer to realize that the advantages had also disappeared.



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We will not get a return of the extended family of the sort that
characterized the 19th century and the early 20th . . . but the current
flux of swingers’ clubs, group marriages, spouse swapping, etc., is, in
my opinion, fumbling and almost unconscious attempts to regain the
pleasure, emotional comfort, and mutual security once found in the
extended family of two or more generations back.
Prediction: by 2000 A.D. or soon thereafter extended families of
several sorts will be more common than core families. The common
characteristic of the various types will be increased security for
children under legally enforceable contracts.
3. 1950 The most important military fact of this century is that there is
no way to repel an attack from outer space.
1965 I flatly stand by this one. True, we are now working on Nike-
Zeus and Nike-X and related systems and plan to spend billions on
such systems-and we know that others are doing the same thing.
True, it is possible to hit an object in orbit or trajectory. Nevertheless
this prediction is as safe as predicting tomorrow’s sunrise. Anti-
aircraft fire never stopped air attacks; it simply made them expensive.
The disadvantage in being at the bottom of a deep “gravity well” is
very great; gravity gauge will be as crucial in the
coming years as wind gauge was in the days when sailing ships
controlled empires. The nation that controls the Moon will control the
Earth-but no one seems willing these days to speak that nasty fact
out loud.
1980 I have just heard a convincing report that the USSR has
developed lasers far better than ours that can blind our eyes-in-the-
sky satellites and, presumably, destroy our ICBMs in flight. Stipulate
that this rumor is true: It does not change my 1950 assertion one iota.
Missiles tossed from the Moon to the Earth need not be H-bombs or
any sort of bomb-or even missile-shaped. All they need be is
massive.. . because they arrive at approximately seven miles per
second. A laser capable of blinding a satellite and of disabling an
ICBM to the point where it can’t explode would need to be orders of
magnitude more powerful in order to volatilize a house-size chunk of
Luna. For further details see my THE MOON IS A HARSH
MISTRESS.




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4. 1950 It is utterly impossible that the United States will start a
“preventive war.” We will fight when attacked, either directly or in a
territory we have guaranteed to defend.
1965 Since 1950 we have done so in several theaters and are doing
so in Viet Nam as this is written. “Preventive” or “pre-emptive” war
seems as unlikely as ever, no matter who is in the White House. Here
is a new prediction: World War III (as a major, all-out war) will not
take place at least until 1980 and could easily hold off until 2000. This
is a very happy prediction compared with the situation in 1950, as
those years of grace may turn up basic factors which (I hope!) may
postpone disaster still longer. We were much closer to ultimate
disaster around 1955 than we are today-much closer indeed than we
were at the time of the Cuban Confrontation in 1962. But the public
never knew it. All in all, things look pretty good for survival, for the
time being-and that is as good a
break as our ancestors ever had. It was far more dangerous to live in
London in 1664-5 than it is to live in a city threatened by H-bombs
today.
1980 lam forced to revise the 1950 prediction to this extent: It is no
longer certain that we will fight to repel attack on territory we have
guaranteed to defend; our behavior both with respect to Viet Nam
and to Taiwan is a clear warning to our NATO allies. The question is
not whether we should ever have been in Viet Nam or whether we
should ever have allied ourselves to the Nationalist Chinese. I do not
know of any professional military man who favored ever getting into
combat on the continent of Asia; such war for us is a logistic and
strategic disaster.
  But to break a commitment to an ally once it has been made is to
  destroy our credibility.
5. 1950 In fifteen years the housing shortage will be solved by a
“breakthrough” into new technology which will make every house now
standing as obsolete as privies.
1965 Here I fell flat on my face. There has been no breakthrough in
housing, nor is any now in prospect- instead the ancient, wasteful
methods of building are now being confirmed by public subsidies.
The degree of our backwardness in the field is hard to grasp; we
have never seen a modern house. Think what an automobile would
be if each one were custom-built from materials fetched to your

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home-what would it look like, what would it do, and how much would
it cost. But don’t set the cost lower than $100,000 or the speed higher
than 10 rn/h, if you want to be realistic about the centuries of
difference between the housing industry and the automotive industry.
  I underestimated (through wishful thinking) the power of human
  stupidity-a fault fatal to prophecy.
1980 I’m still flat on my face with my nose rubbed in the mud; the
situation is worse than ever. See A BATHROOM OF HER OWN on
page 244. And that figure of
$100,000 just above was with gold at $35 per troy ounce-so change it
to one million dollars-or call it 2700 troy ounces of gold. Or forget it.
The point is that it would be very nearly impossible to build even a
clunker automobile at any price if we built them the way we build
houses.
We have the technology to build cheap, beautiful, efficient, flexible
(modular method) houses, extremely comfortable and with the
durability of a Rolls Royce. But I cannot guess when (if ever) the
powers that be (local bureaucrats, unions, building materials
suppliers, county and state officials) will permit us poor serfs to have
modern housing.
  6. 1950 We’ll all be getting a little hungry by and by.
  1965 No new comment.
1980 Not necessarily. In 1950 I was too pessimistic concerning
population. Now I suspect that the controlling parameter is oil. In
modern agriculture oil is the prime factor-as power for farm
machinery (obviously) but also for insecticides and for fertilizers.
Since our oil policies in Washington are about as boneheaded-
counterproductive-as they can be, I have no way to guess how much
food we can raise in 2000 A.D. But no one in the United States
should be hungry in 2000 A.D.-unless we are conquered and
occupied.
7. 1950 The cult of the phony in art will disappear. So-called “modern
art” will be discussed only by psychiatrists.
  1965 No new comment.
1980 One may hope. But art reflects culture and the world is even
nuttier now than it was in 1950; these are the Crazy Years. But, while



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“fine” art continues to look like the work of retarded monkeys,
commercial art grows steadily better.
8. 1950 Freud will be classed as a pre-scientific, intuitive pioneer and
psychoanalysis will be replaced by
a growing, changing “operational psychology” based on
measurement and prediction.
  1965 No new comment.
1980 This prediction is beginning to come true. Freud is no longer
taken seriously by informed people. More and more professional
psychologists are skilled in appropriate mathematics; most of the
younger ones understand inductive methodology and the nature of
scientific confirmation and are trying hard to put rigor into their
extremely difficult, still inchoate subject. For some of the current
progress see Dr. Pournelle’s book, cited on page 325.
By 2000 A.D. we will know a great deal about how the brain functions
. . . whereas in 1900 what little we knew was wrong.
I do not predict that the basic mystery of psychology-how mass
arranged in certain complex patterns becomes aware of itself-will be
solved by 2000 A.D. I hope so but do not expect it.
9. 1950 Cancer, the common cold, and tooth decay will all be
conquered; the revolutionary new problem in medical research will be
to accomplish “regeneration,” i.e., to enable a man to grow a new leg,
rather than fit him with an artificial limb.
1965 In the meantime spectacular progress has been made in organ
transplants-and the problem of regeneration is related to this one.
Biochemistry and genetics have made a spectacular breakthrough in
“cracking the genetic code.” It is a tiny crack, however, with a long
way to go before we will have the human chromosomes charted and
still longer before we will be able to “tailor” human beings by gene
manipulation. The possibility is there-but not by year 2000. This is
probably just as well. If we aren’t bright enough to build decent
houses, are we bright enough to play God with the architecture of
human beings?
1980 I see no reason to change this prediction if you will let me
elaborate (weasel) a little. “The common




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cold” is a portmanteau expression for upper respiratory infections
which appear to be caused by a very large number of different
viruses. Viruses are pesky things. It is possible to immunize against
them, e.g., vaccination against smallpox, a virus disease. But there
are almost no chemotherapies, medicines, against viruses. That is
why “the common cold” is treated much the same way today as in
1900, i.e., support the patient with bed rest, liquids, aspirin to make
him more comfortable, keep him warm. This was standard in 1900
and it is still standard in 1980.
It is probable that your body makes antibodies against the virus of
any cold you catch. But this gives you no protection against that
virus’s hundreds of close relatives found in any airport, theater,
supermarket, or gust of dust off the street. In the meantime, while his
kinfolk take turns making you miserable, virus #1 has mutated and
you have no antibodies against the mutation.
Good news: Oncology (cancer), immunology, hematology, and “the
common cold” turn out to be strongly interrelated subjects; research
in all these is pioving fast-and a real breakthrough in any one might
mean a breakthrough in all.
10. 1950 By the end of this century mankind will have explored this
solar system, and the first ship intended to reach the nearest star will
be a building.
1965 Our editor suggested that I had been too optimistic on this one-
but I still stand by it. It is still thirty-five years to the end of the century.
For perspective; look back thirty-five years to 1930-the American
Rocket Society had not yet been founded. Another curve, similar to
the one herewith in shape but derived entirely from speed of
transportation, extrapolates to show faster-than-light travel by year
2000. I guess I’m chicken, for I am not predicting FTL ships by then, if
ever. But the prediction still stands without hedging.

1980 My money is still on the table at twenty years
and counting. Senator Proxmire can’t live forever. In the last 101/2
years men have been to the Moon several times; much of the Solar
system has been most thoroughly explored within the limits of “black
box” technology and more will be visited before this year is out.
Ah, but not explored by men-and the distances are so great. Surely
they are. . . by free-fall orbits, which is all that we have been using.

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But there are numerous proposals (and not all ours!) for constant-
boost ships, proposals that require R&D on present art only-no
breakthroughs.
Reach for your pocket calculator and figure how long it would take to
make a trip to Mars and back if your ship could boost at one-tenth
gee. We will omit some trivia by making it from parking orbit to
parking orbit, use straight-line trajectories, and ignore the Sun’s field-
we’ll be going uphill to Mars, downhill to Earth; what we lose on the
roundabouts we win on the shys.
These casual assumptions would cause Dan Alderson, ballistician at
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to faint. But after he comes out of his faint
he would agree that our answers would be of correct close order of
magnitude-and all I’m trying to prove is that even a slight constant
boost makes an enormous difference in touring the Solar System.
(Late in the 21st century we’ll offer the Economy Tour: Ten Planets in
Ten Days.)
There are an unlimited number of distances between rather wide
parameters for an Earth-MarsEarth trip but we will select one that is
nearly minimum (it’s cheating to wait in orbit at Mars for about a year
in order take the shortest trip each way.. . and unthinkable to wait
years for the closest approach). We’ll do this Space Patrol style:
There’s Mars, here we are at L-5; let’s scoot over, swing around
Mars, and come straight home. Just for drill.
Conditions: Earth-surface gravity (one “gee”) is an acceleration of
32.2 feet per second squared, or 980.7 centimeters per second
squared. Mars is in or near op
position (Mars is rising as Sun is setting). We will assume that the
round trip is 120,000,000 miles. If we were willing to wait for closest
approach we could trim that to less than 70,000,000 miles .. . but we
might have to wait as long as 17 years. So we’ll take a common or
garden variety opposition-one every 26 months-for which the
distance to Mars is about 50- to 60,000,000 miles and never over 64
million.
(With Mars in conjunction on the far side of the Sun, we could take
the scenic route of over 500 million miles-how much over depends on
how easily you sunburn. I suggest a minimum of 700 million miles.)




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You now have all necessary data to figure the time it takes to travel
Earth-Mars-Earth in a constant-boost ship-any constant-boost ship-
when Mars is at opposition. (If you insist on the scenic route, you
can’t treat the trajectory approximations as straight lines and you
can’t treat space as flat but a bit uphill. You’ll need Alderson or his
equal and a big computer, not a pocket calculator; the equations are
very hairy and sometimes shoot back.)
But us two space cadets are doing this by eyeballing it, using
Tennessee windage, an aerospace almanac, a Mickey Mouse watch,
and an SR-50 Pop discarded years ago.

We need just one equation: Velocity equals acceleration times
elapsed time: v = at
This tells us that our average speed is 1/2at-and from that we know
that the distance achieved is the average speed times the elapsed
time: d = 1/2at2
If you don’t believe me, check any physics text, encyclopedia, or
nineteen other sorts of reference books-and I did that derivation
without cracking a book but now I’m going to stop and find out
whether I’ve goofed-I’ve had years of practice in goofing. (Later-
seems okay.)
Just two things to remember: 1) This is a 4-piecee trip-boost to
midpoint, flip over and boost to brake; then do the same thing coming
home. Treat all four
legs as being equal or 30,000,000 miles, so figure one of them and
multiply by four (Dan, stop frowning; this is an approximation . . .
done with a Mickey Mouse watch.)
2) You must keep your units straight. If you start with centimeters,
you are stuck with centimeters; if you start with feet, you are stuck
with feet. So we have ¼ of the trip equals 5280 x 30,000,000 = 1.584
x 1011 feet, or 4.827 x 1012 centimeters.
One last bit: Since it is elapsed time we are after, we will rearrange
that equation (d = 1/2at2) so that you can get the answer in one
operation on your trustybut-outdated pocket calculator. . . or even on
a slide rule, as those four-significant-figures data are mere swank;
I’ve used so many approximations and ignored so many minor



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variables that I’ll be happy to get answers correct to two significant
figures.
- = t2 This gives us: t = Vd/1/2a
V2a


d is 30,000,000 miles expressed in feet, or 158,400,000,000. Set that
into your pocket calculator. Divide it by one half of one tenth of gee,
or 1.61. Push the square root button. Multiply by 4. You now have the
elapsed time of the round trip expressed in seconds so divide by
3600 and you have it in hours, and divide that by 24 and you have it
in days.
At this point you are supposed to be astonished and to start looking
for the mistake. While you are looking, I’m going to slide out to the
refrigerator.
There is no mistake. Work it again, this time in metric. Find a
reference book and check the equation. You will find the answer
elsewhere in this book but don’t look for it yet; we’ll try some other
trips you may take by 2000 A.D. if you speak Japanese or German-or
even English if Proxmire and his ilk fail of reelection.
      Same trip, worked the same way, but at only one
percent of gee. At that boost I would weigh less than my shoes weigh
here in my study.
     Hmmph! Looks as if one answer or the other must be wrong.
Bear with me. This time we’ll work it at a full gee, the acceleration you
experience lying in bed, asleep. (See Einstein’s 1905 paper.)
  (Preposterous. All three answers must be wrong.)
Please stick with me a little longer. Let’s run all three problems for a
round trip to Pluto-in 2006 A.D., give or take a year. Why 2006?
Because today Pluto has ducked inside the orbit of Neptune and
won’t reach perihelion until 1989-and I want it to be a bit farther away;
I’ve got a rabbit stashed in the hat.
Pluto ducks outside again in 2003 and by 2006 it will be (give or take
a few million miles) 31.6 A.U. from the Sun, figuring an A.U. at
92,900,000 miles or 14,950,000,000,000 centimeters as we’ll work
this both ways, MKS and English units. (All right, all right-i .495 x
1013 centimeters; it gets dull here at this typewriter.)


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Now work it all three ways, a round trip of 63.2 A.U. at a constant
boost of one gravity, one tenth gravity, and one hundredth of a gee-
and we’ll dedicate this to Clyde Tombaugh, the only living man to
discover a new planet-through months of tedious and painstaking
examination of many thousands of films.
Some think that Pluto was once a satellite and its small size makes
this possible. But it is not a satellite today. It is both far too big and
hundreds of millions of miles out of position to be an asteroid. It can’t
be a comet. So it’s a planet-or something so exotic as to be still more
of a prize.
Its size made it hard to find and thus still more of an achievment. But
Tombaugh continued the search for seventeen weary years and
many millions more films. If there is an Earth-size planet out there, it
is at least three times as distant as Pluto, and a gas giant would have
to be six times as far. Negative data win
no prizes but they are the bedrock of science.
Until James W. Christy on 22 June 1978 discovered Pluto’s satellite,
Charon, it was possible for us romantics to entertain the happy
thought that Pluto was loaded with valuable heavy metals; the best
estimate of its density made this plausible. But the mass of a planet
with a satellite can be calculated quite easily and accurately, and
from that, its density.
  The new figure was much too low, only half again as heavy as
  water. Methane snow? Perhaps.
  So once again a lovely theory is demolished by an awkward fact.
Nevertheless Pluto remains a most mysterious and most intriguing
heavenly body. A planet the size and mass of Mars might not be too
much use to us out there . . . but think of it as a fuel dump. Many
stories and many nonfictional projections speak of using the gas
giants and/or the rings of Saturn as sources of fuel. But if Pluto is
methane ice or water ice or frozen hydrogen or all three, as a source
of fuel- conventional, or fusion, or even reaction mass-Pluto has one
supremely important advantage over the gas giants: Pluto is not at
the bottom of a horridly deep gravity well.
Finished calculating? Good. Please turn to page 368 and see why I
wanted our trip to Pluto to be a distance of 31.6 A.U.-plus other
goodies, perhaps.


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11. 1950 Your personal telephone will be small enough to carry in
your handbag. Your house telephone will record messages, answer
simple inquiries, and transmit vision.
  1965 No new comment.

1980 This prediction is trivial and timid. Most of it
has already come true and the telephone system will hand you the
rest on a custom basis if you’ll pay for it. In the year 2000, with
modern telephones tied into home computers (as common then as
flush toilets are today) you’ll be able to have 3-dimensional holovision
along with stereo speech. Arthur C. Clarke says that this will do away
with most personal contact in business. I agree with all of Mr.
Clarke’s arguments and disagree with his conclusion; with us monkey
folk there is no substitute for personal contact; we enjoy it and it fills a
spiritual need.
Besides that, the business conference is often an excuse to loaf on
the boss’s time and the business convention often supplies some of
the benefits of the Roman Saturnalia.
  Nevertheless I look forward to holovideostereophones without
  giving up personal contacts.
  12. 1950 Intelligent life will be found on Mars.
1965 Predicting intelligent life on Mars looks pretty silly after those
dismal photographs. But I shan’t withdraw it until Mars has been
thoroughly explored. As yet we really have no idea-and no data-as to
just how ubiquitous and varied life may be in this galaxy; it is
conceivable that life as we don’t know it can evolve on any sort of a
planet. . . and nothing in our present knowledge of chemistry rules
this out. All the talk has been about life-as-we-know-it-which means
terrestrial conditions.
But if you feel that this shows in me a childish reluctance to give up
thoats and zitidars and beautiful Martian princesses until forced to, I
won’t argue with you-I’ll just wait.
1980 The photographs made by the Martian landers of 1976 and their
orbiting companions make the prediction of intelligent Martian life
look even sillier. But the new pictures and the new data make Mars
even more mysterious. I’m a diehard because I suspect that life is
ubiquitous-call that a religious opinion if you wish. But remember two

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things: Almost all discussion has been about Life-as-we-know-it.. .
but what about Life-as-we-don’t-know-it? If there were Martians
around the time that those amazing gullies and canyons were
formed, perhaps they went underground as
their atmosphere thinned. At present, despite wonderful pictures, our
data are very sparse; those two fixed landers are analogous to two
such landing here: one on Canadian tundra, the other in Antarctica-
hardly sufficient to solve the question: Is there intelligent life on Sol
III?
  (Is there intelligent life in Washington, D.C.?)
Whistling in the dark-I think I goofed on this one. But if in fact Mars is
uninhabited, shortly there will be a land rush that will make the
Oklahoma land stampede look gentle. Since E = mc2 came into our
lives, all real estate is potentially valuable; it can be terraformed to
suit humans. There has been so much fiction and serious, able
nonfiction published on how to terraform Mars that I shan’t add to it,
save to note one thing:
Power is no problem. Sunshine at that distance has dropped off to
about 43% of the maximum here-but Mars gets all of it and gets it all
day long save for infrequent dust storms . . . whereas the most that
Philadelphia (and like places) ever gets is 35%-and overcast days
are common. Mars won’t need solar power from orbit; it will be easier
to do it on the ground.
But don’t be surprised if the Japanese charge you a very high fee for
stamping their visa into your passport plus requiring deposit of a
prepaid return ticket or, if you ask for immigrant’s visa, charge you a
much, much higher fee plus proof of a needed colonial skill.
  For there is intelligent life in Tokyo.
13. 1950 A thousand miles an hour at a cent a mile will be
commonplace; short hauls will be made in evacuated subways at
extreme speed.
1965 I must hedge number thirteen; the “cent” I meant was scaled by
the 1950 dollar. But our currency has been going through a long
steady inflation, and no nation in history has ever gone as far as we
have along this route without reaching the explosive phase of
inflation. Ten-dollar hamburgers? Brother, we are



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headed for the hundred-dollar hamburger-for the barter-only
hamburger.
  But this is only an inconvenience rather than a disaster as long as
  there is plenty of hamburger.

1980 I must scale that “cent” again. In 1950 gold
was $35/troy ounce; this morning the London fix was $374/troy
ounce. Just last week my wife and I flew San Francisco to Baltimore
and return. We took neither the luxury class nor any of the special
discounted fares; we simply flew what we could get.
Applying the inflation factor-35/374-our tickets cost a hair less than
one cent a mile in 1950 dollars. From here on I had better give prices
in troy ounces of gold, or in Swiss francs; not even the Man in the
White House knows where this inflation is going. About those
subways: possible, even probable, by 2000 A.D. But I see little
chance that they will be financed until the dollar is stablized-a most
painful process our government hates to tackle.
  14. 1950 A major objective of applied physics will be to control
  gravity.
1965 This prediction stands. But today physics is in a tremendous
state of flux with new data piling up faster than it can be digested; it is
anybody’s guess as to where we are headed, but the wilder you
guess, the more likely you are to hit it lucky. With “elementary
particles” of nuclear physics now totaling about half the number we
used to use to list the “immutable” chemical elements, a spectator
needs a program just to keep track of the players. At the other end of
the scale, “quasars”-quasi-stellar bodies-have come along; radio
astronomy is now bigger than telescopic astronomy used to be; and
we have redrawn our picture of the universe several times, each time
enlarging it and making it more complex-I haven’t seen this week’s
theory yet, which is well, as it would be out of date before this gets
into print. Plasma physics was barely started in 1950; the same for
solid-state phys
ics. This is the Golden Age of physics-and it’s an anarchy.
19801 stick by the basic prediction. There is so much work going on
both by mathematical physicists and experimental physicists as to the
nature of gravity that it seems inevitable that twenty years from now


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applied physicists will be trying to control it. But note that I said
“trying”-succeeding may take a long time. If and when they do
succeed, a spinoff is likely to be a spaceship that is in no way a
rocket ship-and the Galaxy is ours! (Unless we meet that smarter,
meaner, tougher race that kills us or enslaves us or eats us-or all
three.)
Particle physics: the situation is even more confusing than in 1965.
Physicists now speak of more than 200 kinds of hadrons,
“elementary” heavy particles. To reduce this confusion a
mathematical construct called the “quark” was invented. Like Jell-0
quarks come in many colors and flavors.. . plus spin, charm, truth,
and beauty (or top and bottom in place of truth and beauty-or
perhaps “truth” doesn’t belong in the list, and no jokes, please, as the
physicists aren’t joking and neither am I). Put quarks together in their
many attributes and you can account for (maybe) all those 200-odd
hadrons (and have a system paralleling the leptons or light particles
as a bonus).
All very nice.. . except that no one has ever been able to pin down
even one quark. Quarks, if they exist, come packaged in clumps as
hadrons-not at random but by rules to account for each of that mob of
hadrons.
Now comes Kenneth A. Johnson, Ph.D. (Harvard ‘55), Professor of
Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (which certainly
places him in the worldwide top group of physicists) with an article
(Scientific American, July 1979, p. 112, “The Bag Model of Quark
Confinement”), an article which appears to state that quarks will
never be pinned down because
they are in sort of an eternal purdah, never to be seen even as
bubble tracks. -
  Somehow it reminds me of the dilemma when the snark is a
  boojum.
I’m not poking fun at Dr. Johnson; he is very learned and trying hard
to explain his difficult subject to the unlearned such as I.
But, in the meantime I suggest reading The Hunting of the Snark
while waiting patiently for 2000 A.D. We have a plethora of data;
perhaps in twenty more years the picture will be simplified. Perhaps-



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15. 1950 We will not achieve a “World State” in the predictable future.
Nevertheless, Communism will vanish from this planet.
  1965 I stand flatly behind prediction number fifteen.
1980 I still stand flatly behind the first sentence of that two-part
prediction above. The second part I could weasel out of by pointing
out that on this planet no state that calls itself Marxist or Socialist or
Communist has ever established a system approximating that called
for by the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. And never will;
Marx’s utopia does not fit human beings. The state will not “wither
away.”
But I shan’t weasel as I am utterly dismayed by the political events of
the past 15-20 years. At least two thirds of the globe now calls itself
Marxist. Another large number of countries are military dictatorships.
Another large group (including the United States) are constitutional
democratic republics but so heavily tinged with socialism (“welfare
state”) that all of them are tottering on the brink of bankruptcy and
collapse.
So far as I can see today the only thing that could cause the soi-
disant Marxist countries to collapse in as little time as twenty years
would be for the United States to be conquered and occupied by the
USSR- and twenty years ago I thought that this was a strong
possibility. (I’m more optimistic now, under the pres
ent three-cornered standoff.)
If we were to be conquered and occupied, the Communist world
might collapse rather quickly. We have been propping them up
whenever they were in real trouble (frequently!) for about half a
century.
16. 1950 Increasing mobility will disenfranchise a majority of the
population. About 1990 a constitutional amendment will do away with
state lines while retaining the semblance.
  1965 No further comment.
19801 goofed. I will be much surprised if either half of this double
prediction comes to pass by 2000-at least in the form described and
for the reasons I had in mind. The franchise now extends to any
warm body over eighteen years of age and that franchise can be
transferred to another state in less time than it takes the citizen to
find housing in his/her new state.

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Thus no constitutional amendment is needed. But the state lines are
fading year by year anyhow as power continues to move from the
states to the Federal government and especially into the hands of
nonelected bureaucrats.
17. 1950 All aircraft will be controlled by a giant radar net run on a
continent-wide basis by a multiple electronic “brain.”
  1965 No further comment.
1980 This prediction still stands-although it may be my wishful
thinking. Such a system was designed over thirty years ago;
Congress wouldn’t buy it. It would be more expensive today . . . and
is far more urgently needed. Anyone who has ever been in the tower
of a busy field or has ever ridden in the “office” of a commercial plane
during a takeoff or landing at a busy field knows what I mean. All our
fields are overloaded but anyone who goes in or out of San Diego or
of O’Hare-Chicago or-but why go on? Our airplanes are pretty durn
wonderful . . . but our method of handling
air traffic at fields is comparable to Manhattan with
out traffic lights. -
I shall continue to fly regularly for two reasons: 1) Mrs. Heinlein and I
hope to go out in a common disaster. 2) Consider the alternatives:
AMTRAK (ugh!), buses (two ughs!), and driving oneself. The latter is
fine for short distances (OPEC and Washington permitting) but, while
in my younger days I drove across this continent so many times that
I’ve lost count, today I am no longer physically up to such a trip even
with a chauffeur.
But that totally-automated traffic control system ought to be built.
Expensive, yes-but what price do we place on a hundred dead
passengers, a flight crew, and a modern airliner? In the present state
of the art in computers and in radar neither the pilot nor the controller
should be in the loop at landing or take off; they should simply be
alert, ready to override, because even the most perfect machinery is
subject to Murphy’s Law. But all routine (99.9%+)takeoffs and
landings should be made by computer.
If this pushes small private planes onto separate and smaller fields,
so be it. Bicycles do not belong on freeways. I hate to say that, as
there is nothing more fun than a light sports plane.
  (Nothing that is not alive, I mean. Vive la difference!)


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(On air traffic control I speak with a modicum of authority. I returned
to the aircraft industry for a short time in 1948 to research this
subject, then wrote an article aimed at the slicks: THE BILLION-
DOLLAR EYE. I missed; it is still unpublished.)
18. 1950 Fish and yeast will become our principal sources of
proteins. Beef will be a luxury; lamb and mutton will disappear.
1965 I’ll hedge number eighteen a little. Hunger is not now a problem
in the USA and need not be in the year 2000-but hunger is a world
problem and would
at once become an acute problem for us if we were conquered.. . a
distinct possibility by 2000. Between our present status and that of
subjugation lies a whole spectrum of political and economic possible
shapes to the future under which we would share the worldwide
hunger to a greater or lesser extent. And the problem grows. We can
expect to have to feed around half a billion Americans circa year
2000-our present huge surpluses would then represent acute
shortages even if we never shipped a ton of wheat to India.
1980 It would now appear that the USA population in 2000 A.D. will
be about 270,000,000 instead of 500,000,000. I have been collecting
clippings on demography for forty years; all that the projections have
in common is that all of them are wrong. Even that figure of
270,000,000 may be too high; today the only reason our population
continues to increase is that we oldsters are living longer; our current
birthrate is not sufficient even to replace the parent generation.
  19. 1950 Mankind will not destroy itself, nor will “Civilization” be
  destroyed.
  1965 I stand by prediction number nineteen.
1980 I still stand by prediction number nineteen. There will be wars
and we will be in some of them- and some may involve atomic
weapons. But there will not be that all-destroying nuclear holocaust
that forms the background of so many SF stories. There are three
reasons for this: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the
People’s Republic of China.
Why? Because the three strongest countries in the world (while
mutually detesting each the other two) have nothing to gain and
everything to lose in an allout swapping of H-bombs. Because



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Kremlin bosses are not idiots and neither are those in Beijing
(Peiping)(Peking).
If another country-say Israel, India, or the South African Republic-
gets desperate and tosses an A- or H-bomb, that country is likely to
receive three phone
calls simultaneously, one from each of the Big Three:
“You have exactly three minutes to back down. Then we destroy
you.”
After World War II I never expected that our safety would ever
depend on a massive split in Communist International-but that is
exactly what has happened.
  1950 Here are things we won’t get soon, if ever:
  Travel through time.
  Travel faster than the speed of light.
  “Radio” transmission of matter.
  Manlike robots with manlike reactions.
  Laboratory creation of life.
  Real understanding of what “thought” is and how it is related to
    matter.
  Scientific proof of personal survival after death.
  Nor a permanent end to war. (I don’t like that prediction any better
    than you do.)

1950 Prediction of gadgets is a parlor trick anyone can learn; but only
a fool would attempt to predict details of future history (except as
fiction, so labeled); there are too many unknowns and no techniques
for integrating them even if they were known.
Even to make predictions about overall trends in technology is now
most difficult. In fields where before World War II there was one man
working in public, there are now ten, or a hundred, working in secret.
There may be six men in the country who have a clear picture of what
is going on in science today.There may not be even one.
This is in itself a trend. Many leading scientists consider it a factor as
disabling to us as the nonsense of Lysenkoism is to Russian
technology. Nevertheless there are clear-cut trends which are certain
to make this coming era enormously more productive and interesting
than the frantic one we have just passed through. Among them are:


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Cybernetics: The study of communication and con-
trol of mechanisms and organisms. This includes the wonderful field
of mechanical and electronic “brains”-but is not limited to it. (These
“brains” are a factor in themselves that will speed up technical
progress the way a war does.)
Semantics: A field which seems concerned only with definitions of
words. It is not; it is a frontal attack on epistemology-that is to say,
how we know what we know, a subject formerly belonging to long-
haired philosophers.
New tools of mathematics and logic, such as calculus of statement,
Boolean logic, morphological analysis, generalized symbology, newly
invented mathematics of every sort-there is not space even to name
these enormous fields, but they offer us hope in every field- medicine,
social relations, biology, economics, anything.
Biochemistry: Research into the nature of protoplasm, into enzyme
chemistry, viruses, etc., give hope not only that we may conquer
disease, but that we may someday understand the mechanisms of
life itself. Through this, and with the aid of cybernetic machines and
radioactive isotopes, we may eventually acquire a rigor of chemistry.
Chemistry is not a discipline today; it is a jungle. We know that
chemical behavior depends on the number of orbital electrons in an
atom and that physical and chemical properties follow the pattern
called the Periodic Table. We don’t know much else, save by cut-
and-try, despite the great size and importance of the chemical
industry. When chemistry becomes a discipline, mathematical
chemists will design new materials, predict their properties, and tell
engineers how to make them-without ever entering a laboratory.
We’ve got a long way to go on that one!
Nucleonics: We have yet to find out what makes the atom tick.
Atomic power?-yes, we’ll have it, in convenient packages-when we
understand the nucleus. The field of radioisotopes alone is larger
than was the
entire known body of science in 1900. Before we are through with
these problems, we may find out how the universe is shaped and
why. Not to mention enormous unknown vistas best represented by
?????




                                    290
Some physicists are now using two time scales, the T-scale, and the
tau-scaie. Three billion years on one scale can equal an incredibly
split second on the other scale-and yet both apply to you and your
kitchen stove. Of such anarchy is our present state in physics.
  For such reasons we must insist that the Age of Science has not
  yet opened.
(Still 1950) The greatest crisis facing us is not Russia, not the Atom
bomb, not corruption in government, not encroaching hunger, not the
morals of young. It is a crisis in the organization and accessibility of
human knowledge. We own an enormous “encyclopedia”-which isn’t
even arranged alphabetically. Our “file cards” are spilled on the floor,
nor were they ever in order. The answers we want may be buried
somewhere in the heap, but it might take a lifetime to locate two
already known facts, place them side by side and derive a third fact,
the one we urgently need.
  Call it the Crisis of the Librarian.
We need a new “specialist” who is not a specialist, but a synthesist.
We need a new science to be the perfect secretary to all other
sciences.
But we are not likely to get either one in a hurry and we have a
powerful lot of grief before us in the meantime.
Fortunetellers can always be sure of repeat customers by predicting
what the customer wants to hear. . . it matters not whether the
prediction comes true. Contrariwise, the weatherman is often blamed
for bad weather.
  Brace yourself.
In 1900 the cloud on the horizon was no bigger than a man’s hand-
but what lay ahead was the Panic of 1907, World War I, the panic
following it, the Depres
sion, Fascism, World War II, the Atom Bomb, and Red Russia.
  Today the clouds obscure the sky, and the wind that overturns the
  world is sighing in the distance.
The period immediately ahead will be the roughest, cruelest one in
the long, hard history of mankind. It will probably include the worst
World War of them all. It might even end with a war with Mars, God
save the Mark! Even if we are spared that fantastic possibility, it is


                                     291
certain that there will be no security anywhere, save that which you
dig out of your own inner spirit.
But what of that picture we drew of domestic luxury and tranquility for
Mrs. Middleclass, style 2000 A.D.?
  She lived through it. She survived.
Our prospects need not dismay you, not if you or your kin were at
Bloody Nose Ridge, at Gettysburg- or trudged across the Plains. You
and I are here because we carry the genes of uncountable ancestors
who fought-and won-against death in all its forms. We’re tough. We’ll
survive. Most of us.
      We’ve lasted through the preliminary bouts; the main event is
      coming up.
      But it’s not for sissies.
      The last thing to come fluttering out of Pandora’s Box was
      Hope-without which men die.
The gathering wind will not destroy everything, nor will the Age of
Science change everything. Long after the first star ship leaves for
parts unknown, there will still be outhouses in upstate New York,
there will still be steers in Texas, and-no doubt-the English will still
stop for tea.
Afterthoughts, fifteen years later-(1965)
I see no reason to change any of the negative predictions which
follow the numbered affirmative ones. They are all conceivably
possible; they are all wildly
unlikely by year 2000. Some of them are debatable if the terms are
defined to suit the affirmative side-definitions of “life” and “manlike,”
for example. Let it stand that I am not talking about an amino acid in
one case, or a machine that plays chess in the other.
Today the forerunners of synthesists are already at work in many
places. Their titles may be anything; their degrees may be in
anything-or they may have no degrees. Today they are called
“operations researchers,” or sometimes “systems development
engineers,” or other interim tags. But they are all interdisciplinary
people, generalists, not specialists- the new Renaissance Man. The
very explosion of data which forced most scholars to specialize very
narrowly created the necessity which evoked this new non-specialist.
So far, this “unspecialty” is in its infancy; its methodology is inchoate,


                                    292
the results are sometimes trivial, and no one knows how to train to
become such a man. But the results are often spectacularly brilliant,
too-this new man may yet save all of us.
  I’m an optimist. I have great confidence in Homo sapiens.
We have rough times ahead-but when didn’t we? Things have always
been “tough all over.” H-bombs, Communism, race riots, water
shortage-all nasty problems. But not basic problems, merely current
ones.
We have three basic and continuing problems: The problem of
population explosion; the problem of data explosion; and the problem
of government.
Population problems have a horrid way of solving themselves when
they are not solved rationally; the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
are always saddled up and ready to ride. The data explosion is now
being solved, mostly by cybernetics and electronics men rather than
by librarians-and if the solutions are less than perfect, at least they
are better than what
Grandpa had to work with. The problem of government has not been
solved either by the “Western Democracies” or the “Peoples’
Democracies,” as of now. (Anyone who thinks the people of the
United States have solved the problem of government is using too
short a time scale.) The peoples of the world are now engaged in a
long, long struggle with no end in sight, testing whether one concept
works better than another; in that conflict millions have already died
and it is possible that hundreds of millions will die in it before year
2000. But not all.
I hold both opinions and preferences as to the outcome. But my
personal preference for a maximum of looseness is irrelevant; what
we are experiencing is an evolutionary process in which personal
preference matters, at most, only statistically. Biologists, ecologists in
particular, are working around to the idea that natural selection and
survival of the fittest is a notion that applies more to groups and how
they are structured than it does to individuals. The present problem
will solve itself in the cold terms of evolutionary survival, and in the
course of it both sides will make changes in group structure. The
system that survives might be called “Communism” or it might be
called “Democracy” (the latter is my guess)-but one thing we can be
certain of: it will not resemble very closely what either Marx or

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Jefferson had in mind. Or it might be called by some equally
inappropriate neologism; political tags are rarely logical.
For Man is rarely logical. But I have great confidence in Man, based
on his past record. He is mean, ornery, cantankerous, illogical,
emotional- and amazingly hard to kill. Religious leaders have faith in
the spiritual redemption of Man; humanist leaders subscribe to a
belief in the perfectibility of Man through his own efforts; but I am not
discussing either of these two viewpoints. My confidence in our
species lies in its past history and is founded quite as much on Man’s
so-called vices as on his so-called vir
tues. When the chips are down, quarrelsomeness and selfishness
can be as useful to the survival of the human race as is altruism, and
pig-headedness can be a trait superior to sweet reasonableness. If
this were not true, these “vices” would have died out through the
early deaths of their hosts, at least a half million years back.
I have a deep and abiding confidence in Man as he is, imperfect and
often unlovable-plus still greater confidence in his potential. No
matter how tough things are, Man copes. He comes up with adequate
answers from illogical reasons. But the answers work.
  Last to come out of Pandora’s Box was a gleaming, beautiful thing-
  eternal Hope.
(1980-I see no point in saying more. R.A.H.)




If It’s Sinful, It’s More Fun.

FOREWORD
The editor who disliked science fiction (and me) but liked my sales
grumbled to me, on my delivering my annual boys’ novel, that she did
wish that someone would write girls’ stories. I answered, “Very well,
I’ll write a story for girls. When do you want it?”
She was simultaneously astonished, offended, and amused at the
ridiculous and arrogant notion that a mere man could write stories for


                                   294
girls. So that’s how Puddin’ was born: I started writing first-person-
female-adolescent stories-but not for that old harridan.
Since this is not the first of the Puddin’ stories, let me introduce her.’
1-icr name is Maureen, her nickname derives from her weight
problem. She is eternally an undergraduate omi a small campus in
Somewhere, U.S.A., iihere her father teaches anthropology smokes
his pipe, (01(1 ie(u/~--uii(‘iyns I1t~ niothier 1~ (I Re;iai~oiice 1’foi who
does everything. Maureen has an unbearable younger brother (all
younger brothers are unbearable; I should know, I was one).
I grew so fond of Maureen that I helped her to get rid of that excess
weight, changed her name to “Podkayne,” and moved her to Mars
(along with her unbearable kid brother). And now and again she turns
up under other names in other science fiction stories.
Nevertheless Maureen still attends classes on this campus in Never-
Neverland. I had intended to do a full book of Puddin’ short stories
under the title MEN ARE EXASPERATING. I have enough stories for
a fat volume hut a.s vet I have not writ/en au of them down. One in
  i~’~ i’n~ \ it )//J R -~\ L) / 111 4 \ 1 141. k 1,\ GDO4I)

&~€n~ i,~Ji,i~ O( ~’1~ tH n’itl€ it --~-~I /10/thIef lii 11, 0 lithe
doi 1a, ‘lo HIL’,I .~11, JLiiklih 1<eej~ looking at inc nil/i l?1(;i
11)11111 cVe~. / (‘01? ii ‘iilf 1/101 01W H11VTI/JLL’ I gel a full do
obsolutclv lice 0/ oIlier pressures -say about / 997.

Three 0i/wr.~ are a/i/lost as m’ead\’ to ~i’ri1e, and I would
lime eiiouighi f~r 0 1)001<.

And vet . . . amid vet- Is t’uddin total/v obsolete? This
campus never has riots. The girls are not “on the Pill.” (Or if they are,
the subject is not mentioned.) There is no drug problem. In short, I
have described college life of a bygone day.
But don’t misunderstand me. My teens were the Torrid Twenties and
exactly the same things went on then as now.. . but were kept under
cover. When I was a freshman in college, the nearest connection for
marijuana was a drugstore a hundred yards off campus; for H or C it
was necessary to walk another block. But bootleg liquor (taxfree)
would be delivered on or off campus at any hour.


                                     295
  Did I avail myself of any of these amenities? None of your
  business, Buster!
As for sex, each generation thinks it invented sex,’ each generation is
total/v mistaken. Anything along that line today was commonplace
both in Pompeii and in Victo~’ia mi Engla nd, the diff~re;ices lie only
in the degree of coi ci up-if any.
I may never publish the book MEN ARE EXASPERATING; I’m not
sure it has a market and, at my age, there are more stories that I
want to write (and are certain of publication) than I can possibly write
before the black camel kneels at my door.
  I hope you like Puddin’.

CLIFF AND THE CALORIES
According to Daddy, I’ll eat anything standing still or even moving
slowly. But Mother said nonsense, I simply have a high metabolic
rate.
Daddy answered, “You haven’t had it checked, so how do you know?
Puddin’, stand sideways and let me look at you.”
Junior said, “She hasn’t got a ‘sideways,’ “ and let loose a perfectly
horrible laugh that is supposed to sound like Woody Woodpecker and
does, only worse. Of what use is the male of the species between the
ages of two and sixteen? Later on, they are bearable, even
indispensable-at least I would find it difficult to dispense with Cliff,
although Junior may never be an asset.
  That’s how I went on a diet.
It started with Cliff-most things do. I am going to marry Cliff, only I
haven’t told him yet. I have never had any cause to doubt the
sincerity of Cliff’s devotion, but I have sometimes wondered what it
was he found most attractive about me: my character, disposition,
and true worth, or my so-to-speak physical attributes.
The bathroom scales were beginning to make me think it was the
former. Perhaps that should have made me happy, but I have yet to
find the girl who would swap a twenty-one-inch waist and a good
silhouette for sterling merit. Not that I could hope to be
a raving beauty, but a few wolf whistles never did any harm and are
good for the morale.’


                                   296
I had just had a chance to test Cliff’s point of view. A girl showed up
at school who was exactly my size; we compared measurements.
The point is, on Clarice it looked good-cursive and bountiful but good.
Maureen, I told myself, here is a chance to get an honest opinion out
of Cliff.
I saw to it that he got a good look at her at tennis practice. As we left I
said craftily, “That new girl, Clarice-she has a lovely figure.”
  Cliff looked over his shoulder and replied. “Oh, sure-from her
  ankles down.”
I had my answer and I didn’t like it. Cliff didn’t care for my type of
figure; divorced from my personality it did not appeal to him. I should
have felt a warm glow, knowing it for true love. I didn’t; I felt terrible.
It was when I refused a second helping of potatoes that evening that
the subject of my metabolism came up.
I went to the library next day and looked into this matter of diet. I
hadn’t known there were so many books about it. Finally I found one
that made sense:
Eat and Grow Slender. That struck me as an excellent idea.
I took it home to study. I got a few crackers and some cheese and ate
them absent-mindedly while I thumbed through the book. There was
a plan for losing ten pounds in ten days; the menus looked pretty
skimpy. There was another for losing ten pounds in a month. That’s
for me, I said; no need to be fanatic.
There was a chapter about calories. They make it so simple: one ice-
cream cone, one hundred and fifty calories; three dates, eighty-four
calories.
My eye lit on “soda crackers”; I knew they wouldn’t count much and
they didn’t-only twenty-one calories apiece. Then I looked up
“cheese.”
Arithmetic stirred in my brain and I had a chilly feeling. I went into
Daddy’s study and used his postal
scale to weigh the cheese that had not already become Maureen.
I did the arithmetic three times. Including two little bits of fudge I had
eaten six hundred and seventy calories, more than half of a day’s



                                    297
allowance a~ given in the reducing diet! And I had only meant to stay
the pangs until dinnertime.
  Maureen, I said, this time you’ve got to be a fanatic; it’s the ten-day
  die-trying diet for you.
I planned to keep my affairs to myself, selecting the diet from what
was placed before me, but such a course is impossible in a family
that combines the worst aspects of a Senate investigation with the
less brutal methods of a third degree. I got away with passing up the
cream-of-tomato soup by being a little bit late, but when I refused the
gravy, there was nothing to do but show them the book.
Mother said a growing girl needed her food. I pointed out that I had
quit growing vertically and it was time I quit horizontally. Junior
opened his mouth and I stuffed a roll into it. That gave Daddy a
chance to say, “Let’s put it up to Doc Andrews. If he gives her the
green light, she can starve herself gaunt. She’s a free agent.”
So Daddy and I went to Doctor Andrews’ office next day. Daddy had
an appointment anyhow-he has terrible colds every spring. Doctor
Andrews sent Daddy across the hall to Doctor Grieb who specializes
in allergies and things, then he saw me.
I’ve known Doctor Andrews since my first squawk, so I told him
everything, even about Cliff, and showed him the book. He thumbed
through it, then he weighed me and listened to my heart and took my
blood pressure. “Go ahead,” he told me, “but make it the thirtyday
diet. I don’t want you fainting in the classroom.”
I guess I had counted on him to save me from my will power. “How
about exercise?” I said hopefully. “I’m pretty active. Won’t I need to
eat more to offset it?”
He roared. “Honey child,” he said, “do you know how far you would
have to hike to burn up one chocolate malt? Eight miles! It will help,
but not much.”
     “How long do I keep this up?”-I asked faintly.
     “Until you reach the weight you want-or until your character
     plays out.”
I marched out with my jaw set. If a girl doesn’t have a figure or
character either, what has she got left?
Mother was home when we got there. Daddy picked her up and
kissed her and said, “Now you’ve got two of us on diets!”


