L sprague de camp, p.8
L Sprague De Camp, page 8
"Of course." Johnson nodded, pleased. "But for what purpose?"
"To keep the world frightened as long as possible."
"Fine! Admirable! That is exactly what I intend doing. War is often an emotional stimulant, or at least can be given a romantic gloss. I find that fear of war is much more debilitating. So I want to continue piling crisis on crisis, making first one side panicky and then the other.
"Eventually, of course, the world will come to accept war as inevitable, and feel that they want to get it over with. At that point I shall allow war to come. Then the hysterical apathy produced by constant fear will be drowned in the reality of war's horror. That point, however, has not yet been reached." Johnson lit a cigar. "Right now there is danger of either war or peace breaking out in Europe. The aggressors can't increase their production of munitions. But their economies are based on arms manufacture; if they stop producing them, they will collapse, or be overthrown from below. Obviously, I can't let them go to war, stop producing munitions, or be overthrown. Then what is the solution, William?"
Hale saw none. The dictatorships were trapped. Unless — "No," he said. "They wouldn't do it."
"What wouldn't who do?"
"The democracies wouldn't float a loan and feed them raw materials."
"What makes you so sure?"
"Why should they? They'd be arming the people they're preparing to fight."
"Ah!" said Johnson smugly. "You haven't examined all the facts. Remember that the dictatorships have defaulted on a lot of debts to the smaller nations, who have had to take goods instead of money in payment. And, furthermore, these debts will be repudiated altogether if the dictatorships are overthrown. Which means that the smaller nations will collapse if the dictatorships do.
"Much as the democracies fear war, they fear a general political upheaval even more. I shall play on that fear. There will be a huge loan to the dictatorships, and all the raw materials they can absorb. Thus the danger of peace will be removed; everybody will be producing munitions madly; and the chronic state of crisis will be kept furiously boiling. Do you agree with me?"
Hale shook his head slowly. "I guess I'll never learn."
"Nonsense. William! It may take you a few years, perhaps even centuries. What of it? We have all eternity before us. Simply remember this." He tapped on the desk for emphasis. "Our business, let me repeat, is to torment the greatest number of people in the most efficient manner possible. War, or the fear of war, is the greatest mass torment. But there are other torments for nations, or classes within nations: unemployment, taxes, unbalanced budgets, business competition, threats of social upheavals, relief slashes, and so on. Even though the war crisis is our most absorbing problem at the moment, we must never cease using the smaller torments."
Quite naturally, Hale had been feeling increasingly unsure of himself. His motive in forcing Lucifer to give him a partnership had been nothing more satanic than a desire for wealth, luxury, security, and a little power — enough to make him feel important. He felt inadequate, though, when it came to ruling the world with Lucifer.
"What am I supposed to do while you're gone?" he asked uneasily.
"That depends entirely on you, William. If you want to experiment, I have no objections. After all, your powers are the same as mine. Do anything you want. There is a complete plan for the Western Hemisphere already in operation. If you don't feel equal to constructing a plan of your own, I'd suggest that you let that plan work out and study it in operation. But that's your problem."
"What about paying the office help?"
"The company has funds, and there will be money coming in all the time. The loan for the dictatorships, for example, will net us a very large fee, secretly, of course. We are never at a loss for money." He looked at his wrist watch. "I wish that secretary would hurry. My luggage is at the pier, and my ship leaves at noon."
Hale said, "Those files have me scared."
"No reason why they should. Every month the information in them is reduced to graphs, showing the country's economic, social, and political condition. There are several thousand drawers in the files, but they are mostly cross references, not separate entries.
"Suppose there is a rise in employment. You get in touch with our lobby in the State where it occurs; or in Washington if it's nation-wide. You begin a movement for greater taxation of profits, or of pay rolls, or anything that will keep the total national income from increasing. Or you can lower the standard of living, by raising rentals and commodity prices, which will have the same effect —"
At this point the secretary returned and gave Johnson a typed sheet. He told her to wait and waddled toward the door, motioning to Hale. He went with fussy haste to the files marked "W," and under "Wisconsin" he found a "Rockmont" card.
"Nothing here," he said. "But Rockmont is in Douglas County, and so is Superior, which is quite a large town. You see, Mr. Burke is a naturalized citizen, which eliminates him. Mrs. Burke, though, was a Greene before she married, and the Greenes have lived in and around Rockmont for generations." He flipped rapidly through the cards. "Ah, here it is ... Superior. Last entry, two weeks ago: 'Nicholas Perry, dying of lung cancer —' Here, read it yourself."
Hale said doubtfully: "I don't get this. What's Perry got to do with it? Why can't I just give them some of my own money?"
"William!" Johnson cried, shocked. "You don't know what you're saying! We're businessmen, running our business on the most efficient, economical lines possible. We can't simply hand out money every time someone needs it. Remember your old strategy."
