Subspace explorers, p.19
Subspace Explorers, page 19
"With all threat of nuclear warfare removed, WestHem's so-called defense spending will stop; in fact, much of it has already stopped. Ordinarily, this would not he a blessing, since business would slump into a rapidly accelerating downward spiral. A bad recession, or even a severe panic, would follow. Any such result could be avoided, of course, if WestHem's government would cut taxes in the full amount of defense spending; hut has any one of you an imagination sufficiently elastic to encompass the idea of that government giving up half its income and firing that many hundreds of thousands of political hangers-on?"
There was a burst of scornful laughter.
"Mine isn't, either. As you know, defense stocks are already plummeting. They are dropping the limit every day. Due to public panic, they will continue to drop to a point below-in some cases to a point much below the actual value of the properties. I propose that we start buying before that point is reached. Not enough to support the market, of course; just enough to control it at whatever rate of decline the specialists will compute as being certain to result in our gaining control.
"Having gained control of the largest-excuse me, I'm getting ahead of myself. I assure you that this program is financially feasible. I am authorized to say that in addition to GalBank, whose statements you all get, Deston and Deston, Warner Oil, Interstellar, and Galactic Metals will all put their treasuries behind this project." There was a burst of applause.
"Since we are very large holders of these stocks already, there is no doubt that we can obtain control. We will then re-hire all the personnel who have been laid off and convert to the production of luxury goods, preferably of the more expensive and less durable types. We will finance the purchase of these goods ourselves..."
This time, they clapped and whistled and stamped their feet.
... and put on a massive advertising campaign for such basic spending as modernization, new housing, and so on. All of this, however, will be secondary to our main purpose. None of you have realized as yet that this is the first chance we have ever had of forming a political party and actually electing a government of WestHem that will govern it....
There was a storm of applause that lasted for five minutes. Then Maynard went on:
"The Board seems to be in favor of such action. Mr. Stevens Spehn, who has clone a great deal of work on the political aspects of this idea, will now take the floor."
Chapter 17
PUNSUNBY'S WORLD
Many parsecs distant from the remotest outpost of civilization there was a planet known to its inhabitants only as The World. The World and everything pertaining to it, including the People and the Sun and the Moons and the little night-lights in the sky, had been created by The Company on Compday, January First in the Year One; and this day-also a Compday, of course-was the two hundred twenty sixth anniversary of that date: Jan. 1, 226. There was no celebration or ceremony-in fact, there were no words in the language to express any such concept-but, since it was Compday, all Operators worked only half a shift.
In the Beginning the Company had decreed that there were to be three hundred eighty four days (plus an extra Compday, to be announced by the Highest Agent, once every few years) in each year. Each year had twelve months; each month four weeks; each week eight days Compday, Sonday, Monday, Tonday, Wonday, Thurday, Furday, and Surday. All Operators were to work exactly half of each of those days except Compday, upon which they were to work only a quarter; the other quarter was to be devoted to being happy and to thinking pleasant thoughts of the Company, of its goodness in furnishing them all with happiness and with life and its comforts.
No other World had ever been created or ever would be, nor any other People. The Company and The World comprised the Cosmic All.
The World had not changed and it never would change; The Company had so decreed. Not to the People directly, of course; the Company was an immaterial, omniscient, omnipotent entity that, except in the matter of punishment, dealt with People only through Company Agents. These Agents were not People, but were supermen and superwomen far above People; so far above People that the lowest-caste Company Agents had qual-
ities that not even the highest-caste People could understand.
Upon very rare occasions the Company, whose symbol was A A A A A A A, appeared in a form of flesh to the Highest Agent, the Comptroller General of The World, whose symbol was A A A A A A B; and, emitting the pure mercury-vapor Light of the Company and in the sight and the hearing of the highest-caste Company Agents, uttered sacred Company Orders.