                                   298
  “Two?” said Mother.
“Look.” Daddy peeled off his shirt. His arms were covered with little
red pin pricks, some redder than others, arranged in neat rows. “I’m
allergic,” he announced proudly. “Those aren’t real colds. I’m allergic
to practically everything. That one”- he pointed to a red welt- “is
bananas. That one is corn. That one is cow’s milk protein. And there
is pollen in honey. Wait.” He hauled out a list: “Rhubarb, tapioca,
asparagus, lima beans, coconut, mustard, cow’s milk, apricot, beets,
carrots, lamb, cottonseed oil, lettuce, oysters, chocolate-here, you
read it; it’s your proble m.
“It’s a good thing that I went to the campus today and signed up for
an evening class in domestic dietetics. From now on this family is
going to be fed scientifically,” Mother said.
That should have been the worst of it, but it wasn’t. Junior announced
that he was training for hockey and he had to have a training-table
diet-which to him meant beef, dripping with blood, whole-wheat toast,
and practically nothing else. Last season he had discovered that,
even with lead weights in his pockets, he didn’t have what it took for a
body check. Next season he planned to be something between Paul
Bunyan and Gorgeous George. Hence the diet.
By now, Mother was on a diet, too, a scientific one, based on what
she had learned during the two weeks
she had actually attended classes. Mother pored over charts and we
each had separate trays like a hospital, the time I broke my ankle
playing second base for the West Side Junior Dodgers. Mother says
a girl with my figure should not be a tomboy, but I said that a tomboy
should not have my figure. Anyhow, I am no longer a tomboy since
Cliff came into my life.
Somehow, Mother found things that weren’t on Daddy’s verboten list-
stewed yak and pickled palm fronds and curried octopus and such. I
asked if Daddy had been checked for those too? He said, “Tend to
your knitting, Puddin’,” and helped himself to more venison pasty. I
tried not to watch.
Mother’s own diet was as esoteric, but less attractive. She tried to
tempt Junior and me with her seaweed soup or cracked wheat or raw
rhubarb, but we stuck to our own diets. Eating is fun, but only if it’s
food.


                                  299
Breakfast was easiest; Daddy breakfasted later than I did-he had no
lectures earlier than ten o’clock that semester.
I would lie abed while our budding athlete wolfed down his Breakfast
of Champions, then slide out at the last minute, slurp my glass of
tomato juice (twentyeight calories), and be halfway to school before I
woke up. By then it would be too late to be tempted.
I carried my pitiful little lunch. Cliff started packing his lunch, too, and
we picnicked together. He never noticed what I ate or how much.
I didn’t want Cliff to notice, not yet. I planned to make him faint with
the way I would look in my new formal at graduation prom.
It did not work out. Cliff took two final exams early and left for
California for the summer and I spent the night of the prom in my
room, nibbling celery (four calories per stalk) and thinking about life.
  We got ready for our summer trip immediately thereafter. Daddy
  voted for New Orleans.
Mother shook her head. “Impossibly hot. Besides, I don’t want you
tempted by those Creole restaurants.”
“Just what I had in mind,” Daddy answered. “Finest gourmet
restaurants in the country. You can’t keep us on diets while traveling;
it isn’t practical. Antoine’s, here I come!”
   “No,” said Mother.
   “Yes,” said Daddy.
So we went to California. I was ready to throw my weight (which was
still too much) in with Daddy, when California was mentioned. I hadn’t
expected to see Cliff until fall. I put thoughts of bouillabaisse and
Shrimp Norfolk out of mind; Cliff won, but it was nearer than I like to
think.
The trip was hardly a case of merrie-merrie-be. Junior sulked
because he wasn’t allowed to take along his lifting weights, and
Mother was loaded with charts and reference books and menus.
Each time we stopped she would enter into long negotiations,
involving a personal interview with the chef, while we got hungrier,
and hungrier.
We were coming to Kingman, Arizona, when Mother announced that
she didn’t think we could find a restaurant to take care of our needs.
“Why not?” demanded Daddy. “The people there must eat.”


                                     300
Mother shuffled her lists and suggested that we go on through to Las
Vegas. Daddy said that if he had known this trip was going to be
another Donner party, he would have studied up on how to cook
human flesh.
While they discussed it we slid through Kingman and turned north
toward Boulder Dam. Mother looked worriedly at the rugged hills and
said, “Perhaps you had better turn back, Charles. It will be hours
before we reach Las Vegas and there isn’t a thing on the map.
Daddy gripped the wheel and looked grim. Daddy will not backtrack
for less than a landslide, as Mother should have known.
I was beyond caring. I expected to leave my bones whitening by the
road with a notice: She tried and she died.
We had dropped out of those hills and into the bleakest desert
imaginable when Mother said, “You’ll have to turn back, Charles.
Look at your gasoline gauge.”
  Daddy set his jaw and speeded up. “Charles!” said Mother.
  “Quiet!” Daddy answered. “I see a gas station ahead.”
The sign read Santa Claus, Arizona. I blinked at it, thinking I was at
last seeing a mirage. There was a gas station, all right, but that
wasn’t all.
You know what most desert gas stations look like- put together out of
odds and ends. Here was a beautiful fairytale cottage with wavy
candy stripes in the shingles. It had a broad brick chimney-and Santa
Claus was about to climb down the chimney!
  Maureen, I said, you’ve overdone this starvation business; now you
  are out of your head.
Between the station and the cottage were two incredible little dolls’
houses. One was marked Cinderella’s House and Mistress Mary
Quite Contrary was making the garden grow. The other one needed
no sign; the Three Little Pigs, and Big Bad Wolf was stuck in its
chimney.
  “Kid stuff!” says Junior, and added, “Hey, Pop, do we eat here?
  Huh?”
“We just gas up,” answered Daddy. “Find a pebble to chew on. Your
mother has declared a hunger strike.”



                                   301
Mother did not answer and headed toward the cottage. We went
inside, a bell bonged, and a sweet contralto voice boomed, “Come in!
Dinner is ready!”
The inside was twice as big as the outside and was the prettiest
dining room imaginable, fresh, new, and clean. Heavenly odors
drifted out of the kitchen. The owner of the voice came out and
smiled at us.

We knew who she was because her kitchen apron
had “Mrs. Santa Claus” embroidered across it. She
made me feel slender, but for her it was perfectly right.
Can you imagine Mrs. Santa Claus being skinny?
  “How many are there?” she asked.
“Four,” said Mother, “but-“ Mrs. Santa Claus dis
appeared into the kitchen.
Mother sat down at a table and picked up a menu. I
did likewise and started to drool-here is why:


Minted Fruit Cup Rouge
Pot-au-feu a la Creole
Chicken Velvet Soup
Roast Veal with Fine Herbs
Ham Soufflé
Yankee Pot Roast
Lamb Hawaii
Potatoes Lyonnaise
Riced Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes Maryland
Glazed Onions
Asparagus Tips with Green Peas
Chicory Salad with
Roquefort Dressing
Artichoke Hearts with Avocado
Beets in Aspic
Cheese Straws
Miniature Cinnamon Rolls
Hot Biscuits
Sherry Almond Ice Cream


                                   302
Rum Pie
Pêches Flambées Royales
Peppermint Cloud Cake~
Devil’s Food Cake
Angel Berry Pie
  Coffee Tea Milk
(Our water is trucked fifteen miles;
please help us save it.)
Thank you. Mrs. Santa Claus

It made me dizzy, so I looked out the window. We were still spang in
the middle of the grimmest desert in the world.
I started counting the calories in that subversive document. I got up
to three thousand and lost track, because fruit cups were placed in
front of us. I barely tasted mine-and my stomach jumped and started
nibbling at my windpipe.
  Daddy came in, said, “Well!” and sat down, too. Junior followed.
Mother said, “Charles, there is hardly anything here you can touch. I
think I had better-“ She headed for the kitchen.
     Daddy had started reading the menu. He said, “Wait, Martha!
     Sit down.” Mother sat.
     Presently he said, “Do I have plenty of clean handkerchiefs?”
     Mother said, “Yes, of course. Why-“
“Good. I feel an attack coming on. I’ll start with the pot-au-feu and-
Mother said, “Charles!”
“Peace, woman! The human race has survived upwards of five million
years eating anything that could be chewed and swallowed.” Mrs.
Santa Claus came back in and Daddy ordered lavishly, every word
stabbing my heart. “Now,” he finished, “if you will have that carried in
by eight Nubian slaves-“
  “We’ll use a jeep,” Mrs. Santa Claus promised and turned to
  Mother.
Mother was about to say something about chopped grass and vitamin
soup but Daddy cut in with, “That was for both of us. The kids will
order for themselves.” Mother swallowed and said nothing.
  Junior never bothers with menus. “I’ll have a double cannibal
  sandwich,” he announced.

                                   303
  Mrs. Santa Claus flinched. “What,” she asked ominously, “is a
  cannibal sandwich?”

Junior explained. Mrs. Santa Claus looked at him as
if she hoped he would crawl back into the woodwork. At last she said,
“Mrs. Santa Claus always gives people what they want. But you’ll
have to eat it in the kitchen; other people will be coming in for dinner.”
   “Oke,” agreed Junior.
   “Now what would you like, honey?” she said to me.
   “I’d like everything,” I answered miserably, “but I’m on a reducing
      diet.”
   She clucked sympathetically. “Anything special you mustn’t eat?”
   “Nothing in particular-just food. I mustn’t eat food.”
She said, “You will have a hard time choosing a lowcaloric meal here.
I’ve never been able to work up interest in such cooking. I’ll serve you
the same as your parents; you can eat what you wish and as little as
you wish.”
  “All right,” I said weakly.
Honestly, I tried. I counted up to ten between bites, then I found I was
counting faster so as to finish each course before the next one
arrived.
Presently I knew I was a ruined woman and I didn’t care. I was
surrounded by a warm fog of calories. Once my conscience peeked
over the edge of my plate and I promised to make up for it tomorrow.
It went back to sleep.
Junior came out of the kitchen with his face covered by a wedge of
pinkstriped cake. “Is that a cannibal sandwich?” I asked.
       “Huh?” he answered. “You should see what she’s got out there.
       She ought to run a training table.”
       A long time later Daddy said, “Let’s hit the road. I hate to.”
       Mrs. Santa Claus said, “Stay here if you like. We can
       accommodate you.”
       So we stayed and it was lovely.
I woke up resolved to skip even my twenty-eight calories of tomato
juice, but I hadn’t reckoned with Mrs. Santa Claus. There were no
menus; tiny cups of coffee appeared as you sat down, then other
things, decep


                                   304
tively, one at a time. Like this: grapefruit, milk, oatmeal and cream,
sausage and eggs and toast and butter and jam, bananas and
cream-then when you were sure that they had played themselves
out, in came the fluffiest waffle in the world, more butter and
strawberry jam and syrup, and then more coffee.
I ate all of it, my personality split hopelessly between despair and
ecstasy. We rolled out of there feeling wonderful. “Breakfast,” said
Daddy, “should be compulsory, like education. I hypothesize that
correlation could be found between the modern tendency to skimp
breakfast and the increase in juvenile delinquency.
  I said nothing. Men are my weakness; food my ruin-but I didn’t
  care.
  We lunched at Barstow, only I stayed in the car and tried to nap.
Cliff met us at our hotel and we excused ourselves because Cliff
wanted to drive me out to see the university. When we reached the
parking lot he said, “What has happened? You look as if you had lost
your last friend-and you are positively emaciated.”
“Oh, Cliff!” I said, and blubbered on his shoulder. Presently he wiped
my nose and started the car. As we drove I told him about it. He
didn’t say anything, but after a bit he made a left turn. “Is this the way
to the campus?” I asked.
  “Never you mind.”
  “Cliff, are you disgusted with me?”
Instead of answering me, he pulled up near a big public building and
led me inside; it turned out to be the art museum. Still refusing to talk,
he steered me into an exhibition of old masters. Cliff pointed at one of
them. “That,” he said, “is my notion of a beautiful woman.”
I looked. It was The Judgment of Paris by Rubens. “And that-and
that-“ added Cliff. Every picture he pointed to was by Rubens, and I’ll
swear his models had never heard of dieting.
“What this country needs,” said Cliff, “is more plump girls-and more
guys like me who appreciate them.”
I didn’t say anything until we got outside; I was too busy rearranging
my ideas. Something worried me, so I reminded him of the time I had
asked his opinion of Clarice, the girl who is just my size and
measurements. He managed to remember. “Oh, yes! Very beautiful
girl, a knockout!”

                                    305
“But, Cliff, you said-“
He grabbed my shoulders. “Listen, featherbrain, think I’ve got rocks in
my head? Would I say anything that might make you jealous?”
   “But I’m never jealous!”
   “So you say! Now where shall we eat? Romanoff’s? The
     Beachcomber? I’m loaded with dough.”
   Warm waves of happiness flowed over me. “Cliff?”
   “Yeah, honey?”
“I’ve heard of a sundae called Moron’s Delight. They take a great big
glass and start with two bananas and six kinds of ice cream and-
“That’s passé. Have you ever had a Mount Everest?” “Huh?”
“They start with a big platter and build up the peak with twenty-one
flavors of ice cream, using four bananas, butterscotch syrup, and
nuts to bind it. Then they cover it with chocolate syrup, sprinkle
maltedmilk powder and more nuts for rock, pour marshmallow syrup
and whipped cream down from the top for snow, stick parsley around
the lower slopes for trees, and set a little plastic skier on one of the
snow banks. You get to keep him as a souvenir of the experience.”
  “Oh, my!” I said.
  “Only one to a customer and I don’t have to pay if you finish it.”
  I squared my shoulders. “Lead me to it!”
  “I’m betting on you, Puddin’.”
  Cliff is such a wonderful man.


AFTERWORD
Santa Claus, Arizona, is still there; just drive from Kin gman toward
Boulder Dam on 93; you’ll find it. But Mrs. Santa Claus (Mrs.
Douglas) is no longer there, and her gourmet restaurant is now a
fast-food joint. If she is alive, she is at least in her eighties. I don’t
want to find out. In her own field she was an artist equal to
Rembrandt, Michelangelo, and Shakespeare. I prefer to think of her
in that perfect place where all perfect things go, sitting in her kitchen
surrounded by her gnomes, preparing her hearty ambrosia for Mark
Twain and Homer and Praxiteles and others of her equals.




                                    306
THE ANSWERS
(to Problems on Pages 334-338)
N.B.: All trips are Earth parking orbit to Earth parking orbit without
stopping at the target planet (Mars or Pluto). I assume that Hot Pilot
Tom Corbett will handle his gravity-well maneuvers at Mars and at
Pluto so as not to waste mass-energy-but that’s his problem. Now
about that assumption of “flat space” only slightly uphill: The Sun has
a fantastically deep gravity well; its “surface” gravity is 28 times as
great as ours and its escape speed is 55 + times as great-but at the
distance of Earth’s orbit that grasp has attenuated to about one
thousandth of a gee, and at Pluto at 31.6 A.U. it has dropped off to a
gnat’s whisker, one millionth of gee.
(No wonder it takes 21/2 centuries to swing around the Sun. By the
way, some astronomers seem positively gleeful that today Pluto is
not the planet farthest from the Sun. The facts: Pluto spends nine-
tenths of its time outside Neptune’s orbit, and it averages being
875,000,000 miles farther out than Neptune-and at maximum is
nearly 2 billion miles beyond Neptune’s orbit (1.79 x lO~ miles)-
friends, that’s more than the

ROUND TRIP BOOST
COMPARISON OF ELAPSED TIME
Earth-Mars-Earth -     Earth- Pluto-Earth
@1 gee
4.59 days vs. 4.59 weeks
~w’Iio gee
14.5 days vs. 14.5 weeks
~~/too gee
45.9 days vs. 45.9 weeks
~1/tO0O gee
145 days vs. 145 weeks
distance from here to Uranus, nearly four times as far as from here to
Jupiter. When Pluto is out there-l 865 or 2114 A.D.-it takes light 6
hours and 50 minutes to reach it. Pluto-the Winnuh and still
Champeen! Sour grapes is just as common among astronomers as it
is in school yards.)
• and the rabbit is out of the hat. You will have noticed that the
  elapsed-time figures are exactly the same in both columns, but in


                                  307
    days for Mars, weeks for Pluto-i.e., with constant-boost ships of
    any sort Pluto is only 7 times as far away for these conditions as is
    Mars even though in miles Pluto is about 50 times as far away.
If you placed Pluto at its aphelion (stay alive another century and a
quarter-quite possible), at one gee the Pluto round trip would take
5.72 weeks, at 1/to gee 18.1 weeks, at 1/too gee 57.2 weeks-and at
‘Iiooo gee 181 weeks, or 3 yrs & 25 wks.
I have added on the two illustrations at ‘Iwoo of one gravity boost
because today (late 1979 as I write) we do not as yet know how to
build constant-boost ships for long trips at 1 gee, 1/10 gee, or even
1/too gee; Newton’s Third Law of Motion (from which may be derived
all the laws of rocketry) has us (temporarily) stumped. But only
temporarily. There is E = mc2, too, and there are several possible
ways of “living off the country” like a foraging army for necessary
reaction mass. Be patient; this is all very new. Most of you who read
this
will live to see constant-boost ships of 1/10 gee or better-and will be
able to afford vacations in space- soon, soon! I probably won’t live to
see it, but you will. (No complaints, Sergeant-I was born in the horse
& buggy age; I have lived to see men walk on the Moon and to see
live pictures from the soil of Mars. I’ve had my share!)
But if you are willing to settle today for a constantboost on the close
order of magnitude of 1/1000 gee, we can start the project later this
afternoon, as there are several known ways of building constant-
boost jobs with that tiny acceleration-even light-sail ships.
I prefer to talk about light-sail ships (or, rather, ships that sail in the
“Solar wind”) because those last illustrations I added (l/t000 gee)
show that we have the entire Solar System available to us right now;
it is not necessary to wait for the year 2000 and new breakthroughs.
Ten weeks to Mars . . . a round trip to Pluto at 31.6 A.U. in 2 years
and 9 months. . . or a round trip to Pluto’s aphelion, the most remote
spot we know of in the Solar System (other than the winter home of
the comets).
  Ten weeks-it took the Pilgrims in the Mayflower nine weeks and
  three days to cross the Atlantic.




                                    308
Two years and nine months-that was a normal commercial voyage
for a China clipper sailing out of Boston in the last century . . . and the
canny Yankee merchants got rich on it.
Three years and twenty-five weeks is excessive for the China trade in
the 19th century.. . but no one will ever take that long trip to Pluto
because Pluto does not reach aphelion until 2113 and by then we’ll
have ships that can get out there (constant boost with turnover near
midpoint) in three weeks.
Please note that England, Holland, Spain, and Portugal all created
worldwide empires with ships that took as long to get anywhere and
back as would a Vtooo-gee spaceship. On the high seas or in space
it is
not distance that counts but time. The magnificent accomplishments
of our astronauts up to now were made in free fall and are therefore
analogous to floating down the Mississippi on a raft. But even the
tiniest constant boost turns sailing the Solar System into a money-
making commercial venture.
  Now return to page 338.




“Tomorrow we again embark
upon the boundless sea.”
  • Horace, Odes, I, i.

FOREWORD
One of the very few advantages of growing old is that one can reach
an age at which he can do as he damn well pleases within the limits
of his purse.
A younger writer, still striving, has to put up with a lot of nonsense-
interviews, radio appearances, TV dates, public speaking here and
there, writing he does not want to do-and all of this almost invariably
unpaid.
In 1952 I was not a young writer (45) but I was certainly still striving.
Here is an unpaid job I did for a librarians’ bulletin because librarians


                                    309
can make you or break you. But today, thank Allah, if I don’t want to
do it, I simply say, “No.” If I get an argument, I change that to: “Hell,
No!”




“Being intelligent is not a felony.
But most societies evaluate
it as at least a misdemeanor.”

  • L. Long

RAY GUNS AND ROCKET SHIPS
 “When I make a word do a lot of work like that,” said Humpty
 Dumpty, “I always pay it extra.”
“Science Fiction” is a portmanteau term, and many and varied are the
things that have been stuffed into it. Just as the term “historical
fiction” includes in its broad scope Quo Vadis, nickel thrillers about
the James Boys or Buffalo Bill, and ForeverAmber, so does the tag
“science fiction” apply both to Alley Oop and to Aldous Huxley’s After
Many a Summer Dies the Swan. It would be more nearly correctly
descriptive to call the whole field “speculative fiction” and to limit the
name “science fiction” to a sub-class-in which case some of the other
sub-classes would be: undisguised fantasy (Thorne Smith, the Oz
books), pseudoscientific fantasy (C. S. Lewis’s fine novel Out of the
Silent Planet, Buck Rogers, Bradbury’s delightful Martian stories),
sociological speculation (More’s Utopia, Michael Arlen’s Man’s
Mortality, H. G. Wells’ World Set Free, Plato’s Republic), adventure
stories with exotic and non-existent locales (Flash Gordon,
Burroughs’ Martian stories, the Odyssey, Tom Sawyer Abroad). Many
other classes will occur to you, since the term
“speculative fiction” may be defined negatively as
being fiction about things that have not happened.
One can see that the name “science fiction” is too Procrustean a bed,
too tight a corset, to fit the whole field comfortably. Nevertheless,
since language is how we talk, not how we might talk, it seems likely
that the term “science fiction” will continue to be applied to the whole



                                      310
field; we are stuck with it, as the American aborigines are stuck with
the preposterous name “Indian.”
But what, under rational definition, is science fiction? There is an
easy touchstone: science fiction is speculative fiction in which the
author takes as his first postulate the real world as we know it,
including all established facts and natural laws. The result can be
extremely fantastic in content, but it is not fantasy; it is legitimate-and
often very tightly reasoned- speculation about the possibilities of the
real world. This category excludes rocket ships that make Uturns,
serpent men of Neptune that lust after human maidens, and stories
by authors who flunked their Boy Scout merit badge tests in
descriptive astronomy.
But the category includes such mindstretchers as Olaf Stapledon’s
Last and First Men, William Sloane’s To Walk the Night, Dr. Asimov’s
The Stars, Like Dust, even though these stories are stranger than
most outright fantasies.
But how is one to distinguish between legitimate science fiction and
ridiculous junk? Place of original publication is no guide; some of the
best have appeared in half-cent-a-word pulp magazines, with
bugeyed monsters on their covers; some of the silliest have appeared
in high-pay slicks or in the “prestige” quality group.
“The Pretzel Men of Pthark”-that one we can skip over; the contents
are probably like the title. Almost as easy to spot is the Graustark
school of space opera. This is the one in which the dashing Nordic
hero comes to the aid of the rightful Martian princess and kicks out
the villainous usurper through superscience and sheer grit. It is not
being written very often these days, although it still achieves book
publication occasionally, sometimes with old and respectable trade
book houses. But it does not take a Ph.D. in physics to recognize it
for what it is.
But do not be too quick to apply as a test to science fiction what are
merely the conventions of better known fields of literature. I once
heard a librarian say that she could not stand the unpronounceable
names
given by science-fiction writers to extraterrestrials. Have a heart,
friend! These strings of consonants are honest attempts to give
unearthly names to unearthly creatures. As Shaw pointed out, the
customs of our tribe are not laws of nature. You would not expect a

                                    311
Martian to be named “Smith.” (Say-how about a story about a Martian
named “Smith?” Ought to make a good short. Hmmmm-)
But are there reliable criteria by which science fiction can be judged
by one who is not well acquainted with the field? In my opinion, there
are. Simply the criteria which apply to all fields of fiction, no more, no
less.
First of all, an item of science fiction should be a story, i.e., its
entertainment value should be as high as that which you expect from
other types of stories. It should be entertaining to almost anyone,
whether he habitually reads the stuff or not. Second, the degree of
literacy should be as high as that expected in other fields. I will not
labor this point, since we are simply applying an old rule to a new
field, but there is no more excuse here than elsewhere for split
infinitives, dangling participles, and similar untidiness, or for obscurity
and doubletalk.
The same may be said for plotting, characterization, motivation, and
the rest. If a science-fiction writer can’t write, let him go back to being
a fry cook or whatever he was doing before he gave up honest work.
I want to make separate mention of the author’s evaluations. Granted
that not all stories need be morally edifying, nevertheless I would
demand of sciencefiction writers as much exercise of moral sense as
I would of other writers. I have in mind one immensely popular series
which does not hold my own interest very well because the
protagonist seems to be guided only by expediency. Neither the
writer nor his puppet seems to be aware of good and evil. For my
taste this is a defect in any story, nor is the defect mitigated by the
wonderful and gaudy trappings of science fiction. In
my opinion, such abstractions as honor, loyalty, fortitude, self-
sacrifice, bravery, honesty, and integrity will be as important in the far
reaches of the Galaxy as they are in Iowa or Korea. I believe that you
are entitled to apply your own evaluating standards to science fiction
quite as rigorously as you apply them in other fiction.
The criteria outlined above take care of every aspect of science
fiction but one-the science part. But even here no new criterion is
needed. Suppose you were called on to purchase or to refuse to
purchase a novel about a Mexican boy growing up on a Mexican
cattle ranch; suppose that you knew no Spanish, had never been to



                                    312
Mexico and were unacquainted with its history and customs, and
were unsure of the competence of the author. What would you do?
I suspect that you would farm out the decision to someone who was
competent to judge the authenticity of the work. It might be a high
school Spanish teacher, it might be a friend or neighbor who was well
acquainted with our neighboring culture, it might be the local Mexican
consul. If the expert told you that the background material of the book
was nonsense, you would not give the book shelf room.
The same procedure applies to science fiction. No one can be
expected to be expert in everything. If you do not happen to know
what makes a rocket go when there is no air to push against, you
need not necessarily read Willy Ley’s Rockets, Missiles, and Space
Travel-although it is a fine book, a “must” for every library, desirable
for any home. You may instead consult anyone of your acquaintance
who does know about rocket ships-say an Air Force or Artillery
officer, a physics teacher, or almost any fourteen-year-old boy,
especially boys who are active in high school science clubs. If the
novel being judged concerns cybernetics, nuclear physics, genetics,
chemistry, relativity, it is necessary only to enlist the appropriate
helper.
  You would do the same, would you not, with a novel based on the
  life of Simon BolIvar?
Of course, there is the alternate, equivalent method of testing the
authenticity of any book by checking on the author. If the SimOn
BolIvar novel was written by a distinguished scholar of South
American history, you need concern yourself only with the literary
merit of the book. If a book about space travel is written by a world-
famous astronomer (as in the case of the one who writes under the
pen name of “Philip Latham”), you can put your mind at rest about the
correctness of the science therein. In many cases science-fiction
writers have more than adequate professional background in the
sciences they use as background material and their publishers are
careful to let you know this through catalog and dustjacket blurb. I
happen to be personally aware of and can vouch for the scientific
training of Sprague de Camp, George 0. Smith, “John Tame,” John
W. Campbell, Jr., “Philip Latham,” Will Jenkins, Jack Williamson,
Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, E. E. Smith, Philip Wylie, Olaf
Stapledon, H. G. Wells, Damon Knight, Harry Stine, and “J. J.


                                   313
Coupling.” This listing refers to qualifications in science only and is
necessarily incomplete, nor do I mean to slight the many fine writers
without formal scientific training who are well read in science and
most careful in their research.
But some means of checking on a writer of alleged science fiction is
desirable. Most writers of historical fiction appear to go to quite a lot
of trouble to get the facts of their historical scenes correct, but some
people seem to feel that all that is necessary to write science fiction is
an unashamed imagination and a sprinkling of words like “ray gun,”
“rocket tube,” “mutant,” and “space warp.” In some cases the offense
is as blatant as it would be in the case of an author of alleged
historical fiction who founded a book on the premise that SimOn
BolIvar was a Chinese monk! It follows that, in order to spot these
literary fakers it is necessary to know that BolIvar was not a Chinese
monk-know something of the sciences yourself or enlist competent
advisers.

AFTERWORD
Writers talking about writing are about as bad as parents boasting
about their children. I have not done much of it; the few times that I
have been guilty, I did not instigate the project, and in almost all
cases (all, I think) my arm was twisted.
  I promise to avoid it in the future.
The item above, however, I consider worthy of publication (even
though my arm was twisted) because there really are many librarians
who earnestly wish to buy good science fiction. . . but don’t know how
to do it. In this short article I tried very hard to define clearly and
simply how to avoid the perils of Sturgeon’s Law in buying science
fiction.
Part way through you will notice the origin of the last name of the
STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND.




“It is far, far better to have a bastard in the family than an
unemployed son-in-law.”



                                    314
• Jubal Harshaw

FOREWORD
Superficially this looks like the same sort of article as PANDORA’S
BOX; it is not, it is fiction-written by request to celebrate the 50th
anniversary of Amazing Stories. In PANDORA’S BOX I was trying
hard to extrapolate rationally to most probable answers 50 years in
the future (and in November1979 I gave myself a score of66%-
anybody want to buy a used crystal ball with a crack in it?).
But in this short-short I wrote as if I were alive in 2001 and writing a
retrospective of the 20th century. Of course everyone knows what
happened in 2001; they found a big black monolith on Luna-but in
19561 didn’t know that. So I wrote as far out as I thought I could get
away with (to be entertaining) while trying to make the items sound
plausible and possible if not likely.
Figures in parentheses refer to notes at the end.




“Has it ever occurred to you
that God might be a committee?”
• Jubal Harshaw THE THIRD MILLENNIUM OPENS


Now, at the beginning of the year 2001, it is time to see where we
have been and guess at where we are going. A thousand years ago
Otto III ruled the Holy Roman Empire, William the Conqueror was not
yet born, and the Discovery of America was almost five hundred
years in the future. The condition of mankind had not changed in
most important respects since the dawn of history. Aside from
language and local custom a peasant of 1000 B.C. would have been
right at home in a village of 1001 A.D.
  He would not be so today!
The major changes took place in the last two centuries, but the most
significant change of all occurred in the last fifty years, during the


                                   315
lifetimes of many of us. In 1950 six out of ten persons could neither
read nor write; today an illiterate person is a freak.(1)
More people have learned to read and write in the past fifty years
than in all the thousands of years preceding
1950.
This one change is more worldshaking than the establishment this
last year of the laboratory outpost on Pluto. We think of this century
just closed as the one in which mankind conquered space; it would
be more appropriate to think of it as the century in which the human
race finally learned to read and write.
(Let’s give the Devil his due; the contagious insanities of the past
century-communism, xenophobia, aggressive nationalism, the
explosions of the formerly colonial peoples-have done more to
spread literacy than the efforts of all the do-gooders in history. The
Three R’s suddenly became indispensable weapons in mankind’s
bloodiest struggles-learn to read, or die. Out of bad has come good; a
man who can read and write is nine-tenths free even in chains.)
But something else has happened as important as the ABC’s. The
big-muscled accomplishments of the past fifty years-like sea-farming,
the fantastic multiplication of horsepower, and spaceships,
pantographic factories, the Sahara Sea, reflexive automation, tapping
the Sun-overshadow the most radical advance, i.e., the first fumbling
steps in founding a science of the human mind.
Fifty years ago hypnotism was a parlor trick, clairvoyance was
superstition, telepathy was almost unknown, and parapsychology
was on a par with phrenology and not as respectable as the most
popular nonsense called astrology.
Do we have a “science of the mind” today? Far from it. But we do
have- A Certainty of Survival after Death, proved with scientific rigor
more complete than that which we apply to heat engines. It is hard to
believe that it was only in 1952 that Morey Bernstein, using hypnotic
regression, established the personal survival of Bridget Murphy- and
thereby turned the western world to a research that Asia and Africa
had always taken for granted.(2)
Telepathy and Clairvoyance for Military Purposes. The obvious effect
was the changing of war from a “closed” game to an “open” game in
the mathematical sense, with the consequence that assassination is


                                  316
now more important than mass weapons. It may well be that no
fusion bomb or plague weapon will ever again be used-it would take
a foolhardy dictator even to consider such when he knows that his
thoughts are being
monitored . . . and that assassination is so much harder to stop than
a rocket bomb. He is bound to remember that Tchaka the Ruthless
was killed by one of his own bodyguard.
But the less obvious effect has been to take “secrecy” wraps off
scientific research. It is hard to recall that there was once a time
when scientific facts could not be freely published, just as it is hard to
believe that our grandfathers used to wear things called “swimming
suits”-secrecy~in science and swimming with clothes on are almost
equally preposterous to the modern mind. Yet clothing never
hampered a swimmer as much as “classification” hampered science.
Most happily, controlled telepathy made secrecy first futile, then
obsolete.(3)
But possibly the most important discovery we have made about
ourselves is that Man isa Wild Animal. He cannot be tamed and
remain Man; his genius is bound up in the very qualities which make
him wild. With this self-knowledge, bleak, stern, and proud, goes the
last hope of permanent peace on Earth; it makes world government
unlikely and certainly unstable. Despite the fact that we are (as
always) in a condition of marginal starvation, this fact makes all
measures of population control futile-other than the ancient, grisly
Four Horsemen, and even they are not effective; we finished World
War III with a hundred million more people than when we started.
Not even the H-bomb could change our inner nature. We have
learned most bloodily that the H-bomb does nothing that the stone
axe did not do-and neither weapon could tame us. Man can be
chained but he cannot be domesticated, and eventually he always
breaks his chains.
Nor can we be “improved” by genetic breeding; it is not in our nature
to accept it. Someday we may be conquered by superbeings from
elsewhere, then bred according to their notions-and become dogs,
rather than wolves. (I’m betting that we will put up a fight!)
But, left to our own resources, improvements in our breed must come
the hard way, through survival



                                    317
and we will still remain wild animals.(4)
But we have barely begun to study ourselves. Now that mankind has
finally learned to read and write what can we expect him to
accomplish?
We have no idea today of how self-awareness is linked to
protoplasm. Now that we know that the ego survives the body we
should make progress on this mystery.
Personal survival necessitates Cosmic Purpose as a “least
hypothesis” for the universe. Scientists are tending to take teleology
away from theologians and philosophers and give it a shaking. But
concrete results this century seem unlikely. As of now, we still don’t
know why we are here or what we are supposed to do-but for the first
time in history it is scientifically probable that the final answers are
not null answers. It will be interesting indeed if one of the religious
faiths turns out to be correct to nine decimals.
Since ESP talents seem to be independent of spacetime it is
theoretically possible that we may achieve a mental form of time
travel. This is allowable under the mathematics being developed to
describe mind phenomena. If so, we may eventually establish history,
and even prophecy, as exact sciences.
On the physical side we can be certain that the speed-of-light barrier
will be cracked this century. This makes it statistically likely that we
will soon encounter races equal or superior to ourselves. This should
be the most significant happening to mankind since the discovery of
fire. It may degrade or destroy us, it may improve us; it cannot leave
us unchanged.
On the mundane side we can expect a population of five billion by the
middle of this century. Emigration to other planets will not affect the
total here.
Scientific facts will continue to be discovered much faster than they
can be classified and cross-referenced,
but we cannot expect any accompanying increase in human
intelligence. No doubt the few remaining illiterates will continue to be
employed in the subscription departments of periodicals; the same
bigmouths who now complain about rocket service to Luna (but who
can’t thread a needle themselves) will in 2050 be complaining about
service to the stars (and they still won’t be able to thread a needle).


                                   318
Unquestionably the Twentieth Century will be referred to as the
“Good Old Days,” we will continue to view with alarm the antics of the
younger generation, and we probably will still be after a cure for the
common cold.

Notes : 1980
1. He’s still a freak but he’s all too common. There is a special circle
in Hell for the “Educators” who decided that the Three R’s really
weren’t all that important. Concerning our public schools today: Never
have so many been paid so much for so little. I thank whatever gods
there be that I went to school so many years ago that I had no choice
but to be tightly disciplined in classes in which the teachers did not
hesitate to fail and to punish.
My first-grade class had 63 kids in it, one teacher, no assistant.
Before the end of the second semester all 63 could read.
2. Many people seem to feel that the “Bridey Murphy” case has been
invalidated. Maybe so, maybe not-the investigative reporter who went
to Ireland had no special qualifications and the “disproof’ came from
TIME magazine. TIME magazine probably publishes many facts
but since its founding in the early 1920’s 1 have been on the spot
eight or nine times when something that wound up as a news story in
TIME happened. Not once-not once-did the TIME magazine story
match what I saw and heard.
I have the “Bridey Murphy” recording and Bernstein’s book about it. I
am not an expert witness. . . but I fbund the recording highly
interesting. To me it sounded like
what it purported to be: regression under hypnosis to memory of a
former existence. Some years later I learned from an ethical
hypnotherapist (i.e., he accepted patients only by referrals from
M.D.’s, his own doctorate being in psychology) that regression to
what seemed to be former lives was a commonplace among patients
of hypnotherapists- they discussed it among themselves but never
published because they were bound by much the same rule as
physicians and priests taking confession.
I have no data to offer of my own. I decided many years back that I
was too busy with this life to fret about what happens afterwards.



                                   319
Long before 2001 1 will know. . . or I will know nothing whatever
because my universe has ceased to exist.
3. Anyone today who simply brushes off ESP phenomena as being
ridiculous is either pigheaded or ignorant. But I do not expect
controlled telepathy by 2001; that is sheer fiction, intended to permit
me to get in that bit about Tchaka, et al.
4. I lifted this “Man is a wild animal” thesis bodily from Charles Galton
Darwin (grandson of the author of THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES) in his
book THE NEXT MILLION YEARS, Doubleday, 1953. lam simply
giving credit; I shan’t elaborate here. But THE NEXT MILLION
YEARS is a follow-on to THE ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES and is, in
my opinion, one of most important works of this century. It has not
been a popular book-but I seem to recall that his grandfather’s
seminal work wasn’t too popular, either.

FOREWORD
This polemic was first published on Saturday 12 April 1958.
Thereafter it was printed many other places and reprints of it were
widely circulated inside and outside the science fiction community,
inside and outside this country.
It brought down on me the strongest and most emotional adverse
criticism I have ever experienced-not to my surprise.
After more than twenty years my “misdeed” seems to have been
largely forgotten, or perhaps forgiven. But I do not ask to be forgiven
and I do not want it to be forgotten. So I now republish it in
permanent form. I have not consulted my editor or my publisher; each
is free to denounce my opinions here expressed-but is not free to
refuse this item while accepting the rest of this book.
A few specific details below are outdated by new technology-e.g.,
earthquakes can now be distinguished with certainty (we hope) from
nuclear explosions, while other aspects of detection and inspection
grow more complex. Technical details change; basic principles do
not.
  “Supreme excellence in war is to subdue the enemy without
  fighting.”
• Sun Tzu, ca. 350 B.C.



                                   320
The Soviet Union is highly skilled at this-and so are the Chinese
leaders. During the last twenty-odd years we have been
outmaneuvered endlessly. Today it’s the Backfire bomber (a B-i with
a Russian accent); tomorrow it is an international (U.N.) treaty to
socialize all aspects of space and thereby kill such enterprise as the
L-5 Society, Sabre, Otrag (already killed), Robert Truax’s Do-It-
Yourself projects. The treaty will permit a KGB agent (“A rose by any
other name-“) to inspect in detail anything of ours, private or public,
on the ground or in the sky, if it is in any way connected with space-or
the KGB man claims to suspect that it might be.
(But if you think that gives us a free ticket into every
building, every room, at the Byakonur space complex, you don’t know
how the USSR does~business.)
The President has already announced that he will sign it. 10 to 1 he
will, 7 to 2 the Senate will pass it-and 100 to 1 we will regret it.
This declaration is more timely than ever; I am proud to reprint it-and
deeply sorry that it was ever needed.
Any rational person may well disagree with me on details of this
broadside. But on the moral principles expressed here, a free man
says: “Give me liberty, or give me death!” No quibbling, no stopping
to “think it over.” He means it.
  Fools and poltroons do not.

WHO ARE THE HEIRS OF
PATRICK HENRY?

STAND UP AND BE COUNTED!
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of
chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course
others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!!”
• Patrick Henry

Last Saturday in this city appeared a full-page ad intended to scare
us into demanding that the President stop our testing of nuclear
weapons. This manifesto was a curious mixture of truth, half-truth,
distortion, exaggeration, untruth, and Communistline goals concealed
in idealistic-sounding nonsense.

                                    321
The instigators were seventy-odd local people and sixty-odd national
names styling themselves “The National Committee for a Sane
Nuclear Policy.” It may well be that none of the persons whose
names are used as the “National” committee are Communists and we
have no reason to suppose that any of the local people are
Communists-possibly all of them are loyal and merely misguided. But
this manifesto is the rankest sort of Communist propaganda.
A tree is known by its fruit. The purpose of their manifesto is to entice
or frighten you into signing a
letter to President Eisenhower, one which demands that he take
three actions. The first demand is the old, old Communist-line
gimmick that nuclear weapons and their vehicles should be
“considered apart” in disarmament talks. It has had a slight restyling
for the post-Sputnik era and now reads: “That nuclear test
explosions, missiles, and outer-space satellites be considered apart
from other disarmament problems.”
This proposal sounds reasonable but is boobytrapped with outright
surrender of the free world to the Communist dictators. Mr. Truman
knew it, Mr. Eisenhower knows it; both have refused it repeatedly.
The gimmick is this: if nuclear weapons and their vehicles are
outlawed while conventional weapons (tanks and planes and
bayonets and rifles) are not, then-but you figure it out. 170,000,000 of
us against 900,000,000 of them. Who wins?
Even if you count our allies (on the assumption that every last one of
them will stick by us no matter how bone-headed our behavior), the
ratio is still two-to-one against us when it comes to slugging it out with
infantry divisions, Yalu River style.
Oh yes! Khrushchev would like very much to have nuclear weapons
“considered apart” from infantry divisions. And he is delighted when
soft-headed Americans agree with him.