"My old strategy?"
"Of course. Indirection, William. Make someone else pay. It spreads the misery. Did I give you money because you needed a fortune? Of course not; it wouldn't have been efficient. Indirection always works. Before you abandoned it, weren't you able to hide your motives even from me?" Hale looked up sharply; Johnson's voice had unduly stressed the last sentence. But the round face was entirely innocent. "Whenever possible, we use the hidden finger to gain our ends. Read the card. William."
Hale read: "Nicholas Perry, lung cancer, one month to live. No relatives. Wisconsin family, three generations. Estate income goes to found cancer research laboratory approx. $25,000/yr."
Johnson said: "I admit I'm tempted not to let the Burkes have Perry's money. Oh, we'll be able to find a connection between the Perrys and the Greenes, all right. Most of the old families are related in sparsely settled places like that, if they'd take the trouble to search the records. But I have a fondness for poorly capitalized research foundations. Perry wants to finance one on twenty-five thousand a year. That would pay for very meager equipment, and a small staff of second-rate technicians. Best of all, if they should miraculously discover a cure for pulmonary cancer, they won't have funds to distribute it, so the profit and possibly the credit would go elsewhere.
"It's a temptation, William. But this is our hemisphere, so, of course, the Burkes come first."
He strutted back to his office, and dictated: "Trace a connection, not illegally remote, between the Perrys of Superior and the Greenes of Rockmont, Wisconsin. Have the legal department inform Nicholas Perry that he has living relatives who have a legitimate claim on the estate. If he dies before you can do so, contest the will. That's all."
He turned to Hale. "If Perry leaves the fortune to the Burkes, the inheritance tax will cut the income to about ten or fifteen thousand. Think that's enough?"
"Plenty," replied Hale distractedly. A vague sort of nervousness had been troubling him more and more. Though he tried to act normal, he stood fidgeting behind his chair, glancing longingly at the door.
Johnson watched him curiously, but continued: "If Perry dies before we can reach him, the best settlement we can make will probably be an equal division of the state between the Burkes and the laboratory. That would hamstring the laboratory effectively enough to suit even me. In any case you can leave the matter, including collection of our fee, to our legal department. By the way, you of course realize that neither they nor any of our other subordinates know who we really are. I really must be going now."
Though he wanted desperately to be home, Hale asked: "Want me to drive you to the pier?"
"No, thank you William." Johnson was performing the major task of getting into his overcoat. To reach around to find the armholes made him puff and turn red. He placed a derby squarely on his innocent-looking white head, and teased: "I appreciate your offer, but you don't want to stay away from your bride too long, do you?"
Hale at once understood what was the matter with him. His desire to go home had become an overwhelming fixation. He rationalized that, since he had been married, he had not been away from his wife for more than a few minutes at a time. So it was natural for him to want to get back to her. But that didn't explain his preposterous unhappiness at being separated from her. Going down in the elevator he could think of nothing else.
Johnson got into a taxi with elephantine exertion. He said: "Good-by, William. Do whatever you think best in the way of supervision of the business. You'll hear from me at intervals, and I'll be back in a few months. But remember this: "Anything you do, no matter what it is, will increase the misery and torments of the people, because that is how Hell is constructed."
"Yeah," mumbled Hale unhearingly. "I get it. Good-by." Even before the taxi started, he was sprinting to his roadster. Only when he was racing recklessly uptown did he think of a question he had meant to ask Johnson. But he told himself it wasn't important. What difference did it make how long Johnson and Banner had known each other? What of it if Johnson hadn't mentioned it? There was no reason why he should.
Long before he'd started on his campaign to blackmail Lucifer, Hale had seen Gloria's picture in the papers, and had put marriage to her on his list of objectives. So there couldn't be any connection between his marriage and Johnson.
He could still have caught Johnson at the pier, but he didn't think it was necessary. The truth was that even the swift elevator was too slow in bringing him to Gloria. He couldn't wait to take her in his arms.
-
Chapter XV
He hesitated a long time before writing. Then, rather than dictate the letter to his secretary, he borrowed a typewriter and wrote it himself.
-
Dear Johnson: I seem to have put myself into a little difficulty. Maybe you can help me.
He stopped there, his eyes straying to Gloria. She was sitting erect and knitting a sweater with great concentration. Tenderly he watched the smooth skin between her eyes pucker as she solved an intricate problem of knitting, and then relax placidly. It amused her now, being at his office, he thought. Later she mightn't find it so nice.
-
The night Gloria and I got engaged, I was feeling pretty romantic, naturally, and I said something about us that I guess I didn't phrase properly. Now it seems to have taken hold like a spell of some kind.
I said something to the effect that we'd never be happy apart. Offhand you would think that would imply only a sort of negative unhappiness. But it isn't like that. When we're separated, we suffer miserably. We feel empty, lost, filled with the most intense psychological pain. We want to be together the next possible instant, no matter how difficult or inconvenient getting together would be.