Company Agents of various high castes transmitted these Orders to the Managers, who told the Assistant Managers, who told the Chiefs, who told the Assistant Chiefs, who told the Heads, who told the Assistant Heads, who told the Foremen, who told the Shift Bosses, who told the lower-caste People who were the Operators what to do and saw to it that they did it.
At the time of the World's creation The Company had issued a three-fold Prime Directive; which was immutable and eternal: ALL PEOPLE MUST: 1) Be happy. 2) Produce more and more People. 3) Produce more and more Goods.
If a Person obeyed these three injunctions all his life, his immaterial Aura-the thing that made him alive, not dead, and that made him different from all other Persons-when he became dead was absorbed into the Company and he would be happy forever.
On the other hand, there were a few who did not follow the Prime Directive literally and exactly. These were the mals-the malcontents, the maladjusts, the malefactors-the thinkers, the questioners, the unbelievers -the unhappy for any cause. They were blasted out of existence by the Company itself and that was the end of them, auras and all.
And that was fair enough. Every Person was born into a caste. He grew up in that caste. He was trained to do what his ancestors had done and what his descendants would do. He had children in that caste, all of whom became of it. He lived his whole life in that caste and died in it. That was, is, and ever shall be the way of life, and that is precisely the way it should be: for in pure order, and only in pure order, lies security; and in security, and only in security, lies happiness; and happiness is the First Consideration of the Prime Directive. Mals of all kinds are threats to order, to security, and to happiness; therefore all mals must die. So it was, is, and ever shall be. Selah. It is written.
Following the Prime Directive was easy enough; for most people, in fact, easier than not following it. Since happiness was simply the state of not being unhappy, and there was nothing in the normal life to be unhappy about, happiness was the norm.
Producing People, too, was a normal part of life. Furthermore, since the Company punished pre-family sexual experience with Company wrath just a few volts short of death, the family state brought a new and different kind of happiness. Every female Person's job assignment was to produce, between the ages of eighteen and thirty, ten children, and then to keep on running her family unless and until she was transferred to some other job. Since every nubile girl wanted a man of her own, and since children were a source of happiness on their own account, not one woman in a thousand had to be brainwashed at all to really like the job of running a family.
And as for producing Goods-why not? That was what People were created for, and that was all that men were good for-except, of course, for fathering children. Also, there was much happiness to be had in keeping a machine right at the peak of performance, turning out, every shift, an over-quota of passes and an under-permittance of rejects-zero rejects being always the target.
No Person in his right mind ever even thought of wondering what the Goods he produced were for, or what became of them. That was Company business and thus incomprehensible by definition.
On this Compday forenoon, then, in a vast machineshop in City One of the World, a young man was hard at work-sitting at ease in a form-fitting chair facing an instrument-board having a hundred-odd dials, meters, gauges, lights, bells, whistles, buzzers, and what-have-you.
Occasionally a green light would begin to shade toward amber and a buzzer would begin to talk to him in Morse code; whereupon he would get up, walk around back of the board to his machine, and make almost imperceptible manual adjustments until the complaining monolog stopped. If, instead of stopping, the signal had turned into a Klaxon blare, he would have been manufacturing rejects, but he was far too good a machiner to make: any such error as that. He hadn't turned out a single reject in eighteen straight shifts. He knew everything there was to be known about his machine-and the fact that he knew practically nothing whatever else had never bothered him a bit. Why should it have? That was precisely the way it should be in this, the perfect World: that was precisely what the all-powerful Company had decreed.
He was of medium height and medium build; trimly, smoothly muscular; with large, strong, and exquisitely sensitive hands. He had a shock of rather unkempt brown hair, clear gray eyes, and a lightly-tanned, unblemished skin. lie wore the green-and-white-striped coveralls of his caste-Machiner Second-and around his neck, on a hard-alloy chain, there hung a large and fairly thick locket. This locket, which had been put on him one minute after he was born and which his body would wear into the crematorium, and which-he firmly believed-could not be opened or removed without causing his death, had seven letters of the English alphabet cut deeply into its face. This group of letters-V T J E S O Q -was his symbol. As far as he knew, the only purpose of the locket was to make him permanently and unmistakably identifiable.