“The ~’Iice Voted to Bell the Cat.” -Aesop
Their second proposal has been part of the Communist line for twelve
long years. It reads: “That all nuclear test explosions be stopped
immediately and that the U.N. then proceed with the mechanics
necessary for monitoring this cessation.” This is the straight
Communist gospel direct from the Kremlin. This was and is today
their phony counter-proposal to the Baruch Proposals of 1946-

                                   322
banning first, policing the ban if, when, and maybe .. . and subject to
the veto of the U.S.S.R. It would leave us at the “mercy” of the
butchers of Budapest, our lives staked on the “honor”
of men to whom honesty is a bourgeois weakness, our freedom
resting on the promises of a gangster government that has broken
every promise it ever made.
The Committee’s manifesto claims: “-the problems in monitoring such
tests are relatively uncomplicated.” This is either an outright lie or
ignorant wishful thinking; the problems are so complicated that
nothing short of on-the-spot inspection will work-an underground test
cannot be told from an earthquake shock by any known method of
monitoring.
  Before you trust your lives and freedom to the promises of the
  Kremlin, remember Budapest-
  -remember Poland in 1945
  • remember Prague
  • remember Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania
  • remember Korea
  • remember brave little Finland
  • and keep your powder dry!
The third proposal is largely pious window-dressing but it has the
same sort of booby-trap buried in it. It reads: “That missiles and
outer-space satellites be brought under United Nations-monitored
control, and that there be a pooling of world science for space
exploration under the United Nations.” The harmless part could be
done if the U.S.S.R. were willing; the booby-trap is the word
“missiles.”
We Americans live in a goldfish bowl; we could not conceal rocket
tests even if we tried. But in the vast spaces of Russia, Siberia, and
China missiles of every sort-even the long-range ICBMs-can be
tested in secret, manufactured and stockpiled and installed ready to
go, despite all “monitoring.” Anything less than onthe-spot inspection
of the entire vast spaces of the Communist axis would leave us at the
mercy of the bland promises of the Butchers of Budapest.
The last paragraph of this letter that they want you to send to the
President is not a proposal; it is simply



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another attempt to strike terror into the hearts of free men by
reminding us of the horrors of nuclear war.
  “’Will you walk into my parlor?’ said the Spider to the Fly.”
It is no accident that this manifesto follows the Communist line, no
coincidence that it “happens” to appear all over the United States the
very week that Khrushchev has announced smugly that the U.S.S.R.
has ended their tests-and demands that we give up our coming, long-
scheduled, and publicly announced tests of a weapon with minimum
fall-out.
This follows the pattern of a much-used and highlyrefined Communist
tactic: plan ahead to soften up the free world on some major point,
package the propaganda to appeal to Americans with warm hearts
and soft heads, time the release carefully, then let the suckers carry
the ball while the known Communists stay under cover.
They used this method to gut our army after the Japanese surrender
with the slogan of “Bring the Boys Home.” They used it to make us
feel guilty about the A-bomb-while their spies were stealing it. They
dreamed up the pious theme of “Don’t Play Politics with Hunger”-then
used our charity to play their politics. They used it to put over the
infamous “Oxford Oath” and the phony “Peace Strikes” of the thirties.
They have used this tactic many times to soften up the free world and
will use it whenever they can find dupes.
They are using it now. Today both sides, Freedom and Red Tyranny,
are armed with nuclear weapons... and the Communists are again
using our own people to try to shame or scare us into throwing our
weapons away.
These proposals are not a road to world peace, they are abject
surrender to tyranny. If we fall for them, then in weeks or months or a
few years at most, Old Glory will be hauled down for the last time and
the
whole planet will be ruled by the Butchers of Budapest.
For more than a hundred years, ever since the original Communist
Manifesto, it has been the unswerving aim of the Communist Party to
take over all of this planet. The only thing blocking their conquest is
the fact that the tragically-shrunken free world still possesses nuclear
weapons. They can destroy us .. . but they know that we can destroy
them.


                                   324
  So they want us to throw away the equalizer.
If we do, we can expect the same “mercy” that Budapest received.
They will say to us: “Surrender-or be destroyed!”
  “God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready
  to guard and defend it.”
• Daniel Webster
We the undersigned are not a committee but simply two free citizens
of these United States. We love life and we want peace . . . but not
“peace at any price”- not the price of liberty!
  Poltroons and pacifists will think otherwise.
Those who signed that manifesto have made their choice;
consciously or unconsciously they prefer enslavement to death. Such
is their right and we do not argue with them-we speak to you who are
still free in your souls.
In a free country, political action can start anywhere. We read that
insane manifesto of the so-called “Committee for a ‘Sane’ Nuclear
Policy” and we despised it. So we are answering it ourselves-by our
own free choice and spending only our own money.
We say to the commissars: “You will never enslave us. The worst you
can do is kill us. But we are resolved to die free!”
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
• Benjamin Franklin
  No scare talk of leukemia, mutation, or atomic holo
raust will sway us. Is “fall-out” dangerous? Of course it is! The risk to
life and posterity has been willfully distorted by these Communist-line
propagandists- but if it were a hundred times as great we still would
choose it to the dead certainty of Communist enslavement. If atomic
war comes, will it kill off the entire human race? Possibly-almost
certainly so if the Masters of the Kremlin choose to use cobalt bombs
on us. Their command of science in these matters seems equal to
ours, they appear to be some years ahead of us in the art of rocketry;
they almost certainly have the power to destroy the human race.
If it comes to atomic war, the best we can hope for is tens of millions
of American dead-perhaps more than half our population wiped out in
the first few minutes.

                                   325
      Colorado Springs is at least a secondary target; all of us here
      may be killed.
      These are the risks. The alternative is surrender. We accept the
      risks.
“The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are
worth defending at all hazards.
• Samuel Adams
We have no easy solution to offer. The risks cannot be avoided other
than by surrender; they can be reduced only by making the free world
so strong that the evil pragmatists of Communism cannot afford to
murder us. The price to us will be year after weary year of higher
taxes, harder work, grim devotion . . . and perhaps, despite all this-
death. But we shall die free!
  To this we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
We the undersigned believe that almost all Americans agree with us.
Whoever you are, wherever you are, you sons of Patrick Henry-let us
know your name! Sign the letter herewith and mail it to us-we will see
that it gets to Congressman Chenoweth, to both our Senators, and to
the President.
This much has been done by two people acting alone. Let’s call
ourselves “The Patrick Henry League” and prove to our government
that the Spirit of ‘76 is still alive. We arc t\vo, you and your spouse
make four, your neighbor and his wife make six-we can snowball this
until it sweeps the country.
  We can advertise in other counties, in other states.
If you who are reading this are not in Colorado Springs, stand up,
speak up, and start your own chapter of “The Patrick Henry League”
now. You are a free citizen, you need no permission, nor any charter
from us. Run an ad-quote or copy this one if you like. Dig down in the
sock to pay for it, or pass the hat, or both-but sound the call in your
own home town, mail copies of your ad out of town, and get some
more letters started toward Washington
     And let us hear from vou~
     Let us all stand up and shout aloud again and forever:
     ‘Give Me Libert\ or Give Me 1)eath!”
     Robert and Virginia Heinlein 1958 address- 1776 Mesa Avenue
     Colorado Springs, Colorado
  1980 address- (Care Spectrum Literary Agency

                                   326
  60 East 42nd Street
  New York City, New York 10017)
  President Eisenhower, The White House
  Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. President:
We know that you are being pressured to stop our nuclear weapons
tests, turn our missile and space program over to the U.N., and in
other ways to weaken our defenses.
  We urge you to stand steadfast.
We want America made supremely strong and we are resolved to
accept all burdens necessary to that end. We ask for total effort-
nuclear testing, research, and development, highest priorities for
rocketry, sterner education, anything that is needed. We are ready to
pay higher taxes, forego luxuries, work harder.
  Ic this we pledge our lives our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
Respectfully yours,
(names)
(address)

AFTERWORD
When the soi-disant “SANE” committee published its page ad in
Colorado Springs (and many other cities) on 5 April 1958, I was
working on THE HERETIC (later to be published as STRANGER IN A
STRANGE LAND). I stopped at once and for several weeks Mrs.
Heinlein and I did nothing but work on this “Patrick Henry” drive. We
published our ad in three newspapers, encouraged its publication
elsewhere, mailed thousands of reprints, spoke before countless
meetings, collected and mailed to the White House thousands of
copies of the letter above- always by registered mail-no
acknowledgement of any sort was ever received, not even in
response to “Return Receipt Requested.”
Then the rug was jerked out from under us; by executive order Mr.
Eisenhower canceled all testing without requiring mutual inspection.
(The outcome of that is now history; when it suited him, Khrushchev
resumed testing with no warning and with the dirtiest bombs ever set
off in the atmosphere.)



                                 327
I was stunned by the President’s action. I should not have been as I
knew that he was a political general long before he entered politics-
stupid, all front, and dependent on his staff. But that gets me the
stupid hat, too; I had learned years earlier that many politicians (not
all!) will do anything to get elected. . . and Adlai Stevenson had him
panting.
  Presently I resumed writing-not STRANGER but STARSHIP
  TROOPERS.
The “Patrick Henry” ad shocked ‘em; STARSHIP TROOPERS
outraged ‘em. I still can’t see how that book got a Hugo. It continues
to get lots of nasty “fan” mail and not much favorable fan mail.. . but it
sells and sells and sells and sells, in eleven languages. It doesn’t
slow down-four new contracts just this year. And yet I almost never
hear of it save when someone wants to chew me out over it. I don’t
understand it.

The criticisms are usually based on a failure to under-
stand simple indicative English sentences, couched in sivnple words -
especially when the critics are professors ofEnglish, as they often
are. (A shining counter exa;nple, a professor who can read and
understand English, is one at Colorado College-a professor of
history.)
We have also some professors ofEnglish who write science fiction
but I do not know of one who formally reviewed or criticized
STARSHIP TROOPERS. However, I have gathered a strong
impression over the years that professors of English who write and
sell science fiction average being much more grammatical and much
more literate than their colleagues who do not (cannot?) write
saleable fiction.
  Their failures to understand English are usually these:
1. “Veteran” does not mean in English dictionaries or in this novel
solely a person who has served in military forces. I concede that in
commonest usage today it means a war veteran.. . but no one
hesitates to speak of a veteran fireman or veteran school teacher. In
STARSHIP TROOPERS it is stated flatly and more than once that
nineteen out of twenty veterans are not military veterans. Instead,
95% of voters are what we call today “former members of federal civil
service.”

                                   328
Addendum: The volunteer is not given a choice. He/she can’t win a
franchise by volunteering for what we call civil service. He volunteers.
. . then for two years plusor-minus he goes where he is sent and
does what he is told to do. If he is young, male, and healthy, he may
wind up as cannon fodder. But there are long chances against
it.
2. He/she can resign at any time other than during combat-i.e.,
100%ofthe time fori9 out of2O; 99%± of the time for those in the
military branches of federal service.
3. There is no conscription. (I am opposed to conscription for any
reason at any time, war or peace, and have said so repeatedly in
fiction, in nonfiction, from platforms, and in angry sessions in think
tanks. I was sworn in first in 1923. and have not been off the hook
since that
time. ~.4y principal pride in my family is that I know of not one in over
two centuries who was drafted; they all volunteered. But the draft is
involuntary servitude, immoral, and unconstitutional no matter what
the Supreme Court says.)
4. Criticism: “The government in STARSHIP TROOPERS is
militaristic.” “Vlilitaristic” is the adjective for the noun “militarism,” a
word of several definitions but not one of them can be correctly
applied to the government described in this novel. No military or civil
servant can vote or hold office until after he is discharged and is
again a civilian. The military tend to be despised by most civilians and
this is made explicit. A career military man is most unlikely ever to
vote or hold office; he is more likely to be dead-and if he does live
through it, he’ll vote for the first time at 40 or older.
“That book glorifies the military!” Now we are getting somewhere. It
does indeed. Specifically the P.B.I., the Poor Bloody Infantry, the
mudfoot who places his frail body between his loved home and the
war’s desolation- but is rarely appreciated. “It’s Tommy this and
Tommy that and chuck him out, the brute!-but it’s ‘thin red line of
heroes when the guns begin to shoot.’”
~4y own service usually doesn’t have too bad a time of it. Save for
very special situations such as the rivers in Nam, a Navy man can get
killed but he is unlikely to be wounded.. . and if he is killed, it is with
hot food in his belly, clean clothes on his body, a recent hot bath, and


                                    329
sack time in a comfortable bunk not more than 24 hours earlier. The
Air Force leads a comparable life. But think of Korea, of Guadalcanal,
of Belleau Wood, of Viet Narn. The H-bomb did not abolish the
infantryman; it made him essential. . . and he has the toughest job of
all and should be honored.
Glorify the military? Would I have picked it for my profession and
stayed on the rolls the past 56 years were I not proud of it?
I think I know what offends most of my critics the most about
STARSHIP TROOPERS: It is the dismaying idea that a voice in
governing the state should be earned instead of being handed to
anyone who is 18 years old and has a body temperature near 3 7°C.
  But there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.
Democracies usually collapse not too long after the plebs discover
that they can vote themselves bread and circuses. . . for a while.
Either read history or watch the daily papers; it is now happening
here. Let’s stipulate for discussion that some stabilizing qualification
is needed (in addition to the body being warm) for a voter to vote
responsibly with proper consideration for the future of his children
and grandchildren-and yours. The Founding Fathers never intended
to extend the franchise to everyone; their debates and the early laws
show it. A man had to be a stable figure in the community through
owning land or employing others or engaged in a journeyman trade
or something.
But few pay any attention to the Founding Fathers today-those
ignorant, uneducated men-they didn’t even have television (have you
looked at Monticello lately?)- so let’s try some other “poll taxes” to
insure a responsible electorate:
  a) Mark Twain’s “The Curious Republic of Gondor”- if you have not
  read it, do so.
b) A state where anyone can buy for cash (or lay-away installment
plan) one or more franchises, and this is the government’s sole
source of income other than services sold competitively and non-
monopolistically. This would produce a new type of government with
several rabbits tucked away in the hat. Rich people would take over
the government? Would they, now? Is a wealthy man going to
impoverish himself for the privilege of casting a couple of hundred
votes? Buying an election today, under the warm-body (and


                                   330
tombstone) system is much cheaper than buying a controlling
number of franchises would be. The arithmetic on this one becomes
unsolv
able. . . but I suspect that paying a stiff price (call it 20,000 Swiss
francs) for a franchise would be even less popular than serving two
years.
c) A state that required a bare minimum of intelligence and
education-e.g., step into the polling booth and find that the computer
has generated a new quadratic equation just for you. Solve it, the
computer unlocks the voting machine, you vote. But get a wrong
answer and the voting machine fails to unlock, a loud bell sounds, a
red light goes on over that booth-and you slink out, face red, you
having just proved yourself too stupid and/or ignorant to take part in
the decisions of the grownups. Better luck next election! No lower
age limit in this system-smart 12-yr-old girls vote every election while
some of their mothers-and fathers-decline to be humiliated twice.
  There are endless variations on this one. Here are two:
Improving the Breed-No red light, no bell.. . but the booth opens
automatically-empty. Revenue-You don’t risk your life, just some gelt.
It costs you a ¼ oz troy of gold in local currency to enter the booth.
Solve your quadratic and vote, and you get your money back. Flunk-
and the state keeps it. With this one I guarantee that no one would
vote who was not interested and would be most unlikely to vote if
unsure of his ability to get that hundred bucks back.
I concede that I set the standards on both I.Q. and schooling too low
in calling only for the solution of a quadratic since (if the programming
limits the machine to integer roots) a person who deals with figures at
all can solve that one with both hands behind him (her) and herhis
eyes closed. But I just recently discovered that a person can
graduate from high school in Santa Cruz with a straight-A record, be
about to enter the University of California on a scholarship.. . but be
totally unable to do simple arithmetic. Let’s not make things too
difficult at the transition.
d) I don’t insist on any particular method of achieving a responsible
electorate; I just think that we need to
tighten up the present warm-body criterion before it destroys us. How
about this? For almost a century and a half women were not allowed


                                   331
to vote. For the past sixty years they have voted.. . but we have not
seen the enormous improvement in government that the suffragettes
promised us.
Perhaps we did not go far enough. Perhaps men are still corrupting
government. . . so let’s try the next century and a half with males
disenfranchised. (Fair is fair. My mother was past forty before she
was permitted to vote.) But let’s not stop there; at present men
outnumber women in elective offices, on the bench, and in the legal
profession by a proportion that is scandalous.
Make males ineligible to hold elective office, or to serve in the
judiciary, elective or appointed, and also reserve the profession of
law for women.
Impossible? That was exactly the situation the year I was born, but
male instead of female, even in the few states that had female
suffrage before the XIXth A mendment, with so few exceptions as to
be unnoticed. As for rooting male lawyers out of their cozy niches,
this would give us a pool of unskilled manual laborers-and laborers
are very hard to hire these days; I’ve been trying to hire one at any
wages he wants for the past three months, with no success.
The really good ones could stay on as law clerks to our present
female lawyers, who will be overworked for a while. But not for long.
Can you imagine female judges (with no male judges to reverse
them) permitting attorneys to take six weeks to pick a jury? Or
allowing a trial to ramble along for months?
  Women are more practical than men. Biology forces it on them.
Speaking of that, let’s go whole hog. Until a female bears a child her
socio-economic function is male no matter how orthodox her sexual
preference. But a woman who is mother to a child knows she has a
stake in the future. So let’s limit the franchise and eligibility for office
and the practice of law to mothers.
The phasing over should be made gentle. Let males serve out their
terms but not succeed themselves. V.! ale lawyers might be given as
long as four years to retire or find other jobs while not admitting any
more males into law schools. I don’t have a candidate for President
but the events of the last fifty years prove that anybody can sit in the
Oval Office; it’s just that some are more impressive in appearance
than others.


                                     332
Brethren and Sistern, have you ever stopped to think that there has
not been one rational decision out of the Oval Office for fifty years?
An all-female government could not possibly be worse than what we
have been enduring. Let’s try it!


“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every
form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
• Thomas Jefferson-1800 A.D.

FOREWORD
After I got STARSHIP TROOPERS out of the way, I indulged in some
stone masonry (my favorite recreation and reconditioning after writing
when I was younger), installed a fountain in our lower irrigation pool
and landscaped it-then got back to work on THE HERETIC aka
STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND, and finally finished it more than
ten years after I had plotted it. I had been in no hurry to finish it, as
that story could not be published commercially until the public mores
changed. I could see them changing and it turned out that I had timed
it right.
Many people have said that it is clear that STRANGER was written in
two parts; the division point showed. But no two people have ever
picked the same putative division point. . . and this is the first time I
have ever admitted that it was not written in two chunks but in four.
No one ever will spot the actual starts and stops because
STRANGER is one of the very few stories in which I plotted every
detail before writing it, and then stuck precisely to that plot. What
readers pick as places where I “must have” broken the writing are in
fact division points planned for dramatic reasons.
Then I had to cut the damned thing; sticking to that complex and
ponderous plot resulted in a MS more than twice as long as it should
have been, either commercially or dramatically. Cutting it took more
working time than writing it.
In the meantime my wife signed up for University of Colorado
Extension classes in Russian. She has always believed that anything
worth doing at all is worth overdoing; for two solid years she lived and
breathed Russian. She never missed a class, was always thoroughly


                                   333
prepared, hired a private conversation tutor to supplement her
classroom work, bought every brand ofRussian language instruction
records available then, kept them stacked on the record changer and
played them all day
long while she did other things-our home had a speaker in every
room, and a large speaker for the garden.
  (This did not bother my work; since I knew no Russian then, it was
  random noise to me.)
Two years of this and she could read Russian, write Russian, speak
Russian, understand Russian-and think in Russian.
  Then we went to the USSR.
Other countries, too, of course-Poland and Czechoslovakia won my
undying sympathy, as well as the captive Baltic states. I should
include the Turkestan countries, too, but they don’t seem quite as
oppressed- much farther from Moskva and off the beaten track. All in
all we traveled about 10,000 miles inside USSR and saw about
twenty cities. Ginny’s hard work paid off; we saw and heard far, far
more than we could have learned had we been dependent on a
politically-cleared guide- we often ducked out without our guide. I
picked up some pidgin Russian but never learned to speak it-I could
give directions, ask directions, order a meal, pay a bill- and swear in
Russian (essential!).
The article below I wrote in Hotel Torni, Helsinki, immediately after
“escaping” (that’s how it felt) from the Soviet Union. The lighter article
following “PRAVDA” I wrote a couple of weeks later in Stockholm. By
then my nerves had relaxed in the free air of Scandinavia and I could
see humor in things that had not seemed at all funny at the time.
“PRAVDA” Means “TRUTH”
  “Pravda” means “truth.”
That’s what it says, right here in my English-Russian dictionary:
Pravda-Truth. Surely one may depend on the dictionary.
  In Al Smith’s bleak, skeptical words: “Let’s take a look at the
  record.”
On May Day, 1960, a United States U-2 reconnaissance plane made
some type of unplanned landing in the Soviet Union. This much is



                                   334
both “truth” and “pravda.” Beyond this bare fact, “truth” and “pravda”
diverge widely.
TRUTH: On May 1 this U-2 plane grounded near Sverdlovsk in the
heartland of the Soviet Union about 1,500 miles from the border it
crossed. The plane was wrecked but the pilot was not killed. Much of
the equipment in the plane, such as radio gear, was undamaged. The
pilot’s survival and the condition of the wreckage, plus the
undamaged equipment, suggest a forced landing in rough country,
such as would result from engine failure.
The U-2 is extremely fast and it cruises at very high altitude, 60-
70,000 feet. The kinetic energy stored in a moving object varies as
the square of its velocity (E = 1/2MV2). A staggering amount of
kinetic energy is stored in a U-2. If such a plane is hit by anti-aircraft
rocket fire what happens in the next split second would make a head-
on collision between two hot-rod-
ders seem like a mother’s loving pat. The anti-aircraft damage merely
triggers the disaster; the major violence comes from the plane’s great
speed-it explodes! Suddenly the sky is filled with junk.
The chance of the pilot’s surviving is small. He may escape if the
plane’s ejection capsule is not damaged when the plane is hit. But
there is only the tiniest chance that radios and other relatively fragile
pieces of equipment would reach the ground undamaged.
Nevertheless, such items were “recovered” from the “shot-down” U-2.
A crate of eggs, uncracked, would be equally convincing.
We may never know the exact truth of what happened to that U-2.
Only Soviet officials talked to unlucky pilot Powers before his trial.
But the nervous nellies among us should stop beating their breasts
over the shame of it all. Photo reconnaissance is not the same thing
as a bombing run. An overflight by an unarmed plane is not in the
same league with what Khrushchev did to Budapest. What we are
dealing with here is the security of the United States and-very
possibly-the survival, and certainly the freedom, of the entire human
race.
Espionage is not illegal under International Law. Neither is it immoral.
The penalty for getting caught at it is very high. It usually means the
spy’s neck. It is not illegal under U.S. laws for us to attempt to spy on
the U.S.S.R., nor is it illegal under Soviet law for them to attempt to


                                   335
spy on us. Nor, in either case, is it an act of war. Throughout history
every country has striven to learn the military secrets of any potential
enemy, and to protect its own. Spying is wise and necessary
insurance against utter military disaster.
That we have been conducting photo reconnaissance over the Soviet
Union so successfully and for four vital years is the most encouraging
news in the past decade. Among other things it means we have
accurate maps by which to strike back. The Soviet Union does not
have to send spy planes over us to obtain sim
ilar information. Excellent large-scale maps with our military
installations and industrial complexes clearly marked may be
obtained free from Standard Oil or Conoco. Still better maps may be
ordered by the Soviet Embassy from our Coast and Geodetic Survey
at very low prices. Soviet agents move freely among us and many of
them enjoy the immunity and complete freedom of travel afforded by
U.N. passports. If a Red spy wants aerial color photographs at low
altitude of our Air Defense installation just south of Kansas City-in
America’s heartland-until recently he could hire a pilot and a plane at
the Kansas City airport for about $25 an hour and snap pictures to his
heart’s content without taking any of the risks of being hanged or shot
down that Francis Powers took for us. If Mr. Eisenhower had failed to
obtain by any possible means the military intelligence that the
U.S.S.R. gets so easily and cheaply about us, he would have been
derelict in his duty.
So, if you hear anyone whining about how “shameful” the U-2 flights
were, take his lollipop away and spank him with it.
       PRAVDA: It took the fat boy with the bad manners five days to
decide just what sort of “pravda” to feed his people. The situation
must have been acutely embarrassing for him, much more so than it
was to us, because for four years he had been totally unable to stop
the flights, despite his boasts and missile brandishing, despite the
fact that every flight was certainly observed in Soviet radar screens.
       K.     could keep quiet, in which case there was little chance
that the Free World news services would ever learn about it, and no
chance that the Russian people would ever find out. Our Central
Intelligence Agency would know that a reconnaissance plane was
missing, but it would not have advertised a top secret.



                                   336
     K.     could refurbish the incident, give it a new paint job and
peddle it as propaganda.
  Or K. could tell the simple truth. This alternative is
mentioned simply to keep the record technically complete, as the
simple truth is a tactic not contemplated under Marxism-Leninism
doctrines. Here we have the essential distinction between truth and
pravda.
  Truth, to the West, consists of all the facts without distortion.
Pravda is that which serves the World Communist Revolution. Pravda
can be a mixture of fact and falsehood, or a flat-footed, brassbound,
outright lie. In rare cases and by sheer coincidence, pravda may
happen to match the facts. I do not actually know of such a case but
it seems statistically likely that such matching must have taken place
a few times in the past 43 years.
This comparison is not mere cynicism. I appeal to the authority of V.
I. Lenin himself, in his tactics of revolution. By the doctrines of
dialectical materialism, simple truth as we know it is abolished as a
concept. It can have no existence of its own separate from the needs
and purposes of the Communist Party and the World Revolution. Our
ingrained habit of believing that the other fellow must be telling the
truth at least most of the time is perhaps our greatest weakness in
dealing with the Kremlin.
Apparently K. and his cohorts encountered much trouble in deciding
just what the pravda should be about the U-2. They spent almost a
week making up their minds. I was in Moscow at the time and there
was no indication of any sort that anything unusual had happened on
May 1. Russians continued to treat us American visitors with their
customary almost saccharine politeness and the daily paper (I
hesitate to call it a newspaper) known as Pravda hinted not of U2’s.
This situation continued for several days thereafter. I was not
dependent on an Intourist guide-interpreter in reaching this
impression as my wife reads, writes, understands and fluently speaks
Russian. She’s not of Russian descent. She learned it at a University
of Colorado Extension night school, plus a private tutor and a lot of
hard work.
After May Day, we went on out to Alma Ata in Kazakhstan, north of
India and a very short distance from the Red China border, about
2,000 miles beyond Moscow. Be-Kind-To-Americans Week

                                   337
continued. Three Americans, the only travelers in that remote part of
Asia, received the undivided attention of the Alma Ata Director of
Intourist, two school teachers (pulled off their teaching jobs to act as
guides), two chauffeurs, and most of the attention of the hotel staff.
We had but to express a wish and it was granted.
  As of Thursday morning, May 5, the pravda was still that nothing
  had happened.
Thursday afternoon the climate abruptly changed. K’s cohorts had at
last decided on a pravda; to wit: an American military plane had
attempted to cross the border of the Soviet Union. Soviet rocket fire
had shot it down from an altitude of 60,000 feet as soon as it had
crossed the border. The Soviet peoples were very much distressed
that America would even attempt such an act of bald aggression. The
Soviet peoples wanted peace. Such aggression would not be
tolerated. Any other such planes would not only be shot down but the
bases from which the attacks were made would be destroyed. Such
was K’s new pravda at the end of a five-hour speech.
The only connection between pravda and fact lay in the existence of
an American plane down on Soviet soil. The locale of the incident
shifted 1,500 miles. The plane is “shot down” at an extremely high
altitude (if true then those exhibits in Gorky Park were as phony as
K’s promises of safety to Nagy and Pal Maleter). No mention at all is
made of four long years of humiliating defeat. Pravda suppresses the
truth and turns the incident into a triumph of Soviet arms. The Soviet
newspapers and radio stations, all state-owned, spout the same line.
All during this period the Voice of America was jammed. K. made
certain his serfs heard nothing but the pravda.
We learned it by being ordered-not requested-to report to the Alma
Ata office of the Director of Intour
ist. There we were given a long, very stern, but fatherly, lecture on
the aggressive misbehavior of our government, a lecture that
included a careful recital of the U-2 pravda.
Once I understood, I did something no American should ever do in
the Soviet Union. I lost my temper completely. I out-shouted the
director on the subject of American grievances against the Soviet
Union. My red-headed wife most ably supported me by scorching him
about Soviet slave labor camps, naming each one by name, pointing
out their location to him on the big map of the Soviet Union which

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hung back of his desk, and telling him how many people had died in
them- including Americans.
We stomped out of his office, went to our room and gave way to the
shakes. I had lost my temper and with it my judgment and thereby
endangered not merely myself but my wife. I had forgotten that I was
not protected by our Bill of Rights, that I was not free to bawl out a
public official with impunity-that I was more than 2,000 miles from any
possible help.
Communism has no concern for the individual. The Soviets have
liquidated some 20 to 30 millions of their own in “building socialism.”
They kept after Trotsky until they got him. They murdered a
schoolmate of mine between stations on a train in Western Europe
and dumped his body. Terror and death are as fixed a part of their
tactics as is distortion of the truth. Their present gang boss is the
“liberator” of Budapest, the “pacifier” of the Ukraine-a comic butcher
personally responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people.
All this I knew. I knew, too, that our own policies had softened beyond
recognition since the day when Teddy Roosevelt demanded the
return of an American citizen alive-or the man who grabbed him,
dead- and made his threat stick. In these present sorry days no
American citizen abroad can count on protection from our State
Department. We have even voluntarily
surrendered our own soldier’s Constitutional rights, drafted and sent
willy-nilly to foreign lands. We still permit the Red Chinese to hold
prisoner hundreds of our boys captured nearly ten years ago in
Korea. We do nothing about it. I did have the cold comfort of knowing
that I had behaved as a free man, an American. I cherished the
thought. But I could not honestly pat myself on the back. My anger
had been a reflex, not courage. Pride would not be much to chew on
if it had got my wife and myself into a Soviet slave labor camp.
I began to listen for that knock on the door, the one you read about in
Darkness at Noon, the knock that means your next address may be
Vorkuta or Karaganda. The address doesn’t matter. You are never,
never going to receive mail.
My fears were not groundless. I’d read Philip Wylie’s The Innocent
Ambassadors and I knew what had happened to his brother. I vividly
recalled Kravchenko’s I Chose Freedom.



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The knock never came because the political climate engendered by
the new pravda was “more-in-sorrowthan-in-anger.” The next
morning, May 6, we were again ordered to report to the Director’s
office. We had decided to brazen it out. We refused to go. Presently,
we were allowed to catch a plane for Tashkent.
  Pravda lasted 12 days, until K. shattered the Summit and revealed
  a new pravda.
We arrived in Leningrad just as the news reached there that the
Summit had failed and that President Eisenhower had cancelled his
proposed trip to the USSR and that Khrushchev was returning to
Moscow via East Berlin.
  The climate suddenly turned very chilly.
A month earlier, in Moscow, we had been picked up by two Russians
the very first time we went out on the street. One was a technical
translator; the other, a lady, was a museum curator. They were very
friendly and stayed with us almost three hours, asking ques
tions about the U.S. and inviting questions about the Soviet Union.
This happened to us daily thereafter; we were always making casual
acquaintance with Soviet citizens, on the Street, in parks, in
restaurants, during intermissions at the theatre, everywhere. They
were always curious about America, very friendly and extremely
polite. This attitude on the part of individual Soviet citizens toward
individual Americans continued throughout the first pravda, ending
May 6. It lessened slightly during the “more-in-sorrow” second
pravda.
K’s Paris news conference set up a new pravda. From the time we
reached Leningrad until we left for Helsinki, Finland, not one Soviet
citizen other than Intourist employees-who had to deal with us
professionally-spoke to us under any circumstances. Not one.
In dealing with Intourist it is always difficult to tell whether one’s
frustrations arise from horrendous red tape or from intentional
obstructionism. In Leningrad it at once became clear that Intourist
now just did not want to give service. Even the porter who took up our
bags made trouble.
Our first afternoon we were scheduled to visit the Hermitage, one of
the world’s great art museums. The tour had been set with Intourist
for that particular afternoon before we left the States.


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At the appointed time our guide (you have to have one) had not
arranged for a car. After awhile it whisked up and the guide said,
“Now we will visit the stadium.”
We said that we wanted to visit the Hermitage, as scheduled. The
guide told us that the Hermitage was closed. We asked to be taken to
another museum (Leningrad has many). We explained that we were
not interested in seeing another stadium.
   We visited the stadium.
   That is all Intourist permitted us to see that afternoon.
When we got back to the hotel we found someone in our room, as
always in Leningrad. Since maid service in Intourist hotels varies
from non-existent to very ubiquitous we did not at once conclude that
we were being intentionally inconvenienced. But one afternoon we
found six men in our room, busy tearing out all the pipes and the
question of intent became academic. A hotel room with its plumbing
torn up and its floor littered with pipes and bits of wood and plaster is
only slightly better than no hotel room at all.
We went to the ballet once in Leningrad. Intermissions are very long
in Soviet theatres, about half an hour, and on earlier occasions these
had been our most fruitful opportunity for meeting Russians.
Not now, not after K’s Paris pravda. No one spoke to us. No Russian
would even meet our eyes as we strolled past. The only personal
attention we received that evening at the ballet was an unmistakably
intentional elbow jab in the ribs from a Russian major in uniform. Be-
Kind-To-Americans Week had adjourned, sine die.
How can the attitudes of 200 million people be switched on and off
like a light bulb? How can one set of facts be made to produce three
widely differing pravdas? By complete control of all communications
from the cradle to the grave.
Almost all Soviet women work. Their babies are placed in
kindergartens at an average age of 57 days, so we were told, and
what we saw supported the allegation. We visited several
kindergartens, on collective farms and in factories. By the posted
schedules, these babies spend 131/2 hours each day in
kindergarten- they are with their mothers for perhaps an hour before
bedtime.




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At the Forty-Years-Of-October Collective Farm outside Alma Ata
some of the older children in one of the kindergartens put on a little
show for us. One little girl recited a poem. A little boy gave a prose
recitation. The entire group sang. The children were clean and
neat, healthy and happy. Our guide translated nothing so,
superficially, it was the sort of beguiling performance one sees any
day in any American kindergarten.
  However, my wife understands Russian:
  The poem recounted the life of Lenin.
  The prose recitation concerned the Seven-Year Plan.
  The group singing was about how “we must protect our
    Revolution.”
  These tots were no older than six.
That is how it is done. Starting at the cradle, never let them hear
anything but the official version. Thus “pravda” becomes “truth” to the
Russian children.
What does this sort of training mean to a person when he is old
enough, presumably, to think for himself? We were waiting in the
Kiev airport, May 14. The weather was foul, planes were late and
some 30 foreigners were in the Intourist waiting room. One of them
asked where we were going and my wife answered that we were
flying to Vilno.
Vilno? Where is that? My wife answered that it was the capital of
Lithuania, one of the formerly independent Baltic republics which the
USSR took over 20 years ago-a simple historic truth, as indisputable
as the fact of the Invasion of Normandy or the bombing of Pearl
Harbor.
  But the truth is not pravda.
A young Intourist guide present understood English, and she
immediately interrupted my wife, flatly contradicted her and asserted
that Lithuania had always been part of the Soviet Union.
The only result was noise and anger. There was no possibility of
changing this young woman’s belief. She was telling the pravda the
way she had been taught it in school and that was that. She had
probably been about three when this international rape occurred. She
had no personal memory of the period. She had never been to Vilno,
although it is less than 400 miles


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from Kiev. (Soviet people do not travel much. With few exceptions the
roads are terrible and the railroads are scarce. Russians are required
to use internal passports, secure internal visas for each city they visit
and travel by Intourist, just like a foreigner. Thus, traveling for
pleasure, other than to designated vacation spots on the Black Sea,
is almost unheard of.)
In disputing the official pravda we were simply malicious liars and she
made it clear that she so considered us.
About noon on Sunday, May 15, we were walking downhill through
the park surrounding the castle that dominates Vilno. We
encountered a group of six or eight Red Army cadets. Foreigners are
a great curiosity in Vilno. Almost no tourists go there. So they
stopped and we chatted, myself through our guide and my wife
directly, in Russian.
Shortly one of the cadets asked us what we thought of their new
manned rocket. We answered that we had had no news lately-what
was it and when did it happen? He told us, with the other cadets
listening and agreeing, that the rocket had gone up that very day, and
at that very moment a Russian astronaut was in orbit around the
earth-and what did we think of that?
I congratulated them on this wondrous achievement but, privately, felt
a dull sickness. The Soviet Union had beaten us to the punch again.
But later that day our guide looked us up and carefully corrected the
story: The cadet had been mistaken, the rocket was not manned.
That evening we tried to purchase Pravda. No copies were available
in Vilno. Later we heard from other Americans that Pravda was not
available in other cities in the USSR that evening-this part is hearsay,
of course. We tried also to listen to the Voice of America. It was
jammed. We listened to some Soviet stations but heard no mention of
the rocket.

This is the rocket the Soviets tried to recover and
later admitted that they had had some trouble with the retrojets; they
had fired while the rocket was in the wrong attitude.
So what is the answer? Did that rocket contain only a dummy, as the
pravda now claims? Or is there a dead Russian revolving in space?-



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an Orwellian “unperson,” once it was realized that he could not be
recovered.
I am sure of this: At noon on May 15 a group of Red Army cadets
were unanimously positive that the rocket was manned. That pravda
did not change until later that afternoon.
Concerning unpersons- Rasputin is a fairly well known name in
America. I
was unable to find anyone in Russia who would admit to having
heard of him. He’s an unperson.
John Paul Jones is known to every school child in America. After the
American Revolution Catherine the Great called him to Russia where
he served as an Admiral and helped found the Russian Navy,
negligible up to that time. I tried many, many times to find a picture of
him in Russian historical museums and I asked dozens of educated
Russians about him-with no results. In Russian history John Paul
Jones has become an unperson.
Trotsky and Kerensky are not unpersons yet. Too many persons are
still alive who recall their leading roles in recent Russian history. But
they will someday be unpersons, even though Dr. Kerensky is living
today in California. In the USSR it is always tacitly assumed that the
Communists overthrew the Tsar. This leaves no room for Dr.
Kerensky. If pinned down, a Soviet guide may admit that there was
such a person as Kerensky, then change the subject. The same
applies to Trotsky; his role, for good or bad, is being erased from the
records. We saw literally thousands of pictures of Lenin, including
several hundred group pictures which supposedly portrayed all the
Communist VIP’s at the time of the Revolution. Not one of
these pictures shows Trotsky even though many of them were
alleged to be news photos taken at the time when Lenin and Trotsky
were still partners and buddies.
  This is how unpersons are made. This is how pravda is created.
The theme of the May Day celebration this year was “Miru Mir”:
“Peace to the World.” A sweet sentiment. But it isn’t safe to assume
that the dictionary definition of peace has any connection with the
official Communist meaning, since even yesterday’s pravda may be
reversed tomorrow.



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“Cooperate with the inevitable’ means ‘Roll with the punch’- it does
not mean stooling for the
  guards.” -L. Long

FOREWORD
“Don’t Go To Russia If You Expect Tidy Toilets” is the heading on an
article by H. Marlin Landwehr (News paper Enterprise Association) in
the Santa Cruz SENTINEL, Sunday, December 2, 1979. “Russian
toilets,” writes Mr. Landwehr, “are uniformly filthy, with no toilet
seats,coarse (if any) toilet paper, and extremely low pressure.
From this and from many recent (1979) personal reports I know that
my 1960 article INSIDE INTO URIST is still timely despite minor
changes. Intourist still has three classes of travel: Bad-Worse-
Horrible. These are now called: “Deluxe Suite, Deluxe, and First
Class”- i.e., “First Class” is in fact third class-an Orwellian pravda.
Dirty toilets and bad food explain themselves; relative prices are
harder to make clear, as the 1960 prices I cite as being outrageously
high seem like bargain prices in 1979. So I must adjust for inflation,
not too easy when dealing with four sorts of currency: 1) the 1960
dollar fully convertible to gold in the world market at $35 = 1 troy
ounce of fine gold; 2) the 1979 floating dollar having today, 3
December 1979, a price per troy ounce of fine gold on the world
market of $432 and some odd cents; 3) the 1960 western-tourist
ruble, a currency not traded (= “blocked”) in the world market, not
convertible, not spendable outside its own country, and having its
official rate set by decree and in direct consequence a very different
black market (= free market) rate; and 4) the 3Dec-79 western-tourist
ruble, a blocked currency not equivalent to the 1960 western-tourist
ruble.
To define the relationships between a fully-convertible gold currency,
a floating currency, and two different blocked currencies is a task that
causes headaches. The arithmetic is simple, the semantic problem is
not, and it is further complicated by both conscious and subconscious


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personal attitudes. You may not “believe in” a gold standard, for
example (and I readily concede the
truth of the old saw that one cannot eat gold), but it does not matter
what I believe or you believe, our floating dollar is now worth in gold
whatever the rest of the world tells us it is worth, i.e., the price at
which they will buy dollars or sell gold. The only yardstick I can apply
to all four currencies is the troy ounce of fine gold (= 480 grains in
both troy and avoirdupois, or 31.1035 grams in metric).
Since the ruble is not traded in the gold market, I must equate rubles
first in dollars, then translate into gold. (This fiscal discussion is not
my idea; our editor complained-correctly-that a much shorter
discussion was unclear.) In 1960 the Kremlin-decreed rate was 4
rubles
=    $1.00 USA. Today Monday 3 December 1979 the Kremlin-
decreed rate to U.S. tourists is 1 ruble = $1.52 USA.
Now to work-
In 1960 $1.00 USA equalled
1/35 tr. oz. Au. = 13.715 grains = 0.888671 + grams gold,
and one ruble equalled $0.25, or
1/140 tr. oz. Au. = 3.429 grains = 0.222167+ grams gold.

While on Dec. 3, 1979, $1.00 USA equalled
1/432 tr. oz. Au. = 1.1111... grains = 0.071998+ grams gold
and one ruble equalled $1.52 USA, or
0.003518+ tr. oz. Au. = 1.7 grains = 0.109438+ grams gold.

  • which doesn’t tell us much, especially as the dollar floats and
     changes every day, and the ratio between the dollar and the
     U.S.-tourist ruble is by decree and subject to change without
     notice. In the following article I show all prices three ways: 1)
     1960 prices; 2) 3-Dec-79 equivalent by world free-market
     conversion; and 3) 3-Dec-79 equivalent by Kremlin-decreed
     dollar/ruble ratio.
The conversion factor for the world free market is 432/
35 = 12.343; the Kremlin-decreed conversion factor is
1520/250 = 6.08. You are free to believe either one or
neither.
But the above still doesn’t tell you very much as the


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The Early Worm Deserves the Birdfloating dollar changes daily and
the ruble/dollar ratio changes whenever the Kremlin changes it. . .
and you will not be reading this on December 3, 1979. But all is not
lost;you can obtain and apply the conversion factors for the day you
read this in the same fashion in which I did it:
For the world free-market conversion factor first get that day’s gold fix
from newspaper or radio, then divide by 35. For the Kremlin factor
telephone a Soviet consulate or Intourist New York, get the current
price of a ruble in dollars and cents, divide by 25ç~. Then reach for
your pocket calculator.
It would have been simpler to state that travel in USSR in 1960 was
extremely, outrageously expensive-a planned swindle.