-
He reread the last sentences, feeling naked at exposing his emotions so completely to Johnson. But this was no time for stoicism. He went on:
-
I know it was my fault. I should have been more careful, though I didn't know I was casting a spell, and I had no idea our spells were so damned literal. I should have said something to the effect that we'd be happier together than apart. Tell me how to modify the terms of the spell so it will have that effect.
Please answer immediately, air mail, special delivery. I've done all I can to lift the spell, but nothing seems to work. The situation is becoming most uncomfortable.
-
"Unbearable" would have been closer to the truth, but he sent the letter as it was.
"Come on, darling. Let's go."
"I thought you had a lot of work."
"Not much," he evaded. "It's finished."
It was or it wasn't; he didn't know which. Johnson would certainly have found plenty to do, moving this or that pawn or setting in motion some vast project that would affect the lives of millions of people.
On the few mornings when he came to the office — more out of desperation for something to do than from any taste for diabolical plotting — his secretary brought in reports, clippings, and graphs, and stood around waiting for him to say something. He never could think of anything intelligent. Yet he could see Johnson's plan move to its climax.
The country was divided into three factions: True isolationists, who wanted no European entanglements of any kind; democratic sympathizers, who wanted intervention against the aggressors; and admirers of the dictatorships, who were split into two bodies — a very small group of advocates of intervention on the side of the aggressors, and a larger group who disguised their sympathies behind pleas for isolation. He could see that, by lobbies, whispering campaigns, and inspired articles. Johnson would keep the three-cornered fight stirred up until every element of torment had been wrung from it, before allowing it to be settled by an actual struggle for power.
The plan seemed overwhelmingly huge and detailed to Hale. It made him feel baffled and frustrated. Johnson would always know what to do. He could pick up the telephone, and the next morning armies would or would not march, millions of people would or would not eat, anything might or might not happen, depending on which pawn he moved. It was like finding the correct switch out of millions. Johnson could reach out negligently and find it; Hale would have to throw most of them before anything would happen. The point was, he wasn't Lucifer.
In short, he felt the way you would feel if your job were to cause the most misery to the most people in the most efficient manner possible. He accepted the philosophy of Hell. He had to, seeing the minute amount of happiness and the cosmic amount of pain and torment in the world, and hence being less subject to qualms than unrealistic outsiders. He wanted to do his job of running the hemisphere properly, but he couldn't. Experimentally he could goad one pawn to sudden success, or harry another to destruction. But he would have to ignore everything else while he did it, like an inexperienced corporation sending all its salesmen to grab one small order.
"Come on, Gloria!" he cried. "Let's get out of here before I go nuts!"
"Just let me finish this line," she said, and began knitting with frantic haste.
"Oh, please —"
"It'll take me only a second." She dropped a stitch. "Oh, darn!" When he stepped forward angrily: "Just this line, Billie-willie —"
He snatched it away; the next instant he was sorry. He pulled her to her feet and kissed her. "I'm sorry, darling. I'm getting jittery." She smiled forgivingly. "Where do you want to go?" he asked.
She squeezed his arm. "I don't care, I'm happy just being with you."
Yeah, he thought dejectedly, what a spell he'd laid! The idea had been all right, but he should have defined his terms more fully. They certainly weren't happy apart. But that didn't mean that they were happy together. "Oh, nuts!" he hissed. Who could have figured out in advance how that idiotically literal spell would work out?
She was staring at him, her eyes brimming. "What's the matter now?" he demanded.
"You didn't have to say that you did. I do like being with you, even if we don't do anything."
"I was thinking of something else — business."
You bet she liked being with him, Hale thought. Anything was better than having tht incredibly painful longing gnaw at them. They couldn't brush their teeth separately without feeling depressed and almost frantic at a few minutes' separation. So, rather than suffer that horror, he took her wherever he went.
But he couldn't bear staying home with her any more than he could help. She would knit and talk about subjects they had exhausted long before, and grow resentful if he read or listened to phonograph records. Or, from boredom, she might call up her friends for a party. Normally he would have been able to escape into another room, but his damned spell wouldn't allow him to, no matter how much he hated the noise of silly chatter and dance music.
"Let's go to a movie," he said.
"Oh, darling! There's a cute picture at the State, and they have vaudeville. Don't you love vaudeville?"
"Yeah," he muttered. There was a French film at the Playhouse that he had been conniving to see. But Gloria didn't understand French and refused to read subtitles, and, anyhow, she disliked foreign pictures to the point of tears if he tried to force her into going. He couldn't even sneak off by himself to see it. They'd never be happy apart.
He slammed the office door loudly enough to startle the staff. It was the first time he had seen them look up from their work. Oddly, that made him feel better.