At twelve o'clock noon the machine stopped; for the first time in exactly one week. At the same time he heard the sound of fast-stepping hard heels and turned to see a Company Agent approaching him-the first Agent to come to him in all his twenty years of life. This Agent was a young female, whose spectacular build was spectacularly displayed by a sleeveless, very tight yellow sweater and even tighter black tights. Her boots, laced to the knees, were of fire-engine-red leather. Her short-bobbed hair was deep russet brown in color. Low on her forehead blazed the green jewel of her rank. This jewel, which resembled more than anything else a flaring green spotlight about the size of a half dollar piece and not much thicker, was mounted in platinum on the platinum drop-piece of a plain platinum headband. Under her sweater she, too, wore a locket; upon which was engraved the symbol A C B A A B A.
Be happy, Veety!" the Agent snapped.
"Be happy, Agent." The machiner raised his arms and put both hands flat on the top of his head.
"At ease, Veety! Follow me!"
Whirling on the ball of her left foot, she led the way down a narrow corridor; sharp right into a wider one; sharp left into the main hall and straight into the crowd of operators going off shift. She did not even slow down -the crowd dissolved away from her like magic. They Jell all over themselves to get out of her way; for to touch a Company Agent, however accidentally or however lightly, was to receive a blast of Company wrath that, while not permanently harmful, was as intolerable as it was inexplicable.
Through the huge archway, along a wide walkway she led him, to the second archway on the right. She stopped and whistled sharply through her teeth. The exiting operators stopped in their tracks, put hands on heads, and stood motionless.
"V T J R S Y X-forward!" she snapped, and a green and-white-coveralled, well-built girl-People had to be good physical specimens or they did not live to grow up-came up to within a few feet of the Agent and stopped. She was neither apprehensive nor pleased; merely acquiescent.
"Be happy, Veety!" "Be happy, Agent."
"Job transfer. Come with me and this other veety to that aircar over there."
The Agent slipped lithely into the single front seat of the vehicle, at the controls; the two Machiners Second got into the back seat. The aircar bulleted upward, screamed across City One to Suburb Ten, and dropped vertically downward to a high-G landing on the beautifully-kept grounds of a small plastic house.
"Out," the Agent said, and led the couple into a large, comfortably-furnished living room. "Stand there . hold hands... V T J R S Y X-job transfer. You're eighteen today, so you stop machinering and start running a family. Permanent assignment. The Company knows that you two know each other and like each other. That liking will now become love. The Company knows all."
"The Company knows all," the two intoned in unison, solemnly.
"Press your right thumbs here... you are mated for life. This house is yours-permanently. Four rooms and bath to start. It's expandable; one additional room per child. Here are your family coupon books; throw your single-person ones into the disposer. This special mating coupon gives you free time from now until hour seventeen, when you go to the band concert at Shell Nineteen. Amuse yourselves, you two." The Agent smiled suddenly, a smile that made her hard young face human and beautiful. "Have fun-in the bedroom, perhaps? Be happy, both of you." The Company Agent executed a snappy about-face and strode toward the door.
"Be happy, Agent," the newlyweds said; and, as the door closed, went into each others arms.
They amused themselves and were very happy indeed. They were still very happy while, as hour seventeen neared, they walked, arms around each other, toward Bandshell Nineteen. A man of their own caste, an older man, fell into step beside them.
"I'm V T B L Q Q M," he introduced himself. "I found out a thing after bed-hour last night that everybody has got to know...."
"Shut up!" the young man barked. "We don't want to know one single damn thing that we don't know already." "But listen!" the stranger whispered, intensely. "This is important! The most important thing that ever happened in the World! There's a meeting tonight-I'll pick you up-but I tell you this right now. There ain't any such thing as the Company. It's just those damn snotty Agents and they're just as human as we are; they've been suckering us all our lives. If we had the gadgetry they've got we could knock them all off and take..."