INSIDE INTO URIST

How to Break Even (or Almost) in the Soviet Union
To enjoy a thing requires that it be approached in the proper mood. A
woman who has been promised a luxury suite at Miami Beach won’t
cheer at the thought of roughing it in the north woods, especially if
her husband pulls this switch after the vacation has started.
But, with proper pre-conditioning, it is possible to enjoy anything-
some people are addicted to parachute jumping. To experience the
Soviet Union without first getting in the mood for it is too much like
parachute jumping when the chute fails to open. The proper mood for
the Soviet Union is that of the man who hit himself on the head with a
hammer because it felt so good when he stopped.
This article assumes that you have already, for good and sufficient
reasons, decided to visit the USSR, one good and sufficient reason
being a wish to see for yourself this Communist paradise that
Khrushchev has promised our grandchildren. But to set out for
Russia in the holiday spirit in which you head for the Riviera, Las
Vegas, or Rio is like going to a funeral for the ride.
You can avoid the worst shocks to your nervous system by knowing
in advance that you are not going to get what you have paid for; then
you can soothe the residual nerve jangling with your favorite pacifier.
I




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used small quantities of vodka-“small” by Russian standards, as
Russians also use it to insulate themselves from the slings and
arrows of outrageous fortune but they dose to unconsciousness.
Drunks, passed out in public places, are more truly symbolic of the
USSR than is the Hammer & Sickle.
My wife found methyl meprobamate (Equanil, Miltown) more useful.
For you it might be yoga, or silent prayer, but, whatever it is, don’t
neglect it. Travel in the Soviet Union is not like travel anywhere else
in the world. My wife and I have visited more than sixty countries on
six continents, by freight ship, helicopter, dog sled, safari, jet plane,
mule back, canal boat, etc.; as “seasoned travelers” these are our
credentials. To visit the USSR we prepared by extensive reading and
my wife learned the Russian language. Nevertheless, again and
again we ran into surprises, difficulties, and maddening frustrations.
You can travel all through the Soviet Union without knowing a word of
Russian-which will suit Khrushchev just fine because you will thereby
be a prisoner of “Intourist,” the state-owned travel bureau, seeing
only what they want you to see, hearing only what they want you to
hear.
But the Russian language is difficult; it took my wife two years of hard
work to master it. The alphabet is weirdly strange, the pronunciation
is hard for us, and the language is heavily inflected-a proper noun,
such as “Smith” or “Khrushchev,” has eighteen different forms.
Obviously most tourists can’t take two years off to master Russian.
What then? Depend entirely on Intourist guides?
No, no, no! Better to save your money and stay home. With no
Russian at all you’ll be as helpless as a bed patient. Instead you
should prepare by learning a smattering of Russian. Forget about
grammar; grammatical Russian is found only in formal literary
compositions. Khrushchev has never learned to speak
Russian well and Mikoyan speaks it with an accent thick enough to
slice-so why should you worry?
First learn the alphabet, capitals and lower case, printed and written.
This alone is half the battle. You can now find the men’s room (or the
ladies’ room). The men’s room is marked with “M” (for “muzhcheen,”
but think of “M” for “men”) and the ladies’ room is marked with a letter



                                   348
which looks like two capital K’s, back to back: ~ You are now past the
greatest crisis confronting a traveler: finding the plumbing.
You now know many of the most useful Russian words just from
knowing the alphabet. Hungry? Watch for a sign reading:
“PECTOPAH.” Sound it in your head as “restauran”-and it is!-the
same word as in English save that the final “t” has been dropped.
There are hundreds of words which turn out to be the same as the
English, or near enough. If you know French or German, your
immediate vocabulary is further enriched, as, despite their boasts,
Russian culture is very backward and most of their vocabulary for
anything more complex than weeding a turnip patch has been
borrowed from French, English, or German by converting the foreign
word phonetically.
But don’t stop with the alphabet; get a set of phonograph records for
teaching Russian. Play them while following the lessons in the book-
and play them without the book while bathing, shaving, cooking,
gardening, etc. A few hours of this will pay off to the point where you
will no longer be dependent on an Intourist guide; it will triple what
you get out of a trip behind the Iron Curtain. For a few dollars in
records and a little work you change it from a losing game into one in
which your investment will be well repaid in education if not in
pleasure.
But to get fun out of it, too, you must understand the Intourist game,
play it, and win. Winning consists in outwitting the system so that you
get more than they intend you to get; it does not mean fair value in
the fashion (for example) that a traveler invariably gets
his money’s worth in any Scandinavian country. It is not possible to
get fair value in the USSR; the game is rigged against the American
tourist. But there are ways to minimize the expense and maximize the
return while having quite a lot of fun.
All travel in the USSR is controlled at every point by Intourist; you
must buy from it all travel, all automobile and guide service, all hotel
rooms, all meals- or if you buy a meal not from Intourist you simply
waste a meal already paid for.
You buy from Intourist at four rubles to the dollar- and you are licked
from scratch as the value of the ruble is closer to forty to the dollar



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(which is the rate the Soviet government gives to favored visitors
such as Asians they are trying to woo into the Communist camp).
You can cut costs by ordering cheap accommodations. Three grades
are offered: Luxe, Tourist A, and Tourist B. A single man might risk
Tourist B if he did not mind public toilets and baths of uncertain
cleanliness, plus sharing sleeping space, dormitory style; a couple
might risk Tourist A, which is supposed to be (but is not) equal to
first-class travel elsewhere. But I cannot honestly urge anything short
of “Luxe” class because even the best in Russia is often shockingly
bad by our standards-bathrooms without baths, even hotels with no
baths, tubs with no hot water, plumbing that is “quaint” or worse, poor
cooking, dirty utensils, maddening waits. The lodging for Luxe class
is often a huge and fantastically furnished suite, but a firstclass
double room & bath in any other country is more comfortable.
Luxe class costs $30 per day per person (3 Dec 79- Kremlin rate
$182.40-World free-market rate $370.29) and includes lodging, meal
coupons, and three hours of guide and automobile service per
person (thus six hours for a couple)-if you get it. It does not include
any train, plane, or bus fares. Add these in, plus round trip aircoach
fares from New York, and a
month in the Soviet Union will cost an American couple at least
$4500 (3 Dec 79-Kremlin rate $27,360.00- World rate $55,543.50),
plus spending money and extras.
You will get at least twice as much for your money in any other part of
Europe, but the real problem always is to get what you have paid for
and Intourist has contracted to furnish you.
Start by realizing that Intourist is not really a travel service in the
sense in which Thos. Cook or American Express is. It is a bureau of
the Communist government and its function is to get those Yankee
dollars in advance, channel you through a fixed route, then spill you
out at the far end almost as ignorant of their country as when you
started. P. T. Barnum’s famous sign “This Way to the Egress”
anticipated the basic Intourist principle: Get the sucker’s money first,
then get rid of him with the least trouble to the management.
So treat it as a game and don’t fret when you lose. Try to get a good
night’s sleep-the bed may be awful but it will be quiet because there
is almost no traffic- and try again the next day.



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For example: the guide is not there to guide you, the guide is there to
make sure that you see the stadium- so try not to see a stadium
anywhere in the Soviet Union. Surely they have stadiums; any people
so devoted to “Togetherness” have stadiums-how else could they
display ten thousand people all doing physical jerks at once? (A
“Spartakiad”) But remember that your fixed cost is about $20 just to
look at a stadium (with no football game thrown in) and that, in
diverting you to the stadium, Intourist has kept you from seeing
something of real interest, a factory, a slum area, or a school.
Stadiums haven’t changed much since the Romans built the
Colosseum; if you have seen Yankee Stadium, Soldiers’ Field, or the
Rose Bowl-or even the football stands of Podunk High-you’ve seen
enough empty stadiums to last a lifetime. So refuse!
But the guide has orders that you must see the stadium; no other
theory will account for the persistence with which all Intourist guides
insist that you see the local stadium. If you manage to get in and out
of the Soviet Union without visiting a stadium, award yourself the
Order of Hero of Soviet Travel, First Class.
  (We saw a lot of them-nobody had warned us.)
Each Intourist hotel has a place called the “Service Bureau.”
“Service” in this usage is an example of Communist semantics
comparable to “co-existence,” “peace-loving,” “democratic,” etc. Here
most of your battles with Intourist will take place. Second only to the
passed-out drunk, the most typical sight in the Soviet Union is an
American tourist seated in a service bureau, his expression getting
tighter as the weary, expensive minutes trickle away.
Intourist rarely uses the blunt refusal on this unhappy creature;
instead the standard tactics are please-sit-down-and-wait-for-just-a-
moment (which usually turns out to be at least an hour), I’m-sorry-
butthe-Director-is-out (and won’t return as long as you keep hanging
around), come-back-later (when the desk will be closed), and go-to-
that-desk-at-the-farend-of-the-room (where, after more delay and
much consultation, you will be sent back to the desk from which you
started).
When facing this, to get part of what you have paid for (and anything
over 70% is a triumph, with 50% par for the course) you must stick to
pre-planned defensive tactics and never, never, never lose your
temper, or you will wind up a fit candidate for wet packs and sedation.

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Their first weapon is politeness. You must resist this soporific
politeness or you will not get anything.
First-Stage Defense: Be just as polite as they are-but utterly
stubborn. Above all, don’t sit down when invited to. If you do, this
retires you from the game for an indefinite penalty period. Hold your
ground, standing
firmly against the desk and taking up as much space as possible-lean
on it with hands spread wide to double your combat frontage. Say
firmly and politely:
“No, thank you, I’ll wait right here”-then monopolize that desk and
clerk, making it impossible for business to be transacted until Intourist
has honored your contract on the point you have raised.
Keep talking. It does not matter what you say nor whether the clerk
understands English-keep talking! Your purpose is to take that unit of
Intourist out of the game until your request has been met, not with
promises but with immediate action-whereas their purpose is to get
you out of the game by persuading you to sit down away from the
desk.
So hold your ground and be softly, politely stubborn. Usually
someone with authority will arrive in a few minutes and satisfy your
request.
Defense in Depth: Be prepared to simulate anger at any instant. It is
much better to pretend to lose your temper before things have grown
so unbearable that you actually do blow your top; it saves wear and
tear on your ulcers and enables you to conduct your tactics more
efficiently.
(And I must say a word on behalf of Intourist employees. About three
quarters of them are young women, girls really. They are nice people,
polite, harassed, overworked, and underpaid. They are prisoners of a
system which automatically frustrates the traveler, and they are more
imprisoned by it than you are, for you will escape (we hope) on the
date set forth on your exit visa. They can’t. These poor kids did not
invent the silly red tape and mountains of useless paperwork and
those in the lower ranks have no authority to vary from it. So don’t be
too harsh and try not to lose your temper in fact.)




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But be prepared to simulate anger whenever the log jam does not
break under the pianissimo tactics of the first-stage defense. When
you refuse to sit down and
wait, the clerk will sometimes turn away and ignore you.
  It is then time to throw a fit.
You must (1) hold your blocking position, (2) make lots of noise, and
(3) show that you are bitterly and righteously angry and cannot
possibly be shut up short of complete satisfaction.
Keep shouting. It helps to cuss a bit and one all-purpose word will do:
“Borjemoi!” This is a phonetic approximation of two words meaning
“My God!”- which is merely an expression of disgust in this atheistic
society. Another good phrase is “Yah Hawchew!” which is the abrupt
way of saying “I want it!” (The polite idiom is “Mnyeh Khawchettsuh.”)
You can shout, “I want to see the Director!”-or, in Russian, “Yah
Khawchew veedyets Direktora!” She may possibly answer, “The
Director’s office (or desk) is over there,” but she is more likely to give
you what you want rather than let you complain to the boss.
But if she does, don’t move. Hold your ground, keep on being
unreasonable, and let the boss come to you. If you let them chivvy
you into his office, away from spectators, and you yourself sitting
down and being polite, you’ve lost that round. The Director will be
polite, apologetic, and regretful about “shortages”-but firmly
unhelpful. The place to win is in public.
For most of us it is not easy to be intentionally rude. I think one
should never be impolite unnecessarily- but we can do much to
uphold our national dignity and to improve our relations with the
Soviet Union by never keeping quiet when we are cheated, by
answering the great stubbornness of Russians by being twice as
stubborn, and by being intentionally and loudly rude whenever
Intourist refuses to keep its contract despite polite protest. Intourist is
an integral part of a government with a forty-three year record (now
63 years-R.A.H.) of not honoring its most solemn commitments; one
must assume that its blatant cheating is planned from the top and
that every employee of
Intourist is schooled in his role, right down to the sweet little girl who
insists that you must see the stadium.



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You may prefer to think that this horrendous swindle is merely an
unintentional by-product of a fantastic, all embracing, and incredibly
inefficient bureaucracy bogged down in its own red tape to the point
where it can’t give service. Either way, a contract with Intourist works
exactly like that long list of broken treaties. You start by making a
contract with the Soviet government; you are required to pay in
advance and in full. Then you attempt to collect what you have paid
for-and discover that a Communist contract is worth what it usually is.
“Room with bath” turns out to be without, “jet planes” become prop
planes, guide and auto service is less than half the time you have
paid for, dining rooms are locked at meal hours, and your extremely
expensive time is wasted sitting, sitting, sitting in “service” bureaus.
Unless you raise hell about it, right at the time. No use complaining
later, you won’t get your money back.
If neither polite stubbornness nor noisy rudeness will work, use the
insult direct. Shake your finger in the face of the most senior official
present, simulate extreme rage, and shout, “Nyeh Kuhl-toornee!”
(“Uncultured!”) Hit that middle syllable and roll the r’s.
Subordinates will turn a sickly green and pretend to be elsewhere.
The official will come close to apoplexy-but will probably make an
extreme effort to satisfy your demand in order to shut you up. This is
the worst insult you can hand a Russian, one that hits him in cracks
of his armor. Use it only as a last resort.
I do not think you will be in personal danger as the officials you will
meet will probably not be high enough in the hierarchy to punish you
for insulting them. But if anything goes wrong and you wind up in
Siberia, please understand that you use it at your own risk.

If”nyeh kuhltoornee” does not work, I have nothing
more to suggest but a hot bath and a sedative.
But the above campaign usually wins in the first or second stage and
rarely fails in the third as it is based on Russian temperament and
Communist social organization. Even the most arrogant Soviet citizen
suffers from an inferiority complex when faced with free citizens of
the western world, especially Americans. The questions they ask
most frequently are: How much money do you make? How big is your
house? Do you own an automobile? Each one is a dead give-away.



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So if you make it clear that Intourist service is contemptible by free-
world standards, a Russian may want to take a poke at you but he is
much more likely to attempt to restore face by meeting those
standards. The rest of the picture has to do with socialist “equality,”
another example of Communist semantics, because in the egalitarian
paradise there is no equality, nowhere anything like the easy-going
equality between an American taxi driver and his fare. In the USSR
you are either on top or underneath-never even.
An American does not fit. Some Soviet citizens react by
subordinating themselves to the tourist; grandmothers sweeping the
streets will scurry out of your way, taxi drivers will rush to open doors,
porters and waitresses and such are servile in a fashion we are not
used to. But an employee of Intourist is in an indeterminate position
vis-à-vis a tourist. Dominant? Or subordinate? It must be one or the
other. Often there is a quick test of wills, then an immediate
assumption of one role or the other depending on how the tourist
responds. For example, we were met in Kiev by a guide who gave his
name as “Sasha.” I asked his surname; he told me quite arrogantly
that there was no need for me to know it.
We had been in the USSR several weeks and I had had my fill of
arrogance; I told him bluntly that I was not interested in his name, that
I had asked out of politeness as practiced in all civilized countries-but
that
if good manners were not customary in his country, forget it!
An American or other free man might have given me a rough answer
or icy silence; he did neither, he groveled. When he left us at the
hotel he thanked us effusively for having been so kind as to talk with
him. His manner was cringingly servile.
I don’t like servility any more than the next American-but if there is
going to be any groveling done it won’t be by me. Nor, I hope, by you.
In dealing with Intourist people you will often run into situations where
one of you must knuckle under-and many are much tougher cases
than this man. It will be a clash of will and all too often polite
stubbornness won’t be enough to get them to honor your contract-
then you need to model your behavior after the worst temper
tantrums you have seen Khrushchev pull on television; this they
understand. In the USSR only a boss ever behaves that way;
therefore you must be entitled to Red Carpet service. The Intourist


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functionary knows you are just an American tourist, to be frustrated
and cheated, but his conditioned reflex bypasses his brain; a lifetime
of conditioning tells him to kowtow to any member of the master
class.. . which you must be, even though his brain tells him you are
not.
  It usually works. In a bully-boy society often nothing but bullying
  will work.
The “Coupon Game”: When you arrive you will be handed a lot of
documents in exchange for your tour voucher; one will be a book of
meal tickets, four coupons for each day. For Luxe class their values
are twelve rubles for a breakfast coupon, twenty for a lunch, three for
tea, thirty for dinner. If you and your spouse have contracted to
spend a month in the USSR, your meal tickets have cost you one
thousand dollars (3 Dec 79-Kremlin rate $6,080.00-World free-market
$12,343.00) (281/2 oz. of gold). The gouging starts here, because
Diamond Jim Brady and his twin could
not eat a thousand dollars of Intourist food in a month. Intourist
eateries range from passable to very bad. Hotel Berlin in Moscow is
perhaps the best but even it would have trouble making the Duncan
Hines list. There are three or four good restaurants in the Soviet
Union but their prices are very high and they won’t accept coupons.
You can minimize your losses in ways that Intourist does not tell you.
You can combine coupons as you wish-a “lunch” and a “breakfast” to
pay for dinner, for example. The possible combinations in rubles are
3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 38,
and all higher numbers-but the hitch is that too many of them take
more than one “tea” coupon. So figure out the best way to work each
combination and write it on the back of your coupon book; this will
help you to decide whether to overpay for food already horribly
overpriced, or to pay the difference in cash. Skill in the coupon game
can save you many, many dollars.
There is nothing fair in the coupon system but it isn’t meant to be; it is
the prime fashion in which the Soviet government squeezes more
dollars out of American tourists than they want or need to spend.
There are other ways to reduce your losses. You can swap coupons
for liquor, candy, canned caviar, cigarettes, and bottled water. Tap
water in Moscow and Leningrad is said to be safe but elsewhere it is


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wise to buy mineral water-get enough bottles at a time to come out
even in coupons. Their cigarettes are corrosive but a brand called
“Trud” is smokable. Candy is extremely expensive but a welcome
change in a tedious diet (I lost twelve pounds); caviar is cheap and is
the best buy to use up leftover coupons on your last day. Don’t
expect to find whiskey nor any imported liquor, but local “kawnyahk”
and “chahmpahnskoyeh” are good. The vodka like ours is “vawt-kah
stelleechnayuh”-the other sorts are very highly spiced. Their wines
are good.
My favorite relief from a hard day with Intourist was a Bloody Mary-
“Staw grahm~vawt-kee, p’jalst, ee tawmahtnee sawk.” This is “nyeh
kuhltoornee” as the proper way to drink vodka is with beer (peevaw),
or with black bread, sweet butter, and caviar.
In Moscow and Leningrad very few Russian waiters speak English
and almost none elsewhere, but you will usually be handed a huge
four-language menu on which you can pick out what you want in
English and point to it in Russian. But only the few items with prices
written in are offered and maybe half of those will be available-when
the waiter says “Nyeh-taw” he means it’s all gone. Allow at least two
hours for dinner; I’ve never heard of any way to speed up the service.
But, once you are served, the waiter may try to rush you out, claiming
that the table is reserved ten minutes hence for a delegation or such.
He may simply want to sell food to someone else-he gets a
commission. Ignore him-you’ve waited a long time, paid a high price
in advance, and are entitled to eat in peace.
Pick a table as far from the orchestra as possible. Some orchestras
are good but most are very loud and sound like a fully automated
boiler factory.
Tipping is never necessary but waiters, chambermaids, and porters
are paid very little. Tips can be coupons or cash.
The dining room is often locked-for a political delegation from Asia or
Africa, for a traveling theatrical troupe, or anything. Any service may
be chopped off without warning in any Intourist hotel. Complain... but
be prepared to fall back on the buffet (pronounced “boof-yet”). There
are usually three or four on the upper floors of large hotels, open
from seven a.m. to eleven at night and serving omelets, snacks, beer,
wine, juice, coffee, tea, cakes, etc. The guides and clerks in Intourist
often do not know about them because they have never been


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upstairs, so watch for the sign (BVDET) or wander the corridors
saying inquiringly to maids and floor clerks: “Boof-yet?”
Buffets are cozy, friendly, little places run by cheerful, helpful,
dreadfully overworked women. They won’t know English and the
menu will be in Russian- here a memorandum in English & Russian
of your favorite foods is most useful. But even the buffet doesn’t
serve breakfast before seven and Russian transportation often
leaves at such an hour that you must leave the hotel before then.
Russian hotels have room service but not at such hours. If you have
your own thermos bottle, room service can fetch you hot coffee and a
cold breakfast the night before. (They’ve heard of thermos bottles-the
word is the same-but the hotel won’t have one.)
Keep iron rations in your room and carry food and drink on long
flights and train trips. Both trains and planes often stop for meals but
you can’t count on it and usually can’t find out in advance.
Minor Ways to Improve Your Score: Go for walks without your guide;
you will usually be picked up by someone who knows English-but you
will never be picked up while a guide is with you. This is your chance
to get acquainted and to get answers which are not the official
answers. Don’t talk politics-but these venturesome souls may ask you
political questions and you can learn almost as much by the
questions they ask as by raising such issues yourself.
Your guide may not be a hardshell Communist; he, or she, may open
up once he thinks he can trust you. If so, be careful not to mention
anything even faintly political when others are in earshot, especially
the driver. The driver may be a political chaperone who knows
English but pretends not to. More than one guide has told me this
and all guides talk more freely when no one can overhear.
In this country children are brought to Moscow and decorated for
having informed on their parents. Never forget this.
When you are shown a party headquarters, a palace of culture, a
stadium, an auditorium, or such, ask
when it was built. We discovered that, in the areas not occupied by
Nazis, many of the biggest and fanciest were built right at the time
Americans were dying to keep the Murmansk lend-lease route open.
There is new brick construction all over the Soviet Union. We asked
repeatedly to be shown a brick yard, were never quite refused, but


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the request was never granted. We have since heard a rumor that
this is prison labor and that is why a tourist can’t see something as
unsecret as a brick yard. So try it yourself- you may merely prove to
yourself that Intourist exists to keep tourists from seeing what they
want to see, rather than vice versa.
Offer your passport to casual acquaintances; they will usually offer
theirs in return-internal passports. Intourist people have been
coached to deny that such a thing exists but everybody in the USSR
carries one and the owner must get a visa to go from one Russian
city to another. It is a brown book with “HAC11OPT” (passport) on the
cover. Try it when your guide is not around.
The USSR is the only country in which we were never able to get into
a private home. Other tourists report the same but one couple from
Los Angeles almost cracked this; they said to their guide, “Why can’t
we see the inside of one of those apartment houses? Are you people
ashamed of them?” The next day they were shown through a not-yet-
occupied one.
This could be varied endlessly, as it works on that Russian basic,
their inferiority complex. The key word is “ashamed”-simply asking
“Why?” gets you nowhere. I think it could be used to get into farms,
schools, courts, factories, anything not a military secret. It tops my list
of things I wish I had thought of first.
In meeting anyone, including guides, try to use “democracies” as an
antonym for “Communist countries” as soon as possible-drag it in by
the heels, i.e., “I think all of us from the democracies earnestly hope
for peace with the Communist countries,” etc. The much abused word
“democratic” means “Communist” in Russia and it always introduces
a propaganda pitch. If you deny him his definition by preempting the
word, you leave him with his mouth hanging open, unable to proceed.
  We got tripped on this several times before we caught on.
The official list of things you must not photograph is short but the
unofficial list is long and ranges from old, broken-down buildings to
old, broken-down women sweeping the streets. You can photograph
such by having them appear “accidentally” in a background but if you
are suspected of this, they have a silent counter to it. At some later
time you will find that your film has been exposed to light, then
respooled. You could keep all your film with you at all times and hope


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to get it across the border. . . but such behavior might cause you to
be arrested on suspicion of espionage, as one American tourist was
this summer. At best, sneaking a picture of one passed-out drunk
risks losing all your pictures-too high a price even if you aren’t
accused of being a spy.
The most-used plane, the Ilyushin-14, flies very low; you can see a
lot and compare it with elsewhere. Are railroads single or double
track? How much traffic on the roads? On the rivers? How about
factory smokestacks and other signs of industry? How busy are the
airfields? Or a dozen other things. I think you will conclude that no
Russian claim should be accepted as true until fully verified. A “great
industrial center” often turns out to be a jerkwater town.
  But don’t make written notes about such things! Don’t!!!
Will your mail be opened? You must assume so. Will your rooms be
bugged? It seems impossible to monitor every room of every Intourist
hotel-but if the police get interested in you it takes just three minutes
in these days of miniaturization to bug a room. I do
know, from several incidents, that Soviet citizens believe that all hotel
rooms are bugged.
I wish that a million of us would visit the USSR; the dollars the
Kremlin would reap would be more than offset by the profit to us in
having so many free men see with their own eyes what Communism
is.
But go there with your eyes open-Intourist is as fully an agency of the
Kremlin as is Gromyko or Mikoyan. Its functions are (1) to get your
money in advance, (2) to deliver as little as possible by downgrading
accomodations, by forced overcharges on food, and by clipping you
on auto and guide service, (3) to waste your time so that you wiil see
as little as possible, and (4) to see that what little time you have left is
spent only on those things the Kremlin does not mind your seeing-
“new construction” (from the outside), parks of “rest & culture” (filled
with loudspeakers blaring propaganda), ballets, museums, stadiums,
and the outsides of public buildings.
The first point you must accept; the game is crooked but it is the only
game in town. Points two and three you can struggle against-I hope
the tactics suggested in here will help. Point four is the toughest.
After trimming you down to about three hours a day of useful time,


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Intourist can and will use up what is left in “stadium sightseeing”
unless you fight it constantly. Even then, Intourist is adept in parrying
with: “It’s closed today-too bad you’re not staying another day,” and
“That must be arranged in advance through the Ministry of Culture,
etc.” and “You should have requested that in Moscow.”
The essence of Intourist tactics is: “Jam yesterday and jam tomorrow,
but never jam today.” The way to answer it is: “No! I will not look at
the stadium, I do not want to see another subway station, I will not
visit a museum to see another five hundred pictures of Lenin. I want
to see thus-and-so and I want to see it now. Stop the car, get on the
phone, and arrange it- or tell the Director that, as far as I am
concerned,
you’re fired! I am keeping the car and the driver and will go on without
you- I’ve got hours more of car service due me today and I won’t be
cheated out of it.”
You will find whether your guide is truly a guide... or a guard placed
with you to make sure you see only the facade of this regime.
Whether or not you see “thus-and-so” you are sure to learn a
surprising amount about how a police state is run. . . and thereby get
your full money’s worth in education.

AFTERWORD
After twenty years it would seem logical for me to return to the USSR
to see what improvements, if any, they have made in handling
tourism. I could plead age and health but I shan’t-one trip to USSR is
educational; twice is masochism.
If you have been to the USSR recently and if you know enough
Russian that you could and did slip the leash occasionally and poke
around and get acquainted without permission of Intourist, please
write to me and tell me about it-what you saw with your own eyes,
what you touched, what you counted, how you were treated. I am not
interested in second-hand reports, not even from other Americans
you trust, and I most emphatically am not interested in anything your
guides told you.
If you know no Russian and took one of the standard Intourist trips-
around the Black Sea, or the Len ingradMoskva-Sochi trip-don’t
waste your time writing. I hope you had fun.



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If you took the long railway trip, Vladivostok to Leningrad or Moskva-
or vice versa-do please write to me. If you knew no Russian at first,
I’m betting high odds that you spoke fluent (if ungrammatical)
Russian long before you completed the trip. You will know many
things I don’t know as I have never been across Siberia. Alma Ata,
KSSR, north of the Himalayas and just short of Sinkiang, is as far as I
got.
Concerning believing what you see and ignoring reports: In thirty-odd
years of habitual travel, Mrs. Heinlein and I have not been simply
sightseeing; we have been studying other people’s ways. Sometimes
trivia-e.g., in Peru they make far better apple pie than Mom ever
baked (treason!), Chile has us beat all hollow when it comes to ice-
cream sodas, and the Finnish ice-cream cone is a work of art that
makes what we call an ice-cream cone look sad.
But usually we are dead serious. Lately I’ve been making a global
survey of blood services-but that is another
story. Two things we have done consistently throughout the world: 1)
See the slums; 2) evaluate the diet.
The fancy hotels and the museums and the parks are much the same
the world over-but the slums are honest criteria even though a
traveller can’t assign a numerical value. The street people of Bombay
and of Calcutta tell far more about India than does the glorious Taf
Mahal.
Two other questions give direct, numerical comparisons: Q: How
many long tonnes of protein (meat, fish, cheese) does this country
consume in one year? (Then, privately, divide by the population.) Q:
How many minutes must a journeyman carpenter work to earn
enough to buy one kilogram of the local standard bread?
The first question tells the quality of the average diet; the second tells
you how rich (or poor) that country averages. If you have also
managed to see the slums, you have some idea of the range of
wealth. You can’t tell by looking at the extremely wealthy; all over the
world they are careful to dress like upper middle class, no higher. But
slums are honest and the most extreme wealth range is to be found
in India.
The range of personal wealth in Russia, in 1960, was high, possibly
greater than the range in the U.S.A. But the range showed in “perks,”


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not in money-privatelyassigned automobiles and chauffeurs, summer
houses, assigned living quarters. The Latvian Secretary (a Russian,
not a Lett) of the Writers Union had as his offices a marble palace,
extremely ornate inside and outside and loaded with sculpture and
paintings (built-I was told- by the late Tsar for his favorite mistress.
True? I don’t know but I’ve never been in a more lavish palace and I
have been in many). After meeting his colleagues-and living through
a Russian drinking duel better left undescribed-we were taken by him
out to the Baltic and shown his dacha . . . thereby showing us that he
had a private car, a chauffeur, and a summer home, as well as
offices literally fit for a king. No mention of money, no need to-I was
convinced that he was not going home to a meal of black bread,
potatoes, and boiled cabbage.
Yet he was merely writer boss in Latvia, a small captive country-not
General Secretary of the Writers Union in Moskva. I was in the
Writers Union general headquarters in Moskva, a large office
building; I did not meet the General Secretary. I assume that he lived
at least as well as his stooge in Latvia.
How many levels are there between this minor boss in Riga and the
members of the Praesidium? How well does Khrushchev-excuse me;
Brezhnev-live? I shan’t guess.
In the USSR it was not politic (risky) to ask the two key questions that
I always asked in other countries, and seeing slums was forbidden.
Twice we saw slums by accident, were hurried on past-primitive log
cabins just outside Moskva, 1st century mud huts in Alma Ata that
were concealed by screening but from one elevation we could see
over the screening. . . until we were seen and cautioned not to stop
there and not to take pictures.
Since we couldn’t ask our standard comparison questions, Mrs.
Heinlein devised some “innocent” ones, and I concentrated on certain
signs; both of us were sizing up population. At that time the USSR
claimed a population of 225,000,000 and claimed a population for
Moskva of 5,000,000 +. (Today, twenty years later, they claim almost
300,000,000 and over 7,000,000.)
For many days we prowled Moskva-by car, by taxi when we did not
want Intourist with us, by subway, by bus, and on foot. In the
meantime Mrs. Heinlein, in her fluent Russian, got acquainted with
many people-Intourist guides, drivers, people who picked us up on


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the streets, chambermaids, anyone. The Russians are delightful
people, always happy to talk with visitors, in English if they know it
(and many do), in Russian if they do not.
  Let me add that, if it suited her, Ginny could charm pictures off a
  wall.
She was able to ask personal questions (but ones people anywhere
usually are pleased to answer) by freely answering questions about
us and showing warm interest
in that person-not faked; she is a warm person.
  But, buried in chitchat, she always learned these things:
  How old are you?
  Are you married?
  How many children do you have?
  How many brothers and sisters do you have? What ages?
  How many nieces and nephews do you have?
Put baldly, that sounds as offensive as a quiz by a Kinsey reporter.
But it was not put baldly-e.g., “Oh, how lucky you are! Gospodin
Heinlein and I didn’t even meet until the Great Patriotic War. . . and
we have no children although we wanted them. But we have lots of
nieces and nephews.” Etc., etc. She often told more than she got but
she accumulated, painlessly, the data she wanted, often without
asking questions.
One day we were seated on a park bench, back of the Kremlin and
facing the Moskva river, with no one near us- a good spot to talk; a
directional mike would have to be clear across the river as long as we
kept our backs to the Kremlin.
   I said, “How big does that guide book say this city is?”
   “Over five million.”
“Hmmph! Look at that river. Look at the traffic on it.” (One lonely
scow-) “Remember the Rhine?” We had taken a steamer up the
Rhine three years earlier; the traffic was so dense the river had traffic
lights on it, just like the Panama Canal. “Ginny, this dump isn’t
anything like five million. More the size of Copenhagen, if that.
Pittsburgh. New Orleans. San Francisco, possibly.” (These are all
cities I know well, on foot and by every form of transportation. In 1960
all of them were in the 600,000-800,000 range.) “Yet they are trying



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to tell us that this dump is bigger than Philadelphia, bigger than Los
Angeles, bigger than Chicago. Nonsense.”
(I have lived in all three cities. A big city feels big, be it Yokohama or
New York.) “Three quarters of a million, not five million.”
   “I know,” she agreed.
   “Huh?”
(I think I must mention that Mrs. Heinlein is a close student of
Russian history, history of the Russian Revolution, history of the
Third International or Comintern, and so skilled in Marxist dialectical
materialism that she can argue theory with a Russian party member
and get him so mixed up that he’s biting his own tail.)
She answered, “They claim to have finished the War with about two
hundred million and Moscow at four million. Now they are claiming
twenly-five million more in the Union, and over a million increase in
Moscow.” She thought a bit. “It’s a lie. Unless they are breeding like
flies everywhere outside Moscow, they have lost population since the
War-not gained. I haven’t found even one family with more than three
children. The average is less than two. And they marry late. Robert,
they aren’t even replacing themselves.”
  She looked at that empty river. “Not quite as big as Copenhagen is
  my guess.”
We stopped in many other cities-Alma Ata, Tashkent, Samarkand,
Minsk, Vilno, Kiev, Riga, Leningrad, etc.- and she continued her
gentle questioning but never found reason to change her opinion.
Even out in the Muslim countries of Turkestan the birthrate was low,
or the answers seemed to show it. She did not write down her figures
(Well, I don’t think she did; I warned her not to) but she has a
memory that is effectively perfect as long as necessary.. . then she
can wash out useless details, which I can’t do.)
How was it possible for the Russians to claim that Moscow was
seven times as big as it actually was? How could I be right and the
whole world wrong? The World Almanac gave the same figures the
Russians did, all news services seemed to accept Russian population
figures- how could a Big Lie that big not be noticed-and denounced?
About a year later I had a chance to discuss it with an old shipmate,
an admiral now retired but then holding a



                                    365
major command. I asked him how many people there were in
Moscow.
He answered, “I don’t know. Why don’t you look it up?” (When a high
brass answers, “I don’t know,” he may mean, “Don’t be nosy and let’s
change the subject.” But I persisted.)
  “Make a guess. You must have some idea.”
“Okay.” He closed his eyes and kept quiet for several minutes.
“Seven hundred and fifty thousand, not over that.”
  (Jackpot!)
  I said, “Mister Ought Ought Seven, have you made a special study
  of Russia? Or shouldn’t I ask?”
“Not at all. is command] gives me all the trouble I need without
worrying about Russia. I simply worked it as a logistics problem, War
College style. But I had to stop and visualize the map first. Roads,
rivers, railroads, size of marshalling yards, and so forth. You know.” (I
did, vaguely. But I wasn’t a War College graduate. He is.) “That city
just doesn’t have the transportation facilities to be any bigger than
that. Get much over three quarters of a million and they’d starve. Until
they double their tracks and increase their yards they can’t risk a
bigger population. You don’t do that over night. They can pick up
some slack with the river-but it doesn’t go where they need it most.”
And there it stands. Either all three of us are crazy despite the fact
that all three of us got the same answer to a numerical question using
three entirely different but logical methods. . . or for many, many
years the Kremlin lie factory has peddled their biggest and fanciest
“Pravda” without ever being questioned.
Look-both the Pentagon and the State Department know exactly how
big Moscow is, and the Kremlin knows that they know. We were high-
flying ‘em with the U-2 for four years; you can bet Moscow was
carefully photographed many times. Our present Eye-in-the-Sky
satellites are so sharp-eyed that they can come close to reading the
license plate on your car; our top officials know precisely what the
logistics situation is for Moscow-and every economist knows that one
of the parameters that controls strictly the upper limit to the size of a
city is how many tons of food it can ship in, week in and week out,
never failing. Most big cities are only a day or two away from hunger,
only a week or so away from beginning starvation and panic.


                                   366
Moscow isn’t even a seaport; she’s a riverport and not a good one.
Most food must come overland by train or lorry.

Maybe she’s built enough more facilities since 1960
but in 1960 she just didn’t have what it takes. Since I can’t believe the
5,000,000+ figure for 1960, I don’t believe the 7,000,000+ figure for
this year.
I have one very wild theory. Our State Department may see no
advantage in calling them liars on this point. Through several
administrations we have been extremely careful not to hurt their
feelings. I think this is a mistake but I am neither president nor
secretary of state; my opinion is not important and may be wrong.
  (“ ‘But the Emperor is not wearing any clothes,’ said the child.”)




The three biggest lies in the USA today:
1) The check is in the mail.
2)    I gave at the office.
3)    (Big, cheery smile) “Hello! I’m from Washington. I’m here to
help you!”
  1~ -Anon.f

FOREWORD
In April 1962 I received a letter from the advertising agents of
Hoffman Electronics: They had a wonderful idea-SF stories about
electronics, written by wellknown SF writers, just long enough to fill
one column of Scientific American or Technology Review or such,
with the other two thirds of the page an ad for Hoffman Electronics
tied into the gimmick of the story. For this they offered a gee-whiz
word rate-compared with SF magazines.

A well-wrought short story is twice as hard to write as
a novel; a short-short is at least eight times as hard-but
one that short. . . there are much easier ways of making
a living. I dropped them a postcard saying, “Thanks but


                                   367
I’m busy on a novel.” (True-GLORY ROAD)
They upped the ante. This time I answered, “Thanks and I feel
flattered-but I don’t know anything about electronics.” (Almost true.)
They wrote back offering expert advice from Hoffman’s engineers on
the gimmick-and a word rate six times as high as The Saturday
Evening Post had paid me.
I had finished GLORY ROAD; I sat down and drafted this one-then
sweated endlessly to get it under 1200 words as required by contract.
Whereas I had written GLORY ROAD in 23 days and enjoyed every
minute of it. This is why lazy writers prefer novels.

SEARCHLIGHT

“Will she hear you?”
“If she’s on this face of the Moon. If she was able to get out of the
ship. If her suit radio wasn’t damaged. If she has it turned on. If she is
alive. Since the ship is silent and no radar beacon has been spotted,
it is unlikely that she or the pilot lived through it.”
      “She’s got to be found! Stand by, Space Station. Tycho Base,
      acknowledge.”
Reply lagged about three seconds, Washington to Moon and back.
“Lunar Base, Commanding General.”
      “General, put every man on the Moon out searching for Betsy!”
      Speed-of-light lag made the answer sound grudging. “Sir, do
      you know how big the Moon is?”
“No matter! Betsy Barnes is there somewhere-so every man is to
search until she is found. If she’s dead, your precious pilot would be
better off dead, too!”
“Sir, the Moon is almost fifteen million square miles. If I used every
man I have, each would have over a thousand square miles to
search. I gave Betsy my best pilot. I won’t listen to threats against
him when he can’t answer back. Not from anyone, sir! I’m sick of
being told what to do by people who don’t know Lunar conditions. My
advice-my official advice, sir-is to let Meridian Station try. Maybe they
can work a miracle.

The answer rapped back, “Very well, General! I’ll
speak to you later. Meridian Station! Report your plans.”


                                   368
Elizabeth Barnes, “Blind Betsy,” child genius of the piano, had been
making a USO tour of the Moon. She “wowed ‘em” at Tycho Base,
then lifted by jeep rocket for Farside Hardbase, to entertain our lonely
missilemen behind the Moon. She should have been there in an hour.
Her pilot was a safety pilot; such ships shuttled unpiloted between
Tycho and Farside daily.
After lift-off her ship departed from its programming, was lost by
Tycho’s radars. It was. . . somewhere.
Not in space, else it would be radioing for help and its radar beacon
would be seen by other ships, space stations, surface bases. It had
crashed-or made emergency landing-somewhere on the vastness of
Luna.
“Meridian Space Station, Director speaking-“ Lag was unnoticeable;
radio bounce between Washington and the station only 22,300 miles
up was only a quarter second. “We’ve patched Earthside stations to
blanket the Moon with our call. Another broadcast blankets the far
side from Station Newton at the threebody stable position. Ships from
Tycho are orbiting the Moon’s rim-that band around the edge which is
in radio shadow from us and from the Newton. If we
h“
ear- “Yes, yes! How about radar search?”
“Sir, a rocket on the surface looks to radar like a million other features
the same size. Our one chance is to get them to answer.. . if they
can. Ultrahigh-resolution radar might spot them in months-but suits
worn in those little rockets carry only six hours’ air. We are praying
they will hear and answer.”
  “When they answer, you’ll slap a radio direction finder on them.
      Eh?”
  “No, sir.”
  “In God’s name, why not?”
“Sir, a direction finder is useless for this job. It would tell us only that
the signal came from the Moon-which doesn’t help.”
      “Doctor, you’re saying that you might hear Betsy- and not know
      where she is?”
      “We’re as blind as she is. We hope that she will be able to lead
      us to her. . . if she hears us.”
      “How?”
      “With a laser. An intense, very tight beam of light. She’ll hear it-“

                                     369
  “Hear a beam of light?”
“Yes, sir. We are jury-rigging to scan like radar- that won’t show
anything. But we are modulating it to give a carrier wave in radio
frequency, then modulating that into audio frequency-and controlling
that by a piano. If she hears us, we’ll tell her to listen while we scan
the Moon and run the scale on the piano-“
   “All this while a little girl is dying?”
   “Mister President-shut up!”
   “Who was THAT?”
“I’m Betsy’s father. They’ve patched me from Omaha. Please, Mr.
President, keep quiet and let them work. I want my daughter back.”
  The President answered tightly, “Yes, Mr. Barnes. Go ahead,
  Director. Order anything you need.”

In Station Meridian the Director wiped his face. “Getting
anything?”
      “No. Boss, can’t something be done about that Rio Station? It’s
      sitting right on the frequency!”
      “We’ll drop a brick on them. Or a bomb. Joe, tell the President.”
      “I heard, Director. They’ll be silenced!”
  “Sh! Quiet! Betsy-do you hear me?” The operator looked intent,
  made an adjustment.
  From a speaker came a girl’s light, sweet voice:
“-to hear somebody! Gee, I’m glad! Better come quick-the Major is
hurt.”
The Director jumped to the microphone. “Yes, Betsy, we’ll hurry.
You’ve got to help us. Do you know where you are?”
“Somewhere on the Moon, I guess. We bumped hard and I was going
to kid him about it when the ship fell over. I got unstrapped and found
Major Peters and he isn’t moving. Not dead-I don’t think so; his suit
puffs out like mine and I hear something when I push my helmet
against him. I just now managed to get the door open.” She added,
“This can’t be Farside; it’s supposed to be night there. I’m in
sunshine, I’m sure. This suit is pretty hot.”
  “Betsy, you must stay outside. You’ve got to be where you can see
  us.”


                                   370
  She chuckled. “That’s a good one. I see with my ears.”
“Yes. You’ll see us, with your ears. Listen, Betsy. We’re going to scan
the Moon with a beam of light. You’ll hear it as a piano note. We’ve
got the Moon split into the eighty-eight piano notes. When you hear
one, yell, ‘Now!’ Then tell us what note you heard. Can you do that?”
  “Of course,” she said confidently, “if the piano is in tune.”
  “It is. All right, we’re starting-“
  “Now!”
  “What note, Betsy?”
  “E flat the first octave above middle C.”
  “This note, Betsy?”
  “That’s what I said.”
The Director called out, “Where’s that on the grid? In Mare Nubium?
Tell the General!” He said to the microphone, “We’re finding you,
Betsy honey! Now we scan just that part you’re on. We change setup.
Want to talk to your Daddy meanwhile?”
  “Gosh! Could I?”
  “Yes indeed!”
  Twenty minutes later the Director cut in and heard:
“-of course not, Daddy. Oh, a teensy bit scared when the ship fell. But
people take care of me, always have.”
  “Betsy?”
  “Yes, sir?”
  “Be ready to tell us again.”

  “Now!” She added, “That’s a bullfrog G, three octaves down.”
  “This note?”
  “That’s right.”
“Get that on the grid and tell the General to get his ships up! That
cuts it to a square ten miles on a side! Now, Betsy-we know almost
where you are. We are going to focus still closer. Want to go inside
and cool off?”
  “I’m not too hot. Just sweaty.”
  Forty minutes later the General’s voice rang out:
“They’ve spotted the ship! They see her waving!”




                                    371
AFTERWORD
In 1931 I was serving in LEXINGTON (CV-2). In March the Fleet held
a war game off the coast of Peru and Ecuador; for this exercise I was
assigned as radio compass officer. My principal duty was to keep in
touch with the plane guards, amphibians (OL8-A), guarding
squadrons we had in the air-i.e., the squadrons were carrierbased
land planes; if one was forced to ditch, an amphibian was to land on
the water and rescue the pilot.
No radar in those days and primitive radio-the pilots of the plane
guards were the only ones I could talk to via the radio compass. The
fighters had dot-dash gear; the radio compass did not. To get a
feeling for the limitations of those days, only 28 years after the Wright
brothers’ first flight, see my “The Man Who Was Too Lazy to Fail” in
Time Enough For Love, PutnamlBerkleylNEL.
A radio compass depends on the directional qualities of a loop
antenna. To talk you rotate the antenna for maximum signal; turn it
90° and you get a minimum signal that marks the direction of the
other radio-or 180° from it but you are assumed to know whether your
beacon is ahead or behind you-and you do in almost every case
where it matters, such as going up a channel in a fog. That minimum
will tell you direction within a degree or two if the other radio is close
enough, loud enough.
If it’s too far away, the signal can fade to zero before you reach the
bearing you need to read, and stay zero until well past it. No use
turning it back 90° to try to locate it by the maximum signal; that
curve is much too flat.
Late afternoon the second day of the exercise we were in trouble; the
other squadrons were landing but VF-2 squadron was lost-all too
easy with one-man fighter planes before the days of radar. The
captain of the squadron, a lieutenant commander, held one opinion;
the pilot of the amphib held another-but his opinion did not count; he
was a j.g. and not part of the squadron. The
juniors in the squadron hardly had opinions; they were young, green,
and depending on their .~kipper-~znd probably had fouled up their
dead reckoning early in the flight.