"Shut up!" the girl screamed, and sprang away from him in horror. "You're a mal-you're unhappy-that means death!"
"Death, hell!" came the whispered snarl. "I got the straight dope-the real poop-last night and I'm still alive, ain't I? We're going to get some special insulation tonight and I'm going to grab one of those high nosed bitches of Agents and choke her plumb to death after I...
The man stopped whispering and screamed in utterly unbearable agony. His every muscle writhed and twisted, convulsively and impossibly. After a few seconds his body slumped bonelessly to the pavement; limp, motionless, dead.
"How terrible," the girl remarked, in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone of voice. Then, with arms again around each other and as blissful as before, the two lovers stepped over the body and went on their interrupted way. Mals had no right whatever to live. Therefore the All-Wise, All-Powerful Company had put that mal to death. Everything was perfect, in this their perfect World.
And in one minute flat a ground-car, a light-truck type, came up beside the corpse and stopped. Two husky men, wearing the dark-gray-on-light-gray of Sanitationers Fourth, got out of it, picked the body up, and tossed it nonchalantly into the back of their truck.
Perce and Cecily Train 'ported the Explorer to a point in space well outside Pluto's orbit; well out of detector range of any of the strange warships englobing Earth. Aboardship this time, in addition to the regular complement of spacemen and psiontists, were a couple of dozen graduates of the University, who were making the trip for advanced study.
"If any of us'd thought of it and if we'd stayed and if we'd had the techniques we've got now, we could've 'ported bombs aboard those jaspers and blown 'em clear out of the ether," Train said, while they were getting ready to go to work.
"One ifs enough, why use three?" Deston countered. "But I got a lot better idea than that one, especially since Bobby is just slightly allergic to killing people in job lots. We'll find out where they come from, 'port each one of 'em back to his own house, tuck him gently into his own bed and present all those nice subspacers to Fleet Admiral Guerdon Dann, with the compliments of the University of Psionics-for a small consideration, of course."
"Now you're chirping, birdie!" Barbara exclaimed. "You do get an idea once in a while, don't you? That one is really a dilly. Ready, everybody? Let's go."
They went... and they studied... and the more they studied the more baffled they became. The captains of the ships were, to a man, from Tellus. They were based on Teneriffe....
Deston shot the linked minds to the planet Teneriffe. The base was there-an immense one-but that was all it was. Just a base. There were no facilities to build much of anything; to say nothing of such an immense complex as would be necessary to produce any important part of that fleet.
Few of the captains had even wondered where the war-ships had been built. What difference did that make? That, or anything else pertaining to logistics or supply, was none of their business.
The Vice-Admirals and Admirals had wondered; but, since they had not been told, none of them had ever asked. Asking impertinent questions was a thing that simply was not done.
The Fleet Admiral did not know; neither did the Base Commander on Teneriffe. They got their orders via nondirectional subspace radio from the Company of the World= World," of course, meaning Earth. It wasn't only a company, really, it was a new government, still very QT and TS, that was going to take over Tellus and all the planets, they both supposed. They had the power to do it, so why not? To any hard-nosed man of war might is right, and if they wanted to play it cosy and call themselves The Company of the World that was all right, too.
And as for the lower echelons...
"My... God...." Cecily said slowly, aloud, into the dense silence that had lasted through a long fifteen minutes of stupefied investigation. "The Eternal, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent Company created the World and the People on Company-Company Day, that is-January First of the Year One. No other World nor any other People-capitalized, please note, even in thought-ever were created or ever will be. Will some or one of you nice people please tell me what in all the infinite reaches of all the incandescent and viridescent hells of all total space we have got ourselves into now?" "I'll never know, Curly." Deston, who had been holding his breath for a good two minutes, let it all out at once. "And the poor dumb meatheads believe that comet-gas with every cell of their minds... and take everything that's going on right in stride-it's all Company business and as such is naturally incomprehensible to the mind of man... 'My God!' is correct, Curly. Check."