                                   372
The squadron captain vectored for rendezvous with the carrier, by his
reckoning. No carrier. Just lots and lots of ocean. (I was in the air
once, off Hawaii, when this happened. It’s a lonely feeling.)
No sign of the U.S. Fleet. No SARATOGA (CV-3), no battleships, no
cruisers. Not even a destroyer scouting a flank. Just water.
At this point I found myself in exactly the situation described in
SEARCHLIGHT; I could talk to the plane guard pilot quite easily-but
swing the loop 90° and zero signal was spread through such a wide
arc that it meant nothing. . . and, worse, the foulup in navigation was
such that there was no rational choice between the two lobes 180°
apart.
And I had a personal interest not as strong as that of Betsy Barnes’
father but strong. First, it was my duty and my responsibility to give
that squadron a homing vector-and I couldn’t do it; the equipment
wasn’t up to it. Had I kept track of vectors on that squadron all day-
But that was impossible; Not only had I had four squadrons in the air
all day and only one loop but also (and damning) there was war-
game radio silence until the squadron commander in trouble was
forced to break it.
But, second, the pilot of the plane guard was my closest friend in that
ship-from my home town, at the Academy with me, shipmates before
then in USS UTAH, shoreleave drinking companion, only other officer
in the ship who believed in rocketry and space flight and read ‘those
crazy magazines.” My number-one pa/And I was forced to tell him:
“Bud, you’re either somewhere northeast of us, give or take twenty or
thirty degrees, or somewhere southwest, same wide range of error,
and signal strength shows that you must be at least fifty miles over
the horizon, probably more; I’ve got no way to scale the reception.”
  Bud chuckled. “That’s a lot of ocean.”
  “How much gas do you have?”
“Maybe forty minutes. Most of the fighters don’t have as much. Hold
the phone; the skipper’s calling me.”
  So I tried again for a minimum-no luck-swung back. “Lex loop to
  Victor Fox Two guard.”
“Gotcha, boy. Skipper says we all ditch before the sun goes down.
First I land, then they ditch as close to me as possible. I’ll have



                                  373
hitchhikers clinging to the float a/l night long-be lucky if they don’t
swamp me.”
  “What sea?”
  “Beaufort three, crowding four.”
  “Cripes. No white water here at all. Just long swells.”
“She’ll take it, she’s tough. But I’m glad not to have to dead-stick a
galloping goose. Gotta sign off,~ skipper wants me, it’s time. Been
nice knowing you.”
So at last I knew-too late-which lobe they were in, as it was already
dark with the suddenness of the tropics where I was, whereas the
sun was still to set where they were. That eliminated perhaps five
hundred square miles. But it placed them still farther away. . . which
added at least a thousand square miles.
Suddenly out of the darkness endless searchlights shot straight up;
the Fleet C-in-C had canceled war-condition darken-ship rather than
let Victor Fox Two ditch- which was pretty nice of him because all
those battleship admirals were veterans of World War One, not one
of them had wings, and (with no exceptions worth noting) they hated
airplanes, did not believe that planes were good for anything but
scouting (if that), and despised pilots, especially those who had not
attended the Academy (i.e., most of them).
I was still listening on Bud’s frequency and heard some most
prayerful profanity. At once Bud had a bearing on the battle line; our
navigator had our bearing and distance to the battle line; my talker to
the bridge gave me the course and distance VF-2 needed to home
on, and I passed it to Bud. End of crisis-
   • but not quite the end of tension. The squadron just barely had
      enough gas to get home, and more than half of those pilots had
      never checked out on night carrier landings.. . with no margin of
      fuel to let the landing officer wave a man off for poor approach if
      there was any possible chance that his tail hook could catch a
      wire. I am happy to report that every pilot got down safely
      although one did sort of bend his prop around the crash barrier.
Bud did almost have to make a dead-stick landing with a galloping
goose. As he was the only one who could land on water if necessary,
he had to come in last.. . and his engine coughed and died just as his
tail hook caught the wire.



                                    374
In one of Jack Williamson’s stories a character goes back in time and
makes a very slight change in order to effect a major change in later
history.
Bud is Albert Buddy Scoles, then a lieutenant (junior grade), now a
retired rear admiral, and is the officer who in 1942 gathered me,
Isaac Asimov, and L. Sprague de Camp into his R&D labs at Mustin
Field, Philadelphia, later solicited help from all technically trained SF
writers and, still later, just after World War Two, set up the Navy’s first
guided missile range at Point Mugu.
  I do not assume that history would have changed appreciably had
  VF-2 been forced to ditch.
But let’s assume a change in Buddy Scoles’ career just sufficient that
he would not have been in charge of those labs on 7 December
1941. It would not have to be his death-although he was in far greater
danger than his cheerful attitude admitted. An amphibian of that era
did not necessarily make a safe landing on the high seas, and the
galloping goose was an awkward beast at best-hard to see out of it in
landing. Assume a minor injury in landing, or several days’ exposure
to tropical sun-that’s a big ocean; they would not necessarily have
been picked up the next day or even that week.
Assume any one change that would have affected the pattern
ofBuddy Scoles’ careerenough top/ace him elsewhere than at Mustin
Field December 1941:
  Now let’s take it in small, not in terms of history:
I would not have been at Mustin Field. I can’t venture to guess where
I would have been; the Navy Bureau of Medicine was being stuffy
over my past medical history. I would not have met my wife; therefore
I would have died at least ten years ago. . . and I would not be writing
this book. (All high probabilities. Among the low probabilities is
winning the Irish Sweepstakes and moving to Monaco.)
Sprague de Camp would not have been at Mustin Field. He was
already headed for a Naval commission but at my suggestion Scoles
grabbed him. Perhaps he would havedied gloriously in battle. . . orhe
might have sat out the war in a swivel chair in the Navy Department.
But now I reach the important one. I practically kidnapped Isaac
Asimov from Columbia University, where he was a graduate student
bucking for his doctorate.


                                    375
You can write endless scenarios from there. The Manhattan District is
recruiting exceptionally bright graduate students in chemistry and
physics; Isaac is grabbed and the A-bomb is thereby finished a year
sooner. Or he stays on at Columbia, finishes his doctorate, and his
draft board never does pick him up because he is already signed as
an assistant professor at N.Y. U. the day he is invested. Etc., etc.
Here comes the rabbit- The first two books of the Foundation series
(Foundation, Bridle and Saddle, The Big and the Little, The Wedge,
Dead Hand, The Mule) were written while Isaac was a chemist in the
labs at Mustin Field.
What would the Good Doctor have written during those years had I
not fiddled with his karma? Exactly the same stories? Very similar
stories? Entirely different stories? (Any scenario is plausible except
one in which Dr. Asimov does no writing at all.)
All I feel sure of is that there is an extremely high probability that an
almost-too-late decision by a battle-ship admiral in 1931 not only
saved the lives of some fighter pilots whose names I do not know.. .
but also almost certainly changed the lives of Admiral Scoles, myself,
L. Sprague de Camp, Dr. Asimov and, by direct concatenation, the
lives of wives, sweethearts, and offspring-and quite a major chunk of
modern science fiction. (Had Scoles not called me back to
Philadelphia I think I would have wound up in a Southern California
aircraft factory, and possibly stayed with it instead of going back to
writing. . . and helped build Apollo-Saturn. Maybe.)
If you think SEARCHLIGHT derives from an incident off Ecuador, you
may be right. Possibly I dredged it out of my subconscious and did
not spot it until later.
On This Site
  The Afternoon of June 5th, 1834 Nothing of Any Importance
  Happened

FOREWORD
On 5 April 1973 I delivered the James Forrestal Memorial Lecture to
the Brigade of Midshipmen at my alma mater the United States Naval
Academy. As the first half of the lecture, at the request of the
midshipmen, I discussed freelance writing. This is the second half~



                                   376
THE PRAGMATICS OF PATRIOTISM
In this complex world, science, the scientific method, and the
consequences of the scientific method are central to everything the
human race is doing and to wherever we are going. If we blow
ourselves up we will do it by misapplication of science; if we manage
to keep from blowing ourselves up, it will be through intelligent
application of science. Science fiction is the only form of fiction which
takes into account this central force in our lives and futures. Other
sorts of fiction, if they notice science at all, simply deplore it-an
attitude very chichi in the anti-intellectual atmosphere of today. But
we will never get out of the mess we are in by wringing our hands.
Let me make one flat-footed prediction of the science-fiction type.
Like all scenarios this one has assumptions-variables treated as
constants. The primary assumption is that World War Three will hold
off long enough-ten, twenty, thirty years-for this prediction to work
out. . . plus a secondary assumption that the human race will not find
some other way to blunder into ultimate disaster.
Prediction: In the immediate future-by that I mean in the course of the
naval careers of the class of ‘73- there will be nuclear-powered,
constant-boost spaceships-ships capable of going to Mars and back
in a
couple of weeks-and these ships will be armed with Buck-Rogersish
death rays. Despite all treaties now existing or still to be signed
concerning the peaceful use of space, these spaceships will be used
in warfare. Space navies will change beyond recognition our present
methods of warfare and will control the political shape of the world for
the foreseeable future. Furthermore-and still more important-these
new spaceships will open the Solar System to colonization and will
eventually open the rest of this Galaxy.
I did not say that the United States will have these ships. The present
sorry state of our country does not permit me to make such a
prediction. In the words of one of our most distinguished graduates in
his The Influence of Sea Power on History: “Popular governments are
not generally favorable to military expenditures, however necessary-“
Every military officer has had his nose rubbed in the wry truth of
Admiral Mahan’s observation. I first found myself dismayed by it
some forty years ago when I learned that I was expected to maintain
the ship’s battery of USS ROPER in a state of combat readiness on


                                   377
an allowance of less than a dollar a day- with World War Two staring
down our throats.
The United States is capable of developing such spaceships. But the
mood today does not favor it. So I am unable to predict that we will
be the nation to spend the necessary R&D money to build such
ships.
  (Addressed to a plebe midshipman:)
  Mister, how long is it to graduation?
Sixty-two days? Let’s make it closer than that. I have . . . 7.59, just
short of eight bells. Assuming graduation for ten in the morning that
gives.. . 5,320,860 seconds to graduation.. . and I have less than 960
seconds in which to say what I want to say.
(To the Brigade at large:) Why are you here?
(To a second plebe:)
  Mister, why are you here?
Never mind, son; that’s a rhetorital question. You are here to become
a naval officer. That’s why this Academy was founded. That is why all
of you are here:
to become naval officers. If that is not why you are here, you’ve made
a bad mistake. But I speak to the overwhelming majority who
understood the oath they took on becoming midshipmen and look
forward to the day when they will renew that oath as commissioned
officers.
  But why would anyone want to become a naval officer?
In the present dismal state of our culture there is little prestige
attached to serving your country; recent public opinion polls place
military service far down the list.
It can’t be the pay. No one gets rich on Navy pay. Even a 4-star
admiral is paid much less than top executives in other lines. As for
lower ranks the typical naval officer finds himself throughout his
career just catching up from the unexpected expenses connected
with the last change of duty when another change of duty causes a
new financial crisis. Then, when he is about fifty, he is passed over
and retires. . . but he can’t really retire because he has two kids in
college and one still to go. So he has to find a job . . . and discovers
that jobs for men his age are scarce and usually don’t pay well.



                                   378
Working conditions? You’ll spend half your life away from your family.
Your working hours? “Six days shalt thou work and do all thou art
able; the seventh the same, and pound on the cable.” A forty-hour
week is standard for civilians-but not for naval officers. You’ll work
that forty-hour week but that’s just a starter. You’ll stand a night
watch as well, and duty weekends. Then with every increase in grade
your hours get longer-until at last you get a ship of your own and no
longer stand watches. Instead you are on duty twenty-four hours a
day.. . and you’ll sign your
night order book with: “In case of doubt, do not hesitate to call me.”
I don’t know the average week’s work for a naval officer but it is
closer to sixty than to forty. I’m speaking of peacetime, of course.
Under war conditions it is whatever hours are necessary-and sleep
you grab when you can.
Why would anyone elect a career which is unappreciated,
overworked, and underpaid? It can’t be just to wear a pretty uniform.
There has to be a better reason.
As one drives through the bushveldt of East Africa it is easy to spot
herds of baboons grazing on the ground. But not by looking at the
ground. Instead you look up and spot the lookout, an adult male
posted on a limb of a tree where he has a clear view all around him-
which is why you can spot him; he has to be where he can see a
leopard in time to give the alarm. On the ground a leopard can catch
a baboon . . . but if a baboon is warned in time to reach the trees, he
can outclimb a leopard.
The lookout is a young male assigned to that duty and there he will
stay, until the bull of the herd sends up another male to relieve him.
Keep your eye on that baboon; we’ll be back to him. Today, in the
United States, it is popular among selfstyled “intellectuals” to sneer at
patriotism. They seem to think that it is axiomatic that any civilized
man is a pacifist, and they treat the military profession with contempt.
“Warmongers”-“ Imperialists”- “Hired killers in uniform”-you have all
heard such sneers and you will hear them again. One of their favorite
quotations is: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
What they never mention is that the man who made that sneering
wisecrack was a fat, gluttonous slob who was pursued all his life by a
pathological fear of death.


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I propose to prove that that baboon on watch is morally superior to
that fat poltroon who made that wisecrack.
  Patriotism is the most practical of all human characteristics.
But in the present decadent atmosphere patriots are often too shy to
talk about it-as if it were something shameful or an irrational
weakness.
But patriotism is not sentimental nonsense. Nor something dreamed
up by demagogues. Patriotism is as necessary a part of man’s
evolutionary equipment as are his eyes, as useful to the race as eyes
are to the individual.
A man who is not patriotic is an evolutionary dead end. This is not
sentiment but the hardest sort of logic.
To prove that patriotism is a necessity we must go back to
fundamentals. Take any breed of animal-for example, tyrannosaurus
rex. What is the most basic thing about him? The answer is that
tyrannosaurus rex is dead, gone, extinct.
  Now take homo sapiens. The first fact about him is that he is not
  extinct, he is alive.
  Which brings us to the second fundamental question: Will homo
  sapiens stay alive? Will he survive?
We can answer part of that at once: Individually h. sapiens will not
survive. It is unlikely that anyone here tonight will be alive eighty
years from now; it approaches mathematical certainty that we will all
be dead a hundred years from now as even the youngest plebe here
would be 118 years old then-if still alive.
Some men do live that long but the percentage is so microscopic as
not to matter. Recent advances in biology suggest that human life
may be extended to a century and a quarter, even a century and a
half-but this will create more problems than it solves. When a man
reaches my age or thereabouts, the last great service he can perform
is to die and get out of the way of younger people.
Very well, as individuals we all die. This brings us to the second half
of the question: Does homo sapiens as a breed have to die? The
answer is: No, it is not unavoidable.




                                   380
We have two situations, mutually exclusive: Mankind surviving, and
mankind extinct. With respect to morality, the second situation is a
null class. An extinct breed has no behavior, moral or otherwise.
Since survival is the sine qua non, I now define “moral behavior” as
“behavior that tends toward survival.” I won’t argue with philosophers
or theologians who choose to use the word “moral” to mean
something else, but I do not think anyone can define “behavior that
tends toward extinction” as being “moral” without stretching the word
“moral” all out of shape.
  We are now ready to observe the hierarchy of moral behavior from
  its lowest level to its highest.
The simplest form of moral behavior occurs when a man or other
animal fights for his own survival. Do not belittle such behavior as
being merely selfish. Of course it is selfish . . . but selfishness is the
bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only
when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative. An animal so poor in
spirit that he won’t even fight on his own behalf is already an
evolutionary dead end; the best he can do for his breed is to crawl off
and die, and not pass on his defective genes.
The next higher level is to work, fight, and sometimes die for your
own immediate family. This is the level at which six pounds of mother
cat can be so fierce that she’ll drive off a police dog. It is the level at
which a father takes a moonlighting job to keep his kids in college-
and the level at which a mother or father dives into a flood to save a
drowning child. . . and it is still moral behavior even when it fails.
The next higher level is to work, fight, and sometimes die for a group
larger than the unit family-an extended family, a herd, a tribe-and
take another look at that baboon on watch; he’s at that moral level. I
don’t think baboon language is complex enough to permit them to
discuss such abstract notions as “morality” or “duty” or “loyalty”-but it
is evident that baboons do operate morally and do exhibit the traits of
duty and loyalty; we see them in action. Call it “instinct” if you like-but
remember that assigning a name to a phenomenon does not explain
it.
But that baboon behavior can be explained in evolutionary terms.
Evolution is a process that never stops. Baboons who fail to exhibit
moral behavior do not survive; they wind up as meat for leopards.
Every baboon generation has to pass this examination in moral

                                    381
behavior; those who bilge it don’t have progeny. Perhaps the old bull
of the tribe gives lessons . . . but the leopard decides who graduates-
and there is no appeal from his decision. We don’t have to
understand the details to observe the outcome: Baboons behave
morally-for baboons.
The next level in moral behavior higher than that exhibited by the
baboon is that in which duty and loyalty are shown toward a group of
your own kind too large for an individual to know all of them. We have
a name for that. It is called “patriotism.”
Behaving on a still higher moral level were the astronauts who went
to the Moon, for their actions tend toward the survival of the entire
race of mankind. The door they opened leads to the hope that h.
sapiens will survive indefinitely long, even longer than this solid
planet on which we stand tonight. As a direct result of what they did,
it is now possible that the human race will never die.
Many short-sighted fools think that going to the Moon was just a
stunt. But the astronauts knew the meaning of what they were doing,
as is shown by Neil Armstrong’s first words in stepping down onto the
soil of Luna: “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
  Let us note proudly that eleven of the Astronaut Corps are
  graduates of this our school.
And let me add that James Forrestal was the first high-ranking
Federal official to come out flatly for space travel.
I must pause to brush off those parlor pacifists I mentioned earlier . . .
for they contend that their actions are on this highest moral level.
They want to put a stop to war; they say so. Their purpose is to save
the human race from killing itself off; they say that too. Anyone who
disagrees with them must be a bloodthirsty scoundrel-and they’ll tell
you that to your face.
I won’t waste time trying to judge their motives; my criticism is of their
mental processes: Their heads aren’t screwed on tight. They live in a
world of fantasy.
  Let me stipulate that, if the human race managed its affairs
  sensibly, we could do without war.
  Yes-and if pigs had wings, they could fly.




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I don’t know what planet those pious pacifists are talking about but it
can’t be the third one out from the Sun. Anyone who has seen the
Far East-or Africa-or the Middle East-knows or certainly should know
that there is no chance of abolishing war in the foreseeable future. In
the past few years I have been around the world three times, traveled
in most of the communist countries, visited many of the so-called
emerging countries, plus many trips to Europe and to South America;
I saw nothing that cheered me as to the prospects for peace. The
seeds of war are everywhere; the conflicts of interest are real and
deep, and will not be abolished by pious platitudes.
The best we can hope for is a precarious balance of power among
the nations capable of waging total war-while endless lesser wars
break out here and there.
I won’t belabor this. Our campuses are loaded with custard-headed
pacifists but the yard of the Naval Academy is one place where I will
not encounter them. We are in agreement that the United States still
needs a navy, that the Republic will always have need for heroes-
else you would not be here tonight and in uniform.
Patriotism- Moral behavior at the national level. Non sibi sed Patria.
Nathan Hale’s last words: “I regret that I have but one life to give for
my country.” Torpedo Squadron Eight making its suicidal attack. Four
chaplains standing fast while the water rises around them. Thomas
Jefferson saying, “The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to
time with the blood of patriots-“ A submarine skipper giving the order
“Take her down!” while he himself is still topside. Jonas Ingram
standing on the steps of Bancroft Hall and shouting, “The Navy has
no place for good losers! The Navy needs tough sons of bitches who
can go out there and win!”
Patriotism- An abstract word used to describe a type of behavior as
harshly practical as good brakes and good tires. It means that you
place the welfare of your nation ahead of your own even if it costs
you your life.
Men who go down to the sea in ships have long had another way of
expressing the same moral behavior tagged by the abstract
expression “patriotism.” Spelled out in simple Anglo-Saxon words
“Patriotism” reads “Women and children first!”
And that is the moral result of realizing a self-evident biological fact:
Men are expendable; women and children are not. A tribe or a nation

                                   383
can lose a high percentage of its men and still pick up the pieces and
goon. . . as long as the women and children are saved. But if you fail
to save the women and children, you’ve had it, you’re done, you’re
through! You join tyrannosaurus rex, one more breed that bilged its
final test.
I must amplify that. I know that women can fight and often have. I
have known many a tough old grandmother I would rather have at my
side in a tight spot than any number of pseudo-males who disdain
military service. My wife put in three years and a butt active duty in
World War Two, plus ten years reserve, and I am proud-very proud!-
of her naval service. I am proud of every one of our women in
uniform; they are a shining example to us men.
Nevertheless, as a mathematical proposition in the facts of biology,
children, and women of child-bearing age, are the ultimate treasure
that we must save. Every human culture is based on “Women and
children first”-and any attempt to do it any other way leads quickly to
extinction.
Possibly extinction is the way we are headed. Great nations have
died in the past; it can happen to us.
Nor am I certain how good our chances are. To me it seems self-
evident that any nation that loses its patriotic fervor is on the skids.
Without that indispensable survival factor the end is only a matter of
time. I don’t know how deeply the rot has penetrated-but it seems to
me that there has been a change for the worse in the last fifty years.
Possibly I am misled by the offensive behavior of a noisy but
unimportant minority. But it does seem to me that patriotism has lost
its grip on a large percentage of our people.
I hope I am wrong. . . because if my fears are well grounded, I would
not bet two cents on this nation’s chance of lasting even to the end of
this century.
But there is no way to force patriotism on anyone. Passing a law will
not create it, nor can we buy it by appropriating so many billions of
dollars.
You gentlemen of the Brigade are most fortunate. You are going to a
school where this basic moral virtue is daily reinforced by precept and
example. It is not enough to know what Charlie Noble does for a
living, or what makes the wildcat wild, or which BatDiv failed to splice


                                   384
the main brace and why-nor to learn matrix algebra and navigation
and ballistics and aerodynamics and nuclear engineering. These
things are merely the working tools of your profession and could be
learned elsewhere; they do not require “four years together by the
Bay where Severn joins the tide.”
What you do have here is a tradition of service. Your most important
classroom is Memorial Hall. Your most important lesson is the way
you feel inside when you walk up those steps and see that shot-torn
flag framed in the arch of the door: “Don’t Give Up the Ship.”
If you feel nothing, you don’t belong here. But if it gives you goose
flesh just to see that old battle flag, then you are going to find that
feeling increasing every time you return here over the years . . . until
it reabhes a crescendo the day you return and read the list of your
own honored dead-classmates, shipmates, friends- read them with
grief and pride while you try to keep your tears silent.
The time has come for me to stop. I said that “Patriotism” is a way of
saying “Women and children first.” And that no one can force a man
to feel this way. Instead he must embrace it freely. I want to tell about
one such man. He wore no uniform and no one knows his name, or
where he came from; all we know is what he did.
In my home town sixty years ago when I was a child, my mother and
father used to take me and my brothers and sisters out to Swope
Park on Sunday afternoons. It was a wonderful place for kids, with
picnic grounds and lakes and a zoo. But a railroad line cut straight
through it.
One Sunday afternoon a young married couple were crossing these
tracks. She apparently did not watch her step, for she managed to
catch her foot in the frog of a switch to a siding and could not pull it
free. Her husband stopped to help her.
But try as they might they could not get her foot loose. While they
were working at it, a tramp showed up, walking the ties. He joined the
husband in trying to pull the young woman’s foot loose. No luck-
Out of sight around the curve a train whistled. Perhaps there would
have been time to run and flag it down, perhaps not. In any case both
men went right ahead trying to pull her free . . . and the train hit them.




                                   385
The wife was killed, the husband was mortally injured and died later,
the tramp was killed-and testimony showed that neither man made
the slightest effort to save himself.
The husband’s behavior was heroic . . but what we expect of a
husband toward his wife: his right, and his proud privilege, to die for
his woman. But what of this nameless stranger? Up to the very last
second he could have jumped clear. He did not. He was still trying to
save this woman he had never seen before in his life, right up to the
very instant the train killed him. And that’s all we’ll ever know about
him.
  This is how a man dies.
  This is how a man .. . lives!

“They shall not grow old
as we that are left grow old, age.shall not wither them
nor the years condemn;
At the going down of the sun
and in the morning,
we shall remember them .

  • Tomb of the Scottish Unknown Soldier Edinburgh



PAUL DIRAC, ANTIMATTER, AND YOU

A Riddle

What have these in common?
1.    1926: A graduate student, Cambridge University
2.    Billions of years ago: Quasars exploding
3.    1908: A Siberian forest devastated
4.    10 million years ago: A galaxy exploding
5.    1932: A cloud-chamber track, Pasadena, Calif.
      Answer: All may, and 1 and 5 do involve antimatter.
      (ANTI matter?)
      Yes-like ordinary matter with electrical properties of particles
reversed. Each atom of matter is one or more nucleons surrounded
by one or more electrons; charges add up to zero. A hydrogen atom


                                  386
has a proton with positive charge as nucleus, surrounded by an
electron with negative charge. A proton is 1836.11 times as massive
as an electron, but their charges are equal and opposite: + 1 - 1 = 0.
Uranium-235 (or ~2U~35, meaning “an isotope of element 92,
uranium, nuclear weight 235”) has 235 nucleons: 143 neutrons of
zero charge and 92 protons of positive charge (143 + 92 = 235;
hence its name); these 235 are surrounded by 92 electrons
(negative), so total charge is zero: 0
+92-92 = 0. (Nuclear weight is never zero, being the mass of all the
nucleons.)
Make electrons positive, protons negative: charges still balance;
nuclear weight is unchanged-but it is not an atom of matter; it is an
antiatom of antimatter.
“Touch Me Not!”
In an antimatter world, antimatter behaves like matter. Bread dough
rises, weapons kill, kisses still taste sweet. You would be antimatter
and not notice
it.
WARNING! Since your body is matter (else you could not be reading
this), don’t kiss an antimatter girl. You both would explode with
violence unbelievable.
      But you’ll never meet one, nor will your grandchildren. (I’m not sure
      about their grandchildren.)

E = mc2
Antimatter is no science-fiction nightmare; it’s as real as Texas. That
Cambridge graduate student was Paul A. M. Dirac inventing new
mathematics to merge Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity
with Max Planck’s quantum theory. Both theories worked-but
conflicted. Dirac sought to merge them without conflict.
      He succeeded.
His equations were published in 1928, and from them, in 1930, he
made an incredible prediction: each sort of particle had antiparticles
of opposite charge:
“antimatter.”



                                      387
Scientists have their human foibles; a scientist can grow as fond of
his world concept as a cat of its “own” chair. By 1930 the cozy 19th-
century “world” of physics had been repeatedly outraged. This
ridiculous new assault insulted all common sense.
But in 1932 at the California Institute of Technology, Carl D.
Anderson photographed proof of the electron’s antiparticle (named
“positron” for its positive charge but otherwise twin to the electron).
Radical theory has seldom been confirmed so quickly or re
warded so promptly: Dirac received the Nobel prize in 1933,
Anderson in 1936-each barely 31 years of age when awarded it.
Since 1932 so many sorts of antiparticles have been detected that no
doubt remains: antimatter matches matter in every sort of particle.
Matching is not always as simple as electron (e-) and positron (e+).
Photons are their own antiparticles. Neutrons and neutrinos (zero
charges) are matched by antineutrons and antineutrinos, also of zero
charge-this sounds like meaningless redundancy because English is
not appropriate language; abstract mathematics is the language
required for precise statements in physical theory. (Try writing the
score of a symphony solely in words with no musical symbols
whatever.)
But a hint lies in noting that there are reaction series in which protons
and electrons yield neutrons-one e\alnple: the ~o,-disa nr Solar
Phoen I (solar power theory, Hans Bethe); if we ignore details, the
Solar Phoenix can be summarized as changing four hydrogen atoms
(four of 1Ht) into one helium atom (2H4). We start with four protons
and four electrons; we end up six stages later with two neutrons, two
protons, and two electrons-and that is neither precise nor adequate
and is not an equation and ignores other isotopes involved, creation
of positrons, release of energy through mutual annihilations of
positrons and free electrons, and several other features, plus the fact
that this transformation can occur by a variety of routes.
(But such are the booby traps of English or any verbal language
where abstract mathematics is the only (-orre(-1 l~Ingtta~e.)
      A     ide \~I ~CL \ (   i      I’    I

t iprolons ~md l’Ofl~ to V~Hd ~nl n~nt i OHS. Ilie t\Vifl types (ii
\aiieties 01 tr~n~10t~Uah1o)t1s filentiolled above are simply
samples: there 31 c many 01 hei types being 1)0th predicted ii nil

                                   388
hemat lea1 l~ and detected in the laboratories almost dailv---and
many or most
transformation series involve antiparticles of antimatter.
Nevertheless, antimatter is scarce in our corner of the universe-lucky
for us because, when matter encounters antimatter, both explode in
total annihilation. E = mc2 is known to everyone since its awful truth
was demonstrated at Hiroshima, Japan. It states that energy is
equivalent to mass, mass to energy, in this relation: energy equals
mass times the square of the velocity of light in empty space.
That velocity is almost inconceivable. In blasting for the moon our
astronauts reached nearly 7 miles! second; light travels almost
27,000 times that speed- 186,282.4 (±0.1) miles or 299,792.5 (±0.15)
kilometers each second. Round off that last figure as 300,000; then
use the compatible units of science (grams, cen timeters, ergs) and
write in centimeters 3 x 1O~°, then square it: 9 x 1020, or
900000,000,000000000,000. (!!!)
This fantastic figure shouts that a tiny mass can become a monstrous
blast of energy-grim proof: Hiroshima.
But maximum possible efficiency of U23~ fission is about 1/10 of 1%;
the Hiroshima bomb’s actual efficiency was much lower, and H-bomb
fusion has still lower maximum (H-bombs can be more powerful
through having no limit on size; all fission bombs have sharp limits).
But fission or fusion, almost all the reacting mass splits or combines
into other elements; only a trifle becomes energy.
In matter-antimatter reaction, however, all of both become energy. An
engineer might say “200~ eli1lent” as anti mattel undergoing ann lb
hat lOll conelts into raw energy an equal mass of matter

Mathematical Physicists
An experimental physicist uses expensive giant accelerators to shoot
particles at 99.9~-f- of the speed of light, or sometimes gadgets built
on his own time with
scrounged materials. Large or small, cheap or costly, he works with
things.
A mathematical physicist uses pencil, paper, and brain. Not my brain
or yours-unless you are of the rare few with “mathematical intuition.”



                                  389
That’s a tag for an unexplainable. It is a gift, not a skill, and cannot be
learned or taught. Even advanced mathematics (“advanced” to
laymen) such as higher calculus, Fourier analysis, n-dimensional and
non-Euclidean geometries are skills requiring only patience and
normal intelligence .. . after they have been invented by persons
having mathematical intuition.
The oft-heard plaint “I can’t cope with math!” may mean subnormal
intelligence (unlikely), laziness (more likely), or poor teaching
(extremely likely). But that plaint usually refers to common arithmetic-
a trivial skill in the eyes of a mathematician. (Creating it was not
trivial. Zero, positional notation, decimal-orbase point all took genius;
imagine doing a Form 1040 in Roman numerals.)
Of billions living and dead perhaps a few thousand have been gifted
with mathematical intuition; a few hundred have lived in
circumstances permitting use of it; a smaller fraction have been
mathematical physicists. Of these a few dozen have left permanent
marks on physics.
But without these few we would not have science. Mathematical
physics is basic to all sciences. No exceptions. None.
Mathematical physicists sometimes hint that experimentalists are
frustrated pipefitters; experimentalists mutter that theoreticians are so
lost in fog they need guardians. But they are indispensable to each
other. Piling up facts is not science-science is factsand-theories.
Facts alone have limited use and lack meaning; a valid theory
organizes them into far greater usefulness. To be valid a theory must
be confirmed by all relevant facts. A “natural law” is theory
repeatedly confirmed and drops back to “approximation” when one
fact contradicts it. Then search resumes for better theory to embrace
old facts plus this stubborn new one.
No “natural law” of 500 years ago is “law” today; all our present laws
are probably approximations, useful but not perfect. Some scientists,
notably Paul Dirac, suspect that perfection is unattainable.
A powerful theory not only embraces old facts and new but also
discloses unsuspected facts. These are landmarks of science:
Nicolaus Copernicus’ heliocentric theory, Johannes Kepler’srefining it
into conicsections ballistics, Isaac Newton’s laws of motion and
theory of universal gravitation, James C. Maxwell’s equations linking


                                    390
electricity with magnetism, Planck’s quantum theory, Einstein’s
relativity, Dirac’s synthesis of quantum theory and special relativity-a
few more, not many.
Mathematical physicists strive to create a mathematical structure
interrelating all space-time events, past and future, from
infinitesimally small to inconceivably huge and remote in space and
time, a “unified field theory” embracing 10 or 20 billion years and
light-years, more likely 80 billion or so-or possibly eternity in an
infinity of multiple universes.
  Some order!
They try. Newton made great strides. So did Einstein. Nearly 50
years ago Dirac brought it closer, has steadily added to it, is working
on it today.
Paul Dirac may be and probably is the greatest living theoretical
scientist. Dirac, Newton, and Einstein are equals.

Paul A. M. Dirac
The experimentalists’ slur about theoretical physicists holds a grain of
truth. Newton apparently never noticed the lovely sex in all his years.
Einstein ignored such trivialities as socks. One mathematical
physicist who swayed World War II could not be trusted with a
screwdriver.
  Dirac is not that sort of man.
Other than genius, his only unusual trait is strong dislike for idle talk.
(His Cambridge students coined a unit the dirac-one word per light-
year.) But he lectures and writes with admirable clarity. Taciturn, he is
not unsocial; in 1937 he married a most charming Hungarian lady.
They have two daughters and a son.
He can be trusted with tools; he sometimes builds instruments and
performs his own experiments. He graduated in engineering before
he became a mathematical physicist; this influenced his life.
Engineers find working solutions from incomplete data;
approximations are close enough if they do the job-too fussy wastes
man-hours. But when a job needs it, a true engineer gives his utmost
to achieve as near perfection as possible.
  Dirac brought this attitude to theoretical physics; his successes
  justify his approach.

                                   391
He was born in Bristol, England, Aug. 8, 1902, and named Paul
Adrien Maurice Dirac. His precocity in mathematics showed early; his
father supplied books and encouraged him to study on his own.
Solitary walks and study were the boy’s notion of fun-and are of the
man today. Dirac works (and plays) hardest by doing and saying
nothing . . . while his mind roams the universe.
When barely 16 years old, he entered the University of Bristol. At 18
he graduated, bachelor of science in electrical engineering. In 1923 a
grant enabled him to return to school at the foremost institution for
mathematics, Cambridge University. In three years of study for a
doctorate Dirac published 12 papers in mathematical physics, 5 in
The Proceedings of the Royal Societv. A cub with only an
engineering degree from a minor university has trouble getting
published in any journal of science; to appear at the age of 22 in the
most highly respected of them all is amazing.
  Dirac received his doctorate in May 1926, his dissertation being
  “Quantum Mechanics”-the stickiest
subject in physical science. He tackled it his first year at Cambridge
and has continued tO unravel its paradoxes throughout his career;
out of 123 publications over the last 50 years the word quantum can
be found 45 times in his titles.
Dirac remained at Cambridge-taught, thought, published. In 1932, the
year before his Nobel prize, he received an honor rarer than that
prize, one formerly held by Newton: Lucasian professor of
mathematics. Dirac kept it 37 years, until he resigned from
Cambridge. He accepted other posts during his Cantabrigian years:
member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, N.J.,
professor of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, visiting
professorships here and there.
Intuitive mathematicians often burn out young. Not Dirac!-he is a
Michelangelo who started very young, never stopped, is still going
strong. Antimatter is not necessarily his contribution most esteemed
by colleagues, but his other major ones are so abstruse as to defy
putting them into common words:
A mathematical attribute of particles dubbed “spin”; coinvention of the
Fermi-Dirac statistics; an abstract mathematical replacement for the
“pellucid aether” of classical mechanics. For centuries, ether was
used and its “physical reality” generally accepted either as

                                  392
“axiomatic” or “proved” through various negative proofs. Both “axiom”
and “negative proof” are treacherous; the 1887 Michelson-Morley
experiment showed no physical reality behind the concept of ether,
and many variations of that experiment over many years gave the
same null results.
So Einstein omitted ether from his treatments of relativity-while less
brilliant men ignored the observed facts and clung to classical ether
for at least 40 years.
Dirac’s ether (circa 1950) is solely abstract mathematics, more useful
thereby than classical ether as it avoids the paradoxes of the earlier
concepts. Dirac has
consistently warned against treating mathematical equations as if
they were pictures of something that could be visualized in the way
one may visualize the Taj Mahal or a loaf of bread; his equations are
rules concerning space-time events-not pictures.
(This may be the key to his extraordinary successes.) One more
example must represent a long list:
Dirac’s work on Georges Lemaltre’s “primeval egg”- later popularized
as the “big bang.”
Honors also are too many to list in full: fellow of the Royal Society, its
Royal Medal, its Copley Medal, honorary degrees (always refused),
foreign associate of the American Academy of Sciences,
Oppenheimer Memorial Prize, and (most valued by Dirac) Great
Britain’s Order of Merit.
Dirac “retired” by accepting a research professorship at Florida State
University, where he is now working on gravitation theory. In 1937 he
had theorized that Newton’s “constant of gravitation” was in fact a
decreasing variable . . . but the amount of decrease he predicted was
so small that it could not be verified in 1937.
Today the decrease can be measured. In July 1974 Thomas C. Van
Flandern of the U.S. Naval Observatory reported measurements
showing a decrease in gravitation of about a ten-billionth each year
(1 per 1010 per annum). This amount seems trivial, but it j~ very
large in astronomical and geological time. If these findings are
confirmed and if they continue to support Dirac’s mathematical
theory, he will have upset physical science even more than he did in
1928 and 1930.


                                    393
Here is an incomplete list of the sciences that would undergo radical
revision: physics from micro- through astro-, astronomy, geology,
paleontology, meteorology, chemistry, cosmology, cosmogony,
geogony, ballistics. It is too early to speculate about effects on the life
sciences, but we exist inside this physical world and gravitation is the
most pervasive feature of our world.
Theory of biological evolution would certainly be affected. It is
possible that understanding gravitation could result in changes in
engineering technology too sweeping easily to be imagined.

Antimatter and You
Of cosmologies there is no end; astrophysicists enjoy “playing God.”
It’s safe fun, too, as the questions are so sweeping, the data so
confusing, that any cosmology is hard to prove or disprove. But since
1932 antimatter has been a necessary datum. Many cosmologists
feel that the universe (universes?) has as much antimatter as matter-
but they disagree over how to balance the two.
Some think that, on the average, every other star in our Milky Way
galaxy is antimatter. Others find that setup dangerously crowded-
make it every second galaxy. Still others prefer universe-and-
antiuniverse with antimatter in ours only on rare occasions when
energetic particles collide so violently that some of the energy forms
antiparticles. And some like higher numbers of universes-even an
unlimited number.
One advantage of light’s finite speed is that we can see several eons
of the universe in action, rather than just one frame of a very long
moving picture. Today’s instruments reach not only far out into space
but also far back into time; this permits us to test in some degree a
proposed cosmology. The LST (Large Space Telescope), to be
placed in orbit by the Space Shuttle in 1983, will have 20 times the
resolving power of the best ground-based and atmosphere-distorted
conventional telescope-therefore 20 times the reach, or more than
enough to see clear back to the “beginning” by one cosmology, the
“big bang.”
    (Q: What happened before the beginning? A: You tell me.)
When we double that reach-someday we will- what will we see?
Empty space? Or the backs of our necks?
    (Q: What’s this to me? A: Patience one moment....)


                                    394
The star nearest ours is a triplet system; one of the three resembles
our sun and may have an Earthlike planet-an inviting target for our
first attempt to cross interstellar space. Suppose that system is
antimatter- BANG! Scratch one starship.
  (Hooray for Zero Population Growth! To hell with space-travel
  boondoggles!)
Then consider this: June 30, 1908, a meteor struck Siberia, so
blindingly bright in broad daylight that people 1,000 miles away saw
it. Its roar was “deafening” at 500 miles. Its ground quake brought a
train to emergency stop 400 miles from impact. North of Vanavara its
air blast killed a herd of 1,500 reindeer.
Trouble and war and revolution-investigation waited 19 years. But still
devastated were many hundreds of square miles. How giant trees lay
pinpointed impact.
  A meteor from inside our Galaxy can strike Earth at 50
  miles/second.
  But could one hit us from outside our Galaxy?
Yes! The only unlikely (but not impossible) routes are those plowing
edgewise or nearly so through the Milky Way; most of the sky is an
open road-step outside tonight and look. An antimeteor from an
antigalaxy could sneak in through hard vacuum-losing an antiatom
whenever it encountered a random atom but nevertheless could
strike us massing, say, one pound.
One pound of antimatter at any speed or none would raise as much
hell as 28,000 tons of matter striking at 50 miles/second.
Today no one knows how to amass even a gram of antimatter or how
to handle and control it either for power or for weaponry. Experts
assert that all three are impossible.
  However...
  Two relevant examples of “expert” predictions:
Robert A. Millikan, Nobel laureate in physics and distinguished
second to none by a half-century of re
search into charges and properties of atomic particles, in quantum
mechanics, and in several other areas, predicted that all the power
that could ever be extracted from atoms would no more than blow the


                                  395
whistle on a peanut vendor’s cart. (In fairness I must add that most of
his colleagues agreed-and the same is true of the next example.)
Forest Ray Moulton, for many years top astronomer of the University
of Chicago and foremost authority in ballistics, stated in print (1935)
that there was “not the slightest possibility of such a journey” as the
one the whole world watched 34 years later: Apollo 11 to the moon.
In 1938, when there was not a pinch of pure uranium-235 anywhere
on Earth and no technology to amass or control it, Lise Meitner
devised mathematics that pointed straight to atom bombs. Less than
seven years after she did this, the first one blazed “like a thousand
suns.”
  No possible way to amass antimatter?
  Or ever to handle it?
  Being smugly certain of that (but mistaken) could mean to you . . .
    and me and everyone
The END
AFTERWORD

I am precluded from revising this article because Encyclopaedia
Britannica owns the copyright; I wrote it under contract. But in truth it
needs no revision but can use some late news flashes.
1) Jonathan V. Post reports (OMNI, May ‘79) that scientists in
Geneva have announced containment of a beam of antiprotons in a
circular storage ring for 85 hours. Further deponent sayeth not as
today (Nov. ‘79) I have not yet traced down details. The total mass
could not have been large (Geneva is still on the map) as the storage
method used is not suited to large masses-or, as in this case, a
massive sum total of very small masses.
But I am astonished at any containment even though with dead
seriousness I predicted it in the section just above. I did not expect it
in the near future but now I learn it happened at least 10 months ago,
only 4 years after I wrote the above article.
Too frighteningly soon! A very small (anti) mass to be sure-but when
Dr. Lise Meitner wrote the equations that implicitly predicted the A-
bomb, there was not enough purified U-235 anywhere to cause a
gnat’s eye to water.




                                   396
How soon will we face a LARGE mass-say about an ounce-planted in
Manhattan by someone who doesn’t like us very well? If he releases
the magnetic container by an alarm-clock timer or nine other simple
make-it-inyour-own-kitchen devices, he can be in Singapore when it
goes off Or in Trenton if he enjoys watching his own little practical
jokes-he won’t worry about witnesses; they will be dead.
Too big? Too cumbersome? Too expensive? I don’t know-and neither
does anyone else today. I am not proposing sneaking a CERN
particle accelerator past Hoboken customs. . . but note that the first
reacting atomic pile (University of Chicago) was massive-but it was
not flown to Hiroshima. The bomb that did go was called “Fat Boy” for
good reason. Now we can fire them from
8-inch guns. As for the “suitcase” bomb-change that to a large
briefcase; all the other essentials can be bought off the shelf for cash
in any medium-large city, no questions asked as they are
commonplace items.
  Antimatter, containment and all, might turn out to be even smaller,
  lighter, simpler.
2) That variable constant: Dr. Van Flandern is still plugging away at
Dr. Dirac’s 1937 prediction about the “Constant” of Gravitation. The
latest figures I have seen show (by his measurements) that the
“Constant” is decreasing by 3.6 ± 1.8 parts in 1011 years, a figure
surprisingly close to Dirac’s 1937 prediction (5.6) in view of the
extreme difficulty of making the measurements and of excluding
extraneous variables. But all this is based on a universe 18-20 billion
years old since the “big bang”- an assumption on current best data
but still an assumption. If the universe is actually materially older than
that (there are reasons to think so, and all the revisions since Abbé
LemaItre first formulated the theory have all been upward, never
downward), then Dirac’s prediction may turn out to be right on the
nose of observed data to their limit of accuracy.

The data above are from an article by Dr. Herbert
Friedman of Naval Research Laboratory. Our Baker
Street Irregulars have just established a pipeline to Dr.
Van Flandern; if major new data become available before
this book is closed for press, I will add a line to this.
   3) In Where To see prediction number fourteen, page


                                   397
341: At the Naval Academy I slept my way through the course in
physics; nothing had changed since I had covered the same ground
in high school. “Little did I dream” that a young man at Cambridge,
less than five years older than I, was at that very moment turning the
world upside down. This quiet, polite, soft-spoken gentleman was
going to turn out to be the enfant terrible of physics. This has been
the stormiest century in natural philosophy of all history and the
storms are not over. We would not today have over 200 “elementary”
particles (an open scandal) if Paul Dirac had not simplified the
relation of
spin and magnetism in an electron into one equation over fifty years
ago, then shown that the equation implied antimatter.
Many thousands of man-hours, many millions of dollars have been
spent since then exploring the byways opened up by this one
equation. And the end is not yet. The four forces (strong, weak,
gravitic, electromagnetic) are still to be combined into one system.
Einstein died with the work unfinished, Hawking (although young) is
tragically ill, Dirac himself has reached the age when he really should
not climb stepladders (as I know too well; I’m not that much younger).
E = me2 everybody knows; it’s short and simple. But the Dirac
equation, at least as important, is known only to professionals-not
surprising; it’s hairy and uses symbols a lavutan never sees.
I include it here just for record; I won’t try to explain ii. For
explanations, gel a late text on quantum inechanic~ and be prepared
to learn some not-easy mathematics. Lotsa luck!
f ff~~ + h~2 + ~J~2 + ~2] dxdydz = 1

LATE BULLETIN:
  Newton’s “Constant” of Gravitation is a decreasing variable.
Just as I was about to dispatch this book MS to New York, through
the good offices of Dr. Yoji Kondo (astrophysicist NASA Goddard) I
received from Dr. Thomas C. Van Flandern a preprint of his latest
results. They tend to confirm Dr. Dirac’s 1937 prediction even more
closely
AND ARE RACKED UP BY TWO OTHER APPR ) ~( Ill ~ nil II~m
~ln~ (y/Ol l’U~ lOll (i~ 0 1(0/able d
((‘H S H ig oil/i tniie.

                                  398
I hare just telephoned Dm-. Van Fianclern. Wit/i caution propel- to a
scientist he does not say that he has “proved” Dr. Dirac ‘s prediction
... but that data to date~s upport it; no data that he knows of
contradict it-and addS that sonic ot his colleagues disagree with him.
I don’t have to be cautious; this man has established the fact beyond
any reasonable doubt. Twenty-odd years of endless Lunar data, done
by atomic (cesium) clock, electrically-automatically timed occultations
of stars, backed by both triangulation and radar ranging,
counterchecked by similar work done on the inner planets by other
astronomers at other observatories- Certainly he could be wrong. . .
and I could be elected President!
T.    C. Van Flandern turns out to be the sort of Renaissance Man
Dirac is, but a generation younger (38 years). B.S. mathematics,
Xavier, Cincinnati; Ph.D. astronomy, Yale-he has three other
disciplines: biochemistry, nutrition, psychiatry. (When does he
sleep?)
Reread that list of sciences affected (p. 486), then batten down the
hatches! Dirac has done it again, and the World will never be the
same.

LARGER THAN LIFE
A Memoir in Tribute to
Dr. Edward E. Smith


  August 1940-aback road near Jackson, Michigan- a 1939
  Chevrolet sedan:
“Doc” Smith is at the wheel; I am in the righthand seat and trying hard
to appear cool, calm, fearless-a credit to the Patrol. Doc has the
accelerator floorboarded . . . but has his head tilted over at ninety
degrees so that he can rest his skull against the frame of the open
left window-in order to listen by bone conduction for body squeaks.
Were you to attempt this position yourself-car parked and brakes set,
by all means; I am not suggesting that you drive-you would find that
your view of the road ahead is between negligible and zero.
  I must note that Doc was not wearing his Lens.



                                  399
This leaves (by Occam’s Razor) his sense of perception, his almost
superhuman reflexes, and his ability to integrate instantly all available
data and act therefrom decisively and correctly.
  Sounds a lot like the Gray Lensman, does it not?
It should, as no one more nearly resembled (in character and in
ability-not necessarily in appearance) the Gray Lensman than did the
good gray doctor who created him.

Doc could do almost anything and do it quickly and
well. In this case he was selecting and road-testing for me a
secondhand car. After rejecting numberless other cars, he approved
this one; I bought it. Note the date:
August 1940. We entered World War Two the following year and quit
making automobiles. I drove that car for twelve years. When I finally
did replace it, the mechanic who took care of it asked to be permitted
to buy it rather than have it be turned in on a trade. . . because, after
more than thirteen years and hundreds of thousands of miles, it was
still a good car. Doc Smith had not missed anything.
  Its name? Skylark Five, of course.
So far as I know, Doc Smith could not play a dulcimer (but it would
not surprise me to learn that he had been expert at it). Here are some
of the skills I know he possessed:
Chemist & chemical engineer-and anyone who thinks these two
professions are one and the same is neither a chemist nor an
engineer. (My wife is a chemist and is also an aeronautical engineer-
but she is not a chemical engineer. All clear? No? See me after
class.)
  Metallurgist-an arcane art at the Trojan Point of Black Magic and
    science.
  Photographer-all metallurgists are expert photographers; the
    converse is not necessarily true.
  Lumberjack
  Cereal chemist
  Cook
  Explosives chemist-research, test, & development
    • product control
  Blacksmith


                                   400
  Machinist (tool & diemaker grade)
  Carpenter
Hardrock miner-see chapter 14 of FIRST LENSMAN, titled “Mining
and Disaster.” That chapter was written by a man who had been
there. And it is a refutation of the silly notion that science fiction does
not require knowledge of science. Did I hear someone say
that there is no science in that chapter? Just a trick vocabulary-trade
argot-plus description of some commonplace mechanical work- So?
The science (several sciences!) lies just below
the surface of the paper.. . and permeates every word. In some fields
I could be fooled, but not in this one. I’ve been in mining, off and on,
for more than forty years.
Or see SPACEHOUNDS OF IPC, chapters 3 & 4, pp. 40-80. . . and
especially p.52 of the Fantasy Press hardcover edition. Page 52 is
almost purely autobiographical in that it tells why the male lead,
“Steve” Stevens, knows how to fabricate from the wreckage at hand
everything necessary to rescue Nadia and himself. I once discussed
with Doc these two chapters, in detail; he convinced me that his hero
character could do these things by convincing me that he, Edward E.
Smith, could do all of them. . . and, being myself an experienced
mechanical engineer, it was not possible for him to give me a “snow
job.” (I think he lacked the circuitry to give a “snow job” in any case;
incorruptible honesty was Dr. Smith’s prime attribute-with courage to
match it.)
What else could he do? He could call square dances. Surely, almost
anyone can square-dance . . . but to become a caller takes longer
and is much more difficult. When and how he found time for this I do
not know- but, since he did everything about three times as fast as
ordinary people, there is probably no mystery.
Both Doc and his beautiful Jeannie were endlessly hospitable. I
stayed with them once when they had nine houseguests. They
seemed to enjoy it.
  But, above all, Doc Smith was the perfect, gallant knight, sans peur
  et sans reproche.
  And all of the above are reflected in his stories.




                                    401
It is customary today among self-styled “literary critics” to sneer at
Doc’s space epics-plot, characterization, dialog, motivations, values,
moral attitudes,
etc. “Hopelessly old-fashioned” is one of the milder disparagements.
  As Al Smith used to say: “Let’s take a look at the record.”
Edward Elmer Smith was born in 1890, some forty years before the
American language started to fall to pieces-long, long before the idiot
notion of “restricted vocabulary” infected our schools, a half century
before our language was corrupted by the fallacy that popular usage
defines grammatical correctness.
In consequence Dr. Smith made full use of his huge vocabulary,
preferring always the exact word over a more common but inexact
word. He did not hesitate to use complex sentences. His syntactical
constructions show that he understood and used with precision the
conditional and the subjunctive modes as well as the indicative. He
did not split infinitives. The difference between “like” and “as” was not
a mystery to him. He limited barbarisms to quoted dialog used in
characterization.
(“Oh, but that dialog!”) In each story Doc’s male lead character is a
very intelligent, highly educated, cheerful, emotional, enthusiastic,
and genuinely modest man who talks exactly like Doc Smith who was
a very intelligent, highly educated, cheerful, emotional, enthusiastic,
and genuinely modest man.
In casual conversation Doc used a number of clichés . . . and his
male lead characters used the same or similar ones. This is a literary
fault? I think not. In casual speech most people tend to repeat each
his own idiosyncratic pattern of clichés. Doc’s repertory of clichés
was quite colorful, especially so when compared with patterns heard
today that draw heavily on “The Seven Words That Must Never Be
Used in Television.” A 7-word vocabulary offers little variety.
(“But those embarrassing love scenes!”) E. E. Smith’s adolescence
was during the Mauve Decade; we may assume tentatively that his
attitudes toward women were formed mainly in those years. In 1914,
a
few weeks before the war in Europe started, he met his Jeannie-and I
can testify of my own knowledge that, 47 years later (i.e., the last
time I saw him before his death) he was still dazzled by the wonderful


                                   402
fact that this glorious creature had consented to spend her life with
him.
Do you remember the cultural attitudes toward romantic love during
the years before the European War? Too early for you? Never mind,
you’ll find them throughout Doc Smith’s novels. Now we come to the
important question. The Lensman novels are laid in the far future.
Can you think of any reason why the attitudes between sexes today
(ca. 1979) are more likely to prevail in the far future than are attitudes
prevailing before 1914?
  (I stipulate that there are many other possible patterns. But we are
  now comparing just these two.)
I suggest that the current pattern is contrasurvival, is necessarily
most temporary, and is merely one symptom of the kaleidoscopic and
possibly catastrophic rapid change our culture is passing through (or
dying from?).
Contrariwise, the pre-1914 values, whatever faults they may have,
are firmly anchored in the concept that a male’s first duty is to protect
women and children. Pro survival!
“Ah, but those hackneyed plots!” Yes, indeed!-and for excellent
reason: The ideas, the cosmic concepts, the complex and sweeping
plots, all were brand new when Doc invented them. But in the past
half century dozens of other writers have taken his plots, his
concepts, and rung the changes on them. The ink was barely dry on
SKYLARK OF SPACE when the imitators started in. They have never
stopped-pygmies, standing on the shoulders of a giant.
But all the complaints about “Skylark” Smith’s alleged literary faults
are as nothing to the (usually unvoiced) major grievance:
Doc Smith did not go along with any of the hogwash that passes for a
system of social values today.
He believed in Good and Evil. He had no truck with the moral
relativism of the neo- (cocktail-party) Freudians.
  He refused to concede that “mediocre” is better than “superior.”
  He had no patience with self-pity.
He did not think that men and women are equal- he would as lief
have equated oranges with apples. His stories assumed that men
and women are different, with different functions, different


                                   403
responsibilities, different duties. Not equal but complementary.
Neither complete without the other.
Worse yet, in his greatest and longest story, the 6volume Lensman
novel, he assumes that all humans are unequal (and, by implication,
that the cult of the common man is pernicious nonsense), and bases
his grand epic on the idea that a planned genetic breeding program
thousands of years long can (and must) produce a new race superior
to h. sapiens . . . supermen who will become the guardians of
civilization.
The Lensman novel was left unfinished; there was to have been at
least a seventh volume. As always, Doc had worked it out in great
detail but never (so far as I know) wrote it down. . . because it was
unpublishable-then. But he told me the ending, orally and in private.
I shan’t repeat it; it is not my story. Possibly somewhere there is a
manuscript-I hope so! All I will say is that the ending develops by
inescapable logic from clues in CHILDREN OF THE LENS.
So work it out for yourself. The original Gray Lensman left us quite
suddenly-urgent business a long way off, no time to spare to tell us
more stories.

SPINOFF
On 2 July 1979 I received a letter calling me to testify July 19th before
a joint session of the House Select Committee on Aging (Honorable
Claude Pepper, M.C., Chairman) and the House Committee on
Science and Technology (Honorable Don Fuqua, M.C., Chairman)-
subject: Applications of Space Technology for the Elderly and the
Handicapped.
I stared at that letter with all the enthusiasm of a bridegroom handed
a summons for jury duty. Space technology? Yeah, sure, I was gung-
ho for space technology, space travel, spaceships, space
exploration, space colonies-anything about space, always have been.
But “applications of space technology for the elderly and the
handicapped”? Why not bee culture? Or Estonian folk dancing? Or
the three-toed salamander? Tantric Yoga?
  I faced up to the problem the way any married man does: “Honey?
  How do I get out of this?”



                                   404
“Come clean,” she advised me. “Tell them bluntly that you know
nothing about the subject. Shall I write a letter for you to sign?”
  “It’s not that simple.”
  “Certainly it is. We don’t want to go to Washington. In July? Let’s
      not be silly.”
  “You don’t have to go.”
  “You don’t think I’d let you go alone, do you? After
the time and trouble I’ve spent keeping you alive? Then let you drop
dead on a Washington sidewalk? Hmmph! You go-I go.”
Some hours later I said, “Let’s sum it up. We both know that any
Congressional committee hearing, no matter how the call reads, has
as its real subject ‘Money’-who gets it and how much. And we know
that the space program is in bad trouble. This joint session may not
help-it looks as if it would take a miracle to save the space program-
but it might help. Some, maybe. The only trouble is that I don’t know
anything about the subject I’m supposed to discuss.”
       “So you’ve said, about twenty times.”
“I don’t know anything about it today. But on July 19th I’m going to be
a fully-qualified Expert Witness.”
       “So I told you, two hours ago.”
Ginny and I have our own Baker Street Irregulars. Whether the
subject be Chaucer or chalk, pulsars or poisons, we either know the
man who knows the most about it, or we know a man who knows the
man who knows the most. Within twenty-four hours we had a couple
of dozen ~~1f~1ft% f~{$//~ public-spirited citizens helping us.
Seventy-two hours, and information started to trickle in-within a week
it was a flood and I was starting to draft my written testimony.
I completed my draft and immediately discarded it; galley proofs had
arrived of TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE HANDICAPPED AND THE
AGED by Trudy E. Bell, NASA July 1979. This brochure was to be
submitted by Dr. Frosch, Administrator of NASA, as his testimony at
the same hearing. Trudy Bell had done a beautiful job-one that made
95% of what I had written totally unnecessary.
  So I started over.
  What follows is condensed and abridged from both my written
  presentation and my oral testimony:
“Honorable Chairman, ladies, and gentlemen- “Happy New Year!


                                   405
“Indeed a happy New Year beginning the 11th year in the Age of
Space, greatest era of our race-the greatest!-despite gasoline
shortages, pollution, overpopulation, inflation, wars and threats of
war. ‘These too shall pass’-but the stars abide.
“Our race will spread out through space-unlimited room, unlimited
energy, unlimited wealth. This is certain.
“But I am not certain that the working language will be English. The
people of the United States seem to have suffered a loss of nerve.
However, I am limited by the call to a discussion of ‘spinoffs’ from our
space program useful to the aged and the handicapped.
“In all scientific research, the researcher may or may not find what he
is looking for-indeed, his hypothesis may be demolished-but he is
certain to learn something new. . . which may be and often is more
important than what he had hoped to learn.
“This is the Principle of Serendipity. It is so invariant that it can be
considered an empirically established natural law.
“In space research we always try to do more with less, because today
the pay load is tightly limited in size and in weight. This means
endless research and development to make everything smaller,
lighter, foolproof, and fail-proof. It works out that almost everything
developed for space can be used in therapy
and thereby benefits both the elderly and the handicapped, the two
groups requiring the most therapy of all sorts.
“When you reach old age-say 70 and up-it approaches certainty that
you will be in some way handicapped. Not necessarily a wheelchair
or crutches or a white cane-most handicaps do not show. So all of us
are customers for space spinoffs-if not today, then soon.

Witness holds up NASA brochure. “There is no need
for me to discuss applications that NASA has already described. But
this I must say: NASA’s presentation is extremely modest; it cites
only 46 applications- whereas there are hundreds. Often one bit of
research results in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generations; each generation
usually has multiple applications-spinoffs have spinoffs, branching
out like a tree. To get a feeling for this, think of the endless
applications of Lee DeForest’s vacuum tube, Dr. Shockley’s
transistor.


                                     406
“Here is a way to spot space-research spinoffs: If it involves
microminiaturization of any sort, minicomputers, miniaturized long-life
power sources, highly reliable microswitches, remotely-controlled
manipulators, image enhancers, small and sophisticated robotics or
cybernetics, then, no matter where you find the item, at a critical point
in its development it was part of our space program.
  “Examples:
“Image enhancer: This magic gadget runs an x-ray or fluoroscope
picture through a special computer, does things to it, then puts it back
onto the screen. Or stores it for replay. Or both. It can sharpen the
contrast, take out ‘noise,’ remove part of the picture that gets in the
way of what you need to see, and do other Wizard-of-Oz stunts.
“This is the wonder toy that took extremely weak digital code signals
and turned them into those beautiful, sharp, true-color photographs
from the surface of Mars in the Viking program and also brought us
the Voyager photographs of Jupiter and its moons.
“I first saw one in 1977 at the Medical School of the University of
Arizona-saw them put a long catheter up through a dog’s body in
order to inject an x-rayopaque dye into its brain. This does not hurt
the dog. More about this later- “I did not know what an image
enhancer was until
I saw one demonstrated and did not learn until this year that it came
from our space program. Possibly the doctor did not know. M.D.’s
can use instruments
with no notion that they derive from space research and a patient
usually knows as little about it as
did that dog.
“The most ironical thing about our space program is that there are
thousands of people alive today who would be dead were it not for
some item derived from space research-but are blissfully unaware of
the fact-and complain about ‘wasting all that money on stupid,
useless space stunts when we have so many really important
problems to solve right here on Earth.’
  “’-all that money-‘!
  “That sort of thinking would have kept Columbus at home.




                                   407
“NASA’s annual budget wouldn’t carry H.E.W. ten days. The entire 10
years of the Moon program works out to slightly less than five cents
per citizen per day.
“Would you like to be a wheelchair case caught by a hurricane such
as that one that failed to swing east and instead hit the Texas and
Louisiana coast? That storm was tracked by weather satellite; there
was ample warning for anyone who would heed it-plenty of time to
evacuate not only wheelchair cases but bed patients.
“A similar storm hit Bangladesh a while back; it too was tracked by
satellite. But Bangladesh lacks means to warn its people; many
thousands were killed. Here in the United States it would take real
effort to miss a hurricane warning; even houses with no plumbing
have television.
“Weather satellites are not spinoff; they are space program. But they
must be listed because bad weather of any sort is much rougher on
the aged and the handicapped than it is on the young and able-
bodied.
“Portable kidney machine: If a person’s kidneys fail, he must ‘go on
the machine’ or die. ‘The machine’ is a fate so grim that the suicide
rate is high. Miniaturization has made it possible to build portable
kidney machines. This not only lets the patient lead a fairly
normal life, travel and so forth, but also his blood is cleaned steadily
as with a normal kidney; he is no longer cumulatively poisoned by his
own toxins between his assigned days or nights ‘on the machine.’
“This is new. A few have already made the switch but all kidney
victims can expect it soon. The suicide rate has dropped markedly-
life is again worth living; hope has been restored.
“Computerized-A,cial Tomography, or CAT, or ‘brain scan’: They
strap you to a table, fasten your skull firmly, duck behind a barrier,
and punch a button- then an automatic x-ray machine takes endless
pictures, a tiny slice at a time. A special computer synthesizes each
series of slices into a picture; a couple of dozen such pictures show
the brain in three-dimensional, fine detail, a layer at a time.
“Doppler Ultrasound Stethoscope: another microminiaturization
spinoff. This instrument is to an ordinary stethoscope as a Rolls
Royce is to a Model-T Ford.”



                                   408
Witness stands up, turns from side to side. “Look at me, please! I’ll
never be Mr. America; I’ll never take part in the Olympics. I’ve
climbed my last mountain.
  “But I’m here, I’m alive, I’m functioning.
“Fourteen months ago my brain was dull-normal and getting worse,
slipping toward ‘human vegetable.’ I slept 16 hours a day and wasn’t
worth a hoot the other 8 hours.
“Were it not for the skill of Dr. Norman Chater, plus certain spinoffs
from the space program, today I would either be a human vegetable
or, if lucky, dead of cerebral stroke.
“My father was not lucky; from a similar disorder it took him years to
die-miserable years. He died before the operation that saved me had
been invented, long before there was medical spinoff from space
technology.
“Am I elderly? I’m 72.1 suffered from a disorder typical of old age,
almost never found in the young.
“Am I handicapped? Yes, but my handicaps do not interfere with my
work-or my joy in life. Over forty years ago the Navy handed me a
piece of paper that pronounced me totally and permanently disabled.
I never believed it. That piece of paper wore out; I did not.
“Mrs. Heinlein and I spent 1976 and -77 on blood drives all over this
nation. We crisscrossed the country so many times we lost track. It
was worthwhile; we recruited several thousand new blood donors-but
it was very strenuous. By the end of ‘77 we badly needed a rest, so
we took a sea voyage. She and I were walking the beach on Moorea,
Tahiti, when I turned my head to look at a mountain peak-and
something happened.
“I balanced on my left leg and said, ‘Darling, I’m terribly sorry but I
think I’ve had a stroke. Something happened inside my head and
now I’m seeing double and my right side feels paralyzed.’
  “Mrs. Heinlein half carried me, half dragged me, back to the
  landing-got me back aboard.
“A shipmate friend, Dr. Armando Fortuna, diagnosed what had
happened: a transient ischemic attack, not a stroke. When we
reached California, this was confirmed by tests. However a TIA is
frequently a prelude to a stroke.


                                    409
“Remember that spinoff, computerized-axial tomography? That was
done to me to rule out brain tumor. No tumor. The neurologist my
physician had called in started me on medication to thin my blood as
the clinical picture indicated constriction in blood flow to my brain.
This treatment was to continue for six months.
But in only two months I was failing so rapidly that I was shipped to
the University of California Medical School at San Francisco for
further diagnosis. Remember the image enhancer and that dog at the
University of Arizona? I said that dog was not hurt. They did it to me,
with no anesthesia; it did not hurt.
“The catheter goes in down here”-witness points at his right groin-
“and goes all the way up and into the aortal arch above the heart.
There three very large arteries lead up toward the brain; the catheter
was used to shoot x-ray-opaque dye into each, in succession. The
procedure took over two hours . . . but I was never bored because the
image enhancer included closed-circuit television of the fluoroscopy
with the screen right up here”-witness indicates a spot just above and
to the left of his head-“above me, where the radiologist and his team,
and the patient-I- could see it.
“How many people ever get a chance to watch their own hearts beat?
Utterly fascinating! I could see my heart beating, see my diaphragm
rise and fall, see my lungs expand and contract, see the dye go up
into my brain. . . see the network of blood vessels in my brain
suddenly spring into sharp relief. It was worth the trip!
“They spotted what was wrong; my left internal carotid was totally
blocked. So the left half of my brain was starved for oxygen, as it was
receiving only what leaked over from the right side or from the
vertebrals where the network interconnected, principally at the Circle
of Willis under the brain.
“But this is your speech center”-witness touches left side of skull
above ear-“ your word processor, the place where a writer does all
his work. No wonder I was dopey-could not write, could not study,
could not read anything difficult.
“My left internal carotid is still blocked; the stoppage is too high up for
surgery. So they sent me to Dr. Chater at Franklin Hospital, who
moved my left superficial temporal artery to feed the left side of my
brain. This operation is pictured on pages 62 and 63 of the April 1978



                                    410
Scientific American, so Twill omit grisly details; if surgery interests
you, you can look them up there.

“The procedure is this: Scalp the patient from the
left eyebrow, going high and curving down to a spot behind the left
ear back of the mastoid. Cut away from the scalp the temporal artery.
Saw a circular hole in the skull above the ear. Go inside the brain into
the Sylvian fissure, find its main artery, join the two arteries, end to
side. The left anterior lobe of my brain is now served by the left
external carotid via this roundabout bypass. Dr. Chater did the
hookup under a microscope with sutures so fine the naked eye can’t
see them.
“Check by Doppler ultrasound to make sure the bypass works, then
close the hole in the skull with a plate that has a groove in it for the
moved artery. Sew back the scalp-go to lunch. The surgeon has been
operating for four hours; he’s hungry. (The patient is not.)
“They placed me in a cardiac intensive-care room. When I woke, I
found in my room a big screen with dancing lights all over it. Those
curves meant nothing to me but were clear as print to the T.C. nurses
and to my doctors-such things as EKG, blood pressure, respiration,
temperature, brain waves, I don’t know what all. The thing was so
sensitive that my slightest movement caused one of the curves to
spike.
“I mention this gadget because I was not wired to it. “Another space-
technology spinoff: This is the way Dr. Berry monitored our
astronauts whenever they were out in space.
“Colonel Berry had to have remote monitoring for his astronaut
patients. For me it may not have been utterly necessary. But it did
mean that I was not cluttered with dozens of wires like a fly caught in
a web; the microminiaturized sensors were so small and unobtrusive
that I never noticed them-yet the nurses had the full picture every
minute, every second.
“Another advantage of telemetered remote monitoring is that more
than one terminal can display the signals. My wife tells me that there
was one at the nursing supervisor’s station. Dr. Chater may have had
a terminal in his offices-I don’t know. But there can’t be any difficulty
in remoting a hundred yards or so when the technology was


                                    411
developed for remoting from Luna to Houston, almost a quarter of a
million miles.
“Space spinoff in postoperative care: a Doppler ultrasound
stethoscope is an impressive example of microminiaturization. It is
enormously more sensitive than an acoustic stethoscope; the gain
can be controlled, and, because of its Doppler nature, fluid flow
volume and direction can be inferred by a skilled operator. Being
ultrasound at extremely high frequency, it is highly directional; an
acoustic stethoscope is not.
“It generates a tight beam of ultrasound beyond the range of the
human ear. This beam strikes something and bounces back, causing
interference beats in the audible range. It behaves much like Doppler
radar save that the radiation is ultrasound rather than
electromagnetic. Thus it is a non invasive way to explore inside the
body without the dangers of x-ray . . . and is able to ‘see’ soft tissues
that x-ray can’t see.
“Both characteristics make it especially useful for protecting pregnant
mothers and unborn babies. I am not departing from the call; babies
unborn and newly born, and mothers at term must be classed as
‘temporarily but severely handicapped.’
  “Doppler ultrasound was used on me before, during, and after
  surgery.
“After my convalescence I was again examined by computerized
axial tomography. No abnormalities—other than the new plate in my
skull.
“This brain surgery is not itself a spinoff from space technology . . .
but note how repeatedly space spinoffs were used on me before,
during, and after surgery. This operation is very touchy; in the whole
world only a handful of surgical teams dare attempt it. Of the
thousand-odd of these operations to date, worldwide, Dr. Chater has
performed more than 300. His mortality rate is far lower than that of
any other team any-
where. This is a tribute to his skill but part of it comes from his
attitude: he always uses the latest, most sophisticated tools available.
“I was far gone; I needed every edge possible. Several things that
tipped the odds in my favor are spinoffs from space technology.



                                   412
“Was it worthwhile? Yes, even if I had died at one of the four critical
points-because sinking into senility while one is still bright enough to
realize that one’s mental powers are steadily failing is a miserable,
nogood way to live. Early last year I was just smart enough to realize
that I had nothing left to look forward to, nothing whatever. This
caused me to be quite willing to ‘Go-for-Broke’-get well or die.
“Did it work? I have been out of convalescence about one year,
during which I’ve caught up on two years of technical journals,
resumed studying-I have long been convinced that life-long learning
helps to keep one young and happy. True or not, both my wife and I
do this. At present Tam reviewing symbolic logic, going on into more
advanced n-dimensional, non-Euclidean geometries, plus another
subject quite new to me: Chinese history.
“But I am working, too; I have completed writing a very long novel
and am about halfway through another book.
“I feel that I have proved one of two things: either I have fully
recovered.. . or a hole in the head is no handicap to a science-fiction
author.
  “I must note one spinoff especially important to the aged and the
  handicapped: spiritual spinoff.
“’Man does not live by bread alone.’ Any physician will tell you that
the most important factor in getting well is the will to live-contrariwise,
a terminal patient dies when he gives up the fight.
“I have been in death row three times. The unfailing support of my
wife sustained my will to live.. . so here I am. In addition I have
believed firmly in space
flight for the past sixty-odd years; this has been a permanent
incentive to hang on, hang on! My wife shares this; she decided
years back to die on the Moon, not here in the smog and the crowds.
Now that I am well again I intend to hang in there, lead a disciplined
life, stay alive until we can buy commercial tickets to the Moon . . .
and spend our last days in low-gravity comfort in the Luna Hilton, six
levels down in Luna City.
“Foolishness? Everyone in this room is old enough to know by direct
experience that today’s foolishness is tomorrow’s wisdom. I can
remember when ‘Get a horse!’ was considered the height of wit. As



                                    413
may be, anything that gives one a strong incentive to live can’t be
entirely foolish.
“I get a flood of mail from my readers; a disproportionate part of it is
from the very old and the handicapped. It is impossible to be a fan of
my fiction and not be enthusiastic for space travel. Besides, they tell
me so, explicitly, in writing.
  “Examples:
“A college professor, blind from birth. He’s never seen the the stars;
he’s never seen the Moon. The books he reads and rereads-has read
to him by his secretary-are about space travel. He went to a lot of
trouble to look me up. . . to discuss our space program.
“A teen-age boy, tied to a wheelchair, who wrote to ask me whether
or not he could become an astronautical engineer-some ‘friend’ had
told him that it was a silly ambition for a cripple. I assured him that an
engineer did not need legs even on Earth surface, advised him in
what courses to take, and referred him to a story by Arthur C. Clarke
in which a double amputee, both legs, commands a space station.
“A housewife with epilepsy, grand mal, who doesn’t expect ever to be
able to go out into space. . . but finds her greatest interest in life, her
major relief from the tedious routine she must follow, in our space
program.
“Avery large number of elderly people who wrote to me immediately
after the first landing on the Moon,
all saying, in effect, that they thanked the Lord that they had been
spared long enough to see this great day.
“I could add examples endlessly. Just let me state flatly that my files
hold proof that the aged retired, the shut-ins and the disabled of all
ages get more spiritual lift out of space flight than does any other
definable group of our citizens. For many of them the television
screen is their only window on the world; something great and shining
and wonderful went out of their lives when the Apollo Moon program
ended.
  “Even if a space program had no other spinoff, isn’t that sort worth
  5~ a day?”




                                    414
AFTERWORD
Later: No, to most citizens of the United States the entire space
program plus all its spinoffs is not worth even 5~ per day; the polls
(and letters to Congress) plainly show it. And they won’t believe that
5ç~ figure even if you do the arithmetic right in front of their eyes.
They will still think of it as “all that money” being “wasted” on “a few
rocks.”
It is easy to prove that the space program paid for itself several times
over in terms of increased gross national product. . . and in new
technology. . . and in saved lives. But they won’t believe any of that,
either.
NASA has two remarkable records: first, a space program far more
successful than anyone had dared hope; and, second, the most
incredibly bumbling, stupid, inept public relations of any government
agency.
A Congressman’s counsel pointed out to me that NASA and other
government agencies were by law not perm itted to advertise
themselves. Oh, come off it!-it does not matter whether a man is
called a “public information aide” or a flack; a press agent defines
himself by what he does. The man who was NASA’s boss flack all
during the Moon program had the endearing manners of Dennis the
Menace. He’s gone now-but the damage he did lives on, while our
space program is dying.
Still... if you aren’t willing to give up and start studying Mandarin or
possibly Japanese, you can write to your congressman and to both
your senators and tell them how you feel about it. If you do, send
copies to Don Fuqua (Democrat, Lower House) and to Barry
Goldwater, Sr. (Republican, Upper House). A strong space program
has many friends in both parties and in both houses- but it is
necessary to let them know that they have friends.

FOREWORD
One would think that a “prophet” unable to score higher than 66%
after 30 years have elapsed on 50-year predictions would have the
humility (or the caution) to refrain from repeating his folly. But I’ve
never been very humble, and the motto of my prime vocation has
always been: “L’audace! Toujours l’audace!”



                                   415
  So the culprit returns to his crime. Or see PROVERBS XXVI, 11.
  And hang on to your hats!




I shot an error into the air.
It’s still going.. . everywhere.
LLong
THE HAPPY DAYS AHEAD
“It does not pay a prophet to be too specific.”
   • L. Sprague de Camp
“You never get rich peddling gloom.”
• William Lindsay Gresham




The late Bill Gresham was, before consumption forced him into fiction
writing, a carnie mentalist of great skill. He could give a cold reading
that would scare the pants off a marble statue. In six words he
summarized the secret of success as a fortuneteller. Always tell the
mark what he wants to hear. He will love you for it, happily pay you,
then forgive and forget when your cheerful prediction fails to come
true-and always come back for more.
Stockbrokers stay in business this way; their tips are no better than
guesses but they are not peddling dividends; they are peddling
happiness. Millions of priests and preachers have used this formula,
promising eternal bliss in exchange for following, or at least giving lip
service to, some short and tolerable rules, plus a variable cash fee
not too steep for the customer’s purse .. . and have continued to
make this formula work without ever in all the years producing even
one client who had actually received the promised prize.
Then how do churches stay in business? Because, in talking about
“Pie in the Sky, By and By,” they offer happiness and peace of mind
right here on Earth. When



                                   416
Karl Marx said, “Religion is the opium of the people,” he was not
being cynical or sarcastic; he was being correctly descriptive. In the
middle nineteenth century opium was the only relief from intolerable
pain; Karl Marx was stating that faith in a happy religion made the
lives of the people of the abyss tolerable.
Sprague de Camp is Grand Master of practically everything and
probably the most learned of all living practitioners of science fiction
and fantasy. I heard those words of wisdom from him before I wrote
the 1950 version of PANDORA’S BOX. So why didn’t Illsten? Three
reasons: 1) money; 2) money; and 3) I thought I could get away with
it during my lifetime for predictions attributed to 2000 A.D. I never
expected to live that long; I had strong reasons to expect to die
young. But I seem to have more lives than a cat; it may be necessary
to kill me by driving a steak through my heart (sirloin by choice), then
bury me at a crossroads.
Still, I could have gotten away with it if I had stuck to predictions that
could not mature before 2000 A.D. Take the two where I really
flopped, #5 and #16. In both cases I named a specific year short of
2000 A.D. Had I not ignored Mr. de Camp’s warning, I could look
bland and murmur, “Wait and see. Don’t be impatient,” on all in which
the prediction does not look as promising in 1980 as it did in 1950.
Had I heeded a wise man on 2 out of 191 could today, by sheer
brass, claim to be batting a thousand.

I have made some successful predictions. One is
“The Crazy Years.” (Take a look out your window. Or at your morning
paper.) Another is the water bed. Some joker tried to patent the water
bed to shut out competition, and discovered that he could not
because it was in the public domain, having been described in detail
in STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND. It had been mentioned in
stories of mine as far back as 1941 and several times after that, but
not until STRANGER
did the mechanics of a scene requirc describing how it worked.
It was not the first man to build water beds who tried to patent it. The
first man in the field knew where it came from; he sent me one, free
and freight prepaid, with a telegram naming his firm as the “Share-
Water Bed Company.” Q.E.D.



                                   417
Our house has no place to set up a water bed. None. So that bed is
still in storage a couple of hundred yards from our main house. I’ve
owned a water bed from the time they first came on market-but have
never slept in one.
I designed the water bed during years as a bed patient in the middle
thirties: a pump to control waterlevel, side supports to permit one to
float rather than simply lying on a not-very-soft water-filled mattress,
thermostatic control of temperature, safety interfaces to avoid all
possibility of electrical shock, waterproof box to make a leak no more
important than a leaky hot water bottle rather than a domestic
disaster, calculation of floor loads (important!), internal rubber
mattress, and lighting, reading, and eating arrangements-an attempt
to design the perfect hospital bed by one who had spent too damned
much time in hospita! beds.
Nothing about it was eligible for patent-nothing new-unless a sharp
patent lawyer could persuade the examiners that a working
assemblage enabling a person to sleep on water involved that-how
does the law describe it?-“flash of inspiration” transcending former
art. But I never thought of trying; I simply wanted to build one-but at
that time I could not have afforded a custom-made soapbox.
But I know exactly where I got the idea. In 1931, a few days after the
radio-compass incident described in the afterword to
SEARCHLIGHT, I was ordered to Fort Clayton, Canal Zone, to fire in
Fleet Rifle & Pistol Matches. During that vacation-with-pay I often re
turned from Panama City after taps, when all was quiet. There was a
large swimming pool near the post gate used by the Navy and our
camp was well separated from the Army regiment barracked there.
I would stop, strip naked, and have a swim-nonreg (no life guards)
but no one around, and regulations are made to be broken.
Full moon occurred about the middle of Fleet Matches-and I am one
of those oddies who cannot sink, even in fresh water (which this
was). The water was blood warm, there was no noise louder than
night jungle sounds, the Moon blazed overhead, and I would lie back
with every muscle relaxed and stare at it-fall into it-wonder whether
we would get there in my lifetime. Sometimes I dozed off.
Eventually I would climb out, wipe my feet dry with a hanky, pull on
shoes, hang clothes over my arm, and walk to my tent in the dark. I


                                   418
don’t recall ever meeting anyone but it couldn’t matter-dark, all male,
surrounded by armed sentries, and responsible myself only to a
Marine Corps officer junior to me but my TDY boss as team captain-
and he did not give a hoot what I did as long as I racked a high score
on the range (and I did, largely because my coach was a small wiry
Marine sergeant nicknamed “Deacon”-who reappears as survival
teacher in TUNNEL IN THE SKY).
Some years later, bothered by bed sores and with every joint aching
no matter what position I twisted into, I thought often of the Sybaritic
comfort of floating in blood-warm water at night in Panama-and
wished that it could be done for bed patients.. . and eventually figured
out how to do it, all details, long before I was well enough to make
working drawings.
But 1) I never expected one to be built; 2) never thought of them
(except for myself) other than as hospital beds; 3) never expected
them to be widely used by a fair percentage of the public; 4) and
never dreamed that they would someday be advertised by motels for
romantic-exotic-erotic weekends along with X-rated films on closed-
circuit TV.
By stacking the cards, I’m about to follow the advice of both Bill
Gresham and Sprague de Camp. First, I will paint a gloomy picture of
what our future may be. Second, I’ll offer a cheerful scenario of how
wonderful it could be. I can afford to be specific as each scenario will
deny everything said in the other one (de Camp), and I can risk great
gloom in the first because I’ll play you out with music at the end
(Gresham).
GLOOM, WOE, AND DISASTER-There are increasing pathological
trends in our culture that show us headed down the chute to self-
destruction. These trends do not require that we be conquered-wait a
bit and we will fall into the lap of whichever power cares to occupy us.
I’ll list some of these trends and illustrate (rather than prove) what I
mean. But it would be tediously depressing to pile up convincing
proof-I’m not running for office. I do have proof, on file right in this
room. I started clipping and filing by categories on trends as early as
1930 and my “youngest” file was started in 1945.
Span of time is important; the 3-legged stool of understanding is held
up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these
three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any


                                  419
one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your
boots.
A few years ago I was visited by an astronomer, young and quite
brilliant. He claimed to be a longtime reader of my fiction and his
conversation proved it. I was telling him about a time I needed a
synergistic orbit from Earth to a 24-hour station; I told him what story
it was in, he was familiar with the scene, mentioned having read the
book in grammar school.
This orbit is similar in appearance to cometary interplanet transfer but
is in fact a series of compromises in order to arrive in step with the
space station; elapsed time is an unsmooth integral not to be found in
Hudson’s Manual but it can be solved by the methods used on Siacci
empiricals for atmosphere ballistics: numerical integration.
I’m married to a woman who knows more math, history, and
languages than I do. This should teach me humility (and sometimes
does, for a few minutes). Her brain is a great help to me
professionally. I was telling this young scientist how we obtained
yards of butcher paper, then each of us worked three days,
independently, solved the problem and checked each other- then the
answer disappeared into one line of one paragraph (SPACE CADET)
but the effort had been worthwhile as it controlled what I could do
dramatically in that sequence.
  Doctor Whoosis said, “But why didn’t you just shove it through a
  computer?”
I blinked at him. Then said slowly, gently, “My dear boy-“ (I don’t
usually call Ph.D.’s in hardcore sciences “My dear boy”-they impress
me. But this was a special case.)
   “My dear boy . . . this was 1947.”
   It took him some seconds to get it, then he blushed.
Age is not an accomplishment and youth is no sin. This young man
was (is) brilliant, skilled in mathematics, had picked German and
Russian for his doctorate. At the time I met him he seemed to lack
feeling for historical span . . . but, if true, I suspect that it began to itch
him and he made up that lack either formally or by reading. Come to
think of it, much of my own knowledge of history derives not from
history courses but from history of astronomy, of war and military art,
and of mathematics, as my formal history study stopped with
Alexander and resumed with Prince Henry the Navigator. But to

                                      420
understand the history of those three subjects, you must branch out
into general history.

Span of time-the Decline of Education
My father never went to college. He attended high school in a
southern Missouri town of 3000+, then attended a private 2-year
academy roughly analogous to junior college today, except that it was
very small- had to be; a day school, and Missouri had no paved
roads.
Here are some of the subjects he studied in backcountry 19th century
schools: Latin, Greek, physics (natural philosophy), French,
geometry, algebra, 1st year calculus, bookkeeping, American history,
World history, chemistry, geology.
Twenty-eight years later I attended a much larger city high school. I
took Latin and French but Greek was not offered; I took physics and
chemistry but geology was not offered. I took geometry and algebra
but calculus was not offered. I took American history and ancient
history but no comprehensive history course was offered. Anyone
wishing comprehensive history could take (each a one-year 5-hrs/wk
course) ancient history, medieval history, modern European history,
and American history-and note that the available courses ignored all
of Asia, all of South America, all of Africa except ancient Egypt, and
touched Canada and Mexico solely with respect to our wars with
each.
I’ve had to repair what I missed with a combination of travel and
private study.. . and must admit that I did not tackle Chinese history in
depth until this year. My training in history was so spotty that it was
not until I went to the Naval Academy and saw captured battle flags
that I learned that we fought Korea some eighty years earlier than the
mess we are still trying to clean up.
From my father’s textbook I know that the world history course he
studied was not detailed (how could it be?) but at least it treated the
world as round; it did not ignore three fourths of our planet.
Now, let me report what I’ve seen, heard, looked up, clipped out of
newspapers and elsewhere, and read in books such as WHY
JOHNNY CAN’T READ, BLACKBOARD JUNGLE, etc.




                                   421
Colorado Springs, our home until 1965, in 1960 offered first-year
Latin-but that was all. Caesar, Cicero, Virgil-Who dat?
Latin is not taught in the high schools of Santa Cruz County. From
oral reports and clippings I note that it is not taught in most high
schools across the country.
“Why this emphasis on Latin? It’s a dead language!” Brother, as with
jazz, in the words of a great artist, “If you have to ask, you ain’t never
goin’ to find out.” A person who knows only his own language does
not even know his own language; epistemology necessitates knowing
more than one human language. Besides that sharp edge, Latin is a
giant help in all the sciences-and so is Greek, so I studied it on my
own.
A friend of mine, now a dean in a state university, was a tenured
professor of history-but got riffed when history was eliminated from
the required subjects for a bachelor’s degree. His courses (American
history) are still offered but the one or two who sign up, he tutors; the
overhead of a classroom cannot be justified.
A recent Wall Street Journal story described the bloodthirsty job
hunting that goes on at the annual meeting of the Modern Languages
Association; modern languages-even English-are being
deemphasized right across the country; there are more professors in
MLA than there are jobs.
I mentioned elsewhere the straight-A student on a scholarship who
did not know the relations between weeks, months, and years. This is
not uncommon; high school and college students in this country
usually can’t do simple arithmetic without using a pocket calculator. (I
mean with pencil on paper; to ask one to do mental arithmetic causes
jaws to drop-say 17 x 34, done mentally. How? Answer: Chuck away
the 34 but remember it. (10 + 7)2 is 289, obviously. Double it:
2(300 - 11), or 578.
But my father would have given the answer at once, as his country
grammar school a century ago required perfect memorizing of
multiplication tables through 20 x 20 = 400 . . . so his ciphering the
above would have been merely the doubling of a number already
known (289)-or 578. He might have done it again by another route to
check it: (68 + 510)-but his hesitation would not have been
noticeable.


                                   422
Was my father a mathematician? Not at all. Am I? Hell, no! This is the
simplest sort of kitchen arithmetic, the sort that high school students
can no longerdo- at least in Santa Cruz.
If they don’t study math and languages and history, what do they
study? (Nota Bene! Any student can learn the truly tough subjects on
almost any campus if he/she wishes-the professors and books and
labs are there. But the student must want to.)
But if that student does not want to learn anything requiring brain
sweat, most U.S. campuses will babysit him 4 years, then hand him a
baccalaureate for not burning down the library. That girl in Colorado
Springs who studied Latin-but no classic Latin-got a “general”
bachelor’s degree at the University of Colorado in 1964. I attended
her graduation, asked what she had majored in. No major. What had
she studied? Nothing, really, it turned out-and, sure enough, she’s as
ignorant today as she was in high school.
Santa Cruz has an enormous, lavish 2-year college and also a
campus of the University of California, degree granting through Ph.D.
level. But, since math and languages and history are not required,
let’s see how they fill the other classrooms.
The University of California (all campuses) is classed as a “tough
school.” It is paralleled by a State University system with lower
entrance requirements, and this is paralleled by local junior colleges
(never called “junior”) that accept any warm body.
UCSC was planned as an elite school (“The Oxford of the West”) but
falling enrollment made it necessary to accept any applicant who can
qualify for the University of California as a whole; therefore UCSC
now typifies the “statewide campus.” Entrance can be by examination
(usually College Entrance Examination Boards) or by high school
certificate. Either way, admission requires a certain spread-2 years of
math, 2 of a modern language, 1 of a natural science, 1 of
American history, 3 years of English-and a level of performance that
translates as B+. There are two additional requirements: English
composition, and American History and Institutions. The second
requirement acknowledges that some high schools do not require
American history; UCSC permits an otherwise acceptable applicant
to make up this deficiency (with credit) after admission.




                                  423
The first additional requirement, English composition, can be met by
written examination such as CEEB, or by transferring college credits
considered equivalent, or, lacking either of these, by passing an
examination given at UCSC at the start of each quarter.
The above looks middlin’ good on the surface. College requirements
from high school have been watered down somewhat (or more than
somewhat) but that B+ average as a requirement looks good
if high schools are teaching what they taught two and three
generations ago. The rules limit admission to the upper 8% of
California high school graduates (out-ofstate applicants must meet
slightly higher requirements).
8%- So 92% fall by the wayside. These 8% are the intellectual elite of
young adults of the biggest, richest, and most lavishly educated state
in the Union.
Those examinations for the English-composition requirement: How
can anyone fail who has had 3 years of high school English and
averages B+ across the board?
If he fails to qualify, he may enter but must take at once (no credit)
“Subject A”-better known as “Bonehead English.”
“Bonehead English” must be repeated, if necessary, until passed. To
be forced to take this no-credit course does not mean that the victim
splits an occasional infinitive, sometimes has a dangling modifier, or
a failure in agreement or case-he can even get away with such
atrocities as “-like I say-.”

It means that he has reached the Groves of Academe
unable to express himself by writing in the English language.
It means that his command of his native language does not equal that
of a 12-year-old country grammar school graduate of ninety years
ago. It means that he verges on subliterate but that his record is such
in other ways that the University will tutor him (no credit and for a fee)
rather than turn him away.
But, since these students are the upper 8% and each has had not
less than three years of high school English, it follows that only the
exceptionally unfortunate student needs “Bonehead English.” That’s
right, isn’t it? Each one is eighteen years old, old enough to vote, old
enough to contract or to marry without consulting parents, old enough

                                   424
to hang for murder, old enough to have children (and some do); all
have had 12 years of schooling including 11 years of English, 3 of
them in high school.
(Stipulated: California has special cases to whom English is not
native language. But such a person who winds up in that upper 8% is
usually-I’m tempted to say “always”-fully literate in English.)
So here we have the cream of California’s young adults; each has
learned to read and write and spell and has been taught the basics of
English during eight years in grammar school, and has polished this
by not less than three years of English in high school-and also has
had at least two years of a second language, a drill that vastly
illuminates the subject of grammar even though grasp of the second
language may be imperfect.
  It stands to reason that very few applicants need “Bonehead
  English.” Yes?
  No!
I have just checked. The new class at UCSC is “about 50%” in
Bonehead English-and this is normal-normal right across California-
and California is no worse than most of the states.
8% off the top- Half of this elite 8% must take “Bonehead English.”
  The prosecution rests.
This scandal must be charged to grammar and high school teachers .
. . many of whom are not themselves literate (I know!)-but are not
personally to blame, as we are now in the second generation of
illiteracy. The blind lead the blind.
  But what happens after this child (sorry-young adult citizen) enters
  UCSC?
I TELL YOU THREE TIMES I TELL YOU THREE TIMES I TELL YOU
THREE TIMES: A student who wants an education can get one at
UCSC in a number of very difficult subjects, plus a broad general
education.
I ask you never to forget this while we see how one can slide through,
never do any real work, never learn anything solid, and still receive a
bachelor of arts degree from the prestigious University of California.
Although I offer examples from the campus I know best, I assume



                                  425
conclusively that this can be done throughout the state, as it is one
statewide university operating under one set of rules.
Some guidelines apply to any campus: Don’t pick a medical school or
an engineering school. Don’t pick a natural science that requires
difficult mathematics. (A subject called “science” that does not require
difficult mathematics usually is “science” in the sense that “Christian
Science” is science-in its widest sense “science” simply means
“knowledge” and anyone may use the word for any subject. . . but
shun the subjects that can’t be understood without mind-stretching
math.)
Try to get a stupid but good-natured adviser. There are plenty
around, especially in subjects in which to get a no-sweat degree;
Sturgeon’s Law applies to professors as well as to other categories.
  For a bachelor’s degree:
1) You must spend the equivalent of one academic year in acquiring
“breadth”-but wait till you see the goodies!
2) You must take the equivalent of one full academic year in your
major subject in upperdivision courses, plus prerequisite lower
division courses. Your 4-year program you must rationalize to your
adviser as making sense for your major (“Doctor, I picked that course
because it is so far from my major-for perspective. I was getting too
narrow.” He’ll beam approvingly.. or you had better look for a stupider
adviser).
3) Quite a lot of time will be spent off campus but counted toward
your degree. This should be fun, but it can range from hard labor at
sea, to counting noses and asking snoopy questions of “ethnics”
(excuse, please!), to time in Europe or Hong Kong, et al., where you
are in danger of learning something new and useful even if you don’t
try.
4) You will be encouraged to take interdisciplinary majors and are
invited (urged) to invent and justify unheard-of new lines of study. For
this you need the talent of a used-car salesman as any aggregation
of courses can be sold as a logical pattern if your “new” subject
considers the many complex relationships between three or four or
more old and orthodox fields. Careful here! If you are smart enough
to put this over, you may find yourself not only earning a



                                  426
baccalaureate but in fact doing original work worthy of a Ph.D. (You
won’t get it.)
5) You must have at least one upper-division seminar. Pick one in
which the staff leader likes your body odor and you like his. (“I do not
like thee, Dr. Fell; the reason why I cannot tell-“) But you’ve at least
two years in which to learn which professors in your subject are
simpatico, and which ones to avoid at any cost.
6) You must write a 10,000 word thesis on your chosen nonsubject
and may have to defend it orally. If you can’t write 10,000 words of
bull on a bull subject, you’ve made a mistake-you may have to work
for a living.
The rules above allow plenty of elbowroom; at least three out of four
courses can be elective and the re
mainder elective in part, from a long menu. We are still talking solely
about nonmathematical subjects. If you are after a Ph.D. in
astronomy, UCSC is a wonderful place to get one . . but you will start
by getting a degree in physics including the toughest of mathematics,
and will study also chemistry, geology, technical photography,
computer science-and will resent any time not leading toward the
ultra-interdisciplinary subject lumped under the deceptively simple
word “astronomy.”
Breadth-the humanities, natural science, and social science-1/3 in
each, total 3/3 or one academic year, but spread as suits you over
the years. Classically “the humanities” are defined as literature,
philosophy, and art-but history has been added since it stopped
being required in college and became “social studies” in secondary
schools. “Natural science” does not necessarily mean what it says-it
can be a “nonalcoholic gin”; see below. “Social science” means that
grab bag of studies in which answers are matters of opinion.
Courses satisfying “breadth” requirements
Humanities
  Literature and Politics-political & moral choices in literature
  Philosophy of the Self
  Philosophy of History in the Prose and Poetry of W. B. Yeats
  Art and the Perceptual Process
  The Fortunes of Faust
Science and the American Culture (satisfies both the Humanities
requirement and the American History and Institutions requirement

                                   427
without teaching any science or any basic American History. A
companion course, Science and Pressure Politics, satisfies both the
Social Sciences requirement and the American History and
Institutions requirement while teaching still less; it concentrates on
post-World-War-TI period and concerns scientists as lobbyists and
their own inter-
actions ~rows~ with Congress and the President. Highly
recommended as a way to avoid learning American history or very
much social “science.”)
  American Country Music-Whee! You don’t play it, you listen.
  Man and the Cosmos-philosophy, sorta. Not science.
Science Fiction (I refrain from comment.) The Visual Arts-“What, if
any, are the critical and artistic foundations for judgment in the visual
arts?”-exact quotation from catalog.
  Mysticism-that’s what it says.
  (The above list is incomplete.)


Natural Science requirement
General Astronomy-no mathematics required Marine Biology-no
mathematics required Sound, Music, and Tonal Properties of Musical
Instruments-neither math nor music required for this one!

Seminar: Darwin’s Explanation
Mathematical Ideas-f or nonmathematicians; requires only that high
school math you must have to enter.
The Phenomenon of Man- “-examine the question of whether there
remains any meaning to human values.” (Oh, the pity of it all!)
  Physical Geography: Climate

The Social “Sciences” requirement
Any course in Anthropology-many have no prereq. Introduction to Art
Education-You don’t have to
make art; you study how to teach it. Music and the Enlightenment-no
technical knowledge of music required. This is a discussion of the
effect of music on philosophical, religious, and social ideas, late 18th-



                                    428
early 19th centuries. That is what it says-and it counts as “social
science.”

The Novel of Adultery-and this, too, counts as “so-
cial science.” I don’t mind anyone studying this subject or teaching it-
but I object to its being done on my (your, our) tax money. (P.S. The
same bloke teaches science fiction. He doesn’t write science fiction; I
don’t know what his qualifications are in this other field.)

Human Sexuality
Cultural Roots for Verbal and Visual Expression-a fancy name of still
another “creative writing” class with frills-the students are taught how
to draw out “other culture” pupils. So it says.
All the 30-odd “Community Studies” courses qualify as “social
science,” but I found myself awed by these two: Politics and Violence,
which studies, among other things, “political assassination as
sacrifice” and Leisure and Recreation in the Urban Community
(“Bread and Circuses”).
  Again, listing must remain incomplete; I picked those below as
  intriguing:
Seminar: Evil and the Devil in the Hindu Tradition. Science and
Pressure Politics-already mentioned on page 529 as the course that
qualifies both as social “science” and as American History and
Institutions while teaching an utter minimum about each. The blind
man now has hold of the elephant’s tail.
The Political Socialization of La Raza-another double header, social
“science” and American History and Institutions. It covers greater
time span (from 1900 rather than from 1945) but it’s like comparing
cheese and chalk to guess which one is narrower in scope in either
category.
The name of this game is to plan a course involving minimum effort
and minimum learning while “earning” a degree under the rules of the
nation’s largest and most prestigious state university.
To take care of “breadth” and also the American history your high
school did not require I recommend Science and Pressure Politics,
The Phenomenon of Man,



                                   429
and American Country Music. These three get you home free without
learning any math, history, or language that you did not already know
.. . and without sullying your mind with science.
You must pick a major.. . but it must not involve mathematics, history,
or actually being able to read a second language. This rules out all
natural sciences (this campus’s greatest strength).
Anthropology? You would learn something in spite of yourself; you’d
get interested. Art? Better not major in it without major talent.
Economics can be difficult, but also and worse, you may incline
toward the Chicago or the Austrian school and not realize it until your
(Keynesian or Marxist) instructor has failed you with a big black mark
against your name. Philosophy? Easy and lots of fun and absolutely
guaranteed not to teach you anything while loosening up your mind.
In more than twenty-five centuries of effort not one basic problem of
philosophy has ever been solved .. . but the efforts to solve them are
most amusing. The same goes for comparative religion as a major:
You won’t actually learn anything you can sink your teeth into
  but you’ll be vastly entertained-if the Human Comedy entertains
  you. It does me.
Psychology, Sociology, Politics, and Community Studies involve not
only risk of learning something- not much, but something-and each is
likely to involve real work, tedious and lengthy.
To play this game and win, with the highest score, it’s Hobson’s
choice: American literature. I assume that you did not have to take
Bonehead English and that you can type. In a school that has no
school of education (UCSC has none) majoring in English Literature
is the obvious way to loaf through four years. It will be necessary to
cater to the whims of professors who know no more than you do
about anything that matters . . . but catering to your mentors is
necessary in any subject not ruled by mathematics.

Have you noticed that professors of English and/or
American Literature are not expected to be proficient in the art they
profess to teach? Medicine is taught by M.D.’s on living patients, civil
engineering is taught by men who in fact have built bridges that did
not fall; law is taught by lawyers; music is taught by musicians;
mathematics is taught by mathematicians- and so on.



                                   430
  But is-for example-the American Novel taught by American
  novelists?
Yes. Occasionally. But so seldom that the exceptions stand out. John
Barth. John Erskine fifty years ago. Several science-fiction writers
almost all of whom were selling writers long before they took the
King’s Shilling. A corporal’s guard in our whole country out of
battalions of English profs.
For a Ph.D. in American/English literature a candidate is not
expected to write literature; he is expected to criticize it.
Can you imagine a man being awarded an M.D. for writing a criticism
of some great physician without ever himself having learned to
remove an appendix or to diagnose Herpes zoster? And for that
dissertation then be hired to teach therapy to medical students?
There is, of course, a reason for this nonsense. The rewards to a
competent novelist are so much greater than the salaries of
professors of English at even our top schools that once he/she learns
this racket, teaching holds no charms.
There are exceptions-successful storytellers who like to teach so well
that they keep their jobs and write only during summers, vacations,
evenings, weekends, sabbaticals. I know a few-emphasis on “few.”
But most selling wordsmiths are lazy, contrary, and so opposed to
any fixed regime that they will do anything- even meet a deadline-
rather than accept a job.
Most professors of English can’t write publishable novels . . . and
many of them can’t write nonfiction prose very well-certainly not with
the style and distinction and grace-and content-of Professor of
Biology Thomas H. Huxley. Or Professor of Astronomy
Sir Fred Hoyle. Or Professor of Physics John R. Pierce. Most
Professors of English get published, when they do, by university
presses or in professional quarterlies. But fight it out for cash against
Playboy and Travis Magee? They can’t and they don’t!
But if you are careful not to rub their noses in this embarrassing fact
and pay respectful attention to their opinions even about (ugh!)
“creative writing,” they will help you slide through to a painless
baccalaureate.




                                   431
You still have time for many electives and will need them for your
required hours-units-courses; here are some fun-filled ones that will
teach you almost nothing:
  The Fortunes of Faust
  Mysticism
  The Search for a New Life Style
  The American Dilemma-Are “all men equal”?
Enology-hi story, biology, and chemistry of winemaking and wine
appreciation. This one will teach you something but it’s too good to
miss.
  Western Occultism: Magic, Myth, and Heresy.
There is an entire college organized for fun and games (“aesthetic
enrichment”). It offers courses for credit but you’ll be able to afford
noncredit activity as well in your lazyman’s course-and anything can
be turned into credit by some sincere selling to your adviser and/or
Academic Committee. I have already listed nine of its courses but
must add:

Popular Culture
• plus clubs or “guilds” for gardening, photography, filmmedia,
  printing, pottery, silkscreening, orchestra, jazz, etc.
  Related are Theater Arts. These courses give credit, including:
  Films of Fantasy and Imagination-fantasy, horror, SF, etc. (!)
  Seminar on Films
  Filmmaking
  History and Aesthetics of Silent Cinema
  History and Aesthetics of Cinema since Sound
  Introduction to World Cinema
Sitting and looking at movies can surely be justified for an English
major. Movies and television use writers-as little as possible, it’s true.
But somewhat; the linkage is there.
  Enjoy yourself while it lasts. These dinosaurs are on their way to
  extinction.
The 2-year “warm body” campus is even more lavish than UCSC. It is
a good trade school for some things-e.g., dental assistant. But it
offers a smörgásbord of fun-Symbolism of the Tarot, Intermediate
Contract Bridge, Folk Guitar, Quilting, Horseshoeing, Chinese


                                    432
Cooking, Hearst Castle Tours, Modern Jazz, Taoism, Hatha Yoga
Asanas, Aikido, Polarity Therapy, Mime, Raku, Bicycling, Belly
Dancing, Shiatsu Massage, Armenian Cuisine, Revelation and
Prophecy, Cake Art, Life Insurance Sales Techniques, Sexuality and
Spirituality, Home Bread Baking, Ecuadorian Backstrap Weaving,
The Tao of Physics, and lots, lots more! One of the newest courses is
“The Anthropology of Science Fiction” and I’m still trying to figure that
out.
I have no objection to any of this.. . but why should this kindergarten
be paid for by taxes? “Bread and Circuses.”
I first started noticing the decline of education through mail from
readers. I have saved mail from readers for forty years. Shortly after
World War Two I noticed that letters from the youngest were not
written but hand-printed. By the middle fifties deterioration in
handwriting and in spelling became very noticeable. By today a letter
from a youngster in grammar school or in high school is usually
difficult to read and sometimes illegible-penmanship atrocious
(pencilmanship-nine out often are in soft pencil, with well-smudged
pages), spelling uniqUe, grammar an arcane art.
Most youngsters have not been taught how to fold 81/2” x 11” paper
for the two standard sizes of envelopes intended for that standard
sheet.
Then such defects began to show up among college students.
Apparently “Bonehead English” (taught everywhere today, so I hear)
is not sufficient to repair the failure of grammar and high school
teachers who themselves in most cases were not adequately taught.
I saw sharply this progressive deterioration because part of my mail
comes from abroad, especially Canada, the United Kingdom, the
Scandinavian countries, and Japan. A - letter from any part of the
Commonwealth is invariably neat, legible, grammatical, correct in
spelling, and polite. The same applies to letters from Scandinavian
countries. (Teenagers of Copenhagen usually speak and write
English better than most teenagers of Santa Cruz.) Letters from
Japan are invariably neat-but the syntax is sometimes odd. I have
one young correspondent in Tokyo who has been writing steadily
these past four years. The handwriting in the first letter was almost
stylebook perfect but I could hardly understand the phrasing; now,
four years later, the handwriting looks the same but command of

                                   433
grammar, syntax, and rhetoric is excellent, with only an occasional
odd choice in wording giving an exotic flavor.

Our public schools no longer give good value. We
remain strong in science and engineering but even students in those
subjects are handicapped by failures of our primary and secondary
schools and by cutback in funding of research both public and
private. Our great decline in education is alone enough to destroy this
country . . . but I offer no solutions because the only solutions I think
would work are so drastic as to be incredible.
Span of Time-Decline in Patriotism
and in the Quality of our Armed Forces
The high school I attended (1919-24) was an early experiment in the
junior and senior high school method. The last year of grammar
school was joined with the freshman class as ‘:junior high” while the
sophomores, Juniors, and seniors were senior high.
There was a company of junior ROTC in junior high and two
companies in senior high. Military training gave no credit and was not
compulsory; it was neither pushed nor discouraged. A boy took it or
not, as suited him and his parents. Some of the subfreshman (aet.
ca. 13 an.) were barely big enough to tote a Springfield rifle.

Kansas City had a regiment of Federalized National
Guard, with one authorized drill per week, 3 hours
each Wednesday evening. For this a private was paid
69~, a PFC got a dollar, and a corporal got big money- $1.18.
The required & paid weekly drill was not all, as about half of the
regiment showed up on Sundays at the “Military Country Club”-acres
of raw wood lot until the regiment turned it into rifle range, club
house, stables, etc. No pay for Sundays. Two weeks encampment
per year, with pay. For most of the regiment, this was their only
vacation, two weeks then being standard.
That regiment ran about 96% authorized strength. About 1921
Congress authorized the CMTC, Citizens Military Training Corps. It
proved very popular. A month of summer training in camp at an Army
post, continued through 4 years, could (if a candidate’s grades were
satisfactory) result in certification for commission in the reserve.
Civilians submitted to military discipline in CMTC but were not subject


                                   434
to court martial. Offenders could be sent home or turned over to
civilian police, depending on the offense.. There were few offenses.
  CMTC candidates got 3~ per mile to and from their homes, no
  other money.
In 1925 I was appointed midshipman. There were 51 qualified
applicants trying for that one appointment.
240 of my class graduated; 130 fell by the wayside. One of that 130
resigned voluntarily; all the others resigned involuntarily, most of
them plebe year for failure in academics (usually mathematics), the
others were requested to resign over the next three years for
academic, physical, or other reasons. A few resigned graduation day
through having failed the final physical examination for
commissioning. Three more served about one year in the Fleet, then
resigned-but these three volunteered after the attack on Pearl
Harbor. 28 of the 129 who left the service involuntarily managed to
get back on active duty in World War Two.
So with four exceptions all of my class stayed in the Navy as long as
the Navy would have them. About 25% were killed in line of duty or
died later of wounds. Neither at the Academy nor in the Fleet did I
ever hear a midshipman or officer talk about resigning. While it is
likely that some thought about it, all discussion tacitly carried the
assumption that the Navy was our life, the Fleet our home, and that
we would leave only feet first or when put out to pasture as too old.
Enlisted men: When I entered the Fleet, before the Crash of ‘29 and
about a year before unemployment became a problem, Navy
recruiting offices were turning down 19 out of 20 volunteers; the Army
was turning down 5 out of 6. The reenlistment rate was high; the
desertion rate almost too small to count.

Span of Time-Today in the Armed Forces
I have said repeatedly that I am opposed to conscription at any time,
peace or war, for moral reasons beyond argument. For the rest of this
I will try to keep my personal feelings out of the discussion-as I did in
the rosy picture painted above. I reported facts, not my emotions.
I will not review details showing that the USSR is today militarily
stronger than we are as the matter has been discussed endlessly in
news media, in Congress, and in professional journals. The public


                                   435
discussion today concedes the military superiority of the USSR and
centers on how much they are ahead of us, and what should be done
about it. The details of this debate are of supreme importance as the
most expensive thing in the world is a second-best military
establishment, good but not good enough to win. At the moment the
three-cornered standoff is saving us from that silly way to die . . . but I
cannot predict how long this stalemate will last as key factors are not
under our control, and neither our government nor our citizens seem
willing to accept guns instead of butter on the scale required to make
us too strong for anyone to risk attacking us. Polls seem to show that
a controlling number of voters think that we are already spending too
much on our Armed Forces.
What I set forth below comes primarily from an article by Richard A.
Gabriel, Associate Professor of Politics, St. Anselm’s College,
Manchester, New Hampshire, author of CRISIS IN COMMAND. I lack
personal experience with Army conditions today but what Dr. Gabriel
says about them matches what I have heard from other sources and
what I have read (I belong to all three associations-Army, Navy, Air
Force-plus the Naval Institute and the Retired Officers Association; I
get much data secondhand but no longer see it with my own eyes,
hear it with my own ears).
Readers with personal experience in Korea, Viet Nam, and in the
Services anywhere since the end of the Viet Nam debacle, I urge to
write and tell me what you know that I don’t, especially on points in
which I am seriously mistaken.

Summarized from “The Slow Dying of the Amen-
can Army,” Dr. Richard A. Gabriel in Gallery magazine, June 1979,
p.41 et seq.:
Concerning the All Volunteer Force (AVF): Early this year the
Pentagon admitted that all services had failed to meet quotas.
30% of all Army volunteers are discharged for offenses during first
enlistment. Of the 70 per 100 left, 26 do not reenlist. The desertion
rates are the highest in history. . . and this fact is partly covered up by
using administrative discharges (-i.e., “You’re fired!”) rather than
courts martial and punishment-if the deserter turns up. But no effort is
made to find him.



                                    436
According to Dr. Gabriel, citing General George S. Blanchard and
others, hard-drug use (heroin, cocaine, angel dust-not marijuana) is
greater than ever, especially in Europe, with estimates from a low of
10% to a high of 64%. Marijuana is ignored-but let me add that a man
stoned out of his mind on grass is not one I want on my flank in
combat.
Category 3B and 4 (ranging down from dull to mentally retarded)
make up 59% of Army volunteers.. . in a day when privates handle
very complex and sophisticated weapons and machinery. Add to this
that the mix is changing so that a typical private might be Chicano or
Puerto Rican, the typical sergeant a Black, the typical officer “Anglo.”
And that officers are transferred with great frequency and enlisted
men with considerable frequency and you have a situation in which
esprit de corps cannot be developed (an outfit without esprit de corps
is not an army unit; it is an armed mob-R.A.H.).
Today we have more general officers than we did in World War Two.
Our ratio of officers to enlisted men is more than twice as high as that
of successful armies in the past. But an officer is not with his troops
long enough to be “the Old Man”-he is a “manager,” not a leader of
men.
  Dr. Gabriel concludes: “The most basic aspect is the need to
  reinstate the draft.”
  I disagree.
My disagreement is not on moral grounds. Forget that I ever voiced
opposition to slave soldiers; think of me as Old Blood-and-Guts
willing to use any means whatever to win.
Reinstating the draft would not get us out of trouble, even with the
changes Dr. Gabriel suggests to make the draft “fair.”
As everyone knows, we were in the frying pan; shifting to AVF,
instead of producing an efficient professional army, put us into the
fire. Dr. Gabriel urges that we climb back into the frying pan-but with
improvements: a national lottery with no deferments whatever for any
reason.
I can’t disagree with the even-steven rule. . . but my reason for
thinking that Dr. Gabriel’s solution will not work is this:
A lottery, even meticulously fair, cannot make a man willing to charge
a machine-gun nest in the face of almost certain death. That sort of

                                   437
drive comes from emotional sources. Esprit de corps and patriotism
cannot be drawn in a lottery.
Conscription works (among free men) only when it is not needed. I
have seen two world wars; we used the draft in each.. . but in each
case it was a means of straightening out the manpower situation; it
was not needed to make men fight. Both wars were popular.
  Since then we have had two non-Wars-Korea and Nam-in
  “peacetime” and using conscript troops.
And each non-War was a scandalous disaster.
I don’t have a neat solution to offer. If the American people have lost
their willingness to fight and die for their country, the defect cannot be
cured by conscription. Unless this emotional condition cnanges (and I
do not know how to change it), we are whipped no matter what
weapons we build. It could be overnight, or it could continue to be a
long slow slide downhill over many years-ten, twenty, thirty. But the
outcome is the same. Unless something renews the spirit this
country once had, we are in the terminal stages of decay; history is
ending for us.
Our foreign masters might graciously let us keep our flag, even our
national name. But “the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave”
will be dead.

Time Span-Inflation
The Winter of ‘23-‘24 I paid a street vendor 5~ for a five billion mark
German note and I paid too much; 5,000,000,000 DM was worth a
trifle over 1 ç~. A bit later it was worth nothing.
In 1955 at the foot of the Acropolis I bought a small marble replica of
the Venus of Melos for 10,000 drachma. I wasn’t cheated; that was
35~ USA.
There are the British pound, the Turkish lira, the Italian lira, the
Mexican peso, and several others; all mean one pound of silver. Look
up “exchange” and “commodities” in your newspaper; grab your
pocket calculator and see how much each is inflated.
When I was a child of four or five my brothers and I used great stacks
of hundred-dollar bills as play money. Confederate- After two



                                   438
centuries, “Not worth a continental,” still means “worthless.” Memory
is long for the damage done by inflation.
Before paper “money” was invented, inflation was accomplished by
adding base metal to silver and/or gold while retaining the name of
the coin. By this means the Roman denarius was devalued to zero
during the first three centuries A.D. But inflation did not start with
Caesar Augustus. In the early days of the Republic before the Punic
Wars the cash unit was the libra (libra = lb. - pound = 273 grams, or
about 60% of our pound avoirdupois, 454 grams). That’s too large a
unit for daily retail use; it was divided into 12 unciae (ounces).
A “lb.” of silver was called an “as.” 1/12 of that, struck as coinage,
made efficient currency. Now comes war and inflation-
Eventually the “as”-once a pound of silver-was so debased that it
amounted to a penny, more or less. Augustus, by decree, went back
on a silver/gold standard and created the denanius, 3.87 grams of
fine silver. He made 25 denarii equal in value to one aureus (7.74
grams of gold), or a ratio of 12.5 to one. (“Free and unlimited coinage
of silver at a ratio of sixteen to one!” The Great Commoner and the
august Emperor had similar notions about hard currency.)
One Augustan denarius equalled in gold at today’s London fix
($385/troy ounce) a nominal $3.83, or about 3/~~ of a gram of gold.
This tells us nothing about purchasing power; it simply says that the
Augustan denanius was a solid silver coin almost the size and weight
of the solid silver quarter we used to have before the government
foisted on us those sandwich things. How much olive oil or meal that
would buy in Rome around 1 A.D. can be estimated from surviving
records-but all the gold in Rome could not buy an aspirin tablet or a
paper of matches. No way to compare. And hard money was not
supplemented by printed money, bank checks, and transactions that
take place entirely inside computers-but I can’t go into how those
phenomena affect purchasing power without writing a book twice as
long as this one on fiscal theory (which I am quite willing to do but
nobody would buy it).
What Augustus did was to stabilize Rome’s money by defining it in
terms of two commodities, each intrinsically valuable, each stable in
supply, each almost indestructible, and he defined also the legal ratio
between the two coinages-an effort to circumvent Gresham’s Law,
unknown then but Augustus appears to have had a gut feeling for it.


                                   439
(Not Bill Gresham-the other one. Thomas Gresham.) But a bimetallic
standard has its problems; the free economy ratio tends to drift away
from the legal ratio, and Gresham’s Law begins to work. But this
happens very slowly with
hard money and is not the disaster that printing-press inflation is, or
the debasing of hard~ money.
  Caesar Augustus died in 14 A.D.
His corpse was hardly cold before the vultures got to work. Tiberius,
Caligula, Claudius, Nero-even Claudius did nothing to stop the
robbery. Titus attempted an Augustan return to honest money in 80
A.D. but he died in September the following year; his successor was
a disaster even as Caesars go.
“Put not your trust in Princes.” Debasement of the currency continued
under every Caesar for the next two centuries. Diocletian (reign: 294-
305) inherited a worthless denarius; he returned Rome to the
bimetallic standard at a level barely below that of Augustus. But he
increased enormously the bureaucracy, instituted the harshest of
taxation to pay for his “reforms,” and decreed price-fixing-which
worked just as it always does.
On his retirement (not assassination~!]) debasement was resumed
while taxes stayed high, and Rome was on the skids. The decline
and fall of the denarius and of Rome paralleled each other.
I’m tempted to discuss France’s incredible inflation and collapse
thereof during the French Revolution (and three more French
inflations since then), and the inflations of several other countries in
other centuries. But they are monotonously alike and differ from
debasement primarily in the fact that the invention of paper “money”
permits the corruption of legal tender to get utterly out of hand before
the people notice it. In Germany in the early twenties people used to
take wheelbarrows to the grocery store-not to fetch back groceries
but to carry money to the grocer. But the early stages of disastrous
inflation feel like “prosperity.” Wages and profits go up, old debts are
easier to pay off, business booms.
It is not until later that most people notice that prices and taxes have
gone up faster than wages and
profits, and that it is getting harder and harder to make ends meet.



                                   440
There is a strong emotional feeling that “a dollar is a dollar.” (Hitler
called it, “Mark is Mark!”) But you can reexamine it in terms of prices
on bread, or how many minutes to earn a dollar. And don’t forget
taxes! If you aren’t working at least the first three months of each
year to pay taxes before you can keep one dollar for yourself, then
you are on welfare, one way or another. You may not think you are
taxed that much- paycheck deductions and hidden taxes are
extracted under anesthesia. Try dividing the Federal Budget by the
number of wage earners not on the public payroll, then take a stab at
where you fit in. Don’t forget the same process for state, county, and
city. There are Makers, Takers, and Fakers, no fourth category, and
today the Takers and the Fakers outnumber (and outvote) the
Makers.
Today it takes more dollars each year to service the National Debt
than the total budget for the last and most expensive year of the
Korean War. I am not going to state here the amount of our National
Debt. If you have not heard it recently, you wouldn’t believe me. If
you don’t know, telephone your Congressman and ask; he has a
local office near you. If the telephone information service can’t (won’t)
tell you, the city room of any newspaper does know his number.
Our National Debt will never be paid. We are beyond the point of no
return. Inflation will continue and get worse . . . and the elderly on
fixed incomes and the young adults trying to start families will
continue to bear the brunt.
Every congressman, every senator, knows precisely what causes
inflation. . . but can’t (won’t) support the drastic reforms to stop it
because it could (and probably would) cost him his job. I have no
solution and only once piece of advice:
  Buy a wheelbarrow.
The Age of Unreason
Having been reared in the most bigoted of Bible Belt fundamentalism
in which every word of the King James version of the Bible is the
literal word of God- then having broken loose at thirteen when I first
laid hands on THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES and THE DESCENT OF
MAN-I should have been unsurprised by the anti-intellectual and anti-
science ground swell in this country.




                                    441
I knew that our American temperament, practical as sharp tools on
one side, was never more than three quarters of an inch from
mindless hysteria on the other side. I knew this-my first long story
was IF THIS GOES ON-, a yarn based on the assumption that my
compatriots were capable of throwing away their dearly-bought
liberties to submit to a crude and ridiculous religious dictatorship.
(In forty years of letters about that story no one has ever criticized
this assumption; I infer that I am not alone in believing it.)
I had read much about the Ku Klux Klan during the Tragic Era, talked
with many who had experienced it, then experienced its nationwide
recrudescence in the early 1920’s. I had seen damfoolishness from
dance marathons to flagpole sitters, and had made considerable
study of crowd behavior and mass delusions. I had noted, rather
casually, the initial slow growth of anti-science-&-intellect-ism.
Yet the durned thing shocked me. Let me list some signs:
   a) I CHING;
   b) Back-to-nature cults;
   c) The collapse of basic education;
d) The current respectability of natal horological astrology among
“intelligentsia”-e.g. professors, N.Y. lit’rary people, etc.;
e) “Experts” on nuclear power and nuclear weapons who know
nothing whatever of mathematical physics and are smug in admitting
it;
f) “Experts” on the ecology of northern Alaska who have never been
there and are not mathematically equipped to analyse a problem in
ecology;
g) People who watch television several hours a day and derive all
their opinions therefrom-and expound them;
  h) People who watch television several hours a day;
  return of creationism - “Equal time for Yahj) The return of
  witchcraft.
The mindless yahoos, people who think linearly like a savage instead
of inductively or deductively, and people who used to be respectful to
learned opinion or at least kept quiet, now are aggressively on the
attack. Facts and logic don’t count; their intuition is the source of
“truth.”


                                   442
If any item on the above list strikes you as rational, I won’t debate it
with you; you are part of the problem.
  But I will illustrate what I mean in categories where I think I might
  be misunderstood.
a) I CHING- easier than “reading the augurs” but with nothing else to
recommend it. Chinese fortune cookies are just as as accurate-and
you get to eat the cookie. Nevertheless this bit of oriental nonsense is
treated with solemn seriousness by many “educated” people. It is
popular enough to make profitable the sale of books, equipment,
magazine articles, and personal instruction. Paralleling I CHING is
the widespread use of Tarot cards. Fortunetelling by cards used to be
a playful parlor game, a mating rite-a nubile girl limited by the
vocabulary and public manners of the Mauve Decade could convey
to a rutty young male almost any message by how she chose to “read
his fortune”-with no impropriety. But neither he nor she took the cards
seriously.

Tarot cards formerly were used only by Gypsy or
fake-Gypsy fortunetellers; they were not an article of commerce, were
not easy to find. Today they are as easy to buy as liquor during
prohibition, and also books on their “interpretation.” Reading the
Tarot is taken with deep seriousness by a dismaying number of
people-having the Hanging Man turn up can cause great anguish.
b) Back-to-nature cults: I do not mean nudist resorts or “liberated”
beaches. The growing realization that human bodies are not obscene
is a sane, healthy counter trend in our crazy culture. By back-to-
nature cults I mean people who band together to “return to the land”
to grow their own food without pesticides, without artificial fertilizers,
without power machinery, self-reliant in all ways . . . but with no
comprehension that a spading fork implies coal mines, iron ore, blast
furnaces, steel mills, factories, etc., that any building more complex
than a log cabin or a sod house implies a building-materials industry,
etc.
If all of us tried to go back-to-nature, most of us would starve rather
quickly. These back-to-nature freaks can’t do arithmetic.
  c) The collapse of basic education-no need to repeat.




                                    443
d) Natal horological astrology-Baseline: fifty-odd years ago astrology
was commonly regarded as a ridiculous former superstition, one all
but a tiny minority had outgrown. It is now the orthodoxy of many,
possibly a majority. This pathological change parallels the decay of
public education.
Stipulated: Ancient astrologers were scientists in being able to predict
certain aspects of descriptive astronomy such as eclipses, positions
of the sun, moon, and naked-eye planets, etc. Whether or not they
believed the fortunetelling they supplied to their kings, patrons, or
clients is irrelevant. The test of a science is its ability to predict; in the
cited phenomena the Chaldean priests (for example) performed
remarkable feats of prediction with handcrafted naked-eye
instruments.
It has long been known that Sol is the heat engine that controls our
weather. Recently, with the discovery of solar wind, the Van Allen
belts, et al., we have become aware of previously unsuspected
variables affecting us and our weather, and successful predictions
are being made empirically-no satisfactory theory.
“What sign were you born under?”-I don’t recall having heard that
question until sometime after World War Two. Today it is almost
impossible to attend a social gathering (including parties made up
almost solely of university staff and spouses) without being asked
that question or hearing it asked of someone else.
Today natal horological astrology is so widely accepted that those
who believe in it take it for granted that anyone they meet believes in
it, too-if you don’t, you’re some sort of a nut. I don’t know what
percentage of the population believe in natal horological astrology
(sorry about that clumsy expression but I wish to limit this precisely to
the notion that the exact time, date, latitude, and longitude of your
birth and the pattern of the Sun, Moon, and planets with respect to
the Zodiac at that exact time all constitute a factor affecting your life
comparable in importance to your genetic inheritance and your
rearing and education)-I don’t know the percentage of True Believers
but it is high enough that newspaper editors will omit any feature or
secondary news rather than leave out the daily horoscope.
Or possibly more important than heredity and environment in the
minds of True Believers since it is seriously alleged that this natal



                                     444
heavenly pattern affects every day of your life-good days for new
business ventures-a bad day to start a trip-and so forth, endlessly.
The test of a science is its capacity to make correct predictions.
Possibly the most respected astrologer in America is a lady who not
only has her daily column in most of the largest newspapers but also
annually publishes predictions for the coming year.
For ten years I clipped her annual predictions, filed them. She is
highly recommended and I think she is sincere; I intended to give her
every possible benefit of doubt.
  I hold in my hand her predictions for 1974 dated Sunday January
  13, 1974:
Here are some highlights: “ .. . Nixon . . . will ride out the Watergate
storm . . . will survive both the impeachment ordeal and the pressures
to resign . . . will go down in history as a great president . . . will fix
the responsibility for Pearl Harbor” (vindicating Kimmel and Short).. .
“in... 1978 . . . the cure for cancer will be acknowledged by the
medical world.. . end the long search.” (1974) “The dollar will be
enormously strengthened as the balance of payments reflects the
self-sufficiency in oil production.” “The trouble in Ireland will continue
to be a tragic situation until 1978.” (Italics added-R.A.H.) “Willy
Brandt” (will be reelected) “and be in office for quite some time to
come. He will go on to fantastic recognition about the middle of
1978.” (On 6 May 1974 Brandt resigned during a spy scandal.) She
makes many other predictions either too far in the future to check or
too vaguely worded. I have omitted her many predictions about
Gerald Ford because they all depend on his serving out the term as
vice president.
  You can check the above in the files of most large newspapers.
  e) & 1)-no comment needed.
g) & h) need no comment except to note that they are overlapping but
not identical categories-and I should add “People who allow their
children to watch television several hours a day.” (Television, like the
automobile, is a development widely predicted... but its major
consequences never predicted.)
i)     The return of creationism-If it suits you to believe that Yahweh
created the universe in the fashion related in Genesis, I won’t argue
it. But I don’t have to respect your belief and I do not think that
legislation requiring that the Biblical version be included in pub-

                                    445
lic school textbooks is either constitutional or fair. How about
Ormuzd? Ouranos? Odin? There is an unnumbered throng of
religions, each with its creation myth-all different. Shall one of them
be taught as having the status of a scientific hypothesis merely
because the members of the religion subscribing to it can drum up a
majority at the polis, or organize a pressure group at a state capital?
This is tyranny by the mob inflicted on minorities in defiance of the Bill
of Rights. Revelation has no place in a science textbook; it belongs
under religious studies. Cosmogony is the most difficult and least
satisfactory branch of astronomy; cosmologists would be the first to
agree. But, damn it; they’re trying!-on the evidence as it becomes
available, by logical methodology, and their hypotheses are
constantly subjected to pitiless criticism by their informed equals.
They should not have to surrender time on their platform, space in
their textbooks, to purveyors of ancient myths supported only by a
claim of “divine revelation.”
If almost everyone believed in Yahweh and Genesis, and less than
one in a million U.S. citizens believe in Brahma the Creator, it would
not change the constitutional aspect. Neither belongs in a science
textbook in a tax-supported school. But if Yahweh is there, Brahma
should be. And how about that Eskimo Creator with the unusually
unsavory methods? We have a large number of Eskimo citizens.
       j)     The return of witchcraft-It used to be assumed that
Southern California had almost a monopoly on cults. No longer. (Cult
vs. religion-I am indebted to
L.     Sprague de Camp for this definition of the difference. A
“religion” is a faith one is born into; a “cult” is a faith an adult joins
voluntarily. “Cult” is often used as a slur by a member of an older faith
to disparage a newer faith. But this quickly leads to contradictions. In
the 1st century A.D. the Christians were an upstart cult both to the
Sanhedrin and to the Roman priests.
“Cult” is also used as a slur on a faith with “weird ideas” and “weird
practices.” But this can cause you to bite your tail even more quickly
than the other. “Weird” by whose standards?
(Mr. de Camp’s distinction implies something about a mature and
presumably sane adult becoming a proselyte in a major and long-
established faith, such as Islam or Shintoism or the Church of
England . . . but the important thing it implies is that a person born


                                   446
into, let us say, the Presbyterian Church is not being odd or
unreasonable if he remains in it all his life despite having lost all faith;
he’s merely being pragmatic. His wife and kids are there; he feels
that church is a good influence on the kids, many of his friends are
there. It’s a comfortable habit, one carrying with it a degree of
prestige in the community.
(But if he changes into a saffron robe and shaves his pate, then goes
dancing down the street, shouting, “Hare Krishna!” he won’t keep his
Chevrolet dealership very long. Theology has nothing to do with it.)
One of the symptoms of this Age of Unreason, antiscience and anti-
intellect, in the United States is the very prominent increase in new
cults. We’ve never been without them. 19th Century New England
used to breed them like flies. Then it was Southern California’s turn.
Now they seem to spring up anywhere and also are readily imported
from abroad. Zen Buddhism has been here so long that it is usually
treated with respect . . . but still so short a time (1950) that few
American adults not of Japanese ancestry can claim to have been
born into it. Ancient in Japan, it is still a cult here-e.g., Alan Watts
(1915 - 1973), who moved from Roman Catholic priest to Episcopal
priest to Zen priest. I doubt that there is any count on American Zen
Buddhists but it is significant that both “satori” and “koan” were
assimilated words in all four standard U.S. dictionaries only 16 years
after Zen Buddhism penetrated the non-Japanese population.

And there are the Moonies and the Church of Scien
tology and that strange group that went to South America and
committed suicide en masse and the followers of that fat boy from
India and-look around you. Check your telephone book. I express no
opinion on the tenets of any of these; I simply note that, since World
War Two, Americans have been leaving their “orthodox” churches in
droves and joining churches new in this country.
Witchcraft is not new and never quite died out. But it is effectively
new to most of its adherents here today because of the enormous
increase in numbers of witches. (“Warlock” is insulting, “Wizard”
barely acceptable and considered gauche, “Witch” is the correct term
both male and female; The religion is usually called either the Old
Religion or the Craft rather than witchcraft.)



                                    447
The Craft is by its nature underground; witches cannot forget the
hangings in Salem, the burnings in Germany, the fact that the
injunction, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” (Exodus XXII, 18)
has usually been carried out whenever the Old Religion surfaced.
Even during this resurgence only four covens have come to my
attention and, not being a witch myself, I have never attended an
esbat (easier to enter a tyled lodge!).
The Craft is not Devil worship and it is not Black Mass but both of the
latter have enjoyed some increase in recent years.
If witchcraft has not come to your attention, search any large book
store; note how very many new titles concern witchcraft. Most of
these books are phony, not written by witches, mere exploitation
books-but their very existence shows the change. Continue to show
interest and a witch just might halfway reveal himself by saying,
“Don’t bother with that one. Try this one.” Treat him with warm
politeness and you may learn much more.
To my great surprise when I learned of it, there are over a dozen
(how much over a dozen I have no way to
guess) periodicals in this country devoted solely to the Old Religion.
Time Span-The Cancerous Explosion
of Government
Will Rogers told us that we were lucky in that we didn’t get as much
government as we pay for. He was (and is) emphatically right. . . but
he died 15 August 1935. The Federal government spent
$6,400,000,000 in the last 12 months of his tragically short life. The
year he was born (1879) the Federal government spent
$274,000,000-an expensive year, as we resumed paying specie for
the Greenback Inflation, $346,700,000 of fiat money.
  What would Will Rogers think of a budget of $300 billion and up?
(Figures quojed from THE STATISTICAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED
STATES, Prepa red by the U.S. Aureau of the Census)
          Fed. Employees Fed. Receipts
Census         State & Local     Fed. Expenditure
Year Population JPub.E~p.        Surplus/Deficit Fed Public Debt
     1910 91972,266 388708       0675,51 2000     01,146940,000
                     693,617,000
                     (-/018,105,000


                                   448
       1920 /05,710,620        655,265 06,648,898,000
       024,299,321,000
                        6,357,677,000
                        $291,221,000
       1930 /22,755,046        601319       $4,057,884,000
       016,185,3/0,000
                  2,622,000 3,320,211,000
                  3.223,3/9 0737,673,000
       /940 131,669,275       1,042,420 06,900,000,000
       050,700,000,000
                  3,206,000 9,600,000,000
                  4,248,420 (-/02,700,000,000
       1950 150,697,361       1,960,708 040,900,000,000
       0256,900,000,000
                  4,098,000 43,100,000,000
                  6,058,708 (-)$2,200,000,000
       1960 178,464,236       2,398,704 $92,500,000,000
       $290,900,000,000
                  6,083,000 92,200,000,000
                  8,481.704 0300,000,000
       /970 203,235,298       2,981,574 $193,700,000,000
       $382,600,000,000
                  9,830,000 196.600,000,000
                  12.811,574 (-/02,900,000,000
       (/980)     (222.000,000) (3,600,000)($300,000,000,000)
       ($525,000,000,000)
                  (14.500,000)       ($310,000,000,000)
                  (18,100,000)       (-)($/0,000 000,000)
(1980 figures are extrapolations = wild guesses) (Too timid?) Much
too timid!-as you knew when you read them, as I knew when I
prepared them. I plotted all of the above figures on graph paper,
faired the curves, suppressed what I knew by memory (even
refrained from consulting World Almanacs to bridge the 9 years since
the close of compilation of THE STATISTICAL HISTORY) and
extrapolated to 1980 by the curves-not tangent, but on the indicated
curve.
By the best figures I can get from Washington today (20 Nov 1979)
the budget is $547,600,000,000; the expected deficit is
$29,800,000,000; and our current Federal Public Debt is estimated at
$886,480,000,000.(!!!)

                                 449
The end of the Federal fiscal year, September 30, is still over ten
months away. In ten months a lot of things can happen. Unexpected
events always cause unexpected expense.. . but with great good luck
the deficit will not increase much and the National Public Debt will
stay under $900,000,000,000.
  In case of war, all bets are off.
What is happening is what always happens in fiatcurrency inflation:
After a certain point, unpredictable as to date because of
uncountable human variables, it becomes uncontrollable and the
currency becomes worthless. Dictatorship usually follows. From there
on anything can happen-all bad.
The Greenback Inflation did not result in collapse of the dollar and of
constitutional government because gold backing was not disavowed,
simply postponed for a relatively short time. The Greenback Party
wanted to go on printing paper money, never resume specie
payment-but eventually we toughed it out and paid hard money for
the Greenbacks that had financed the Union side of the war. From
1862 to 1879 gold and silver were not used internally. Our
unfavorable balance of trade for 1861-65, which had to be met in
gold, was $296,000,000. Hard times and high taxes-but we made it.
The French Revolution inflation was unsecured. Between April 1790
and February 1796, 40 billion livres or francs were issued. New paper
money (Mandats) replaced them that year; the following year both
sorts were declared no longer legal tender (waste paper!)- and 2
years later Napoleon took over “to save the Republic.”(!)
We could still keep from going utterly bankrupt by going back on
some hard standard (gold, silver, uraniurn, mercury, bushels of
wheat-something). But it would not be easy, it would not be popular; it
would mean hard times for everyone while we recovered from an
almighty hangover. Do you think a Congress and a President can be
elected on any such platform?
One chink in the armor of any democracy is that, when the Plebs
discover that they can vote themselves Bread & Circuses, they
usually do . . . right up to the day there is neither bread nor circuses.
At that point they often start lynching the senators, congressmen,
bankers, tax collectors, Jews, grocers, foreigners, any minority-take
your choice. For they know that they didn’t do it. The citizen is



                                      450
sovereign until it comes to accepting blame for his sovereign acts-
then he demands a scapegoat.

I used official figures without comment to show
where we have been the past 70 years. . . and how we got into the
mess we are in. But, while I think our government is more nearly
honest than some others (see INSIDE INTOURIST Afterword, page
439), there is a lot of hanky-panky in those official figures. Example:
Social Security taxes go into the general fund and are spent. If Social
Security were in fact insurance (the basis on which the gimmick was
sold to us by FDR’s “New Deal”), the receipts would be segregated
and invested and not shown as income . . . OR a competent
insurance actuary with staff would calculate the commitment and it
would show in the National Public Debt.

(The fact that a debt is amortized over the years
doesn’t stop it from being a debt. It was an amortized mortgage that
got me into this racket. The prospect of years and years of future
monthly payments spoiled my sleep.)
The only way the Government can go on paying Social “Security” to
my generation is by taxing you young people more and more heavily.
. . and each year there are more and more old people and fewer and
fewer young people. It won’t help to run the printing presses faster;
that causes food to rise in price, rents to go up, etc.-and people over
65 start putting pressure on Congress .. . and there’s an election
coming up. (There’s always an election coming up.)
One thjng I learned as a wardheeler was that (with scarce
exceptions) people in my age group want one of two things: 1) They
want to keep on clipping those coupons and collecting those rents
and they don’t give a damn what it does to the country, or 2) they
want that raise in Social Security (Townsend Plan) (“Ham & Eggs”)
(you name one) and they don’t give a damn what it does to the
country.
(I don’t claim to be altruistic. Just this pragmatic difference: I am
sharply aware that, if the United States goes down the chute, I go
down with it.)




                                   451
I use the term “Federal Public Debt” because what is usually termed
the “Public Debt” is by no means our total public debt. There are also
state, county, city, and special-district debts. It is difficult to get
accurate figures on these public debts but the total appears to be
larger than the Federal Public Debt. I can’t make even a wild guess at
the Social Security commitment
but our total public promises-to-pay have to exceed two trillion
dollars. How much is a trillion? Well, it means that a baby born today
owes at least $4,347.83 to the Federal Government alone before his
eyes open. (No wonder he yells). It means that the Zero Population
Growth family (who was going to save us all-remember?) of father,
mother, and 2.1 children
owes $17,826 in addition to private debts (mortgage, automobile,
college for 2.1 children).
Of course papa won’t pay it off; that debt will grow larger. But it will
cost him $2000 a year (and rising) just to “service” his pro-rata; any
taxes for which he getsanything at all-even more laws-is on top of
that.
A trillion seconds is 31,688 years, 9 months, 5 days, 8 hours, 6
minutes, and 42 seconds-long enough for the precession of the
equinoxes to make Vega the Pole Star, swing back again to Polaris,
and go on past to Alpha Cephei. Or counting the other way it would
take us to 29,708 B.C.. . . or more than 25 thousand years before
Creation by Bishop Usher’s chronology for creationism.
I don’t understand a trillion dollars any better than I do a trillion
seconds. I simply know that we had better stop spending money we
don’t have if we want to avoid that Man on Horseback.
But I don’t think we will stop “deficit financing,” the euphemism that
sounds so much better than “kiting checks.”
You may have noticed that 1970 figure for public employees (not my
extrapolation for 1980, but the official 1970 figures straight from the
United States Bureau of the Census).
That figure does not include the Armed Forces. It does not include
some special categories. It is easier to learn the number of slaves
imported in 1769 (6,736) than it is to find out exactly how many
people are on public payrolls in this country. And it is not simply
difficult but impossible to determine how many people receive


                                    452
Federal checks for which they perform no services. (Or food stamps.
Are food stamps money?) But one thing is certain: the number of
people eligible to vote who do receive money from some unit of
government (aid to dependent children, Supreme Court justices, not
growing wheat, removing garbage, governors of states, whoever)
exceeds the number eligible to vote
but receiving no pay or subsidy of any sort from any unit of
government.
Have you read the Federal Register lately? Have you ever read the
Federal Register? Under powers delegated by Congress certain
appointed officials can publish a new regulation in the Federal
Register and, if Congress does not stop it, after a prescribed waiting
time, that regulation has the force of law-it is law, to you and to me,
although a lawyer sees nuances. I have vastly oversimplified this
description, but my only purpose is to point out that “administrative
law” reaches into every corner of our lives, and is the major factor in
the enormous and strangling invasion of the Federal Government into
our private affairs.
I can’t see anything in the Constitution that permits the Congress to
delegate its power to pass laws.. . but the Supreme Court says it’s
okay and that makes my opinion worthless.
I’m stopping. There are endless other gloomy things to discuss-the oil
shortage, the power shortage (not the same thing), pollution,
population pressure, a projected change in climate that can and
probably will turn the problems of population and food into sudden
and extreme crisis, crime in the streets and bankrupt cities, our
incredible plunge from the most respected nation on Earth to the
most despised (but we are nonetheless expected to pick up the tab).
Bill Gresham was right but he told only half of it: you not only don’t
get rich peddling gloom; it isn’t any fun.
So now come with me- “OVER THE RAINBOW-“
The new President had not been in office ten days before it became
clear to his own party as well as to
the “loyal opposition” that he was eyen more of a disaster than the
defeated candidate had predicted. Nevertheless the country was
shocked when he served even fewer days than the ninth President-
killed in a crash, his private plane, himself at the controls; dying with


                                    453
him his three top aides: White House chief of staff, press secretary,
appointments secretary.
No U.S. or Canadian news medium said a word about alcohol or
incidents in the dead President’s past; they treated it as a tragic
accident. Papers and TV reporters elsewhere were not as reticent.
The Speaker of the new House saw the ex-Vice President first (even
before the oath of office) as the Speaker’s seniority in line of
succession enabled him to do. He came right to the point. “I am ready
to take this load off your shoulders. We both know that you were
picked simply to support the ticket; no one ever expected to load you
down with this. Here’s how we’ll do it: You resign at once, then we’ll
meet the press together-after I’m sworn in. I’ll do most of the talking. I
promise you, it won’t be a strain on you.”
  “I’m sure that it won’t be. You’re excused.”
  “Huh!”
“You may leave. In fact I am telling you to leave. I thought you had
come to stand beside me as I take the oath.. . but you have
something entirely different in mind. You would not enjoy staying; I
would not enjoy having you stay.”
  “You’ll regret this! You’re making a mistake!”
“If a mistake was made, it was made at the Convention. By you and
five others, I believe; I was not present. Yes, I may regret it but this is
what I undertook to do when I accepted the nomination for the Vice-
Presidency. Now get out. Pronto!”
The new President sent for the Director of the Budget forty minutes
after the swearing in. “Explain this to me.”
The Director hemmed and hawed and tried to say that the budget
was too technical for anyone not in public life before-
   • and was answered, “I’m accepting your resignation. Send in
     your deputy.”
It was almoSt a week before this call was made: “Admiral? This is the
President. If I come to your home, do you feel well enough to see
me?”
There was a tussle of wills that the Admiral won only through pointing
out that it was never proper to subject the President of the United
States to unnecessary risk of assassination. . . and that with his new
car, fitted for his wheelchair, he still went to the Pentagon twice a

                                    454
week. “I’m old, I admit; I was born in 1900. But I’m not dead and I’m
quite able to report to my Commander in Chief. And we both know
that threats have been made.”
The President won the next argument. On b,eing wheeled in the
Admiral started to get out of his chair. “Do please sit down!”
The old man continued to try to rise, leaning on the arm of his nurse.
The President said quickly, “That was expressed as a request but
was an order. Sit down.”
The Admiral promptly sat back down, caught his breath and said
formally, “Ma’am, I report-with great pleasure!-to the President of the
United States.”
“Thank you for coming, sir. In view of our respective ages . . . and
your health, I felt that it was a time to dispense with protocol. But you
are right; there are indeed a flood of threats, many more than get into
the news. I don’t intend to be a target.. - at least until we have a new
Vice President sworn in.”
“Never be a target, Madam. You would be mourned by everyone,
both parties. Uh, if I may say so, you are even more beautiful in
person than you are on the screen.”
“Not mourned by everyone, I’m certain, or I would not nave to be
cautious about assassination. As for that other, I’m not beautiful and
you know it. I know what
I have. I project. But it’s not physical beauty. It’s something that a pro-
a professionally competent actress-does with her whole being. Her
voice, her expression, her hands, her body. A gestalt, with regular
features the least important factor. Or not present, as with me.”
The President smiled, got up and went around the big desk, leaned
over the Admiral, kissed his forehead. “But you are an old dear to
have said it.”
He cleared his throat, noisily. “Ma’am, what is your opinion in the
matter against that of millions of men?”
“We’ve dropped that subject. Now to work! Admiral, why is it that
there has been so much difficulty with nuclear power plants ashore
but never any trouble with your nuclear submarines?”
The President slapped her desk, glared at the leader of the
delegation. “Stop that! Han’kerchief head, you’ve come to the wrong


                                    455
church. In this office there are no Blacks-or Blues, Whites, Greens, or
Yellows- just Americans. Besides that, you claim to be a Black
representing Blacks. Hmmph! That’s a phony claim if I ever-“

“I resent that, Mrs. Ni-“
“Pipe down! ‘Madam President,’ if you please. And one does not
interrupt the President. I said your claim was phony. It is. I’m at least
three shades darker than you are.. . yet I’m smooth brown, not black.”
She looked around. “I don’t see a real sooty black in your whole
delegation. Mmm, I see just one darker than I am. Mr. Green, isn’t it?
That is your name?”
      “Yes, Madam President. From Brooklyn.”
      “Any white blood, Mr. Green? Perhaps I should say ‘Any
      Caucasian ancestry?’”
      “Possibly. But none that I know of, Ma’am.”
“We’re all in that boat - . . including all whites. A person who claims to
be absolutely certain of his ancestry more than three generations
back is accepting
the short end of a bet. But since you are from Brooklyn, you can help
me pass a word. An important word, one that I’ll be emphasizing on
the networks tonight but I’ll need help from a lot of people to let all the
people know that I mean it. A Black who gets elected from Brooklyn
has lots of Jewish friends, people who trust him.
  “That’s right, Madam President.”
“Listen to my talk tonight, then pass it on in your own words. This
nation has split itself into at least a hundred splinter groups, pressure
groups, each trying for a bigger bite of the pie. That’s got to stop!-
before it kills us. No more Black Americans. No more Japanese
Americans. Israel is not our country and neither is Ireland. A group
calling itself La Raza had better mean the human race-the whole
human race-or they’ll get the same treatment from me as the Ku Klux
Klan. Amerindians looking for special favors will have just two
choices: Either come out and be Americans and accept the
responsibilities of citizenship . . . or go back to the reservation and
shut up. Some of their ancestors got a rough deal. But so did yours
and so did mine. There are no Anglos left alive who were at
Wounded Knee or Little Big Horn, so it’s time to shut up about it.



                                    456
“But race and skin color and national ancestry isn’t all that I mean. I
intend to refuse to see any splinter group claiming to deserve special
treatment not accorded other citizens and I will veto any legislation
perverted to that end. Wheat farmers. Bankrupt corporations.
Bankrupt cities. Labor leaders claiming to represent ‘the workers’ . . .
when most of the people they claim to represent repudiate any such
leadership.
Business leaders just as phony. Anyone who wants the deck stacked
in his favor because, somehow, he’s ‘special.’”
The President took a deep breath, went on: “Any such group gets
thrown out. But two groups will get
thrown out so hard they’ll bounce! I’m a woman and I’m Negro. We’ve
wiped the Jim-Crow laws off the books; I’ll veto any Crow-Jim bill that
reaches this office. Discrimination? Certainly there is still
discrimination-but you can’t kill prejudice by passing a law. We’ll
make it by how we behave and what we produce-not by trick laws.
“I feel even more strongly about women. We women are a majority,
by so many millions that in an election it would be called a landslide.
And will be a landslide, on anything, any time women really want it to
be. So women don’t need favors; they just need to make up their
minds what they want-then take it.” The President stood up again.
“That’s all. I’m going to devote this term to those ‘unalienable rights’-
for everybody. No splinter groups. Go tell people so. Now git.. . and
don’t come back! Not as a splinter group. Come back as Americans.”
They moved toward the door. Their erstwhile leader muttered
something. The President demanded, “Mr. Chairman, what did you
say?”
  “I said,” he answered loudly, “you aren’t going to have a second
  term.”
She laughed at him. “I thought that’s what I heard. Burr head, I’m not
worrying about being reelected; I worry only about how much I can do
in four years.”


(Editorial in the Springfield Eagle)




                                       457
LIFE INSURANCE?
The President’s surprise nomination of the House Minority Leader for
the vacant vice-presidency has produced some snide theories, one of
the nastiest
being the idea that she fears a plot on her life by the wheeler-dealers
who put the late President into office, so she is spiking their guns
(literally!) by rigging things to turn the presidency over to the
opposition party should anything happen to her....
prefer to take her at her word, that her objective is to get the country
unified again, and that a woman and a man, a Republican and a
Democrat, a White and a Black, could be the team to do it.
The Speaker of the House has still not commented, but his floor
leader and the nominated minority leader appeared with the
President when she announced her choice. The Senate President
Pro Tempore said, “I see no reason why confirmation should not go
through quickly. I’ve known Don for thirty years; I trust that I am not
so narrow-minded that I can’t recognize presidential caliber in a man
of another party.
customary to be of the same party, there is a custom just as long
standing (and more important) that a President have a Vice President
he (she) trusts to carry out his (her) policies.
   Let’s back them to the limit! Let’s all be Americans again!
   “Thanks for coming.”
“Madam President, any time you send a car for me, then scoot me
across the country in a hypersonic military jet, thanks should be the
other way. My first experience above the speed of sound-and my first
time in the Oval Office. I never expected to be in it.”
She chuckled. “Nor did I. Especially on this side of this desk. Let’s get
to work.” She held up a book. “Recognize this?”
  “Eh?” He looked startled. “Yes, Ma’am, I do. I should.”
“You should, yes.” She opened to a marked page, read aloud: “’-I
have learned this about engineers. When something must be done,
engineers can find a way that is economically feasible.’ Is that true?”
  “I think so, Ma’am.”
  “You’re an engineer.”
  “I am an obsolete engineer, Ma’am.”


                                   458
  “I don’t expect you to do the job yourself. You know what I did
     about fusion power plants.”
“You sent for the one man with a perfect record. I’ve seen the power
ship moored off Point Sur. Brilliant. Solved an engineering and a
public relations problem simultaneously.”
“Not quite what I mean. I consulted the Admiral, yes. But the job was
done by his first deputy, the officer he has groomed to replace him.
And by some other Navy people. Now we’re working on ways to
make the key fission-power people-safety control especially- all
former Navy nuclear submariners. But we have to do it without
stripping the Navy of their Blue and Gold crews. On things I know
nothing about-most things, for this job! I consult someone who does-
and that leads me to the person who can do it. Since I know very little
about how to be President, I look for advice on almost everything.”
  “Ma’am, it seems to me-and a lot of other people- that you were
  born for the job.”
“Hardly. Oh, politics isn’t strange to me; my father held office when I
was still a girl at home. But I did my first television commercial at
fourteen and I was hooked. If I hadn’t been ‘resting’ between
contracts, I would not have had accepted the Governor’s
appointment-I was just his ‘exhibit coon’ but the Commission’s work
did interest me. Then I was still an ‘exhibit coon’ when he saw to it
that I was on his favorite-son slate. Then, when the three leading
candidates deadlocked, my late predecessor broke the deadlock in
his favor by naming me as the other half of his ticket. I went along
with it with a wry grin inside, figuring, first, that the ploy wouldn’t work,
and second, that, if he did get nominated, he would find some way to
wiggle out-ask me to withdraw in favor of his leading rival or some
such.”
She shrugged. “But he didn’t-or couldn’t. I don’t know which; he rarely
talked to me. Real talk, I mean. Not just, ‘Good morning,’ and, ‘Did
you have a comfortable flight’ and not wait for an answer.
“I didn’t care. I relished every minute of the campaign. An actress
sometimes plays a queen. . . but for four months I got to be one.
Never dreaming that our ticket would win. I knew what a-No, de
mortuis nil nisi bonum, and we must get back to work. What would
you do about pollution of streams?”



                                     459
“Eh? But that one has already been solved. By one of the
Scandinavian countries, I believe. You simply require every user to
place his intake immediately downstream from his discharge of
effluent into the stream. In self-protection the user cleans up his
discharge. It’s self-enforcing. No need to test the water until someone
downstream complains. Seldom. Because it has negative feedback.
Ma’am, complying with a law should be more rewarding than
breaking it-or you get positive feedback.”
She made a note. “We could clean up the Mississippi that way. But
I’m fretted about streams inside states, too. For example, the
Missouri, where it is largest, is entirely inside the State of Missouri.”
  “Ma’am, I think you’ll find that you have jurisdiction overall
  navigable streams.”
  I do?
“Ma’am, you have powers you may never have dreamed existed. A
‘navigable stream’ is one only three feet deep, I think. You may right
now have the power to order this under law already on the books. If
there is a paragraph or even a clause on placement of inlets and
outlets, you almost certainly can issue an executive order right away.
Today. The boss of the U.S. Engineers would know. General
Somebody. A French name.”
She touched a switch. “Get me the head of the U.S. Engineers. How
would you dispose of nuclear power plant wastes? Rocket them onto
the Moon as someone
urged last week? Why wouldn’t the Sun be better? We may want to
go back to the Moon someday.”
     “Oh, my, no! Neither one, Ma’am.”
     “Why not? Some of those byproducts are poisonous for
     hundreds of years, so I’ve heard. No?”
“You heard correctly. But the really rough ones have short half-lives.
The ones with long half-lives- hundreds, even thousands of years, or
longer-are simple to handle. But don’t throw away any of it, Ma’am.
Not where you can’t recover it easily.”
  “Why not? We’re speaking of wastes. I assume that we have
  extracted anything we can use.”
“Yes, Ma’am, anything we can use. But our great grandchildren are
going to hate you. Do you know the only use the ancient Romans had

                                    460
for petroleum? Medicine, that’s all. I don’t know how those isotopic
wastes will be used next century .. . any more than those old Romans
could guess how very important oil would become. But I certainly
wouldn’t throw those so-called wastes into the Sun! Besides, rockets
do fail
• . . and who wants to scatter radioactives over a couple of states?
   And there’s the matter of the fuel and steel and a dozen other
   expensive things for the rockets. You could easily wind up
   spending more money to get rid of the ashes than you ever got
   from selling the power.
“Then what do you do? They say we mustn’t sink it into the ocean. Or
put it on the Antarctic ice cap. Salt mines?”
“Madam President, honest so help me, this is one of those
nonproblems that the antitechnology nuts delight in. Radioactive
wastes aren’t any harder to handle than garbage. Or hot ashes. Or
anything else you don’t want to pick up in your bare hands. The
quantity isn’t much, not at all like garbage, or coal ashes. There are
at least a half dozen easy ways. One of the easiest is to mix them
with sand and gravel and cement into concrete bricks, then stack
them in any unused piece of desert.
“Or glass bricks. Or let the stuff dry and store it in steel barrels such
as oil drums and use those old salt mines you mentioned-the bricks
you could leave in the open. All by remote manipulation, of course;
that’s the way a radioactives engineer does everything. Waldoes.
That’s old stuff. No trouble.”
  “I thought you said you were obsolete.”
He grinned sheepishly. “Ma’am, it’s easy to talk. As long as I know
that young fellows will have to do the tedious drudgery that goes into
making anything new work. But the solutions I’ve offered are
practical. No new discoveries needed.
  “How about air pollution?”
“What sorts, Ma’am? The two main sources are internal combustion
engines-trucks and autos-and industrial smokes. Quite different
problems.”
  “Pick one.”
“Transportation pollution is going to solve itself soonither the hard
way or the easy way. Oil, whether it’s our own or from the OPEC, is

                                    461
too valuable to be burned in cars and trucks; it’s the backbone of the
chemical engineering industry-fertilizers, plastics, pesticides,
lubricants, and so forth. So, quite aside from the energy problem, we
need to stop burning it. We can either wait until it’s forced on us
catastrophically . . - or we can turn to other transportation power
voluntarily, and thereby become self-sufficient in oil for peace or for
war. Either way, transportation pollution is ended.”
  “But what other transportation power, Doctor?”
“Oh. Half a dozen ways, at least. Get rid of the I.C. engine
completely, both Otto cycle and Diesel cycle, and go back to the
external combustion engine and steam. The I.C. engine never did
make sense; starting and stopping combustion every split second is a
guarantee of incomplete combustion, wasted fuel, and smog. Air
pollution. External combustion has no such built-in stupidity; no
matter what fuel, it burns con-
tinuously and can be adjusted for complete combustion. The Stanley
Steamer used kerosene. But that’s petroleum again. I would use
wood alcohol as a starter-it hurts me every time I pass a sawmill and
see them burning chips and slash.
“But wood alcohol has its drawbacks. We may burn hydrogen
someday. Or learn to store electricity in less weight and less space.
Or store energy in a flywheel. But all of those, even hydrogen, are
simply ways to store energy. It still leaves an energy problem.”
  “Hydrogen, too? But you said we would burn it. No?”
“We’ll burn it for some purposes; in some ways it’s the ideal fuel; its
only ash is water vapor. But, Ma’am, we don’t have hydrogen; we
have water-and even with perfect efficiency-never achieved-the
energy you get out of hydrogen by burning it cannot exceed the
energy you must use in getting that hydrogen by electrolysis of water.
So you must generate electricity first.”
  “I see. No free lunch.”
“Never a free lunch. But the energy problem can be solved several
ways . . - through renewable resources. We’ve been using
nonrenewable resources-coal and oil and cutting trees faster than
they grow.”
  “Renewable resources-Windmills and water power and sun
  power?”

                                  462
“Wind and water power are fine but limited. I mean effectively
unlimited power. Such as this new wrinkle of thermoelectric power
from the temperature difference of deep ocean and surface ocean.
But there aren’t too many really convenient places to do that. You
named the one energy that is unlimited and convenient anywhere.
Sun power.”
   “So? What desert is convenient to the Gary steel mills?”
   “Not desert, Ma’am; the Sierra Club wouldn’t like it.”
“I plan to tell the Sierra Club that they are not the government of the
United States. But in stronger language.”
  “I look forward to hearing you, Madam President.
The Sierra Club loves deserts and hates people. But our deserts
aren’t sufficient. Sun power, yes-but unlimited sun power. In orbit.”

South Africa Enraged
United States Surprise Return to Gold Standard at $350 per Troy
  Ounce of Fine Gold Has
Bourses in Turmoil
“New Policy Obvious Concommitant of
Return to Balanced Budget,” Says
Treasury Secretary Spokesman

“The Way to Resume is to Resume.”
By ADAM SMITH
Finance Editor

WASHINGTON-The Treasury Secretary, after reading aloud to the
Press the President’s brief announcement of resumption of specie
payments immediately at $350/oz., emphasized that this was not a
tactical maneuver to “strengthen the dollar,” not an auction of bullion
such as those in the past, but a permanent policy consistent with the
administration’s total policy. “A return to our traditional policy, I must
add. A century ago, for 15 years, war caused us to suspend specie
payments-but never with any intent to accept the vice of fiat money.
Since 1971, as sequelae to 3 wars, we have had a similar problem.
By letting the dollar float until the world price of gold in terms of
dollars settled down, we have determined what could be called the



                                    463
natural price. So we have resumed specie payment at a firm gold
standard. God willing, we will never leave it.”

This was in answer to the London Times correspondent’s
frosty inquiry as to whether or not the Secretary thought anyone
would want our gold at that price. The Treasury Secretary told him
that we were not “selling gold” but promising to redeem our paper
money at a gold-standard price. The Times’ question was inspired by
the fact that at the close of market Friday the London fix was $423.
195 per troy ounce, with the Zurich fix, the Winnipeg fix, and the
Hong Kong fix (the last only hours before the Washington
announcement) all within a dollar of the London fix.

PRAVDA: “-.capitalistic trickery-“
Moscow has not had a free market in gold since pre-1914 but, as a
gold-producing country, its response to our resumption policy has
been even more acid than the shrill complaints from Johannesburg.
The Zurich gold market did not open today. London opened on time
but the price dropped at once, with the first purchase at $397. 127,
which slowed but did not stop the decline. Winnipeg opened an hour
late; the reason became clear when the Prime Minister announced
the tying of the Canadian dollar to the U.S. dollar at one-to-one-a fait
aCCompli as the two currencies have hunted up and down, never
more than 1% apart, for the past several months.
The timing of the announcement gave the world a weekend in which
to think things over, the purpose being presumably to reduce
oscillations. The New York Stock Market responded with an upward
surge. The Dow-Jones Industrials closed at
“Mr. Chairman, are these unofficial figures I have in front of me-that
each of you has in front of you-correct? Or have my informants been
leading me down the garden path? The figures on the use of hard
drugs, for example?”
  “Madam President, I don’t know quite how to answer that.”
“You don’t, eh? You’re Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and for four
years before that chief of staff of your service. If these figures are not
right, how far are they off and which way?”




                                    464
  “Ma’am, that is a question that should be put to each of the
  Services, not to me.”
“So? General, you are relieved of active duty. A request for
retirement will be acted on favorably, later today. You are excused.
General Smith, take the chair.”
The President waited until the door closed behind the ex-Chairman.
Then she said soberly, “Gentlemen, it gives me no pleasure to put an
end to the career of a man with a long and brilliant record. But I
cannot keep in a top spot in my official family a military officer who
can’t or won’t answer questions that, in my opinion, must be
answered if I am to carry out my duties as Commander in Chief. If he
had answered, ‘I don’t know now but I’ll start digging at once and
won’t stop until’-but he said nothing of the sort. I gave him two
chances; he brushed me off.” She sighed. “I suppose he dislikes
taking orders from one with no military experience; I do not assume
that my sex and skin color had anything to do with it. General Smith,
you are in the chair by default; I can’t ask you about the other
Services. How about your own? Hard drugs.”
“I suspect that this figure is conservative, Ma’am. I’ve been trying to
get hard data on hard drugs since I was appointed to this job a year
ago. In most cases we need evidence from medical officers to make
it stick
• . . and all our doctors are overworked; we don’t have nearly
   enough of them. Worse yet, some of the doctors are pushers
   themselves; two were caught.”
  “What happened to them? Making little ones out of big ones?”
  “No, Ma’am. Discharged. In civilian practice, I suppose.”
“For God’s sake, why? Has the Army forgotten how to hold a court
martial? Two drug pushers, simply sent home and still licensed to
practice medicine- and to prescribe drugs. General, I’m shocked.”
“Ma’am, may I say something in my own defense? Then you can
have my request for retirement, if you wish it.”
  “Please. Go ahead.”
“These cases occurred before I became Chief of Staff. At the time
these two were caught, I was Superintendent of the War College;
drugs are not a problem there. When last I had troop duty, I did have
a policy of treating use of hard drugs as a criminal offense, as

                                   465
permitted and required by regulations. But the very most I ever
managed was to get some sent to the V.A. for hospital cure and
rehabilitation. Under the present rules, if a man has a good lawyer-
and they do, usually-he can get away from courts martial and appeal
to a civilian judge. That usually ends it.”
   “Madam President, may I add something?”
   “Certainly, Admiral.”
   “Have you heard of the mutiny in the Somers about a century and a
      half back?”
   “I- Yes, I think I have! A novel. Voyage to the-Voyage to the First of
      December. Right?”
“There was a novel some years back; I think that was the book’s title.
I haven’t read it. Then you are aware that it was a tragic scandal, with
mutineers hanged at the yardarms. What I wanted to say was this: I
think the figures on drugs in the Navy are about right-lower than in
the Army, of course; the circumstances are different. But what is
killing the Navy- aside from a shortage of career officer material-is
that both mutiny and sabotage are out of hand -. - because offenses
that used to rate hanging from the yardarm are now treated as ‘Boys
will be boys.’ A great deal of it does derive from a change in the legal
structure, as the General said. I would rather have five ships properly
maintained, properly manned, shipshape and Bristol style, than ten
ships undermanned and shot through with men who should never
have been accepted in the first place. A stupid and sullen seaman is
worse than no one at all.”
      The President said, “Judges, chapter seven.”
      The Admiral looked puzzled. The Marine Commandant
      suddenly said, “Gideon’s Band!”
      “Exactly. I suspect that we have been trying to meet
quotas-numbers of men-rather than placing quality first. I’m sure it’s
not as simple as that, but that does seem to be part of it. General,
does the Air Force have any different slant on this?”
“No, Ma’am, I think the Navy and the Corps both speak for me. And
the Army. . - although Smitty’s problems are different from ours. Our
worst problem is hanging on to trained men.. - because what we
teach them, flying and electronics especially, are very salable on the
outside. I want to add something, though. Marijuana is not on the list
of drugs. It may very well be true that grass is no worse than liquor.
But neither one mixes with driving a flying machine. Or anything in an


                                   466
airplane. But grass is harder to cope with. A stash is easier to hide
than a bottle, and it is harder to tell when a man is stoned than when
he is drunk. And much harder to prove. I welcome suggestions.”
“I think we all do. Although I think we’ve pinpointed one essential.
Quality before quantity. Gentlemen, we’ll let this marinate about ten
days while all of us try to spot all of the basic things that are wrong
then meet again and exchange ideas. In writing. Call the shots as you
see them, don’t be afraid of hurting feelings, pay no attention to
sacred cows. Admiral, you found things wrong with the military legal
system; please analyse the matter, with specific recommendations. If
you truly feel that we need to go back to keelhauling and hanging at
the yardarm, say so.”
“I do not, Ma’am. But I do think the present rules are more suited to a
Scout camp than to a fighting force. Punishment should be swift and
certain; mutineers should not be coddled. We need a new code.”
“Work on it. I assume that you have legal aides. Mr. Secretary of
Defense, I have not intended to monopolize the floor. Before we
adjourn, I want you to give us your opinions on problems of discipline.
I would like to hear comment on those figures I supplied, all
categories. But you aren’t limited to that. Feel free to bring
up anything. I think that discipline in the Armed Forces is as serious a
problem as I face . . - and the most difficult.”
  “Discipline is not one of the duties of the Secretary of Defense.”
  “So? What are your duties?”
“To manage my department. Discipline belongs to these gentlemen.
Not to me. And certainly not to you. You are way out of line.”
“You forgot something, sir. The President is in the direct line of
command, at the top, and cannot avoid responsibility for any aspect
of her command. The Secretary of Defense is not in the line of
command; he is an executive secretary for the President. However,
since you see your job as merely managerial, and not concerned with
morale and discipline, I won’t press you about it. I have your signed
resignation in my desk, inherited from my predecessor. I’m accepting
it. At once.”
The ex-Secretary leaned back and laughed. “How just like a woman!
Ruffle her feathers and she flies off the handle. But it’s okay, Shortie;
I didn’t intend to stay this long. After the Chief died I was ready to


                                   467
quit. But Charlie asked me to stick around a little longer, keep an eye
on you. I know what you did to him the day of the tragedy, standing in
his way when he was entitled to the job. You never were anything but
an election poster. Didn’t anybody ever tell you that?”
  “You may leave now. You’re excused.”
“Oh, I’m leaving; I’ve got a press conference in ten minutes. Just one
thing: You said Joe probably disliked taking orders from you because
you’ve had no military experience. Nonsense. Any top brass expects
to take orders from a civilian. But no real man will take orders from a
nigger, much less a nigger wench.”
The Marine was out of his chair so fast that it overturned, snatched
the ex-Secretary out of his chair and got a hammerlock on him-but
beat the others to it only by being closest.
“Down on your knees and apologize, you jerk! That’s the President of
the United States you’re talking to!” The Marine General’s Deep
South accent, ordinarily carefully corrected, came out in full force,
thick as gumbo.
  “Make him take his hands off me!”
“Keep him secure, General. And thank you, sir. But don’t rough him
up more than necessary. Admiral, if you will be so kind as to check, I
think you will find two Marines and two Secret Service men just
outside that door. Please ask one of them to telephone for two White
House Police. I want this person removed from the building and not
allowed back in. Nor back into the Pentagon, ever. Most especially
not into his former office.”
  “A pleasure, Ma’am!”
“Thank you, sir. I hope to see you all here at the same time a week
from Thursday. General Smith, I ask you to remain chairman pro tern,
in addition to your regular duties. Adjourn when it suits you. I’m
withdrawing now; I want to lie down. I find that I am a bit shaky....”

CND 4,O6CRH
CHEYENNE-LEGISLATURE BOTH HOUSES PASSED
OVERWHELMINGLY FIRST AND SECOND READING
EMERGENCY MEASURE RESTORING PAUPERS OATH FOR
RECIPIENTS OF ANY PUBLIC


                                  468
ASSISTANCE OF ANY SORT REPEAT ANY SORT IN RESPONSE
TO

GOVERNOR’S IMPASSIONED CLAIM THAT THERE WOULD BE
NO

MONEY FOR THE BLIND AND THE TOTALLY HELPLESS
UNLESS

STATE RETURNED TO NINETEENTH CENTURY TEST OF
ELIGIBILITY MORE MORE

CND4,Ø9CRH

CHEYENNE-AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION WILL FILE

CLASS ACTION IN FEDERAL COURT TO STOP RESTORATION
OF

PAUPERS OATH AS PREREQUISITE FOR PUBLIC ASSISTANCE.

“Come in, Senator! Thank you for doing me this favor!’
“Madam President, it would be a pleasure to call on you at any time
even if you were nOt President. Perhaps more.”
“Uncle Sam, I don’t know what that means but I like it. Now to work!
Would it suit you to work for me?”
  “You know it would, my dear-but I have a cohstituency.”
“I don’t mean resign and take a job here. But can’t you pair votes, or
something? I need a lot of help from you right now and more later.”
“Anything the President wants, the President gets. Yes, I can always
arrange a pair. . - even when I’m only nominally out of the District.”
He looked down at her. “Trouble?”
“Work I don’t know how to handle. I’ve got to appoint twenty-three
judges and I can’t put it off much longer. And I don’t know how to tell
a knucklehead from an Oliver Wendell Holmes. See that tall stack?
And that one? Those are the written opinions-or other legal writings if
they are not already judges- from the candidates for judgeships. No
names on them, and other identifications blacked out. Just


                                  469
identification numbers. I thought I could read this mess and tell which
ones had their heads screwed on tight. I can’t. I don’t understand
legalese, I’m not a lawyer.”

“I’m not a lawyer either, bright eyes.’~
“No, but you’re the world’s leading semanticist. I figured that, if you
couldn’t understand something, then it was really nonsense.”
“It’s a good approach. If a person of normal intelligence, and a
reasonably full education, cannot understand a piece of prose, then it
is gibberish. But you shouldn’t be doing it; you have a country to
worry about. I don’t have time, either, but I’ll take time; my staff are
quite competent to wipe the noses and hold the hands of my
constituents for a while. I’ll arrange it.”
  “Then you’ll do it! Uncle Sam, you’re a dear!”
  “But I want a bribe.”
  “You do? I thought I was supposed to be offered bribes, not have
     to pay them.”
  “I’m eccentric. I take bribes only from pretty little girls I’ve known a
     long time.”
  “You’re eccentric, all right. What is that thing you wear on your
     head? A cow pat?”
“My dear, you’re colorblind. Madam President, I have a proposed
amendment to the Constitution I want you to sponsor. . . and by great
good luck I just happen to have a copy of it on me.”
“I’ll bet you sleep with a copy of it on you. No, just put it on the desk.
Now tell me what it is supposed to accomplish.”
“It permits a citizen to challenge the Constitutionality of any law or
regulation, Federal or any lesser authority, on the grounds that it is
ambivalent, equivocal, or cannot be understood by a person of
average intelligence. Paragraph two defines ‘average intelligence.’
Paragraph three defines and limits the tests that may be used to test
the challenged law. The fourth paragraph excludes law students, law
school graduates, lawyers, judges, and uncertified j .p.’s from being
test subjects. I call it ‘the Semantic Amendment.’
“No, you don’t; you call it ‘the Plain English Amendment.’ Show biz,
Uncle Sam. Senator, under this amendment could a person
challenge the income tax law on the grounds that he has to hire an
expert to make out his form 1040?”

                                    470
“He certainly could. And he would win, too, as no three I.R.S men can
get the same answers out of identical data if the picture is at all
complex.”
  “Hmm- What if he’s bright enough but can’t read?”
  “Paragraph three.”
“How about the Federal Budget? It isn’t law in the usual meaning but
Congress votes on it and it has the force of law, where it applies.”
  “First paragraph. It quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck-it’s a
  duck.”
  “I’ll try to study this before I fall asleep tonight. Senator, this one
  we’re going to put over!”
“Don’t be too certain, Madam President. Lawyers are going to hate
this . . . and the Congress and all the state legislatures have a
majority of lawyers.”
“And every one of them not anxious to lose his job. That’s their
weakness . . . because it’s awfully easy to work up hate against
lawyers. Senator, this bill will be introduced by lawyers. Both Houses.
Both parties. Not by you, you’re not a lawyer. Uncle Sam, I’m an
amateur president but I’m a pro in show biz. It’ll play in Paducah.”
The two Presidents were seated alone at the front of the crowded
grandstand. Two kilometers in front of them a spaceship, small
compared with the Shuttle assemblage, but close to the size of the
Shuttle alone, stood upright in the bright Mexican mountain sunshine.
A voice from everywhere was counting:

“-sixty-one seconds one minute.. . . fifty-nine fifty-eight-“
  She said, “How are you coming with Spanglish, Señor el
  Presidente?”
He shrugged and smiled, “As before, Doña la Presidenta. I know it is
simple; I hear your people and ours talking in it - . . and I understand
them. But I don’t have time to study. When I leave office-“ He spread
his hands.
“I know. Perhaps two years from now-I can’t believe I’ve been in
office only six years. It feels like sixty.”
  “You’ve accomplished sixty years of statecraft; the whole world is
  awestruck.”


                                    471
“-forty-one . . . forty. . . thirty-nine-“
“There never was anything really seriously wrong with my country,
Mr. President. We made some silly mistakes, then compounded them
by being stubborn. The Fence, for example. What’s the point in a
Fence that doesn’t work? So I had it torn down.”
“Madam, your most creative act of statesmanship! Without that act of
faith, you and I could never have put over our Treaty of Mutual
Assistance. And the dozen major advances we have started under it.
This. You and I would not be sitting here.”
“Yes. No more wetbacks and this. Mr. President, I still don’t
understand how a beam of light can put a spaceship into orbit.”
     “Neither do I, Madam President, neither do I. But I believe your
     engineers.
     “So do I but it frightens me.”
     “-fifteen. . . The Binational Solar Power Zone is now on standby
     power.. . nine. . . eight-“
  “Oh! Will you hold my hand? Please!”
  “-four! . . - three! .. . two! - . . one! . . . LIGHT!”
A single inhalation by thousands, then came the everywhere voice in
soft, reverent tones: “Look at that bastard go!”

“-direct from O’Neill Village, Ell-Five. It’s a beautiful day here, it’s
always a beautiful day here. But today is our happiest fiesta ever;
little Ariel Henson Jones, first baby born in space, is one year old
today. All four of her grandparents are here, her father’s parents
having traveled all the way from Over-the-Rainbow, Ell-Four, via
Luna City Complex, just to be here on this great day. Don’t repeat
this but a little bird, a parrot, told me that one of Ariel’s grandmothers
is pregnant again. I won’t say which one but it’s personal good news
for all of us here in the sky because, if true and I can assure you it is,
it is one more and very important datum in the rapidly growing list to
show that youthfulness in all ways is markedly extended simply by
living in free-fall. Correction: the mild acceleration we experience at
the skin of our Village. . . but which we can leave behind completely
at any time for freefall sports at the axis.
“And you can enjoy them, too. This newscast comes to you
sponsored by O’Neill Village Chamber of Commerce. Visitors


                                       472
welcome. You haven’t lived until you ride the Light Beam, the
cheapest way to travel per thousand kilometers ever invented by a
factor of at least one hundred.. . and not uncomfortable even the first
few seconds since the installation of the new totalsupport hydraulic
couches. Also you haven’t lived until you’ve seen our free-fall ballet!
You think Las Vegas has shows? Wait till you see a Coriolis torch
dance. Or what free-fall does for a hundred-centimeter bust. Oh, boy!
Or if you like to gamble we’ll take your money with brand-new games
as happily as Monte Carlo or Atlantic City. See your travel agent for a
variety of package vacations.
“Or more than a vacation. Buying a share in the Village is cheaper
than buying a house in most cities down heavyside. But if you are
young and healthy and possess certain needed skills your migration
into the sky can be subsidized. Phone the placement office here for
details, same rates as from San Francisco to New York. Wups!
Almost forgot to tell you: knowledge of industrial Spanglish required,
plus some Brownie points for any other language you know.. .

It could be that way, over the Rainbow. As Madam President said,
there never has been anything incurably wrong with our country and
our world-just a horrid accumulation of silly mistakes that could be
corrected with horse sense and the will to do it.
We have a lot of healthy, intelligent people with a wide spread of
useful skills, trades, and professions. We have a wonderful big
country not yet too crowded and still wealthy in real wealthh, bankrupt
on paper but that can always be corrected with real wealth, will, and
work. Actually it’s easier to be happy and get rich than it is to go
down the chute. This country has
so much going for it that it takes a lot of work combined with wrong-
headed stubbornness to ruin this country. It’s not easy.

In the meantime dont go away. There are still a lot of sacred cows I
haven’t kicked but plan to. . . someday. So, unless I’m hit by a taxicab
while swiveling on my cane to ogle pretty girls, I’ll be back.
The End.




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